Mental asylums were often regarded as feared places of suffering – but for one young girl and her family who lived at the asylum, the inmates provided a fascinating glimpse into the other world of the people who were sent there.

Life at the asylum

Meet the people who were willing or unwilling participants in the events that made headlines. In cemeteries, gravestones hint at our history &ndash; tales of unsolved murders, love lost, mystery, tragedy, health epidemics, scandal and sacrifice. 'Grave Tales' reveals more than the headstone can ever convey by tracing the tumultuous journeys that lead to these final resting places.  Thoroughly researched by journalists Helen Goltz and Chris Adams,  these stories re-create the lives of those whose graves are featured.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Documentary

True crime

Dying young, Sylvia McArthur would make her mark, documenting in letters to a newspaper’s children’s page what life in rural Tasmania around the turn of the 20th century was like.

The young letter writer

Some bushrangers became folk heroes, others were opportunistic thieves, but the Clarke Brothers were murderous thugs who hanged on duel gallows.

The death of the Clarke brothers

Madam Weigel’s patterns dressed the women of Australia for nine decades but in the large cemetery plot bought for three, there are no bodies.

The grave with no bodies

Mark Jeffrey lived with the 1100 or so deceased residents on the Isle of the Dead, tending his own plot. But how did he avoid being buried there?

The Gravedigger of Dead Island

Little did Professor Theodore Flynn and his wife, Lily, of Sandy Bay, Tasmania, know that their son, Errol Flynn, would become Hollywood’s favourite son from the early to mid-20th century and die too soon at the age of 50. This is the story of the Flynns of Sandy Bay.

Life at the asylum

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