Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Mary Manning

  • AUSTRALIA

    Insights from Cardinal Newman on Religious Discrimination and Religious Freedom

    • Frank Brennan
    • 22 February 2022
    1 Comment

    In recent days, if you were to listen to the media reports, you could be forgiven for thinking that religious educators want to retain a right to exclude children or teachers from their schools on the basis of their gender or sexual orientation.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Or nothing should be further from the truth. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Another stranger on a tram

    • Peta Yowie
    • 05 June 2017
    5 Comments

    It's a no eye contact sport, when I see a girl I like. She's putting lip balm on her lips, as the morning scenery slips by like a young child getting out of his pyjamas. I stare at everyone but her, because her face is like a burning sun ... It's only as I go to get off she looks up and smiles. I smile back, I've done a few miles with these smiles. I'd like to peel the pastry off and eat the sweet thing underneath. I catch my breath like a butterfly in a net. She's another stranger I'll never know the destination of.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Coffee and birdsong

    • Mary Manning
    • 09 November 2016
    17 Comments

    'Pull the levers, scoop the coffee, flatten it, steam fragrant liquid into white cups. My lever-pulling right arm has huge muscles from my coffee ballet. Around me: the buzz of conversations about people's plans for their day. No one knows I am lonely.' Short story by former Eureka Street editorial assistant Mary Manning, who died on Tuesday 8 November 2016.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why the old woman couldn't cross the road

    • Mary Manning
    • 21 November 2012

    What was she to do? Mr J. J. Bullfinch would surely rescue her if he knew of her plight. He would stride out into the traffic and it would stop when he raised his hand. But why should she imagine he'd come? He hardly knew her. She was alone, sitting on the grass shaking from the shock of being nearly hit by a bus. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fuzzy thinking on obeedjunt wives

    • Brian Matthews
    • 14 September 2012
    15 Comments

    An old Dublin man once observed to me that my wife must be an 'oncommonly obeedjunt woman'. Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen's argument regarding the suggestion in his diocese's draft new prayer book that brides be invited to 'submit' to their husbands is equally fuzzy.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Love in the fifties

    • Mary Manning
    • 27 June 2012
    9 Comments

    It is February 1952. I am with friends at Jim's place when we hear the news that King George VI has died. A dark-haired boy I have not met before keeps looking across at me.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Close-ish encounters with two queens

    • Brian Matthews
    • 30 March 2012
    4 Comments

    I saw a gloved hand at the window and that was it. The experience turned out to be the one time when I saw the Queen 'in the flesh'. I had gone under duress, having even at that young age vestigial republican tendencies. A few weeks ago I went with more enthusiasm to see another Queen. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Best of 2011: Breast sandwich

    • Mary Manning
    • 04 January 2012
    2 Comments

    'I'm Shareena,' she says. 'I'm your radiographer for today. For your breast screen.' An old man looks away from the waiting room television when he hears the word breast. His eyes linger over my sensible tailored shirt and I wonder if I have left a button undone. Published 19 April 2011

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Homily for John Eddy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 11 November 2011
    5 Comments

    Asked 'How are you?', John would caress his scalp, straighten his hat, adjust his cuffs, massage his moustache, purse his lips, and answer, 'I'm headed for Grand Central. But I don't know when this service is due to arrive.' He never did meet Stalin, but thought he had met just about everyone else of significance on the planet.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Watching Athens crumble

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 29 September 2011
    4 Comments

    Two weeks ago two grandmothers met at a popular rendezvous in central Athens. Their talk was the usual leapfrog business, but there was an undercurrent of worry: What was going to happen to this country? Was any sort of solution going to present itself? Suddenly the riot squad hove into view.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Breast sandwich

    • Mary Manning
    • 20 April 2011
    5 Comments

    'I'm Shareena,' she says. 'I'm your radiographer for today. For your breast screen.' An old man looks away from the waiting room television when he hears the word breast. His eyes linger over my sensible tailored shirt and I wonder if I have left a button undone.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australian invasion anxiety in adolescent fantasy

    • Tony Kevin
    • 09 September 2010
    13 Comments

    What do young Australians take away from John Marsden's novels - and now, the film Tomorrow, When the War Began? They are more than escapist fantasies. They convey value messages, calling on young Australians to cherish our country, not to take it for granted, and to be prepared if necessary to kill and die for it.

    READ MORE