Robert-in-Australia

I am retired now from the paid workforce and travel quite a lot. I am interested in history, especially Australian history, and the history of writing and letters. I am interesting in preserving the art of hand-written letters, a skill fast disappearing in the age e-mails and phone messaging. I think it is important to maintain this "heritage" skill .. after all, mankind may need it again one day !! This is important, in case we ever need to make our own ink again, like people did about 100 years ago. Up until about 100 years ago, you could not buy ink, let alone biros in a shop. You had to cook the ink yourself, and it was called iron-gall ink, and was made by boiling tree bark in an iron pot, so the tannin reacted with the iron , to make ink. After a 40 year career in I.T., I now have an unpaid job in the Philippines. I run a soup kitchen for poor children in a slum district of Manila. The job is demanding, but rewarding also.

I live in a beautiful seaside town called Deception Bay, just north of Brisbane, Australia. I have two adult daughters and my wife has died.