March 5, 2019

Slowest week of all last week, with a lot of work and family activities on, but the focus in the project was on the central character's shift from Devonport to Hobart, leading to research of hotels and dance halls.

When Eileen arrived in Hobart, she worked briefly as a maid in a hotel, made a good friend with whom she went dancing and partying, and the two young women left their hotel work and headed into the Huon Valley to work as apple pickers.

Hobart was certainly a place for dancing in 1950, although the big ballrooms had seen the best of their years pre-World War Two. Research uncovered a range of articles including two ABC pieces:
 http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/09/10/2682139.htm
and
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/09/09/2681157.htm
about the Belvedere Ballroom in Argyle Street that have helped shape events in the novel. The Belvedere Ballroom was housed above a car showroom in a gorgeous art deco building that was demolished to become a car park - no irony in that fate.
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The project is approaching 70,000 words in draft, and we move from Hobart to the Huon valley and the catalyst that brings the main character back to Adelaide in 1951.