The Singing Line: Tracking the Adventure of My Intrepid Victorian Ancestors

Thomson, a British political columnist and food writer, traces the legendary route taken by her great-grandfather Charles Todd as he attempted to build the first telegraph wire across Australia--the ""singing wire,"" named by Aborigines whose land it cut in two. Using letters, libraries, contemporary newspaper accounts and legislative records, Thomson not only shows the difficulties encountered on Todd's great adventure at the end of the 19th century but also brings to life the happiness and hardships of her great-grandmother, Alice, who had first proposed marriage to Charles Todd at age 12. In comparing her own day-to-day travels with those of her ancestors, Thomson describes how the country has changed: when visiting the old mining town of Pine Creek, she notices that ""the passion and greed had been smothered by bourgeois respectability."" Thomson's own travelogues pale in comparison to the tale of Alice and Charles, which encompasses sexual, familial, industrial and national politics. Thomson is at her best writing about the impact Charles had on the native people of Australia, as when she observes: ""In one move, this wire brought to an end thousands of years of unchanging nomadic existence."" Illus. (Oct.)