The Spackman Files
Francis James – international man of mystery
Like many children I had no real idea of what my parents did for a living so the last thing I expected on a visit to Sydney in 1973 was to hear my dad Jack […]
The Spackman Files
Adventures of a Girl Reporter
Rock n Roll trolling, California-style
In a scene straight out of childhood, I was sitting at the breakfast table with my father Jack Spackman, both of us with noses buried in the morning newspaper. It was one of the last times […]
China Mail
After the siege – the China Mail battle for hearts and minds
The first thing the China Mail’s journalists did after deciding to stage their sit-in over the closure of the newspaper was to get the news out. The job fell to Linda Siddall and Debra Jopson […]
China Mail
Death of a newspaper, birth of a movement
On Saturday 17 August 1974 a newspaper died but she did not go quietly. The China Mail was in her 130th year and was Hong Kong’s oldest English-language newspaper. The Mail was not a great […]
China Mail
In a corrupt town the dirty cop is king – remembering Peter Godber
It’s 1973 at the start of another long, hot summer in Hong Kong and already it stinks. The jokes about Hong Kong and its Fragrant Harbour have long been stale but visitors still crack them. […]
Journalism
A matter of dignity
Trade unions get a bad press but at their heart they’re about decent pay and working conditions. When I asked my father Jack Spackman why he started the Hong Kong Journalists Association his answer was […]
Journalism
Correcting the record – remembering Hugh van Es
There’s a moment in an exceptional 1998 documentary on Hugh van Es when he tells photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen that he never joined a union. It’s a great exchange between two generations of war photographers […]
Adventures of a Girl Reporter
Footloose girl takes the long western road home
Grenfell is a small, nondescript town of about 2,500 souls in the central plains of country New South Wales. It has few claims to fame but among them are two sons – a poet and […]
Adventures of a Girl Reporter
Lessons from an Old School master
I was 17 years old and filling time on my father Jack Spackman’s monthly computer magazine while I decided what to do with my life. I wasn’t expecting it to be hard work. I certainly […]
Adventures of a Girl Reporter
In 1967 Jack and Margaret Spackman arrived in Hong Kong
The question of why my family left Australia in 1967 has a different answer depending on who you ask. My father, Jack Spackman, would say that he wanted to get closer to Vietnam, to find out […]