Blog Name?

How did I come up with cicadasbeesandbargepoles.com?

After weeks of dilly-dallying over what to call it (and a big thank you to my friends for their wonderful contributions) the name materialized in the heat of an Aussie day.

I was day dreaming whilst watching a bee hovering over a parched white rose. A chorus of cicadas started up and crescendoed until they were screeching in unison.

How quintessentially Australian that sound was I thought.

What would my Anglo-celtic forebears have thought of this strange land; its foreign sounds and its harshness?

Hence Cicadas represents Australia.

See blog post: Sights and Sounds of Australia Part 1

Cicada. Australian Museum Wikimedia Commons

In 2014, I travelled to Ireland.

I had many wonderful encounters in the search for my Celtic roots. An altercation with a bumble bee which led to a Saint became symbolic of the mystical Ireland and the superstitions that are alive and well today.

Hence Bees represents Ireland.

See blog post: A bee, a Saint and some Irish woods


Luckily not all of my roots are Irish; about 25% are English. I say this because the English records are so good and I have been able to focus on a branch in the family tree which consists of generations of lightermen (those who transferred cargo from ship to shore on barges) and cornmeters (those who ensured the scales at the grain markets were correct) who worked on and around the Thames in London.

Namely, LEE and WILLIAMS

Hence Barge Poles represents England.

Illustration from “London Labour and the London Poor”, 1851. Wikimedia Commons