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Nonfiction
Hastings Street: Stories from Noosa’s Past (3rd Edition)
by Emma Freeman
from simple life to sophistication . . .
Hastings Street – Stories from Noosa’s Past
Artist and author Emma Freeman paints a vivid wood picture of a sleepy coastal village awakening during the 1950s and ’60s.
Her biographical and historical themes entwine, linking characters whose creative energies flourished in a dusty, unsealed Hastings Street dotted with holiday houses and tent homes. With insight and humour, Emma recollects the innocence, the simplicity of life in the unspoiled natural surroundings. Her colourful palette highlights figures in the landscape of Noosa’s past, as they laid the foundation of the cosmopolitan street we know today.
“A daunting but satisfying task . . .
The first edition of Emma Freeman’s ‘Hastings Street’ provided a charming glimpse into the early days of this most well-known of Noosa’s streets, introducing us to its characters and happenings. The second edition applies additional layers to these stories blending and entertaining and engaging read with a valuable historical record.”
Jane Harding, Heritage Librarian, Noosa Library Service
“Enlightening and stimulating . . .
Hastings Street Stories from Noosa’s Past is a sincere and factual account of the lives involved in a special area of southeast Queensland. Like the best books based on oral history, Freeman’s work recognizes the colourful perspective of ordinary people.”
Dr Dave Hugo, Senior Researcher, National Native Title Tribunal
“Great re-enactment!
Thank you Emma, for your valuable addition to Noosa’s recorded local history.”
Dr Michael Gloucester OAM, Past President, Noosa Parks Association
Emma Freeman (née Dunne) was born April 17, 1922 in Wollongong, Australia. She grew up in the steel mill town of Port Kembla, New South Wales, Australia and became a registered nurse working at the Crown St. Women’s Hospital in Darlinghurst, Sydney. In September, 1950, she and two of her friends travelled to Noosa Heads where she met her future husband, Kevin Freeman.
Emma studied art by correspondence and moved into the newly built art studio on Hastings Street, Noosa Heads. She soon branched out from pen-and-ink sketches to water-colour paintings, and then to oil paints where she produced numerous landscapes to sell to the many tourists who popped into the studio to purchase film for their cameras. Emma then became a sculptor, a poet, and later, a writer and novelist.
Throughout her life, Emma was an integral part of the Noosa community from releasing her controversial art exhibition in the 1980s that included paintings of nude middle-aged women, to joining Noosa Parks Association in the 1960s and being at many environmental protests throughout the fight to save Noosa from high-rise development.
Hundreds of people came to view an art exhibition she hosted in Tewantin in 2014. Emma was 92 years old at the time. A year later, she died at the grand old age of 93 and will be remembered as a vivacious, stylish woman who loved Noosa dearly.
