The Singing Line

In 1855 an impoverished young English scientist went to chance his luck in Australia - as Government Astronomer and superintendent of Telegraphs for the small colony of South Australia. With him went his young wife Alice - after whom Alice Springs would be named. Charles Todd was following a dream - the near impossible task of stringing a telegraph wire across the wilderness of the Australian outback. In 1997, Charles Todd's great-great-great-granddaughter, Alice, followed in his footsteps. Her plan was to track the telegraph - and her ancestors - from Adelaide over the thousands of miles of desert, outback, swamp and mountain that Charles Todd had crossed in the 1860s with his four hundred men.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Alice Thomson is associate editor, columnist, and interviewer for the Daily Telegraph. Born in 1967, she is also restaurant critic for The Spectator. She was named Alice after her great-great-grandmother Alice Todd, for whom Alice Springs, Australia, is also named.