ing 1974, the worst natural disaster to ever hit Australia descended on Darwin. Cyclone Tracy destroyed 90 per cent of the city and killed 50 people and 16 were listed as missing. Paul was in Vienna at the time and his parents had moved back to Adelaide. However, Keller survives the cyclone by sheltering under the Bösendorfer (p. 128b) and goes to stay with the Crabbes in Adelaide (p. 127b). Water, sewerage and power were all cut. Almost all of the population was evacuated in the week following the cyclone and reconstruction began soon after.
             By 1977 thousands of new houses had been constructed as well as extensive rebuilding. New regulations were introduced so that buildings would now be able to withstand another cyclone of the same intensity. The character Keller moves back to Darwin after the reconstruction and in 1977 Paul visits him as he dies in a Darwin hospital (p. 143a).
             The country of Austria is located in central Europe, bordered by the Czech Republic in the north, Slovakia in the north-east, Slovenia, Italy, and Switzerland in the south, Hungary in the east, and Liechtenstein and Germany in the west. The official language is German.
             Austria has had a varied history and was closely involved with Germany until the latter half of the twentieth century. The first Austrian republic was established after the Treaty of Versailles, which banned a union between Austria and Germany in a effort to weaken Germany's power base.
             In 1938 a Nazi government was established in Austria by Hitler and once again Austria became part of Germany, though it was said to be an anschluss or union with Germany. Keller, in trying to tell Paul a little of the horror of the Nazi invasion, mentions the anschluss. (p. 116b).
             Austrian Jews, communists and intellectuals were persecuted by the Nazis during WW II. Many people, not just Jews, fled the country after 1938 to escape the Nazi regime. Keller however decides to stay, 'He had...