The Memoirs of
Robert Francis Skitch
1934 – 2026
Collie, Western Australia · Brisbane, Queensland
From a boyhood in the Collie coalfields to Lieutenant Colonel, and finally to civilian life in Brisbane - memoirs spanning eight decades of Australian life.
A boy, his widowed mother, and a caravan.
Commanding Officer, Army Survey Regiment.
26 years of Army postings, finally anchored at 'Tanglin'.
Explore with NotebookLM
Ask questions across the entire collection · every answer drawn from Bob's own words
Memoirs
About this archive
The archive
My father wrote these memoirs between 1999 and 2018, setting down nearly a million words from memory — a remarkable act of personal record-keeping that I feel privileged to have inherited.
I have digitised, edited, and published the collection here so that his stories are accessible to family, friends, and anyone with an interest in Australian life across the twentieth century.
The documents are presented as he wrote them, with only light corrections for formatting. The voice is entirely his.
Exploring with Gemini Notebook
I have uploaded the complete collection to Google NotebookLM — an AI research tool that works exclusively from the source documents, so every answer it gives is grounded in Dad's own words.
As well as answering questions about his life, NotebookLM can generate:
- Analytical reports on themes across the memoirs
- A glossary of people, places, and military terms
- Guided slideshows through key chapters
- Audio podcasts narrating the collection