SAMSON HOUSE in Fremantle will be hosting tours from next Sunday (September 6) as the National Trust WA gets over the whole Covid lockdown and re-opens its historic properties. It won’t be a touchy feely tour as they don’t want anyone coming away with the lurgy, but you’ll find out about one of Fremantle’s oldest and most prosperous families. Book at nationaltrust. org.au/places/samson-house. Also opening up again is the East Fremantle Cemetery, Peninsula Farm or the York Courthouse if you fancy a drive out to the countryside.

THE most recent winner of the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, Holden Sheppard, has had the film rights to his novel Invisible Boys snapped up by film director Nicholas Verso. Sheppard, whose book is about growing up gay in straight-laced Geraldton, says winning the Hungerford was a key factor in his success. “The Hungerford’s effect on a book is like plugging an electric guitar into an amp: you play the same notes, but it’s louder and gets heard by more people,” the emerging author said.

EVEN Google Maps shows a traffic snarl at the Beeliar Drive/Stock Road intersection, so the McGowan government has allocated $7m for a fix-up. Pedestrians and cyclists will finally get a controlled signal to cross (there was a fatality a few years back and about 50 crashes each year) and there’ll be new and extended turning pockets, upgraded traffic signals and safety barriers on the western corners of the intersection.