Donut King, that is! Closed down for good and no longer tempting patrons who are overweight in body and underweight in brain. It's bad news for dentists and the doctors busily prescribing cholesterol-lowering pills.
We popped into my favourite shop where I found Daniel C. Dennett's "Breaking the Spell - Religion as a Natural Phenomenon". You probably won't bother to read the book by this great thinker, so here's part of his lecture on YouTube:
I also bought two little-known but touching movies on DVD: "Wadjda", the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and "September", an Australian coming-of-age story, both of which have trailers on YouTube:
So now you know how I'll be spending the next couple of days.
Noel's framed message, a postcard, is standing on the far left in front of the Burmese harp
Thus wrote my old mate Noel Butler back in April 1995. Eighteen months earlier, in a sudden rush of blood to the head, I had bought Riverbend even though I barely knew the business end of a spade, let alone what to do with it on an acreage.
Of course, we all have such dreams. Many years before, I had already bought DIY-books on how to build a cabin in the woods, on how to milk a cow, and how to build a chicken coop. They never made it to the top of my bookshelf which was occupied by 'The Practice of Modern Internal Auditing', 'Petroleum Accounting: Principles, Procedures & Issues', 'Ship Operations and Management', and 'Pick Basic: A Programmer's Guide', and other esoteric works on accountancy standards, IATA rules, laytime calculations, charter parties, and case studies in forensic auditing.
Noel, too, on coming back to Australia after a lifetime spent in New Guinea, had tried to follow his dream of a bucolic life in the country, first at Caboolture, then at Mt Perry, and finally in Childers. He knew as much - or rather, as little - about it as I did, since he'd conveniently forgotten that in New Guinea he'd never held more than a cold beer in his hand as he oversaw a small army of haus bois doing the hard work.
I, too, had conveniently forgotten that life in the country does not mix easily with computer code, spreadsheets, internal rates of return, and public rulings by the tax office, and had toyed with the idea of selling up again almost as soon as the ink had dried on the settlement cheque.
Noel had known of this, and as his life slipped slowly from autumn into winter and, just a few months later, into permanent hibernation, his last message reminded me not to give up on the dream because, as he so clearly foresaw, "... that would be the ultimate sin."
To this day his message sits on my mantelpiece to remind me of a wonderful friend, a wonderful friendship, and a wonderful piece of advice.
Technische Inkompetenz und Furcht gegen Urheberrechte zu verstossen erlaubten es mir nicht die Originallänge von 51 Minuten aufzuladen. Es handelt sich hierbei um ein bisher nicht veröffentlichtes Filmprojekt von 1998 der Dokumentarfilmerin Silvia Schippers die inzwischen verstorben ist. Ihre damalige Anschrift war Alemannenstr. 6, D-78259 Mühlhausen-Ehingen, Germany. Ob und wo der Film heute noch erhältlich ist weiss ich nicht.
Der Dokumentarfilm beschreibt die Geschichte zwei junger Männer, Henno Martin und Hermann Korn, frischgebackene Doktoren der Geologie, die im September 1935 an der Küste Südwest-Afrikas ankommen.
Sie haben Nazideutschland verlassen, beginnen geologische Forschungen im Naukluftgebirge und erkunden Wassenvorkommen für die Farmer. Der Zweite Weltkrieg holt sie ein. Aus Furcht vor der drohenden Internierung als 'feindliche Ausländer' fliehen sie in die Wüste, und kämpfen dort mehr als zwei Jahre um das nackte physische Überleben.
Hunger und Durst quälen sie. Ihre wechselnden Unterkünfte, provisorisch, primitiv, bilden den Ausgangspunkt für wechselndes Jagdglück auf der Suche nach Nahrung und Wasser. Sie leben fast wie Menschen der Urzeit, bewundern die karge Schönheit der Wüste, deren extreme Spannung von Tod und Leben sie zu neuen Einsichten über das Werden und Vergehen von Natur und Menschheit führt.
Das Buch, "Wenn es Krieg gibt, gehen wir in die Wüste", kann man auf der Internet beim www.archive.org kostenlos lesen - siehe here. Um die englische Übersetzung zu lesen, siehe here.
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right." (Søren Kierkegaard)
We've just come back from our "bridge walk" and everything is all right. All I need now is a cup of tea and a good lie down - forget about the Bex - and I should feel even better to drive to the club in the Bay for lunch.
Photo courtesy of Roy Goldsworthy, now residing in Malaysia
Have you ever thought how in a hundred years - sooner for most of us - we will all be buried? Strangers will live in our homes we worked so hard to acquire; our descendants - if we have them - will hardly remember us. I mean, how many of us know our grandfather's father? We may be remembered for a few more years, then a few years later we won't even be memories.
If we had paused to think about it, if we had spent more time on things that filled our lives with laughter, we might have become different people.
Here is an almost bleached-out old photo from those carefree and innocent days when we were moving purposefully towards an unknown destination.
The location is Camp 6 on Loloho Beach on Bougainville Island in New Guinea. I'm on the folding stretcher - we called them laylows then - outside my donga. Behind me is Brian Herde, and on the far right Roy Goldsworthy, both down from Panguna for the weekend.
Someone had just cracked a joke and we were waiting for the messhall to open for dinner before cracking a few more jokes over a few beers. Just another photo from those carefree days when we were still coddiwompling through life.
I have coddiwompled all my life but am at an age when the dead people I know outnumber the live ones, and so my destination is no longer vague.
With Nelligen getting connected to townwater and sewerage by the end of the year, no poperty on sale remains unsold for long. A vacant block at 13-15 Wharf Street was listed for sale for $980,000 late last year; it found a buyer for an undisclosed but close-to-a-million-dollar price last week.
It's a very exposed homesite and living there would be like living in a fish bowl but perhaps the buyer was more thinking of fish than bowl as he only needs to cross the road and carpark to fish from the banks of the Clyde River, from where he can also get a glimpse of "Riverbend" downriver.
Click on image to enlarge
Should I also get started on my pre-Deceased Estate Sale of "Riverbend" before it turns into a Deceased Estate Sale?
Somerset W. Maugham was as great a reader as he was a writer and his stories are peppered with literary allusions. Even the title of his story "The Painted Veil" is a very apt literary allusion.
Sonnet:" Lift not the painted veil . . ." by Percy Shelley, 1818
Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread, --- behind, lurk Fear And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. I knew one who had lifted it --- he sought, For his lost heart was tender, things to love, But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could approve. Through the unheeding many he did move, A splendour among shadows, a bright blot Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
This Maugham classic is set in England and Hong Kong and in a cholera-ridden Chinese village in the 1920s. A committed, principled, epidemiologist, Dr. Fane, falls in love with the beautiful, but vain and foolish, Kitty Garstin. She agrees to marry him only because she wishes to beat her sister to the altar. She soon commits adultery with a British official in Hong Kong, where they have relocated.
Dr. Fane decides that she must accompany him to a small village, deep within China, where cholera is rampant; otherwise, he will reveal the betrayal, with grave consequences for all. It appears to be a suicide mission.
The story is one of love, of a search for meaning of life, of forgiveness, and of personal growth and change. The inner thoughts of the several characters -- especially Kitty -- are thoroughly painted by Maugham. The title presumably refers to the veil of illusion that often hides the truth we feel about ourselves. I won't spoil the surprises that make this a compelling novel by revealing any more.
It was made into a beautiful film, shot on location in China in the most breathtaking scenery. Unfortunately, the most fitting literary allusion - indeed the "punchline" of the whole story - spoken by one of the protagonists, "The dog it was that died", has been left out of the film.
An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
Good people all, of every sort, Give ear unto my song; And if you find it wondrous short, It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man, Of whom the world might say That still a godly race he ran, Whene'er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad, When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, And curs of low degree.
This dog and man at first were friends; But when a pique began, The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad and bit the man.
Around from all the neighbouring streets The wondering neighbours ran, And swore the dog had lost his wits, To bite so good a man.
The wound it seemed both sore and sad To every Christian eye; And while they swore the dog was mad, They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light, That showed the rogues they lied: The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died. -- Oliver Goldsmith
However, the film adds a tagline of its own: "Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people." And it does a good job of describing this journey. Read the story here and the veil shall be lifted!
You may even read along as you listen to the audiobook:
Another magic morning is coming up at "Riverbend". Just ten minutes earlier, the river had been hidden under a blanket of early-morning mist but, like Cat Stevens lyricised oh so many years ago, "morning has broken" and "mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning".
Mine is also the porridge, full of raisins and honey, which together with a cup of hot lemon-and-ginger tea should keep me going until lunchtime on the verandah rolls around. The second month of the new year is almost gone again. At this rate, we'll soon be buying "Marzipan-Brote" and "Lebkuchen" at ALDI and getting ready for Christmas again.
Did you ever hear yourself say when you were twenty, "Gosh. It only seems like yesterday that I was ten"? Me neither! But these days it only seems like yesterday when I was in my sixties and in my fifties, not to mention forties! I think it was sometime in my late forties when time strapped a jet pack to its back, lit the afterburners, and if you blinked you missed a whole month.
A bunch of youngsters to whom life is still eternity, last night anchored their hired houseboat across from "Riverbend". I was expecting a lot of noise but whatever they were drinking did the job because they were out like a light by ten o'clock. And they still are as I type this with one hand on the keyboard and the other holding a spoonful of porridge.
I hope it'll stay quiet because I think I spend the rest of the day just lying on my back, chewing on a bit of grass, and thinking of nothing but what my final words might be. "Another magic morning" should do it.
Age of Consent (1938) is the sixth of Norman Lindsay’s ten novels, and like a number of the others it attracted the attention of the censors, though I am not sure if it was banned outright, as so many books were at that time.
In short, it’s the story of a middle-aged confirmed bachelor painter and a 17 or 18-year-old naive girl living in beach shacks on a lonely stretch of NSW South Coast, which for the movie wasn't "sexy" enough, so they shifted the location from New South Wales to Dunk Island on the Great Barrier Reef and made the artist a success instead of a failure.
In the book - which I prefer to the movie but then I always do, don't I? - the story is located in the coastal town of 'Wantabadgeree' which is the name of a farming hamlet near Wagga Wagga, well inland. Why Lindsay uses it as the name of a town on the coast I don’t know. Ignorance?
The basis of the plot is that of Bradly Mudgett, a mediocre landscape painter with just enough money from his last sales to keep him going for a couple of months in a shack on a remote beach while he tries his hand at seascapes for a change. He has his dog for company, and needs solitude.
Into this idyll walks young Cora, out looking for shellfish, whom Bradly adds to one of his compositions, only to discover that the painting works better with her in it.
[page 118]
At that little estuary from the lagoon Bradly set up his easel, dodging about to find the best viewpoint under the dove-coloured stems of the tea-trees, dripping feathery white blossoms over the water. When that was selected, he had her wade into the water, which came no higher than her calves. Against the blaze of light beyond her, she made a lovely pattern, warm with reflected light, cooled by the shadows, and flecked with minted gold from the foliage above her.
‘Pull up your skirt a bit; hook it up with both hands, like you was wading,’ commanded Bradly.
With one of her strenuous wriggles, which either confessed embarrassment, or rejected it, she pulled the skirt up, but it was so short that being pulled up, it came above her thighs, and revealed their warm mystery golden with light reflected from the water.
Cora has her own problems with her grandmother, who threatens Bradly with all sorts of retribution, mostly to do with Cora being underage and naked, when she discovers Bradly has been paying Cora for posing, and that money has not been going towards her gin.
But, of course, it all works out in the end. I liked it well enough, though in today's super-politically-correct environment Lindsay makes me nervous when it comes to young girls and their states of undress.
As for Norman Lindsay himself who is perhaps best-known for his childrens’ book, "The Magic Pudding" (whose "the more you eats the more you gets" is, I suspect, taken too literally by Australia's growing army of welfare recipients), he was a notable artist especially with pen and ink as well as a competent author. He became and remains famous for his nudes; spent eighteen frustrating months in London before returning to Sydney and purchasing a home in the Blue Mountains where he wrote and painted for the next fifty years - see the 1994 movie below, "Sirens".
Click on Watch on YouTube
Two free full-length movies to keep you entertained over the weekend. "The Magic Pudding" indeed!
Based on Irvin D. Yalom's novel of the same title, this film is a good fictional introduction to the man and his thought for people who aren’t yet acquainted with Nietzsche’s philosophy.
While a better book for finding out about Nietzsche is "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", reading it requires stamina and dedication. Nietzsche’s gift to anyone who reads his words is to hand them control over themselves and their destiny. "When Nietzsche Wept" is a pleasant introduction to some powerful, possibly life-altering ideas.
No one ever emigrates because of the success they've enjoyed at home. No one ever says, "Well, I have a happy home life, I'm rich and I have many friends - so I'm off." The only reason anyone has for going to live in another country is because they've cocked everything up in their own.
Being just nineteen years old, my opportunities for cocking things up had been rather limited by the time I left; in fact, my only - and certainly biggest - cock-up until then had been that I allowed myself to be born to parents who were so dirt-poor that they packed me off to work as soon as I had reached the minimum school-leaving age of fourteen.
If I had become what I was intended to be, I would probably have been desperate, because I would have had regrets. You know, like you work in an office and you say, "One day I will go to see the world." Instead, I went to see the world and I said, "Maybe one day I will be obliged to work in an office."
Some people see and some people don't see; much the same way they hear music or they hear noise, they only use their vision so as not to bump into trees or fall into a ditch. My vision was more than that and it led me to emigrate to Australia of which I wrote in this article.
Just above my name is listed a Gerhard David, born 27/12/1942, with the occasion 'Butcher'. Is he the same butcher of whom I wrote in my website: "I will always remember one of my cabin-mates, a young butcher from Berlin, who was constantly dressed in a fishnet-shirt (to solve his laundry problem, as he put it, and which left an interesting tanning pattern on his upper torso). Nothing seemed to bother him much; not our uncertain future nor the English lessons which he had dispensed with in favour of the bar. As far as he was concerned, if things didn't work out he could always commit suicide! An interesting outlook on life, to say the least, and the solving of one's problems. I have sometimes wondered how he ended up?" He must be the same young butcher who shared my cabin! I mean, how many young German butchers boarded the FLAVIA on 30 June 1965?
According to his registration card from the Bonegilla Migrant Centre, Gerhard David, the butcher, was one of the three or four young Germans of whom I wrote: "It was two days after I had arrived in camp and while I was 'thawing' out in the midday sun when another German who had come off the ship with me, told me about a 'German Lady', a Mrs Haermeyer, at the camp's reception centre who was offering to take three or four recently arrived German migrants back to Melbourne to board at her house. I had been "processed" by the camp's administration on the first day and knew that in all likelihood I was destined to be sent to Sydney to work as labourer for the Sydney Water Board. So what did I have to lose? In record time I had myself signed out by the 'Camp Commandant', my few things packed, and was sitting, with three other former ship-mates, in a VW Beetle enroute back to Melbourne. The 'German Lady' had turned out to be a very enterprising roly-poly German housewife who with her German husband, a bricklayer, operated something of a boarding-house from their quaint little place at 456 Brunswick Road in West Brunswick in Melbourne. The place seemed already full to overflowing with young Germans from a previous intake, with bodies occupying the lounge-room sofa, a make-shift annex, and an egg-shaped plywood caravan in the backyard." How could I have forgotten? But then again, I didn't stay long enough in Melbourne to remember much of it because during the first days in Melbourne I had written to Hans in Canberra to let him know where I was. Hans was a young German who had come out to Australia many years before as a child with his parents and whom I had befriended aboard the ship. He was then already married and on his way back from a trip to Europe with his wife, baby, and mother-in-law with whom he had revisited his own hometown and that of his Yugoslav wife. Before long he was on the 'phone to me suggesting that I might want to come up to Canberra. I didn't need much persuading! Hans got me a job as storeman/driver in the hardware & plumbing supplies company of Ingram & Sons in Canberra's industrial suburb of Fyshwick. This friendship with Hans had such a major impact on my future life in Australia that I have remained good friends with him to this day.
Gerhard David, the butcher, and all those other single German men - Wilfried Bassler, born 2/7/1941; Klaus-Dieter Hanel, born 7/9/1944; Erwin Hess, born 31/12/1943; Gunnar Korths, born 11/6/42; Bernd Kress, born 2/2/1942; Erwin Lange, born 7/7/1942; Karl-Heinz Meisel, born 26/9/1937 - appear on the database of the National Archives of Australia but not one of them has ever applied for his records to be made public, although I found Karl-Heinz Meisel's and Erwin Heess's registration cards from the Bonegilla Migrant Centre on the Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup. One being a mechanic and the other an electrician by trade, they found ready employment on the Snowy Mountains Scheme at Khancoban, a town especially constructed to house some 2000 workers involved in what was then Australia's largest engineering project in the coldest part of the country.
How many of them are still in Australia or, for that matter, still alive? They were just eight of the 134 German migrants who boarded the FLAVIA with me and, in addition to the butcher, four of them could well have been with me in the same six-berth cabin (with no private facilities!) If you know the whereabouts of any of them, please email me at riverbendnelligen@mail.com
Altogether some 229 "Auswanderer" boarded the ship FLAVIA on that fateful day, and I have sometimes wondered how their lives turned out.
When, some five weeks later, we reached Sydney in early August 1965, one other young German - whose name I have since forgotten - and I ventured just far enough from the FLAVIA which was tied up at Pyrmont, to explore the Rocks and to sit on the steps leading up to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We still had some distance to go before we would finally disembark in Melbourne and be processed through the Bonegilla Migrant Centre, but we had already decided to come back to Sydney and to this spot every Sunday and wait for the other one to turn up.
I never did, as I moved from Bonegilla to Melbourne and from Melbourne to Canberra and on and on from there, and I've often wondered how many Sundays my mate may've sat on those stairs waiting for me to turn up.
P.S. I never heard from any of the others; however, one person, now residing on the Gold Coast, read my article and sent me this email:
"Hello Peter,
I haven't finished reading your webpage yet as I'm too emotional. My parents and I were on the Flavia with you. I was only 4 but still have many memories of that voyage. Mum is sitting here with me, also quite teary. I came across your webpage when I googled 'Flavia'. Thank you for the memories. Yes, we are still in Australia, living on the Gold Coast. Mum sends her regards, unfortunately dad has dementia.
I do have photos, including a group photo the day King Neptune came on board. I'll scan them and email them to you, perhaps there's one with you.
"Do you ever have days when everything feels ... Not Very Okay At All? And sometimes you don’t even know why you feel Not Very Okay At All, you just know that you do."
Piglet nodded his head sagely. "Oh yes," said Piglet. "I definitely have those days."
"Really?" said Pooh in surprise. "I would never have thought that. You always seem so happy and like you have got everything in life all sorted out."
"Ah," said Piglet. "Well, here’s the thing. There are two things that you need to know, Pooh. The first thing is that even those pigs, and bears, and people, who seem to have got everything in life all sorted out ... they probably haven't. Actually, everyone has days when they feel Not Very Okay At All. Some people are just better at hiding it than others."
"And the second thing you need to know ... is that it's okay to feel Not Very Okay At All. It can be quite normal, in fact. And all you need to do, on those days when you feel Not Very Okay At All, is come and find me, and tell me. Don’t ever feel like you have to hide the fact you're feeling Not Very Okay At All."
"Always come and tell me. Because I will always be there."
The National Archives of Australia keep all public records and, as determined by the Public Records Act 1967, make them available to the public under what used to be the 50-year rule but now seems to be the 30-year rule.
At present, all those Incoming Passenger cards that visitors and returning residents completed when they entered Australia from 1898 to 1972 are now available to the public. If you or someone you are trying to trace arrived in Australia during that period, you are likely to find their immigration record under "Passenger arrivals":
Then "Explore the Collection", then "RecordSearch"
In the new window, click on "Passenger arrivals"
Type in the "Family name" and hit "Search"
Having found the right person, click on "Digital copy"
It is sometimes better to try and find someone by simply typing in the "Family Name" and then scrolling through the displayed listing. For example, trying to find someone known to you as John Finch by typing in "Finch" and "John" will not find him if the Archives recorded him under his full name John Charles Paton Finch.
If the displayed listing is very long, change the display window from the default setting of 20 records to 100 or 150 or even 200, and click through it, one page at a time.
What a great way to spend a rainy afternoon finding your own or some old friend's arrival card as they came to Australia, either by ship or by air, for the first time or after an overseas holiday.
Here's my own card when I first arrived in Australia in 1965:
And the next one after I had returned from a trip to the (c)old country:
And there would be countless more but I will have to wait for them until the National Archives release them to the public.
Why not build up your own story? Don't wait for a rainy afternoon!
There was a man who had a cross and his name was Macauley. He put Australia at his feet, he said, in the only way he knew how. His boots spun the dust from its roads and his body waded its streams. The black lines on the map, and the red, they knew him well. He built his fires in a thousand places and slept on the banks of rivers. The grass grew over his tracks, but he knew where they were when he came again."
One of my favourite books by D'arcy Niland, "The Shiralee", was made into a movie, first in 1957, starring Peter Finch, and the 1987 remake with Bryan Brown. They keep disappearing from YouTube but I've just found a more 'permanent' copy in two parts on www.archive.org.
Part II
While both film version follow faithfully the storyline, there's nothing like reading the book itself. Here it is and you can read it online here.
"He had two swags, one of them with legs and a cabbage tree hat, and that one was the main difference between him and others who take to the road, following the sun for their bread and butter. Some have dogs. Some have horses. Some have women. And they have them as mates and companions, or for this reason and that, all of some use. But with Macaulay it was this way: he had a child and the only reason he had it was because he was stuck with it." [continue here]
P.S. It's your lucky day: the original 1957 black-and-white film starring the incomparable Peter Finch is also on www.archive.org - click here.
The tendency to look back contemplatively on one's life as one gets nearer to the end of it is a natural human instinct which I indulged in last night as I watched the old German movie "Ich denke oft an Piroschka" (I often think of Piroschka). I had last seen it as a boy of 10 or 12 with my sisters, in a Sunday afternoon movie matinée.
And how the memories came back! Of my boyhood and of the Piroschkas in my own life and the Hódmezővásárhelykutasipusztas I've been to! (Can I speak Hungarian? No, but I can be silent in several other languages!)
Why is it that whenever I hear Rick declare his nationality as "I'm a drunkard", I immediately think back to my character-forming years spent on the Bougainville Copper Project?
Of the thousands of men that worked there, and the scores I knew, there was only one who did not drink - alcohol, that is! - but then he didn't do much of anything else either. As for the rest of us, we were all citizens of the world and drinking responsibly meant not to spill it.
I've always thought that all of us should have been commended for our services to the Australian brewing industry, and I can think of at least one who should have lived out his days as Sir Osis of the Liver. I won't mention his real name as a show of respect for the dead which he must be by now as no liver could have taken all that punishment for long.
All that was almost fifty years ago, and while I still enjoy the occasional glass (or two) of wine, my liver has never ceased to be surprised by the sudden stream of lemon-and-ginger tea it's been metabolising ever since I settled down. Speaking of which, remember the rumours about the stuff they put in our tea in the camp to keep our mind of it ...?
Well, fifty years later, I think mine is showing signs of beginning to work!
Ich fand dieses Foto auf der facebook-Seite von "Braunschweig im Wandel der Zeit". Es soll aus dem Jahre 1968 sein. Das muss schon sein denn als mein Bruder Karl-Heinz seine Lehre als Textilkaufmann beim Betten-Dietz in 1949 antrat, war da noch alles in Trümmern.
Er hatte noch Schwein gehabt überhaupt eine Lehrstelle in solch einem Kleinbetrieb zu finden denn damals herrschte noch die Arbeitslosigkeit.
Elf Jahre später hatte ich schon etwas mehr Glück als Herr Weber, der Bezirksdirektor der Hamburg-Bremer Feuer-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft, mir die Chance gab mich als Versicherungskaufmann auszubilden obwohl ich bloß acht Jahre Volksschule hatte. Glück braucht der Mensch!
Back from an outing to Moruya and Sunday roast at the Moruya Bowling Club. And who should we meet in the Club's carpark but Bill Haywood and his wife Yvonne who used to live at Nelligen before they moved down the coast to Dalmeny.
We talked and talked and then talked some more by their mobile home before continuing it inside the Club's restaurant. 90-year-old Bill had instant recall of events and places and people's names while I was still writing down his name so I wont' forget. They built them tough then!
We're home again and it's time for a well-earned nap on the verandah - if Gonzo the resident waterdragon will allow me to share the pillow with him!
Click on image for a close-up
Why can't he be like his twin-brother Gizmo and sleep on the bench?
Described as one of the civil engineering wonders of the modern world, the Snowy Scheme consists of eight power stations, 16 major dams, 80 kilometres of aqueducts and 145 kilometres of interconnected tunnels.
More than 100,000 people worked on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme from its launch in 1949 to its official opening in 1972. Migrants of more than 30 nationalities made up about 65 per cent of the workforce.
The scheme brought together thousands of people whose nations only years before had been fighting each other. These included British and Germans, Norwegians and Italians, Australians and Austrians, but as William Hudson said, ‘You aren’t any longer Czechs or Germans, you are men of the Snowy’.
The Snowy is still generating power today, producing 32 per cent of all renewable energy available to Australia’s east coast mainland grid.
It's a great ABC documentary to watch on a rainy day like today.
Some of my accounting friends will recognise themselves in this little sketch. To them I dedicate this little poem: An Accountant's Life He was a very cautious man, who never romped or played,
He never smoked, he never drank, nor even kissed a maid.
And when up and passed and away, insurance was denied.
For since he hadn't ever lived, they claimed he never died.
***
If you want to know how the average accountant sees the world, click here
When I grew up, I wanted to be a garbage collector because I thought they only work on Tuesdays. Having had that illusion dashed, I settled for picking up other people's financial garbage.
And rather than going for the boring profit & loss statement and balance sheet stuff, I went for the messy bits, like designing reporting systems for new companies, or forensically auditing fraudulent ones, or rehabilitating bankrupt ones.
They were never average kind of jobs but then I was never an average kind of accountant. The jobs I picked up were full of excitement and challenges and I loved every one of them (the ones I didn't love I left).
My only regret is that there was never a tea lady in any of the offices I worked in. To think of all the chocolate éclairs I could've squashed!
A very rare book indeed: one copy for sale here costs US$83.79!!!
You all know about my fascination with Tom Neale and his book "An Island To Oneself" which I found years ago in a musty second-hand shop. Today, at Vinnies in Ulladulla, I picked up a copy of "Together Alone" which I had never heard of.
It's the sort of book that deserves to stand next to "An Island to Oneself" - in fact, as Ron Falconer writes, "Originally we had left France with the intention of sailing directly to an island called Suvarov in the Pacific Ocean, an atoll where a hermit, Tom Neale, had lived for several years. I'd met Tom and also visited Suvarov." (page 35) - and to be read by kerosene light in cosy "Melbourne" while dreaming of 'escaping to a life in paradise'.
Anne and Ron Falconer aboard "Fleur d'Ecosse"
It's the true story of a modern-day Swiss Family Robinson, Scottish adventurer Ron Falconer and his French wife Anne and their two adorable little children, Alexandre and Anais, who make the ultimate seachange for a new life on a desert island, tiny Caroline Island, part of the island nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific.
They quickly discover that life in paradise isn't easy. Shark-infested waters, crafty rats, giant crabs and flesh-eating ants - it's sink or swim for Ron and Anne, as they struggle to live off the land and raise their children without the things most of us take for granted.
They build their own beautiful little house. Ron brings the floorboards with him on his boat and salvages the roof from a shipwreck, while Anne weaves the shutters, Polynesian style, from coconut leaves. Ron also builds an outside kitchen, a chicken coup, a well, a solar shower (ultimately voted too labour-intensive by his savvy companions) and even a wind-powered flour grinder (until a conventional one proves to be a lot less trouble). While Anne fishes every morning for the evening meal Ron works on one of his many projects or tends his vege garden with his willing and able assistants, Alexandre and Anais, who are just four and two when they arrive on the island.
Visitors come and go - a group of scientists, old sea-faring friends, and a Kiribati businessman and his men - but all the while the family take care to tread lightly in their island paradise, which in return fulfils their simple needs.
Finally, though, modern-day realities intervene, when the Kiribati businessman succeeds in gaining control of the island, with plans to fish the waters and eventually build a resort. Ron and Anne are asked to leave after four years, in 1991, and their paradise is lost.
In August 1997, to promote events to mark the arrival of the year 2000, Caroline Island was renamed Millennium Island by the Kiribati government
"Together Alone" is an insightful, fascinating, sometimes philosophical, and ultimately uplifting story of how one man's dream to live a solitary existence in paradise becomes very much an extraordinary family affair.
(Of course, I picked up several other books - as I always do; to say nothing of five seasons of "NCIS" - but that's a story for another day.)
Caroline Island (circled, lower right) is the easternmost island of Kiribati
P.S. And here is a post from 2014 from the author on his facebook page: Usually the first question I am asked is, “So where do you come from?” “The North of Scotland,” I reply. “So how did you arrive here?” is the predictable second question. “Well,” I begin, at the age of 37 I had my own business doing architectural drawings, had modernized a small cottage by the sea, owned a Jaguar car and a caravan, all paid for, so I built a small sail boat and sailed away. Sailing around the world I discovered Polynesia and loved it. I sailed back home then sailed back to Polynesia again, this time to stay. I cruised around the islands for many years then found a beautiful uninhabited island. With my new French wife and two small children, 2 and 4 years old, plus a dog, cat, 2 parrots and 5 hens we went and lived there. We stayed 4 years on the island, built a sleeping house and kitchen, planted a garden, made a fish trap and generally lived off the sea and nature. It was such an interesting story I put it all down on paper and Random House published the book, “Together Alone”. Returning to the real life after 17 years of wandering I couldn't think of going back to a 9-to-5 routine so I started playing music around the restaurants and hotels of Moorea. [Update added in 2020:] Eventually met a New Zealand lady, sold the home-built house on Moorea and went to New Zealand. I was refused residency because of the Caroline story and was evicted - click here. Moved on to France, bought a beautiful old Dutch barge. Now we live together on the historic Canal du Midi.
P.P.S. Via his daughter Karriann's facebook page, I've just now tracked down Ron's current facebook page: click here. It seems to confirm he's still a-barging on the Canal du Midi in the south of France.
The days of having to fly out of Sydney Airport to soak up the sun and sights in Bali are nearly over. Canberra Airport has announced the launch of a new direct flight route between Canberra and Denpasar, in partnership with Indonesian-based carrier Batik Air (owned by the Lion Air Group).
The new route will commence on 14 June 2024, and operate three times weekly. Information on pricing is expected to be announced shortly.
I know my travelling days are over but will this entice me to take one last trip to the enchanted isle and visit Banjar Hills Retreat one last time?
Right in the heart of the village: 7 Barang Street
For most of my life I was running out of money; now I have all the money I need but I'm running out of time which means I'll probably never move north again. Still, thanks to the internet I can keep an eye on my favourite place, Kuranda, up in the hills and cool rain forests west of Cairns.
There've been several properties in Kuranda I've been interested in - some of which I wrote about in past postings - but, of course, I was never quite ready to make a move, and they eventually all sold. The last one which interested me was right in the heart of the village at 7 Barang Street.
I like houses like these: with a bit of character and history, within walking distance to everything in the village, and small and simple and humble enough not to attract the envious attention of any jealous neighbours.
Like all the others, it too sold, this one as recently as two months ago, in December 2023, for $520,000. So I was more than just a little surprised when I saw it re-advertised this morning for sale at "Over $529,000".
The same agent who sold it in December is selling it again. So I emailed David Hall, the man who's "keeping real estate real", "What's wrong with it?" Not that I expect an honest answer, or even an answer at all.
P.S. I did receive a reply: "There was a last-minute boundary discrepancy which stopped the property settling, the land area is 950 sqm not 1012 sqm. We are currently going through the steps to have this rectified."
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien war der Anfang und auch das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen[AT]mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
In der Zwischenzeit, falls Du mein Blog in der englischen Sprache lesen willst, besuche mich At Home at Riverbend.
