A small memorial to "Bluey" Ray

Frank Ray with my wife Joy

My father's real name was Frank Edward Ray but only my mother and his kids called him "Frank". To everyone else he was "Blue" or "Bluey" -- because he had red hair -- a feat of logic that you may have to be British or Australian to understand.

His religion was work -- hard manual work -- and he did that throughout his life. He started out cutting down forest trees for the sawmills -- with an AXE and crosscut saw -- long before chainsaws were heard of. And he also was a cane-cutter in his younger days. He would come home "as black as a n*gger" from that work -- as sugarcane was burnt before harvesting in those days,

But in his later years be worked in the tallow rendering section of the Queerah meatworks outside Cairns. He used his very developed biceps to move around 44 gallon of drums of tallow -- a job in which he seemed to be much appreciated by his employers. And if you have ever tried to move a 44 gallon drum of anything (usually motor fuel) you will know how heavy they are. And when filled with a dense material like tallow (rendered-down animal fat) they are REALLY heavy. But he would have enjoyed that challenge.

I also remember him while I was just a kid sharpening and "setting" his crosscut saws -- something that was part of his trade as a "timber feller" (lumberjack). He would be out in the bush during the week and come home for the weekend. And that was saw sharpening time.

He also had an old .22 rifle. He said that where he was camped out in the bush he could hear crocodiles roaring -- so he was definitely wary of them. What good a .22 would do in an encounter with a croc I do not know. If you were a good shot it might help, I suppose. But I remember him buying bullets off "Thompson" (the Stratford store keeper) as a prelude to a trip.

My brother still has the .22 concerned. If I ever had to deal with crocs, I would want a .50 cal sniper rifle for the purpose -- though I suppose an old .303 might also be useful enough (and a lot more available).

And, as I think I have mentioned before, Frank was a "king hitter". The biceps developed through many years working as an axeman were very handy for flattening anybody who disrespected him. He once hit a man so hard that he broke his hand. He did have a short temper. I remember his flashing blue eyes when he was annoyed. Though he never laid a finger on any of his family and was a real gentleman unless provoked. How can eyes flash? I don't know. But his did somehow.

I am sad that my father is no longer among us. He was a man of his time but was perhaps the better man for that.

Red hair

There is a lighthearted article in the Emerald City rag about red hair. The female writer says being a redhead is only a minor bother to her but some redheads get a bit disgruntled. Excerpt:

"I think I have suffered enough for my colouring," wrote one woman, who noted she had occasionally been asked if the carpet matched the drapes. "I don't think my own government should contribute to the belittling of a minority."

The carpet DOES match the drapes in my experience!

I have brown hair (now grey) but I claim associate membership of the red hair club on the basis that my father had red hair and my son has a red beard. My first girlfriend was a redhead, the first lady I lived with was a redhead and I have twice married redheaded ladies! So I am comfortably ensconced in my genetic niche, it would seem. I am always delighted to see redheaded children about the place.

England would seem to be the only place where there is actual prejudice against redheads, probably because they associate it with the Irish and the Scots. Old enmities linger on.

Update:

I should have mentioned that in my youth I did myself actually have some red hairs in my beard (all now gone white). So I am not only an associate member of the red hair club but am also to a very marginal degree an actual member of it!

Judith Middleton

This is just a small and disorganized memoir of a lady of whom I still think highly. Jude was the lady in my life before Anne. A curious thing about her was that she was what American sociologists call a "skidder" -- someone who moved during her life from the middle class to the working class.

Her father was a successful Melbourne businessman who sent both his daughters to Melbourne MLC (Methodist Ladies College) so she had just about the best education money can buy. MLC ladies acquire an accent, attitude and manners that enable them to glide easily into the "best" circles of English society.

An educated Australian accent is in any case pretty close to RP (Received pronunciation: The accent taught in British "public" [meaning "private"!] schools) and at MLC and other Melbourne private schools that accent is refined even more towards an English upper class standard. And Judy's sister did make that transition -- marrying a rich Englishman.

Judy however is a born rebel and all middle class values were not for her. She looked with horror at the middle class life that lay before her and wanted out. So she left school as soon as she could, took a humble job and never wanted anything more.

Mind you, she was very good at accents and could slip into a very good facsimile of RP if ever she wanted to. Though she normally spoke with a fairly broad Australian accent.

Another curious thing that quite stunned me was the effect of shoes on how she presented. I have never understood the way women collect shoes but Judy gave me at least a hint of it. She normally wore very flat shoes and in such shoes looked like the hippy she is. She just had to put on heels, however, and she immediately became a lady. Amazing. She is quite a pretty girl so that had something to do with it but I doubt that I will ever understand it fully.

And it was of course she who looked after her father in his final years. I am pleased to have known her.

Addendum

I know this is completely mad but I thought I might note another way in which Judith seemed to me to be something of a chameleon.

Optometrists make a great play of spectacles being some sort of fashion statement and it is undoubtedly true that different spectacles do somehow seem to convey different images of the person. And Judith's choice in spectacles did somehow convey the impression of a Melbourne Lady to me. She could be sitting in bed with her specs on talking on the phone and I definitely got the impression of being in the presence of a Melbourne Lady.

It was for a few moments almost like being in the company of the ultimate Melbourne Lady -- the redoubtable Susan Rossiter/Peacock/Sangster/Renouf -- a lady who definitely cut a swathe through her social circle in her time -- but in the nicest possible way, of course. No wonder Barry Humphries found/finds his native Melbourne infinitely amusing. Perhaps Jude was well out of it.

Addendum 2

I suppose this post is getting a bit discursive but maybe memoirs tend to be like that.

As I said, Jude was NOT a Melbourne Lady (and didn't want to be) but she did fleetingly remind me of where she came from occasionally. There was in fact another lady in my life who reminded me of Susan Rossiter/Peacock/Sangster/Renouf quite strongly: Jennifer Warner Wilson. And she was a Sydney lady rather than a Melbourne one. Jenny was a lecturer in Social Work at the Uni. of NSW while I was a lecturer in Sociology there. So we were formally well suited to one-another. She is a fine woman (do I ever get involved with any other?) and we got on well in lots of ways.

And she was demure and feminine but also with quiet assurance and a strong eye -- things that I see in Susan Rossiter (etc). I liked her confidence. Did she go to a private school? I don't remember but probably.

Lunch with Simon and Tracy

My sendoff for Simon in connection with his recent deployment to Afghanistan was a bit of a mess as I was too ill at the time to attend it. But a good time was had by all who were healthy enough to attend so when Simon got back to Australia recently, he and Tracy were kind enough to invite Anne and myself to a roast dinner at around midday last Sunday.

Simon is a talented cook as well as his many other virtues so he served up a feast.

One thing I particularly liked is that Dan and Becky ("the kids") joined us at the table and to a degree took part in the conversation.

Simon was in great form so our conversation covered a wide range -- from Jeremy Bentham to Julia Gillard. I was a bit surprised by Simon's wide reading. It would normally be only academics who had heard of Bentham (the "father" of utilitarianism in moral philosophy) but senior members of the military are often well-read and Simon is obviously one of those.

An exceptionally pleasant afternoon.

A welcome home night

On Saturday 5th I hosted a welcome home dinner at my usual Indian restaurant in Stone's Corner (the "Bollywood") for Paul and Sue after their 3 month world cruise. They got off the ship in Sydney on Friday 3rd so I left them a little time to to get a breather.

Ken and Maureen had also returned from a month of cruising around the Mediterranean a few days earlier so it was a welcome home for them too

We had a good turnout with 15 of us present. Suzy couldn't come because baby Sahara was ill so she sent her apologies at the last moment.

The conversation never stopped but I as usual spent most time talking to Joe and Paul: my "boys". They are both grown men by now but old guys like me are allowed to live in the past. I mostly talked to Joe about his academic activities and to Paul about the conclusions he had drawn from his trip. A pic of the occasion below. I'm not in it, thank goodness.

The clock in my head

I have in my head something which is, I think, exclusive to people of Northern European ancestry: A clock.

It is a clock which has both conscious and unconscious components -- and even works in my sleep. For instance, I wake up most mornings pretty well on the dot of 7am -- Sometimes literally on the dot of 7am. These days I mostly just look blearily at the clock and turn over and go back to sleep but 7am was once my getting-up time and my subconscious still thinks it is.

Another interesting example was when I booked my car in for servicing with Dieter, an old friend who also is my mechanic: He keeps my cars on the road. Dieter is German (as the name implies) and I told him that I would bring the car over at "about" 8am. I of course arrived on the dot of 8am and there was Dieter waiting in the driveway with his arms folded -- waiting for me. We understood one-another. Neither of us are in fact in any ancestral way Prussian but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. And there was a second occasion quite recently, when I said to Dieter that I would bring the Humber over for servicing at "about" 9am. I of course arrived on the dot and, as I arrived, Dieter had just completed the preparations he needed to deal with the servicing concerned.

There are many examples of this unconscious clock (Could I make it work deliberately? Perhaps not) but the most recent example is quite eerie. These days I buy a lot of frozen dinners that just need 5 minutes in the microwave to produce a very acceptable dinner at the end of it.

So I put on the dinner in the microwave and set it for 5 minutes. I then leave the kitchen and return to my computer at the other end of the house. After a while on the computer, however, I feel that my frozen dinner should be just about cooked so I get up to go and check it. And as I walk towards the kitchen what I often hear is the last chirp of the microwave announcing the end of its program. In other words, I go and get my dinner at exactly the right SECOND!

Even I am amazed.

"Old fashioned"

The meaning of words is often well outside what you will find in a dictionary. For instance I once asked Jill about her very kind regular visits to her severely disabled and demented elderly ex-husband. I asked her did she take him up snakes and milk-bottles. She replied, No, but she did take him up snowballs.

That could have sounded like all three of us were pretty demented but in fact it was a perfectly sane enquiry on my part and Jill understood it immediately. Snakes, milk-bottles and snowballs are types of children's candy and we both knew that Brian liked them.

So I wonder a little what people meant when during my childhood adults regularly described me as "old fashioned". I always took it to mean that I seemed old beyond my years but I wonder now did they mean it literally? Were my ideas during my childhood even then of a past era? It's possible because I was a great reader of old books almost from the time that I first learned to read.

I will have to find someone in their late 80s or early 90s to tell me what they might have meant if they had in their younger years described some kid as "old-fashioned"

Update, 3 Sept. 2010

Another culture specific reference which would, I think, boggle non-Australian users of English is the word "vanity". I said to Geoff, my handyman, today: "I'll get you to pick up a new vanity from Bunnings for me" -- where Bunnings is a hardware store. What could I possibly have meant? Any Australian could tell you. A "vanity" is a cupboard and sink for a bathroom. The full usage is "vanity unit" and must have been a bit of marketing puff from way back when.

A marvellous muffin

I went out to Jill's place this morning (Friday) and went before I had had any breakfast -- as I usually have my breakfast lateish and planned to have it after I got back from Jill's.

Jill however very kindly gave me a cup of tea and a large fruit muffin -- and that was a remarkably filling muffin. I got home about noon and did not feel at all hungry. By about 2pm, however, I thought I should have something and ordered a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich at my usual coffee place.

And that sufficed. I had one of my usual TV dinners at about 6pm.

I was out at Jill's place again to raid her books. She is moving soon so wants to reduce her library. I mainly carried off Bible commentaries that once belonged to her late clergyman husband. I am rather a sucker for Bible commentareies as the background to Old Testament stories in particular is not always obvious.

Something I covet in that line is a copy of the Companion Bible. It was put out by the Oxford University Press way back when and is about the biggest book you have ever seen. I have only ever seen one copy of it. Maybe I will chase it up one day.

2019 update: I now have a copy of the Companion Bible. Printed offset on Bible paper in America

Some rambling reminiscences with a small point at the end

Most people don't seem to realize that mechanical ability correlates quite highly with general intelligence. A good motor mechanic will generally be pretty bright as a lot of mechanical work is pure problem solving.

So while I have always been good at academic tasks, I was also pretty good with my hands as a kid. If the family toaster or electric jug ceased working, I would be the one to sit down and fix it. And if a fuse blew I would fix that too.

And when I was about 13 the family moved into a house that had been occupied by my recently deceased grandfather -- with some of his possessions still in it -- including all the books that the family had got as kids for school and Sunday school prizes. I read them all from cover to cover of course and still remember something of their content.

Underneath the house, however, we also had lots of bits of junk, including parts of defunct bicycles. I found enough parts to put together a complete bicycle and even got some paint and painted it a fetching shade of maroon. At one stage my father used to borrow "my" bike to ride to work on.

And when my mother was in hospital giving birth to my brother, I took her up a newspaper she liked to read: "The Sunday Truth" -- light reading and something of a scandal sheet. Newspapers become all messed up as people read them, however, so when that newspaper arrived in the house, I punched two holes in its spine and used them to bind the newspaper together with a piece of light wire. So when she got the newspaper it was in perfect order. I remember that being greeted with surprised appreciation.

And I have always been interested in locks. Any house where I live always has all its door locks working, complete with keys. I can't specifically remember fixing locks in the parental home but think that I must have. I could never fix clocks, however. I just used to end up with a collection of parts.

With adulthood, however, I found more interesting things than working with my hands and to all appearances became a "typical academic", who left such tasks for others.

That had an amusing consequence once when I was living in a shared apartment at Bondi with two bright and attractive ladies. The deadlock on the apartment door developed problems, so after taking one look at me they decided to fix it themselves. As soon as they got the back off, however, a spring went SPROIINNGG!!!, as springs do, and they just had parts scattered everywhere and no idea what to do further.

At that stage I gathered up the parts, put the lock back together and soon had it working perfectly. There was a stunned silence when I did that. They had no idea that I had it in me. I later married one of the ladies concerned so maybe being good with locks has its advantages.

Now the point of all this is that my mother and father had a very conflicted relationship and, somehow related to that, my father was often rather hostile towards me. I inherited my mother's serene self-confidence, however, so it never bothered me.

I always attributed his hostility to his devotion to hard physical work. In his life that had always been the way to make money so the ability and inclination to work hard was something of a criterion of virtue to him. And with my bookish ways he could never see me as living up to his work ideals. On several occasions he said to me in disgust: "You'd never make a quid in a week". A quid was two dollars and was even then a small amount.

It is only recently, however, that another explanation for his hostility has occurred to me. My mother had what my father called a "caustic tongue" and she certainly used it in arguments with him. So I am almost sure that there would have been at least one occasion when she said to him: "John does all the work around the house. You do nothing". That was pretty true in its way but would of course have been very wounding -- and could well have contributed to his hostility towards me.

In later years, however, my father and I got on perfectly well. When he heard how much money I was making in my university teaching job, he considerably modified his ideas about work.

NOTE: I am slightly embarrassed by the fact that I still have a small reserve store of 19th century rimlocks. There are not many Victorian houses in Brisbane and I have stopped buying old houses anyway. So I will never use them. My present house has some Edwardian rimlocks but no Victorian ones.

I built up most of the stock when I was in Sydney as it was not uncommon there to find Victorian rimlocks that were completely broken or gutted so could only be replaced rather than repaired.

So if anyone comes by this blog who knows what a Victorian rimlock is and who needs one, it might well be to their advantage to contact me.

WPR revisited

I think it must have been in 1969 that I rented a terrace house in Wentworth Pk. Rd., Glebe, in Sydney. It had 3 bedrooms so I asked among friends to find people who might move in and share the cost with me.

I was referred to two young men with a love of cars, Henningham and Croucher by surname. We almost immediately adopted the practice of addressing and referring to one-another by surname only -- indicating that the friendship we formed was a jocular one.

We greatly enjoyed our times at "WPR", in part because we shared attitudes that were at least not incompatible, including a liking for the music of Leos Janacek and "The wonderful world of Barry McKenzie" by Barry Humphries -- a comic book, no less.

In fact, when I was first introduced to Henningham and Croucher, they gave me the McKenzie book to look at as a sort of test of cultural compatibility. They regarded it then (and I think still do) as the apogee of Australian humour. After I had been chuckling over it for ten minutes or more somebody said wonderingly: "He's still on the first page". So my credentials were firmly established.

One interest we did NOT share was an interest in sporty cars so my purchase of a humble Mazda 1300 was greatly derided. When a car-lovers' "Bible" (called "Wheels", I think) came out and named the Mazda 1300 as "car of the year", there was therefore great embarrassment. That issue was hidden from me and no mention was made of it until many years later.

We were there only for a year or so but we had lots of fun ribbing one-another and laughing at many things generally so we have kept in contact ever since.

And with the arrival of the internet we were able to create a "virtual" WPR, with frequent emails exchanged: almost entirely of a jocular or even nonsensical nature. We even have a sort of strange language that we use only between one-another.

We have rarely met again in the flesh, however. But today we did. Croucher is on sick leave from his university lecturing job in China so took the opportunity to visit friends and relatives in Brisbane.

We met for lunch at the Cafe San Marco at Southbank, a pleasant but rather expensive place to eat. And for about 3 hours we sat and traded a mixture of serious and jocular conversation. The conversation was very discursive so I doubt that any of us could remember much of it except that we enjoyed it just as we did in times past. We did talk a lot about philosophy and I was able to enlighten Henningham on why we have 7 days in the week but other details are already lost to me.

It was just as it was in the days of the original WPR. We amused one-another just as we have always done for 40 years on and off.

Update:

I am reminded that other topics discussed were Henry VIII, the extent to which complex philosophical theories can be reduced to a sentence or two and the relationship between the underground and the state-sponsored forms of the Catholic church in China -- so we can be serious too.

Joe is now 23

Joe was too busy at university to celebrate his birthday on the actual day so instead invited friends and family to join him at "Sizzlers" on Saturday night. Being Saturday night, the queue to place our orders was pretty tedious but it was clear why Joe chose that venue. He has not lost his teenage appetite and made great inroads into the buffet food there. Anne did pretty well too.

As usual, Joe's friends were noticebly "multicultural" and we even had with us an attractive Korean lady with chopsticks in her hair. (I have noticed that some Western women also do their hair that way but I have never been game to ask why). Clearly, the only prejudice Joe has is in favour of intelligence and his Asian friends of course are examples of that.

Joe seems fully back on track with his doctoral studies in mathematics, which I was very pleased to hear. I think he has his future pretty well-sorted out now.

Joe doesn't have quite the right "look" for a mathematician. Brilliant mathematicians tend to be either Han Chinese or Jewish and Joe's completely Nordic looks are at variance with that (though some Jews also look completely Nordic, of course. I have met several. The Book of Ruth may be relevant). But whether Joe makes a great mathematician or not his pleasant personality should get him to be the head of a university Mathematics Department one day -- and that is where the best money is anyway.

Below is a picture of Grigory Perelman, a brilliant Russian Jewish mathematician who finally proved a very difficult mathematical conjecture of long standing. He was awarded great sums in prize-money for his achievements but refused it all on the grounds that he already had all he needed -- even though he is reputed to live in great squalor.



Joe is not like that. Though he does have a beard -- a RED beard. Could be that being a bluebeard is just as good as being Chinese or Jewish, I guess.

Another birthday down!

I am now definitely 67!

Anne came over on Thursday and cooked me one of my favourite dinners: Roast pork. It went down well. I even ate all my potatoes, which I often do not! We had a bottle of good Australian red to wash it down. Anne brought over some chocolately desserts as well but I was too full to have any.

She also gave me a large and very warm blue dressing gown in anticipation of my future visits to hospitals. A bit of realism at my age.

And on Saturday Jenny gave me a lunch at her place, as she usually does. Tandoori chicken was the main feature of the meal, which was appreciated by all. There were some great desserts as well.

The twins and Joe were all in attendance but the star of the occasion was young Sahara. She was the cynosure of all eyes, as the saying goes. It's so long since we have had a baby in the family that it was a great pleasure to see her. There's a picture of her, myself and mother Susan below



Vonnie is also pregnant at the moment so there was much talk of babies and maternity.

I did however get to have a good chat to Joe about his future plans for his Ph.D. studies and was pleased to find that he had it all pretty well sorted-out in his mind now.

My birthday week begins

I usually have several kind people help me celebrate my birthday -- on the day, before the day and after the day. This year Jill got in first -- giving me an excellent lunch of pasta and seafood followed by strawberries and cream

Anne and I Humbered out to Riverhills but we did not go to Jill's own place because she has it up for sale and it was "open for inspection". Instead we went to Lewis's place, which is nearby,

Lewis has a very attractive apartment which has had a few modifications done to it as a result of a stroke he had a year or two ago. One of the modifications was that they fitted "elephant's feet" to his settee, which raised it up about 9" further off the ground. I was much taken with that as my old bones are a bit creaky too and it does help you to get up. I can see elephant's feet in my future too.

I got a very good bonus of books also this year. Jill will be moving house soon so her late husband's theological library has become rather surplus to requirements. I had for many years had my eye on one book in it: A student's edition of the Septuagint (The OLD Testament in ancient Greek). Anne must have thought she had a very strange bloke in one who wanted a copy of the Old Testament in Greek! But I think she expects eccentricities from me by now.

Anyway, Jill gave me a lot of first-rate Bible-study books, including the Septuagint. One book she gave me was a very early copy of Cruden's concordance, which was originally published in the 18th century. The copy Jill gave me was published in 1828 so is not a first edition but it looks very much like it might be off the same plates as the first edition. So it is something of a treasure. It is in a pretty battered condition so I don't foresee using it much. I normally use Strong's Exhaustive concordance anyhow. But it is nice to have such an historic book.

I also got another book I had rather coveted: Liddell & Scott's Greek lexicon. I normally use Abbott-Smith but it covers New Testament Greek only. An unexpected bonus was the Bagster Analytical Greek Lexicon, which I had vaguely heard of but never seen before. It gives every case of every noun in full. Most useful if your Greek grammar is shaky. Mine is virtually non-existent but I struggle on if there is an important exegetical point to explore.

I also got some commentaries, including a whole volume on Isaiah and one on Revelations. Both will be handy as both those Bible books have plenty that is open to interpretation and I am sure I can learn much from the scholars who have gone before me.

A dinner with kids

On Tuesday evenings I generally go over to Anne's place for dinner. Last Tuesday was a little different, however. Her son Byron and family joined us. It was good to see the kids: Koen aged nearly 5 and Ethan aged 2 1/2. As usual Koen was pretty quiet but Ethan was something of an extravert: A very bright and lively little boy. They both liked a humming top that Anne had bought for them to play with. Its hum changed notes as it got slower or faster and that was given rapt attention. Byron had some fun with it too!

The boys' colouring is a bit unexpected. Both parents have dark hair and brown eyes but Koen has blue eyes and Ethan has blond hair! Their mother is Dutch, however, so that was not entirely unexpected.

Anne played safe and served up a very traditional meal: Meat pie plus boiled peas and carrot.

An ancestral centenary

On this day in 1910 my grandparents on my mother's side were married. See the photo below. He looks a rather handsome devil and the ladies were clearly into big hats even then.



The couple were Joseph and Margaret and he was the eldest son of another Joseph. The Josephs are clearly hard to get away from. That my second name is Joseph and that my son is Joseph rather reinforces that impression. And my convict ancestor was Joseph too.

Maybe I should make a donation to the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. It is an Australian order, after all. And my son Joseph went to a school named after their founder.

Like father like son

Most of us manage to get on well with all sorts of people. It's a mark of maturity to do so. But it also sometimes helps to be among people to whom you are genetically related. Joe and I are a good example of that. People often remark how much of me they see in him. And it's behavior rather than looks that they are talking about. Luckily for him, he's got his mother's looks rather than mine.

And it does get amusing at times. When he did his first university course he went to lectures in the same building where I went for most of my lectures and probably in fact sat in a classroom that I had sat in 40 years before.

And driving home from university one night during that time he had his first car accident: Of roughly the same sort and in roughly the same spot where I had had my second car accident whilst also driving home from university. So he got amusement rather than criticism over that.

And today he drove up in his Toyota Corolla with a noticeable scratch along the rear of one side of it. Since I had bought him the car, one might have expected me to be peeved -- but not so. I pointed out that I had scratched my car in roughly the same way in roughly the same spot on the car. Resemblances can get a bit eerie at times.

June's birthday

Anne's sister June has just had a birthday and we foregathered to celebrate it on Sunday evening, starting at 5pm, rather to my surprise. Anne cooked up a big leg of lamb and we had it with the usual gravy, mint sauce, potatoes etc. It went down very well. I was on the wagon and Anne's sister Merle is teetotal but the others had white wine with the dinner.

Present were Anne and myself, June and Colin and Merle and Ralph. The discussion was lively and at one stage I even recited some Chaucer -- in Middle English, of course. That always leaves everyone rather stunned but I have to be in a certain mood to do it. Jovial company helps.

Baby Sahara in her walker

She clearly loves her walker. All kids do.

The do-gooders rail against them as "unsafe" and the like but don't the kid's feelings count for anything?

Both Joey and Davey fell down flights of stairs in their walkers but babies are pretty rubbery so they came to no harm. I think it shows that parents like to please their children if they give their kid a walker.

Where I grew up it was almost a rite of passage for teenagers and young men to fall off a motorbike and break a leg. I did so myself. But the fun of riding motorbikes was worth it. I see falling down stairs in a walker in a similar light.

But there are no stairs where Sahara lives so there will be no problems for her.

A great gentleman

With much sadness I report that a great gentleman passed away this morning. He was by occupation a sawmill worker but he was one of those natural gentlemen you often used to find in country Australia. My father was one too.

I am not sure how I would define a gentleman formally but an unassuming man who instinctively does his best to put other people at their ease would certainly score highly -- and Bill was one of those. He was the second husband of Anne's mother -- married after Anne's father died at a relatively young age.

Bill was 93 and slipped quietly away -- with the primary cause being cancer. He was much loved by those who knew him well and despite my having known him only a little, the quality of the man was always evident to me and I feel keenly how sad it is for the world and his family to have lost such a great gentleman

Requiescat in pace Reginald William Wilkinson

A birthday dinner

I hosted a small gathering to celebrate Jenny's birthday on Thursday. We dined at an Indian restaurant she likes near where she lives.

Present were Jenny, Nanna, Joe, Anne and myself. The dinner was good as always and I brought along a bottle of Seaview "champagne" for toasts.

Joe however didn't want to drink his champagne so Anne got it -- as she was the only one not driving and Nanna was on some medication. I used not to like champagne either so I was not surprised by Joe's reaction. He says that Scotch is his drink. I am mostly a Scotch drinker too.

Joe seemed in good spirits and that was probably in part due to the fact that his recent breakup with Samantha was amicable. I have mostly managed amicable breakups too.

Jenny told us a bit about her recent adventures down in Sydney when she went to see Paul and Sue off on their world trip aboard an ocean liner. We talked quite a lot about the dragon Japanese lady who runs "Wafu" -- Sydney's best Sushi restaurant -- where Jenny, Paul and Sue dined just before the departure. The lady is Yukako Ichikawa and she is famous for demanding that her customers eat up everything on their plates. As her food is so good, however, people are prepared to be bossed around a bit.

The "Nazi" Pope

I originally wrote the piece below for my DISSECTING LEFTISM blog, but as it was written with considerable personal feeling, I thought it might have some place here as well



I am not going to say one thing below that is original. But it always appalls me when people believe the opposite of the truth and I have to speak up about it.

Eugenio Pacelli was a small but determined man of great intelligence and high principle. He became Pope Pius XII in 1939 and was Pope throughout WWII. He had been papal nuncio in Germany for many years prior to that and came to speak perfect German -- a remarkable achievement for an Italian who had all his education in Italy. During his time in Germany he saw of course the rise of Nazism and regularly condemned it in no uncertain terms.

In 1937 he wrote on behalf of Pius XI the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning sorrow") -- a condemnation of Nazi persecution of non-Nazis. Encyclicals are usually written in Latin so writing this encyclical in German showed how determined the church was to speak up on behalf of all those being oppressed by the Nazis.

The tiny minority of Pacelli's critics who have some knowledge of history sometimes point to the fact that in his role as nuncio, Pacelli was responsible for a Konkordat with the German Federal government that was signed in 1933. Pacelli's job was to arrange concordats (agreements) with various governments that would safeguard the independence of church schools, allow the preaching of Catholic doctrine etc. And he did in fact achieve many such agreements, an agreement with the Southern German (and very Catholic) State of Bayern (Bavaria) being one of the earliest. German Laender, were, like American States today, substantially independent and had their own legal and school systems etc.

Pacelli had been trying for some time to get such an agreement with the Federal German government but had always been knocked back. When Hitler came to power, however, he was keen to legitimate himself so he changed the prior Federal stance and signed up. At that stage Hitler was simply the newly-elected German Kanzler (Prime Minister) and there was of course no knowledge of his future deeds. So how was Pacelli at fault about that? It may be noted that when Mit brennender Sorge was issued Hitler broke his agreements in the Konkordat and persecuted Catholic clergy. So the arrangement of a Konkordat was a wise precaution, even if it was a precaution that ultimately failed.

Pacelli did however learn from what happened when Mit brennender Sorge was issued. When war broke out, Pacelli fell largely silent. He saw that he would probably bring down further persecution of the church by adding to his existing criticisms of Nazism. Instead he concentrated on deeds rather than words. The Vatican became a lifeline for endangered Jews. It supplied money to get them out of Germany and false ID documents saying that they were Christians. And note that this was at a time when the church regarded the Jews as enemies. In the theology of the time, the Jews had killed the Catholics' God and that was one hell of a bad way to start a friendship.

And when the Germans came to Italy itself, Pacelli rose to even greater efforts. He exempted monasteries and nunneries from their normal rules so that they could take in and hide Jews that the Nazis were pursuing. Even his own summer residence at Castel Gandolfo was said at one time to be hiding 3,000 Jews, though nobody knows the exact number.

And this is the man whom many Leftists refer to as "Hitler's Pope"! So why the lie? Why is this exceptionally fine man "controversial"?

Easy: Soviet disinformation. As we all know, the church utterly opposed "Godless" Communism and the Soviets rightly perceived the Vatican as an important enemy. So the Soviets and their fellow travellers in the West put about this abominable lie that Pacelli was antisemitic and sympathetic to the Nazis. And it suits the anti-Christian stance of modern-day Leftists to believe it too.

So it grieves me greatly that this true man of God is taken for the opposite of what he was. The world needs more men like Eugenio Pacelli -- perhaps now more than ever. Even I as an atheist salute him.

There is an interesting story here about how one man finally broke through the lies and found out the truth about Pacelli.