Mousetrapped

After 60 years playing  in London, Agatha  Christie's "Mousetrap" rather  amazingly came to Brisbane  -- so I had to go.

I am a bit deaf even with my hearing aids in so  I missed a lot of the finer points   but I understood enough to follow the main points.  With its evocation of a snowed-in London and mention of child abuse,  it could have been written in London yesterday

I did guess correctly who the villain was and there were many fine points of staging and dialogue that kept the audience amused.

An odd point about the production was that everybody shouted at one-another all the time  -- which is most un-English.  I think that contributed to my incomprehension.

I would have thought that amplification of normally-spoken voices would have been much better.  And supertext would have been a boon.  There were a lot of elderly people in the audience who also most likely had age-related hearing loss.

Another lunch with Joe

We again got together to finish off watching the family videos.  We lunched first at my Buranda haunt. During lunch and after the videos we had chats about various things, mostly secret men's business!

One thing I went to some length about was to tell Joe that the only ambition I had for him was for him to be happy.  I believe he will do well as an academic but I would think no less of him if he did not.

I once said to Ken that I didn't care if Joe earned his living as an academic or by playing piano in a Jazz dive.  To Joe's amusement, I told him what Ken said in response:  "That sounds wonderful!"  So Ken thought that being a Jazz pianist was at least as good as being an academic.  Joe and I agreed that Ken's view was as good as any.

We also talked a bit about my biography and the skim milk diet I went on in the 60s.  In my Psychology IV class at that time (1967) we had lectures from the very popular Prof. Butz Olsen (formally Otto Egede Budtz Olsen), a professor of physiology.  Prof. Butz liked to ramble a bit  -- which was part of his popularity -- and one thing he told us was that the liquid diet being given to American astronauts at that time had a very similar composition to skimmed milk.  He therefore had been living on skim milk for some months to try it out -- supplemented by a daily glass of beer and a daily glass of orange juice.  Plus some whole milk for the fat-soluble vitamins.  So Butz really was a lovable eccentric.

I told Joe that I had done the same for about 6 months and had bought a 56lb sack of powdered skim milk from the local South Brisbane milk factory for the purpose.  It was a very cheap way to eat and so I lived on about 60c a week at the time.  Joe is very interested in diet so took a keen interest in all that.

There is actually a video of Butz talking about his life here.  There is also a very brief bio of him here

A 95th!

Anne's mother has just turned 95 and is still mentally with it but physically frail of course.  Such an occasion could not go without celebration of course so we had a small party in the BBQ area of the nursing home late yesterday afternoon

The ladies all brought along their specialties for the party food and we had quite a good fruit punch to wash it down:  Anne brought  along one of her sandwich specialties  -- Hungarian open  sandwiches with Liptauer cheese spread.  Rather peskily,  Anne has to make her own Liptauer as it is not on sale anywhere in Brisbane that we know of.  Anne got it just right this time, however.

It was a very Presbyterian occasion -- no alcohol and no music -- which I entirely approved of.  Having myself once been a very strict Protestant, I am still at home with that outlook.

There were about 12 people present plus 3 littlies aged between 2 and 4.  It was a great pleasure to see the littlies doing what littlies do:  Running around like mad things.  They had a great time and we had a great time watching them.

Anne and her two sisters were present plus attached menfolk.  I talked mostly to Ralph as I usually do.  I think he is a real gent and is still pretty good at age 80.

I was a little bit hypnotized by one of Anne's nieces once removed. Zenia is a tall blue-eyed blonde university student with the emphasis on tall.  She arrived wearing short denim shorts that revealed what I think are the best pair of legs I have ever seen.  She could have stepped out of a fashion magazine. "Legs that go on forever" certainly describes Zenia.  I was pleased to see that she also seemed very self-confident and relaxed in the setting.  Confidence is a great asset and a pretty good predictor of strong mental health.

Lunch and videos with Joe

Joe and I had lunch at my usual haunt and we went back to my place to look at some videos I had made about 20 years earlier.  The first was a video of some bits of advice I wanted to leave with Joe in case I died when he was young and the second was family home movies in  which he was the star -- starting when he was about 6 months old and ending when he was 3.  There were of course some amusing bits and Joe got to see himself during a time that he had almost entirely forgotten.  He actually came out as a rather wise child  -- certainly a cautious one anyway.

Joe was far from the only one in the video and little Timmy came across as rather gorgeous and we both enjoyed Paul's early views on girls.

Pics from NZ

In the belief that some of the many  beautiful pics Von sends us from NZ might gain appreciation outside the family, I occasionally put some up on Facebook accompanied by my comments. Here are the latest:



My comments:  Little lambs are cuddly.  And they inspired one of the greatest poems in English -- by Blake.  But in no time at all you have a large SHEEP instead



My comments:  A little Dutch girl with her Dutch grandfather.  She's eating peas fresh from the garden.  In New Zealand.  Such a kind face. No wonder she loves her "Poppy".

Christmas

I got up too late to go to church.  Had a leisurely breakfast of croissants and jam with Anne instead.  I am rather nonplussed at how early most of the Christmas church sevices are.  There is a rather nice Anglican church just one block away from where I live but their Christmas service is at 7am!  Whom are they kidding?  At least it is 9:30am at the cathedral.  When I used to be a regular at Presbyterian services in the '60s, the morning service began at 11am!  Much more civilized.

I got to the family Christmas do at Paul's place at about noon and talked mainly to Joe.

The lunch was ham plus roast lamb plus roast chicken, all of which were good.

After lunch Paul skyped Vonnie in from NZ and we all had a chat with her. I missed seeing her at the do on 23rd.  Practically all the family were there except her.  So it was good to catch up.  I discovered that I had bought Hannah a bicycle with trainer wheels for Christmas, which she really liked.  I just tell people (mainly Jenny) to buy whatever they think fit as presents from me and I just pay, which is a very satisfactory arrangement for all concerned.  I have selected some great gifts that way!

The biggest excitement for the day (aside from seeing Von) was the dessert:  Trifle PLUS  Pavlova -- two of my favourites.

I found Timmy lying flat on the floor of the billiards room at one stage.  I think he had been bending the elbow a bit much.  But otherwise everybody just sat around talking.  It was a relaxing and congenial party rather than an eventful one.

About 3pm Joe and I left for my place and we had chats over a  cup of tea on my verandah -- discussing "secret men's business".  I was pleased that he seems to have no money problems.  He lives on his scholarship income without difficulty.  I have always been that way too.  We also discovered a few more parallels between our lives -- things that I did when I was younger and similar things that he has done recently.

Joe has taken a great interest in diet, health and fitness in recent times so he told me a bit more about that.  He seems to be  putting it into practice in a reasonable way.  He certainly looks fit.


Hannah on her new bike

Big Christmas lunch

Suz and Russell put on a traditional Christmas lunch today that also featured what has become a family tradition:  A secret Santa event plus a mystery present event.  Everybody brings along a wrapped $10 present for the latter event and people draw lots to select a present one after the other.   And presents can be claimed from  previous lot-drawers, which is always a high-spirited event.

And after that we had the kiddy present event, where only the little ones got presents.  For that I gave Sahara a "First Bible", which was a rather kiddy-proof collection of illustrated Bible stories.  Susan reminded me that I had given her a book of Bible stories when we sent her to the Catholic schoool in Gordonvale -- which she had good memories of.  So Saharah's "First Bible" got a good welcome.

Russ cooked some good ham and roast pork and after the present hi-jinks we had a variety of dessert offerings.  I plumped for the trifle as usual.

Simon was seated across from me at the dinner table with Joe and Paul also in close proximity.  Simon's British background makes him surprisingly politically correct for a military man so we had an interesting discusion when we somehow got into mention of Africans.  I made some observation about the high rates of African crime and Simon asked me to what I attributed that. I replied that it was ancestral, which agitated Simon a bit.  He had been told all his life that it was "poverty" that lay behind disruptive black behaviour and saw that attribution as a moral issue:  To see any ancestral influence was immoral.

I replied along the D.P. Moynihan lines that you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts  -- pointing out that every African population everywhere was poor and crime-ridden, regardless of the quite varied social and government arrangements under which they live.  So that can be seen as a problem regardless of your opinion of its genesis.

Someone had apparently told Simon that Brazil was an example of a society without racial frictions depite its large African and mestizo population -- but I pointed out that wealth and poverty are highly correlated with skin colour there too, with blacks at the bottom, mestizos in the middle and whites running things. That seemed to wrap things up for Simon

I am quite sorry that I appear to have distressed him but "facts are chiels that winna ding", as the Scots say.  And facts have the last say as far as I am concerned.  Paul was quite pleased that I just presented the facts in a calm and dispassionate way as he sees no moral issues in the matter either.


The festive table


Ava Marie was looking pretty in her red frock


Everybody loves Dusty but there's no love like mother love

Dinner with Joe

Joe mostly lives in Canberra so opportunities for us to get together for a chat are few.  Last night, however,  I shouted him a dinner at my usual Greek restaurant, including beer.  I think it is the first time I have had a beer with my son so that is a bit of a landmark.

He arrived at my place about 5:30 pm so before we left I took the opportunity to play him my latest audio discovery:  An immaculate performance of Beethoven's piano concerto no. 5 with Emil Gilels as soloist.  It reduced me to tears (of joy) when first I heard it.



Fortunately, Joe likes classical music too.  Here is another audio treasure I must also play him some time soon.  An amazing performance of Bedrich Smetana's "Vltava" by two Japanese ladies.



Amazing what you can do with a Steinway.  Joe is himself a pianist so he may have a particular appreciation of both above works.

Anyway, Joe told me a lot about his life in Canberra over dinner, which  I was interested to hear.  I offered various words of advice at different stages but, as usual, he had already arrived at similar conclusions by himself.  He and I are quite different in personality and appearance but the mental similarities are considerable.

After dinner we went back to my place and had a cup of tea with some Smetana selections playing in the background.  Joe asked me quite a bit about my recollections of times past and there were a few laughs in that!  I myself find it rather amazing that I wore platform heels in the 70s!

A Christening

Matthew is now a Catholic.  Neither Paul nor Susan are religious but Susan was brought up a Catholic so liked the idea of her son  following in her footsteps.  I also pointed out to Paul that religion can be helpful at giving direction to young people so, despite his own lack of background, Paul was quite happy to give Matthew that identity.  Ken has always been basically anti-religious but even he came along to the ceremony.  So Matthew had all four grandparents along to witness his introduction into the church.

Joe acted as godfather and a Filipina lady who is Susan's stepmother acted as godmother.  Both were very pleased to do so.  Joe became a Catholic by choice and religion was his best subject at school! Like a lot of Catholics he is pretty "lapsed" these days, however.

Matthew is only one-and-a-bit years old but he's more the size of an average two year old.  Having a 6' tall mother is responsible for a lot of that.  So when his godmother was holding him during the blessing, it was a bit amusing.  Like almost all Filipinas she is a little lady of only about 5' tall and Matthew looked quite a lump for her to be carrying.

The church at Kedron was quite nice.  It was modern without being too modern -- something that only Catholics seem to be able to carry off in their church designs.  Modern Protestant churches usually look horrible to me.  I like some old-fashioned dignity in a church building.

The service was conducted by a young priest from Vietnam.  There is such a lack of vocations in Australia that the church is now very dependent on clergy from overseas.

Matthew didn't much like getting the chrism put on his forehead but he liked the font.  He managed to get his hand in and have a bit of a splash at one point.  The priest poured quite a bit of water on his head (affusion), slightly to my surprise.  Most Protestants just give you a sprinkling (aspersion), I think (Baptists excepted, of course).

I gave Matthew about a dozen old boy's books as a baptismal present.  Paul wants him to be a reader and the old books have plenty of good yarns in them.  They are the sort of books I read as a boy.

After the service, we adjourned to Susan's father's place for a BBQ, where we got plenty of good food and had lots of chats. With Joe in town we wanted to hear from him and it was a good occasion to do so.  Joe has put himself on a "Paleo" diet and it seems to suit him.  There is no fat on him.  He also does gym, boxing, weightlifting etc so he is in very good shape physically.  Unusual for a mathematician, I think.

Someone asked me today about the difference between a Christening and a baptism.  And the answer is that "Christening" is the popular term for what happens when you take your kid to get baptised.  But a Christening actually includes two rites (a rite is a church ceremony):  The rite of Chrismation and the rite of Baptism.  Chrismation is when the kid gets the holy axle-grease spread on his forehead.  So most people are not aware of it but there is a difference in meaning between the two terms.


Receiving the affusion (He got a taste of the holy water)


With parents and Godparents


A strong likeness between Matthew and his maternal grandmother

A third car

At my stage in life, I don't like driving very much but I have somehow become the owner of 3 cars.  I have had the Echo since 2005 and that is what I mainly drive but I also have my 1963 Humber Super Snipe for Sunday driving

Anne has however just bought a new car -- a Corolla -- and the car dealer offered her only $500 for her 1998 Toyota Starlet, which rather upset her as she has found it a very good car.  So I upped the offer and bought it off her instead.  Fixing minor problems, re-registering it and insuring it however cost me a bit too  -- but not as much as I expected.

But in the end I think I got a good car very cheaply and have set it aside for Joe to drive whenever he is in Brisbane.  By my count that is 4 cars I have given him but the first two were on their last legs.  He never asks for things but he has an indulgent father.  It doesn't seem to have spoilt him.



Anyway, arranging the insurance and changing the registration took Anne and me most of the morning, which I had predicted  but certainly did not enjoy.  There must be a simpler way!  It's amazing the questions insurance companies ask and everybody knows about the long lines of people waiting to talk to government car registration agencies.

Joe, Anne and I had lunch together at my usual haunt before I handed over the car and Joe filled us in a bit about his life in the ACT.

Tonight I shouted Anne a dinner at a restaurant we like to make up for all the aggravation during the day.  They have very cold beer there, which drags me in rather often now that it is summer.  One of the food items I ordered was Nachos.  It came with a pink topping comprised of sweet chilli sauce combined with sour cream.  It tasted great!

A welcome home

Anne put on a lunch for the weary travellers just returned from the USA and UK -- Paul, Susan and Matthew

Anne made  some very good ham sandwiches to her own recipe which went down rapidly -- and she followed that up with some mini-Pavlovas topped with mango, cream etc.

We talked mainly about the big trip and Paul seemed to like Scotland best of all the places he visited.  We also talked about British public schools and the possibility of Matthew being sent to one in due course.

Matthew had of course forgotten me completely so seemed a bit scared of me at first but he soon got over that.  He had great fun with a pink balloon which entertained us all.  He sure is a little livewire.


But that was not the end of the day's social activities.  That night Joe rang me to say that officialdom required my birth certificate as part of his application for a passport.  I think they dream up these things just to make life difficult for people.  There was no such requirement for around 100 years so why now?

Anyway I scrabbled around and found a copy of the certificate and ran it over to Joe at Jenny's place.  And while I was there we all had a cup of tea and discussed family trusts, real estate, divorce etc.

Dr Cotter, the local doctor during my childhood in Innisfail

Probably the greatest misfortune of my life occurred at a time when I was totally unaware of it.

I have frequently-occurring skin cancers, far more frequent than anything my parents ever had.  White people growing up in the tropics do tend to suffer a lot from skin cancer  -- mostly BCCs and SCCs -- as fair skin of Northern European origin (particularly Irish skin) is not at all suited to the direct sunlight of the tropics. The grey skies of England, Scotland and Ireland are its natural habitat.

But my frequency of BCCs and SCCs is extreme.  I have at least  half a dozen procedures a year to zap the worst of them.

So how come?  How come I get them so badly?  The answer is rather clear.  In about the first two thirds of the 20th century lots of kids were given low doses of arsenic for various reasons.  One such preparation was "Bell's compound" cough syrup.  It appears to have originated in the USA but was very popular for a while in Queensland.  And its legacy years later, for those who had a lot of it, is arsenic-weakened skin that frequently degenerates into  cancer.

And I had a lot of upper respiratory ailments as a kids, largely due, I think, to the fact that I have a deflected septum.  I was not in fact given Bell's compound but rather Dr Cotter's own "pink mixture" which would appear to have reflected the popular wisdom of the day about the utility of arsenic in combating coughs and colds.  So the fact that I had a LOT of it has come back to haunt me.  The toxicity of everything is in the dose so for most people the arsenic probably did no harm.  It's only when arsenic builds up that the harm occurs.

So Doctor Cotter unwittingly harmed me.  He died in 1972 so it is too late to remonstrate with him now and he was in fact a distinguished medical scientist in his day.  He was in fact responsible for eliminating Weil's disease from the sugarcane industry. Seeing my father was a canecutter for a while Dr Cotter may well have also done me a great favour.  The biography of Timothy John Patrick Cotter  is here.  He was of Irish Catholic origins and an opponent of government-run healthcare.  As the bio notes, he was an early adopter of sulfonamides  and I do remember his prescription of "M&Bs"

Why don't all Greenies move to New Zealand?

I put this up on one of my daily blogs (Greenie Watch) but I thought perhaps it had a place here too:

New Zealand has a-plenty the sort of clean Green life that Greenies claim they want while also being a modern country where you can drink the water and speak English to everyone.  An excerpt from a private blog written by a mother who has moved to a small town in New Zealand:

"The vege garden is another place my and Simon's time disappears into -- as we plant, weed & fertilise our pretty vast garden in the hope of having a large enough crop so we always have access to fresh organic veges whenever we like.  It is an amazingly liberating feeling to have control of our food sources and we are learning more and more everyday about what it means to be a vege and fruit gardener.  Also stay tuned as my Roses have just started to flower.. They are BEAUTIFUL!!

Last Monday the Playcentre organised a trip to a farm which is owned by one of the Playcentre families.  The farm was HUGE and on arrival we all met and drove up to the cow milking shed.  We had a tour then headed to a paddock which contained some pigs and also a herd of calves.  There were great hay piles to climb and we enjoyed watching the calves being fed by a big trailer full of milk covered in teats for the calves to suckle.  We then had some morning tea near the farm houses and then fed some lambs.  Once that was done we headed to the farm owner's house and enjoyed a sausage sizzle and the kids played together in the large back yard and tennis court.  We also had a celebration for one of the boys who is turning 5 which means  he starts school.  Kids start school on their 5th birthday in New Zealand which I feel is a nice way to transition the kids into school."

And the little two-year old girl in the family loves the lambs her family has adopted (Below)



I don't think Greenies know what they want

Lunch with Joe

Joe arrived back in Brisbane yesterday so we had lunch together today.  I  wanted to tell him a few things that you only learn from experience about Ph.D. studies, so that he could cruise through his.  I also wanted to sort out a few things about my will and was pleased that Joe looked forward to inheriting the Humber.  We also talked about me selling my present house  as I should be able to make a better job of that than Paul and Joe would after my death.  So it was mainly a fairly serious conversation.

We lunched at my usual brunch haunt in Buranda

The first "Frank" Ray

Picture of him above.  His full name was Edward Arthur Walter Francis Burnside Ray.  Burnside was his (convict) mother's maiden surname so it looks like it just got in as an afterthought amid all that clutter.  Family tradition is however that he was normally known as "Frank", and his grandson (my father) was named Frank after him.  My father recollected him as a bit of a villain (Taking timber logs off crown land, for instance) and a press cutting has come to light which may give some substance to that. The 1884 government Gazette tells us:

"Edward Arthur Walter Francis Burnside RAY, alias Frank Ray, is charged, on warrant issued by the Cooktown Bench, with deserting his wife Elizabeth, of that place, on the 19th ultimo. Description :--A native of New South Wales, 38 years of age. 6 feet high, medium build, dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers, moustache, and beard (the latter turning grey), hazel eyes, follows the occupation of sawyer or bullock-driver; wore light tweed trousers and coat, white helmet hat with black band. He left Cooktown by the S.S. "Maranoa" or “Quiraing" on the 19th ultimo, and it is believed he will go to New Guinea.
4th August, 1884."

Of interest is that the clipping confirms that he was popularly known as Frank and that he was 6' tall.  Seeing his mother, Anne Jane, was only 4'9 3/4" tall that is a surprise  Her short stature must have been due to early nutritional deficiency. His father was a sawyer so that fits.  And his father Joseph (Height 5 ft 6 and a half inches) had hazel eyes too. "Frank" was born at Narellan in Sydney in 1844, so his NSW origin is also correct.

Note that the Quiraing is a landslip on the eastern face of Meall na Suiramach, the northernmost summit of the Trotternish Ridge on the Isle of Skye.  So the ship had a Scottish Gaelic name.  It's not a misprint.  The Government Gazette got it right.

And in the Cairns post of 29 August, 1891 we read:

On Thursday, a bullock driver named Frank Ray, in the employ of Lyons and Downey, Myola, met with a nasty accident through a cask of cement rolling on him.  Dr. Dobie was called in, who found the man's leg badly fractured and he, after doing the needful, advised the removal of the patient to Cairns hospital.

Myola is on the outskirts of Kuranda in Far North Queensland and the Warren family were also there at the time.  Frank probably knew Bob Warren.  His son and Bob's daughter married, from whence my father sprang.

And in the Morning Post of April 23, 1901 we read.

Mr Frank Ray

The  Post is pleased to learn that Mr Frank Ray, the well-known timber getter is recovering satisfactorily after two severe operations performed by Dr. Koch.

My father was also a timber getter (lumberjack in American parlance).  Timber getters were normally independent contractors rather than employees so Frank was in effect a prominent businessman in his little pond.

The above excerpts came to me by the courtesy of the inestimable Silvia, wife of Peter Fletcher, a determined explorer of "Trove", the Australian government's online record of early newspapers..

Finally, I put up below a picture of Elizabeth Ann Ray, (nee Holt), who was born at Bury in Lancashire in 1859.  She was Frank's wife and hence my great grandmother.  Does the picture suggest why he might have shot through on her at one stage?

More from the archives

The "horns" episode has energized me to scrabble around in my portful of photos for ones that go back a long way.

And here is one when I was about 4 and my sister Jacqueline 2.  Colour photography was in its infancy then so they took the photos in B&W, developed them in sepia and then hand-coloured them.  I am sorry to say that the sepia in the photo below is now coming through in spots but at least the scanned copy should stay stable



And below is a real treasure:  It is my father aged 2 in 1917  They had a custom back then of dressing little boys like little girls but I can only speculate why. We had a few laughs about it at home every few years and I enquired why but my parents simply said it was the custom then.   On the back is written (presumably by his mother):  "My dear little Frank, Xmas, 1917"



And I suppose wedding photos are fair game here.  Below is the wedding photo for my parents.  My mother and father are on the Left, followed by my  father's brother Hal, my mother's sister Maude and Robert Nankerville [Nankevell?]. The Nankervilles were family friends and there was a convict Nankerville in the early days.



I have another wedding photo in which my father is looking particularly spiffing.  He is on the far right.  It is the wedding photo of my uncle Hal and his wife Dorothy.  That attractive lady beside my father would have to be his sister Lucy and the guy in the middle would be the father of the bride.



And, finally, when I was going through everything, I came across  this nice photo of my second wife Joy in her bumble-bee bikini:   Taken at Peregian beach on our honeymoon.

More from the old days

The photo below denotes considerable pride.  Jack Ray (in the middle of  photo) often used his team to "snig" (drag) out of the bush (forest) some of the huge trees they cut down in those days.  He also felled trees himself and I suspect that he both cut and moved the monster in the photo.  Jack was about 6' tall so that is the diameter of the tree



Imagine cutting down a huge tree with just an axe and a crosscut saw then imagine getting it to the railhead with bullocks pulling it along an unmade bush track and you will see the reason for the pride behind the photo.  Those guys were not supermen so it is rather amazing what they accomplished with just brains and doggedness.  They understood the challenges they took on and rose to them.  And they were just ordinary men.  Jack never went to school but was taught at home to read and write.

The second photo is of my grandmother's father Bob Warren.  He was a dairy farmer among other things and at one stage moved his herd via ship from Kuranda to Home Hill.  I have an idea he got some sort of land grant at Home Hill. The farmhouse and creamery at Kuranda is in the background, which I believe he built himself.  He was also a carpenter.



The photo above appears to be from 1909 and an interesting thing is that we actually still know the names of the beasts in the picture.  Their animals were like people to their owners in those days. Bob is with his bull "Sultan" and the cow in the picture is the prize-winning "Coconut".  In the background is "Bluebell".  I think it was Vin Warren (Bob's youngest son) who gave us those details.  He knew those animals himself.  I was looking at a picture of another one of Bob's cows at one stage and Vin said:  "That's Buttercup".  I asked how he knew which cow it was.  "By the curl in her tail" he answered.  The animals were all real individuals to him.  He remembered them like people.

The photo was taken at Myola, near Kuranda in North Queensland.

I actually remember Bob Warren myself.  We visited them at Home Hill when I was about 6 and he gave me a penny.  Even at that time the amount seemed small but he was an old man then and a penny would have bought a lot in his youth.

Vin's sister, Annie, my grandmother, died young and her death was deeply felt in the family.  Vin would have been in his 80's when I asked him:  "And what sort of person was she, Vin?  He replied:  "She was a lovely person".  And his eyes filled with tears.  So I too now feel grief about the death of a person whom I never knew.  But she was my grandmother so maybe that is allowed.



Grandfather Jack Ray and grandmother Annie nee Warren

Did my brother grow up in a drain?

In a conversation recently, my brother said he grew up in a drain. That amused me  -- not least because it is true.

So what are we talking about here?  Bombay, Calcutta or some Third World slum?  Not at all.  We both grew up in a spacious three bedroom house with all mod cons in the pleasant Australian city of Cairns.

99% of what my brother was talking about is explained by the picture below  -- a photo I took myself about 50 years ago.  It shows the local kids playing in a stormwater drain out the front of our house in Cairns.



Kids in the photo are: Nolene Kelso in red raincoat, Ray Kelso standing on the bank.  In the water are my sister Roxanne, brother Chris and Carl Foster, from Fosters auto spares, next door.  Geoff Michna wasn't there that day!

Chris says that for most of the year the drain was quite "yucky" but was a fantastic place to play after the tropical storms came and the flood waters washed it clean and filled it up .

Note also from the foreground that we grew up in a house with a white picket fence  -- which is, according to our "intellectuals, an unimaginable horror  -- though I have no idea why.  I have subsequently put up a few white picket fences myself.

For birthdays and Christmasses these days, kids get DELUGED with plastic toys from China.  I have bought a few such toys for little kids myself at times.  But NO such toys are as remotely as satisfying to kids as a half-overgrown stormwater drain  -- particularly if you never wear shoes and are allowed to play without adult supervision.

So my brother and I were discussing that photo and what he actually said was:  "Geoffrey Michna and I grew up in that drain" -- referring to his childhood friend from a couple of doors down.  He is not in the picture above but he sure was often in the drain depicted!

Perhaps these days computer games do far more for kids than a drain ever did but I wonder.  There is no doubt of the endless fascination that drain offered to the neighbourhood kids.

So what my brother meant was that he spent many happy hours in that drain during his childhood.  He made his remark when we mentioned that the drain has long since been sent underground and so is now lost to kids forever.  It felt to Chris that an important part of his childhood had been buried.

The picture above is a bit rough but it is off a colour slide so I should be able to put up a better version of it in due course

A big trip

Being something of a hermit these days, twenty minutes is usually the maximum journey time for me.  But today I excelled myself.  I took a three hour trip to Kingaroy!

So what incentive was behind that?  Bullock horns.  Yes:  Bullock horns.

About a quarter of a century ago, I visited my father's cousin,  Alex Fletcher (now deceased), at his farm in Ban Ban springs.  And when I noted a set of bullock horns mounted in his living room, I asked after them.  And he told me that they were actually the horns of my grandfather's favourite bullock.  My grandfather and great-grandfather were both bullockies (teamsters in American parlance).  They were the heavy carriers of their day, using teams of bullocks.

And I am actually rather proud to be a descendant of bullockies.  Henry Lawson's poem "The Teams" tells you most of what you need to know about them.  Lawson portrays the men as strong silent types and that is certainly my memory of my grandfather Jack.

So when I saw the horns I thought that I should ask for them when Alex died.  I did not keep in touch, however, so was not around when Alex died.  Not long ago, however, I received an email from Peter, Alex's son.  Peter was seeking help with genealogy in general and the identification of old photographs in particular.

I mentioned the bullock horns to Peter and -- wonder of wonders -- Peter not only had taken them with him when he had to give up the family farm but actually offered to give the horns to me!  It was good luck that I hardly deserved.

So my brother Christopher and I got into his ute today and drove up to Kingaroy for a prearranged meeting with Peter.  We went to a local cafe for morning-tea/lunch and spent a lot of time looking at old family photos and trying to identify them (without much success).   I was pleased that I was able to give Peter a rarity in exchange for the horns.  It was a copy of a large old family photo, taken in about 1880, of his and my great-grandfather.



Handing over the horns.  Christopher, myself and Peter (L to R)


Peter turned out to be a very nice man and his wife too was very pleasant so it was a good  meeting.  Peter rather surprised me when he told me he liked the little jokes in the genealogy I have put on line.  People usually seem to miss most of my jokes.  It's probably a tribute to Peter's own good nature that he got them.

On the way up and back Chris and I had lots of discussions.  We rarely do that because we tend to think alike on most things so there is nothing left to say!  We are both a bit fired up over the persistence of global warming nonsense, however, so we both spent a lot of time pointing out absurdities in that theory.

When we got back to Brisbane, I left the horns in my brother's keeping.  He lives only 10 minutes drive from where I do and already has a small private museum of family mementoes so he is the obvious person to look after the horns.

Christopher took a big collection of family photos to Kingaroy with him and there were quite a few with me in them that I did not have copies of so he left the collection with me temporarily.  And out of the collection, I have reproduced one below.  It is about 60 years old and was developed in sepia.  I put it up because I think that it is the last photo in which I looked reasonably good-looking.  It has been a long slide downhill since then!



There is a larger copy of the photo  on Facebook.

I think my little brother looks rather gorgeous in the photo and he is still as good humoured to this day.  I am on the right (as ever) and my sister Jacqueline (now deceased) is in the middle.


And, last but not least, my grandfather's team



Peter, who is a cattleman, thinks that the best bullock in a team was always up the front to steady the mob.  So  the horns should be from one of the bullocks in the  photo. And he thinks that the one on the nearside of the team at the front, looks to have the same shaped horns as the set we have.  If only we knew the name of the bullock concerned.  Bullocks all had names that they were known by.

I don't know if I should comment on this ...

But I note that Britain's Daily Mail has put up very derogatory coverage of the Melbourne Cup, Australia's most beloved horse race.  As happens at almost any race meeting anywhere, there were some people who stayed on after the horses had finished running and partied on -- leading to some unattractive drunken behavior.  The "Mail" photographed some of that behaviour and used the photos to condemn the Melbourne Cup generally and the patrons in particular.  They used photos such as the ones below









But the photos above were not taken in Melbourne.  They were taken at Aintree, location of Britiain's premier jump race, The Grand National.  I got the pictures not by wandering the grounds with a camera and looking for the worst I could find but rather by spending 5 minutes looking at the pix returned by Google in response to the search term "Aintree".

There were many other pictures I could put up  -- of tarts in short skirts, ladies showing a lot of breast and, above all, more painted FAT ladies than you would ever want to see.  But I will be kinder than the "Mail".

So why are Brits in glass houses throwing stones?  It's simple, really.  For 200 years Brits have been migrating to Australia for a better life.  And they still do.  A recent survey suggests that half of them would move to Australia if they could.  So that puts "The Old Dart" in a poor light, does it not?  All those Brits voting with their feet don't make Britain look very attractive.

So to retain their self-respect and explain to themselves why they are still in grey and poverty-stricken Britain instead of sunny and comfortable Australia, it helps a little to find a few faults with Australia.  Freud would understand.


UPDATE

I wonder how this fits in with British criticisms of Australian racecourse behaviour?

CCTV images have been released by police investigating a mass brawl between Swansea and Cardiff City fans which brought terror to an afternoon at the races.

Between 50 and 60 people clashed in front of families at Newbury Racecourse in Berkshire at around 4pm on July 14.

It is thought the violence erupted on the ground floor of the grandstand and then spread to the racecourse, marring what should have been an enjoyable afternoon at the Newbury Summer Festival.

Superintendent Robin Rickard said: 'This was a nasty incident involving up to 60 people fighting in the middle of the afternoon and impacted on lots of innocent people and families who had planned to spend an enjoyable day at the races.

More HERE

The cup!

I am no gambler or follower of the neddies but like most  Australians I do watch the Melbourne Cup on TV.  It is a great occasion that generates a lot of excitement.  The ladies all get into hats and fascinators and glam up generally and the men place their bets.

I didn't do too badly.  I know nothing about form so I go into sweeps only.  And one of the horses I got in a sweep came third.  So I think I am ahead on the day.

Anne was off to a fancy ladies' day at the Sofitel (once known as the Sheraton) so I looked like viewing the race at home on my own.  As it happened, however, Jenny had resigned her job a couple of days ago so was free to come over and join me.  Most people I know were working or out of town.

Jenny and I had a very restrained cup party  -- with watermelon and freshly squeezed orange juice instead of cakes and champagne.  I guess we are getting old.

It was a very exciting race with the winner coming from well behind but ending well ahead.  The cup is like that, though.  I was rather pleased that it was not a photo finish this year.  Last year was so close that I would have been inclined to call it a tie, or at least a draw.



The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were in attendance and the Duchess presented the cup to the owner.  Both seemed to be in good form.

I noticed that the jockey made the sign of the cross at the end of the race.  I wonder if anyone will criticize that?  They would be well advised not to.  Any cup winner is close to God in Australia.


I also like to have a look each year to see who won the "Fashions on the Field" prize.  It's said to be Australia's richest fashion prize.  Ladies as well as horses compete at the Melbourne Cup.  And the fashions are always wearable, unlike the monstrosities that appear on Paris catwalks etc.  The winner this year, Lauren Andrews, has been competing in such events for about 5 years so the prize this year went to a stayer.  That is she in the middle below



I can't really see what's good about the outfit but what would I know?  Someone who appears to know informs us:  "Ms Andrews purchased her winning outfit more than a month ago, a navy-and-neon-yellow tweed pencil dress with a half peplum on the waist, from British label Erdem. Her winning pleated headpiece was by Melbourne milliner Kim Fletcher... she backed some of the day's most popular trends: neon colours, a fitted pencil silhouette and a peplum ruffle."

So there!


UPDATE

At great risk of political incorrectness, there is one small thing that I noted during the hour or more that I was watching the events at Flemington:  I did not see one black, brown or East Asian face.  So it was one of the last holdouts of the old Australia.  And having the Heir to the Throne present (Australia is still a monarchy) certainly underlined that.

The absence of East Asians was a little surprising.  Not only are the Chinese great gamblers but they generally fit in seamlessly with our traditions.