I am still living in the past as I remember things about houses of sixty five years ago.

Over one hundred years after Thomas Crapper invented the water closet most townships used a night man to collect the human waste. In the cities special lanes were built behind the homes so the night man could get on with his business unimpeded. Camperdown was no such city.  Fred  Jolly would go about his job as if he was invisible. His vehicle  would pull up of the front of a house, and without a pause he would leap out raise a 5 gallon can, smelling sweetly of phenyl  and stride to the little back shed. There he would lift a rear door, pull out the contents, cover it with a lid, and slip under the wooden seat  the fresh can. In one move he had the exchanged can on his shoulder, loaded onto his truck and he was off. He made this visit to homes each week. Being out of town this work was done by someone who had to dig a hole in the ground in preparation of depositing the contents into it just as frequently.

Bill Evans and his bother Len substituted their farm income as builders. After the war I was born into, materials were scarce.  This was especially so with house materials so building a house usually took twelve months at least to build. On days off school I would linger and watch these men build. Most houses were under 100 sq metres. The framing was made with green freshly sawn hardwood.  It was heavy, splintered, and full of sap. The pieces of wood were sawn by hand and held together with long steel nails driven into the wood by hand with a hammer. 

The simple house had three bedrooms a larger one at the front,  but the others measured twelve feet by ten feet. A lounge room, with a fireplace, was also at the front of the house, a bathroom, and kitchen were tucked away out the back. The toilet was usually in the back yard for the convenience of Fred Jolly.  The toilet paper most often was the previous year’s phone book torn into small squares and held together with string and hung from a nail on the toilet wall.

I tell you this because that same area hand some of the most significant houses in Victoria and I was lucky enough to visit many of them because of my close affiliation with the church. Rev George Mutten and his wife Madge, were responsible for conducting services in several outlying villages in the area  every Sunday afternoon. Frequently I went with them to these places. Afterwards they were often invited to join the homeowners for afternoon tea. 

One such place was Purrumbete House.  The bluestone stables were many times bigger than the average new houses being built in town then. My first visit to the place was most memorable. On arrival we were shown into a parlour, off the foyer,  and served afternoon tea. My visit was never forgotten either  because of the magnificence of the entry and the formality of the visit. Coming in the front door I was gobsmacked by the wonderful Walter Withers  mural of rural scenes on the wall above the second storey landing. In fact I am still. (I was much flummoxed when David Marriner purchased the  property in the 1990’s  for about $2m and then had copies of the murals made so as he could sell the priceless original artwork for more than he had paid for the property. Fortunately his project was stopped when authorities got to know about it and the work was saved in-situ.) 

During the years of my youth I visited many similar pioneer buildings. Each one grand, and brimming with opulence surrounded as it was by beautifully kept gardens. Further afield were the houses of the Blacks at Noorat, and Moonambel in Skipton, of the McKinnons. These houses were rungs of class above my station in life yet manageable because of the welcome mat available at all times to the clergy.

Closer to home was Renny Hill. I became very familiar with this property when I became a virtual adopted son of the very humble Coverdale family.  The single storey home and garden sits above Camperdown’s southwest. The home is protected from the northern summer wind by a high ridge cut into  the hillside to accommodate the house. To the rear were a number of servants quarters and just beyond that timber workshops that blocked to westerly winds blowing from Lake Bullen Merry.

I usually entered  the house from the back entrance. Just past the boot room was the huge kitchen. It had a large Aga slow combustion stove burning all year. The previous owners, the Gaffney’s, lived in a much grander manner than the Coverdale’s as I first remember visiting the home when it had hired staff.  Outside the kitchen was a bank of bells. In each room beyond the kitchen a bell ringer was built in to the wall so the residents could ring for service.  The house is grand but smaller than Purrumbete. It had about six bedrooms rather than ten. On the northern side the billiard room was the largest room in the house. Diagonally opposite the lower paddock lived Fred Jolly.  Fred never needed to visit here, or the other places mentioned because the squattocuracy  had Thomas Crapper WCs and septic systems. (Strangely the Coverdale’s never had a phone at Renny Hill because the were caught by some old clause relating to the PMG service. Claude refused to pay a bill  left unpaid by the Gaffney’s at the time her purchased the farm and the PMG refused to provide a phone to a property with an unpaid bill.

I have but two other short  housing stories. The first was a little house in Lilydale. My aunt Pauline took meals on wheels to an old lady.  Her house was overgrown and to get in the back door meant fighting the foliage. She was doubled up with Osteoporosis. To keep warm she seemed to wear all she had and on her hands she wore fingerless gloves. After our visit I discovered flea bites. This was my first experience of visiting a house with flea infestation.

I thought we lived very simply in the caretakers cottage at The Park, yet while in primary school I  went home with a classmate that lived almost opposite our primary school. We entered the house by the back door and to my amazement this house in the township had nothing but a dirt floor. Reading the stories of  Henry Lawson and the Drover’s Wife  I was aware early Australian homes had earthen floors but I was utterly surprised to see one in the mid twentieth century in Camperdown.  I have alway considered Australia a fairly just society and yet I have seen first hand the difference in living standards between the rich and poor,  and if I have fear. I fear we are quickly moving back to a period with ever greater discrepancies. It sends shudders through me to think we are becoming so uncaring of the poor again in 2019.

My life as a farmer.

This is not a joke. This is true.  I have never been a farmer. Yet some of my earliest childhood memories are of farming. As a toddler, my aunt Pauline likes to remind me,  I killed all the hens in the henhouse.  I have no memory of this of course, it is something she remembers of my past. I guess I must have watched my parents chop the head of a chicken and thought I could do it as well and help them.

My own memory relating to farming is of visiting my grandparents in Lilydale. They had a few acres on Cavehill Road.  On the farm my grandmother used to fatten pigs. They seemed to do well on their twice daily feeds but I do not remember ever eating pork there. She also milked a couple of cows mainly to feed her large family. The farm also held geese, chickens, and turkeys. On the major feasts we were usually fed lamb, or beef. Only on very special days was chicken ever served because hens were kept principally for their eggs. The turkeys and geese must have finished elsewhere.

As a kid in Camperdown our parents had the use of some acres to farm. They also kept cows. Each year we would take a day old calf or two from our neighbours,  the Coverdale’s  and fatten them up for later sale as young heifers. Not often, but sometimes I would teach the calves to drink from a bucket. To do this you shoved your hand in their mouths and pushed their heads into the milk bucked. They soon learned to drink rather than suffocate and very quickly they managed to drink unaided.

The Evan’s also had a small dairy farm next door. Bill Evans  supplemented farm income as a builder and vegetable grower on leased land. He grew a few crops of potatoes and in the holidays I helped bag them. I even attempted to grow a few of my own in an out of the way spot. The ground was uncultivated before my garden and it was in a spot that got too little sunshine so the crop was poor but we did get some tasty fresh spuds for my effort. 

The summer holidays were long and to be usefully occupied I would do as the neighbouring kids did and help them and their parents. I learned to repair and build farm fences with the Coverdale’s.  With them I would also help with the hay each year.  When the hay was dry we  build small haystacks from the hay as it came from the hay press in the paddock and help load it first onto a truck and trailer,  and then unload it into the barn. Hay stacking was heavy work but it was good bodybuilding exercise as well, and afterwards I always felt very fit.

At home my farm exercise was separating the milk and cream. The separator was a crank driven thing that had to be wound up to speed. Once the correct speed was reached the milk was turned on, and I would keep cranking until the last cream  was separated from the milk. I  then had to disassemble the machine and wash its parts so they were ready for me the next day.

We had no farm equipment at home except for the separator. I learned to drive a truck and a tractor as a kid on Coverdale’s farm, Renny Hill. But that is all I ever did. I never learned to plough with the tractor. But I did learn to plough with a horse pulled  single furrow model. Similarly I never drove a tractor with anything but a three point pickup. These were handy for carrying rocks, tools, sand, in fact anything needed on the farm was easier to load and unload onto the pickup  than a utility. 

My farming experience was only just beginning.  The summer school holidays were a good time to look for farming work and in the Summer of 1962 Bill Woods got me a job at Mt Hesse station near  Winchelsea. I had bagged potatoes with Bill Evans. At Mt Hesse I spent a fortnight filling bags of wheat, barley and oats and them sewing them tight so we could load them onto trucks. I got to value the bag loader there as grain bags are quite heavy. None of the work was hard except I developed a total dislike for barley. The grain has an irritating husk that burrows into your flesh at the slightest exposure. I hated the stuff and was very pleased to see the end of the crop. From that experience I earned enough to go out and buy an engagement ring for Jennie. That working holiday has turned out to have been the best investment of my life. 

While at Colac High School one May I got a fortnight’s work bagging potatoes on Tirrengower farm in Irrewillipe. The paddock was waterlogged. It was impossible to know where the potatoes were as the stem had rotted away except it was somewhere on the rise between the watery furrows. Being much too wet for a potato digger to tackle the farmer chose  about 4 teachers for this job of digging the potato crop with garden forks. The dirt stuck to our boots as we waded along each chilly furrow. It was cold dirty work. When our forks speared a potato it was downgraded and the old fellow employing us was cross. Unsurprisingly many potatoes were ruined. We explained we were doing our best to get as many out of the ground as possible, but the conditions were such we were his only chance of recovering anything,  so he eventually accepted his lot. 

My next farming experience was again a holiday period. That was dairying with Bill Woods. This  lending a hand was not farming either but close enough to the action to learn a little. . My learning was limited as I couldn’t understand how long was need to  irrigate a paddock.  I did learn how to pull a calf from its struggling mother, and to drive a four wheel bike. I guess my main value  was as company for Bill. We got our own first cow from Bill. And it’s  first calf was a bull so I taught myself to desex  Bandit with the aid of a little rubber band after having seen Bill do it. My only sheep experience was with our pet lamb Caroline Lamb. I learned a little about will and Jennie spun it and made raw black  woollen jumpers. I did see first hand the terrible damage dogs could cause when left to roam and maul sheep. I also saw how terrible flies are on sheep in the summertime. 

At about age nine my grandfather moved to Castella St Lilydale. In his back yard he had a bee hive and I got to see firsthand how he looked after them. Because of their importance in pollination it is obvious bees are more important to humankind than just producers of honey. And so it was with Grandpa. Here was a man of huge size and few words delicately handling the frames in his beehive not so he could harvest their honey so much as to ensure his ladies were healthy and fit to to their natural job.

That early introduction to bees was helpful to me in deciding we should have bees on our block in Anglesea. As a novice I was happy for the beekeeper to manage the hive but I enjoyed watching them come and go about their business. When we moved into suburbia proper I was sorry to leave the bees behind. Now I have a hive at Winchelsea. Hopefully I will be able to add more ladies this spring and we will all get to enjoy some homegrown honey.

I have had great affection for the “ladies” of production on farms. I loved having cows. The bees are fascinating. Coloe our sulphur crested cockatoo gave me great joy when she produced an unfertilised egg each year. Our chooks were also good producers. It is not necessary to anamorphise animal life but it is obvious mankind has made good use of female productive traits across all forms of farming for human good.

My last words on the subject reach back to my earlier life. The fencing experience I had had as a kid came in handy when we settled in  Scotsburn as our farmlet needed fences. Our experience milking was also helpful as was the separator job. I  never learned when to drench cattle or sheep and I suppose they suffered but to me it was farming based more  on seeing than on doing.  That’s it really. Farming has been more seeing than doing but farming life, harsh as it is, has everlasting appeal.

I post

I post

No response

Is my experience

Lost in the ether

Or buried in Google 

My words

Said, unread, perish.

Thoughts dashed

Or so, it seems

Vainly I ask

Please comment

And wonder aloud

Is it delivered?

What is art?

 As people we find it difficult to understand art. Sure, we think it can be decorative. We understand it is illustrative. Yet when face to faced with it we understand what we like.  But that barely scratches the surface. As artists do more than illustrate, decorate, or capture a moment in time.  They test our understanding of life itself. Given experience we recognise art is much more than what we at first see. 

Ancient work found on rocks in the outback of Australia may be examples of mans first attempt to use art to tell a story,  We are made aware of how modern aborigines tell the story of their forefathers in dot paintings.   These totemic paintings are used to illustrate the  nature of their storylines and tell something important of their mob. Old as dot painting is, world galleries are only now assembling collections of the work. Modern painters, of this art,  are being celebrated as masters of a new movement older than recorded history.

In every continent Archeological work has uncovered the living conditions of past civilisations from once hidden art work. Evidence abounds that visual art work has been treasured throughout mans life on earth.  Walls and floors  have been found with mural decor. Sometimes the artwork has been made with natural clays. In other civilisations glass tiles are used to illustrate life and the things treasured are depicted in minute detail. Visual art is used to tell stories of past  civilisation’s former greatness.

 In many of the places we have visited in the ancient world there is evidence of the existence of sometimes up to six waves of invaders, each attempting to rub out the evidence of the previous  peoples. And each civilisations has marked the arrival of a new civilisation with art. 

In more modern times. Art work has be lost in fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, in famine and pestilence, in fact in almost every imaginable way. Yet scraps of the art remain as a reminder of how things once were. In the past humankind has  valued art equally with science, law and religion. In fact religious groups are responsible for the protection and preservation of much we know about former civilisations. 

In the Dark Ages art suffered through a period when the depiction of realistic art was unvalued. The illustration of mankinds adventure was instead stylised and heroic. Since that period the world experienced a Renaissance. Giotto is rumoured to have been one of the first new artists when, with the aid of a paintbrush and red paint,  he is allegedly said to have pleased Pope Boniface as an able painter. It appears  a simple circle was all the pontiff needed to know he was an artist of greatness. How ever he was commissioned to work for the pope,  it is certain,  he could depict real life eloquently.

The world has come to love the work of  a catalogue of fine renascence artists with names we know:  Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Titian - you can add dozens of well known artists. I am not going to list their best known works here except to say we have been fortunate in that we have seen much of their work in great galleries around the world. The work is known for its fine brushwork. It’s mastery of Fresco. The simplicity of its lines, or because of its beautiful flaws. David is sculpted out of a flawed piece of marble. The hands are perfectly formed but too large for the body yet it is known as a sublime artwork. 

It is not for me to catalogue every art movement. Sufficient to say that each age has produced people  able to uniquely capture the time,  or paint in a way that depicts the real meaning of the work. (St Wendy ran a series of art history lessons on television fortunately most of her work is still available on YouTube. She was very good at pointing out the allegorical references in the work she cited. A flower placed at the centre of a painting would have meant such and such to the viewers. The landscape referenced in another had hidden meanings for those in touch with the symbolism. I this way artists have been able to signal clear dislike for their subjects or the movements of the time without losing the support of their sponsors.)

It is certainly true much art would never have been commissioned without the artist having a benefactor. The Church would possibly be one of the biggest supporters of art throughout history. The brand of belief is not of importance because each major religion collected the finest work of its time. For instance, in the Catholic Church, many a cardinal would commission a work from one practioner  only to prove to a neighbouring prince of the Church he was better connected. 

Of course art also depended on the wealthy for support. The kings and princes of Europe have always demonstrated their wealth by employing favoured artists. The palace of Versailles demonstrates the wealth of the sun king. In St Petersburg Catherine the Great collected works for the Winter Palace. Of course such extravagance was only possible because using slaves meant wages need not be paid.

To skip to modern art we turn to the impressionists. Their work is something we celebrate today for the impressions of life made in real time. The works of Monet serve as an example. The artist painted and repainted the same scenes. Not because he hadn’t captured the scene precisely but because as the light changed he saw things differently. Whether the paintings were of  the great doors of Notre Dame cathedral, the lily ponds on his estate at Giverney, or the hay stoops in his horse paddock. He painted the daily life he experienced around him. He painted into old age capturing and recapturing the same scenes. No doubt he was disappointed on each occasion as the next time he looked he saw more red, or green, blue or white. It the light he viewed his subject the next time he looked  it always appeared different. 

To see his works for the first time I was blown away of course by each rendition of the scene but also because of the magnificent size of the works. To capture scenes as big as life itself was one thing, to continually capture the light across the scope of the huge canvass was something again.

Artwork doesn’t have to be grand to be good though. From the same period consider the work of the Australian Heidelberg school. It does vary in size but the brilliance of the artist is all there for all to see in the 9x4 inch paintings captured on cigar  cases.

In each new art movement there are new stars. These are the people who test our understanding of art. Discontent to reproduce work in the same manner as their brilliant past masters they challenged us to rethink he question. What is art? 

Today many artists gain fame by winning prizes from modern benefactors. Possibly a turning point in art occurred in Venice in 1895. Until then gallerists had chosen to display art from artists they selected as being good. Evidence abounds they too often got the choice of artist wrong. There can be no greater artist overlooked than Van Gogh, yet in his lifetime no gallery would buy or display his work. Each generation an artist, overlooked in life, is rediscovered. Anyway, back to Venice. In 1895,  after a couple of years planning,  the first great art exhibition was shown in what is now known as the Venice Biennial. 

At first the works were chosen to display and find a market for several selected galleries.  As  time went by the sale reasons,  the sale reason for the exhibition was dropped. Instead the organisers set about finding artists with something fresh to say and works less commercially wanted were shown, just as they are today. Given the great success of the biennial, it has kept expanding across the years, in time that has called for a division of the arts,  As it is today , fine art and sculpture are categorised  separately to music and literature.

In Australia the first benefactor of a major prize was found in - J F Archibald. First awarded in 1922 the Archibald award is for a portrait of a well know Australian or famous artist. The most awarded prize winner is Sir William  Dargie, principally this is because the Art Gallery of NSW mostly chooses artist from that state as winners. Many a  portrait painter has gained their reputation by winning this prize but it could be considered a poisoned chalice because winning often limits the growth of an artist and limits their future output to portraiture. Few talk today of Dargie as an artist one must collect.

After World War 11 new emphasis has been given to art fairs as a way for artist to market their output. The first, and possibly the greatest,  is Art Basel. This fair is so popular is has spawned like fairs across the globe. The work chosen is limited and dependent upon work being selected by local galleries.

The Turner prize is given to the best artist living in or from Britain. The award has been given to sculptors since 1984. Previously entry was restricted  artists under 50. That rule have been dropped. The award is mired in controversy and the reasons for this can be discussed later.

Modern artists do not generally have benefactors to support them in the creation of their art. Many are simply driven to produce a statement of life for themselves. If a buyer is found then the artist probably celebrates but the production of something was first inspired bu communicating something.  

Art is so broad in this age it is almost impossible to catalogue - what exactly is art?  If a video of  a dripping tap is slowed to an ultra slow movement. Is the work art?  If the aim of the artist is to make us think a moment of time is just part of the constancy of life, and we are slowed to think about it, it meets the definition of art. 

What then of the artist who uses their body as the art medium? If they change their body so  an arm that looks like it has grown an extra ear, what then? What if  they that cut themselves and the viewer is asked to make meaning of what appears to be an act of self harm? How is that art? We know if our skin is pierced it hurts and it is disturbing to see our blood running undisturbed until it stops. The artist makes us consider, what is ordinary human behaviour. Art has moved from a pure depiction of life to examining life itself.

Like the poetic works of Gerard Marley Hopkins that make no sense at all on the first reading, the artistic works of the alcoholic Jackson Pollock make no sense. Australia was scandalised when the Whitlam government  spent over $1 million purchasing these dribbles of paint. Yet on seeing his work, first in the Guggenheim Museum of Art in Venice, I can see the work as brilliant. Viewed up close the work is not dissimilar to the way the eye constructs meaning in a Monet.  Monet does not illustrate a hay stack.  Our mind joins the dots (figuratively speaking) and we see a hay stack. The same is true in the random streaks and splashes of Pollock. Our mind reassembles the colours into a painting we can attach meaning. His work requires the viewer work at meaning from the lexicon of their experience if his art is to say something meaningful

20th Century art had new art movements every few years. The fauves, the cubists, the abstractionists, finding names for styles could easily occupied you for years given the number of movements. New art often seemed twee. Take the example of pop art - when Andy  Warhol painted a baked bean tin, or  the imitation of a printed art gravure comic, found in the work  of Roy Lichtenstein. He magnified the style of dots used in gravure printing so the image was made of larger dots as pointillists had previously.

Whole art movements have sprung from artists magnifying an everyday object to a supersize and we, as the audience, see more of something easily overlooked. Or take the sculpture of Ron Mueck. His people sculptures are lifelike in the absolute detail except they are often bigger than the models themselves. Damien Hirst makes his simple work known because instead of preserving a work in formaldehyde, like a scientist might with a frog,  his work reached new status when a shark was preserved in fluid. Is it art to act as a preserver of life? Throughout the century realistic painting came and went and returned again. The works of Gustave Courbet The origins of the world, for example, setting the standard in the 19th century.

Our aunts, and our grandchildren paint scenes of their district but when it can be captured on film with greater detail is it art as the artist looks at the world? Today artists have almost abandoned paint and paint brush and we the viewer is confronted with as art is a test of interpretation. They attempt to find meaning where on first viewing we,  the unquestioning, see none and this they tell us is art. 

The caldera lakes and other things.

Do you know the Western District of Victoria is the largest volcanic plain in the world? This big plain is interspersed with volcanic cones and caldera lakes. For lakes to form over  ages the center of the volcano cooled, the middle sank,  and filled with water.  In the huge area there are hundreds of such lakes. 

Tourists are familiar with Tower Hill near Warrnambool. Similar lakes are found elsewhere on the plain. Fishermen are familiar with the lakes around Camperdown. They fish at Lake Purrumbete.  Nearer to my home In Camperdown we were surrounded by lakes.  Both Lake Gnotuk  and Lake Bullen Merri are within the same caldera but the composition of the water in each is different. Gnotuk is very salty.  Bullen Merri is brackish. 

Bullen Merri was a favourite place for fishermen as it was stocked each year with Rainbow Trout.  It is an introduced species known for its fighting spirit and good eating. The fish had to be bred in running water. Given a natural life they are spawned into a stream and swim away into the ocean and return to the same water to spawn their new fingerlings. The fish in Camperdown were never able to spawn live fish because it was not fed with running water and that is why the lake was restocked each year with fingerlings. 

The water is naturally brackish, the fishermen,  except for opening day, were very few in number so the remaining fish grew up to about 4 pounds.  Every so often when the conditions are hot and still. In those times algae grows on the lake. It turns the surface green. The water becomes toxic and fish are killed. In the 1950’s the years were cold and wet and when we did have conditions that promoted the growth of algae the learning had been lost and people were at a loss to explain what was killing the fish.

The lake was also popular for water sports.  In the summer Camperdown residents would swim on the southern beaches. The Sun newspaper together with its sister The Herald played important role in promoting safety in the water and they also ran a learn to swim program. I got my Herald learn to swim certificate there when I was about 12 simply by walking around the lake to join the classes. 

The community also had other sporting events there in the post war years. It started in a very small way when the Hindaugh boys built an inboard motor boat. Other locals did the same using plywood and prewar car engines. Over time enough enthusiasts had built boats and a boating regatta started. These races became very well organised and they became popular enough to attract large crowds. Each year new facilities were added as they had been in the area used by swimmers.

Accidentally drowning occurred just outside the designated swimming area too often. The water level drops away very sharply and poor swimmers occasionally would flounder in the deeper, colder water and drown. As it happened it was not very far from the edge of the lake. At such times rescuers would frantically dive into the dark water. The bodies were usually retrieved with grappling hooks.

Several  motor boats were lost in these races as well.  A hydrofoil built to Bob Hyde sank when it turned too quickly on a corner and filled with water. I think the boat was powered by an Austin inboard. The hydrofoil was faster than many other boats as it floated on the water and not in the water like a ski boat. It was also very light but prone to flipping over as it bounced from wave to wave.

As outboards became more powerful and certainly cheaper than a boat with an inboard motor the popularity of the regatta diminished. Leading up to the 1956 Olympics Camperdown made a real push to get the Olympic rowing there. They lost for many obvious reasons not the least being there was no infrastructure ready to run the event.

On the other side of the lake above the golf course and below the Public Park a number of enthusiastic people created a 400 Meter hill climb track.  It was very steep. It was windy. The very primitive was made of nothing but loose stones and the earth from which it was ripped. The lads that raced there mainly made their own cars. Then many farms seemed to have car chassis lying in the grass. It was on these ancient frames they attached nothing but the most basic gear to propel them. A gear box from here. A motor from there. A fuel tank and a radiator somehow bolted to the chassis, a bench for a seat, and a battery possibly from the vehicle they used to tow the car to the site and they had a racer. 

The idea was to charge up the hill against the clock. Going up meant the vehicle screamed from gear to gear. When it reached the top it was near pandemonium. In building the cars the builders had no thought of stopping nor had they given any thought to how many cars the last little bit of track could hold. I think six was the maximum they could fit. When they had reached that number they had to take a short break while they drove down to the start. Many of the same bush mechanics that raced boats raced the hill climb. I remember the Hindaugh family. I think the Reed family were also involved. Though theirs was a manufacturers car.

My memory is foggy about how the club established themselves there. I think they raced up Mt Leura before that time. I know they certainly returned there when the racing became better established. In either place a mistake was dangerous as there were no barriers to prevent a driver running off the course and flying into the air and into the caldera.

My tale has veered away from the caldera lakes of the volcanic plains but the lesson is there to learn. On the same plain the original inhabitants of the land have left reminders they lived sophisticated lives centuries before white settlement. They lived in stone houses. They fished for thousands of years using fish traps. Spend time a learn a little of the aboriginals of Lake Condah.

Labels we wear.

I have heard coaches say, “What happens on the trip, stays on the trip.” It is code not to speak about  embarrassing things that may have happened afterwards. In this post I break the rule and write about personal things. Right or wrong how I see the world comes from excruciating shyness that has dogged me through life. I don’t blame anyone but myself. One of my earliest memories is of being afraid of a man I had no memory of wanting to embrace me. He spoke in a foreign tongue and smelt heavily of stale tobacco. My mother was saying to me, the child clinging to her skirt, “Don’t be afraid Bruce, it’s your father.” when he returned from active service in Darwin after WW11. Plus I have held a pathological awe of people in positions of responsibility.  Being deferent to them simply because they held a certain position. Perhaps, this feeling does come from my parents who always deferred to people in authority as they were the ones that paid them.

In modern parlance you would probably say I was on the spectrum and this is how I see the world.

Let’s get this right. I like you but I don’t understand you at all. My constant surprise is that you and I see the world differently. What I see as a joke, you say is inappropriate and too serious to joke about. My passing comment is considered wrong and most times I do not immediately know why. Consequently I have found  it difficult to find the right words at  emotional moments.  Therefore I acknowledge my lack of appreciation of the things you value does make it difficult for us both. Sadly our differences have prevented us sharing the same world view all these years. 

The reality is - you are everyone else but me. 

According to video clips I have seen - you are at concerts waving your arms around in time with the music. I prefer to miss pop concerts altogether, although I do wave my arms around in time with music as a conductor might when I am  listening to classical music. Unlike me you don’t deliberately listen to classical music, it seems,  except when it forms part of a movie sequence whereas I do it by preference. I sometimes find the rhythm of popular music nauseating, or too simple, and mostly too loud. I listen to the musical landscape as a whole and only very rarely concentrate on the lyrics alone. Thus I am surprised when my listening introduces a mondo green others do not hear.

At sports grounds your cheers fill the air when your team is doing well, and with jeers, when it fails.  I don’t understand your fanaticism for matters so trivial. This is not meant as a criticism perhaps I just missed the gene of socialised behaviour. I never feel the urge to join in to do things with others. I have of course but I tend to remain outside the camp of needing people around me. Generally I can only put up with others for a shorty while.

You fill trains, buses, escalators and anything that moves to get somewhere else. To me your  chattering voices fill the air like cicadas on a hot summer evening. Your excitement appears to come simply because you like to share space with others. I do not know why.

You like cities and their monuments, churches, and temples. You welcome the chance to visit interpretation centres of heroic moments in war.  Indeed curators seek to find new gimmicks to keep you interested.  I think  them monumentally obscene -  like war itself. By my reckoning a moment of thought is all the reminder needed to thank the glorious dead.

You also glorify the shopping centres built to honour commerce in much the same way. I passionately hate them all. 

The simple difference between us is - it is unusual to see you alone because you appear love hustle and bustle. Not for you the bliss of observing the sky, land and sea while peacefully alone.  Solitude is an elixir to me.

You congregate together in a spirit of congenitally and you love team games. Perhaps you learned this in adolescence. Coaches often say there is no I in TEAM and maybe this is where your need for company began. I missed that lesson. The lesson to stand by your mates and to do your best for the team is one I missed. My limited experience with sport was playing as an individual. 

This leads me to observe we show more heroism when facing life’s travails alone. Anyway you learned to treat others equally and that is good. On the other hand I remain uneasy in company. This is especially so when I am among new faces.

Today your phone captures everything you do. You like others to like what is happening in your life. I would prefer to remain anonymous. I have found this in almost every aspect of my life. I prefer to dress insignificantly like a female bird. I choose  dull colours, plain fabrics, and unspectacular appearances and disappearances. 

Let’s face it, I am not a team player. I don’t understand how people can put the team first. If I am noticed it is because I am wearing a disguise, or I am playing a role, or I am affected by alcohol. 

So there you have it. I am delighted we know each other. I like the fact you ask who I am but I lack the refinement to ask of you first when we are talking. Too often I will have difficulty recalling your name. Or when we last spoke, or what we agreed we said we would do. 

Life, as we know is more complex than labels.  When I use them to make sense of  the preceding paragraphs  I tell only part of the story. I have never started a day thinking I must not get involved with people.  I have been involved all my life in the lives of others and I will let the following lines illustrate how.

As a kid I was a scout. I enjoyed the challenge and the structure of scout life.  Scouts as you know wear distinctive uniforms. I was never much attracted to the uniform but it did help me identify some scouts were more experienced than others. With no reason to pull back I remained a scout for many years. Each year I was given more responsibility and I enjoyed helping younger boys learn  the ropes. 

As a teacher I took an interest in troubled kids, or those left behind,  because I could see the inherent injustice of abandoning them. My feelings for the underdog have always prompted me to stand up for the weak. With those thoughts dominating my behaviour I took an active interest in the rights of teachers and became branch president of the local branch of the Teachers Union.

I have previously written about my adolescence and the church but not mentioned the gains from it in my adolescence. In my close association with the church I grew into roles of responsibility. I learned about the rules of meetings, the constitution of the group,  and the importance of order gained  following rules. I learned rules were never to used as a crutch to rigidly hide behind but to challenge if it was obviously restricting progress using the process of the group to affect change. Church life was my guide to managing crowds. I had roles, as a choir boy, a server, a Sunday school teacher, and each role determined the way I managed myself in groups of people. The other thing is it drew me closer to the person I imagined God wanted me to become. My religious life was pious, innocent, and naive. I never had to buck against the system to be complete.  I simply had to follow the rules I was absorbing from the church.

It meant my self discovery was within a very small, limited, sheltered, frame work. In my mind my self worth was measured by how I could help other people. Any sign of assertiveness was put aside as I had not yet learned to say No. The use of the word was to reject the other and not used to set limits. Into our church world entered a man who we would possibly say was ADHD. I will not use his name. He set about changing everything to suit his image of what a congregation was despite having no formal role in it. (I was later to make a submission to the Royal Commission into institutional sexual abuse about him and how he groomed youngsters for his own gratification. He was masterful at getting his own way.) 

As a form of control he organised a road trip to Adelaide supposedly so the local lads could visit a religious house at Crafters in the Adelaide Hills. St Michaels House was a small Anglican place  run as a training centre for clergy.  It was a working farm of contemplative priests, brothers and trainees. (It was destroyed by fire in 1982 and the order never restarted there.) Being away from home we stayed in a couple of motel rooms each night  as we totalled six. It is my greatest shame I did nothing to defend the younger boys from abuse when he chose to spend the nights in their room. I never asked, but shamefully I remain convinced they were abused.

Having typed these words I foolishly believe that in posting them here in such a public space I am being courageous. Having a mind twisted by life events has been a burden. The burden has paralysed me many times. Darkened my mood to the extent it has broken me. Speaking honestly has taken a lifetime of self discovery and has only been endured because of the love given to me  by my wife, and you my friends. Thank you for your acceptance of my oddities.