Christmas at Palmers Channel

Christmas at Palmers Channel was always a happy family time. One of my life's regrets is that my children have never had the childhood Christmas experience the I grew up with.

I can’t remember Mum cooking the pudding but she always did. She has often reminded me that her mother boiled the pudding in the copper and she probably did the same - at least for as long as we had one. We still use Nana Skinners recipe today. This was in the pre-decimal currency days and one of the thrills of Christmas day was finding a threepence or sixpence - or if we were really lucky, a shilling - in the pudding. Unless, of course, you swallowed one. I don’t recall that I ever tried to recover a swallowed coin.

The pig was prepared early. Once selected, the unfortunate beast was unceremoniously slaughtered with a bullet through the head from Pa Marsh’s single shot 22 calibre rifle. We used a 44 gallon (200 litre) drum with part of the side opened to boil the carcase over an open fire. In latter years I recall the pig then being sent to the butcher for salting but I think that was all done on the farm earlier on. Nana Marsh’s favorite part of the pig was the trotters.

We had our own chooks on the farm as well and one or more of these would always make the supreme sacrifice for our festivities. I remember the year Mum raised some chickens to sell for Christmas, hoping to raise a little extra. Just before sale time a fox broke into the chicken shed and killed them all.

Each year Pa Marsh would make ginger beer. This was lethal. I don’t know how much he made but some of the bottles would explode before the day. And we didn’t get much a great deal from those that survived. The standard procedure was to point the bottle into a bucket as it was opened to catch the very foamy contents. There was so much froth that eventually if we got a couple of mouth fulls out of a bottle we were lucky.

Money was always scarce. I remember Dad making toys for for Christmas gifts. Dad was quite good with his hands and while some of the gifts were simple - such as the shape of a dog cut out of plywood and fitted with wheels - there were more complex things, such as a model garage with petrol bowsers out the front. I may have been the lucky recipient, but then again memories are vague.

On Christmas eve David and I would go to bed early - before the sun set at times. But we were so excited we hardly slept. I remember being warned - probably by Nana Marsh - that if we saw Santa he would throw pepper in our eyes. But that didn’t mean we couldn't get up every hour or so and see if he had been. We would sneak from our room into the lounge where the tree was placed and we had left our stockings only to be met with a rather abrupt ‘Get back to bed’. Eventually, around six o’clock, Mum and Dad would relent and we could open our stockings before Dad went to milk the cows. The other presents had to wait till later.

Like many families, Christmas dinner (the mid day meal on the farm) was held with Pa and Nana Marsh one year and Pa and Nana Skinner the following, with the evening meal likewise rotated. The years the Lamonds came up from Sydney have a special memory for me. Aunty Aileen was Dad’s only sister and we didn’t see her all that often, whereas we saw quite a lot of Mum’s side of the family - especially the Ryans - throughout the year.

I also felt closer to my Father’s parents, simply because they lived so close and I spent so much time with them. So Christmas on the side veranda of Nana and Pa’s place with Granny Carter and Aunty  Ethel (Nana’s mother and sister), my grandparents, parents and the Lamonds was in deed a special time.


25 Dec 2010

The Black Man

Palmers Channel in the 1950s and 60s was a much different world to the Australia of today. The area had opened to white settlement in 1862. My great-great grandparents, John and Mary Ann (nee Parkinson) Marsh moved to the Channel in 1869 and took up a selection of land. I attended the Palmers Channel public school which had a little over 30 students. It was a single teacher school and most of the students were members in some way of the extended Marsh family.

David and Me with Pa Marsh, 1964. The way we are
dressed indicates we have just got home from Church

In 1885 a Mr John Carter leased approximately 1/5^th of an acre of land to the citizens of Palmers Channel for the purpose of building a Union Church Hall. This was located on the corner of what is now South Bank Road and Amos’s Lane. The aim was ‘… to allow Protestant Christians to hold Divine Service in the Church to be erected on the said land and to allow the said building to be used for all purposes that shall have for their end an aim, the object of advancing Religion, Morality and the General Welfare of Mankind’. The property was leased to the citizens for ninety-nine years at a nominal rental of one shilling per annum. Both John Carter and John Marsh were among the original trustees. John Davis, my grandmother’s grandfather, was another trustee. All of the trustees in the late 50s early 60s were grandsons of the original trustees.

I recall attending one wedding in the hall, although by the 50’s weddings were normally held in Maclean. During both world wars farewells to local boys who enlisted in the services were held here. It was used for social events, community meetings and during my childhood by the Grand United Order of Oddfellows. Grandfather Skinner was a member of this lodge but would have attended meetings on Harwood Island.

David, my brother, and I regularly attended Sunday School in the hall. Jack (John) Carter was the superintendent. There was an annual Sunday School Anniversary concert where children sang songs and recited poems and scripture verses for the parents and other attendees. Prizes were awarded for attendance, learning memory verses and possibly other things as well. Reflecting the Protestant Catholic divide of the time Mum once expressed some surprise at but also appreciation for the attendance of the local school teacher at an anniversary as the teacher was Catholic.

As members of the Church of England (now Anglican) we attended Church here once a month. Other denominations took their turns on the other Sundays in the month. Dad played the organ. I sat with my grandparents on one side of the hall and, for some reason, everyone else sat on the other.

The first minister I remember was, I think, Reverend Kemp. He was followed by the Reverend Gaden who served in the Maclean district for many years. During our monthly service the Reverend would conduct a communion service in the Anglican tradition. While I cannot verify the accuracy of this statement I was told that it was against the rules to throw out the left over wine that had been used for the service. It was always noted that the Reverend Gaden made sure that there was more than enough wine to cater for the parishioners and he fulfilled his pastoral duties by consuming the left overs. One only wonders what would be the situation today if, after conducting a number of communions, the man of God were pulled over for a breath test.

I will always remember the day the minister had brought a guest with him. While I may have seen people of different races before this man is the first non-Caucasian I recall seeing. I have no idea if he were aboriginal, South Sea Islander, Indian, or whatever. All I remember is that he was black – well, at least dark skinned. Unlike every other Sunday, every member of the congregation sat on the same side as my grandparents and me – all, that is, except our visitor. I remember looking at this lone figure on the other side of the hall and being tempted to go and sit with him. But the attraction to my grandparents was stronger. So far as I remember no one spoke to our guest that day.

I often reflect on this and another event that occurred a little later. We had a new cane cutter in the district, and he was Italian. Now this was a real talking point at the time, although I believe there was an Italian connection with the Lower Clarence that went back probably to the late 19^th century. There were also families of German descent in the district and my own great-great grandmother Johanna Davis was German. But all this was not obvious as no one spoke with an accent, which is why the cane cutter stood out.

How different it is today. We rightly recognise the place of Aboriginal Australians in our society. Yes, there were some aboriginal kids in high school but this incident happened in my primary school days. We live in a quite cosmopolitan society. I was always amazed at the variety of ethnic origins represented in the different schools my kids attended. My own kids have a parent born overseas, so unlike me. So far as I have been able to determine all my great grandparents were born in Australia. Two of my grandchildren have Asian and Greek blood while the other has Macedonian ancestry.

Australia in the 1950s, including Palmers Channel, rested in the security of the White Australia Policy. We were insular in our thinking and, yes, racist. Racism is not an Australian, or an English, thing. Most, if not all, races are cursed with this condition. I suspect at its root is fear of the unknown, that which is different. I love to see kids of different backgrounds mingling and playing together in our schools and forming friendships that are based on character and common interest, not religion, skin colour or other culture differences. This gives me hope that we can continue to develop in this country a culture that is both diverse and inclusive, one that encourages peaceful and respectful co-existence. 

The Day I Disappeared

Maclean show, 18 months

My parents often told this story about one of my early experiences. I was about 18 months old at the time, obviously too young to remember it.

One day Dad was working in the car shed. Eventually, his patience ran out in the face of my incessant ‘tar tar, tar tar, tar tar.’ ‘Oh, tar tar’, he exclaimed.

A while later Mum appeared in the shed. ‘Have you seen Kenneth?’ she asked. ‘I thought he was with you’ replied Dad. Then the panic started because, after all, a farm is not the safest place in the world for a straying toddler.  A hurried search commenced.

It probably didn't take long till I was spotted. There I was toddling through the cows heading towards my grandparent's place.

By the time Dad caught up with me I was pulling up a chair for lunch at Nana and Pa’s place, rather hot and red in the face. Now you would think that after all that effort and initiative I would be rewarded with the lunch I looked forward to. But that was not to be. 

When the Cream got the Rat

Leanne at a kiddy farm 1980. So sanitised.

The cow yard, as we called it, was located on the eastern side of the creek that ran through my Grandfather’s farm. It was a short walk from his house, past the barn to the dairy. In a good flood the comparatively narrow ridge running along the creek bank was all that remained above flood-level between it and the road that ran between Dad’s farm and my grandfather’s. In reality, Dad and Pa worked together and while I don’t know how the arrangement worked financially it was basically a shared concern.

The dairy was an important part of the farm economy. Here the cows were milked, the cream was separated from the milk for sale, and the skim milk was piped across the creek into a 44 gallon (200 litre) drum with the top cut out. From here it was scooped out in a bucket and poured into the different troughs in the pig sty. Each year one of these animals would make a contribution to the Christmas festivities.

A bridge of sorts had been constructed so that we could cross the creek to the pig sty. Basically, this was a row of planks resting on the top of poles that had been placed in the swamp. I can’t recall anyone ever falling off this, but it was not all that stable.

Twice each day, every day of the year, the cows were herded into the cow yard for milking – we probably had somewhere between 30 and 40 animals. The yard itself, apart from a narrow strip of grass along the side nearest the creek, was totally devoid of grass. In dry periods it was a dust bowl and in the rain boggy and slippery. The dust, of course, was a mixture of soil and cow manure. No bull dust however. He was kept on the other side of the fence.

We had, from memory, six bales into which the cows were herded for milking. This part of the facility was covered, had a concrete floor, and was closed in on three sides. Once the cow was herded into a bale she was chained in to stop her wandering and the milking machine fitted to her teats. Sometimes it was necessary to rope one of her back legs to stop her kicking. The milking machine was operated by vacuum and it allowed a gentle massage of the teat. Sometimes I would place my fingers into one of the cups of the machine and let it massage them. Once most of the milk had been sucked out by the machine we would finish the process by hand, making sure that we had fully milked each cow. This was the fun bit.

Flies were attracted to the milking area by the bucket load, especially in summer. At times the air was thick with them. As we tried to milk the cow the flies would crawl in our eyes, ears, and if we breathed in through our mouth we could inhale them. Just because the cow was being milked didn't mean she would not urinate, defecate, or both. So as we milked away we could be splattered by cow wee or poo as it landed on the concrete floor. To add insult to injury, the cow might attempt to swat away flies with her urine drenched tail and it was not uncommon to have this strike across the face.

Once a calf reached a certain age it would be taken from its mother and placed in a paddock alongside the cow yard. For a while after this we would feed them milk from a bucket. This was a fun job. The calves would jostle with each other to get their heads through the fence into the bucket and we had to make sure that each one had a good feed. One way of keeping some control over this chaos was to drench the hand that was not holding the bucket in milk and stick it in the mouth of one of the calves. They would suck away on this and I loved the feel on my hand.

The rest of the facility was fully enclosed and was divided into two rooms. One housed the electric pump that drove the milking machine and an older, large, single cylinder four stroke engine from the pre-electric days that was used as a backup when the power failed. In the other room was a large tank into which the milk was pumped before being fed through the machine that separated the cream from the milk. It was also in this room that all the equipment was cleaned after each milking session.

One thing I still miss is milk fresh from the cow – warm and creamy. And we had an endless supply of it. Pasteurised milk took a bit of getting used to after growing up on the real stuff.

The cream was stored in a purposely built shed a short distance from the dairy. It had flow through ventilation at the top and bottom. Cream was stored in a cream can and the local carrier picked it up two or three times a week to transport it to the butter factory at Ulmarra. Another childhood delight was scooping the cream out of the can with my fingers and sucking them clean. After day or two the cream would begin to taste like yoghurt.

Cream was graded by the butter factory as either A, B, or C class, with A being the best. The cheque reflected the grading.

Well I remember the day my grandfather found a drowned rat in the almost full cream can when he came to put the lid on to send it to market. This didn’t deter Grandfather. He simply lifted the rat dripping cream out by the tail and threw it into the creek, placed the lid on the can, and sent it to the factory. It became a bit of a family joke for some time after that the cream tested A grade.

One drawback of dairying is the need to milk twice a day every day. This was not a real issue while Dad and Pa worked the farm together because there was always one to cover for the other. Mum or Nana would always help out if needed and Mum would often help while Dad was helping our neighbours during the cane harvesting season. Sometimes Dad would also pay Colin Green, who was 6 or 7 years older than me, to help if we were going away.

After Pa died and as sugar prices increased Dad let the dairy go and along with this the piggery.  However he kept the cattle, sending a load to the abattoir from time to time. Sometime later, probably to do with a downturn in the sugar price, he played with the idea of returning to dairying. However, by this time the regulation of the industry had changed and the costs associated with establishing the dairy made this an unattractive option.

The farm is no longer in family hands. So it seems most unlikely that my grandchildren will ever know what it is like to be splattered with cow poo, slapped across the face by a cow’s tail drenched with urine, or drag a dead rat out of a cream can. 

Angourie

Me, Mum and David at Green Point, Angourie

Angourie was a great place before it became a famous surfing destination. We roamed for hours along the sandy bush trails without a fear in the world – except for the ever-present threat of death adders. But more about that later.

Nana and Pa Skinner had a holiday house at Angourie. Mum isn’t sure when it was built but it must have been around the time I was born. By today’s standards it wasn’t much. Two or three bedrooms at the most, unlined weatherboard and always dark inside. No electricity or running water, only a rainwater tank out the back which supplied this basic necessity. Uncle Searle – the oldest of Mum’s siblings – had a place close by which was eventually turned into a rather nice retirement home. They were separated by two or three vacant blocks.

Both places were towards the top of the hill that faced the main beach and from where you could see Yamba. In those days there were a few houses further down the hill and so far as I can remember only one higher. So when I say ‘we roamed’ I mean my brother David, and our cousins the Ryans and the Skinners. And sometimes our families may have been the only inhabitants for the other houses were often vacant.

Pa Skinner’s family had an association with Angourie at least as far back as the 1890s and one of the main attractions to us went back to that time. When rocks were needed for break walls in the mouth of the Clarence a source was found at Angourie. The Searles – Pa Skinners mother being Ellen Searle – farmed near Iluka on the northern banks of the Clarence. They rowed from there to the south side, a distance of some kilometres, and then walked the few kilometres to Angourie to sell produce to the quarry workers. Rocks were transported from the quarry by train and the tracks were still there in the late 50’s and early 60s.

Mum holidayed there when she was a girl. Her uncle, Sam Causley, had a large house down the hill from my grandparents – it had to be large to accommodate his family – and Mum stayed with them sometimes. Other times she holidayed in a tent.

The quarries had a short history. According to the story, the miners hit a freshwater spring one day and when they returned the next morning the quarries were flooded. A new quarry commenced operating at Ilarwill on Woodford Island in 1900 to replace these. And the legacy for Angourie – and us kids – were two freshwater pools no more than about 20 metres from the ocean.

The Green Pool may still contain the remains of quarry equipment. It was quite obvious in my childhood days, a forlorn reminder of a failed project.

Rumour had it the Blue Pool was bottomless. All I know is it was deep. It was here that we frolicked for hour after hour. There was a ledge where you could jump 10 or fifteen feet or more into the pool but I don’t recall every being allowed to try this. The pool was one thing we couldn’t use unless supervised. One day David did a running jump into the pool – not from the ledge – and claimed that he hit the bottom, but it was obviously a submerged ledge.

While we played on the beaches and roamed the headlands and rock pools, we were not allowed to swim in the sea.

Not far from Angourie is Shelley Beach. This is now part of Yuraygir National Park and is only accessible by foot. In the 50s it was a sand mining site. My first visit to this beautiful and isolated place was with Pa Skinner who took us there on his grey Ferguson tractor (no OHS rules about not riding on tractors in those days). I have only been back a few times since. Once not long before Mum and Dad retired to Hervey Bay Marilyn, Dad and I walked through from Angourie. Marilyn, Emily and I walked through from Red Cliff when we were holidaying at Brooms Head, and once while at the Broom I got up early and walked to Shelly for breakfast. It was awesome having this place all to myself.

The only downside to this little bit of paradise were the death adders. Not that we ever came across any. But we were warned many a time. Death adders, so we were told, buried themselves in the sand with just the tip of their tail protruding as a lure to attract their next meal. Any unfortunate child who happened to stand on a death adder’s tail would feel the adder’s sting and their venom was deadly.

In the late 1990s I caught up to my cousin Jenny who was living in Brisbane at the time. It may well have been the last time I saw her and I know it had been too many years since we had seen each other. As we reminisced Angourie naturally came into the discussion. Jenny was 9 days younger than me and as Mum’s sister’s child we virtually grew up together. Jenny confessed that, as much as she loved Angourie as a child she lived in constant fear of death adders. I told her I was so relieved to hear that, because I thought it was only me.

When Nana and Pa Skinner retired they built a house on the Yamba Road, not far from the Angourie turn off. One day during either my first or second year of high school, Pa hopped on his bike to ride to Angourie. They found him dead from a heart attack on the side of the road. We had had our last holiday at Angourie and the house was sold not long after that.

When I think about it, I think what a good way to die. Angourie was one of, if not, Pa’s favourite places. He must have had many happy memories of this place, both of times with his own children and then his grandchildren. The only way I could improve on that is to see him standing on the hill up from his house, taking in the view, or relaxing on one of the beaches or beside the Blue Pool with all those great life memories.

Angourie, a great place before anyone but the locals knew it existed.

Dear Candidate for the Federal Parliament

Dear candidate

As a grandfather I am more concerned for the next thirty years than the next three, the next sixty than the next six. For this is the legacy I leave my grandchildren and their children. With this in mind I would appreciate your response to my following concerns.

The Economy

Our aging population means that we are likely to face increasing demands on health services. Aged care appears to be chronically underfunded. Gonski, or the Better Schools program, and the National Disability Insurance Scheme now appear supported by both sides of politics - at least in the short term. But neither have secured long-term funding.

John Daley, Chief Executive Officer at the Grattan Institute, expects Australian governments face a decade of budget deficits owing to lagging income and expenditure demands. In June last year David Hayward, Dean of the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University, wrote of the deteriorating condition of state budgets resulting from revenue ‘flat-lining’ rather than ‘reckless spending’. State and Territory governments are the recipients of the GST.

If we are to provide for the long-term needs of the nation it seems we must address taxation. Yet as soon as taxation changes are mentioned in the political debate the other side runs a scare campaign. Dear candidate, what plans do you or your party have for a far reaching review of the taxation system that includes company tax, superannuation concessions, GST and tax concessions to ensure it addresses the nation in the longer term?  The aim of any tax review should, I believe:

·         Maintain a socially cohesive society by providing for a fair and equitable distribution of income. This means arresting and reversing the increasing income gap in our society.

·         Create and maintain equality of opportunity by addressing social disadvantage.

·         Rewarding effort while providing incentive for those who could work but won't.

·         Consider the demands the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments.

Population Growth

Continued population growth coupled with finite resources presents the world with one of its most significant challenges. At the same time we have an economic model that relies on a growing population. Why is there little discussion of this?

What thought are you and your party giving to alternatives that enable the creation of wealth and the provision of essential services while arresting and reversing population growth? If there are areas where we should consider lowering our expectations, what are these and what would be a more realistic expectation. I would appreciate you addressing this in both national and global terms, including education and development in poor nations, something that has been shown to slow population growth in poor communities.

Species Extinction

Unless we act quickly the only koalas, tigers, rhinoceroses, Great Barrier Reef and many other species my great-grandchildren may see will be digital preservations. Australia has suffered a significant loss of biodiversity since European settlement and the introduction of too many harmful feral and exotic species.

How do you and your party propose to arrest this decay and preserve what is left for future generations?

Climate Change

Both Liberal and Labor state that they believe the science that says human activity is affecting our climate and both have committed to similar reduction targets. If the expectations for the future eventuate we face significant disruption to the world’s economy, the displacement of people and loss of species. Even if your targets are achieved this may not be enough to prevent rising sea levels, and most certainly will not be if larger carbon based economies than ours do not achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

What risk management strategies do you have to mitigate loss associated with climate change? Do these include the identification of critical resources and measures to safeguard these, including food production, habitation and transport?

Managing Risk

I fully understand that things will always come up during the Government’s term of office that require it change course and will therefore be unable to deliver on all its election promises. For this reason I would prefer you presented your strategy as policy objectives, not promises. It is one thing not to hit an objective, another not to keep a promise.

Over the last few years we have been continually promised a budget surplus, only to see successive deficits. While I have no economic expertise I have watched with interest as formerTreasurer Wayne Swann has held to his budget forecasts on more than one occasion long after economic commentators have predicted the promised surplus will not be delivered. Frankly, as a voter this does nothing to instill confidence.

Risk management is being used increasingly in business to identify risks to business objectives and develop strategies to first prevent loss associated with those risks and then to mitigate against those risks if they eventuate. If this strategy had been applied in the budget example above, the government would have been able to spell out its budget strategy, explain to voters the risks that might prevent it achieving its objectives, and what plans it had to manage these risks. This may have included delaying the move to surplus, reducing expenditure in some areas, or options for raising income. Such an approach would allow me to better evaluate the performance of the government by considering its performance against its overall strategy, including its risk management strategy.

Conclusion

While there are other issues I could have listed I will limit myself to the above. As I said above, my concern is not so much for the next three years, but the next thirty, the next six but, the next sixty. Right now I see little, if any, evidence, that either side of politics have a vision for the future or have given consideration to the issues that concern me. Therefore, I have little confidence in either side and it seems that it will make any difference who I vote for in September.

Please convince me I am wrong by spelling out your vision for the long-term, addressing the points I have raised above.

Yours Sincerely

Ken Marsh

Learning to Drive

A couple of years ago I taught my daughter to drive. I sat patiently beside her for most of the compulsory 120 hours of supervised driving. Long will I remember her first evening drive to her weekly piano lesson. As we approached a car parked facing us on our side of the road, lights blazing, she made no effort to slow. ‘Stop’, I said. No response. ‘Stop’ I repeated, this time more firmly for the same result. ‘Stop!’, I screamed, this time getting the required response. ‘Didn’t you see that car?’ I asked. ‘What car?’ Needless to say I drove home that night, and if I were still a drinking man I would have stopped at the first pub I could find for something to settle the nerves.

How times have changed. I remember the story of how my grandfather got his licence. Uncle Roy, Pa’s Marsh’s brother-in-law, was the local Morris dealer and a WW1 veteran so Pa purchased a new Morris. However, he didn’t have a licence so down to Maclean police station to rectify that little anomaly they went. Pa’s request for a licence was met with a ‘Can you drive?’ ‘Of course I can’ answered Pa. ‘Can anyone vouch for that? returned the officer. ‘I can’ said Uncle Roy and so the license was duly issued.

Now Pa had never driven a car, so when the officer asked ‘I’m going out your way, any chance of a lift?’, Pa had to think quickly. ‘Have you ever driven a new Morris?’ he asked. ‘Never’ came the reply. ‘Would you  like to?’ The officer jumped at the chance.

I learnt to drive on the farm. My earliest memory is of Dad taking delivery of a new grey Ferguson tractor around the time my brother was born - the tractor is a much stronger memory than the arrival of a baby brother. A raised road ran through Pa Marsh’s farm and I remember the truck backed up to this as the tractor was driven off the tray. As I grew older I would sit between Dad’s legs holding the steering wheel and it probably wasn’t long after I was tall enough to sit on the seat and reach all the controls that I began to drive. Before I left home I was hauling sugar cane along the road to the derrick where it would be loaded onto punts to be transported to the Harwood sugar mill. Can you imagine that these days - a 15 year old kid driving an unregistered tractor towing an unregistered trailer on a public road?

The Palmers Channel public hall had been built in the late 19th century for the benefit of Protestant Christians and was used by four denominations, each with their allocated Sunday in the month. We were Church of England and would faithfully attend on our rostered day. Pa bought an XL Falcon, released in 1962,  and I remember driving this home from Church often, a distance of just over a mile, or 1.6 km. I can’t remember how old I was when I started doing this, but I must have been 13 or 14.

I obtained my license while on leave from Wagga at the end of 1967. I drove the policeman around the back streets of Maclean in Dad’s automatic XK Falcon while Mum sat in the back seat. It was a happy young man who went home that evening with his ‘P’s. 

The XK was the first model Falcon released and Dad had bought this - a station wagon, as was Pa’s - second hand. I remember a later experience in this car - perhaps when I was on leave from Williamtown. On the Maclean bypass I decided to see how fast it would go. As the speed increased the car started to wallow, the speedo fluctuated wildly, and there was absolutely no sense of feel through the steering wheel. It felt as if I could have turned the wheel from lock to lock without it making any difference. Those that raced these things around Bathurst in the early 60s have my greatest admiration for I still recall this as one frightening experience.

Twelve months later, again while I was home on leave, Mum and Dad surprised me with my first car, an Austin Lancer Series II. This was probably a 1962 model. In the twelve months between obtaining my licence and taking delivery of the car I don’t think I had any driving experience - except, possibly, driving Don Bank’s Mk II Zephyr at Wagga. So I had very little experience as ‘P’ plate driver, as we were only on them for 12 months in those days - and, if I remember correctly, without speed restriction.

At the end of my leave period I drove my new car back to Wagga - but that is a different story.

The Searle Family

Ellen Skinner (nee Searle) aged 62

Ellen Skinner (nee Searle) was Pa Skinner’s mother. She was the sister of Henry Ernest Searle who was recognised as the greatest sculler of the late 19th century. Ellen died at the age of 93. I have one memory of her as a grey haired old lady lying in bed in a house next door to the Chatsworth Island Church of England (as it was then called). It was this Church that Mum and Dad were married in.

Ellen is buried in the Church of England section of the old Maclean cemetery, apart from her husband Thomas Kelly Skinner. It seems she did a runner with the bloke next door somewhere around the age of 40. The younger generation of the family was told she had died so there was quite a stir when she did a Lazarus many years later. This is her story.

Henry Samuel Searle was born in Devonshire in 1832 and was a shoe maker by trade. When the Franco-German war broke out he enlisted in the army and served in Holland for five years guarding the dikes. After returning to England he met and married Mary Anne Brooks. They sailed to Australia on the sailing ship Annie Moore, the journey taking 60 days. It appears that they sailed first to New Zealand and then to Sydney where the passengers were quarantined for six weeks because of an outbreak of small pox. 

They moved to Grafton, arriving on 1 May 1860 where Henry started a shoe making business. While work was plentiful payment was often by produce, such as potatoes and pumpkins, which meant there was little money to buy leather. Henry Ernest Searle was born in Grafton on 14 July 1866.

The family left Grafton to take up a selection of land on Esk Island, which is near Iluka at the mouth of the Clarence River on the Northern side. A slab hut was built and work began clearing the virgin scrub. The land was ploughed with a wooden plough with a steel share and wooden mouldboard pulled by a pair of bullocks.  Maize, potatoes and pumpkins were grown and  Henry opened a boot making shop. Mary baked damper, made her own yeast and used a camp oven. Ellen was born in 1869, the first white child born on Esk Island. Wild game was plentiful and was a good source of food while the dingoes were a menace. As Ellen grew she became quite accomplished with a gun and a rifle.

She was baptised at Lawrence, the nearest Church, by the Rev. John Hill Garven, who came to Australia in 1834 through the influence of the Rev. John Dunmore Lang.The trip from Esk Island was made by muscle powered boat.

Initially there was no school so Mary, who had been a teacher in England, taught the children at home. Once the school was opened in Womba Henry jnr. rowed his siblings to and from school each day, a total of 9.6 km or almost 50 km per week. Once every six months the children would accompany their father to Grafton to obtain supplies. This was a three day trip made in a row boat. Ellen and Henry would also pull the boat to Chatsworth to supply the local store with boots.

Ellen was the last of her generation. She earned a reputation as a sculler, winning many women’s events at regattas held at Maclean, Harwood, Palmers Island and Iluka. She raised nine children on Esk Island and at the time of her death was survived by five sons, two daughters, 26 grandchildren, 52 great grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Note: I have based this on a note hand written by Ellen and an obituary notice, dated 23/8/1962 that was, no doubt, in the Daily Examiner.

The Orr Family

Eliza Jane Orr married William John Davis. They had three children, Roy, Ethel and Lucy, my paternal grandmother. Lucy was born after her father died and Eliza remarried after the children had grown. I knew her as Granny Carter and she died at the age of 96, sometime in my first six months at Wagga Wagga.

Her father, William Orr came from Toronto, Canada. According to the book ‘Centenary of Schooling at Palmers Island, 1866 – 1966’, my source for much of this story, he was an engineer on the first steamship to enter Sydney Harbour. I doubt this claim as it seems to be contradicted by other data I have read. He married Sarah Avis Hutchins, a native of Somersetshire, England, in Ulmarra on October 3rd, 1867 and they had 10 children. Eliza and her eldest sister Mary were born at Coldstream before the family moved to Palmers Island where they rented a farm and had six other children. One brother was born in Grafton and another in Fiji.

In 1882 the family moved to Fiji for a few years where they settled on the Vite Sugar Plantation on the Rewa River. They took two overseers and two draught horses with them. My father told me once that he had heard these were the first two horses taken to Fiji but there may be as much truth in that as the above claim re. the first steam ship. On the plantation they had their own store, hospital with nurses to care for the sick, and employed over 200 workers. On their return to Palmers Island they purchased a farm.

I remember one story of William Orr. It seems that one day he was arrested for being drunk in Maclean. While still inebriated he urinated on the policeman through the bars.  

Drongo

Word for the day: 'Drongo'.

In the early 1920's there was a racehorse named Drongo who in 37 starts never had a win. He did however have a number of seconds and thirds in top class races, including the Melbourne Cup. His lineage is traced to a colt Jersey Lily brought to Australia by the actress Lillie Langtry. At one stage in her life she was mistress to Edward, Prince of Wales who later became Edward VII. Edward, it seems, was a bit of a pants man, having a possible 55 mistresses throughout his life. These included the mother of Winston Churchill and the great-grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles.

Soon after the horse was retired racegoers, it seems, began calling any horse that failed to make the grade a drongo. And so it came to mean anyone who was slow, dim-witted, or hopeless cases.

In the 1940s the word was applied to RAAF recruits.

From Tae Kwon Do to Vegetarianism

I remember seeing a demonstration of Ju Jitsu on television when I was in high school and being amazed by it. Perhaps the appeal lay in the fact that my athletic ability was well recognised by my peers. I was the kid who never made the first 13, even when there were only 12 to choose from. And how I hated it when they nominated two captains and let them pick their teams. Invariably I was the last pick - which did absolute wonders for my self-esteem.

It was Stan who first got me interested in Tae Kwon Do. I was in 77 Squadron when Stan got posted in from Vietnam. While there he had picked up a black belt from the Koreans. He was a few years older than me, a member of 18 apprentice intake, and we became good mates. One night on our way home from enjoying an after work drink or two with a few mates - not that we ever drank excessively, we simply sat and savoured the taste for a few hours - we found a house brick. ‘Come on Stan’, we said. ‘Show us how you can break it.’

Stan tried to oblige. I can’t remember how many attempts he made, but he persevered for a while. And finally, success came. He threw it off the first floor balcony of our block and it broke on the road below.

Stan also agreed to teach us his art. We lined up a few times in the hangar after work but it didn’t last long. It seems there was always something to celebrate. In September 1971 I was posted to Butterworth, Malaysia. Again, I took up Tae Kwon Do - for a week or two. But hey, I was a young bloke in a foreign country and there were bars, and birds, and bikes and I just became immersed in the cultural scene. So much for martial arts.

I returned to Australia in March 1974 and was posted to 38 Sqn, Richmond. I had thoroughly enjoyed my time in Butterworth and in November of that year I married my first wife - a girl I had met in Penang. Butterworth was again at the top of my posting preferences with a twin pull - the Butterworth lifestyle and the desire to return so that my wife could keep closer contact with her family.

At the time I was considerably overweight and no where near as fit as I should have been. One day I made a decision - I was going get fit so that when I went back to Butterworth I would be ready to take up Tae Kwon Do. So it was off to the pool at lunch time and I bought a bike of the pedal power variety to ride to work.

We returned to Butterworth in July 1977 and our house was within easy walking distance of the RAAF School Penang Annex - off Jalan Gajah. This worked out well for me for it was in the Annex that Mr Lee, a 4th Dan Tae Kwon Do practitioner and Malaysian champion, taught us his skills every Tuesday and Thursday evening. As I progressed through the grades to black belt I ended up training five nights a week - two at the Annex and Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the main centre in Georgetown. At the main centre I attempted back-to-back classes but never made it to the end of the second class. We trained on very smooth concrete floors and as I progressed through the second class I would end up sweating so much that it became like training on an ice rink.

Lunch time would often find me running around the airfield or doing laps in the Base pool. I once took part in a relay around Penang Island. We had a RAAF truck that carried the team, stopping to let one of us off at the start of our leg and picking up the bloke that had just finished. I can’t recall if this was part of a race. Towards the end of my time in Butterworth I was doing a 30 to 40 minute run before work, swimming at lunchtime and training at night. No longer was I ‘Bigada Ken’ as some blokes called me at Richmond. My weight was around 85 kg and I did get some favourable comments from the ladies on my appearance - something that definitely appealed to my male ego.

As I got further into Tae Kwon Do I began to wonder if diet could make a difference to my performance and so I began reading. I subscribed to Runners World and bought books on diet and health. The first book I read advocated a high protein, meat based diet - meat three times a day - and I started out on this. But as I read more I began to question this approach and eventually became convinced that vegetarianism was the way to go. This may well have been influenced by a comment I remember from primary school, that top class athletes were vegetarian. While I now know that is not necessarily the case I know that Murray Rose, one of Australia's all time swimming greats, was a vegan. And while I cannot confirm it I have always believed Herb Elliott was a vegetarian. Elliott was coached by Percy Cerutty who had become a vegetarian following a severe health crisis before he went on to become recognised as one of our coaching greats.

The move towards vegetarianism was accompanied by a shift towards more natural foods, such as whole grains and less refined foods, including sugar. The Penang Adventist Hospital had a store that sold very nice wholemeal bread and brown rice - probably the only place in Penang where you could buy it. And as I changed my diet there was an unexpected - and unplanned - outcome. I lost the taste for beer.

I never intended to become a tee-totaller. After all, I used to enjoy a cold beer on a hot day, and every day in Penang was a hot one. But I found that after one or two beers I would switch to soft drink, so after awhile I decided to skip the beer altogether.

While the Tae Kwon Do didn’t last for long after I returned to Australia I have retained a predominantly vegetarian, non-drinking lifestyle ever since. Occasionally I eat meat, perhaps half a dozen times a year if I feel it is too much of a hassle, especially for others, or just not practical, to eat vegetarian. When I returned to Penang for a work conference around 2008 I was determined to have a murtabarb and beef satays. And on the last night of the trip I had to test myself out on the curries. The hottest I could find was mutton and I am pleased to say that I still had what it takes.

I have come to appreciate the vegetarian lifestyle for different reasons. While there are no guarantees in life, studies continue to confirm the health advantages of more natural diets that are either vegetarian or that obtain protein largely from vegetarian sources. These benefits come in both lower disease rates and increased longevity. In a society where many of the diseases we suffer are the diseases of lifestyle, it makes sense from a purely economic perspective that healthier lifestyles should see a reduction in the demand on our health - or more accurately, ill-health - system.

Then there are the environmental considerations. It takes a lot less land and water to feed a vegetarian than a meat eater. With an increasing world population, and a growing middle class that demands more animal protein, the current and rising level of demand for animal protein is unsustainable. Fish stocks are in serious decline. The demand for beef is leading to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, which in turn is impacting on the lives of indigenous people, causing increasing rates of species extinction, soil erosion and affecting world weather patterns. Livestock production is now rated as the number one cause of greenhouse gases - outstripping transport and energy production. All this without consideration of animal welfare practices.

In 2007 I took up martial arts again, this time karate. While I do not train as intensely now as I did in the late 1970s, I am fitter than I have been for a long time. It is often said that an exercise program for the sake of exercise is hard to maintain and that we should find a physical activity we enjoy. In my case, this has been martial arts. Karate, and before that Tae Kwon Do, motivate me to push myself harder than I would otherwise. And as a 63 year old I feel good that I can keep up physically with people that may be more than half my age. For me, vegetarianism is only part of the health equation. Physical exertion is just as important, if not more so.

June 2013

Granny Carter

Granny (right) with Polly Harely (sister) and Jim Orr (brother)

Granny Carter was always old – at least as far as I remember. She died in 1967, a few months after I started at Wagga Wagga. I still remember the day I received the letter from Mum telling me of her death. Mum had included some information – probably a newspaper clipping – about her funeral that made reference to the Bible reading on the day. I did have a Bible, not that I read it much in those days, and Steve Butler suggested I get it out and read the passage. Steve and a few other blokes sat around the room as I read it out. While this was happening someone else came into the room, saw what was going on, and accused us of being Bible bashers but as soon as someone explained what was going on he sat quietly with the rest of them. Granny died at the age of 96 which means she was born in 1871.

My memory is always of Granny and Aunty Ethel, for from my earliest days they always lived together. Among my earliest memories are those of a trip I did with Nana and Pa Marsh in the Austin A40 to spend a night or two with Granny and Aunt Ethel on their farm at Seelands, outside Grafton. I must have been three or four at the time. From their house you could see the Clarence River and the railway line ran through their farm. Now, when I look Seelands up on ‘whereis.com’ it shows up on the opposite side of the river to the railway line but possibly Seelands refers to the area on both sides of the river.

I don’t know when they moved to Grafton, but that is where they both lived for most of the time I knew them. From their house we could look over a creek to see the prisoners in Grafton gaol working in the prison gardens.

They were both ‘proper’ ladies, always well dressed, sat straight, and Aunty Ethel was quite particular about the way the house was kept. Mum and Dad made it quite clear before we ever visited that we were expected to be on our best behaviour for the occasion. Whenever we began to get a little restless we were allowed to go out into the garden to work off some excess energy.

Granny and Ethel would often spend time with Nana and Pa, especially at Christmas. One memory of Granny is that of her on hands and knees scrubbing Nana’s veranda. This memory was of Granny well into her eighties. Another is of her sitting on a platform that had been made for Nana to allow her to reach the rotary clothes line Dad had made for her. Nana was rather short as a result of a deformity she had caused by a childhood illness. Granny held a switch in her hand and David and I would try to run in close to Granny and out again without being tagged by the switch. She remained physically active until the last couple of years of her life and retained her full mental abilities until the end.

Granny with Ethel, Roy and Lucy.

Granny was born Eliza Orr, the daughter of William who had emigrated from Canada. The story is that William was the engineer on the first steam ship that sailed into Sydney Harbour but I am not sure that this tale would stand up to close historical scrutiny. It seems one day William had a little too much to drink and spent the night as a guest of the local policeman. While enjoying the policeman’s hospitality he urinated on the officer through the bars of his cell. Which may explain why he spent some time in Fiji.

Granny spent some of her childhood in Fiji where William managed a sugar can plantation. Another unsubstantiated piece of the family history is that William took the first horses to Fiji. This is something Dad told me that he had heard but he was not sure if it were true.

Granny married William Davis and they had three children; Roy, Ethel and Lucy. Roy served with the army in France in World War 1 where he was gassed and wounded. After the war he married Alma McLennan, Pa Marsh’s cousin. They had one daughter, Maree (may not be spelt correctly) who served in the WRAAF in World War two and later married Don Day who also served in the RAAF. Don became a minister in the Wran Government of NSW. Ethel married a McNeil. They had no children and her husband died before I was born. Lucy was my Dad’s mother.

William died before Lucy was born and Granny determined she would not marry again until her children were raised. Initially she lived in a shack with a dirt floor on a farm owned by her brother-in-law, Lavendar Davis (known as Lav). Years later, after my grandparents married, they bought the neighbouring 80 acre farm. To earn a little money Granny walked the 8 to 10 kilometres into Maclean carrying eggs, chickens and other produce to sell.

She eventually married Grandfather Carter who died before I was born. The Carters owned a 40 acre farm that was diagonally across the road from my grandparents. When Mum and Dad married they took over this farm and I grew up in the house that my great grandmother had lived in. Dad was to eventually buy this farm from Granny. It had been left to him in Grandfather Carter’s will on condition that he buy it from Granny at a price that was set at the time the will was written – quite a favourable price when Dad finally bought it.

The story is told that when one of her nieces – a Davis girl – wore a two-piece swimsuit that showed the smallest amount of midriff Granny called her a hussy.  She was a staunch Methodist but according to my Uncle Stan – who married Dad’s sister Aileen – would enjoy the occasional shandy. Her faith remained strong throughout her life and her Bible was constantly beside her during the final years of her life when she suffered a succession of illnesses.

Granny lived by this prayer that I believe was in her Bible when she died.

‘My Lord walks with me today, and His power is in every single thing I do. Today His glorious Presence will be at my right hand. As I take hold of my tasks there will be added strength within me. As I face perplexities there will be unexpected solutions. As I face my relationships with others, there will be a love beyond my own, making those relationships sweet and beautiful. Nothing will meet me today that He will not be in and together we will go through it. His glorious Presence will be at my right hand.’

Granny was a wonderfully kind lady who was greatly loved by her family. She overcame hardship, as did many of her generation, to create a better world for her family. A true pioneer, a positive role model, a woman of faith.

Dad's Confession

Verdy Marsh stood on the road waving us to stop. ‘Not again’ I thought. It wasn’t all that long since we had  been caught and now it looked like we had been sprung again. Perhaps we had but that is one thing I will never know. Let me explain.

For the first two or three years of high school I caught the school bus at the intersection of what is now known as South Bank Road Palmers Channel and the Maclean to Yamba road. This meant a bike ride of of around eight kilometers. In the morning I would usually meet up  with friends along the way and of course we rode home together in the afternoon. The community had built a shelter shed at the intersection and in those days there was no risk of anyone stealing our bikes through the day.

One incident I remember well, sometimes wondering how lucky I was to escape unscathed. On this particular morning I was racing one of the other boys and we were neck and neck. We shot across the intersection and there, next to the bus shed in a bit of a depression in the ground, lay a discarded and quite sizeable piece of  lumbar. Both I and my school case somersaulted over the handlebars and landed on the ground. But that was not the scariest thing. As we raced toward the intersection we couldn’t see if there was any traffic on the Maclean road because of the sugar cane growing on both sides of South Bank Road, and while it is possible we may have heard the traffic noise we were so engrossed in our battle that we may well not have.

Rocky Marshall and myself went through the smoking stage as boys were wont to do back then - and not only back then I imagine. Now I can’t remember if we puffed as we rode along the road or if we pulled over on the side somewhere. I do remember though that we hid our fags under the local hall which stood at the intersection of South Bank Road and Amos’s Lane - which just happened to be diagonally across the road from Verdy’s place.

One day I made the mistake of taking the fags home. The next morning I stuck them in the pocket of my school shorts - not a very smart thing to do - and walked out of my room, ready for school, with my hand stuck in my pocket to hide the bulge. ‘What do you have in your pocket, Kenneth?’ ‘Nothing Mum.’ ‘Come on, tell me.’ ‘Nothing Mum.’ After two or three goes Mum gave up and I doubt that she believed me, so she must have felt kindly disposed that day. The consequences of upsetting Mum were at times quite painful - for Mum certainly believed the old saying about sparing the rod and spoiling the child, only in Mum’s case it was a switch off the peach tree.

While I was at Wagga Wagga I took up smoking and kept it up for a few years - fortunately giving up before I left for Butterworth. Every time I came home Mum would be on my case over this and I remember her stealing a few cigarettes from the packet in the hope that it would mean I smoked less. This time I got a confession out of her when I confronted her with the accusation.

However smoking had nothing to do with the incident involving Verdy. Next door to Lance and Verdy Marsh’s place - whose son Peter was a bit younger than me - stood the original Marsh family home, built by John and Mary Ann Marsh after they took up their selection of land in 1869. While I can’t remember who lived there - other than they were members of the extended family - they had quite a good orchard next to the house. The thought of all that delicious fruit was a temptation that two hungry school boys could not resist. I am sure that we must have raided it on more than one occasion, but this day Verdy caught  us. We must have faced some punishment, but if so I can’t remember what it was.

It obviously wasn’t sufficient to deter us, this being the reason for my guilty feelings when pulled over again. Sadly, as it turned out, this was not the reason we had been stopped. Mum had only heard that day that her father had died and they had arranged with Verdy that she would look after my brother, who was still in primary school, and me until Mum and Dad could pick us up.

As the years passed the incident of the orchard came up from time to time as the family reminisced. It came up again not long before Dad died. And this time the truth came out.

The local swimming pool was opposite the local hall, being a fenced off section of Palmers Channel as was common practice in those days. One day Dad and a couple of his mates, being boys at the time, made their way from the pool via the Channel to the orchard. They also were caught. I only wish I had thought to ask him what he had thought when his son was found out repeating the offense.

I know this though. Since the day that Dad told me he had also been caught doing the same thing there has been something special about the incident for me. While I struggle to find the words to explain it it has in a way created another bond between us, knowing that there is at least one misdeed that we share in common.

Bullshit Mountain

Vic Rollinson had a piece titled Living on Bullshit Mountain published on the Independent Australia site on 30 Dec 12. I posted this in response on 1 Jan 13 - to add some balance to the  argument. I have made some minor grammatical corrections below.

Bullshit Mountain. Now you’ve really got me going.

Here we are in Australia, one of the best developed, wealthiest, educated and governed nations in the world. We have concepts of democracy, human rights and freedoms that can be traced back through Judeo/Christian and Grecian thought that have developed over centuries and millennium. This is in stark contrast to our near neighbours (with the exception of our Kiwi brothers and sisters) where we find an amazing array of religious and cultural expressions. Here we find fatalism, reincarnation, ancestor worship and no doubt a lot more. Some of these differences are quite significant and give these people different world views and values that at times really clash with ours.

Most Australians are so far removed from food production our only role in the food cycle is as over-consumers. Our diseases are largely those of opulence, in many cases preventable through diet, exercise, little or no alcohol and other drugs. Rather than change our lifestyles we look to an overtaxed and expensive health care system to keep us alive – not to mention the amount we spend on reproductive health so that we can put off having children until we have the house, plasma screen TV, four-wheel drive and trip around the world – unlike our grandparents who may have started their lives together sleeping on a mattress on the floor. All this in a seriously overpopulated world where far too many people die of starvation, suffer malnutrition, and lack access to clean water, basic health care and education. Women and children are forced into prostitution simply as a survival measure. It is nothing to do with their morality – it may say something about ours.

Among significant numbers of our near neighbours we find overpopulation, poverty, illiteracy and low levels of education, cultures working on the basis of honour and shame rather than the rule of secular law, and a religious view of life that sees as us morally decadent. The reality is if you have loose change in your pocket you possibly stand with the top ten per cent in terms of wealth in the world and definitely in the top twenty.

A large number of our neighbours are not into those things that Maslow identified at the top of his hierarchy – meaning, purpose, self-actualisation. Theirs is the day-to-day struggle to stay alive, feed themselves and their kids and to provide some basic shelter.

Our neighbours have lived with the tensions of racial, religious and sectarian differences for centuries. In contrast, our forebears established this nation as a bastion of British civilization in the Pacific, determined to maintain our racial purity through the White Australia Policy. These same forebears – well, some at least because there were those with different views – hunted down our indigenous people as if they were vermin less than 200 years ago. And in the 1950s before we dropped the bomb at Maralinga we counted the cattle – but not the aborigines – which probably meant we considered the former to have greater value. And, as inheritors of this outpost of British civilisation in the South Pacific we should we remind ourselves it wasn’t all that long ago within the timespan of human history that our British culture sent the gunboats to China to make sure they would buy our opium despite the serious social problems that caused.

During WW2 we took some refugees from Asia but after the war our immigration minister Arthur Caldwell sought to have them returned whence they had come. Caldwell recognised the need to ‘populate or perish’, but that meant with good white folk – although the Chifley Government did allow the right non-Europeans to settle for business reasons. In 1949 Holt, as Immigration Minister in the Menzies Government allowed the remaining Asian refugees to stay. Over the next two to three decades the White Australian policy was dismantled. Non-Europeans with 15 years or more residency could obtain citizenship from 1957 on. The policy was effectively dismantled by the Holt Government, ended legally under Whitlam, and Fraser removed its last vestiges. (Wikipedia on the White Australia Policy).

Back in opposition Whitlam was initially reluctant to accept an influx of Vietnamese refugees but with Fraser’s leadership in this area Whitlam and then Hayden came on board. (http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=29418).

While all this was going on our neighbours were emerging from long periods of Western colonization which, as we all know, was not driven by any altruistic concern for the colonized. It left in some areas at least major social and political challenges. And just as the wealth of the British – and others – empire was built upon the exploitation of the colonies our lifestyles today are largely built upon the exploitation of the developing world and the land grabs of our pioneers.

Whitlam recognised the importance of Asia and as opposition leader announced his policy to recognise Communist China – and was attacked by Prime Minister McMahon for doing so. In Government Whitlam carried through on his policy and Fraser’s first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to China and Japan. (Wikipedia on McMahon and http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=29418).

Now our political leaders – Gillard and Abbott – tell us we need to engage with Asia. This is the Asian century so let’s get on the bandwagon. Well Keating didn’t help with his ‘recalcitrant’ remark – although he did introduce a new word to my vocabulary and it may have been a heat of the moment thing. Then along came Howard and some Asian leaders saw him as – well, we could say, unenlightened.

So how do our current lot do?

First, we have a debate on asylum seekers – a legitimate debate and one that we should have. But our leaders have a domestic audience to play to – one with legitimate fears of the unknown – especially religious extremism - who themselves are struggling to keep up with rapid change, to make ends meet and believe charity begins at home, and, yes, plain old-fashioned (then again has it ever been out of fashion in some quarters) racism. So in the middle of all the crocodile tears that are shed on this issue the Greens and the Coalition let the world know that Malaysia is not a fit and proper place to send these people we really care about because of their poor record (or is it atrocious) on human rights.

Malaysia is a country which, if you know anything of its history, has in the relatively short period since independence faced some significant domestic challenges and deserves credit for the progress it has made. It still has a long way – as do we all – to come but, hate to say it, this domestic debate can only be seen by them as a kick in the teeth.

And on this matter, Gillard should perhaps have had a talk to Fraser and some of his cabinet colleagues from the Vietnam era. They didn’t take too kindly to finding out on the morning’s news report what the latest US policy on Vietnam was – and we were their friend and ally. At least consult with our neighbours first before making pronouncements on regional solutions.

One point on the Greens – I do believe they are sincere in their concern for asylum seekers but I am not convinced that either of the major parties is.

Then there is the matter of live meat exports. Animal cruelty is abhorrent in more forms than the slaughter of cattle. How many of us think about factory farms and battery hens? I hate the sight of semi-trailer loads of chickens being taken to wherever and am not a fan of transportation of cattle over long distances in couped up conditions – which is one reason I feel good about buying what I hope are free-range eggs and rarely eating meat.

But what message does this well-developed, educated nation of over consumers living on easy street – yes, I would say even our pensioners, when compared to the majority world, have it easy – send to people struggling to survive with their well-entrenched cultural expectations about how meat is slaughtered.

But, you may say, didn’t we explain to them our slaughter protocols and didn’t they say they would do it?

Asian’s place high value on ‘face’. If an Asian entrenched in this culture is given an instruction they do not understand, they will not seek clarification. To do so is to lose face. Furthermore, this culture will tell you what they think you want to hear – not what they intend to do. I lived in Asia for five years and never got used to this. ‘When will my bike be fixed?’ ‘Tomorrow can.’ And as the ‘tomorrows’ rolled into weeks and months it became more and more frustrating – so maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on Keating for his ‘recalcitrant’ comment.

And yes – maybe our export companies could be more diligent in their audits and inspection, but perhaps they also are learning to engage with Asia (profit motive aside).

So, Ms Gillard, Mr Abbott, and others, do we really want to engage in Asia. Or are we simply, all of us, climbing Bullshit Mountain?

Ken Marsh (BSA)