DELIBERATE NOISE POLLUTION

DELIBERATE NOISE POLLUTION

We accept the ambient noise of city-living, and most of us put up with it as being inevitable in this motorised age. There’s no doubt the volume of this noise increases from year to year.

We lived in a reasonably peaceful street in suburban Nudgee, on the northern outskirts of the city of Brisbane, Australia. One early morning, after twenty years of residence in this rather delightful tree-lined neighbourhood, I opened the back door to admit a roar of white sound; a combination of traffic both local and distant, airport take-offs and landings, machinery from nearby industry, local waste-truck pick-up, and from the engines and exhausts of a queue of static cars in our street, all attempting to access the nearby ‘freeway’, also at a standstill.

This noise pollution (and its associated air-pollution) had, over twenty years, insidiously increased from zero to intolerable.

There was another pollution, unnoticed at first. All our outdoor furniture and that under cover, was coated with greasy black dust; the fall-out from the products of exhaust gases mixed with finely-ground tyre rubber. We breath the air which carries such filth.

Time to move, and we did. Out of the city, out to the rural hills of quiet and clean air.

But city life must go on, to the detriment of its inhabitants. There’s no solution. Work is money, and money is living.

There is pollution, though, which is endemic and avoidable. That which assaults our ears and sensibilities either accidentally or deliberately, and the following is a list of culprits.

MOTORCYCLES leave their places of manufacture with in-tact and acceptable exhaust noise-levels.The majority, once sold, are butchered by their new owners in order to produce a horrifying roar which increases with revs. The owners give a spurious reason for this effect: to enable revs to be heard above the noise of nearby motorcycle traffic. Ha. The Musicians’ Dilemma. ‘I can’t hear myself over the drums…..up my volume!’ ‘I can’t hear myself over the bass…..turn up my fold-back’.  Everyone’s sound-level increases, and increases.

The sound of a straight-through exhaust on a motorbike which is overtaking your car at maximum acceleration is quite terrifying and dis-orienting. A hundred such bikes in convoy is a traveling scourge to all road-users and neighbourhoods. Mysteriously, in Queensland, there was a time when ALL motorbikes had to submit to regular police sound-checks. No longer. Why?

The neighbourhood child on an un-licenced, unregistered, un-insured motorbike is a further avoidable outrage. No exhaust baffles of course. The joy (to the child) of emitting a vast roar whilst circling the block, again and again, is a frightful horror to the peaceful residents.

Not that the residents are themselves blameless. List the noise-makers in constant use: lawn-mowers and ride-ons, grass-trimmers, lawn-edgers, chain-saws, and worst of all, leaf-mulchers of all sizes roaring continuously at maximum revs. And the most irritating thing about all these tiny machines is their lack of sound-proofing; surely a simple addition.

A modern three-litre saloon car is almost inaudible, even idling in your driveway. Three litres! The noise of that car on the road is from the radial tyres, not the engine. Old rigid tyres were almost silent, though of course far less safe. How is it possible for that engine to be inaudible, when a tiny mower can be heard blocks away?

My old neighbour usus his big ride-on as transport. He rides, at full revs in first gear, around our house to neighbours, many times a day, and to his mail box, and round his garden, all day. This, in addition to actually cutting grass……….He is stone deaf; has no idea.

Of course it’s all in the ear of the hearer. To each his own, and to each sound its place: a rock-concert is voluntary. I remember our favourite restaurant in an older Brisbane: Lucky’s, in the Valley. A marvellous home-from-home, with great ambience, big Italian food, fast cheerful service. Superb murals covered the walls, Italian opera played  non-stop. A most jovial oasis of free-speech and often song, and laughter and old-fashioned gaiety. Is there still gaiety in the world?

Then, one day (not night), Lucky wasn’t there; his family were running the place. A local crass radio-station was playing loudly through the speakers, sunlight beamed through the street-grimed windows, illuminating the worn furniture and shoddy paint. Even the fine murals seemed demeaned. A miserable street-cafe in a street of roaring traffic. Such a transformation, and all in my perception: except for the music and lighting, all was the same. I had to erase that moment to enjoy future nights of jollity, but the feeling of regret remained.

Such is the delicacy of our perceptions.

So squirm as I may at the tiny hoon on the tiny motorbike, this too will end, and it does, and for a while, the dogs don’t bark, the gardens are silent, the birds hold the air, and the rustling leaves can be heard clearly, gently, softly.

HONEY, my dog.

ONCE UPON A TIME, IN A MORE PEACEFUL, CAREFREE BRISBANE,

I lived alone in a little Queensland cottage I had restored (not ‘renovated’) in a peaceful Kangaroo Point.  The house had required major repairs and rebuilding, and was on loan to me courtesy of a finance company charging  18%. Needless to say, I had to get out as soon as a buyer could be found.

It would be a very reluctant sale. The simple, pretty cottage with its level, virgin plot, its new paint, its veranda facing the lane, very soon became a home, with lovely neighbours, mostly kindly old folk who had lived their entire lives there. We visited each others houses for cups of tea and gossip. It was a pleasure to be part of such a community.

The City was almost within walking-distance over the Storey Bridge, the pub two lanes away, with a few necessary shops and bus-routes, and a phone-box. I could park my car anywhere; off the lane, in the lane. There were no restrictive signs, and few neighbours had vehicles: what need|?

Other than the threat of horrendous re-payments, there was one sad situation that niggled at my peace-of-mind.

In full view over my new back fence was a little brown dog, sitting on its box of a kennel, and regularly, if quietly, with head down, emitting a moan. It was chained to its box all twenty-four hours and was fed and watered once a day by a man otherwise absent.

I talked to this dog every day over the back fence. Silly. But to see its ears prick up and its tail wag at my brief attention was so endearing. The owner noticed this, eventually, and we chatted. A surly bloke; there was a wife in the house I had never seen: it’s her bloody dog, he said.

She doesn’t want it. I got it for her, but it jumps up all the time so we have to keep it out here. Do you let the dog off the lead? No, it just goes mad and runs away. What, in your yard? It jumps over the fence. Spent hours getting it back once, so we chain it up.

What’s it’s name, is it a dog or a bitch? (I couldn’t see from my place).

It’s a she: doesn’t have a name.

And so the weeks passed.

Then one day: do you want our dog? What?

We’re getting rid of it. The Pound. Do you want it?

My first thought was No. What could I do with a dog in my life as a carpenter? She was so cute, small, brown, short hair, smiley face when attended to. Then I thought of tradie’s dogs I had known. Roof-tilers’ Jack Russels, which scampered up ladders and ran around roofs. (But had to be carried down!)

She could be my work-companion: not out of the question.

So next day, I said yes, I’ll have your dog, but under my restrictions.

One: she stays on her box for a while, a week maybe, but I feed and water her. I’ll come over the fence. Two: from now on, you keep away, don’t approach her. Three: later I’ll move her box into my yard and feed her. Again, you keep away.

Of course, now someone was interested in the dog, he couldn’t keep away, and I caught him feeding her as before, and remonstrated. Do you want the dog? No! Then stick to our agreement. Which he eventually did.

So one day, after acclimatising herself to me and my back yard, (and we were already the best of mates), it was time to release her from the box, the chain and her isolation. It was to be a neighbouhood event. The previous owner was asked not to appear, but did, of course: it’ll run away, you’ll never see it again……well, I said, it’s none of your business now, unless you want her back…….No, no, it’s your bloody dog now, I want nothing more to do with it………

So as the neighbours sat with cups of tea in the back yard, Honey (her new and only name) was released!

Without one look back, she jumped the fence and bolted.

The neighbour appeared. Ha. Told you so, you stupid bugger.

Minutes later, she raced past my gate in the opposite direction. I opened the gate, but she was out of sight. The neighbour laughed.

After fifteen minutes little brown Honey ran into my yard and flopped at my feet, panting and happily exhausted, and buried her face in the water-dish.

There were withdrawal symptoms. She occasionally forgot where she lived and turned up at the neighbour’s back door. Foolishly and annoyingly, he fed her. YOUR bloody dog’s come back. Well, she might if you insist on feeding her! I thought you’d finished with that? So after a few week’s settling-in, Honey became my partner in carpentry and runs at Mt. Coot Tha, and at the beach, and on my boat (not happy!) She was a fixture on my ute and on the job, and a favourite with my clients and their families, where she quickly made herself at home.

Altogether a happy relationship of many years, and fond memories, and I’ll leave my life with Honey there. Me, my ute, the smiley little brown dog in the back, everyone’s mate, but mine especially!

On Ulysses, having read Ronan McDonald’s ‘The Consecration’, The Monthly, June 2022.

I still have my over-derelict copy of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’  from the last year of high-school, called grammar school in the grim Merseyside of the 1960s.

My reading then as ever, had no advice, no guidance. I read what I found curious. I had just finished two readings Lawrence Durrell’s Black Book of mysterious provenance, with much curiosity and excitement, and discovered  Ulysses soon after: where? How?

That book took me an age to finish, because I found my ability to read had slowed to a conscientious crawl, re-scanning almost every sentence with avid interest, then galloping whole tracts with exhilarating abandon.

To my surprise, I found the hero to be a Jewish resident of Dublin, born and bred. There were peripheral heroic-characters appearing everywhere, but Leopold Bloom was, is, the the hinge on which the story hangs, along with his live-in love, Molly, a flamboyant singer of opera, uncouth, sexually prolific, but with talent, tutored by the erudite Leopold in pronunciation.  Two opposites, living in punctuated harmony. Molly finishes the book with an immense, very personal monologue.

But if my synopsis is found wanting, that is but a tiny fraction of the story; a mad ramble through the hearts, minds, and real places of Dublin during twenty-four hours, guided, or miss-guided by every thought and conversation of each character.

Revelations come with every re-reading. Once is pathetic; most inferences will be missed, or misunderstood. Every consecutive reading will reveal more. Every reading will bring the joy of realization previously missed. I was primed for this effect somewhat by Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet with its four books of parallel life-stories, but Ulysses is in another category. It is a journey through exotic paths, each turn with too much detail to absorb in one trip, or a dozen. Try it!

Since then my reading has been strictly informative; Stephen Jay Gould, Tim Low, Steve Jones, Jared Diamond, Tim Flannery, Simon Winchester. The shelves sag under their weight, but battered Ulysses is always within reach

As a very young man I treasured the mine of story-telling. Every year or so I’d start again at the martello tower. I must have read the book, what, seven, eight times, the last a few years ago. Now at 78, I’ll start again. See what I missed.

BOSCH HYDROPOWER on-demand hot water systems: problems and fixes Australia

THERE ARE CERTAIN CONDITIONS in parts of Australia which render these on-demand systems (those with no permanent pilot flame) inoperative, two of which are described below, and their solutions.

1) INSECT (MOSTLY NATIVE BEE) INGRESS. This damage becomes immediately noticeable as a drop in water temperature, partially-lit burners, and black smoke-deposits from un-burned gas.

THE CAUSE:  Small bees find their way to the air-gas intake ports and lay their eggs etc. in the tubing, blocking the gas. This causes a yellow, smokey flame, or none at all, from the gas jets affected, and black carbon deposits from the chimney.

THE SOLUTION: Remedially, to dismantle and clean the gas-mix tubes affected: a job taking one hour. Permanent, to screen all air ingress and egress with flame-proof wire- mesh suitable to exclude the insects concerned, mostly small bees, though there may be other insects involved. The manufacturer may be concerned that this action may affect air-flow, particularly if any screening becomes blocked over time, so regular cleaning may be necessary.

2)  INTERNAL CONDENSATION.  There are certain weather conditions, particularly in elevated areas, which result in a TEMPERATURE-INVERSION, usually at night. During these situations, which may be quite common, the internal cold metal parts of the BOSCH HYDROPOWER attract copious condensation as warmer, saturated air surrounds the system. This renders the piezo  spark inoperative, soaked as it is during these periods. This effect takes place entirely WITHIN the casing of the BOSCH HYDROPOWER.

THERE IS NO SUITABLE SOLUTION to this problem, unless a position sheltered from the effect of the TEMPERATURE-INVERSION  can be found for the heater. A desperate measure is to light the pilot manually whilst the piezo is operating; quite safe, but requiring some considerable manipulation not within the capability of the home-owner. An easier solution is to give the piezo and pilot a quick spray with de-watering fluid prior to turning on the hot water: still a painful exercise, as the cover must be removed.

All complaints to the local Australian distributors of these hot-water systems are brushed aside as being without foundation, and it is possible that considerable money is wasted by home-owners, ignorant of the true cause of the problems,  in fruitless repairs. The frustration of cold water from the hot tap is unfortunately at the worst times of day; late night and early morning.

MEMORIES

MEMORIES

 I was sure, when I was a little boy, that I could remember a time when I was in the big old pram with a fringed sunshade. The fringe undulating in any breeze, the pram parked on the tiny patch of daisy-speckled grass called the ‘front lawn’. I remembered that fringe and its movement, though my mother said that was impossible.

It was a big house, rented, that held us. Mum and Dad, Gran, big Sister, and an occasional pet. I said I was born there, 80, Mount Pleasant Road, Wallasey, but actually it was in the hospital at Liscard; not far away.

The environment of a little boy expands exponentially as the years pass, but in the beginning was only the house and two gardens: front and back. Semi-detached, as were they all in the mostly land-locked estate. My first twelve years were spent  there.

There was no access for any vehicle, even a motorbike had to mount the kerb and squeeze between the houses to the back gate: once inside, turning around was a back-and-forth struggle.

I was forever irrationally in fear of that house, except when everyone was home, or there were visiting convivial rellies. There was a long flight of lighthouse-like stairs leading to an attic, where I braved my terror with a beating heart, to run back down to the safety of the kitchen below. There was an immense drop from that attic landing, down the huge open stair-well, and in the room three low doors opened onto the black-dark roof space, the source of my fear, for it was there that the headless, armless, legless body lay. My parents knew of my fear, and its cause, for I had explained, and they wondered at my imagination, but years later some repairs to the cistern in the loft brought light into the dark recesses, and revealed a filthy, debris-covered dressmaker’s dummy in a corner, jammed under the roof-pitch. I remember the amazed call of my father, to see this artifact, the cause of my years of terror. The first sight of it renewed my horror, until it was pulled out and its purpose demonstrated. My sister Doreen later cleaned and used it: her size exactly! But the mystery remains: how did I know that limbless corpse was there?

One small window in the attic looked out to the neighbour’s roof and chimneys, and down the chasm between, but one day my mother said, look, you can see the sea from here. There, by leaning out and sideways, braving the chasm, could be seen  a small yellow strip of beach at Leasowe and the Irish Sea: a view I often gazed at in fascination. A strange child.

So, the front garden and its lawn. I suppose it was twenty feet square, and seemed ten times as big, hedged on three sides with dwarf privet which occasionally grew beautiful aromatic racemes of cream flowers, but needed constant clipping with wooden-handled shears. (A note from the distant future in Queensland, Australia, the discovery of the insidious Tree Privet at my place, a plant which, unbeknown to Australians, will one day obliterate all the land, the farms, the bush, and the suburbs. It may take a few generations, and right now it could be stopped but won’t, and our time will be known as a criminal neglect of the environment. So what’s new?)

A gate with Number 80, a path with tiled edging to the front porch, and castor-oil plant under the bay window of the lounge; the frontage of our house and all the neighbours’, of sooty grey pebble-dash. The lawn, smaller than most carpets, and its lovely seasonal daisies, was mowed with a cast-iron push-mower, the cylinder of blades free-wheeling after each forward surge, with a noise forever associated with the English Summer, the metallic whirr repeated across hundreds of lawns like steel cicadas.

To the left of the front yard was the shared narrow canyon between the semis; indeed the three storeys of brickwork towered skyward. Mr. and Mrs. Duckworth and their daughter had the back gate on the left at the end. Old Mr. and Mrs Boston lived on the other side, our two front doors separated by one column. We seldom saw them, both being shy and very reclusive. Mr. Duckworth was fun to me; our contact discovered, my parents banned future visits. But he had the tools I desperately needed for all my projects, and was willing to share and help, and I saw no ulterior motive ever: a kindly man who would have liked a son, and who had an outrageous and evil habit or two. My father was, for a draughting engineer and future works manager, very impractical: he had no tools of any sort. Our neighbour had the tools and the advice and occasional materials, and certainly wasn’t a deviant character: as I said, kindly. Ah; a fine line, to be observed with open-minded caution; as kids we discovered plenty of rather gentle homosexual men, destroyed by war, and suffering a lonely, shell-shocked peace.

The daughter, Miss Duckworth, as a young teenager, had a strange affliction, and a limp. The medical industry in the 1950s was primitive, and with slowly-emerging technology she was x-rayed with the new equipment, revealing a dislocation of the hip-joint which had apparently happened two years prior. Her leg was in the process of creating a new socket in her pelvis. Two years with a dislocated hip and no memory of the event that caused it! Within a few days she was back to normal; amazing.

Mr. Duckworth showed me one of his secrets, to my startled fascination. All the neighbours had trouble with roaming cats. Our dungeon-like outside wash-house, toilet and coal-shed stank of catshit. Catshit everywhere: to go there after dark was asking to return with shoes caked with unutterable filth. Hosing-out once a day had no effect.

Our back gardens were all separated by eight-foot high brick walls; cosy wind-breaks with sunny corners, but cat-highways. On top his wall my adult neighbour had fixed two copper plates wired to the mains, and a switch and lookout-chair at his back bedroom window.

Before my parents sadly and mysteriously banned visits, we watched patiently for hours, it seemed, to spring the trap; staring each way up and down the endless wall, waiting for stinking pussy. Once, only was the switch thrown. A cat! Approaching with unhesitant curiosity, sniffs at the metal, steps cautiously on one plate, then the other, then: The Switch! No sound; the cat leaps and falls into the opposite yard. Was it dead? We didn’t know, but they kept coming, and our wash-houses kept stinking. Mr Duckworth unplugget the device, the wall was safe again.

I used that wall for my own highway later, balancing easily on the wide bricks as I took short-cuts to the three surrounding roads, ignoring irate neighbours. Amazing what could be seen in folks’ back yards.

Just down from our house, at the corner of Elm Park road, was a posh place with a young family. Becoming more gregarious at the age of seven or so, I knocked on their door to enquire whether anyone would come out and play with us. My offer was politely rebuffed, though I was watched from inside by two children my age, which I found strange and rather disturbing; why wouldn’t they come out and play?

My parents were rather shocked that I had called at the Jewish house. They won’t mingle, said my father, and was rather worried and annoyed that I had been so forward. To this day I wonder at the isolation attitude. There seemed to be a great mystery concerning Jews; romantic outsiders who lived and looked like the rest of us, yet were apart, embedded aliens. Strange how tribal history can create non-existent difference: genetically we’re all identical, Jews and Palestinians alike, and little boys from Wallasey

It was a cautious revelation to find other children lived nearby. Before my venture to the Jewish house, at the age of four or so there was the hesitant, innocent discovery of  Babette and Richard Black in a grand house opposite, Kevin O’Toole nearby, and Stewart Robertson up the road a bit: all within a hundred yards. Those first meetings were never to be forgotten. I wonder if they remember me?

Very young children wandered around the streets then. Exploring, discovering friends and curiosities with complete freedom, talking to anyone, young or old. No fear, no guilt, no hovering parents. Yet there were deviants abroad then as now; just no fear: parents and children took their chances. I wonder how the conversation would have gone had someone suggested fear of freedom? Once, at about yes, four years old, my mother asked me to get a loaf of bread from the bakers up the road. On the way back I idly chewed off the corners, which stuck out of the thin wrapping-tissue. I was shocked at the anger this caused. Even younger, crawling, I have another shock memory; I was near the front door, Mum was also on her hands and knees at the other end of the hall, with a dustpan and brush; what did I do? What did I say? Something I did triggered sudden anger and the brush was hurled at  me to crash against the door. It missed, but the shock has stayed, over seventy years later.

I think I understand, now. I was, like most in those days, an accidental baby, and certainly unwanted at first. My sister was nearly ten years older than me. Ten years: then the sudden burden of unexpected, life-interrupting pregnancy. No wonder my mother was pissed off. But it was just that once She would have been horrified that I remembered: a lesson in parenting.

Another shock, literally, to all concerned, occurred in the kitchen, under the hinge-out little work table. There was a power-point on the skirting for the iron. I was crawling, playing with a piece of wire, which I had bent into a U-shape, and was inserting into the socket. Bang! Really it was a huge explosion; I was thrown back, unhurt, all the family were in the kitchen at the time: consternation and real shock. What a stupid child. That sort of memory lasts forever, from tiny crawling babyhood until the end.

Kevin O’Toole, two doors down, was younger than us, very Irish, and his father insisted we included him in our games. He was a menace. If there was a ball involved, he would kick or throw it down the hill and laugh at our annoyance, as all play stopped to retrieve it from miles away. The street often echoed with the father’s yells for or at his son: Kevun, Kevun!

Directly across from our house was a grand mansion in a huge rambling garden, surrounded by the ubiquitous high sandstone walls with pointed capping. At least, writing now, that is my memory. It must have been the classic introduction; we lost our ball in the undergrowth and knocked on the door for permission to search.

Old Mrs. Gould was a treasure. Alone in her huge house she was always so pleased to see us when we called to ask if we could play. Our game was always ‘Block-one-two-three’. A garden seat was the base, and a coin was tossed for who was first to be ‘it’. ‘It’ would count loudly to a hundred, eyes covered, so we could all hear whilst we hid. At a hundred we would watch from our hiding-places for an opportunity to touch base while ‘it’ was searching, hopefully without being seen. Once base was touched we were ‘safe’, and could help catch the others. Anyone caught away from base was the next ‘it’.

Mrs. Gould must have been keeping a eye on us, for at the change of ‘it’ she would call us in for lemonade or orange juice, cakes and biscuits. What a lovely thing to do for the neighbourhood kids. She would show us around her fine old house with its wainscots and paneling, and huge moulded ceilings. I wonder now what I might think of the place, not seen for seventy years. Is it still there? Flats, maybe, or demolished.

I remember bare rooms in our house; no carpets or furniture in the so-called dining and lounge, and a primitive table and chairs in the kitchen. There was one old leather couch lonely in the dining room, its back peppered with shrapnel from a German bomb. The couch had been in a previous rental flat nearby, before I was born, and had been placed against french doors as a precaution against that very event. Many years later, when the old couch, called ‘the settee’, was finally scrapped, I cut off a piece of the leather to cover my old clarinet case, which I still have: an artifact of a distant me.

One early birthday I was given a very old little tricycle, which I rode in endless clockwise circles on the bare boards of that dining room: it was years before any furniture filled it, and even later for the lounge, called ‘the front room’. Eventually outdoors, I found it difficult to steer anti-clockwise, or widdershins. Much later, my cousin’s bicycle became a birthday present of fear and pathetic frustration.

As time passed the house became more sociable as the parents established small incomes, and with that furniture, carpets, crockery and a full pantry: a small, high, tiled cubicle with shelves to the ceiling and a tiled benchtop. Suddenly relatives and neighbours appeared for ceremonious christmasses, new years, and first-footing, with many superstitions imported from Geordie homelands.

When I was perhaps three years old Mum’s sister Flo, husband uncle Alan and son Gordon also made the trip west from Geordieland, and rented a flat down the road from us, opposite Captain’s Pit. I remember little about the place except stairs and lovely visits. My parents and I would walk down to spend the evening with them, and I would, as usual, be put to bed there on arrival. But then later, I would be woken, and picked up, and carried back home by my father, through the starlight and quiet street, and the moon would be pointed out, and the Plough, and Orion’s Belt. There was a loving good humour, a aura of peace on those night-time walks in Dad’s arms. I suspect the parents were gently pissed, as every adult seemed to be on social occasions. And why not?

Before and during these gatherings I was sent to bed, and was comforted by distant sounds of singing and laughter, the front door continually opening and closing on visitors .It seems my presence would be an annoyance to family celebration. But if they were happy, I was happy, if excluded.

During this childhood the grandmother, mother’s mother, was a background of mysterious illness and confinement to bedroom, from whence came awful asthmatic wheezing and coughing. By the time I could associate with my grandmother she was no longer a free agent with her friends and full social life. My father struggled with the anchor of her existence in ‘our’ house, though I suspect her finances paid the rent for years. I was a nasty rude boy to her, perhaps feeding off my father’s irritation, until one strange day, when I suddenly thought to myself how horrible I was to my old granny, and instantly swapped character to a kind, helpful grandson. I wonder if anyone noticed? From that moment  I tried to make up for years of obnoxious behaviour. Perhaps the father had his frustrations. I remember clearly a very loud, angry shout from him, echoing down the stairs to Mum: “your bloody mother’s left a blummin great jerry in the toilet again Molly”. I ran to look, and yes, a giant un-flushable turd reared out of the bowl like a submarine, which Dad broke up with a stick before it would disappear.

The asthma killed my granny, and also aflicted me badly, on and off for twenty years. There was a period of another illness where I only have a memory of strange bed-ridden delirium, and hushed visits from the doctor. I have no idea how long that lasted, or what it was, but I must have been away from primary school for many months, and frightened the shit out of my poor parents. I remember only strange oppressive feelings of the space in my little bedroom closing on me, and being transfixed in bed, unable to move. As if an invisible suffocating balloon was expanding, filling the room and pinning me down. If I lay supine and frozen I could avoid its threat, though I seemed to drift in and out of reality. Whatever it was, it ended, and I lived. Mysteriously, forty years later, on stage with the band, in mid-performance, I experienced just a slight and ephemeral memory of that feeling; the first and only time since the illness.

A further shock to my poor parents was the discovery that I was savagely allergic to fish: a frequent family dish. The problem was the delayed action of the allergy; perhaps an hour or two after eating. I liked fish, but oh, then my throat would start swelling, breathing and swallowing became so difficult, my face would also bloat and redden. Altogether most oppressive for me and probably worse for the parents. Only after many occurrences was the connection made: no more fish for Andrew.

Meanwhile, there is the tiny back garden, my playground. Although much space was taken up with the stinking outhouse, there was room for another tiny lawn, and a veggie-patch at the back of the laundry. I had an early attack of conservation caused by that disgusting little building, which comprised a coal-shed, toilet, and wash-house with copper and work-bench. I seemed offended by the filth, and emptied the toilet of all its rotting wet sacks, rags, newspapers and cat-stink; scrubbed and hosed-out the entire room, and fixed the cistern, its leak, and operation. This at the age of six; an early sign of the urge to restore and fight dilapidation. (Futile, in a universe tending to entropy).

That little garden with its seven-foot enclosing walls was a lovely sun-trap; the bricks absorbing the weak northern sunshine and radiating heat into the yard. Clockwise from the back door, alongside the outhouse, was a bed of tiger lilies and lily-of-the-valley, then the empty patch on which Dad later erected a very second-hand wooden greenhouse. This patch had a low wall which dropped the seven feet to Mr Duckworth’s garden, as our houses descended the hill. Under the far wall, rhubarb, then loganberries, goosberries, the corner, then roses, sweet-williams, pansies, wild tropaeoleum we called nasturtiums (nasturtium is watercress: a real mix-up by simple folk who eat both as one), and at the end, back at the house, a lilac tree and tiny rockery, and steps up to  a concrete area outside the dining-room french doors. Really a little paradise for a toddler.

All this garden was the work of some previous tenant or owner. Generally, as a planter of virgin soil, I have only recently inherited someone else’s hard work: an old garden of massive trees and delightful discovery. I give thanks to the planters who give joy to future inhabitants.

I have a distinct memory of sitting on a little seat made of two bricks and a piece of wood, nestled amongst the rhubarb leaves, with my back against the warm wall, playing with many different paper planes made by my Dad. Some five years later I took over that garden; digging, mowing, weeding and planting, and cutting the edge of the lawn to a string-line with a sharp spade. Very neat. Again, that urge to restore.

Dad’s new-old greenhouse was assembled, I remember, with difficulty. All the old glass had to be made to fit and puttied, and many new panes bought to replace the missing, but we both loved the strange green and warm ambience, and the powering aromatic tomato plants in tin cans. Later, a mystery. Dad fumigated the greenhouse. The tomatoes were full of good fruit ready for picking, but this smoke-bomb was lit which filled the little house with opaque whiteness and killed all the tomatoes. Nevertheless, we ate all the toms, toxic or not.

Slowly, I was growing out of the house and garden, my nursery and cocoon. There were children neighbours, and a road up the hill outside, from Liscard to New Brighton, and a whole suburb to be explored gradually: no walls or fences between me and the entire planet, which later I took advantage of. But then, our neighbours and the road for a hundred yards was sufficient, until the day arrived when I went to primary school at the age of four-and-a-half. Except for the first day, I walked the four miles there and back on my own.

Mount Pleasant road, Mrs. Gould’s, and Richard Black’s house opposite were our playgrounds. Richard’s garden was full of neglected fruit trees which I fed off in season: no-one else was interested in the free apples and pears and gooseberries, strangely. Between our front yard and the road was a strip of land with trees, a low sandstone wall by the road which made parking impossible, and a wide pavement with gas-lamps. A paved area in front of our house gave access to the road, and had two long park-benches. One day I was balancing on the top of the back-rest, tightrope walking, when someone pushed the seat, making me fall, to hit my head and lose consciousness and blood. To this day I wonder if I ever really recovered. A bad memory, and another, when local young thugs of the same ilk stoned the owls which roosted in the holm-oaks overhanging those seats, driving them away for ever.

That strip of land up hill from our house was all sycamores; opposite and downhill were young hollies, with some larger ones. The holm-oaks in between, and at the Elm Park road junction a beautiful, massive copper beech. In the humus under the hollies I pulled out old spikey leaves with all substance rotted, leaving a fine network of veins within the spikes. At Christmas we raided the hollies for bunches of berries to decorate the house. I queried the usefulness of the berries, for, despite folk-lore, birds never seemed to touch them.

My tiny front bedroom, with its little bay window, looked out on the hollies, and there was a winter event never forgotten: the first sight of snow ever seen by a young person. One morning the room was strangely lit; brightness on the ceiling and walls, the window-panes opaque with ferns of frost inside from my night-breath, and beyond, all gleaming whiteness. A hot penny melted a peep-hole on the glass, through which I saw a wonderful view of pristine landscape. Snow and frost, at the same time; marvellous.

Although somewhat house-bound by youth, this first snowscape was fascinating to a small person; the strange quiet, all life muffled, the beautiful cleanliness and obliterating gleaming whiteness of the usual outdoor features. Every hedge piled with a pure capping of snow, the trees, the footpath, the road utterly new-white and mysteriously silent; no wind, flakes falling softly from the low, dark sky. Tentative first steps on the soft pristine cold carpet, either powder-crisp or soft-damp, was a wonderful experience. To look upwards into the softest of falling flakes, boundless, no edges or beginning, just the movement downwards to my face! Mysterious and peaceful and gently icy. Then, in a year or two, the full enjoyment of exploration, and sledging, and snowballs and snowmen, and the trick of rolling a certain texture of snow like a carpet, forming a cylinder suitable for a snowman: the more you rolled, the bigger and heavier your cylinder became. But with the variability of our climate, that series of white Christmasses came to an end, replaced by occasional slush and freak brief snowstorms in March.

But that series of beautiful winters were a joy to the little schoolboy, who towed his satchel on a tiny home-made sledge, making the distance to school and back a challenge; the downhill speed, the uphill trudge, the fun of joining friends on the way. One winter, a remarkable and unexpected present: a classic Swiss toboggan of fine craftsmanship. It could seat two small people, or carry any load, but the snow had to be perfect, and I found, disappointingly, that my tiny old sledge was faster and lighter, the winter fore-runner of the now-ubiquitous scooter. That tiny sledge could be carried in one hand, and permit a running jump on a downhill slope, supporting just chest and hips, and could be steered like a modern surfboard, and do three-sixties on an icy surface. Portland Street in New Brighton was and is the steepest. It had the advantage of both being seldom used by traffic, and leveled-out at the bottom, to the promenade; perfect for sledging, and after school a crowd of fifty kids would be in constant motion there, trudging up one side and flying down the road. The surface became glassy, and the ice-track lengthened across the level to the promenade. All this snow-experience took place in darkness lit only by street-lamps; the winter days in the north of England are short; when school finished at four o’clock the gloom was already descending and within half an hour there was night in snow-weather.

One year on Portland Street a broken hip, one year, a farcical attempt by the council to destroy our fun. A truck containing crushed rock-salt, used to keep main roads ice-free, arrived at the top of Portland Street, four blokes with shovels in the back, spreading salt. Crazily, it turned onto our sled-run and immediately became a free-sliding juggernaut, the four men terrified and gripping the tail-gate. It hit the bottom sideways-on and slowly spun for a further hundred yards. We had won. The boos turned to frantic cheers. There was no return of authority.

Meanwhile, the bicycle. It belonged to my cousin Gordon Calvert, and as usual in the days of poverty, it had been re-cycled, ha ha, into my possession. It was my birthday, July the Twelfth, mid-summer, perhaps age ten. Being a pathetic, fearful child, I couldn’t ride it. I’d had it for a week, and couldn’t ride it. My brain told me it was obviously impossible to support a load on two points: three, yes. I saw folk riding on two wheels, but that was magic I didn’t have. My birthday friends and I went to the park, me pushing the polished and treasured bike. An older, bigger,  obnoxious ‘friend’ grabbed the bike from me in the street and rode off laughing and returned after too long, at speed. He hit the curb next to us, went over the handlebars, wrecked the front wheel and his face, which was only fair. His parents had to be called to pick up their obnoxious, screaming son. Meanwhile, alone with my bike for which Dad got a new wheel, weeks of effort and paralysing fear resulted in some small two-wheel ability, in the park, on soft grass, for I couldn’t stop or start properly, but could grasp the possibility of motion. Falling down carefully to stop, and disbelieving wobbly starts eventually gave me the courage to take the circus act onto the public road, though on arriving home I would calculate the best place to fall. Soon after, I’d stop at a vertical surface to lean against, then finally, success, stopping and putting my feet on the ground. Since that day two wheels have been my pleasure, motorised and leg-powered.

The years at Mt. Pleasant Road are packed with formative memories, from birth, to primary school, to grammar school and the start of puberty. So much happened in that short span. Since then, time accelerated detrimentally, memories blurred, there were vast changes year after year for decades, and even now time is racing past as I sit in the garden day-dreaming. But back to the haven of my birth-home.

Gran died. I remember little about the circumstance. In hospital, I think, of asthma. I wonder why there isn’t a strong memory of her last weeks. She had been with us in that house all my life, yet I remember no conversations with her, no stories, no information regarding her life. She seemed to remain a sort of lodger, there was absolutely no grandson-bonding, though I did love her in the last years once I stopped being a brat. She was part of the female detritus of the first world war, a young widow along with thousands of others, then, yet more war, and the Woman’s Voluntary Service, then that strange decampment with my parents, from the east coast of England, Sunderland, to the unknown of Merseyside, where Dad avoided the fate of coal-mining to work in engineering drawing-offices around Liverpool.

My sister Doreen, who as I said was a decade older than me, must have started her life on the east coast, though again, I know no details, and now never will, as she died some years ago at over eighty; the longest span in my known family. Such a non-committal family; no stories or details from the past ever reached me, despite my vocal curiosity. I can only assume that the decampment from the home-town was somehow an escape from some distasteful circumstance. I do remember persevering with questions regarding ancestors; father, it seemed was the youngest of thirteen children, mostly male, so I have, or had, a vast family of relatives just from that source. My curiosity was stifled when I asked about my paternal grandfather: ‘we don’t talk about him, he was a layabout, wouldn’t work, a good-for-nothing’. Then; ‘he just spent all day long in his garden growing vegetables for the family, wouldn’t go down the pit, didn’t earn a penny’. Well, that sounded wise and admirable. Then; ‘he played cornet in the town silver band’. Ah, a treasure; how I would have loved to have met him. But there was some stigma attached to my dad and his family; years later my sister proudly showed me the result of her researches into the ‘family tree’: no mention whatsoever of father and his family. Very strange. So, out there somewhere, all these years later, is a vast tribe of relatives, all completely unknown. I did daydream of visiting Geordieland and putting adverts in the local papers: ‘Andy Jenner, son of Robert (Bob) Jenner, wishes to meet his relatives……..’  I lost interest in that exercise long ago, having discovered that chosen friends are a better bet than unavoidable relatives. Though who knows; perhaps there is, or was, a related soul-mate out there.

Before the age of five I was enrolled at a tiny embrionic private school, St. Aidan’s in Mayfield Road, about two miles from home. Only later in life did I realise the significance of my parents’ expense and hope for my future. I could have gone to St. George’s School nearby for free, and perhaps learned to fight there, or worse. It couldn’t have cost much, though, for there were no qualified teachers at St, Aidan’s; a venture of two single ladies, in a large old house. Our ‘headmaster’ was Mr. Ross, a dour young Scot with thin sandy hair and colourless tweedy clothes, a classic, seldom given to smiling, never a laugh, but kindly, patient, with an interesting curriculum which kept us busy and rapt. I never remember any misbehaviour at that little school, nor any bully. It was a perfect learning experience, where knowledge just seemed to seep in without effort, and every day was anticipated with pleasure and interest.

Years later there was a surprise; the Ladies introduced a new Mr. Ross: the same man, but in cap and gown, transformed into a real headmaster, having somehow achieved his degree in the meantime, and bearing a rare shy smile. Despite seeming to absorb the essentials of education; the miracle of reading and writing, the insight into the sciences, there was much extraneous learning which has stayed with me my whole life. Songs, we learned: ‘Where the bee sucks’, and ‘Who is Sylvia’. How did that happen? There was no piano that I remember, or instrument. Plays we acted, in a vacant garden a few houses up Mayfield Road. Shakespeare, adapted. My mother made me some Elizabethan togs for the performance, and parents came to watch. We were putty, being gently moulded, absorbing interests and insights into an esoteric life, a tiny taste of Culture, to lighten the grind of reality. Perhaps why, at this moment, in old age, I’m writing this. Such a lucky start in life, and I never thought to thank my impoverished parents for their effort and cash sacrifice.

But the easy absorption of knowledge came to an end with the looming threat of the Eleven Plus; the educational watershed which unfairly and randomly shuffled poor children into a permanent life-situation regardless of talent, or hard work, or enthusiasm. It was a lottery which cast un-formed brains into irrelevant boxes from which escape became difficult, and academic achievement the prize of the lucky few, not the deserving few. I, of course, fell down the inadvertent crack: winning the lottery but losing the prize!

The wise parents foresaw this watershed. A very simple solution: cheating. Legally. The Eleven Plus examinations had papers, of course, a history of a few years. Simply accessing these old tests was the key to the trick of passing them. I was sent to a lovely old ex-teacher up the road in New Brighton, making a few quid out of his exoteric knowledge. While he smoked packets of cigarettes through a bristly, stained moustache, with yellow-tinted fingers, in a room with tobacco-coloured ceiling and walls scented with essence of nicotine, he led me through these old questions. Ah, once you knew the trick, and it was trickery, the unfairness became apparent immediately. If all children were revealed the trickery, all would pass the 11-plus: what a scam! I believe it was actually illegal to have possession of these old exam papers!

I passed the exam. I was set for the local grammar school, the top rung of that flawed ladder, the climbing of which led to university and the upper stratum; respect, career, income. The parents were delighted; their effort had apparently  paid off. But it was not to happen. However, while I set out each day to the new school, from the last year at Mt Pleasant Road, all looked full of promise. A respite before reality and inadequacy descended.

The promise of success survived a little longer. Survived the amazing move from my birth-home, and survived the O-levels, those first real examinations. Meanwhile, back at base….

I went fishing, Merseyside-style. Huge rods, designed for beach-casting, but used from the towering concrete battlements of the sea-wall, which stretched from New Brighton to Harrison Drive at Wallasey Village, built to withstand the huge tides and German invasions. The sea defences onwards to  Leasowe were tank-traps and barbed wire, which disintegrated quickly after the war, in the harsh North Sea environment. There were few fish to catch in those industrially-polluted waters, and virtually none in the Mersey estuary, but we loved the lore, and were ever-hopeful. Our long rods cast paternosters far out from the wall; a hundred yards was usual. The paternoster consisted of three, sometimes five hooks on  traces, hanging from horizontally suspended wires, and weighted with one single heavy anchor-like lead weight at the bottom. You needed the strength and knack to swing that weight back and forth, gaining momentum, before whipping the massive rod over and out to sea, weight and hooks flying savagely. We regularly caught seagulls on the wing. Our bait was lug and rag worms dug from the filth of the Mersey mud at Egremont: a pastime of ancient craft. Rag worms were red and centipede-like, busy movers, from six inches to a foot long. Lugs were more disgusting, mud-coloured and slow, with an ugly head which would invert if teased,  to reveal savage pincers. The worms were dug at low tide, where the flats were pock-marked with generations of fishermens’ spades. When sufficient bait was dug, it was carried up the beach for the ritual packing. A suitable soft red sandstone rock was pounded to sand back on the bedrock by the sea wall, and the worms rolled and packed in that sand for the day’s or night’s fishing.

Our paternosters were baited with those worms, one threaded on each hook. The catch, if any, was usually small flat-fish of indeterminate species: no-one seemed to know, but one eye of each fish was rotated to the side of the other. No matter how small, they were kept for the pan. Being allergic, anything I caught was for the family. We, that is, myself and three or four friends, fished at night, from about midnight til three or four a.m., after sleeping earlier in the night. Setting off on my bicycle with my gear and the long rod in two halves strapped to the frame and projecting like a lance in front, I rode through the deserted streets to the promenade. So keen, for so little result but the experience and hope. Still, to return home in the dark early morning with a few little flatties for Dad’s breakfast was sufficient reward. A shock for Mum one morning; I had filleted the little catch, and the result was on a plate in the ‘larder’, (no refrigerators in those days). When she dropped the first fish into the hot frying-pan it jumped out again and flapped on the scullery floor: so recently alive, perhaps the galvanic reaction of the iron pan. Her scream woke me from my late pre-school sleep.

CORONA VIRUS AND THE VIABILITY OF HOMO SAPIENS ON PLANET EARTH

CORONA VIRUS AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY.

THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAY IS NOT INTENDED TO BE FACETIOUS

Nevertheless, we have been given a warning as to the ever-present possibility of a species-threatening epidemic.

Corona Virus, though it could kill you and I at any time, and despite the massive world-wide precautions, is causing a very mild inconvenience to the human race. There are far more likely ways to die out there.

We humans have been buggering the planet for fifty thousand years. Well, perhaps not the planet, but parts thereof. In the case of Australia, for example, a little-known fact is that the first human settlers realised that the easiest, quickest way of getting a feed was to set fire to the place and pick up the dying, smouldering carcasses. This is shortly after slaughtering all the big indigenous creatures and running out of easy food. Forty thousand years of continent-wide conflagrations have resulted in the staggering impoverishment of fauna and flora we see today.

At the present time, and planet-wide, the last ten thousand years has seen the human race exterminate vast numbers of species, altering for ever the landscape, and no doubt, the climate. The last two hundred years has seen an acceleration of all the above desecration.

No-one is to blame. Neither the first of many different islanders who landed in Australia, nor any of the industrialists, farmers, or air-travelers of the planet today. It’s what we do. We bugger the place. You’d think the iconic koala of Australia would be a precious beast, having miraculously survived forty-thousand years of conflagrations as a food source; but no, it’s on the brink of extinction, outside of a zoo.

But surely we have learned, by now? Absolutely not. We will inevitably eat and shit ourselves out of a viable planet. At an accelerating rate. Good intentions, and we all have them, are insufficient. Laws are insufficient.

Only technology and industrial farming-practice has allowed food-production to keep pace with population-growth. This, of course, cannot last. One nasty bug can destroy a whole genetically-engineered grain crop. Then we wait whilst a resistant seed is invented.

The fact is that we have right now, in the year 2020, reached what the future will call the point of no return. Our effect on the air, the oceans, the tree-cover, and biodiversity is judged to be irreversible. Only scientists involved in the  current study of their earth-disciplines are aware of the true nature of the breakdown, and the vast and permanent changes in climate and ocean that will inevitably take place, to our detriment. Watch this space.

Regardless of the myriad causes of this situation, and we all know the basic problems; burning fossil fuel, clearing forests, polluting and over-fishing the oceans, et cetera, there is only one basic instigator: population.

Any weed species, and we are one, is capable of out-breeding its environment, to its own detriment and demise. Humanity is on the brink of doing just that. However, there is one drastic safety-valve: an endemic monoculture, of which we are a part, is most susceptible to disease. Having a nearly identical genetic code, every human on the planet is susceptible to the latest virus. That is, because we are such an international mob, all of us.

We are are right now experiencing a warning of the dangers of pandemics, and not before time. It has been suggested that this version of Corona Virus has been engineered in laboratories by humans against humans. It is easy to see great economic benefit to a country that has wiped-out its old and infirm; the work force is intact, the financial drain of the aged eliminated, housing is suddenly in great supply, hospitals cleared of geriatrics. An open field for young workers and entrepeneurs.

But supposing a virus appeared, and swept through the world community like Covid 19, but killed 90% of all humans……

Here, right now, is an example of a pandemic. Extrapolate the effect of 90% reduction of population; the remaining 10% may not be able to support itself. The collapse of farming itself would be catastrophic. You see the warning we are at present experiencing. There is little we could do in the face of a more virulent virus. Think of the engineered myxomatosis and calcivirus in rabbits, and what something similar could do to us.

I offer no solution. The only real solution is a reduction in population. China’s one-child policy was an amazing exercise of state control, hated, and with horrendous numbers of aborted females. We seem not to be able to limit population-growth: it must be forced upon us by outside agencies: disease, crop failure and starvation, economic breakdown, mass unemployment, and, of course war and nuclear disaster. No-one will volunteer not to have children; children just happen, or not.

So, how do we react to this Corona Virus warning? Isolation of individuals. How should we react to a virulent, 90% virus? The same, but in utter desperation, a case of live or die for all of us. And the effect? Who knows?

The Pub as vital employement agency.

What would I do without the Public House?

My very first earned income came from a local pub, where I waited on tables at night, and worked hot dog vans on the beach at New Brighton through the day, during holidays from Art School in Wallasey, England.

Skipping many years, bar work was a lifesaver. Every pub seemed to need staff: start immediately young man. New Brighton, Weymouth, Guernsey, Suffolk, Australia.

As a life’s work, carpentry and music kept body, soul and family together and fed, and the rent paid. But the pub furnished the opportunities, inspiration, and employment of a different kind: music.

On Guernsey, for example, where life was a touch fragile, whenever I found myself unemployed and rent looming, I would dress in style. I owned two rather good suits then, and shirts with crisp collars, and a beard of romantic trim.  I would wander to one of my favourite and delightful pubs in St. Peter Port, sure to meet acquaintances and friendly drinkers, where during conversation I would number my talents and need for employment. What a labour exchange! My friendly stranger invariably became a source of info and leads and certain employment.

I’m not saying that this would be the case today, but not much has changed, really, at the Local. Nevertheless, the pub has, indirectly, kept my family in funds, and fun, for a lifetime.

To Australia; a life-change, almost a different planet. To a ‘job’ selling houses for Ray White’s at Stones Corner in Brisbane. There was no work in those days. No carpentry, no music for me, no work of any sort listed in the Courier Mail. A quite severe depression, though we didn’t realise it at the time.

After a terrible period of no income, saved only by my kindly boss Rene Rankin, things looked up. The pub on the corner was our five o’clock meeting place. All local business staff assembled without fail; bank staff, solicitors, salesmen, shopkeepers; all the locals. Such business went on, in the most convivial way. Leads from solicitors, saxophones acquired by the music shop, instruments at the antique shop, even enquiries from from friendly neighbouhood real estate agents.

All this pub interchange became a delightful and lucrative society which grew over the years and consolidated mutual trust with an eye to business. To have been T-total and shunned the pub, would have been to isolate oneself from job-offers and friendship, and mutual benefice.

Life without The Pub would have been a dreary existence; anti-social, cut off from friendship, conversation, even income. Later, hotels became eager venues for bands and music; more income and employment, lucrative too in the early days, a situation now ended.

So, thank you all publicans out there, for your support, your hospitality, and your supply of good cheer, conversation, conviviality in good times and bad. And The Pub; home from home, meeting-place for all, uncritical, welcoming, and offering employment to young lost souls.

 

 

Coopers Brewery Sparkling Ale

AH, COOPERS!

We lived in a cottage in Petrie Terrace, Brisbane. A very old primitive suburb with poo lanes at the back of every house. What’s a poo lane? Well, the dunnies backed onto the poo lane, which gave access to the cart and the dunny-men to empty your ‘earth-closet’. A whole book probably has been written about dunnies.

Our dunny was still there, if dilapidated, combined with the remains of a laundry and copper, which still worked. The tiny weatherboard structure, baked by the sun of a hundred summers, was fragile tinder, due for demolition.

It became my brewery.

Long study of ancient recipes from many books, and a love of beer, and a most discerning taste, critical of almost every Australian commercial product, gave me an epitome to aim for.

It rarely happened.

Huge hundred-weight-and-a-quarter sacks of malted, cracked barley arrived for me at Roma St Station from South Australia.  A difficult purchase; most maltings were tied to breweries. Malted barley is very light, hence the enormous size of the sacks.

The story of my brewery would take a book, but that is not THIS story.

My beer was first class. I was the most popular bloke in the street. I never had more friends available for testing the product. But I was dissatisfied. My beer tasted like Coopers. We loved Coopers, but it was my intention to reproduce some of the delicious beers of English childhood, before the awful decay set in and destroyed all the neighbourhood breweries. The times moved on, and I never achieved my aim, and Petrie Terrace was abandoned for another of many, many moves.

So most respected Coopers was neglected until this very day.

In the local bottle shop I stared, nostalgic, at a frige (no ‘d’ in refrigerator) containing Coopers long-necks; 750ml. (Oh how I miss pints and quarts) Daydreaming and reminiscing of former times, I bought two Coopers Brewery Sparkling Ales, big bottles, slightly more than two of those piddly ones in a six-pack.

Back home with Lucy, I wondered with some excitement how they would taste.

Lovely, absolutely lovely.

Thirty-plus years searching for the perfect brew had blinkered me from seeing the treasure under my nose. My brewery days are over; son Bart is now producing some excellent beer, but I will search no longer. If they don’t sell Coopers, I’ll save myself all that disappointing expence and tasting.

My first years in Australia, like my youth in England, saw the demise of all the small breweries. Except for the Coopers family in South Australia: still going strong, and exporting all over the world. I regret the foible of neglect for so long, but now I’m re-convertd. It’s very good stuff; no need to look any further.

THE STONE FIRMS, PORTLAND, U.K. A first job.

We were having a baby, who is the eldest son Bartholomew now, and had rented a tiny cottage on Waycombe, Portland, having run away from home and family.

Funds were non-existant, and I was lucky to get a job with the Stone Firms, a conglomerate which encompassed all the quarrying and stone-machining on the island, and which employed thousands of men. Employment which soon collapsed, whilst I was actually working there, putting those thousands out of work, and an entire island economy in free-fall. Really, it wasn’t my fault.

My actual job was horrible. I worked in a huge tin shed, vacant except for two large bench-grinders, which machined the quartzite slabs, stacked in their thousands in the yard outside. These slabs were of a sort of laminar granite, which could be cleft into sheets, like slate, at roughly three-quarters of an inch thickness. They were extremely heavy, hard, and abrasive; an ideal paving stone.

Wearing massive steel-studded leather gauntlets, I would carry a slab to an iron bench and mark out an over-size yard-square on it from a template, then carry the slab to a primitive hand-operated guillotine, which, with great effort, could crunch away the excess to the line, leaving an under-cut shattered edge, but a reasonably neat top.

This rough edge had to be machined to a perfect and accurate yard-square paver, on one of the bench-grinders. The carborundum discs screamed as they reached cutting-speed, and icy water sprayed all over the sliding work-surface. A rough-cut slab was wound through the grinding-wheel to produce one finely-milled side, then turned through ninety degrees to mill the adjacent side. The angle was then checked with a steel set-square, then the third side milled to an exact yard, angle checked, then the remaining side.

The foreman checked my work. Was horrified. Suggested sacking if I couldn’t get the slabs square and accurate. I tried again, with great care; all the angles dead-on, the size exact. Well……I hadn’t checked the fourth angle, assuming it to be ok if three were right. Oops! What had I done wrong?

Of course the steel square itself was out, the inaccuracy compounding itself with each rotation of the slab. In fact this was an impossible method of arriving at a perfect square, and the operation had to be completely redesigned. No steel square proved to be absolutely accurate. Even the work-bench had play in what should have been perfect movement.  The foreman apologised.

Using the available equipment made accuracy almost impossible, and I made a perfect full-size steel template to mark the slabs from, grinding to the mark and adjusting the bed of the grinder with each cut; very slow, deafening, very cold, wet, heavy and frustrating work, slab after slab.

Working through a pile of guillotined slabs stacked next to the screaming, spraying grinder, and wearing a huge rubber apron, steel gloves, ear-mufflers, wellies and waterproofs, I screamed along with the machine, yelling songs and swearing and shouting obscenities at the world, to out-noise the horrible machine.

One day, as I was finishing the last of the slabs of my guillotined batch, perhaps an hours work, and clicked the dreadful grinder off, and its water-spray, I pulled off my earmuffs and turned around to face an audience of laughing, clapping workers.

Attracted by my lunatic screaming, they had assembled a semicircle of benches behind me, the bastards, without me being the slightest aware, waiting for me to  finish.

Later, a new cutting-rig was designed, with a diamond-toothed blade on a nicely-engineered rolling bed, aiming for trouble-free and perfectly accurate machining of the quartzite slabs. I was there for the inaugural test, and it was to be my job, using the new equipment. A large group of engineers and bosses stood around.

The diamond blade was started, and whined to cutting-speed; strangely, there was no water-lubrication. The first slab was wound slowly to the blade, and as it touched, a strange and frightening shock-wave hit the assembly, and the slab progressed no further. The motor was switched off and the costly blade was inspected. No teeth.

A perfect row of holes sparkled sunshine through the corrugated-iron roof, holes made by the diamond teeth as they were fired through. Luckily no-one had been standing either directly behind or in front of the saw.

It was soon after this event that I, and thousands of others, were laid off, made redundant by the mis-management and over-pricing of the end products of the Stone Firms. Factories around the world had opened-up the industry and put Portland out of business. Even in my short stay, my wages had increased almost on a weekly basis as our blind union forced change on a hopeless management, until a point of no return was reached. The decision was to close the entire operation, sack the workers and the union, mothball all production, and re-open with a clean sheet, new staff, no union. I don’t know if it ever happened. We were on our way to Guernsey and a new life.

Witta Dog Pound

WITTA DOG POUND

Ah, did you think that Witta, that beautiful area on the hill in Queensland, was a residential suburb? Well, folks do, when they first move here, but no, it’s a dog pound.

True, there are some folk here, amongst the canids, but in reality Witta is a canine community: humans are the minority. For every dog-free lot there is one with three. Three dogs, that is. Dogs rule in Witta.

Needless to say, the human population is not devoted to the neighbourhood dogs, and neither is the dog-owning sector, for these dogs are loose, lonely, bored, frustrated and frequently neglected and deserted by their owners.

Not a day or night goes by without some dogs deserted. The owners off, away, relaxing, shopping, restauranting, spending the night with in-laws or friends, or even a week-end at the coast. Without their dogs.

Restaurants discourage dogs. As do shops, beaches, in-laws, friends, hotels, units.

The reason dogs are discouraged, banned even, is because of their teeth, their shit, and their incessant barking.

So the dogs are left at home, to shit, yes, but mainly to bark, and bark, and bark, and bark, incessantly, from the instant their owners drive away until the moment of return: which may be even days later.

So who cares for these deserted dogs? NO ONE.

Who is affected by these deserted dogs? EVERY NEIGHBOUR.

Do the owners know of the cacophony they leave behind? NO. Because they drive away in sound-proof, air-conditioned comfort, oblivious to the ceaseless, unmitigated racket which starts the moment they leave. And stops the moment they return.

We dogless households fume and plot, our rest and sleep destroyed, hour after hour. Awake, wishing, hoping for the owners to return: surely, soon, surely by midnight, surely they are not staying the night in some peaceful motel?

Why are we loath to tackle the problem? To follow the Council Guidelines For Nuisance and Barking Dogs? Because we’re all a lot of wusses, that’s why. Fearful of knocking on a door and complaining. Set in our conservative ways, making no waves, terrified of awakening the ire of a mass-murdering dog-owner. Well, shame on us. Get out there and complain, otherwise the sleepless nights and destroyed days will continue.

But one quiet night, and we’ve forgotten the anger and frustration, and smile like babies through our peaceful dreams. Until. At three a.m. a dog-owner sets off to his (or her) early shift, leaving the three dogs to clamour for the return of their feeder and petter. Loud, long, and concerted barking for ten hours. Damn, damn, damn.

Every neighbour agrees; but will anyone act? Will they buggery. But soon, the worm will turn. Imagine: a beautiful suburb, birdsong, merry gardening and peaceful nights un-tainted by the chorus of yap-yap, yap yap yap, yap-bark bark, bark yap yap yap yap yap yap………………………………………………………………………

THE IMPOVERISHED AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENT. Second essay

The impoverished Australian environment.

We look around at our vast country island, and see, for the most part, horizon to horizon, stunted trees, desiccated ground bereft of topsoil and ground-cover, and great deserts.

A few small areas support rainforest and vine forest, where rainfall is more reliable, and in the midst of a desolation of gum trees there will be the occasional small range of hills with mixed deciduous forest and tall native conifers.

Sometimes a deep cleft in a hillside or valley-bottom supports a tiny remnant of lush green ancient forest, even the Wollomi Pine, orphan of a very distant era. Why? Why these remains, in a wasteland of ragged scrub?

The obvious reason for these remnants seems to have been overlooked until recently………….they are the islands of diversity never reached by fire. Fire will seldom burn downhill, especially to deep gullies in windless valleys. These green islands may be seen hanging-on as tiny vestiges in the vast greyness of the bush. In the wet tropics and on the high mountains original vegetation survives, but now at risk during long droughts. Keep fire away, and these islands will expand to eventually re-claim all their lost territory.

FIFTY, SIXTY THOUSAND YEARS AGO, the island we know as Australia was a very different place. There were perhaps no humans. There were giant herbivores and carnivores. The few creatures we now know, wombats, kangaroos et cetera, had enormous relatives then. No doubt our poor koala is the last vestige of a substantial, brainy tribe with a varied, nutritious diet.

THE GIANT HERBIVORES OF THAT TIME created a mosaic landscape of forest, jungle, and grassland that supported a vast number of now-extinct creatures. Their remains have be found both as more ancient fossils and actual bones. Remains of marsupial “lions” have been found intact in lava-tubes and sink-holes, along with those of many animals non-existent now.

Climates do change, no doubt. Surely Australia has seen many phases of growth and dearth. But look to the hills, and to the tropical north: huge forests still exist, and thrive, despite droughts that desiccate the surrounding country. Those forests are the remnants of once-vast areas, and of sixty-thousand years ago, and aeons prior even to that. They have survived all the droughts then and now, and thrive yet.

PERHAPS OUR REMNANT TROPICAL AND SUB-TROPICAL FOREST AND JUNGLE ARE NOT IDENTICAL TO THOSE OF THE PAST, BUT THEY DO EXIST TODAY, to show what once was, before. Before! Before what?

BEFORE FIRE.

PICTURE THIS ISLAND CONTINENT BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF MAN. Perhaps, though it’s unlikely, there was an actual indigenous tribe in Australia, of which no record exists, prior to 60,000 years ago; however, that group had no effect on the fauna and flora. We guess humans arrived around that time, almost certainly from islands to the north, and in tiny family groups or possibly multiple vessels. The Polynesians have always been magnificent navigators. There was no single group which we later refer to as ‘indigenous’, but possibly many separate landings by canoes and dug-outs from many disparate islands, of many different peoples and languages, as in fact there are today under one flag.

These tiny groups of unrelated peoples would have settled wherever they landed, and in this huge country may have been undiscovered by other arrivals for generations. There was an unimaginable time scale available. Consider: the Americas, bereft of humans, were populated from the extreme north to the extreme south within only 11,000 years. Nevertheless, the meeting of other groups of settlers was essential to sustain a healthy birth-rate, and those isolated for long periods would have suffered from in-breeding.

Whatever the outcome, the new arrivals found a paradise of food-on-the-hoof, and readily neglected their carefully-conserved canoe-creatures; the story of all arrivals on uninhabited lands. And, as in every similar situation, the human invaders ravaged their virgin paradise.

EVERY HUMAN INVASION OF VIRGIN LAND RESULTS IN THE STRESS  AND OFTEN ERADICATION OF 90% OF THE ORIGINAL FAUNA AND FLORA.

If we didn’t know this fact at first-hand from the recent example of the settlement of the New Zealand islands and the extermination of most fauna, and the consequent death of all the creatures and flora which depended on that ecosystem, science and archaeology have revealed exactly the same outcome from numerous lands. No place is exempt; even delightful Hawaii lacks its pre-settlement plants and creatures.

Australia certainly suffered from the invasions of island peoples all those thousands of years ago; sufficient time to result in massive disruption of the original biodiversity and the staggering impoverishment of the environment.

FIRSTLY, AND WITHIN A RELATIVELY SHORT PERIOD, THE INVADING HUMANS ELIMINATED THE LARGE ANIMALS TOTALLY.  These creatures were unafraid of man, having never experienced such an enemy, and were easily killed. The few carnivores must have been intimidated by the invaders. In New Zealand the local wildlife was exterminated in a very short time. By eliminating the major grazing beasts and smaller tame animals there was a cascading effect on the entire ecosystem; raptors and carnivores succumbing as their prey disappeared.

With the major animals slaughtered, particularly the grazers, the environment underwent drastic change as whole ecosystems were completely destroyed. So, here’s a country now offering no easy, tame food, and rapidly losing its original variety of vegetation.

AT SOME STAGE, THE HUMAN POPULATION RESORTED TO THE MOST DEVASTATING HUNTING OF THE SMALL REMAINING ANIMALS, WITH A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION; FIRE.  THE MOST ANIMAL FOOD, CAPTURED WITH THE MINIMUM OF EFFORT.

For modern generations of Australians, we accepted the term ‘FIRE STICK FARMING’ with equanimity. It seemed a reasonable practice. Now the full horror of bush-burning is only too obvious. Having destroyed the majority of native creatures, perhaps thousands of genera, the remaining few succumbed to fire, along with every scrap of diversity, fauna and flora. EVEN TODAY, THE POOR EMACIATED KOALA IS NEAR TO EXTERMINATION BY FIRE.

FIRE IS AND HAS BEEN THE SCOURGE OF AUSTRALIA, ELIMINATING THE LAST OF THE FOREST AND GRASSLAND DIVERSITY, AND COMPLETING THE INITIAL SLAUGHTER OF THE ORIGINAL MEGAFAUNA.

When we see our country of endless, sterile scrub, great leafless deserts, and fragile climate, know that all this wasteland was created by man. What we are left with is the detritus of a once-magnificent island paradise. Humans have created these wastelands in many parts of the planet; we must finally be aware of the desolation we see around us and ban all romance from the hideous eucalypt weeds which now fester in every handful of sand.

THE EXISTENCE OF THE NORTHERN RAINFORESTS AND THE MOUNTAIN SUB-TROPICAL FORESTS MEANS ALL IS NOT LOST, PROVIDED FIRE CAN BE PERMANENTLY ELIMINATED. THE EXTINCT FAUNA IS GONE FOREVER, BUT OUR FEW REMAINING INDIGENOUS CREATURES COULD BE SAVED.

However, the burning continues. The tree-weed species, the fire-loving weeds continue to thrive, the patches of ancient rain-forest shrink with each conflagration to this day, despite having survived human pyromania for aeons. We see graziers and farmers castigated for clearing the bush to open the land for cattle and crops, but look at the bigger picture. What farmers are bulldozing is not virgin original diverse forest species, but the endemic weeds remaining after aeons of ‘fire-stick farming‘. We hate to see this massive clearance, but in reality the real clearance was committed thousands of years ago, and repeated time after time. What we are left with is the worst possible species and the consequent nutrient-deprived land: a sterile waste-land. Native grasses at least are an improvement, should they survive grazing by introduced cattle.

All over our planet, ecosystems have been altered for the worse by humans, but Australia alone has suffered, and is suffering from a double scourge. The first was the extermination of the original grazing fauna: the systematic killing of those huge creatures that created and fertilised the clearings of dense jungle, thereby maintaining a diverse landscape inhabited by thousands of animal species.               The second was the introduction of fire on a huge scale, and repeated constantly; fire after fire, for unimaginable generations. Small groups of humans, setting fires downwind; mass destruction of unstoppable conflagration. The minimum effort, the maximum effect: picking-up the charred corpses for further cooking. And the waste! The horrendous waste. Fire-stick farming?  How many fires, over how many generations, before nothing is left but a wasteland.

THIS IS WHAT WE SEE TODAY, OVER VAST TRACTS OF AUSTRALIA: A WASTELAND. Not the romantic bush of Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson. We now know the ancient history of the creation of our bleak landscape, from lush forest to sterile scrub.

Reclaiming this sterile land is very difficult. Easy to destroy, almost impossible to recreate. Quick results take an enormous effort and cost. Time, and generations of human endeavour, and the permanent eradication of fire, will regenerate the magnificent rain-forest; perhaps even alter the local climate for the better. Start with the nodes of extant rich diversity on hilltops and in gullies, and allow them to expand over the charred waste. Easy to say, and easy to do, if fire was easy to keep at bay.

The awful recent fires, the droughts, the Corona virus and its resulting economic stagnation, all these depressing events push landscaping far to the background of endeavour. If we cannot even keep fire out of our back yards, how will it ever be possible to re-claim our wonderful forest from the fire-weed species? There seems to be no solution, either now or in the future.  But there is one important and surely obvious step that can be taken, which will both safeguard lives and property, and that is to clear our yards and suburbs of the eucalypts and wattles and fire-prone species. This CAN and must be done. Formulate lists of fire-proof rainforest species for re-planting and set plant nurseries to work. This CAN be done. Start at home, in the outlying suburbs, in the rural suburbs: clearing, planting, establishing wide fire-breaks. This CAN be done to keep the horrific wild-fires at bay from our living space. How much more can be safeguarded is a plan for the more secure times in the future. Local councils responsible for opening and maintaining fire-breaks as a priority, and here is the point: the wild-fires that leap from scrub to scrub will have little chance of establishing in a well maintained rain forest. Not no chance, but a definite resistance. It can be done.

CD ‘Schadenfreude’

CD ‘SCHADENFREUDE’, RECORDED at the Music Dept, Qld. University, 1994.

frogecd2

Engineer and bass, Peter Freeman, copyright Froge Records, Brisbane.

I had melodies and chords piling up and cluttering what little brain-space was available (still do: but what’s the point?), and retained most of the more memorable efforts on various primitive recording devices, with some small recognition and an award or two.

Peter had designed the then new recording studios at UQ, and it is at his kind urging that this CD was instigated, and with the unpaid contributions of fine local musicians, and much rehearsal, twenty original numbers were recorded.

The CD won two BASF Sunnie awards for 1994-5; best Alternative Single, and best Alternative Album. Such fame, and I was offered leading roles in Hollywood movies, castles in Scotland, world tours with a thirty-piece orchestra, and as much beer as I could drink. So how come no-one’s heard of the CD?

The recording and rehearsal process was great fun; needless to say not every track was a rare gem. I had written some stuff that required more skill than I could deliver: great accompaniment, pity about the soloist on reeds.

The title track, ‘SCHADENFREUDE’, is very strange. Friend Mike Hawthorne complained that I had not included him on the recordings, which was true; I had no ideas for trombone, but owed him a nice choon. The result was a difficult introductory cadenza and a worse melody and chorus, which were excellently arranged by Mike’s partner Jo on piano.The result was so appealing I named the CD after their brilliant effort. Listen!

John Braben, mate from childhood and dedicated musician, and Peter Freeman feature on many numbers; Peter both playing and recording: a tricky act. As I said; no-one was paid. The whole CD was a communal work. Here is a list of those who took part, and rehearsed in various corners of Brisbane………

Jo Bloomfield (now Hawthorne), Piano. John Braben, Trumpet. Peter Freeman, Bass. Hans Karssemeyer, Piano. Mike Hawthorne, Trombone. John Cox, Banjo. Rupert Jenner, Guitar and Vocal. Bob Watson, Percussion. Chris Schnack, Tuba. Son Bart on Didge and me on reeds.

What happened to all the CDs? We had ridiculous launch at the Froge Band’s venue, The Dead Rat in the Valley. Too successful. The place was so packed that no-one could get a drink, buy a CD, hear the band or each other. A shambles.

Well, most of the recordings did sell quickly, particularly at gigs and festivals, but I know that there are a few still lurking in boxes around the place; John Braben will have some for sure: collecters’ items now. I’ve never seen any in junk shops, so they are being retained!

There are two other original CD albums about with the Froge label, and of course all the marvellous vinyl pressings of the Vintage Jazz and Blues Band: again, I have yet to see any discarded, so hang on to your copy. Peter Freeman is the bloke to talk to for Australian Jazz Archive material; don’t let it drift like bed-fluff under the LIfeLine carpet!

Now, what am I to do with all that un-recorded cacophony cluttering the cortex?

Cheers,

Andy

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IF ENGLAND WERE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE……..

Shift Britain down under! WHERE WOULD IT BE?

You may be surprised!

Have you heard of Heard Island? The southern hemisphere, latitude 53 degrees South.       North Wales in Britain is on the same degree of latitude in the northern hemisphere, along with the cities of Derby and Nottingham. 53 degrees North.

SO?

Well, Heard Island is 80% covered in ice, has an active volcano called Big Ben, with a two kilometre lava flow. It’s in the middle of the Southern Ocean, the middle of nowhere, between Australia, South Africa and Antarctica.

If you shifted England to its same latitude down south, say near New Zealand, Where would it be?

Ok, say you are setting-out from the southernmost tip of the South Island of New Zealand, traveling South, you would have to cover over THREE HUNDRED KILOMETRES of ocean to reach Lizard Point in Cornwall. The South Island also has glaciers……..no skinny-dipping advised in the vicinity!

The Lizard, being the southernmost point of Britain, would become its northernmost point in the southern hemisphere. So you’d have to go MUCH further south to reach Scotland!

The North and South hemispheres of our planet are very different places, with very different climates. Tasmania, shifted north, would be in the middle of Spain, but does not have Spain’s climate; there’s very little sunbathing in Tassie, and not much swimming, though I did get into a mountain creek just for the experience……….30 seconds!           Mount Wellington can have snow in the middle of summer……

So; did you know that? I was unsure, and surprised!

The Gardens of Birth and Death

THE SACRED GROVE

About four hours walk from the village, after the dwellings, gardens, ponds, stream and cultivated plots are left behind, and  land becomes the wild domain of the indigenous creatures, there was once, and is now, a grove of accidental nut trees, self-sown, stately and ancient.

About this grove, which had been, and is yet protected as a reliable and valuable if small food resource, are built small dwellings for the guardians, whose occupations are to protect, nurture and expand the grove and its precious resource.

Over the centuries, the villagers have not only maintained the grove, but have cultivated the seedlings of the original trees in spacious gardens, carefully cleared and protected from the surrounding forest, and constantly maintained.

Interspersed amongst these gardens the villagers have added groves of their own; of fruit and nut trees the seedlings of which have been collected from far afield, paid for by village products to visiting travelers. The news of this trade has spread far, the seeds and nuts arriving regularly, and with anticipation, to fill the nurseries of the village.

Over the years, as their plantings have matured, the villagers have added to the numbers of guardians and increased the comfort and size of their dwellings.

The original grove of ancient trees had been protected and nurtured, treasured as an emergency food-source, and inevitably customs, festivals and calendar events grew as generations of villagers tended the tree-gardens, which became called the Gardens of Birth and Death.

Each birth is celebrated in the very centre of the ancient original grove, the ceremony conducted by the oldest member of the village, who in turn is supported by family and friends.

Each death is commemorated by the family of the youngest member of the village, male or female. There are no rites conducted by one specific sex.

Both birth and death involve young and old, boys and girls, women and men, and new-born babies as participants. The grove and its old trees witness the never-ending passage of time and life of the human animals.

Over the centuries the long four-hour path between the village and the grove has shortened as both have expanded. The grove, which used to be an emergency food source, has now such varied orchards that at no time of year is not some tree bearing ripe produce, and no disease has the ability to seriously affect such differing species. This is no monoculture.

The tenders of the now vast groves of tree-crops have always been selected from the adolescent and young adults of the village, on a rotational system of three months divided and randomly timed amongst six dwelling-types. There are no compounds for three-month stays; the dwellings are interspersed, recognised only by a flag. This gives the young people of the community (no longer a village, but a thriving township) experience of life, death, ritual, husbandry, hard work and maintenance of essential supply. The rotational system gives each person the time to meet others and form friendships and loves, in an environment of great beauty.

Older overseers from the town instruct in orchard maintenance and development, also on a rotational system,  and school-classrooms are duplicated in township and groves. Constant and varying shipments of diverse fruits are sent from the groves to the town market, which has buyers from far afield.

And on, and on. A hopeless dream, one of the many fantasies that would prove unworkable in reality, we humans being such an ornery mob. But pleasant to daydream. There are hints of a kibbutz there, and its strange community of youth. And of course the massive stately stands of bunya pines in Australia, sacred to the wandering tribes.

A parliament of hares

Has anyone seen the leaping hare                                                                                            Or of it did you hear?                                                                                                                 I was so lucky, I was there                                                                                                        When through the trees did peer                                                                                              To find out what had caught my eye                                                                                          As I drove past whilst on my way                                                                                              To Liverpool from Southport gay.                                                                                               Curious! But what? And why?

It was twenty years ago, at least; I was driving from my sister Doreen’s house in Southport to lodgings in New Brighton, and was on the outskirts of Thornton. You know how hard it is to stop the car mid journey. Remember the kids in the back, desperate to stop for the toilet, or something fascinating they’d seen? And would you stop? No. Not until threatened with instant urine or worse.

So I was well on my journey with no intention of stopping, when out of the corner of my eye, to the right of the road, I caught a glimpse. The most fleeting hundredths-of-a-second subliminal flicker of something ejecting from a field. What could it have been, I considered as I drove past.

A great effort of will stopped the car a mile past. If I don’t go back and look I’ll never know, and for the rest of my life I’ll wonder what it was that I saw. Or might have seen. So I did a Uee and parked by the field.

There was a sandstone wall a yard high with a typical triangular top, beyond which was a small field of say two or three acres: a meadow of overgrown grass bordered by a hawthorn hedge. Houses were nearby, and the traffic pottered past. Nothing to see, but I waited.

Then, Yes! Again, from a different part of the field, a leap! A leap from the covering grass! Into the air the height of a man, a hare! Up, then down and hidden. Then another! From a cricket-pitch away! A wide circle of hares, unseen on the ground, but briefly visible as they took random turns to become skybourne.

Somewhere in that ancient ritual were doe-hares in the centre of the circle; the males (I guessed twenty or so) mysteriously displaying their energy and power. But could the does see anything in the long grass? Who knows what does know, ha, a mystery!

A Parliament of Hares; a once-in-a-lifetime sight that I never thought to witness, and half considered to be a myth. So glad I turned back. I stayed for half an hour as the traffic noise and fume staged an incongruous background to a fabulous, mythical natural event, right there in front of me. And no-one else stopped to look! I felt strangely honoured to have been present at an animal-ceremony that so few have seen, and rather shocked that the hares were there in numbers, performing their ritual virtually right in the suburbs.

The hare is a peculiar, homeless creature, of solitary mysterious ways. How it survives in our unwelcoming environment, and even today stages its parliament despite the confines of urban sprawl, is a wonderful thing. Perennially persecuted, it persists.

INSECTS BROKE YOUR BOSCH? FIX IT!

INSECT DAMAGE TO BOSCH CONTINUOUS FLOW GAS HOT WATER HEATER HYDROPOWER 10H, 13H & 16H.

NOTE TO PLUMBERS AND PRACTICAL AMATEURS::

FIRST:  You don’t want a flood, fire, or explosion. Turn off the gas: bottled or town. Turn off the water (good if there’s a stop-cock at the unit). Turn on your brain: this operation requires concentration and deftness, but no skill.

SECOND:   The ‘owner’s’ manual is no use whatsoever.

Preamble: The drawback concerning gas hot-water systems is the inevitable invasion of insects, which will cause a total but fixable breakdown. Gas systems must have uninterrupted air supply: so insects also get in. Actually, insects could be screened, but for some reason are not. A design fault. Please explain.

GET STARTED: IF YOU HAVE ANY ABILITY WITH A SCREWDRIVER AND SPANNER, FIX IT YOURSELF; BUT BE GENTLE, ALL PARTS OF YOUR BOSCH ARE FRAGILE AND BEAUTIFULLY MINIMALISTIC, AND WILL LAST FOR A LIFETIME.

1)   Approach your hot-water system. Remove the cover (two knurled nuts, bottom outside left and right).

2)   REMOVE THE BURNER RACKS:                                                                                   1st)  Unscrew the ignition pilot; there are two screws in front of you, don’t lose them. Gently bend the pilot towards you slightly, whilst leaving it connected.                                    2nd)   Unscrew the big brass nut behind the pilot, releasing the burners from the gas supply. Do not lose the plastic washer.                                                                                     3rd)     Gently manoevre the burner racks to the left and remove them.

3)   ACCESS GAS JETS TO BURNER RACKS:                                                                   1st)   Undo the eight black screws at the back of the burners, gently prise off  the jet assembly: it’s a very snug fit.                                                                                               2nd)   Aha! You’ve got at the first half of your problem. Use a pricker to clean all twelve gas jets, though they are probably ok. Insect blockage of the burners? There’s soot everywhere! Hold the burners with the air/gas intakes downwards (so shit falls out, not in!), and with a wire, rake out all insect nests thoroughly. Spray the clean tubes with insect surface killer.                                                                                                                             3rd)   Re-assemble the burners and put safely to one side.

4)   REMOVE THE WATER JACKET:                                                                                     1st)   At the top, remove the retainer with its two screws.                                                        2nd)   Remove the temperature sensor clipped onto the right-hand side.                               3rd)   Under the copper jacket, undo the retaining nuts for the inlet and outlet pipes, holding the unit so that it doesn’t fall. This is the most tricky part: just be slow and gentle. Ease the top of the unit out and down, and the two copper tubes out of their retaining sockets. The one on the right will bend forwards to allow you to release it. Two small tags on the metal frame at the back of the unit may need bending-out a bit to enable you to remove the jacket. It sounds difficult but do it once and it’s a doddle. TREAT THIS WATER-JACKET WITH CARE; IT IS FRAGILE.

5)   CLEANING THE WATER JACKET:                                                                                  This is the second and final job. Due to the insect blockage of the gas jets below, the pipes, vanes, and insides of the jacket may be blocked with an accumulation of soot, due to inadequate gas-burning, and big smokey flames. This is the entire problem.                     This soot is extremely messy, so work in a suitable place. Stand the water-jacket on a slab of wood to keep the two protruding pipes off the ground, and remember how fragile and easily-bent it is.                                                                                                                          Prepare neat washing-up liquid and a soft brush of the dustpan type. Dip the brush in the liquid and work it into all the surfaces of sooty copper, from all sides, top and bottom: very messy. Hose  off and inspect your work; it may take two or three cleanings to expose clean copper. Make sure no dirt gets into the outlet/inlet pipes.                                               THAT’S IT. WHEN YOU’RE HAPPY THE WATER JACKET IS CLEAN, RE-ASSEMBLE  ALL THE PARTS CAUTIOUSLY AND CAREFULLY, AND DON’T FORGET THE INSECT SPRAY AS YOU GO.

Note for the future:  Though this is untried, place mothballs or similar products on the bottom shelf of your unit before you replace the cover, and renew these as they evaporate: you don’t want to go through all this again!

SOCK STORY

BAD, BAD SOCKS!

 Bought a cheap bundle of nice-looking socks from the supermarket, to add to the veggies, bread, cheese, etc.

I always buy the biggest socks I can find. Despite having tiny stick-legs all socks seem to cut-off circulation to the feet: weird.

How do all those huge blokes cope with tourniquet-socks?

Anyway, as I suspected, though the socks were much longer than my actual feet, the elasticated tops were finger-thickness stranglers.

Equally impossible, the knit was fair-isle! So, what’s wrong with that, you say?

Well. The nice pattern on the outside was constructed with myriad loops of wool on the inside. So, try getting your toe-nails through that maze of giant Velcro! Ha! Simply impossible! The socks seemed unwearable.

Never reject a bad bargain: fix it.

And I did. First, cut the strangler tops off. Good; space now to get my foot in. Second, turn them inside-out. Ha, now the impossible loops are on the outside! Wearable, cosy socks, and cheap.

Of course that’s WHY they were cheap!

MAIL FROM QUEENSLAND TO WALES: LOCK-DOWN ECONOMY.

Dear Eilwen

Are you and Thomas yet surviving? I hope so and wish you both well.

Do you find it strange that this plague has come upon us in what is in truth our old age? I picture myself fifty years ago in Brisbane, on a knife-edge of debt with wife and four children to feed, with only a tenuous life-line of employment……..how the hell would the family have coped in this present situation?

How will similar families survive today, as the weeks go past?

I seriously question the new police-state clamp-down here. Is the same happening to you? I know the blow-ins inhabiting their holiday-homes are being discouraged: is this being enforced in Wales?  Here in Queensland  they face fines and are being turned back, perhaps to avoid introducing the virus to isolated rural or coastal areas and over-loading local supplies. But legally outrageous, virus or no, to forbid owners to occupy their own properties, no matter how distasteful it may seem. The situation cannot apply in the Channel Islands, where outsiders may not purchase local housing. A very wise policy which could have been adopted in Wales………local housing for local people.

My lovely gentle eldest son visited Luly and me yesterday, bringing boxes of the most superb home-brew. How could I not give him the family hug? We took a deep breath, turned our heads away, and grabbed a brief clutch! This current stand-off, (literally), sensible though it may be from a virus-transfer state, is awfully unnatural to us hug-deprived humans. There was a strange time, long ago, when families from England inherited a no-touch habit of stiffupperlipping their dear older children, and so strong was that in-bred fashion that I dragged it to Australia, unthinking. Until one day, it dawned, if I don’t give these big boys a hug soon, it will become too embarrassingly late, and we’ll have to make-do with that terribly cool British hand-shaking, of our own children. Well, at first it was a bit giggly-queer for them, coming out of the blue, but soon it caught on mutually, and spread to friends and rellies with great rapidity. But I remember my old mates being rather shocked at first, then pleased and coy, then enthusiastic! Such a relief to finally be Italian!

Now after all that lovely break-away from staid English stand-off (There’s a mouthful), we Aussies are back to the dark ages. What do you think?

I know, it’s a small price to pay in the death-lottery, but the insidious extension of  this to policing $1,500 fines to solitary beach-goers and surfers is madness, and it’s happening right now, here. Somehow (I’ve yet to find out) vehicles are being stopped and the drivers fined for traveling! Non-existent borders here are now check-points for huge fines, and turning-back of traffic.

I wondered how the situation would cope with the massively-costly employment of police and bureaucracy, when millions of genuine workers are sacked and desperate. Now we know. More laws, rules, fines, harassment: more power, and I hate the direction the state is taking.

If we can go to the shop, surely we can go to the beach? From home, to beach, and back……..is now banned, ha ha, in Australia! Such is the power of the state. Car-travel poses no danger of itself. But we must stay at home and go mad and broke while the economy crashes beyond all repair, and there will never be full employment again, and the country is irretrievably debt-ridden. I foresee a dreadful outcome of this apparently-sensible isolation-policy.

The policy may well have a worse result than the un-checked virus. A high death-rate of mostly un-productive population (me), versus a defunct economy, mass-unemployment and inevitable anarchy as people starve and all technology crashes.

Am I stupid Eilwen to think like this? Is there one viable country to not instigate this lock-down, so we can see how they fare compared to the rest of us? I don’t think so.

Oops, I’m mail-bashing you! Will you forgive me? I get carried away! And there’s more I have to say!

What are folk thinking in Wales? Here in Queensland all is calm (before the storm?) and quiescent  so far, but we don’t have that tribal obedience of the Chinese, and may soon reach a breaking-point. Possibly. I don’t know; I can’t see folk putting-up with this lock-down indefinitely. Six months, a year, more? And broke, and homeless, and harassed? And the shelves empty? My bills from multi-national providers still come with bold regularity: no respite there.

And all those with huge house-loans, and income suddenly stopped? All these transactions we constantly make rely entirely on our jobs and income. And all those new-age ‘landlords’ who have ‘invested’ in a rental property, or perhaps multiple properties, and will not reach free title to them for decades: no rent, no repayments, foreclosure and loss. The lenders acquire the houses, the debts continue. How can the new landlords reduce or waive rents? I can’t see the tenants remaining in possession under those circumstances. No rent, no home. Who will pay?

Those first-home buyers, if they are out of work: will they be kicked-out of their expensive investment when their repayments stop, and lose all they have put into into their loans? And still, homeless, owe the balance between loan and sale-value? This is what happens now; how will that change?

At this very moment the value of any real-estate is declining. All sales are slowing. It seems a crash is inevitable, and certainly values have for fifty years been massively inflated, city land at a premium. A collapsing economy will burst that bubble. ‘Investment’, always a gamble, has been a  winner for a lifetime, but there has never been a guarantee. The check is about to happen, and this isolating shut-down will bring the house down, and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Does the government not realise this?

Even in my lifetime, I have seen a stagnant real-estate market culminating in a 25% drop in values. A comparatively small decline in value and duration, nevertheless it sent quite a few keen ‘investors’ broke, losing the family home and income. I use quotes because the word should always be ‘gamblers’.

Supposing, once all the new daily cases of virus cease, and we are released from jail, supposing it all starts again? There can be no second lock-down; neither the population nor the economy (should there be one) could stand it.

Day by day we face radical change in our outlook. One would hope that there are teams of wise folk involved in think-tanks around the planet, looking ahead, envisioning the results of government policy and advising incremental adjustments by the hour as this new and strange regime continues. However, I suspect there is little consideration taking place, just ill-educated politicians taking a punt. The medicos are on the ball, at least.

I still want to know. Who will tell me; who can guess the percentage of us would die of this contagion if it were left unchecked? And how would that figure differ from the current outcome? We know those at risk, and it is us unproductive old bastards who have had our day and should bow out gracefully and leave the world intact for our youth. Intact and fully operational, and not defunct beyond repair. A sad thought when the garden is so beautiful.

Weird times. I have to tend my poor buggered avos in a few days time, and repair the old tractor: will I be threatened by the police on my 200km journey? Fined and turned back? My hope is for good rain, no frost, fungus or bugs, and a beaut next harvest to help feed us all, in a small way.

There’s talk of a renaissance of the old manufacturing technology in Australia. Hard to believe that once we made railway trains and buses and ships and cars, and designed and built cutting-edge agricultural equipment. We have the raw materials and technology, and the expertise and work-force. Self-sufficient and fully-employed! Wow. With luck we’ll be clear of the virus before other economies and get started. Multi-nationalism has its severe draw-backs, despite what the bankers say.

It has been depressing to see this country descend to a third-world exporter of raw materials, at the expense of entrepeneurial manufacturing and research. We have been living on the crusts thrown to us from the vast profits of multinationals, and now perhaps may face the consequences of this dependence. Here is an opportunity to sack the policy-makers and engage the engineers and designers. And own our natural resources.

This virus may give us the opportunity to get to work, to look to countries like Sweden and Denmark and follow their lead; we have far more resources. Just no brains.

Meanwhile, the garden beckons, there’s ‘lawn’ to mow and delicious beer to drink, and nice neighbours to wave at. And hopefully your days are warming, and a calm morning will see the boat out for testing in those icy Welsh waters: will you go aboard? Catch a few fish? Will you be allowed to actually do that, even? Weird times…….

Love to both, hope the rant is not verging on rudeness, and hope too that my opinions are wrong on all counts, and bliss is just around the corner for us all,

Andy

COVID-19, NOVEL CORONAVIRUS: Isolate, quarantine, or business-as-usual?

CORONAVIRUS: IS SHUT-DOWN THE BEST POLICY?

Every country has opted for total isolation of its populace, with the exception of vital services, and this is the logical reaction to a rabid virus, in our brief experience of pandemics in our era of technology.

To isolate and quarantine infection is a proven safeguard against the uncontrolled spread of communicable disease, and is the accepted reaction to an epidemic. But could it be a disastrous long-term plan where a pandemic is concerned; that is, world-wide, affecting everyone on the planet? Could shutting-down an economy have a worse result?

Where a pandemic, left unchecked, kills a calculable percentage of a population, that is, with no quarantine process, is there a possibly better outcome in the long run? Supposing a pandemic were proven to cause the death of, say, ten percent of the people, with statistics relating to age, health, et cetera: supposing all services, businesses and jobs continued without restriction, supposing emergency hospital services were increased to cope, what, then, would be the outcome?

Ten percent death-rate could be absorbed in an economy with ease, particularly if the attrition affected the aged and infirm to a greater extent. This horrific and apparently callous consideration may be the saviour of the entire economy of a country, and hence its survival to prosper into the future.

Those survivors would of course be immune to further spread of the disease, and once the epidemic has run its course, the country, its population and economy will be in excellent shape, and better for the loss of the more dependent members of the community. I know, I know; a terrible, cruel prognostication. But consider the possible outcome of our current plans.

We have a consensus, unquestioned, and it is to isolate and quarantine all those tested positive to Corona Virus; isolate, and bury those who succumb without the comfort and proximity of loved-ones. So cruel, so necessary if quarantine is the path followed. This is the situation right now, world-wide. This is what is happening, and it is a logical, considered, plan. Isolate every individual for the duration, come what may.

Having accepted this plan, what are the effects, as the weeks and months pass? It is the hope that the virus will be contained, that cases will diminish until a point is reached where a decision can be made, country by country, to open the industries and send people back to work, to re-start the economy. But a great hope is reliant on such a revival.

As the weeks and months pass, certain industries can be temporarily be mothballed, and certain must be constantly maintained and operational: power, water, food, transport of goods must be always available, and people must run these industries. Housing must be guaranteed, rent-free if necessary.

We see the awful loss of hope of the entrepeneurs running small businesses, who must put off staff and close the doors, while the clock ticks on the viability of their enterprise: a point is reached when they must walk away, accept the inevitable. As time passes more and more businesses must pass the point of no return with no possibility of re-opening the doors. Isolation and lock-down of a whole population may be a state from which there may be no recovery. The longer the quarantine, the less likely the recovery. The people may survive, but the economy may fail: then what? Currently (March 26 2020) a span of six months of isolation has been mentioned: just how many employers will survive to re-hire their staff?

The fact is; this is NOT a lock-down, and cannot ever be. Food must be produced, farms kept running, power stations manned, fuel available. Transport is vital to feed the population and essential services. So many supplies must be maintained, so many workers kept employed, hospitals, clinics, transport agencies can NOT close. So much for isolation and quarantine.

The majority of workers will run out of funds very quickly. Rents must be negotiated. Massive billion-dollar government support is right now being planned, but time is of the essence: how long will this situation apply? How long will funds last, and most importantly, how many jobs will still be available if and when the quarantine is lifted? Is the economy being sacrificed to the current policy of shut-down? The quicker the lifting of isolation policy, the better the recovery. The longer the forced stagnation continues, the less viable the recovery. Have we chosen the right path?

Epidemics kill by percentages: some die, some survive. What is the percentage of survival right now? What are the different outcomes resulting from our current action, and no action? Will suitable immunisation be found, and when? Supposing the percentages are very different; then what? The end of the world as we know it? This outcome has been considered time and time again. We’ve had a good run, as the human race, from our isolated tribal beginnings, but we are now one international global battery-farm; no-one is isolated, we all get whatever is going.

Above all, food-production must be kept going, and the transport and customer-delivery infrastructure operating. The population must have inalienable right to their chosen address, and all individual financial obligations must be put on hold for the duration, whatever that might be. Is this all possible? Magnificent, if it can be done. We would, in a happy virus-free future, return to a much-altered, egalitarian society……..for a while! (Meanwhile, I notice the police have as a priority, enforcing traffic fines.)

Curious and worrying times, and time will tell. I feel the urge to hug my friends and neighbours: bugger the consequences. Isolation is not what humans do, but I’ll follow the trend, for now. But I’d hate to exit isolated, and lonely, and despairing, as many of us are doing as I write. How can we comfort and tend our dying friends and family under these arbitrary rules? How can I, one moment, walk into isolation and death without one look, one touch, one embrace from my loved ones? This is no way to end our days. This is the way dictated by statistics to limit deaths due to virus. To sacrifice the few for the many. Now, which path is the most humane, the most sympathetic? It is a numbers game, and we are the numbers. Perhaps, while we can, while we are so far un-condemned, we should bugger the rules and get out to say a hopeful au-revoir to all those dear to us, even if they stand open-armed, one and a half metres away. Til we meet again, one way or another……..

The ramifications resulting from on-going decisions are unknown. New rules, laws, fines restrictions are proliferating day by day, with no consideration of long-term effects. Every government decision is arbitrary and changing constantly; rules to the game are being made and re-made. Just today, I can not visit relatives interstate: I could yesterday. Catch-up is remarkably fast and accelerating, which is gratifying if correct. We watch this space.

Elder Man’s Lane

NEW SOUTH WALES JAZZ ARCHIVE

‘A great day in Sydney, 10th October 1999

Elder Man’s Lane, BLUE’S POINT, SYDNEY.

(HENRY LAWSON, 100 YEARS AGO)

I have been wading through two vast volumes of Henry Lawson’s complete works, story after story, spanning the planet and decades of time; every story a gem. Some now considered maudlin, but factual nevertheless. Perhaps our hearts are hardening and our romance with the country dwindling.

There are eight stories of Elder Man’s Lane, Lawson’s setting in the harbourside suburb of Blue’s Point, and of all places in Australia, this beautiful promontory is familiar to me as the site of the staged photograph of a mass of jazz musicians in 1999.

The area is steep, the pretty little suburb piled up the hill that is the subject of Lawson’s  essays; a very wealthy suburb now, but a poverty-nest of last resort 100 years ago, and the higher up the hill, the least accessible and destitute.

I parked somewhere up there and walked down to the photo site. A long row of staging was being set up near the water’s edge, framed by the symmetrical backdrop of the magnificent Bridge. Old blokes and one or two young women were drifting down the slope of rich green turf. The sky was overall blue, the air still and warm, the wavelets flashing in the brilliant sunlight: A Great Day In Sydney, 10th October, 1999.

A quaint idea, to rival a photo ‘A Great Day in Harlem’  in 1958. In terms of numbers and setting, certainly a success, but unfortunately parochial, as virtually none of Australia’s prominent musicians from outside Sydney attended, to my surprise, considering the effort expended by the NSWJA.

What would Lawson have thought of the occasion? His concern was the minutiae of the suburb, the busy harbourside wharves (now gone, in favour of landscaping), the poor struggling population of Elder Man’s Lane. The view still magnificent, he would have agreed, and surely he would have been impressed by the Bridge, and horrified by the insultingly imposing block of flats desecrating that beautiful spot. And the assembling musicians? Well, a very peculiar gathering.

My young son Rupert was living in Sydney at the time, and as he is a musician, and busy with it, I conned him into joining me in the photo. A liberty, but there were many others: surely a quarter of those gathered were blow-ins, and the remainder all either drummers or ‘vocalists’. Except for one or two, the famous faces were all absent.

Maybe I got the wrong message, having traveled down from Queensland. My brief appearance at the beginning of the film of the event was the only un-named participant; strange: everyone else had a nice sub-title. However, there we are, prominent on the back row of the school photo, me weird and beardy, Rupert outrageously blond, young, and shaven, but well-qualified as a jazz musician in any company.

It was a very gentle occasion, most civilised. The gathered participants were well-behaved and orderly, and no-one was drunk. 200 musicians and no-one was drunk, and this was twenty years ago, when the principle ingredient of any gig was alcohol. The day was entirely a success. An orderly assembly of smiling faces, a spectacular harbour-scape, an event and a wind-up and dispersal, without hitch or friction. A credit to the colony.

Now, at my kitchen table, a cup of tea, and Lawson’s essay number VI, the very same setting, 100 years ago. But all the actors gone, the story-teller too, though the landscape is unchanged, and the water sparkles as ever. I would hesitate to excise those in the photo who are now dead, but there will be many gaps, twenty years on, and soon only the photo will remain, and only the stories.