Chapter One

The Long and Winding Road leads me to your door

There was a long way to go, always it seemed a long way, whether it
was Darwin to Adelaide, or Broome to Kununurra, or Hobart to Devonport, or
Lismore to Orange, or Adelaide to Kulgera. He'd travelled all over the
country, the island continent - and initially it had bored him, the vast tracts of
outback Queensland, outback NSW, outback South Australia. But as he had
travelled around over a longer period of time he came to see the subtle
differences in the landscape, and appreciate the different micro-climates, the
different sceneries of the coastal littoral versus the inland deserts.

Australia, in the early 1970's, was a land of freedom, a land of
opportunity, a land that had just thrown off the shackles of years of Menzian
Conservative Government. There was work for all, Aboriginal Australians
had, for the first time, began to earn reasonable money and there was a
general freedom, to smoke one's pot, drink one's beer and plan the overseas
trip, whether it be the hippy trail for the young people, or the London BOAC
flight for their parents. One in four Australians travelled overseas in the
1970's, unrivalled by any other nation. Then, it all went wrong. Firstly, the
Arabs got greedy with their Oil, causing the first of the so called oil shocks,
and then there was the Khemlani affair, which terminally damaged the
Whitlam Government - the two combined, together with a far too strong dollar
managed to strangle the economy and cause horrendous inflation with
wages tripling in the period 1973-76. The Whitlam Government collapsed,
sacked by John Kerr, earning the caretaker prime minister the epithet of
Kerr's Cur. The Whitlam Government brought in some major reforms though,
no fault divorce, equal pay for women, free university education, decent
funding for the arts and film industries and a movement away from the White
Australia policy of the conservatives, towards multiculturalism, away from
Xenophobia, to a policy of accepting displaced refugees from Indo China,
away from Paternalism towards Capacity Building, away from conservative
benign dictatorship to consultation, away from insularism to internationalism
and early moves towards globalisation and free trade, even with our Asian
neighbours, and, perhaps, their greatest innovation free universal health
cover for all. However Whitlam also upset the British by making them feel
unwelcome unless they subjugated themselves to Australian Citizenship -
and the back lash was a loss of Prime Quality consumer items at bargain
basement prices, and the loss of access to the then so named common
market.

Now, in 2005, he looked out the car window to see a country that had
been raped and pillaged, polluted and ecologically vandalised, for the greed
of the current crop of conservatives and their greedy business cronies. Like
the landscape, the people were being brutalised, with the creation of an
underclass by a careless and delusional government, supporting the rich by
preying on the poor. Where once, in his early days in this potential paradise,
there had been equality and the credo of the fair go, now there were the
strong preying on the weak, people homeless in a country where successive
governments had turned their back on the poor, and concentrated on
convoluted real estate schemes, to increase the wealth of the Real Estate
agents and the property developers, at the expense of anyone on less than a
six figure income.

To add insult to injury, the Governments had become addicted to the
Poker Machine, and freely encouraged widespread pilfering of poorer
people's pay packets to give even more wealth to both Government coffers
and Hotel and Club consortia and owners. Crime had soared to
unprecedented heights, Police forces had continued to be corrupt and often
brutal in their treatment of the criminalised, the Mentally Ill and the socially
disadvantaged. Against this back drop, there had been huge increases in
Domestic Violence and serious, harmful substance abuse together with
emerging trends of child abuse and an increase in crimes of violence, armed
robberies and home invasions.
Hospitals, once the best in the world, had become increasingly
dysfunctional, under manned and under equipped, both private and state.
The Nursing workforce had been manipulated into paying for once free
education and the Nursing workforce had aged, due to the unwillingness and
inability of successive governments to meet their basic obligations in
workforce recruitment and retention.

All this against a back drop of the froggy mouthed, bushy eyebrowed
prime minister and his assortment of thugs, obese minister for failed
enterprises and the minster for caged hair. And lately, they had engaged in
their most callous enterprise to date, an attempt to move the unmoveable off
the dole and into penury. One of these moves was the denial of the basic
human right to live where one chooses. Together with this, a failed adventure
in Iraq, with propaganda at home attempting to pacify the local populace and
trick them into a paranoia, so that the Government could inflict even more
denials of basic human rights. He wondered, seriously, whether the last
election figures had been rigged, no one he spoke to admitted voting for the
conservatives, so called Liberals who devalued and prostituted that name.

He had just spent six months in the sewer pit of Sydney, Auburn, a
filthy almost third world conglomeration of development gone mad, and drive
by shootings, where only one in ten was free of the shackles of gambling
addiction, substance abuse and violence, sometimes one, but often 2 or 3 of
these. Auburn had taught him a lesson, never trust the Police, who were
brutalised by exploding crime and feared terrorism and had beaten him on a
false pretext and then charged him with assault. Yet, even in Auburn, there
were decent people, people who helped, people who reached out.
On getting his tax return in 2002 he had "lashed out"and bought a
Hewlett-Packard Laptop computer, in order to write and join the increasing
numbers of Internet literate - but barely a month after he got it a crazed
Heroin addict ripped off the steel security grille to his bedroom and stole it,
selling it for far less than its worth to get a few days smack. He had gone off
to the Bush at Broken Hill, and discovered a strangely beautiful but sad
landscape, once again ecologically damaged, a town with both some
beautiful and some extremely drab buildings and a hard but generally happy
people. None the less, there were huge health problems, including higher
morbidity, and every disease, especially lung cancer and alcoholism, and
high levels of Renal and Liver disease, not to mention Diabetes. The average
life span of Australians is around 80, but here, getting to 55 was considered
a good innings.

Whilst it may have been a delusion, he thought that Darwin was still the
best place to live. He went back to have a look after a two decade absence,
and he saw a dynamic tropical city, much prettier than he remembered,
obviously much wealthier, but also much more commercialised, and in some
ways suffering a loss of charm it had once had, all in the name of chasing the
tourist dollar. He went to see his Alma mater, the old Darwin Hospital - he
was astounded - it had been totally flattened, nothing to see that spoke of the
beautiful tropical nights of his adolescence and early adult hood, nothing to
see of the swimming pool where he had got so fit, nothing to see of the
marvellous multi-storey building that had been his home and also home to
the first Otis Lift in Darwin - in place was a bare and flattened field with the
only reminder, a water pipe in one corner. Nearby, virginal bush had been
converted into ugly shiny condominiums, with expensive sounding names
and rents to match. He felt sad, sad at the loss, sad at the change, and as he
stood there he wondered if it had ever been real, or if it had all been a
figment of his imagination. He went back to his expensive hotel room, which
was even smaller than his Nurses Home accommodation, filthy and far less
friendly, and then he went out for a drink, to listen to the Rock and Roll
bands, and wish he had taken a different course in his life and become a
musician instead of a Health Care professional.

He walked all his old haunts. Some had changed and some were much
the same - but one thing remained, the smell of Frangipanni on the evening
breeze - it was alluring and beautiful and brought back a flood of pleasant
memories of freedom, large disposable income and a general enchantment
with life, the bush and all that. Not to mention his ever growing love of music,
consensual sex and trips, trips to Bali, and trips on clear light, trips on
Mushrooms and near trips on the world's most potent Cannabis - all in
between working towards his dream of being a fully qualified triple certificate
Registered Nurse and an ever growing confidence, fuelled by 30 laps of the
pool each morning and a growing insight into the social and political minutiae
of his beloved city, gateway to Asia. Once, he had sat, tripping, on the bluff
overlooking Mendil Beach where he had gone for some smokes, to calm the
effect of the Trip - and he had looked out towards Gardens Road and
watched the little cars, like ants, toing and froing from Darwin to the eastern
and Northern suburbs and he had wondered then, why, why were people
driven to drive on pointless trips (or so it seemed) - where were they going?
What were they doing? Each car discharging its noxious fumes into the
relatively clean Darwin air, and he had been sad, sad at the thought that all
over the world, in Cities, much much bigger than this, Humans were driving
along in their steel beasts that drank at the bottomless pit and he heard the
call of the Greens, long before the Greens had even existed. Back at the
Nurses Home, he found it too claustrophobic and ventured out yet again, to
walk Mendil Beach in the moonlight and be pleasantly frightened by the
millions of Hermit Crabs going about their daily (nightly) business. He wanted
a swim, but couldn't swim now, because the Sea Wasps were about to have
sex and had a mighty sting that had been known to be fatal for Humans on
numerous occasions in this place. At least there were no crocodiles,
something that was to emerge as a threat some decades later.

Walking back to the Soho of Darwin, where the backpackers drank at
the British Hotel he gradually put these memories into the past and
contemplated where he was now, today.

30/11/2005
Chapter Two

Oh. You Masters of War, how you lie and deceive

They hanged him on Friday, Nguyen, in Singapore for smuggling
Heroin.

Now we all know that heroin trafficking is wrong, and we all know that
people who do it should be punished, but murdered? By the State? The
hypocritical state that trades and deals with Myanmar, or Burma, whose
government, or rather, junta, are complicit in the Heroin trade.

Not that I, personally, have anything against Singapore as a place, or
its people, I was conceived there - I have enjoyed stays there, including
hospitality extended by a Chinese family - the Yungs, very pleasant too,
however, Singapore has a repressive government that brooks no protest from
its citizens, and it murders them, along with foreigners - I cannot accept that
state sanctioned murder is either right, or moral - however the hypocrites try
to dress it up as a deterrent - people who are trafficking Heroin on a small
scale are not the real problem, it's the Mr Bigs, the Government cronies, the
Junta of Burma that are the people who should be punished with life long jail
- they are the ones that make the real money and cause the deaths of many
through their trade. There are no excuses for killing a young man who was
truly repentant - Karma, of course, will operate in the end, and the evil people
sanctioning the killing will be called to account for their crime in the long run.
In Indonesia, they also kill people, but by firing squad for Drugs, one
unfortunate girl got a 20 year sentence for having a bag of pot in her boogy
board bag, the equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle or selling Ice to the
Eskimos or Oil to the Arabs - Bali is drowning in a sea of drugs, so it would
be quite pointless taking any there from Australia. The girl had even been
threatened with being shot she had managed to have her sentence
reduced to 15 years, but it was increased again to 20, after an appeal by the
state supreme court. A measure of how ludicrous drug sentencing is, is that
the mastermind terrorist cleric whose name escapes me but who directed the
deaths of 240 Australians in a Bali Bar only got 8 years jail. The Indonesian
judiciary have decided to shoot his co-offenders though. The president's son
Tommy, who was convicted of date rape and murder got 15 months jail, so
obviously, the justice system needs major governance strengthening to bring
it up to an acceptable standard. Personally, I think any sentence for
Marijuana of the trivial amount Corby carried should not be more than three
months especially in a place where part of the tourist lure is the free and
easy availability of Cannabis, however much this might sting the local
constabulary.
The Australian Federal Police managed to get 9 Australians arrested on
Heroin Smuggling charges knowing full well that these mules will probably
be shot many Australians are asking why the AFP didn't arrest them on
return to Australia this question hasn't been satisfactorily answered and
shows, by default, an absolute contempt for people's lives by the Howard
Government which must have condoned the information exchange which led
to the arrests a Government that struts the world stage as a leader in
human rights, but which is complicit in arranging the murder of its own
citizens how hypocritical how amoral how negligent I hope the
families sue Howard and his crony Downer to the hilt, because, as far as I am
concerned, they are just as criminal as the people they are sending to the
firing squad. Oh, Johnny would probably justify it by some crap line like we
have to send a clear message whilst at the same time probably hob nobbing
with one of the Mr Bigs that benefits from the Heroin smuggling, but wears a
business suit and talks about developing this or that. The sad thing is that the
Mules are all lower class people with poorly endowed intellects who are used
on a daily basis by some very influential Australians, many of whom are
Liberal Party supporters and donate money, earned through Heroin
Smuggling, to the Liberal Party but of course, the Liberal Party doesn't want
to examine that funding too closely, it might dry up. Another good reason for
all fund raising for Political Parties to be prohibited and parties funded
through a Community levy on say Horse Racing or Gambling, which is far
less innocuous than Heroin smuggling, or so the Governments keep telling
us.


Chapter Three


Bobbies on bicycles, two by two


There ought to be a story here but I cant get it together at the moment.
Sometimes I wish I had all the manuscripts I had done but I dont where
they are is a bit of a mystery. Ive got a big one somewhere but not at the
moment anyway I am sitting here in my beach house and musing about life
in general you know, the frustrated writer I will get around to it, like James
Michener and Wilbur Smith. One is dead and the other very much alive.
I came down here some 6 weeks ago now, and I like the job, the place
is very pretty, I live in Hawley Beach, some 20 kms out of Devonport, and for
the first 6 weekends I was here, I went fishing sometimes at Stanley, but it
is very cold and windy, even though we have caught Trevally and Salmon,
Cod and some other fish, I dont know what it is called, some people call it
Parrot fish, but not like the Parrot fish on the Pacific Islands, like Saipan.
The last six months? It has been a nightmare not having any
employment and trying to survive on the dole, and sliding more into debt. The
relationship has also been somewhat different to what I expected.
Lets see, I left Halls Creek in September and went to Darwin the place I
used to love, and still do, although it has changed almost beyond recognition,
grown so much. Still, it is very pretty now, and much more tropical than when
I was there before, in terms of the horticulture, the way the city has become
more established.
I thought at first that I would get a job and settle down there again as I
like the climate so much but there wasnt really much in the way of work
and I certainly didnt want to return to the Prison system. I ended up going
down to Batchelor with Bev and we stayed with Terry and Tina in their
hideaway out near Rum Jungle. Baking hot. We bought a BMW 7 series for
$1500 but it was a heap of junk, too much cost to repair the thing, so we
decided to go to Sydney when we had finished with Darwin, I had ideas of
getting agency work and getting a flat and spending some time in the City,
but the agency work didnt eventuate to the extent that I had hoped the few
assignments I got were awful, I worked in private hospitals where the
workload was unrealistic and half the equipment didnt work I was expected
to enter patient notes on antiquated equipment which was extremely
frustrating to use, and, in the end, it was basically less stressful to go on the
dole whilst I was waiting for a real job to show up.
I spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week trying to get a job, I lost count of
the number that I applied for, jobs in the desert, jobs in overseas countries,
jobs in places Id never have considered working in, I felt like I was on the
scrap heap, half the time, the prospective employers didnt answer, or they
just made excuses and I began to think I was finished, being 50.
Then the Anglicare job came up, it came with an AWA and
a car and initially we were given accommodation, so I couldnt pass it up.
Now I am right into it, although it will be very challenging. But I have to still
get this business in Sydney resolved, like attend court on a trumped up
charge for assaulting a big burly police officer, the last thing I would do. I
have to organise a lawyer by remote control, and probably end up paying
heaps for nothing as I probably wont be able to get legal aid, even though I
am broke. I wrote a letter to the solicitor, and here it is - Over the page










3 Getaway Beach Resort
Dumbokin Rd
Hawley Beach 7307
Legal Aid Service
Burwood Court
Attention: Police Prosecutor
Subject: Alleged Assault


Dear Pro Bono Solicitor,
I have, I allege, been falsely and mischievously
accused of assaulting a Police Officer after two Police Officers stopped me
in the street one evening, in Auburn, and actually assaulted and battered me,
after I made a move to move away from them. They were detaining me
because I was with a female friend who has been my travelling companion,
they alleged that we had been fighting, or brawling as they put it, in the
underpass of the Auburn Railway Station, but at the time of the alleged
fracas I was actually getting money out of an auto teller machine at the
Commonwealth Bank ATM in Auburn Road. (There would be documentary
evidence to support this statement). I believe they had my friend and I
confused with a couple of itinerants who habituate that area. (my friend is
aboriginal and there is an aboriginal lady that frequented the area at around
that time), I had been out with my friend at the Auburn RSL and we had
consumed quite a few drinks, I was celebrating as we were planning to go to
Tasmania the next day for a job interview. The Police stopped Beverley Long
and I in Auburn Road. They asked about the brawling, and asked me to
remain at the side of the pavement whilst they interrogated Beverley. After a
few minutes, I said, that I hadnt been involved and I was going and then
started to take a step to walk away. One of the officers grabbed me by my
right wrist and twisted it and then with brutal and unnecessary force threw me
face down on the pavement, causing an injury to my thumb, a further injury to
my wrist and bruising to my arm and chest. The injury to my wrist was severe
enough that I still suffer pain in it. When I got up, I said Look you have
made my thumb bleed, do you want me to write about you but the Police
Officer must have thought I said Do you want me to wipe it on you (which
he stated in the statement of facts) and they both then man-handled me into
the Police Utility Van, arresting me on what I consider to be an unfair and
trumped up charge.
I am only a slight fellow, there is no way I would have had any intention of
assaulting two large Police Officers, even in my inebriated state at the time. I
was extremely upset at the way I had been violently treated and I was quite
disturbed by the time I arrived at the Police station and protested quite
vigorously at (what I considered) the wrongful arrest. I was doubly upset, as I
was unable, due to the injuries, to attend the job interview arranged in
Tasmania, and had to advise Anglicare Tasmania Inc. that I was unable to
attend the interview, causing them inconvenience and expense as they had
arranged a flight for me, which had to be cancelled.
Relevant to this is the fact that some months prior Beverley had been
charged with assaulting me at the Auburn Hotel, by throwing a beer glass in
my face. Beverley had been drinking, and had been served by staff at the
Hotel when she was obviously intoxicated. Beverley later told me she had
meant to throw the beer over me, but as her hand was wet, after just visiting
the toilet, where there were no towels to dry her hands, that the glass had
slipped out of her hand. I accepted this explanation and asked the Police to
drop the charges against her but, as is often the case, they were not
prepared to drop the charges, and I have attended at least 3 court
attendances with her, just to have the matter raised for mention and
repeatedly adjourned. I have explained to the Police on a number of
occasions that Beverley suffers from episodes of morbid jealousy, and have
sought their assistance in calling the Mental Health Team, without success
during acute episodes. In any event, the staff at the Auburn Hotel should not
have been serving her Alcohol on that occasion and would be guilty of an
offence if the matter were investigated. I believe that as an identified PINOP
(Person in need of protection) my refusal to follow through with the charges
had upset the Police, and so I became a victim of their frustration. I know that
Auburn is a very difficult command for the Police, because of the high rate of
violent crime in the area, including recent drive by shootings. However, I am
not part of that culture and dont feel that the treatment meted out to me was
either just, or fair. The fact that I am now expected to face a charge for
Assaulting an Officer in the execution of his duty means I am
inconvenienced, by having to spend a great deal of money, which I cannot
afford, travelling back and forth from Tasmania, to the mainland to attend
court. Personally, I think the charge should be dropped. I reported the matter
to the Ombudsman, who referred me to the Police Integrity Commission. I
was communicating with both by email but since coming to Tasmania, I
have been unable to access my email to ascertain the progress of my
complaint. Because I was unemployed for some six months prior to arriving
here, I am not in a financial position to afford the air fares for return trips from
Devonport to Burwood, I will also experience difficulty in affording legal
representation, but I will endeavour to do so.
I wish to enquire as to whether I can claim victims compensation for the
injury to my wrist as I feel unreasonable force was used in my (unnecessary)
arrest. Had the Police Officers been professional and respectful, instead of
being aggressive, I would have stayed at the scene where they were
questioning Beverley all they had to do was ask me pleasantly to remain,
instead of treating me in the manner they did.
Following this regrettable incident, I attended the Auburn Western Medical
Practice as I was suffering a degree of pain there would be a record of my
attendance with the Physician. I understand from the chamber magistrate at
Burwood that the case is due for mention on the 7
th
of July. I am currently
involved in the recruitment of staff as support workers for the introduction of a
Packages of Care, Supported Accommodation which requires me to travel to
and from Hobart and Launceston, so the date is somewhat inconvenient,
apart from the fact that I am currently unable to afford the air fare, which is in
the vicinity of $500 return. I have only just managed to afford to move into
permanent accommodation. On this basis, and as the matter is for a
mention, I seek a further adjournment. I still need to find out the outcome of
my communication with the PIC and ombudsman. Naturally, I shall be
pleading not guilty to the charge. I do understand that the term Assault is
used in a technical form, there was certainly no threat from me of any form of
assault occasioning physical harm to the Police and I strongly resent any
implication, or harm to my reputation of any inference that that would be the
case. Could you please assist me in getting this matter resolved and in
advising me what compensation, if any, is available for both the physical and
psychological trauma I have suffered.
Respectfully yours,




Christopher M Skinner












Chapter Four

The Magician's Birthday

They were climbing up the misty mountains the Subaru sounded like
a Volkswagen as it ground on, but with much more power. The air was both
damp and cold, with an earthy and organic smell, the magnificent stringy
barks and red gums had given way to even more majestic mountain grey
gums, towering trees with large succulent looking ferns and multitudes of
many manifestations of mushrooms and fungi garlanding their gargantuan
girths, suggesting an air of mystery, one almost expected to see fairies
dancing, in celebration of either the Magician's Birthday, or the Butterfly Ball
and the Grasshopper's Feast.

The road was muddy and slippery and demanded 4 wheel drive as a
minimum, then over the hill, and yes, and the moon couldn't have looked
much different, except these craters were from tree roots, rather than
meteorites every single tree was gone, slaughtered, another sin against
mother earth, never mind the complete lack of any other vegetation,
mammals, reptiles, insects, amphibians, all utterly destroyed, already the
land was cut asunder from the mountain rain falling on the unprotected earth,
a scarred testament to yet another rape, another pillage, another assault. No
fairytale mystery here only yellow caterpillars with tank tracks, committing
war against the forest and mother Earth, Gaia, and the car occupants were
aghast to witness this absolute pillage, worse than any Viking or Visigoth,
Hun or Barbarian could have ever committed.

In the town the fat Slavic man with his Slavic wife sat down to a large
Slavic dinner, and they enjoyed some very expensive West Australian wine.
In their front garden huge logs were reclined and dying the man and his
wife were not overly concerned they had no qualms, no remorse to them
it was normal to have the trees dying in their front yard, painted with lurid pink
paint where they had been amputated and decapitated. The fat man and his
wife, were, after all, good people, the riches they made from the tree
slaughter paid for their workers, the timber workers, they gave to charity, he
sat on the hospital board he even showed the new Doctor around the
forests, his pride and joy, his garden, his contribution to ecological vandalism
and the Doctor, for the first time in his life, saw where the wood came from
that he had seen all pretty, planed, measured in super feet, that he had used
for his stereo cabinet, for his floor boards, for his walls he had been so
taken aback, here he was, today, with his Doctor wife and their visitors, who
had so wanted to see the tall magnificent trees the tallest in all the land,
nay, even in the Southern hemisphere there were none so tall, none so
majestic, none 1500 years old like the ones here, or that had been here, until
struck down by the Humans, who 1500 years before hadn't even been able to
make steel tools, let alone chain saws and bulldozers.
But the Doctor, the Doctor Wife and their little daughter, and the guests
from Melbourne were only confirming what the Doctor and the Doctor Wife
had seen in the East Gippsland Forest Publication, an infra red satellite
image from 3,000 kilometres in space, showing a huge suppurating wound of
red on top of a mountain, the Errinundra Plateau.
They had come to see that it was real, they had come to see what all
the Hippies had been complaining about, and what caused the hatred
between the tree hugging hippies and the tree lopping timber men, both from
the same mother, in some cases the timber men drank beer and despised
the hippies, the hippies drank bourbon and smoked grass and despised the
timber men both were despised by the fat man who thought they were lazy,
one dumb and the other radical dole bludging trouble makers.
The Doctor and his wife attended to both, plus the dairy farmers, and
listened sympathetically, but without commitment to all fours classes in the
local society. After all, the Doctor and his Doctor wife were only here to fulfil
their Hippocratic obligation the Doctor felt a bit like Jesus forgive them,
God, they know not what they do.
In the fields, the Fresian Cows, Black and White like the cows of his
childhood, chewed on their cuds and had as much insight into the damage
the timber workers were doing, as the timber workers themselves did. In the
Pub, fire roaring, and cigarette smoke thick in the air, the Timber workers
loudly proclaimed their bigoted view of what should happen to Greenies -
various methods of how to get rid of Greenies were all the rage and vile jokes
were made about Greenies and Greenie moles as the Timber Workers
were wont to call them. In the houses further up the valley, made of mud
brick and timber, the alternative life stylers bemoaned the ignorance of the
Timber Workers, their exploitation by the system and packed more bongs
in an effort to reach the Nirvana they knew was being destroyed.
The Doctor and the Doctor wife were keen to maintain their
independence but also wanted the social comfort of the Green herb and so
were compromised, in favour of the alternative life stylers, which they weren't
quite, but it was what they were most comfortable with, given their horror at
the slaughter of the trees, the weeping of the willows and the gnashing of the
groaning gums grounded by greedy governments and greedy green haters.
Yet, the Doctor and his Doctor Wife felt great guilt as their car used
fossil fuels and pumped carbon and lead into the night air as they drove up to
their social gatherings. The Doctor and the Doctor Wife were able to see he
was keen to make the quote, every time he saw a Renault with a back
window sticker proclaiming No more dams, or No Uranium or some such
Greenie edict, that show me a genuine Greenie and I'll show you someone
without a car, because they know cars are evil, filthy polluting beasts with
tails that spit, that drink at the bottomless pit, with faces like men and breast
plates of shining iron.
The Subaru was a revelation in itself, a horseman heading to the
apocalypse rather than being a direct trumpeter. The apocalypse was a
winding bend with a pothole, where the Doctor had a micro sleep and drove
into a ravine, spared from instant death by avoiding a collision, miraculously,
with the trees he was so sad about.

After placing the Subaru in the car hospital, where its scars and
fractures were repaired with Surgical precision, and the Doctor asked to pay
a hefty operation bill by the auto mobile surgeon the Doctor returned to his
shiny small surgery and tended to the townsfolk, including providing a
consultation to the fat man, with his almost malignant hypertension the
Doctor advised him to watch his weight, his diet and be sure to give up the
cigarettes and limit the consumption of the expensive wine and the fat man,
as Patron of the little country hospital, asked the Doctor to dinner, be sure to
bring the Doctor wife, but the Doctor begged to be excused, to take a rain
check, life was already difficult, there was a pregnant woman up the valley
who could need his attention any time, maybe one day but not now. Thank
you, thank you.
The Fat man took his leave and the Doctor saw his next patient, and
another, and another then the Doctor wife arrived and gave him tea and
biscuits, he sterilised his instruments and wrote out his list for the Pharmacist
to dispense. He checked his Black Doctor's bag and his Komesaroff
Resuscitator, to see there was enough Oxygen, in case the Prince's highway,
or a falling tree, or an overturned log truck presented him with another
wrecked human to try and save, to aid, to Doctor back to good health and full
potential.

The Doctor saw 25 people that day, and, at the end , he was drained
but he felt good, yet, he knew, the next day, there would be another 25 they
would seek his care, seek his advice and then leave the Surgery, and
discuss him out of his hearing, whether he was good or lousy, whether he
cared or not, whether they would take his professional advice or not but he
enjoyed his work, he enjoyed doing good, he enjoyed seeing people get
better, even though he knew they would still smoke too much, smoke near
their asthmatic children, drink too much, not take the pills correctly, despite
his and the Chemist's careful instructions, and then, perhaps, blame him
when they or their children remained sick.
They would come back for the expensive anti-biotics, which they sought
for viral infections, despite his patent explanations in lay man's terms that
antibiotics would be no use against this, a common cold, or a flu. He still felt
good. He was involved in the men's club, he was involved with the
kindergarten, he was involved with the graveyard in a caring manner when
there was time, after his work and on the weekends.
He knew he was doing the right thing, but he didn't know he wasn't
looking after himself and thus he joined the ranks of the Fresian cows and
the Timber workers, in lacking insight despite his knowledge. Later, when
he was sick himself, when he had burnt out,he thought of that famous saying,
- Physician, Heal Thyself and he thought what a fool he had been, and
added to his burn out by lowering his self esteem and the esteem towards
him of his Doctor wife, who, by now was angry with her fool of a Doctor
Husband who had spent so much energy giving to his patients and not
enough to her and their beautiful daughter. He was, after all, still relatively
immature, and narcissistic into the bargain never cooked, rarely washed
up, and only vacuumed at the weekends, after she asked him. He wasn't
lazy, but he neglected his domestic situation, even though he read stories to
his daughter, and always told his Doctor Wife that he loved her.

5.12.05














Chapter 5 A Beautiful relationship

Then we will remember things we said today
He had lusted after her after he met her one sunlit afternoon, in June,
in the Education room above the library at the Lunatic Asylum where he
worked. She was his ideal of female beauty, blonde curly hair like Robert
Plant's hair and blue almond eyes, beautiful full bodied lips and a sexy pert
and tightly toned body, nubile, sensual, oozing sex appeal.
She had a bright smile, an intelligent and lively face with dancing eyes,
the most gorgeous eyes he had ever seen and a melodious English rose sort
of voice, especially her pronunciation of the word Off which she said in the
Oxford English way - Awf. He found her easy to talk to, easy to engage he
was smitten and, so it seemed, she with him.

He started to court her, and saw her, firstly a few times a week and
then daily, and then he spent all his free time with her, and she with him but
for the first three months they never kissed, never had any sort of sexual
relationship apart from the mental one, until, one day, some three months
after they had commenced courting, driving through the pine forests, the car
got bogged and they had to walk back to the mountain town. On the way,
they kissed, first gingerly, tenderly, reservedly, but then with passion and
strength, crushing each other's lips they were both electrified by the
experience.
They took to having excursions, to the Blue Mountains, where they rode
the Cable Car and the Sky Train he was scared at the sheer drop down the
cliff face near the Three Sisters Rock formation but he had been smoking,
so it was not altogether a surprise for him, or her.
Then they took a sleeper to Sydney, and the Guard admonished him for
smoking his pot in the cabin, the smell wafting into the other carriages. They
looked out for a motel, and found one with a swimming pool, so he could do a
few laps, even though it was freezing cold.
They went to the Opera House and saw James Galway playing the
flute, his nystagmus apparent for all to see, and that before his big car
accident on the Motorway, the audience marvelled at how he seemed not to
take a breath as he did a rendition of The Flight of The Bumble Bee

Within a few days they were having sex, extremely passionate sex.
They couldn't leave each other alone, bringing each other to a peak of
orgasm, over and over again, until they fell apart, exhausted, but happy,
nostrils flared, pupils dilated, they touched each other tenderly with their
fingertips and slept in each others arms and so it went, on, unbelievably,
until, in May she was to take her Trip, her trip to India that she had arranged
before they met.
She went with her boyfriend, a carpenter he got sick with gastro-
enteritis, in Nepal, and she wrote back to the lover, telling him in her unique
scrawl, all that had transpired, how the boyfriend was in the American
Hospital, very sick, and that they would be cutting their journey short and
returning to Australia when he regained his strength she was dying to see
him, and he her.
He had suffered exquisitely - before she had departed she had given
him an Alpaca vest so soft to the touch, from the Alpaca wool her
perfume, Bewitched, was on it, he had put the vest to one side, and took to
smelling it, to remind him vividly of their tempestuous and all consuming love.
He looked forward to her return, he longed for her touch, he ached with
his love for her, his need of her, and he braved the cold climate of the
mountain town, warmed by his fondness and deep, deep love for her for
the first time in his life he knew that she was the one, the one he wanted to
spend his life with, and die with, the one he wanted to bond with, forever.
Whilst he had been in love before and his first love had been painful in its
intensity, this love exceeded that as the sun outshone the moon, he thought
of nothing but her.

He was in his digs near the Lunatic Asylum playing his Pink Floyd and
Fleetwood Mac albums, when she arrived, stunningly beautiful, more so, if it
were possible than he had remembered, she had pink happy pants and a
crocheted vest on, her nipples taught against the worsted fabric, she had lost
weight, her puppy fat, but she was toned to perfection, her hair was starkly
blonder than it had been against her dark sun tanned skin which also
highlighted her blue eyes, they fell almost straight away to intense and
passionate lovemaking, and made love from 8 at night, without let up till 3 in
the morning, and then fell apart, spent but deliriously happy, they started to
make plans, he would give up his job, they would go and leave this frozen
mountain town and go to the tropics visit Darwin, maybe Broome they
would go up in his new Mini, they would go to Melbourne and Adelaide first
and visit friends, they would be happy, they knew they would be happy.

They paraded their love, in front of their friends and in front of her
mother and father, her brother and her sisters, they were an item, they were
it, they were over the moon, they were one. She had left the boyfriend and
made a total commitment to him and he, to her. They started to travel, he
drove, and they made love as they were motoring along.

They stopped in Adelaide with friends, visited Happy Valley and the
Barossa and tasted, sipped the white wines and the red ones made in that
place by generations of Germans in the German sounding towns,
Nuriootpa, Angaston and so on, they found a quiet part in one of the cellars
and had a knee trembler they returned and swam in the sea off Glenelg,
making love in the salty water there and then they said their goodbyes and
travelled the road up to Queensland through outback New South Wales, up
the Mitchell Highway, the longest straight stretch of road in the world, Nyngan
to Bourke.

They were deliriously happy but were heading for their first lover's tiff,
all over the way the roof rack was packed, he'd run out of pot and his usual
good nature had abandoned him along with the THC levels. She cried, but
they made up and said they would never do that again. They drove on the
next day across the Queensland wastes, through towns like Prairie and
Texas, and Hughenden, Julia Creek and Cloncurry, God forsaken holes, he
thought, why would anyone want to live there towns like Winton where the
water stank of Sulphur and he couldn't go swimming, another thing that
annoyed him.
He had wanted to go for a swim in Townsville, but apparently the pool
was closed because Dawn Fraser was visiting, he thought, that as a
swimmer, she should have been the first one to insist it be open for other
swimmers, he hadn't realised she could be a target for Terrorists, and he was
annoyed with this (he thought) privileged and stuck up sportswoman, too
selfish to share a pool with others. He prattled on about it, winging, until his
girlfriend finally sent him to Coventry for several hours, so disgusted was she
with this pique she had not previously encountered.
However, when they got to the Territory Border just past the dusty
desert town of Camooweal, he perked up home at last! Here is Avon
Downs, look at the lovely creek with the she oaks and Casuarinas, and here
is Barry caves, like a Taverna from Mexico full of men siestaing like their
Mexican counterparts in the heat and aridity and look how good the roads
are after those appalling Queensland ones, and look at the modern Tele-
repeater stations, marching across the arid land, carrying the microwave
communication link across the Barkly, connecting Darwin with Cairns and
Brisbane and Sydney yes, they would make good time, soon to pass
through Frewena and onto the Three ways, no need to go to Tennant Creek,
just turn right and head up to Renner Springs, Erldunda and Daly Waters,
Elliott, Katherine yes, another day and they'll be in Darwin. They camped in
a Caravan Park, and he got surly again, tired from all the driving, and having
to pack and unpack the pocket sized boot of the Mini, as well as the
overloaded roof rack. They climbed into bed, but for the first time, they didn't
have sex, they were just too exhausted. Even the Donkeys braying didn't
keep them awake.

The next morning they found themselves feeling better after a good
sleep, and they ate a hearty breakfast and hit the Stuart Highway heading
for Darwin. Things had changed, there were new buildings in Pine Creek, and
the highway had been considerably widened and straightened. This was
great, he drained every last ounce of power out of the Mini flying along at
120 kilometres an hour for mile after mile, reaching Darwin late in the
evening. They found some accommodation at the Salvation Army a brand
new and very clean and airy building, with a large professional trampoline he
spent some hours bouncing up and down on just to get some exercise after
all the sitting in the Car for the last few days. They found new friends and
they took up on the offer of an old school friend of hers, a red-head with a
lovely nature, staying in a caravan near Fannie Bay. He realised he'd known
the girl at school, he didn't let on that they had a bit of a dalliance and
neither did she, she was very happy with her painting partner who gave them
steak knives and took them out to Fogg Dam in his big Ford Fairlane, so they
could see the wildlife in the most bio-diverse place on the planet.



















Chapter Six
Woodside

The house he had been brought up in had been designed by a
South African architect and built in 1900. It had verandahs, which were a
rarity in English houses the down stairs had a verandah around 3 sides of
the house, and the upstairs had a verandah on the South side overlooking
the valley down to the Quarry Lakes and, beyond, the River Thames. The
back, or south side had the look of a Dutch house the upstairs housing two
of the 5 bedroom, these bedrooms were the larger ones there was a large
bathroom, with bath, shower and toilet. Downstairs there was an ample
kitchen and pantry, laundry and glass covered area for drying clothes in the
inclement English weather next to the Kitchen, a walk in Pantry, then out
into the Hall, off which stood the (with) Drawing room, with its own Water
Closet, ad next door the ample lounge room, around past the stairs, the
Dining room. All had Marble fireplaces with Marble clocks that reminded
him of the Parthenon. The house was tastefully furnished in a restrained
Victorian/Edwardian style, with Persian rugs throughout, excepting the
Kitchen, which had a large deal table, in built side board, stone sink and
linoleum floor. The bathroom upstairs was tastefully finished with Black and
White stone tiles and patterning.
The garden was picturesque and landscaped in three levels, going down to a
large lawn, which had doubled as a tennis court. Further down there was a
collapsed Quince tree, and the Chicken coops and houses, and an orchard
of sorts, with Apple, Plum and Pear trees. The upper Garden was home to
several Oaks, a Horse Chestnut and some beech trees. All in all it was very
beautiful. The boundary on one side was a farm, and the Fresian cows would
come up to the fence and check him out when he was out at his play. How he
loved to play in that Garden and explore it was a garden of secrets to the
west of the house there were a collection of sheds and Green Houses, and a
so called vacant allotment next door which boasted a hay shed and several
garages.

The vacant allotment had been home on and off to a troop of Gypsies, who
originally came there in their horse drawn caravans, but these had been
replaced lately by large aluminium ones. The piggery was also located here
and had been home in his early days to a number of pigs there had also
been 2 horses. There were also several old cars, bull nosed types, which had
wire wheels and mice lived in the seats, he like the felt roofs, and used to
play in the cars and the truck that were there, long broken down. The bottom
of the allotment where these were was also home to Blackberries, and many
different animals, such as hedgehogs and a couple of badgers.

The house was located on the edge of town, in fact in Little Marlow, not in
Greater Marlow, at 210, Little Marlow Road. Nowadays there is a roundabout
just near to where the house was, there is no longer any evidence of the
house or its one and a half acres of land, that having been taken over in the
late 1970's for a new housing estate.




His grand mother had been a keen gardener in her day and the
house had lovely little garden plots with all the usual English Flowers,
Rhododendrons, Violets, Tulips, Roses, Carnations and what ever else one
would like to imagine, snowdrops and bluebells, the Green houses housed a
collection of plants, as well as Strawberries and various herbs, such as
Borridge, Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Chilli all kinds of mint, St John's wort,
and other things he didn't ever learn the names of. He didn't really like the
Greenhouses as a child, the smell of the fertilisers was odd and he thought
the place somewhat dirty. In later life he realised what a magnificent
greenhouse it had been, better than those he had seen in many commercial
nurseries.
His grandmother was a tall woman who dressed well, and dressed
him well. She was keen on buying only good quality items, but she didn't like
the neighbours coming to use the telephone, a big black Bakelite thing, and
she never seemed to be in a hurry to replace the valves in the TV, which sat
in the dining room. He could remember seeing a Jacques Cousteau movie,
under the sea and a few shows of the time, such as the Ed Sullivan Show,
All Our Yesterdays and Coronation Street, as well as Gunsmoke - he found
it hard to understand why his grandmother preferred to listen to the radio
she liked the Goons and Hancock's half hour, the Archers and Around the
Horn - shows with a lot of laughter but with a humour he wasn't old enough
to grasp or understand. The radio was in the Kitchen, there was another one
in the bedroom, where he slept in a cot beside his grandmothers double
bed. On this radio there were different programs, opera and classical music
and news bulletins about Guerillas and the Congo, which he also had some
trouble understanding. In the early days she used to admonish him to say his
prayers, the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23 he didn't really understand them
either. There was a gas fired heater and gas lights in the bedroom and when
the weather was very bad and the electric power got cut (An outage as the
Americans say) they would light the gas. He liked the hiss of it, it lulled him to
sleep. They shared the house with a Black Labrador, and outside there was a
pet Greyhound. The animals were a virtual menagerie, there were the Geese,
George and Angela, there were 50 odd chickens, an assortment of ducks,
and, in earlier days, the pigs and the horses. Mr and Mrs Clemenson used to
come and look after the chickens, the geese, the pigs, ducks and horses.
There were always eggs, and the garden had its share of a cornucopia of
vegetables, rhubarb, gooseberries, blackberries and the aforementioned
fruits.
There was some meat which came from the farmer next door when
he had arranged some killers for the butchers in town. Providors came with
bread, milk, other vegetables, and sacks of coke for the fires. He loved living
there in that great house with its great garden.





Marlow
Marlow has a reputation as one of the prettiest of many pretty villages
scattered along the banks of the Thames River, and the reputation is highly
deserved.
Marlow was a market town named Merlau, meaning where the swamps were
drained during the Saxon period, and grew in prosperity throughout the
Middle Ages, but it was really not until the Georgian period that the town
gained some measure of prominence as a fashionable place to settle.
Several fine Georgian buildings remain in the High Street and West Street,
but the oldest building is the Old Parsonage on St. Peter Street. This, with
the neighbouring Deanery, was part of a 14th century house. Opposite the
Deanery is Marlow Place, an early 18th century house built for the Earl of
Portsmouth. Also on St. Peter Street is the Roman Catholic Church of st.
Peter, where a relic claimed to be the mummified hand of St. Peter is
preserved.
There was a church in Marlow as early as 1070, now the present
Church of All Saints is a Victorian creation, built after the spire of the old
church collapsed in 1831. The old building was demolished, and a new
church constructed of Bath stone, topped by a graceful spire soaring 170 feet
above the town. The combination of spire and bridge (see below) form one of
the most unforgettable Thames sights.



In the church porch is a monument to Sir Miles Hobart, who gained
fame by locking the King's Messengers out of the House of Commons during
the build-up to the Civil War. Hobart died in 1632 and the monument was
erected by Parliament after funds were raised in a public appeal - possibly
the first time this approach was used to raise money for a funerary
monument. Hobart was the victim of a coaching accident, and the accident is
vividly portrayed in the monument. In the Lady Chapel is another notable
memorial, this time to Sir William Willoughby, Sheriff of Buckingham, who
died in 1597. Willoughby is shown in gilded armour, surrounded by his wife
and three daughters. The black colour on the girls' costumes was added after
their deaths.
In the church vestry is a painting of the Spotted Boy, a Caribbean slave
of unusual black and white colouring, who was bought by Marlow native and
showman John Richardson. Richardson, the P.T. Barnum of his day, showed
the boy across Britain, but the child died in 1813 at age four. He is buried in
the churchyard, in the same grave as Richardson himself.
Marlow is also reputedly the world's first town to have had a Fire Engine in
the early 1600's. The fire engine arose due to fires from the brewery.
The delicate lines of the suspension bridge designed by William
Tierney Clark in 1832 create a classic Thames picture. Clark was hired for
the job after building the Hammersmith Bridge in London, but his design at
Marlow was the highlight of his career. So popular is the bridge, and so much
a part of the Marlow scene, that when the structure began to deteriorate in
the 1920s it was carefully renewed with steel replacing the original ironwork.
It was extensively repaired in the 1960's and 1970's as well. Clark himself
went on to design the suspension bridge across the Buda and Pest rivers in
Budapest, Hungary.
The bridge leads straight onto the broad High Street, and facing it at
the top of the street is a large 18th century building (now shops, which was
once a coaching inn used by notorious highwayman Dick Turpin. The 16th
century Ship Inn in West Street is built with old ship's timbers, but the house
occupied by poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelly will draw
most visitors. It was during the Shelley's stay here in 1817-18 that Percy
finished Revolt to Islam and Mary finished her mesmerist horror novel,
Frankenstein.
The literary associations on West Street do not end there, however, as
poet TS Eliot lived at The Old Post Office House (number 31) from 1918-19.
Author Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat) also stayed in Marlow, as
did Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler.
Nearby nestle the villages of Henley, Medmeham, Marlow Bottom,
Little Marlow, Cookham Dean and Bourne End. Medmeham was home to an
RAF base and to a branch of the intelligence service during the second world
war that worked on decoding German messages encrypted by the Enigma
machine. Nearby is Danesfield and Danesfield Primary School. The name
alludes to how far inland the Vikings reached. Cookham Dean is famous for
its village cricket green and for the fact that the British Rock group Led
Zeppelin produced their Travelling Riverside Blues there in the late 1980's.
Henley has a famous regatta and Marlow's regatta is a rehearsal for the
bigger Henley Regatta. Henley was also home to the ex-Beatle, George
Harrison, up until his death from Lung Cancer in 2001.
The Thames long distance path wends through Marlow on its way from the
origins of the river in Gloucestershire to the far side of London. The path
provides easy, mostly level walking opportunities, and passes through some
lovely riverside scenery. Parts of the path were once used to help tow river
barges. If you don't want to walk, try a boat! There are regular boat trips on
the river to Henley and Windsor, and small boats can be hired.
13.12.05
















Chapter Seven
Morbid Jealousy

He met her as she was walking up the street and he was sitting on the
verandah of his large executive officer's house. She said that she was going
to see her daughter and give her a good talking to She wanted to spend
time with him, he had to go and check the Medical centre to make sure it
was secure she asked if she could come for the drive then she wanted to
come and have a drink. That was fine, they fell to talking. He had been lonely
for a long time, hadn't had the comfort of close female companionship. They
seemed to click, they seemed to get on. She left and went back to her house,
but they agreed to meet the next day.

They met the next day and she invited him to visit her friends out of
town with her, at Wangi. He agreed. They went out in the Toyota Hi Lux
4WD. The trip was beautiful Wangi being an hour or so from Halls Creek.
The country was mostly undulating hills of chalk and quartz with occasional
outcrops of sandstone. There was mostly spinnafex, but they passed a
couple of beautiful waterholes, including Palm Springs. As they approached
Wangi there was a huge Bluff , they passed this and came to another grove
of trees where the road left the Duncan Highway, deviating to Wangi and
Peacock Downs. As they approached the farm, or station as such farms are
called in the top end of Australia he could see there were a number of well
built buildings including a couple of houses.

When they got there he discovered that all the houses were empty bar
the one her friends stayed in, the front garden was well tended with a tamed
lawn, and solar fired lights along the little pathway. The place had huge
potential, but had been neglected, due to lack of interest, the people who
could have been there preferred the urban setting, even though the bush was
idyllic and there were beautiful waterholes and some excellent country
around. The friends and the dogs welcomed her, welcomed him. She was
pleased to see them.
They made up a bed in the house, but he and her slept on a mattress in
the back of the Toyota she had complained of a terrible headache. They
slept together and made passionate love. The next day they went with her
friend Sandra to the waterhole. They fished and caught Black Bream and
Catfish both good eating they cooked the fish on an open fire,
overlooking the waterhole. It was great, they were reasonably happy,
excepting that the flies were very bad and the heat was intense. The fish
tasted very good. After they left the waterhole they saw a large Goanna, but it
ran away before they could get to it. There was a big hole they had to avoid
in the vehicle and they then saw some Bush Turkeys. The sun was setting
and the countryside was absolutely beautiful, Savannah grassland, with
interspersed clay pans.

That evening they got drunk and watched Slim Dusty on the video. Slim
Dusty is perhaps the most famous Country and Western Singer to come out
of Australia, with some of his hits, such as The Pub With No Beer and
Three Rivers Hotel enjoying international success. He sold more records
than any other Australian artist, including the well known groups The Easy
Beats, The Seekers, ACDC and Men at Work. He was also the only
contemporary Australian artist to have had recordings cut on 78rpm, 45 rpm,
33 rpm, Compact Cassette, Compact Video and Digital Video Disc formats.
His work was especially liked by indigenous people, though one of his
songs,'Trumby was a Ringer carried the unfortunate line, His skin was
black, but his heart was white, and that's what matters most.

Paul, the man who lived there was from Victoria he did exquisite
leather work. He made swags, saddles and all sorts of clothing and hats.
Because of the small population, he didn't have quite enough work and so
wasn't making a good buck from it. However, his workmanship was excellent
and his prices extremely reasonable.

Bev and Chris then returned to the house in Halls Creek, via the Sturt
Creek Road, also known as Duncan Highway. This road connects Halls
Creek to Wave Hill, via Timber Creek. The road is dirt, and passes through
the old Halls Creek township first. There are some treacherous bends, but
the country is very spectacular, with lots of spinnafex bushes and pretty
outcrops of quartz, with romantic names like Chinamen's Wall and The
apostles. The road was dirt, and corrugated in places from the road trains,
large semi-trailers with three or four trailers carriages, carrying the cattle up
to Market at Kununurra, or Derby, or Wyndham, where they would be taken
to Darwin for abattoir at Darwin, there had been one at Wyndham, but it had
closed due to mismanagement a result of the awful climate in that place,
which tended to make the workers suffer lassitude and heat stroke.

When he saw the dot paintings, and then saw the bush, it made sense
the spinnafex bushes looked like the dots.

The paintings in Halls Creek were very good, mostly done on Canvas
and cloth rather than bark he bought one, for a Doctor, as a birthday
present, it was about Bush Potatoes growing along Sturt Creek, but he found
out that the best paintings were from Balgo. There was an art to
understanding the paintings he met some ladies at the Health centre, they
had done a communal painting that was hanging on the wall they explained
what they had painted. The paintings in this area done by the Kidja and Djaru
peoples were similar in one aspect to those done by the Wailpri and the
Gurindji across the border in the Territory, not to mention the Arunta. They
tended to look at the landscape from a bird's eye view, though how people
had ever got around to this topographical perception has remained a
mystery. People were represented as a kind of a boomerang, so that sitting,
their legs became the arms of the boomerang one could make out spears
and dilly bags, and there were marks that were tracks, and there were
diagrammatic representations of water holes and rivers. The colours were
peculiar to each artist, and depended on the predominant colours and dyes in
their country. Lots of the paintings featured Bush Tucker and Bush Medicine,
but there were also landscapes, though not in the sense of western style
paintings. Aboriginal paintings from this region tell a story, a story in time and
they share this feature with the Balinese and Hindu Ramayana paintings, as
well as the Bayeaux tapestry. The paintings are generally 4 foot by 5 foot, but
some are bigger, however, the desert ones from Utopia, Yuendemu and
Hermannsburg tend to be larger. The largest ones were by a famous artist
called Clifford Possum Tangatalum, and his painting, the Honey Ant
Dreaming, which is in the National Art Gallery in Canberra, is one of the
finest examples of the style known as Dot Painting.
2
They returned from the Wangi farm and came back into town, she
asked him to get a carton of beer, it was very hot, maybe 39 or 40 in the
shade and 50 out in the open.
He thought a beer and a bar-b-que when it cooled down a little would
be nice. They fell to preparing the food, in the escape of the air-conditioning
in the house, and she started to have a few drinks, as did he, however, for
every drink he drank, she drank two. She started to carry on about another
girl she knew he had known, she went on and on, they had the Bar B Que
but he didn't really enjoy it, he couldn't understand her behaviour a few
weeks later they were in Broome, he bought a guitar, he had wanted to buy a
guitar for a while, they got home and he played the guitar. A week later, in
one of her moods, she destroyed it. This was about the same time she
physically attacked him, grabbing his testicles and squeezing them hard,
without remorse or mercy.
He knew later he should have left her then, she was ill, suffered from a
condition called Morbid Jealousy - but this was only the beginning. He felt a
louse not wanting her, he felt he was letting down his commitment to the
aboriginal people, that if he failed at this, then he would fail at what he
wanted to do, assist in bringing real improvements in health outcomes. The
episodes got worse, one night she set a bonfire and burnt the lap top
computer, she'd fight with him, though he didn't want to fight but she had a
way of getting under his skin, pressing his buttons, and deliberately tried to
set him up for a fight, she seemed to enjoy it. Her eyes sparked up and she
developed a special way of talking, she'd tried and resolve it later by being
remorseful, doing domestic things for him, surprising him with huge and
exotic meals, or really nice presents. And, on the whole they still got on. But
after the computer got burnt and she caused him to lose his job, he'd really
had enough, and he cut her off.
About a week later he was ready to leave for Kununurra, to go to
Darwin, and then who knows what the night before she came to see him
and asked him to take her he said 'No, but that he would have a bit of
space, and if she still felt the same, they could look at it, and she could come,
if that was really what she wanted and if the shit would stop. She promised
him it would, he went to Darwin and spent a blissful week on his own, re-
visiting all his old haunts and seeing all the changes that had occurred. He
had plenty money after securing a good settlement for leaving Yura Yungi
without a fuss.
Firstly, he stayed in a very small hotel room that was excessively
expensive, he moved to cheaper lodgings and took 10 days lodgings there.
She kept ringing, promising every thing would be alright. He took her at her
word and let her fulfil her desire to come.
He went out to the airport and met her, they returned to the lodgings,
he had 5 days left at this stage he was looking for work in the meantime,
she had discovered some friends at Batchelor, some 70kms south of Darwin,
they went there for four weeks, camped in a tent before too long, the same
old rubbish from her started again. The morbid jealousy, drinking too much
and abusing him, picking fights with him, accusing him of having sex with
their hostess. He tried to brush it off.
Eventually, they had to go back to Darwin they took very nice
lodgings at the Metro, in a lovely unit with good air con and a view of the city,
at fairly reasonable rent ($350 a week), they had everything they needed and
a spa, it was centrally located. He looked for work, but nothing was
happening and the wet was approaching her behaviour had improved, they
decided to go to Sydney. He knew that he could work in Sydney, he would be
able to settle there for a short while, with the intent of returning to Darwin for
the dry season. He was registered as a Nurse in Darwin, so there really
wouldn't be a problem getting work.
They got ready for the flight south, which was dirt cheap, and which
they really enjoyed, they flew to Melbourne, via Adelaide and after staying a
day or two in Melbourne, they caught a train to Sale and then a bus to
Tathra. Where they stayed with his daughter and his grand daughter, the
latter he hadn't yet seen she was so beautiful. Beverley liked her too, but
Beverley dropped her, blaming an electrical cord from the heater, but the
truth being she had, once again, had too much to drink.

This was the beginning of the end for him. Beverly wanted to accuse
him of being a womaniser, and of being unfaithful, but he knew that he wasn't
- this is when he started to realise that the relationship, such as it was, was
doomed. They went to Sydney and things just went from bad to worse. Day
by day she got more possessive, more insistent on telling him to make sure
he was home on time, they were staying with his friends, she started to
accuse the friends of either having or sanctioning sex with him.
They went out one night, they were in a Pub, the Auburn Pub, he had
used to like going there for the Karaoke lots of fun, so they went. He met
Cheryl, a lady he'd known, whose son had stayed in a house he had rented
in Sydney shortly after this fellow, named Phil, had been staying there, his
lap top had gone missing. Someone ripped the steel security grille from the
bedroom window and took the lap top, despite the Kensington lock, he
suspected Phil was involved. Anyway, Cheryl was at the Pub and with her
partner they all said Hello and Chris introduced Bev, but a little while later,
Bev complained that she couldn't find him and accused him of being in a
compromising situation with Cheryl, she ground a broken beer glass into his
face, and then made sad excuses about how her hands were wet and it had
slipped - she'd just meant to throw the beer over him it cut his skin around
the inferior suborbital region, and, luckily didn't damage his eye. He even had
stitches the next day. Luckily it healed fairly well, but the emotional trauma
didn't heal.
After living on a shoe string, in Sydney for some 6 months, they
eventually moved to Tasmania, where he had found work. They moved to the
pretty seaside resort of Hawley Beach after living for a month in Devonport, a
town of some 23,000 people, home to the Spirit of Tasmania ferry, a loss
making government enterprise that reputedly brings tourists and drugs from
the mainland. Devonport is a seaside town along with its sister towns of
Ulverstone, Burnie and Wynyard, all are reasonably pretty, and connected by
a spectacular coastal drive. Burnie is home to a paper mill, and carries some
of the Psychiatric services. It has a very airy modern hospital which is too far
out of town but which enjoys a great sea view.

Things went all right for a little while, but after two weeks she began the
taunting again, accusing him of sleeping with his sluts, though as he was
constantly in her presence when not working it was a ludicrous claim. They
had their good days. He began to enjoy fishing again, which, whilst not
brilliant on the North Coast of Tasmania, wasn't difficult either, they caught
Trevally, Cod, Bream and Salmon, as well as Leatherjacket and Mullet. The
Trevally were quite big with an exquisite taste. Port Stanley, at The Nut an
eminence on the far North West Coast proved to be the best place to catch
these they met a fellow at the quay who introduced himself as Alan (First
of his surname in the book) who turned out to be very knowledgeable about
the fishing, as well as being an aboriginal keen on advancing both indigenous
and refugee/new settler causes. He made them feel very welcome. He invited
them to tea with his Filipino wife, Jo and they enjoyed Filipino style sea food
which was great it was the only social outing that Beverley and Chris had
enjoyed for months, so it was especially appreciated by both.
They left that place at eight at night, and arrived home, exhausted but
happy at 10:30 at night. Stanley is a pretty town and has a chair lift up the
eminence which commands a bird's eye view of the coastal panorama and
provides an excellent opportunity for photographers. Very popular with the
tourists.






Chapter Eight

A Christmas Tale


They had to move out it was December , the tourist season was
gearing up and the Getaway Resort was being re-furbished for the tourist
rush. They looked for a house they inspected a shack in the Four Ways
reasonable rent, the lady never got back to them, they took lodgings at
Mac's Hotel in Latrobe and looked for a house there, where they thought
they would like to live, close to where he was working. The Hotel
accommodation was dirt cheap, like the hotel itself, run down and
dilapidated, the owners telling them that everyone would have to move out in
the New Year so that place could be re-furbished too.
He had a holiday. Eventually, after inspecting what on the outer was a
pretty garden cottage, but turned out to be yet another slum on the inside
they found a house and a seemingly nice land lady in the town of Sheffield,
famous for its Murals but freezing cold most of the time. Their house looked
out over the fields to a mountain, Mount Rowland, which she fancied had
faces in it, and which he named Mt. Cloudy as 6 days out of 7 it wore a
cloud cap or cloak.
Back at the hotel, she kept up her drinking, excessively and her bad
behaviour towards him, the fact that the hotel accommodated a number of
young women didn't help and she once again started making insane
allegations against him of having, or contemplating sex, with the women, who
he had no interest in, as they were with their consorts, and they had
absolutely no appeal for him anyway. She became violent and loud.
One night, he had enough, after being bitten and mauled, so he called
the Police they came and arrested both of them. After a gruelling all night
session in the Devonport Police Cells at least the Police had the decency to
take them home even though both were charged. This three days before
Christmas eve. The next night she repeated her assaultive behaviour,
breaking into the men's toilet to pull his hair whilst he was trying to empty his
bowels, a restraining order had been issued, and he rang again, as he had
had quite enough of what he considered unacceptable behaviour.
The Police came and arrested her bailing her for court the next day
he wasn't able to see her, didn't want to see her. The Magistrate ordered her
to stay away from him, to have no contact whatsoever he was happy with
this, he needed a break he went into Sheffield and started to set up his
house, feeling a bit numb and a bit down. She, in the meantime, had been
given emergency accommodation at Ulverstone, but was completely
fundless, and was to remain so, thanks to the generosity of Centrelink.
On Christmas eve she showed up on his doorstep and got him to pay
the Taxi Fare even though she may well have had the money. She behaved
well and remorsefully for a day, but once she had a few drinks under the belt
it was back to the same morbid jealousy despite her protestations that she
would seek help. He didn't want a bar of it, and wanted to stop it there and
then but didn't have the heart to throw her out with nothing he made it
quite clear that things would be different from here on in. This didn't seem to
sink in.



















Chapter Nine

The Camera

Well, here's the rub, got a new Camera a Kodak Digital 310. Now
Digital cameras are all very well and this one was relatively cheap - $166, or
$200 with the card. The card holds 370 x 4MegaPixel pictures heaps.
There were about 17 photos available on the internal memory that came with
the Camera. It has Zoom x 5 and can take short videos.

My first Camera was a Kodak, which I bought when I was 12 years old
for 32 shillings or 1/10/0d which at the time seemed a huge amount, and
would probably convert to about $100 in todays terms. That Camera was
able to take 12 photographs on a film. The film was generally black and white
Ilford, it cost a small fortune to get it developed. Only school kids with rich
parents could afford colour film. When I got my first colour film I was very
careful what I used it for in the way of photographs.

I became a keen photographer, and learnt all about using Cameras,
light apertures and settings, fields and distances. I learnt which were the
better films to use and about film speeds, now in the UK you'd use mainly 80
or 100 ASA but here in Australia with the better light 400 ASA or even 800
ASA, a very fast film, is ideal for capturing the true hues, subtle nuances of
light, although only outdoors.

In the 1970's and the 1980's I amassed quite a collection, first using a
Minolta which was not a true SLR (Single Lens reflex) and later, in the 80's
with a Topcon I bought in Singapore. It took fabulous photos, with great
clarity of detail, and that is the rub. The Minolta was a beautiful camera
despite being non SLR it was compact and had a hot shoe flash and also
had a very good Rokkor Lens and could be mounted with special lenses.
My albums ran to well over 1000 good quality photographs.

The Top con was a proper SLR and used the K Mount(r) system like
the Asahi Pentax. Both cameras were in the region of $150-$200. The
Minolta I had bought in Fiji, and the Topcon was bought in Singapore, on my
way to India. The main difference between the Digital and these older
Cameras is that they both came with cases, whereas the Digital came
without. It came with an in built flash and a cable and software disc but nary
a Lens protector!

With the Topcon I started experimenting with slides slides are OK but
they are prone to degradation unless well stored. They look impressive when
blown up on a screen or a sheet, as we used at home. They were ideal for
showing the detail of Indian temples, and, using zoom were also good for
long range photographs.

The zoom on the Digital is very disappointing - whilst the zoom brings
the far away items closer there is no clarity. In fact, at the moment, Digital
cameras are like Digital Music, still fairly primitive compared to the state of
the art Analogue equipment, despite the so called flawless reproduction.


















Chapter Ten -Musings
I read the news today, oh boy

I had a thought this morning about the people that have died on the
roads in the last week 6 teenagers in Victoria, and then yesterday 3
teenagers and two women near Burnie dreadful. They were all going to a
Basketball competition and were from Stanley/ Circular Head. I heard the
news on my way back from Hobart. God knows how the accident happened.

The news is truly ugly these days, as I suppose it has always been
there is so much going on in Iraq lots of deaths all related to the Mosque
destruction and reprise or revenge killings between the Sunnis and the
Shi'ites. I heard that Somalia is facing another famine, and that Robert
Mugabe celebrated his 82nd birthday while the people in
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe are in the grip of the worst economic collapse since
independence from Britain that was a mistake, because at least when
Britain ran the country they were relatively well off.

I managed to find a pretty little town called Kempton in the south of
Tasmania, not far out of Hobart, full of lovely old houses dating back to the
1830's.


A fine house in Kempton

The drive from Devonport to Hobart takes between 3 and 31/2 hours
from Sheffield it is slightly shorter. Leaving from Sheffield is a pleasant drive
through the rural village of Kimberley to the Elizabeth Town turn off, where
there is a junction with the Midlands highway. Elizabeth Town has a fine
coffee shop which also serves lovely foods and bakes excellent bread. A little
expensive but pleasant, especially on cold winter mornings a short drive to
Deloraine, or Launceston.
The main towns after Launceston are Perth and Campbell Town.
Campbell Town has bricks along the footpath outside its collection of coffee
shops that record the fate of various transportees who arrived in the early
1800's. It makes interesting reading so and so sentenced for life for
stealing a sheep. Someone else transported for 7 years for stealing a
handkerchief or a loaf of bread. Life for horse stealing. Life for
housebreaking. Life was cruel and often short in the barbarous Van Diemen's
Land in the early 1800's.

Sheffield, where I currently live is a pleasant little town, populated by
farmers and alternates it is a town of Murals, and has the backdrop of the
lovely Mt. Rowland, in which my indigenous friend has been able to find faces
of her ancestors. We live just a short walk from the town centre in a
commodious 3 / 4 bedroom house which is perhaps 100 years old. Our
outlook is straight to Mt Rowland. Whilst Sheffield is pretty, laid back, rural
and clean it is renowned for being cold, even in the middle of summer one
has to light the fire to keep warm for more nights than not. It is a comfortable
35 minutes motoring from Devonport where my main office is at present. The
drive is interesting. It goes through the small township of Railton and Latrobe,
or there are 3 other routes one can take. One other route is shorter, but the
road is windy, so I prefer the Railton Latrobe way as the road is faster, with a
few long straight stretches, and is far less stressful to negotiate, one uses no
more petrol despite the extra distance as one is cruising at a constant speed
rather than accelerating and decelerating along the windy shorter road.

Pretty Mt Rowland with hidden faces




A mural in Sheffield



The Midlands is dry and brown despite above average rainfall the soil
is obviously depleted it used to be heavily forested but the forests are long
gone, with a few ethereal tree skeletons bearing testimony to the once proud
and splendid behemoths that were there.

The dry Midlands




Hobart is a small city, it is actually the smallest state capital, now even
smaller than Darwin, despite seeming a little bigger it is because the centre
is crowded. Darwin is far better laid out but some would contend that Hobart
is prettier it certainly has some fine old buildings, but beyond that the two
bear little comparison. Darwin is a brash young vital tropical city, probably
one of the prettiest and cleanest tropical cities in the world, certainly the
easiest to navigate whereas Hobart is a facsimile of an English seaside
town, staid, conservative and a bit ugly in places poor and misshapenly
developed but full of quaint little enclaves, like Sandy Bay and Battery Point
and wrest point. The outer suburbs are variable but most are fairly plain and,
I think, ugly.
The city centre is an absolute mess, poorly laid out, like Sydney, with
ridiculously narrow streets and a complicated illogical and disorganised one
way street system that makes the place a nightmare to navigate until one
gets to know their way around. One finds that one loses one's sense of
direction, when one doesn't know the city as one gets taken around in
circles to get between two points that given a sensible two way system, one
could negotiate point to point, the fuel wasted, the extra contribution to the
Carbon load and the time squandered are all legacies of a town planner who
must have had lead poisoning to have dreamed up such a horrible town plan.
The funny thing is that Tasmanians, or Hobartians don't seem to mind,
they actually tolerate this madness. The road are also choked with traffic
during the minimal rush hour and parking is an absolute nightmare due to
both lack of space and crazy street scaping.

Launceston, a dirty city in a hole, full of noxious wood smoke and coal
fumes in the winter with an asbestos ridden hospital building right in its
centre, but once again contrasted by having fine buildings and the beautiful
cataract gorge also repeats this one way street madness, though there is
really no need as the streets are a little wider, The only city not to have this
crazy one way street scheme is Devonport, and it hardly rates as a city
anyway, being the size of Darwin in the early 1960's. It seems quite bizarre
that in a small state with so many one way streets that there are head on
collisions it says something about the relatively poor driving skills of the
average Tasmanian many of whom are a liability on the road when they
visit interstate, because they are poorly disciplined, don't use their indicators
and drive like manics.

Tasmania's west coast remains poorly developed with a winding
mountain road that is best navigated on a motorbike, or in a small sports car.
.However, for the most part it is extremely beautiful with great stands of
Littoral Forest. Queens town, however, is an appalling town in a barren
landscape destroyed by acid rain as a result of the sulphur mining that
occurred there in the last century.

John Lennon is alive and well, in Tasmania he is the Managing
Director of Global Enterprises and the brother of Paul the state's Premier
- it is now the end of February and in a little over 2 weeks there will be a state
election, which I personally hope (as I always do) that Labour will win. The
ABC news informed me of my primary concern as a voter health, but I think
I am free to decide what is the primary concern, rather than have it dictated
to me by a TV and Radio station even if it is Aunty. I would like to tell Aunty
that my primary concern is the appallingly high cost of housing, followed by
taxes and parking meters, before the Health question even comes into focus
I know, as a senior health bureaucrat that health is actually very well
funded under Labour and that the non liberal Liberal party is responsible for
the awful state Health was in before Labour took office.

I also happen to know that Health is in a world wide crisis and that
piddly little state parties in Australia, especially Liberals are unable to do
anything about it they can't solve the man power shortage or the great
American Corporate rip off, through the American Multi-Nationals like Merck
Sharpe and Dohme, or 3M or for that matter, by the British ones, like Glaxo
Welcome, or the Swiss ones like Hoffman La Roche, or the German ones
like Bayer. Health was the truly globalised industry long before Globalisation
became the flavour of the month unfortunately, Australia, who's economy is
actually smaller than MSD's or Glaxo can have little clout when it comes to
reining in the appalling high cost and predatory practice upon sick people by
these supposedly ethical health providing pharmaceutical conglomerates.
Even within Australia, the rip off perpetrated upon Australians by the
likes of the pathological pathology providers, the surgical companies like
Zimmer and the Nursing Homes, especially Moron, um, sorry, Moran remains
an immoral repugnance not repudiated by the Howard Government, probably
due to ministers getting huge kickbacks for maintaining the status quo
however, Australians should rise up in indignation against this immoral use of
the sickest and weakest in our society the reality is that the shareholders
who benefit from this appallingly bad taste corporate greed are themselves
going to be victims of its destructive tendencies when they themselves
become old frail and in need of medical attention. As always, it is the poor
doctors who cop the blame, but we are not major consumers of the health
budget and if we charged like the drug crazed pharmaceutical companies or
the pathological pathology providers we'd be charging $9000 an hour, not
$54.
It is absolutely immoral that a packet of 24 Panadeine variously retails
from $3.50 to $7.00 in various Tasmanian Chemists and yet costs Glaxo 3.5
cents to produce and market. If I were the health minister I would tax Glaxo
$7.00 per packet and ask them to still provide it at $3.50 explaining that we
need to recoup the money they have been thieving off us since the 1960's
when this hepatotoxic drug was first introduced, especially considering that
most of the opiates used in its production come from Tasmanian Poppy
farms. One could use the argument that this benefits Tasmania, but I say
why not benefit the Afghanis who produce Opiates much more efficiently and
much more cheaply why do we need to grow Narcotics in Tasmania? It only
hurts our relationship with the US and has caused an Opiate epidemic
amongst Tasmanian Teenagers, who regularly invade the poppy fields to
harvest the bulbous heads, little realising they are extremely dangerous to
use in that form and may even be lethal, due to all the chemicals pumped
into them to stimulate their growth in the short Tasmanian summer (Another
myth, even England has a better and longer Summer than Tasmania.
Tasmania, however, is milder and whilst its summer is virtually non
existent, the winters are relatively mild too, unless one is in the Highlands or
Sheffield, or on top of Mt Wellington,, in which case the proximity to
Antarctica comes sharply into focus though it is rare for the extremes one
finds in NSW towns like Orange, Golbourn and Tenterfield to be experienced
in Tasmania, as nowhere is further than 120kms from the sea. Tasmania
probably has the mildest and most boring temperate climate in the world, it
constantly is either cloudy or rains but when the sun does come out the UV
rate is high, due to the hole in the Ozone layer, and Melanoma is an inherent
risk the Thermometer in Devonport or Hobart rarely gets below 9 or above
20 and to have a week of sunshine is a major heat wave. As a result, the sea
is abundant with fish and Tasmanians, like their English counterparts tend to
be a po faced lot with very pale skins, and when in Melbourne are often
mistaken for English tourists, as they also like to wear shorts in what most
Australians call 'the cold. There is one good thing to be said about
Tasmanian weather and that is that it is predictable. You know it'll be unlikely
to reach 30, and it is unlikely to be very frosty, unless you are in Sheffield or
the Highlands. Unlike England, though, Tasmanian Houses are not built for
the temperate climate, and suffer through being both cold in the winter and
hot in the summer, but then they share this shortcoming with their mainland
counterparts, excepting Darwin and Brisbane and Cairns, where the houses
are climate built.

Having said all this, Tasmania is a gem of an island well worth a visit
or two, but come in February when the weather is a little more clement,
unless you like being cold. Just watch out for cyclists, they are a real
nuisance on the narrow roads and are even allowed on the Motorways -
unlike the mainland, oh, and don't stray off into the Bush by the side of the
main roads, it is littered with rubbish, not to mention dead animals.

Talking of dead animals, I have never seen so many dead animals
along roads as I have seen here. I like to get out my Ampol book of
Australian Fauna and check them out, there are Tasmanian Devils, Shrews
and Possums, Wallabies and some kind of quaint Kangaroo. Voles and
Echidna are common road prey too, as are the Eagles that feed upon the
flattened carcasses. I, myself have run over at least two animals who ran
across my path in the early evening, one was a Devil they say that the
Tasmanian Devil is threatened by facial tumours, but I think they are far more
threatened by Tasmanian Motorists. I can count 4 or 5 most days on my way
to work, each one a fresh carcass being picked upon by Crows or Ravens.
Perhaps I should have taken some photos and included one here, so you
could verify that I am speaking the truth. There must be literally thousands of
Tasmanian Devils out there, in the bush, judging by the huge number
flattened into the bitumen each week under the wheels of Holdens, Falcons,
Hyundais, Subarus and Toyotas, not to mention Hondas and Mercedes.

The only consolation for the motorist is that most of these animals are
small consequently they generally do trifling damage, compared with hitting
Greys and reds (Kangaroos), Bullocks, Cows and Horses in the Territory and
WA, or Pigs and Greys and Reds, as well as Emus in NSW and Queensland.
These animals are big, and damage your car in fact, quite a few people get
killed hitting them, which is a kind of poetic justice. I have always maintained
that roads in Australia should be fenced, after all, they cost a mint to build
and they have all those guideposts and speed signs, not to mention all the
other unnecessary signage fences would be a minor added expense, on
top of all this other roadside decoration they could combine the guideposts
and the fences and build animal transit tunnels every few kms. But then we'd
probably have to cull the animals as a result of the resulting population
explosion so perhaps the status quo of a few dead humans, and lots of
dead other animals is acceptable in the overall scheme.
Only God knows why he ever let this sick situation arise in the first
place, despite warning us in the book of revelations about the 4 horsemen of
the apocalypse and the beasts with eyes like men, and shiny breastplates
that spit fire from their tails and drink at the bottomless pit (cars). No wonder
about so much talk of the filth and abominations, the dead carcasses of
innocent animals or human being scattered along the roads of the 4
th
King.
(Princes Highway, Queen's Way, Victoria parade, Victoria Highway and the
like).

All this brings me back to the beginning of this musing, the tragic loss of
life on Australian Roads, due to what? Due to an obsession with
overpowered ugly, poorly handling American sourced cars one named after
a bird and the other after a seafarer both flying and wallowing through the
Australian population causing death and mayhem to thousands each year,
including a grand holiday carnage each Christmas and Easter, fuelled by
rampant alcohol abuse and a corporate spin on both the latter and the
power of these dinosaurs of the car world unsafe at any speed, the Nadir of
Human stupidity methinks that drug abuse is a minor aberration compared
to our motor vehicle addiction slowly suffocating ourselves with the fumes
and fighting senseless wars to maintain a senseless stupid way of life. We all
like to drive, up to a point, but the freedom and power that instils is not really
worth the cost in human misery or planetary destruction, there must be, has
to be, a better way.
In my own case, though I have travelled a million miles, mainly as
driver,I am not keen to drive these days, excepting a top flight Mercedes or
Honda always turns me on. At the moment I drive a Toyota Camry, a bland
but reasonable car that guzzles far too much fuel and handles not much
better than its two American Rivals, the Commodore and Falcon. The Honda
Accord is a far superior vehicle to all three and gets much better fuel
consumption, is less stressful to drive and lasts longer. It would make sense
to start manufacturing these here, even the berated Magna and its
replacement, the 308 are better vehicles than the three, although not up to
the standard of the Accord as for 4 wheel drives, they have their place, in
WA and the Territory, but they are generally out of place in Australian cities,
or Tasmania for the most part. I suppose if you wish to tow a big boat or a
caravan they are just the ticket, but they are totally over the top for ordinary
commuting. It is sad that Mitsubishi is struggling whilst the poorly designed
Falcons and Holdens are doing so well. It is telling though that the Honda
CRV is the most successful of the 4WD's at least there are a hard core of
semi sensible Australians when it comes to car purchasing. A million miles
most of it at 40 miles to the gallon, or 7 litres per 100 kilometres is 112000
litres, add 20 % for city travel comes to nearly $170,000 at current rates,
what a lot to spend on Petrol! What a lot of Petrol! What a big hole in the
Earth! It must be a bottomless pit, mustn't it? Here ends the musing.
So, here we are, early on into March and there are heaps of motorbikes
the annual Ulysses Ride - Grow old disgracefully!
There are heaps of big bikes, trikes and, all the rage now, bikes with
trailers.
The trikes are becoming more impressive. There are Hondas and
Yamahas, Suzukis and Kawasakis, BMW's and Motor Guzzi, Ducati,
Triumphs. Ariels, Indians and the occasional BSA not too may Nortons a
lot of the Hondas are Goldwings, but there are also lots of racing Hondas
oh, there are also Harley Davidsons, soft tails, and bobcats, fatboys and
choppers.


Well the bikes were nice weren't they?

Beverley is gone and that is what I want she came back after another
event on Good Friday I didn't want her back she tried to ingratiate her
way back into my life in her intoxicated manner when I came back from
Hobart there she was, swaying and asking me if I had enjoyed being with my
sluts my fucking cunts as she called them again. I was very tired after the
long trip and I couldn't face yet another session of her outrageous behaviour
so I left and went to MacDonalds and had a big Mac which nearly made
me vomit.
Really burnt my guts I thought Hell, I have indigestion, I've never
suffered from this before, never this is Beverley and the stress that she is
imposing on me doing this - it was then I decided that I needed to act I
went to the Police and told them I had arrived home and that there was a
drunk and disorderly woman in my house, and that she was taking over yet
again. I asked them to remove her, which they gladly did. They arrested her
they asked me if I wanted her charged, I said No, it's up to you, I don't want
her criminalised, she has a mental illness, but I can't put up with her
behaviour anymore it is at risk of harming my reputation and interfering with
my work.
They advised me they would keep her overnight and that she would
face court in the morning and that they would then direct her not to return. A
woman from legal Aid rang me, said she wanted a key so Beverley could get
a few things she said the phone, I explained the phone was mine and after
this latest event, as Beverley used the phone to harass me I didn't want her
to have it, she could get her own phone, and then the lady from legal aid said
that Beverley wanted to sell the fridge I explained that I wasn't happy with
that, that Beverley knew full well that she had destroyed a brand new guitar
that I had bought for $430 and that the Fridge was in payment for that and
although it cost slightly more, I had spent some $12,000 on her in the last six
months and that if either the phone or the fridge were removed from my
house I would charge her with theft. The woman gently argued, or advocated
for her client I was surprised when I got home that both the telephone and
the refrigerator were in situ.

So now I am alone again with my new toys.
Well, I guess this is the new keyboard - blue tooth and that we are
going to have a great time with it as we get to know it. I think that it is brilliant,
it is so soft to the touch and I like the idea that it is spill resistant and I like the
blue-tooth design especially with the mouse too, and I just think that it is
great that I can operate the multimedia from it very easily without stuffing
around looking for all the keys. I like the ease of access to such things as my
documents my pictures and my music. Just what the Doctor ordered. Now all
I need is a firm base that I can use it on.

The colour is quite nice too, a sort of gun metal grey that isn't too hard
on the eyes.
I don't have much this was a great expense, but I owe myself something
seeing I do work hard and then I have had to put up with all the shit from the
sick woman as well.



Wine
Yes, I have been enjoying a few Reds lately I prefer to have a red
than a beer actually, it's a lesser amount to drink and that saves one from
having to make numerous excursions to the piss-house and one doesn't get
that awful gassy feeling. I feel that I have become a bit of a connoisseur of
wines what with practice and all. I used to like whites in my earlier days,
when I was a bit naive, and I am still able to have a good quality white with a
nice fish meal but these days,however, I prefer a red that has at least 3 or 4
years cellaring under the belt, I find the young ones, even if better quality,
somewhat tart and vinegary, it seems to me that even the cheapest and
worst mellow with age.
I spend a good deal of my free time looking for 3 to 4 year old wines at
a good price I mean they are only $14 a bottle when new, but they inflate
considerably with age. There are a lot of naive peasants out there who'll drink
the new stuff, attracted by the low price but not me. When I was on the
dole, yes, but not now I am too old and work too hard to accept anything
less than a moderately smooth Cabernet Sauvignon. I especially like
Coonawarra, though tonight I am enjoying an Arrogant Frog a
commercialised French wine which, nevertheless, is quite pleasant, even if a
bit young (2004 vintage, in this year 2006).
I guess the thing I really dislike about Reds is their propensity to turn
one's shit red! However, I enjoy the stone they give me and am not
embarrassed to admit my proclivity for a decent buzz failing having any
decent smoko in the house. I can get quite maudlin however, I do not get
functionally psychotic or delusional like the woman mentioned earlier.





















Chapter 11

Barry Caves Darwin
A road trip
Me and You and a car named Foo

Gordon and Chris had bought the Blue 1970 Austin 1800 Mark II in
Melton, north of Melbourne on a sunny July afternoon for $1100. It was pretty
new and in good nick. They drove it back to Darwin, towards the end of their
first holiday from their Nursing Studies, July 5
th
August 5
th
1973. They
named it Foo.
They took the route up through the Olympic Way from Melbourne to
West Wyalong, and thence to Forbes, where they stopped and visited Chris's
friends, Joan and Bill Dean Joan was the Auntie of the famous Australian
Tennis Player, John Newcombe, her family had a bakery in Forbes,
Newcombe's bakery. It was great to see the lady he had spent time in the
Mater Hospital with, when he had a fractured clavicle (broken collar-bone)
and bronchitis, and watched the moon landing back in July 1969. They had
become great friends. He had used to bicycle home for lunch from the High
School, 2.5 kilometres up to Oxford Street but later he took to riding to her
house in Forbes. It was a shorter ride. Anyway, after staying and seeing her
dolls, they took their leave and continued their journey up the Newell
Highway to Tamworth and then further up into Queensland, all the way up to
Townsville, where they turned inland, through Hughenden, Prairie, Texas and
across to Cloncurry, Julia Creek and Camooweal, where they hit the NT
border, on through Avon Downs and across the Barkly Tablelands to the little
town of Barry Caves, which, to all intents and purposes, could have been a
Mexican Canteena out of one of those old Wild West movies. Here, they
stopped in the blistering heat, Gordon choosing to have a beer and Chris
deciding to have a coke. The bar man, a tough textured territorian
exclaimed:-
What, a coke? Why aren't you a man and have a beer and the men sitting
at the bar in the little low mud brick building all had a laugh but Chris didn't
mind, he was a tea totaller - he didn't drink alcohol, after a very unpleasant
experience with the stuff in his last days at High school.
They went outside, back to the Austin and got in, they were intent on
continuing the trip, but they couldn't start the car. It just would not start so
they got out, and opened the bonnet inspecting everything under there,
methodically, first the battery, then the Petrol filter, the various leads to and
from the engine to the distributor and anything else that might be causing
the problem they surmised it was fairly simple, the petrol had evaporated in
the heat and there was an air lock in the line leading to the SU Carburettor
but after checking that, they decided they needed to pull apart the carby
and
to do that they needed more than the minor tool set they had, so Chris went
in and asked the men languishing at the bar if anyone had a tool kit, there
was a large blue singleted truck driver who stated he had a kit, it was out in
the Mercedes Truck caddy but be sure to have it finished with by 1.30 that
afternoon, as he'd be leaving then. So they worked furiously to pull apart the
carby and repair same at 1.30 they were still not finished, so Chris
sheepishly went back in and explained their plight to the truck driver, who
was not in any hurry to leave and offered a new deadline of 5 pm. They
continued, and managed to reassemble the carby, and finish with the tool kit
by 5. Chris went in and asked if they could have the toolkit for a while longer
as it wasn't the carby that was causing the problem and they wanted to check
out the head.
You's 'll be right, I don't think I'm gonna leave now, might stay for a bit
of tucker, too fucking hot to go yet anyway just have it ready by ten.
So they worked on through the night but try as they might, they couldn't
resolve the problem and get the car to start. At dusk, a coach arrived, and
darkness fell a little old stick insect of a man and his bespectacled wife
came over from the coach the Geriatric Special they nicknamed it, as all
on board were over 60.
Oh, I see you are having some trouble have you checked the spark
plugs? asked the stick insect man, helpfully.
Yes, we've checked the spark plugs Gordon replied
What about the battery asked the elderly man, leaning over the car
and pulling at the battery leads without an invite.
Yes, we've checked the battery replied Gordon, an edge of
exasperation to his voice
What about the distributor
Yes, we've checked that too and the carburettor, Chris intervened
whilst Gordon kept looking and cursing under his breath.
The truck driver's tool kit, a massive affair, was directly in front of the
car, they were working under the bonnet with a non too strong torch, at this
moment the elderly bespectacled wife came to check out what was
happening, and in an attempt to join her husband tripped over the tool kit in
the dark, uttering a whimper from the pain inflicted on her shins, Chris picked
her up from her fall, and stated,
Oh, you poor thing..........
Not a poor old thing!, Gordon roared, More like an interfering old
busybody just like her husband, I've got no sympathy for her rejoined with
Why don't you all piss off
Mind you, there had actually been a procession of bush mechanics who
had asked the same helpful but basic questions, both Gordon and Chris were
suffering from a good deal of frustration at not being able to get the engine to
fire. They worked on late into the night, and then decided to call it quits, they
weren't going to get anywhere Gordon had learnt from the bar tender that
there was a mechanic on his way back from Mt Isa and maybe he'd be able
to look at it in the morning.
Of all the god forsaken holes to be stuck. Chris decided to have a
sleep, but at 1 a.m. The truck driver appeared from out of the Canteena and
stood, wavering, very drunk, by the Mercedes truck, flopped out his dick and
had a long, long piss over the front tyre, he shook his thing and put it away,
climbed up into the rig and roared off into the desert night.
Next morning at 6 a.m. Chris was awoken by the sounds of tools
working on the engine, he having slept in the luxurious laid back seats of the
Austin which converted into a very comfortable double bed. The Australian
Mechanic was speaking in up country Queensland drawl:-
Geez, mate, you shoulda seen what I seen last night I came around
a bend just the other side of Julia Creek and stone the crows, not a words of
a lie, there was this great semi there. Spread-eagled across the road, all lit
up like a Christmas tree, like and the driver asleep on the bloody horn, you
wouldn't read about it I reckon he'd had a skinful, lucky the fuzz wasn't out,
they'd of got him, for sure. I see your problem, you's got got a dicky rotor
button I can fix it for the trip to Tennant, (Tennant Creek on the Stuart
Highway) but you's better not stop along the way, or you's might not be able
to start her again you's should be able to get a new rotor button in
Tennant.
And with that he started the car and bade them farewell, after they gave
him a $20 bill for his trouble and thanked him profusely for being their
saviour they drove off into the desert, heading for the next town Frewena,
where they had to stop to refuel, they got there and Gordon kept the car
going, Chris refuelled it and then Gordon started driving around the huge
parking site in front of the road house, the road house proprietor came
storming out,
What, you's gonna steal a man's fuel are you? heading for Chris,
who'd stayed behind to pay Chris rapidly explained the situation and gave
the man his money, and then joined the car as Gordon dropped it down to a
walking pace and then they took off again, heading for the three ways, and
Tennant, they got about 10 miles up the road, when they were passed by a
Land rover towing a caravan and Thwack a stone smashed the windscreen
they cleared the screen and drove on Gordon stating they'd get a plastic
windscreen in Tennant.
In Tennant a friendly English mechanic at the BMC shop fixed the rotor
button and provided them with a plastic windshield, which they duly taped
into place after a wash and a feed they left and drove back into the
unremitting heat as soon as they got up to 50 M.P.H. the plastic
windscreen tore to shreds, so that was that they drove on, and after a while
they realised that the air pressure inside the cabin, if they kept all the
windows shut was enough, so that only the larger bugs entered the cabin
they drove on and on eventually stopping at Pine Creek and crashing out
there for the night, even though a large and noisy semi trailer decided to stop
in the same place, disturbing their sleep. In the morning, it was quite cool, as
it is inland from the sea, dew was everywhere they got up and boiled a billy
and had a bush wash- it was Chris's turn to drive he liked this stretch, in
those days it was very windy, with lots of creeks and culverts, the Austin,
being front wheel drive and over a tonne in weight was a joy to drive around
the windy roads and he just liked to see how fast he could take the hair pin
bends, through the culverts Gordon was tired, and was lying in the back
seat after the broken sleep of the night before,
Stop at Hayes Creek and we'll have some breakfast he asked Chris
before he settled -
Right Oh, mate, have a good sleep
A few culverts later, near Chinamen's Creek Chris flying along at 70
mph hit a flock of small birds he couldn't avoid, collecting 3 or 4 with two
entering the cabin of the windscreen less car - one ending up in Gordon's
open mouth, whilst he was sleeping, he spluttered and gagged and then,
almost nonchalantly, said:-
Don't worry about stopping for breakfast at Hayes Creek, I've already
had it, Chris!
They did stop, though and eventually, later in the day, they ambled
into Darwin, with hair like Brillo pads and full of insects and their detritus to
this day, Chris reckons it was the best shower he ever had, and then a long
sleep to recover from what had been an epic journey, but more were to
follow.







Chapter Twelve


Won't get fooled again

Here comes the new guard same as the old guard

Waking up, he stretched and looked about him, he studied the room
and the curios within it. There were Indian Curios, Thai silk prints adorned
one of the walls, there was a Chinese lantern in the corner and there were
little wooden Elephants and Oxen on the mantle piece. It was not his house,
it was a friend's house here in the suburb of Winston Hills.
The house was a large triple brick veneer affair built in the late 1960's.
It was full of the gatherings of a small lifetime, his Indian friend's gatherings
and his Indian friend's wife's belongings, as well as the material possessions
of their two sons. In the corner there was a stereo, a JVC. On it he started up
the Edie Brickell album, Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars and played his
favourite song - Circle- he fell into a reverie and felt tranquil, peaceful
especially as he went onto listen to What I am.

Twenty years later he sat in his lounge room, and watched the ABC TV
show Lateline, watched the latest Minister for Indigenous Affairs speak
about Paedophile Rings and sheeting blame to the Territory Labour
Government for poor Law and Order and Governance in Territory
Communities, especially remote Indigenous ones.

It was nothing new.

At the conclusion of his initial Nursing Qualification in 1975 he had
become a Senior Sister - Rural Health and had been posted to Wave Hill
Settlement, also known as Kalkgaringi, or home of the Gurindji. The day he
arrived 3 children had been burnt to death in a car, supposedly lighting
matches, but in actual fact this was an early case of Petrol Sniffing, the
scourge of remote NT and WA and SA Indigenous Communities.

The violence was simply appalling. It was directly Alcohol related
people got drunk and then bashed each other over the heads with Nulla
Nullas, heavy wooden sticks, usually after night fall, but all day on the two
weekend days. He spent most of his evenings on call suturing scalp wounds
inflicted by these gross weapons, sometimes there were also limb fractures
and spearings to contend with, too. He learnt quickly not to use local
anaesthetic as those wounds tended to heal poorly and become infected in
the filth and the squalid housing, besides, these were a tough people, used
to pain and didn't feel pain the way their pampered European Cousins did.
He started to keep statistics on the Alcohol related violence, but his
overlords at the Department of Health didn't really want to know, they pulled
him and the other RN's out, after he wrote a detailed report, asking for
interventions to deal with the grotesque levels of violence they were
witnessing on a daily basis. He called for a total ban on alcohol in the
community as a first step towards resolving the problem, but he got
absolutely no support.
The despotic matron of the Darwin Hospital who had become the
Director of Nursing for the Territory, a Miss L B castigated him as a trouble
maker, and told him to keep his vile accusations to himself. She threatened
to have him sacked and wouldn't let him return to the Darwin Hospital. He
seethed at the stupidity and incompetence of this over glorified woman. (The
Queen had given her an MBE, on the recommendation of the Lord Mayor,
Tiger Brennan.) He got on far better with her successor, Lorabel Reynolds,
President of the Territory Branch of the then Royal Australian Nursing
Federation, of which he was student president, and had managed to score
several victories, including paid overtime for student nurses and the sacking
of a Nurse who was blatantly abusing children through physically assaulting
them, scaring the wits out of young nurses who were too scared to say Boo,
another reason the despot loathed him.
He got nowhere and had to walk away. Little did she or he realise it, but
she had actually done him and many other people a great favour, but the
reality was, she saw him as a threat, a Political subterfuge and, Stalin Like,
had purged him, to protect her from exposure as an incompetent. Unlike
Gwendolyn MaHaffey, his brilliant but tough Nursing Tutor who died suddenly
at 47 of an Asthma attack, he didn't attend her funeral.
Even in death he hadn't forgiven the old battle axe, who he'd seen
destroy the lives of so many young and keen Nurses, and through her
inaction, the lives of so many young, innocent Aboriginal people. IF anyone
would go to Hell, even imagining there was such a place it would be this
bigoted and hypocritical woman who spewed forth nocent collogue to all and
sundry, except her chosen inner closet.
He ranked her along with Hitler, Stalin, Mao Dse Dung and Margaret
Thatcher as one of the world's awful people. However, unlike the others, she
had only succeeded in being implicit in the death of hundreds, rather than
millions. (Well, Thatcher probably didn't kill millions, but then she never got
the chance, thank goodness). There were some similarities between Brennan
and Thatcher they were both completely narcissistic and quite incompetent
but managed to hoodwink their various, mainly ignorant, audiences, through
remoteness rather than the modern tool of spin doctor behaviour. The only
difference is one is dead, whilst the Baroness remains very much alive.
Perhaps it is true only the good die young.


Poor Bugger Me, Gurindji
From Little Things, Big Things Grow -Paul Kelly -Indigenous Australian
Song Crafter

Now the Gurindji, a tribal group around the Victoria River Stations and
Wave Hill Station, Timber Creek and Top Springs, had achieved the first land
claim for any Australian Indigenous group in 1973 when Ian Viner, the then
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Gough Whitlam had handed over 1250
square miles of the former Wave Hill Pastoral Lease, formerly owned by Lord
Vestey's Meat Company.
The quiet but dignified Vincent Lingiari had been the leader, along with
Possum Jabaljari and Sugar Bag Jabanardi. He'd organised the Wave Hill
Stockmen's Walk Out when they went on strike for improved wages and
conditions, in 1966 prior to that they had been paid in kind, with Sugar,
Flour, Tea and Tobacco.
When he met Vincent, Chief Elder of the Gurindji, they sat down and
talked, but he didn't understand what had been happening, at that stage he
didn't know about the Wave Hill Stockmen's walk out, though Vincent slowly
educated him about it, over several days and nights. Vincent lived at Wattie
Creek or Dagaragu.
By that time he was old, and his eyes were blighted with Sandy Blight
or Trachoma, mistakenly thought to be caused by the desert sand, hence the
name. He was a lovely stick insect of a man, a man serene and peaceful, full
of an inner strength, he didn't touch liquor and was much saddened by the
ravage the awful white man's medicine had visited on his people. It was a
relatively small community and home to the Murra Mulla Gurindji Cattle
Company Store.
Everyone there was sick, either with Malnutrition, Skin Disease, Ear
Disease, Eye Disease, especially Trachoma or Venereal Disease, or
Cardiac, Renal or Hepatic Disease there was a resident Health Worker,
there were other Health Workers in the clinic, some were good and some
were a bit obtuse. The other feature of Wattie Creek was that it had the
hugest most obese sow he had ever seen, suckling some 12 little piglets, it
was so fat it couldn't even stand.
The Clinic at Wattie Creek was a two room affair, the one at Wave Hill
Settlement a large recently built iron clad affair with even a Dental Surgery
which sat idle and useless until he and Fred Hollows pressed it into service
as the Trachoma Survey work room. From the Trachoma surveys Fred, a
pipe smoking Kiwi Ophthalmologist, discovered there was a bacterial cause,
the dreaded Chlamydia, also endemic among the Indigenous People, as later
on it was discovered to be endemic in Koalas.
The Male Nurse (Mister Sister they christened him) struck up a good
friendship with Fred that was to endure until Fred's death of a Wilm's Tumour
in the early 1990's, why, he had even been invited to go to Eritrea as part of
an eye team training Eritreans in basic ophthalmology and intra-ocular and
extra capsular cataract extractions, but he never did go.. They were
extremely busy, the three RN's and the 4 Health Workers saw up to 65
people a day, most in need of dressings, or mothers with babes who were
suffering from Diarrhoea and Vomiting, Gastro-enteritis, especially Shigella
and Salmonella, Rotorviri and Retroviri but also hookworm and Giardia.
Venereal Diseases, especially Chlamydia, Gonorrhoea and Syphilis were
endemic, 90 % of the young children were afflicted with either Otitis Media,
Hookworm, Scabies or a combination of all three, together with chronic
bronchitis and, in many cases, failure to thrive and chronic low-grade
malnutrition.

Nearly every day they called in an Aero-Medical Evacuation aeroplane
to air lift these sick children to Darwin Hospital, as the nurses were unable to
introduce IV therapy, and didn't have the requisite knowledge or tools to
monitor and balance the poor infants' skewed electrolytes. The health
problems extended to severe life threatening diseases such as Rheumatic
Heart Disease and End Stage Renal Failure, later found to be auto-immune
diseases secondary to Streptococcal Infections, which themselves were
secondary to the Scabies.
No wonder people drank. In those days there was no Gunja
(Marihuana) that was to come later but the Gunja in itself was not a
problem, it was the combination of alcohol and Gunja together with a chronic
community depression engendered by years of severe poverty and
disempowerment. For this Minister, in 2006, to make a claim that the Howard
Government would solve the problem grated on him the Commonwealth
had been in charge when he was there, and swept the problem under the
carpet, ignored what the medical professionals were saying, they had thrown
a lot of money at shiny buildings but done absolutely zilch about the social
problems, mainly through ignorance. He thought there was another agenda,
he kept it to himself, but he felt it was genocide by proxy. The idiot
bureaucrats were, perhaps, following this horrible and hidden agenda and
weren't so idiotic after all, just evil.

The next day he seethed with fury as he read that the Minister was
calling for a Summit, with no Indigenous Leaders to be invited. He fully
understood Clare Martin, the Chief Minister's stance. Another talk fest with
lots of expensive airline flights was the last thing needed to sort the problem,
that money would be far better spent getting Educators and Drug Counsellors
on the ground and producing child safe policies on the ground, and getting
Opal non sniffable fuel into the Petrol Bowsers. He was furious at the overt
racism in the statement and rued the day this befouled anti-liberal Liberal
Party had ever got into Government, and set about ruining Australia's
reputation, kowtowing to the Americans, following them into the failed
expedition that was Iraq, and strutted the world stage with the so called
leaders, Double You Bush and Dick Pot Shot Cheney and the incompetent
Rumsfield, not to mention the Bitter Sweet Condy Rice.

Whilst the treasurer Costello was smiling inanely at having pulled off a
coup in getting a good budget outcome by taxing Aussies to the Hilt, the
inane-looking Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson was posing as the man of
the moment, angry with his incompetents in defence and the Indigenous
Affairs Minister, Mal Brough was threatening to bring down the Labour State
Government in the Territory.
Sure, it was certainly criminal that some deranged Blackfellas were
plugging their two and three year old daughters this had to be dealt with,
but the way Brough planned to go about it was sheer lunacy and likely to
inflame the problem rather than stop it. Other crazy rules like setting sniffer
dogs on people for drinking, whilst he and his parliamentary mates spent
$100,000's on booze, why, the Prime Minister alone had managed to spend
$50,000 of taxpayers money on wine, these were genuine pigs at the trough.
How hypocritical.
As for the feted trips around Tangyntjere town camp at night, well, what
utter rubbish, as if it would solve the problem. He grossly embarrassed some
poor aboriginal woman, a victim of violence by showing up at the Alice
Springs Base Hospital with her, and asked her what she would stop, she
stated The Grog but little did this narcissistic minister realise that she
probably would be back at the camp that night quaffing her way through
another 30 or even 50 cans of VB,or Dem Green Cans as they were locally
called.
Contrition is a short lived blip on the radar screen for a committed
alcoholic with advanced organ damage, including encephalopathy and
related psychosis.
It is very easy to imagine that stopping the flow of Alcohol would stop
the problem, this is naive to say the least, and shows a complete lack of
understanding, from a medical viewpoint, of the problems this approach
would cause, producing both a withdrawal syndrome (Delirium Tremens) and
serious depression.
The only answer that had worked to date was a regulated Alcohol
Market, this had shown considerable anecdotal success in both the towns of
Tennant Creek (Southern NT) and Hall's Creek in the Kimberley. Hall's
Creek, prior to regulated alcohol sales had the worst drinking problem in
Australia, per capita, with a per capita consumption of 400 litres of alcohol
per annum or 8 times that of the average consumption in Darwin, which was
incorrectly rumoured to be the heaviest drinking town in Australia. (Some say
Thirsty Island, which had been corrupted to Thursday Island also once held
this title. Guam and Saipan in the Marianas chain also have heavy drinking
cultures).

In Halls Creek the children ran around rampant at night, and said it was
because they were scared to go home, lest their drunken parent or parents
beat them. A breakfast program had to be started at the school as parents
were too drunk and hungover to get up in the morning and cook breakfast,
apart from which there was no money for food, it all having been spent on
Australia's costliest beer. (Apart from so called Illicit Beer at the dry
settlements which retailed for up to $400 a carton of 30 cans).
Years of throwing money into shiny new buildings, high wages for
medical and teaching staff and for expensive Japanese 4 wheel drives did
little to solve the root problems of Malnutrition, poor health, poor housing,
poor self esteem and years of well meant but misdirected paternalistic
policies by successive British Style Governments which led to chronic family
breakdown and an ever spiralling suicide rate. Yes, the Commonwealth had
failed spectacularly to make any progress, through its own smugness and
superiority, and for all the modern talk of capacity building, and community
consultation it was unlikely to succeed again where it had so dismally failed
before especially by going against its own correctly espoused policy of
community engagement and community consultation as highlighted by the
Indigenous Affairs Minister's ludicrous suggestion that Aboriginal Leaders
would not be invited, not only was this comment racist, it was incredibly
insensitive and showed the Minster's absolute unfitness for the job with which
he was charged.
The Territory Labour Government finally managed to defeat the Nazi
like Country Liberal Party, some members of which were incredibly racist,
even owning to shooting the niggers on site - but their Federal
Counterparts, the Bushy eyed Frog Mouthed Prime Minster and his bumbling
cabinet of fools had never forgiven Clare for her coup which succeeded in
isolating the Conservatives to the Commonwealth Arena of Government only,
where they still pursued far too dangerous policies for Australia. (Like
throwing out the Kyoto agreement and stamping on Industrial Relations Laws
to the detriment of the average Australian, like the Gross Slavery Tax, a
feudal tithe system engendered to rob Peter to pay Paul and ruin the NSW
government financially and unbridled rape and pillage of the earth to provide
the Chinese Behemoth, still an oppressive communist regime hell bent on the
ludicrous philosophy of ever increasing production, with raw materials at a
fraction of their real cost and with an appalling cost to both China and the
world's biosphere).

What is material wealth without good health? Why, the average China
Man is still little better off than he was 10 years ago, life spans were not
increasing, cities were choking in their own sewage and pollution, all so that
China could export cheap goods to the West, whilst soiling its own nest.
What utter madness but everyone turned a blind eye. Partly as they
couldn't see the 150 kilometre lorry jams, the putrid cities, the people dying of
lung cancer and industrial diseases such as Mesothelioma induced by heavy
asbestos production, heavy metal poisoning, mining disasters and mercury
poisoning from polluted rivers and seas. No, China presented a different face
to the world, it was, after all, the master at saving face, a quaint oriental
tradition that had grown up in the south of China and so perfectly described
in the book Taipan by James Clavell.

He went to bed after watching the erudite and loquacious Indigent
Professor Reinhardt speak the words in his mind in a most articulate manner.
For once, he felt there was hope, here was a woman with a keen mind who
knew the answers and who was more equipped to manage Indigenous
Affairs than any of the Conservative Government's appalling dismal portfolio
holders of the last 11 years. If they don't listen to her, they really are the
Neanderthals I have always suspected they were, dumber than dumb but
then show me an intelligent Conservative Politician and I'll show you the first
man capable of having a baby, they just don't exist even Lazarus with a
triple by-pass only has an IQ of 115, his only saving grace is his inability to
see his own stupidity, thus saving the rest of us from the pain of sharing it
with him.
Government Policy in the Conservative Reactionary non-liberal Liberal
party is designed to keep the pigs at the trough, not advance the Australian
Nation, John Howard is notable in his ability to not take the blame for what
must rate as the most incompetent Australian Government in the last two
centuries. Unfortunately, he has been supported by the cheap sensationalist
Murdoch Press, and the average Australian, not the world's most politically
savvy animal, reads the Murdoch papers, such as the Telegraph and the
pretend broad sheet that awful Australian and watches the equally debased
Channel Nine and forms Political Opinions based on a river of
misinformation, without being able to question it, 1984, George Orwell style.
Ask any intelligent politically aware Australian and they have a deep
mistrust, and many, an absolute hatred for the lies, excesses and
obfuscation of our Tory Party Labour may not be much better, and neither
Party will fiddle with the mechanisms of budgetary income raising, for obvious
reasons, as any close inspection of the Hansard, in General, and Budgetary
Papers in particular, will reveal to any student of politics, but the major
difference is that Labour truly believes in uplifting the common man, whilst
the Conservatives are a bunch of wealthy snobs intent on nepotism and
feathering the nests of their business cronies.
The current economic miracle was constructed by Paul Keating through
sensible policies, the current government has ridden the resultant wave,
which has been combined with a commodities boom (which to my mind is
absolutely immoral for the reasons earlier explained) and the Gross Slavery
Tax {GST,. General Sales Tax} which cleverly captured money from the
Black Economy - However, the commodities boom will shortly collapse, as
China moves into decline (how many stereos can one family buy) and its
people die through Industrial Disease far worse than England's Satanic Mills
and the US implodes under the demographic shift from an Anglo dominated
society, to an Hispanic/Black African society, and the Islamic Nations attempt
to assume their ascendancy.
Australia, the British Commonwealth and the US, together with the
remaining EU will find it difficult to maintain their grip on their own ascendant
star the EU outside of Britain is riddled with collapsing economies and
mass unemployment, thanks to their rush to embrace the Chinese economic
miracle, Russia, meanwhile, has become increasingly rich and India is
sneaking up very fast things will change, Australia will need to choose her
friends carefully. Thanks to the Howard Government we have lost most of
them, they just see as as money grabbing opportunists and grubby US
Imperialist bed fellows. We have made true enemies of most of the Moslem
nations and we have lost face with most of the Asian countries, thanks
again to John Howard and his stockinged Xenophobe, Alexander Downer, we
are seen as Zionist sympathisers, anti Palestinian and anti Iraqui, anti
Iranian, and Anti Saudi, even though we send a clear message of hatred
about Al-Guida (the correct English spelling of this group the pioneers,
where we get our borrowed Arabic word Guide). We are also seen as
predatory imperialists by the Indonesians, traitors by the Timorese (Over our
greedy grab for the Arafura Gas reserves) and interfering colonialists by a
number of Pacific Nations, headed by the Solomons, closely followed by our
once staunch friends the Fijians. Talk about the Ugly American, the Ugly
Australian follows close behind. Who should we blame, the incompetent
Howard Government, the Arch enemy of Human Rights, the Pigs at the
Trough. Satan in all his glory.
Australia, fair damsel daughter of the Great Britain, the land down
under, the lucky country, the dominion, Great Southern land, Land of the
Gentle Aboriginal and the Kangaroo, Emu, Koala, Platypus, Echidna and
studious sturdy wombat, loved by all, feared by none, great sporting nation
riding on the sheep's back, sunburnt country yet in 10 short years, Howard
and his cronies, had managed to change these clichs to Australia,
America's Lackey, George Double You Bushes Deputy, the arsehole of the
whole world, the fat nation, America's Back Yard, the Bali Nine, Do as I say,
not as I do, Little Britain, land of the couch potato, gamblers paradise, the
Las Vegas of the South, the land of the long weekend, Sodom and
Gomorrah, Too Rich and Too Much, Mobile Phone Sex Land (Perhaps
Shane Warne had a bit to do with that) Crassland, Land of the Teenage IQ,
the Land of the Politically nave, Watch my lips two, not to mention whatever
that awful Malaysian Doctor Mahatir called us in Bahasa.
Thanks, John alias Kermit, thanks Amanda it wasn't me, thanks
Alexander stocking, Thanks Bromwyn, Minister for Caged Hair, thanks Philip
the vampire, thanks, Peter Reith, the skitch 'em dog man, Patrick's boss,
Chris Corrigan's Crony, thanks, Peter Costello, conjurer extraordinaire,
thanks, Mark Vaile, giver to Saddam you should all be put on trial, for a
number of crimes, including abuses of human rights, crimes against
humanity, loss of Australia's once mighty reputation, theft of our national
identity, theft of our money, loss of our servicemen and lately, harm to
aboriginals.
The suicides you have engendered, the filthy crimes you have colluded
in, the damage to our environment and last, for your contribution to global
warming, you would be found guilty on all charges, your punishment, exile to
North Korea anyway, at least you will be judged on the day of reckoning
and subjected to an appropriate punishment. Here ends the lesson.






Chapter Fourteen

Saipan

Daylight come and they want to go home

The night of the flight he went to an auto teller at the Building Society
after having first visited the auto teller at the Commonwealth Bank, and
pulled out $600 from each one, even though he only had $603 in his account,
one could get away with that trick in those days 1993. Along with the $400
he had that gave him $1600 enough for the few weeks until he got paid. He
farewelled his ex-wife and his friends at Melbourne's Tullamarine airport, as
did his 12 year old daughter and they mounted the 737 to take them up to
Sydney for the first leg of the journey, at Sydney they negotiated their way
from the Domestic to the International Terminal and joined the Continental
DC-10 for the flight to Saipan he hated flying and especially in this type of
plane one Air New Zealand DC 10 had crashed in Antarctica just a year or
two before. Most Douglas planes were reliable but these had a habit of
losing doors, with disastrous consequences for the entrapped passengers
movies were even made about such a frightful but too common event. They
took off at 11.00 p.m. In the morning, a strange time, he thought and
weighed in his mind how alert the pilots would be. After clearing Sydney
without managing to crash into another plane things settled and they rode the
Stratosphere at 33,000 feet across the second largest island in the world
(after Antarctica), then across Indonesia and off into the great Pacific Ocean.

After playing a few table games with his daughter, who was excited by
the adventure (I've never been on a big plane before, Dad) but tired, and she
easily fell asleep, he meandered to the first class, where there was a mini
bar, and in the first class he met a large, read huge, man with a Spanish
surname (Tenorio) who had been on a business trip to the States and was
returning to Saipan. The man needed to be in the first class leather seat, he
wouldn't have fitted in an economy one, and looked tight in the upper class
version. As is the case with obese people, he was jolly, and made good
company, they shared a whiskey and he interrogated the fat man about
where they were both heading.
You'll like Saipan said the jolly fat man in a Mexican sounding lilt, It's
very beautiful despite its sordid history
How do you mean? asked the thinner man
Well, it's a tropical island and the people are very friendly I live
mostly in Guam, but all my family are there
You said sordid history?
Oh, yes well Saipan has been colonised for close on 500 years
and there was very bloody fighting there between the Japanese and the
Americans in 1944, over 4,000 troops from both sides died in the first 24
hours of the Americans invading, or liberating as they refer to it, so Saipan
has its sordid history, not to mention the way the Japanese colonialists
treated the Chamorro people.
Chamorro?
Yes, I am Chamorro that is our people we are the indigenous, or
original people of the islands in the Marianas
Go on, tell me more, I've looked up Saipan but only got a brief
paragraph out of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica about the second world war,
I also saw something in the Guinness Book of Records about Saipan having
the world's most equitable climate
Well, you are right about the climate it is never cold and once you
get used to the heat and humidity, it is never really hot you never have to
worry about a heater or a blanket, truly tropical
He went on,
The island of Saipan is, to me, the most beautiful island in the world
despite the bloody war even though there are planes and tanks in the sea,
the coral is the most beautiful you will ever see, and the people, believe me,
are the gentlest people on our planet and I know, you may not know, but I
am one of the most senior business people in the Marianas and I am also the
richest excuse my modesty, or lack of it. I am Jo Ten my stores span the
islands, but once my family and I didn't know where our next meal would
come from, and that once was during that dreadful war the war of the
Bansai
Bansai?
That was when the Japanese committed Hari Kari suicide, they
jumped off two cliffs, families and all, when the Americans were advancing on
them, some 8000 people died that way
How dreadful!
Yes. But we Chamorros were happy, they had been there for 35 years
and virtually enslaved us, to produce their sugar they had a dreadful jail, a
place where they were even rumoured to have locked up Amelia Eirhardt
the pilot.
Christopher scanned his memory and remembered that this lady pilot
had gone missing.
You know the fat man opined They launched the Enola Gay from
Tinian
Tinian?
Yes, the island next to Saipan some call it Goat Island it is criss
crossed with runways, the Americans used it for their final assault on Japan,
and the Enola Gay was the plane that carried Big Boy to Hiroshima the
first Atom Bomb
Wow Christopher was gob smacked, he hadn't known this before
such a momentous event and here he was being introduced to a very special
part of the world not only this but nearby was the Marianas Trench, the
deepest Ocean Trench on Earth, so far.
The fat man continued,
Saipan was discovered by the Spanish Magellan, in fact, in the
1530's and soon settled in by Jesuit priests. Thankfully they recorded their
settling meticulously so we know our people, the Chamorro, were pretty
advanced, they had housing and a system of law never-the-less, the
Spanish called Saipan, Lodrinos which translates as the island of thieves
not a good start, you see. Spain used Saipan as a staging post between
Mexico and the Philippines and that is why we have this Mexican Lilt to our
language and many Spanish words, like Corral and Chalan for street.
Naturally he continued You'll find we are staunchly Catholic, due to
our history, this might worry you, an Australian, I do believe you are
predominantly Church of England, or Anglican as you quaintly refer to
yourselves now, Am I right?
Yes, Jo, you are right, although we are a secular society and most
people rarely visit a church but to be honest Australia is supposedly 51%
Church of England and 49% Catholic, however, we have significant Buddhist
and Islamic Communities so those figures are inaccurate. Never-the less, all
aside, we are not fanatically religious - we tend to be pretty easy going on
that front.
Well, my bunch are two faced the jolly man honestly asserted,they
sin all week and then seek forgiveness on Sunday - already, Christopher
had warmed to this man.
Well, as you can see, I am not the healthiest specimen, and I must go
and get some sleep, but look me up when you are in Guam and here are my
local contacts and with that he gave Chris a business card with three
addresses -two on Saipan - then both went to their respective stations on the
plane. Chris stroked his sleeping daughters hair and fell asleep for a short
while until the Pacific light woke him up.

A friendly khaki skinned air hostess woke him, Would you like a paper,
Sir she asked in a Mexican like lilt, he agreed the Pacific Daily News, all
about Guam and Saipan and the weather on Page 2, his immediate interest,
oh, wow, 32 degrees, or 88 as they called it, in Fahrenheit reading. He learnt
quite a bit from looking at that paper, and the more he learnt the more he
looked forward to his new adventure.
After a cup of too weak American tea (he wasn't up to their coffee, yet)
they started the downward descent into Guam airport.

He once again became anxious as they were descending through the
clouds and as the plane bore down on the runway he instinctively tensed up
and grabbed the seat handles, then a couple of squelches as the big
ungainly plane alighted on the runway and the roar of the reverse thrust
engines and the fast deceleration, he only relaxed again once the plane had
slowed down to taxi-ing speed. They got out of the plane and the warm
humid air hit him and Isa like a big warm wet sponge and they both began to
perspire, he noticed the little beads of sweat on his daughter's brow. They did
the perfunctory screening and passport checking as they went through the
US customs and then into the large noisy airport, with that smell that airports
have, a mixture of Kerosene and stale clothing, there were lots of coffee
coloured people, with facial facsimiles of Joe Tenorio he assumed they
were the Chamorro. Some of the people were very obese, in fact quite a lot
were obese, some so much so that they obviously had difficulty walking he
wondered how they coped with the heat.

Guam, between the two Gulf Wars, a centre of US military might, once
a huge staging post post for the Vietnam war and still a major US Naval
Base. Though, as the paper attested, this was under review especially with
regard to the F-16's and then, on other pages evidence of an indigenous
push for land rights, something he was already familiar with from the NT.
What the paper showed him as different were the death notices and
Valedictories which he was not familiar with, reading through the paper and
checking the ads yes, he could handle that -ads like Australia, for electrical
appliances and clothes ads for Real Estate and clothes excepting that
with regard to White Goods prices were half those in Australia and Cars,
well, Cars were cheap, a quarter of their equivalent cost back home. He
looked at a Honda Accord 2 years old $7500 (US) against $29,990 at
home.

They got out at Guam and went to the Cafeteria, he had his daughter's
Ghetto Blaster -she was eager to play it, he went for a quick smoke in the
smoking room a filthy smelling room, like a fish-bowl, all the smoking
addicts on display, an unpleasant experience, to say the least. Isa was
happy, playing Denni Hines rendition of a huge Stevie Wonder hit, better than
the original and enjoying her first American Ice Cream. Her father gravitated
back towards her, the Ghetto Blaster and the quickly melting Ice cream and
then, they had to go through Customs, before mounting the plane for the last
minor leg to Saipan.

SAIPAN
Cheerio, Cheerio, Baby
When they arrived at Saipan, the officious immigration official wouldn't
let him into the country at first, stating his papers were not in order and that
he had no visa. He protested politely that he was indeed supposed to be
here, that he had come to work at the Commonwealth Medical Center and
that the official should phone the Director of the Hospital who would no doubt
vouch for him.
The official made a telephone call on the big black bakerlite thing that
rates as a standard telephone in the states after a while he hung up and
then there was a ring, not two rings, like Australia or the UK but one long
ring, a real telephone ring which he hadn't heard for sometime, as most
telephones where he had come from now had an electronic beep beep. He
could hear the voice at the other end, a sort of Spanish Language and the
voice was raised, commanding the official. He hung up the telephone again,
looking somewhat sheepish - I am so sorry, Sir, Hafa Adai and welcome to
Saipan that is the Director of Immigration and he has said to let you in,
you've come to look after his son and you are not required to have the usual
papers you are honoured he trailed off in the Mexican sounding lilt.
Shortly after, Claire arrived in a Toyota 4 wheel drive pick up, what
Australians call a Ute, parlance for Utility Vehicle. Whilst it was only 7:30 in
the morning it was already 33
o
Celsius and he was tired, Claire took the two
of them to their new quarters, an apartment in a large solidly built apartment
block and they settled in to shower and rest.
He switched on the noisy Kelvinator Air-Conditioner and inspected his
new abode, he found some things quite strange the toilet had a shallow
pan with a big pool of water, unlike the ones at home, he had visions of the
water splashing his bottom when he took a crap. The sink and the bath had
curious metal plugs that operated from the tap or faucet as the Americans
called it. After washing his hands he went out to the Kitchen, everything
here was big, the stove was positively huge, an electric thing at first he
couldn't find the grill, but then discovered that these US stoves have the grill
in the oven. The Fridge was also enormous, he had once had what he
thought was a big fridge in Australia, a 480L Frost Free thing, but this was
well over 500 Litres. The sink was huge and the Toaster and the Jug were
also large.
The thing that amazed him was that there were two power supplies, a
240 volt one for the Stove and the A/C and 110 volts for everything else. The
powerpoints had no switch and were only 2 prong affairs, much as he
remembered in Singapore and Indonesia apparently one prong served as
an earth as well as the negative.

He went out onto the smallish Balcony and took in the view it was a
million dollar view, they were perched half way up Navy Hill with a view
across the Sea to Managaha Island, across at the dock away to the right he
could make out a large white cruise ship. Later, one of the other Australians
who reached the island a couple of days before came and picked them up
and took them down to the Hilton where they joined the Gym (to get free
access to the Pool) and he lazed around in the Landscaped pool and
showered under the simulated waterfall, then got out and took breakfast and
some coffee up on the porch.


Saipan is a small island, shaped like a horse when viewed
topographically it has an eminence at one end, Mount Tapochau, with two
sheer cliffs, one called Bansai Cliff and the other, Suicide Cliff, large bore
bullet holes are still extant from the Mortar bombardment by the heavy naval
guns. Saipan is part of the Marianas chain of islands, which include the
Northern Marianas and Guam, geographically, though Guam is a different
political entity being a dependency of the US. Saipan is 10 degrees North of
the Equator and tropical with a climate very similar to that of Darwin, most of
the year the temperature sits between 26
o
and 33
o
Celsius. His guide, Jack
told both Isa and he that there were caves up in the cliffs where one could
still find skeletons of Japanese soldiers, with all their battle gear. They drove
up there in Jacks Mazda Pick up, a large 4 WD he drove like the clappers,
and didn't wear a seatbelt like many of his US compatriots, Jack had come
from Alaska and was a cartoonist by trade. He had been a lumberjack and
liked a smoke. He took them down into an Avocado forest they walked over
old abandoned terraced fields on the way down, the trees were huge and
there were hundreds of thousands of Avocados littering the forest floor. Most
of the island was covered with Tangan Tangan, a relative of the wattle the
place had been denuded during the war and the water table had been
damaged, so the water was no longer potable, it contained oil and lead it
was OK to shower in though. Jack was great and took Isa on a few hikes to
check the caves whilst Chris was working on the weekends.











School for Isa
Chris spent the first few mornings he had off trying to enrol Isa in a
school, there was one called Grace Christian School near where they lived,
but the headmaster, a swarthy Chamorro man said that he had to sign an
agreement for Isa to be paddled as a disciplinary measure he wouldn't
agree to this form of corporal punishment and told the headmaster that where
he came from that would be considered as abuse. He traipsed across the
Island and found the Christian Community School, where they didn't paddle
the kids and there was no uniform the fees were still quite high, but at least
Isa would have a friend there, in Maya whose parents were also Australian,
Steve worked with him, as an Emergency Room Nurse.

In between this, Chris had borrowed Claire's Toyota to get his various
business done such as papers for pay and the like, getting a bank account at
the Bank of Hawaii and attempting to get the Telephone connected so they
could telephone Isa's Mum. The telephone was quite a saga it took nearly 3
weeks and repeated visits to the telephone company to get the thing up and
running. The thing often didn't work and the bills were horrendous, one bill
was $600 for about a month. Luckily the rent was free, or he wouldn't have
been able to afford the phone and the profligate lifestyle. Isa came home
from school in tears one day he asked why?
Oh, Daddy Maya and I have been chewing Betel Nut and I spat
some out the bus window on the way home from school and it blew in the
back window and went all over this big Chamorro girls white blouse, I was so
embarrassed! He laughed, and she joined him through the tears, the girl, it
seems, had taken it fairly good naturedly.
Isa had heaps of homework, most of it in English, or what passed for
English at the school. The Americans must have a major insecurity about
their use of the English Language as they really go into great depth with
grammar, structure and spelling though he made it clear to the teachers
that Isa was to continue to use received British spelling, as she would one
day be returning to Australia and he didn't want her to start spelling words
like colour and saviour and behaviour without the U as they do in the
States. Isa found her English classes difficult, to say the least even he had
trouble with the Grammar lessons. Strange, then that Americans can't
pronounce their words correctly, getting Paedophile mixed up with Pedophile
and saying Loo tenant for Lieutenant and rout for route.
At first he also thought they were rude, but they just don't use Please
and Thankyou like the British and Australians. Mind you, everyone is Sir or
Ma'am and service in shops is generally superior to that in Australia or the
UK. Yes, there were many contradictions, but underneath it all, he found the
Americans were very much like them generally warm hearted and
generous, eager to please and with a strong work ethic.
Poor Isa had to get up at 6 a.m. To make the 6.30 bus coming down
Navy Hill to take her on the 20 minutes bus trip to her school, most
afternoons he'd pick her, or even her and Maya up, Isa liked little treats like
chicken nuggets from KFC. She absolutely loved the duty free shops and
Maya and her spent many hours just window shopping. The shops were
packed with goodies for the quarter of a million Japanese tourists that visited
the island annually, many of them on a kind of pilgrimage. Saipan itself was a
melting pot of cultures, there were the Chamorro and the Carolinians,
Hawaiians and Americans, a smattering of Australians (14) and British, a few
Canadians, absolutely heaps of Filipinos and quite a few Chinese and
Koreans. Throw in African Americans and Samoans for more of a mix.

Unlike their Australian Counterparts, the Chamorro had adopted well to
the Western way of life most were employed and enjoyed a high standard
of living, they had senior government posts and were virtually self governing.
Saipan is a Commonwealth of the US, one of two the other being Puerto
Rico, apart from the Spanish Heritage, the similarity ended there, Puerto Rico
is desperately poor, not quite as poor as Haiti and is large with a lot of
people, Saipan is relatively small (45 square miles) with a population at that
time of a little over 50,000, quite rich and is, in fact, the only place that Chris
had ever lived in where there were no homeless people mind you the
Filipinos and Chinese and Bangla Deshis only had rudimentary
accommodation for the most part and earnt only $2 an hour but they all told
him they were better off there than they would have been at home.
The Bangla Deshis were mainly employed as concierges and security
guards, for the compounds the Chinese were nearly all women and lived in
Barracks working in the sweat shops - mainly Shirt Factories that Saipan
supports the label Made in the USA on a shirt usually means made in
Saipan, having said that, the shirts are very good quality. Shirts in Australia
are frightfully expensive, the same quality in Saipan went for $10 rather than
$140. Yes, Saipan was truly a shopper's paradise. Levi Jeans - $25, sports
shoes like Reebok and Nike went for $30-$50 and very little tax on income
(10%). Chris refurbished his wardrobe and Isa's they also got a big TV and
a stereo, luxuries they hadn't been able to afford in Australia.















Wild Life

Girl I wanna make you sweat sweat till you can't sweat no more

Chris warmed to Saipan it was an island paradise with beach bars,
reggae, dreadlocks and a laid back life style to match, not since he'd lived in
Darwin had he been so socially gregarious and enjoyed the outdoors life,
swimming virtually everyday and clubbing several nights a week, he formed a
partnership with Chris Dunn and some American girls including a tall athletic
African-American who had the southern drawl, and often said things like
Lordy Lordy she had a Samoan girlfriend and was married to a Chamorro
man, but lived with an American.
They frequented the Beach Bars where they had sundowners and
danced to Reggae Bands like Y-Not and I don't know who played
excellent covers of UB40 and Bob Marley songs, he became quite good at
Reggae dancing and even jammed in the bands on occasions. Work
prevented him being a serious musician though.
When he had time at the weekends, Isa and he and maybe the Bond
Family would frequent the tourist hotels which had excellent swimming pools,
but there was nothing better than to go snorkelling about a mile off shore
the coral was, as Jo Ten had promised, spectacular. He fell out with the
African American when he discovered she'd been pinching cheques out his
cheque book and spending the money on an Ice habit she had developed.
She tried to get him into it, but it did nothing for him, due to his earlier
exposure to strong psycho-stimulants, his tolerance was still too high. He got
bored and left them, they were just dead weight. Comes a time when you are
weary of all that he still liked to go out, but avoided the places where she
might go.

He fell in with Bill and Ben, a couple of Musicians whose band, co-
incidentally named 'Bill and Ben they did covers of Jimmy Buffett, the
Beatles, the Stones and Pink Floyd - were regulars at Rudolfo's, a bar
frequented by the Howlies which is an Hawaiian term for foreigners Chris
Dunn and he used to go dart throwing there they have electronic dart
boards and both he and Chris got quite good with practice. He'd had a rare
joint, and went to Rudolfo's when he heard the term Howlie for the first time
it cracked him up, as the Americans were watching ESPN sport and were
very loud in his naivety he thought that was how the term came about it
was only some years later reading a James Michener book that he came
across the word in its correct context. Funny he had been to Hawaii but
hadn't come across the term. The bars were pretty loud at the best of times,
there was a clique, a large clique of ex-patriates who liked to drink hard and
party hard, it was a very hedonistic life style. He saw supposed top flight
lawyers in some fairly compromising horizontal positions.

There were also what he termed Girly clubs where they played awful
jukebox music, like Celine Dion's The Wind Beneath My Wings and Meat-
Loaf's Bat out of Hell - he termed this music Filipino Love Songs as a lot
of the bar girls were Filipinos who stripped for a living, and stomped around
in high heels on the wooden catwalks with some wailing song as the
background. Few of the girls were available for sex though it was rumoured
you could get them he wasn't interested, he went to the girly bars with other
men, for the company but never hit up on the girls, besides, he had a phobia
about catching AIDS.

He did eventually have a girlfriend, an English Lass somewhat older
than he, but it fizzled out after a few months when she started to get a bit
clingy wanting a commitment he knew he was leaving, so wasn't keen on
that. Then he met a sun drenched Californian, who was actually originally
from Salt Lake City but she was a drunk, so that fizzled out too. He didn't
muster up the courage to date the girl he really desired, she was truly
beautiful and in her early 20's, was a hash house harrier and he came on the
scene a bit late in his 2 year stay to make anything of it.
Then Donna announced she was coming, she'd managed to get the
wife basher to let her off the leash. The wife basher tried to bribe her into
staying by keeping their son, but she wanted to visit her daughter Chris
was ecstatic, he never had really let go of her and now she was coming to
Saipan. He swam more furiously, cut out the clubbing and looked forward to
her coming. She was going to bring his other daughter, the younger one.
Luckily for him, the Bonds had been a good support and when Donna arrived
she slipped into an easy friendship with Dorothy, who by that stage was
getting homesick, to have some new Australian Female companionship was
great. However, try as he might, he couldn't get Donna excited the way he
used to, and gave up in the end in frustration. They did have sex but it was
meaningless, she lay there like a sack of potatoes while he did it he didn't
feel good about it afterwards, and after a month she took both the girls back
to Australia and left him licking his wounds.

Then she rang him from Oz and asked if he would object to her getting
married to Trevor, they were an item. He'd always liked Trevor, so he
condescended though he felt hurt at missing the opportunity now he'd finally
succeeded in getting her to leave the wife bashing paedophile she'd taken up
with nearly 5 years beforehand. Thankfully, Trevor was a decent good
hearted man who would make a good father to the younger daughter and the
paedophile's son. Apart from that, the girls had both known and lived in the
family for some years mainly to escape the violent brutality that became an
almost daily event towards the end. Chris turned his mind to getting through
the last few months and returning home. He knew it would be hard for a
start the weather had spoilt him, he wasn't used to the cold and just like
Darwin, Saipan, which had an identikit climate, virtually degree for degree but
with the monsoon convoluted due to the Northern Hemisphere location, had
played tricks with his hypothalamus and he found anything under 23 degrees
quite cold. In fact, he had been to Hawaii and found that cold after Saipan.
Yes, the only warm places on the planet are above 10 degrees of Latitude
and near the sea. Never a Heater and never a blanket was his credo so
going back to Tathra, although Tathra is relatively warm (Sub Tropical) he
froze from April right up until the end of December and he got quite
miserable with it too.

















Chapter 15

Tathra to Broome

Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude

Chris was a great one for making mistakes in his love life he thrown
away what could have been the romance of the century or so he told
himself and made himself very miserable to boot he'd nearly got over it
when she came back, but the relationship as it was had died, now they were
just good friends - he'd got cold feet with the English lady and because he
was, at heart, a dyed in the wool romantic, he'd brought the American back
from Saipan, only to find she couldn't get a visa and therefore barred access
to Centrelink so he ended up supporting her and quickly blowing all his
savings, especially as she drank and smoked furiously.
He ended up one day asking her to leave, he'd had enough of
supporting others, he wanted his own space and his own money. Also, he
didn't really reach a sexual high like he used to. The end came when she
spewed over the two of them in bed that was the corker. He went back to
being Mr Lonely, although he wasn't moribund and depressed anymore, he
threw himself into his work and travelled up and down the South Coast, still
looking for Love but never quite finding it. He knew one day things would be
different.
After a good while in Tathra, when Isa had finished school and left
home to be with her boyfriend and go to Uni he bade the rest of the extended
family farewell and moved to Sydney rejoining the Rat Race, first he
worked in Hornsby at a god forsaken hospital, then moved to Dubbo, but got
fed up with that after a year, then joined the Corrections Health Service as an
agency nurse, where at last he had some prestige and responsibility and a
decent pay.
They asked him to manage their Mental Health Service, so he did, it
meant a cut in pay, but increased his CV, he learnt a lot about Criminals and
the Mentally Ill and then after 2 years doing time he moved on to a new
experience at Broken Hill, mind you, just for 3 months he didn't want to rot
out west. Then he got a job with an Aboriginal Medical Service as the CEO
he really liked the job and put his heart and soul into it. He started to make
plans, planted a garden and thoroughly enjoyed himself but then another
woman had to step into his life and bugger it all up again. Would he never
learn?
Hall's Creek is a god forsaken town full of Red Dirt clinging to the Great
Western Highway which goes from Kununurra to Broome. Broome is a pretty
little tropical town with a famous beach (Cable Beach) and some high priced
tourist accommodation it is nowhere near as nice or sophisticated as
Darwin but is becoming popular with the tourists. Kununurra has really gone
ahead since he had last been there in 1970 it is still small but reaching the
critical mass. It is also now quite pretty. To get to Halls Creek takes 3 hours.
Broome is a further 5 hours. Warmun a.k.a. Turkey Creek is about an hour
north of Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing is 2 hours south. There is the Fitzroy
River there it has a pretty little park and a small gorge, though has none of
the majesty of Katherine and its Gorge. Still, the Kimberley is a beautiful area
with an interesting geology Purnululu, the Bungle Bungles and Wolfe Creek
Meteorite site along the Tanami track are well worth a visit and El Questro
Station is another place worth a visit, Kylie Minogue and Ella MacPherson
have both been there.
Halls Creek itself became famous as a gold mining town in the early
1900's but more lately is a service centre for the largest shire in Australia,
with quite a few large Cattle Stations. Most of the year it is extremely hot, the
mercury reaching up into the low 40's until and if the wet breaks.
The largest Diamond Mine in the world sits between Kununurra and
Halls Creek, the Argyll Diamond Mine, who's speciality is Pink Diamonds.
Halls Creek has a population of about 1500 and is a rough and ready place.
It has potential though. Around about the spinnafex and quartz outcrops give
the area an ethereal almost surreal beauty and there are several water
courses with quite good fishing. To the south-east are the townships of
Mullen and Balgo and the big Lake Gregory home of the Tjurabalan people.
Balgo is esteemed as a centre of aboriginal art but like many of the remote
settlements it has its fair share of substance abuse, sorry business and
social breakdown. Mostly peopled by indigenous Australians these towns
have a demographic which represents the sickest (unhealthiest) people in
Australia, despite huge amounts of money having been ploughed into
attempting to establish decent health services. The same problems
highlighted by the media about Wadeye/Port Keats could easily apply to all of
these towns too. The Health Centre Chris ran was modern, community
driven and did good work but much of the work force let the side down with
high rates of absenteeism and a lack of commitment. Halls Creek has the
highest rate of alcohol abuse in the Nation. Violence is a way of life. Yet,
there are also good things happening there with an active arts community
and genuine attempts to establish a Language Centre and Bush Tucker
Garden. Chris helped drive the Medical Centre and recruited a new Doctor
before handing over the reins of CEO to a local aboriginal woman which is
what both he and the community wanted.
The future can be good for the area. The ideal would be to divide
Australia into 3 economic zones, one centred on Darwin (the top third of the
continent), one centred on Alice Springs (the middle zone) and one centred
on Adelaide, or Melbourne (the bottom zone). To assist in the development of
the top third Darwin, Cairns and Broome should all be duty free entrepts, as
Singapore used to be. There would be good sense in this, further, a giant
solar farm could be established in the Top Third which could generate
Electricity for the rest of the Continent.
There have also been suggestions that water from this northern third
could be pumped to the dryer bottom 2/3rds. Development of the top third
could also provide a better standard of living for indigenous people as well as
employment opportunities. This is already occurring due to the Argyll
Diamond Mine. The media paints a sorry picture of life in the top end, but
there is light at the end of the Tunnel.




















Chapter 16

A Big Day Out

He was at a bit of a loose end having taken some time off. He had no
plans, he was a free agent, for the first time in a long time. He was going
down the highway and there was a hitch hiker. He picked her up asking her
if she had a friend, in a sort of German like accent she said,
Oh, a friend? and You think I have a friend hiding in the bush, yes,
some of them do that, don't they?
She got in the car, after loading in her back pack and introduced herself
as Pat and then settled into her seat, after he introduced himself , she
started to tell him all about herself and what she was doing or planning on
doing.
I have been working here in Tasmania, mainly fruit picking, I've been
living at Tasman Lodge for 3 months with a girlfriend, we are like, complete
opposites. But we seem to click
After a while they arrived at the Raspberry Farm caf, where they
climbed out the car into the bright sunshine and he took her through to take
in the view of the lake at the back of the caf, she adored it, was obviously
blown away with the magical atmosphere of the place, they took a table in
the sunlit corner away from the fire, where he usually liked to sit. They
ordered a coffee, she a Latte, (If you order a Latte in Italy, they bring you a
glass of Milk) and he a Long Black, they fell to talking again and she
explained she was from Sorrento, near Napoli - she was Italian, she had
been schooled at a Classical School and learnt Greek and Latin and
ancient history, she had studied the Greek writers, philosophers and poets
like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Euripides. She explained how she had
never learnt modern history, due to all of this learning of classical nor ancient
history, that she had not the best of teachers, a better teacher would have
taught her more and warmed her to the subject.
Her father had run a boat tour service and her mother was something
like a tour guide, hence her travel bug, she was planning to go through
Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and maybe India. But for now she was
off to Sydney to see friends on the North Shore, she had just been to Cradle
Mountain with a friend and camped in the car, which was frosty inside and
clear outside, she had been very cold.
She had three sisters, she was not the eldest, nor the youngest, her
father had wanted boys, but every time a girl was the result, he managed
them like a crew on a boat, perhaps a little strict. She spoke about her friends
and people she'd met from Fitzroy, Fitzroy Crossing in WA, he spoke of
Geike Gorge and explained where Fitzroy was in relationship to Hall's Creek,
he told her about the Tanami Desert and Wolfe's Creek and Purnululu, the
Bungle Bungles.

He watched her when driving gave him a chance, he was thinking about
turquoise, he was thinking about gold, he was thinking about her and wishing
there was more to this and then knowing there could be, maybe would be.
They drove into Launceston drove around it, he showed her the big
houses in Elphin Road, she had confided she didn't like Launceston and
hadn't been impressed by Cataract Gorge, and he told her he agreed with
her, but anyway, have a look see the big houses -
Oh, she said in her Italian come German accent,Yes, the houses are very
beautiful and I guess it is better than what I thought, I only hung around the
centre, so naturally, my view was distorted by doing that
Well explained Chris If you want to see the really good houses check out
Toorak in Melbourne.
He then showed her Perth, Longford and the drive back to Launceston
on the B road that passed the Salem Church built in 1840. There were also
some quite interesting farm houses along the way, some of them new, and
some of them old, she could hardly catch a glimpse, he was driving quickly
but they were running out of time. She spoke more about going out, her Dad
had been protective, creeping back into the house and maybe tripping over
something in the bathroom, or her sister hearing her and calling out her name
and then the old church clock bellowing out the time, midnight, she told him
there were many churches where she lived back in Sorrento, he got her to
tell him how her father chastised her when she was discovered returning late
at night, and then he got her to repeat it in Italian which she did and the
melodious lilt made him want her more whilst knowing right now that could
not, nay, should not be.

They resumed the trip to the airport, she had to catch a flight, they took
in the views and did a drive around the countryside near the airport to kill
some time, a picturesque area, very pretty with almost alternate lifestyle
houses, but not quite. They stopped at a T intersection, she was talking
about smoking, so he asked her what she smoked - Oh, mainly Pot - where
they stopped, she rolled a number and they smoked it, enjoying it and
savouring it, especially him they were talking about the bands, did he know
that Pearl Jam were coming in November? Yes he had heard a rumour
she would come back from Asia to see them, possibly, in Perth she liked
the track 'Alive. When she told him this, leaning against the car, she gave
him a look and whilst he had already suspected it, in the brief hours they
had been together, this was the cue, she liked him, and he, her they were
falling for one another despite the brief hours together. They got into the car
and she gave him the remains of the day and 1 and a bit cigarettes and a
couple of papers, he gave her his card and she gave him her email and he
gave her Edie Brickell's Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars because he
wanted her to have something to remember him by and he knew she'd like
the music. He drove her to the airport, slowly, and she checked in, and he hid
behind the tourist brochure stand, she walked out from the check-in, and
fiddled with her bags, as travellers do and he peeped around the corner,
savouring watching her, she probably thought he had gone, but then he
appeared from behind his cover and her eyes lit up he told her he was
thirsty she offered him a drink but he declined, preferring to buy his own,
assert his independence at this early stage of their new relationship. She
followed him to the caf, he was still a bit disorganised in his thinking from
the smoke had a thought block and then remembered his mission, to get a
drink, he excused himself whilst she admired the large airport photographs
hung above the promenade, and went and purchased a water. When he
came out she had found her seat and was stretching and yawning.
Tired? he questioned her when he had drawn up to where she was
sitting,
Oh, Yes, just a little, I got up early and went to bed late last night
Well, I hope you have a good trip I have to go now, but I'd really like
to stay and with that he made his motion to go, but tarried and she got up,
they were face to face she looked him straight in the eye he returned the
look and naturally raised his hand to her shoulder, she mimicked the move
and then they hugged, tentatively -and drew close, he whispered almost, in
her ear,
I really enjoyed today
And I did, too she replied, genuinely, they drew back, they didn't
kiss, though each wanted to, but knew the emotional strain wasn't worth the
short time investment but they had both reached an understanding she
reminded him to keep his mobile switched off, after an earlier discussion
about him being free that day and not wanting to be disturbed. He implored
her to email him, she said she would, he turned and walked away, knowing
they were already in love, the 52 year old and the 28 year old and they
would contact one another again because they had discovered they were
soul mates, though neither had complicated the relationship by alluding to it
verbally, though the body language was plain for both to see.

Afterwards, he thought about her, savouring the moments they had
spent together, the few hours he was smitten with her, aching for her
presence and her bright cheery conversation, her positive outlook, his
emotions had been stirred it wasn't the dreadlocks but more her eyes, her
green eyes and her face and her speech, the Italian way she spoke and her
absolute candour and her youth. He wasn't sure but she was somewhere
around 25-28 he'd really clicked with her on an intellectual level and he
found her very sweet. He wondered if she knew what a profound and deep
effect she had had on him and then he wondered, if it was so for him, was it
so for her? All he knew was that he wanted, very much, to see her again. He
even looked forward to maybe one day visiting Sorrento and, God willing, live
with her he had even joked with her about it.

FINIS