TREASURE 2 October 2014

Robyn Whiteley and John Collins travelling in England and Europe, 2013

Bruce Gillespie at Continuum X, 2014

Leigh Edmonds and Bruce Gillespie musing about music

and a cast of thousands: Doug Barbour :: Damien Broderick :: Ned Brooks :: Jennifer Bryce :: Stephen Campbell :: Peggyann Chevalier :: Giampaolo Cossato :: Leigh Edmonds :: Robert Elordieta :: Ros Gross :: Kim Huett :: Steve Jeffery :: Jerry Kaufman :: Werner Koopmann :: Dora Levakis :: John Litchen :: DJ Frederick Moe :: Gerald Murnane :: Cath Ortlieb :: Lloyd Penney :: Andy Robson :: Yvonne Rousseau :: Steve Sneyd :: Cat Sparks :: Joe Szabo :: Jean Weber :: Robyn Whiteley :: Casey Wolf :: Sally Yeoland

Cambridge punts (Robyn Whiteley) TREASURE No. 2 October 2014 76 pages

A fanzine published for the October 2014 mailing of ANZAPA and a few others The electronic version, available as a PDF file on http://efanzines.com. Edited and published by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC 3088. Phone: (03) 9435 7786. Email: [email protected]. Member fwa.

Contents

3 Editorial: Treasure Bruce Gillespie

5 A cascade of fans: Continuum X, Melbourne, June 2014 — Bruce Gillespie

16 Letters of comment Jennifer Bryce :: Ros Gross :: Yvonne Rousseau :: Robert Elordieta :: Werner Koopmann :: Dora Levakis :: Gerald Murnane :: Ned Brooks :: John Litchen :: Damien Broderick :: Sally Yeoland :: Steve Sneyd :: Jerry Kaufman :: Joe Szabo :: Casey Wolf :: Doug Barbour :: Steve Jeffery :: Giampaolo Cossato :: Stephen Campbell :: Lloyd Penney :: Andy Robson :: DJ Frederick Moe :: Peggyann Chevalier :: Kim Huett & We Also Heard From

30 Feature letters A conversation about music today (especially on ABC FM) — Leigh Edmonds and Bruce Gillespie

64 Have wheelchair, will travel: A travel diary, May–June 2013 — Robyn Whiteley

Illustrations

Front cover: ‘Cambridge punts’ (Photo: Robyn Whiteley). Photographs: Cat Sparks, Cath Ortlieb, Jean Weber, Robyn Whiteley, John Collins. Others as supplied by the authors of letters.

2 Treasure

The trouble with unearthing buried treasure of the mind repertory cinema during the 1970s and 1980s, but they kind is that first I need to unearth visible treasure of the became shorter and shorter as various projectionists cash kind. Treasure 2 is nine months late because of my sampled bits of them. These, like all of Tati’s movies, constant need to work (compiling indexes for book have been reconstructed for the Blu-ray set. They are publishers) to top up my other meagre sources of now complete and without all the scratches and blips that income. became so obvious in the prints I saw in the 1970s. Tati’s I had hoped Treasure 2 would appear in for the June fourth movie, Play Time (1967), has finally been re- mailing of ANZAPA. Instead I was hit by a deluge of mastered from the original 70 mm negative. When it interesting but time-consuming indexing jobs. I finished played in Melbourne in the 1960s, only the 35 mm print the most recent project two weeks ago. Since then I’ve was shown. (That was also the version used for the DVD been gathering my scattered wits and Treasure text and set of some years ago.) Play Time was Tati’s bankruptcy- photo files. inducing folly, for which he built an entire city set near I can’t afford to publish a print edition that is more Paris, so it is now wonderful to see his visionary urban than 80 pages long, but last time I looked, I found at least nightmare clearly for the first time. 110 pages of material that would fit nicely into a single I’ll save my Favourite Films list for the end of the year. issue. So here is the first of two issues. The top two are made by a man named Paolo Sorrentino. I will mention now, while it’s in Australian cinemas, the Spierig Brothers’ Predestination, based with satisfying Film treasure accuracy on Robert Heinlein’s 12-page time-paradox short story ‘All You Zombies’, and starring Ethan Hawke DVDs and Blu-rays were supposed to have vanished by and Sarah Snooks. Made in Australia, this has been now. If they had, I would have a larger bank account, picked up by Sony International, so could well appear since I don’t download film and music files. without warning in a cinema near you. Don’t miss it. Instead, if you are an astute film fan, such as Dick Snooks’ performance should give her an Oscar, if the Jenssen, you find obscure films released constantly in film is released in USA in time. Hawke is the only Ameri- glorious remastered prints from obscure labels. He can in the cast, but everybody speaks with an American orders them from overseas suppliers, whereas I still buy accent, and Melbourne has to stand in for New York and from local suppliers, such as Play Music, 50 Bourke Cleveland. I haven’t worked out the implications of the Street, Melbourne, and Readings Records and Books in uber-story that is draped over Heinlein’s kernel story, but Carlton. I’ve been able to see seemingly long-lost classics with it the scriptwriters have solved an inconsistency in such as Robert Wise’s magnificent 1963 black-and-white the original story. horror film The Haunting, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson; John Frankenheimer’s The Train, also from the early 1960s, in which Burt Lancaster, improbably cast as TV treasure a wartime railway worker, rescues the Nazi haul of French art and returns it to Paris; and Henry Hathaway’s rollick- That’s not an ironic heading. I watch few TV series, but ing North to Alaska (1960), in which John Wayne and I try to keep up with some of the major British shows. Cappucine hurtle around CinemaScoped Alaskan val- Sherlock (Series Three) is the most stimulating TV series leys and mountains. of the year, but the distance between these scripts and Another friend, John Davies, alerts me to previously anything written by Conan Doyle has now become im- unavailable British films that are being released by such mense. Irritating is the current British tendency to attach labels as BFI and Studio Canal. Thanks to him, I’ve been a cliffhanger ending at the end of a series, but Sherlock is able to see a remastered print of The Mouse That Roared, not unique in that. I remember an early series of Dalziel the one of several films in which Peter Sellers played and Pascoe, where Dalziel, seemingly obliterated by a multiple roles; and Carol Reed’s The Third Man, famous shotgun blast at the end of one series, is merely injured for Orson Welles’s ‘cuckoo clock’ speech, and distin- and feeling sorry for himself at the beginning of the next. guished by its black-and-white photography, as glorious The cliffhanger syndrome also spoils the end of the as in any in Orson Welles’s own films. end of Endeavour (Second Series), which is otherwise Recently I bought the new Studio Canal seven-Blu-ray very well written. I don’t believe for a moment that Shaun set of Jacques Tati’s movies. His Mon Oncle (1958) has Evans could be the younger Inspector Morse (John been one of my favourite movies since I first saw it in Thaw), but Roger Allam as his boss, DI Thursday, gives 1965, but it has been difficult to gain access to his other an down-to-earth gravity to his role. Thanks, as always, to movies. His first two feature films, Jour de Fete and Mon- Dick Jenssen, for enabling me Endeavour — and the two sieur Hulot’s Holiday, were very popular at the Valhalla series of The Bletchley Circle. Four women who were clever

3 enough to have worked at Bletchley Park in Britain as and mystery authors I used to enjoy, but I’m looking code breakers during World War II find themselves foreward to catching up with Robotham’s novels. He is bored by ordinary existence after the war. When they no great stylist, but his novels are readable and full of meet ten years later, they solve crimes not even noticed memorable plot ideas. His latest novel, Life or Death, is his by other people. first novel set in USA and aimed at the American market. This year we finally saw the Second Series of The Buy it if you see it. Doctor Blake Mysteries, made right in Ballarat and starring a swag of Australian actors, on ABC TV, but with no guarantee of a third series. Many of the more interesting Music treasure background character involvements of the first series are allowed to rest this time, but individual episodes have On the one hand, I could say ‘more of the same’, and been very enjoyable. In Australia, we do ten episodes to you would know what I mean if you read my annual lists a series, not a measly three or four eps, as they do in of favourite CDs. Again I have bought more CDs than I Britain. can listen to. The best of the popular CDs range from Willie Nel- son’s best CD for awhile, Band of Brothers, to the second Book treasure CD by Swedish singing double First Aid Kit (Stay Gold) with their divine floating harmonies, to dark-voiced Mary This year I was supposed to give a talk to the Nova Mob, Gauthier’s great new set of songs Trouble and Love. Melbourne’s discussion group. I wasn’t quite sure of my However, the real treasures can be found among the subject matter or the books I would be covering, and classical boxed sets. If you don’t buy classical music CDs, until well into the year Julian Warner, our Bossa Nova, you won’t have noticed the huge range and number of could not give me a specific month when I might speak. these sets as they litter the shelves of stores such as Not that it mattered. I didn’t have time to write a talk this Thomas’s and Reading’s. However, if you want to start a year, and in the end I escaped from having to improvise. basic collection, now’s the time. As part of these boxes, August would have been my month, but the meeting was individual CDs rarely cost more than $2 or $3 . cancelled because many of the Mob were winging their What’s the problem with the boxed sets? It’s not way to sunny London for LonCon, this year’s SF World buying them. But when do I find the time to listen to them? Convention. (170 Australians attended.) I started writing I’m so far behind in sipping even the tastiest of these sets up the material I have researched. But shouldn’t it be in that I’ve stopped buying them (although various stores SF Commentary? In the next issue, the one you’ve been are currently offering 50 per cent discounts on many of waiting for all year. them). The sets I did buy this year provide valuable My subject is ‘Genre Barriers Work Both Ways’. (1) historical records of entire careers. They include Her- Why do some literary authors write books that are obvi- bert Von Karajan’s 1960s recordings for Deutsche Gram- ously genre fantasy or SF, but few people in the SF world mophon (recently challenged by a huge number of know about them? (2) Why do some people write books smaller boxed sets of his work for EMI), remastered in a that are obviously major literature, worthy of the Miles big big box that sits awkwardly on the shelf. This has been Franklin or Man Booker Awards, but their books are followed by the first set of Leonard Bernstein’s record- known only to SF and fantasy readers? ings for DG, although not yet the vast number of record- To follow Proposition (1) I suggest reading the novels ings he made for Columbia/Sony. and short stories of such Americans as Steven Millhauser Even better is the recent box of Bruno Walter’s re- (We Others: New and Selected Stories), Karen Russell (St cordings with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra for Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Vampires in the Lemon Columbia/Sony. During the last years before his death Grove, and Swamplandia!), some of the work of Jennifer in his early 80s, Walter recorded many of his favourite Egan (Look at Me and The Keep), and at least four novels works in stereo for the first time. Many of these versions, by Canada’s Margaret Atwood (especially The Hand- such as that of Mahler’s Symphony No 2, are among the maid’s Tale). To follow Proposition (2), read some of my great recordings of the twentieth century. favourite Australian writers, such as Angela Slatter (Sour- Dick Jenssen has been generous in sending us various dough and Other Stories), Kaaron Warren (Dead Sea Fruit), opera and symphony Blu-rays, but recently he overdid and Cat Sparks (The Bride Price); and a book I read by himself. He sent us not only the new Simon Rattle/Berlin America’s Elizabeth Hand (Errantry). Philharmonic recordings of the Schumann symphonies, Among the other enjoyable books I read this year, the but also the other recent Blu-ray Schumann set, re- standouts include the first two novels by Australia’s corded by Paavo Jarvi with the German Chamber Phil- Thomas Keneally. I have no idea why he suppressed harmonic Bremen. Both sets include documentaries republication of his first novel The Place at Whitton for 50 about the music, which is presented in 24-bit sound. years. It’s an excellent crime novel of place and character, seemingly ideal for conversion into a 2014-style Thanks very much to Robyn Whiteley for her wonderful atmospheric tele-movie. His second novel, The Fear, is just travel diary, various treasure-seeking letter writers, and as accomplished as his first, and much more enjoyable the oganisers of this year’s Continuum in Melbourne. than some of his later novels. My other discovery of the year is Australia’s Michael Robotham. I had become annoyed by most of the crime For more treasure ... just read on ...

4 Bruce Gillespie A cascade of fans: Continuum X, Melbourne, June 2014

A man approached me at Continuum X, this year’s Friday, 6 June 2014 national convention held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Melbourne, 6–9 June. Jolly round face, smiling. In his fifties. Did I know him? ‘Hello, Bruce,’ he said, and From the time I arrived, this year’s Continuum gave me handed me a book. Could it be? No! Impossible! His the feeling that it would be a great success. A convention name tag said, ‘Van.’ spread out around an atrium layout will usually be a Van Ikin! We haven’t held a conversation since 1981, success (especially Aussiecon 3 in 1999). This year the at the Canberra SF Conference, and haven’t spoken to registration area at the top of the stairs faced down a U each other since 1985, when we were briefly in a room shape. The dealers’ room and one meeting room ran together before Van disappeared into the bowels of along one side of the U, and the other three meeting Aussiecon 2. rooms down the other side. The atrium of the Intercon- Van gave me a copy of Xeno Fiction, the second volume tinental convention facility looked rather like the of articles, edited by Damien Broderick and Van Ikin, interior of the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles: all from Van’s long-running journal Science Fiction, and pub- wood panelling, black metal, and verandas. (The build- lished by the Borgo Press. The book contains an essay by ing must have been either a warehouse or apartments George Turner about Peter Carey. Since I am George before being turned into a hotel.) From the registration– Turner’s literary executor, it’s very nice to have that essay assembly area, you could look down the whole length of available again. the bar and restaurant. You could always see somebody There were so many questions I wanted to ask Van, you knew, as well as a whole lot of people you’d never but he was snatched away from me by Gillian Polack. Van met before. was the supervisor for her PhD, but this was the first time I arrived early on Friday, 6 June, for the very first event she had been able to meet him. Before he disappeared of the convention: the special Nova Mob meeting. Our back into the crowd, I did find out from Van that he is regular meeting should have been on the Wednesday semi- retired, and has four issues of Science Fiction ready night, but it had been arranged that DUFF (Down Under for completion. I didn’t even have time to ask him about Fan Fund) winner Juanita Coulson should be the his current home address. But meeting him gave an speaker. She did not arrive from New Zealand until immediate emotional lift to the convention. Thursday. I had met Juanita most recently in October 1973, when I was traipsing around USA. Sandra and John Miesel had taken me to visit Buck and Juanita outside of Indianapolis. They were best known as publishers of the great fanzine Yandro. Buck died of diabetes-related illness some years ago, and that was long after Yandro had ceased publication. I knew that Juanita had become famous for her filk singing, but otherwise I knew little about what she had been doing recently in fandom. A few months ago John Hertz, the US DUFF organiser, gave me the chance to support her nomination for this year’s DUFF race, which she won. All I knew about Juanita now is that she is 81 years old and that she sings well. She also speaks very well — for three-quarters of an hour, without notes, without an ‘um’ or ‘er’ or ‘y’know’, about how she joined fandom, how she met Buck and married him, the story of the genesis of Yandro, and much else of what she has been doing. A great start to the convention, especially because we Van Ikin and Janeen Webb. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) drew a good audience, which swelled during the hour. By the time we emerged, the registration area was buzz-

5 Looking up from the atrium of the Intercontinental Hotel. (Photo: Cat Sparks.)

Lower ground floor bar of the Intercontinental Hotel — where all fans gathered. (Photo: Cat Sparks.)

6 poet I had never seen before, launched The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, edited by P. S. Cottier and ... Tim Jones!. I hadn’t recognised Tim until that moment. We had last met during the 1994 national convention, held at the Southern Cross Hotel in Mel- bourne, when he and I were Fan Guests of Honour. Since then Tim, a New Zealander, has almost disappeared from world fandom, and has become a writer and editor of poetry and fiction. The Stars Like Sand is follow-up project to Voyagers, Tim’s (and Mark Pirie’s) earlier anthology of New Zealand speculative poetry. Penelope Cottier, Tim’s co-editor for Stars Like Sand, proved to be a forceful poet and speaker, also well aware of the width and depth of poetry that might be called ‘speculative’. If only I had not already been standing for half an hour, I might have better enjoyed the readings from Stars Like Sand. My impression is that you cannot be considered a poet these days unless you can perform your own work convincingly to an audience. Every offering seemed fine to me on the night, but Jenny Blackford’s ‘Their Cold Eyes Pierced My Skin’ was a crowd pleaser. It was the only poem that told a gripping story as well as being an effective lyric, and Jenny’s delivery held us until the ending. Somewhat more enigmatic, but also very power- ful, was Philip Salom’s ‘Detached and in the Manner of a Veterinarian’, Alex Skovron’s ‘The Road to Hell’, and Lisa Jacobson’s ‘Several Ways to Fall Out of the Sky’. I talked briefly to Tim, and hoped I would catch up Juanita Coulson, the 2014 DUFF winner. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) with him the next day at the convention. I dashed off to Ciao in Hardware Lane to meet the usual Friday night ing and the first program items had started. Gathering crew for a quick dinner, then yet another walk in the cold at the bar, I kept catching up with people, letting them back to the convention for the panel I had promised Bill go, moving on. Suddenly I was supposed to be elsewhere Wright I would attend: the Fan Funds Panel. At other in the city by 6 p.m. recent Australian conventions I’ve been to, attendances at fan fund panels have been minuscule at best. This time Jenny Blackford, down from Newcastle with her husband Alison Barton put together a jolly group of fan fund Russell, had invited me to attend the launch of a collec- winners, such as Bill Wright (last year’s DUFF winner), tion of speculative poetry, The Stars Like Sand, which Norman Cates (FFANZ winner a few years ago), Juanita included a poem of hers. The launch was at Collected Coulson (this year’s DUFF winner), and Matt Lindus Works, the last great old-fashioned bookshop, tucked (NAFF winner, over from Western Australia). She asked away on the first floor of the Nicholas Building, 37 Swans- the panel members to tell scandalous and astonishing ton Street. I hadn’t been there for many years, but it stories about their various journeys, but most of them remains the same as I remember it: walls of poetry books, emphasised the niceness of their hosts and the delightful with lots of posters and special offers pinned to the shelves, plus many other types of books that have disappeared from elsewhere in the city. Shop owner Kris Hemensley was holding court at the front of the shop, just as I remember him when Collected Works was in Smith Street, Fitzroy, in the 1970s. The place was filled with poets and others, and some people I recognised, such as Alex Skovron (although I did not get to talk to him), plus some of Us (including Sean Williams from Adelaide, Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie from Sydney, and the Blackfords from Newcastle). Alan Stewart has a poem in the collection, but says he was not invited to the launch. I found myself standing in one spot, and standing ... and standing ... while two books were launched that night. First was Gemma White, whose poems in The Furniture Is Disappearing have a speculative and mischie- vous feeling. She read well, but perhaps too long, from a wide selective of poems that were both poignant and Jenny and Russell Blackford. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) sharp. Finally, Philip Salom, a well-known Melbourne

7 My main purpose in attending the Saturday sessions of the convention was to bankrupt myself. I had started the literary-led downward path toward poverty the previous night. Collected Works was so filled with unsuspected literary riches that I grabbed a few books by my favourite poets (such as Geoff Page, Kevin Hart, and Barry Hill), as well as Jenny Blackford’s wonderful little book of cat poems. I blanched when I saw my VisaCard bill, and stopped spending there. I will return to Collected Works when safe to do so. The dealers’ room of the convention offered no safety. All the major Australian small press publishers were there, or had sent stocks. Stephen McCracken and Gerry Huntman were sitting side by side, selling books published by IFWG Publishing. I had never heard of them. I had never heard of their authors. They said they had begun as the Australian agent of an American small publisher, and now were publishing Australian authors. I bought a collection, Starquake 1, that included contributions from all their authors. On the desk of Satalyte Publishers, I did recognise the names of quite a few of the authors, including Janeen Webb, Adam Browne, and Jack Dann. Satalyte has just republished Jack Dann’s Jubilee short fiction collection. I nearly bought the magnificent hardback edition (although I have the HarperCollins first edition) until I saw the price: $60. Who are Satalyte? Stephen Ormsby and his wife Marieke (and very new baby). Stephen explained that they have been publishing for seven months, and have aspects of winning a fan fund journey. Most of the people already issued a tableful of books. Such is the wonder of in the audience had won fan funds in the past or had producing books by Print on Demand technology. No help organised fan fund contests. more garages full of unsold copies (à la Norstrilia Press, in our heyday). No more capital costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. Print a few copies initially, then Saturday, 7 June 2014 keep printing as each book attracts customers. It’s almost enough to make me want to revive Norstrilia Press — but My first hour of the convention on Saturday 7 June felt not quite. How did Satalyte make itself known among like a re-run of the night before. Both Tim Jones and Australian authors? I have no idea. How do the Ormsbys Penelope Cottier appeared on a panel about speculative poetry, along with Sean Wright, somebody I thought I had met for the first time the day before, and who was still a mystery to me. (It turns out he does podcasts and blogs, rather successfully, but I’ve never listened to any podcasts and rarely read blogs.) Tim and Penelope re- peated some of what they had said the night before, but the discussion went onto to discuss the nuts and bolts of placing their work. ‘Selling’ seems too strong a word, since payment for poems rarely exceeds $40, and I would have thought many poetry magazines publish in the same way as fanzines. There are a few top markets in Australia, especially the literary magazines, but it was not clear whether they were interested in speculative poetry, or whether they paid any more than the tiny magazines. I did get to talk to Tim Jones, however, for the first time in 20 years, then went to the launch by FableCroft Publishing of a new novel by Jo Anderton. Jo has won Ditmars in the past, and probably some Aurealis Awards as well, but I did not get a clear impression of her special interests. I own her most recent book of short stories, so much catch up. Cat Sparks and Sean Wright. (Photo: Cat Sparks.)

8 of steampunk stories by Australian writers. It seems that Russell and Liz do not send out review copies. Twelfth Planet books I bought included Kirstyn McDermott’s new collection Caution: Contains Small Parts, which contained a story that won a prize later in the convention, and Rosaleen Love’s Secret Lives of Books. If Rosaleen was around, I did not see her, but I did say hello, once, to Kirstyn. (Kirstyn and her husband Jason Nahrung were members of our Fourth Thursday dinner group until the went to live in Ballarat.) I was also able to buy Rupetta, by N. K. Sulway (which had already won the James Tiptree Jr Award in America). I already knew she was going to win the Norma Hemming Jo Anderton and her publisher, Tehani Wessely (Fablecroft Award the next night at the awards ceremony. Better dig Publishing). (Photo: Cat Sparks.) into the wallet before all the copies are sold out. I did not know that Rob Hood’s new novel was going to win alert customers to their books? I have no idea. In the the Ditmar for Best Novel, so I missed out on a copy. world of the Internet, there seems to be no centre of information for our field. Showing up at Continuum was a good idea for Sata- lyte. Stephen was all over the convention, on panels and organising book launches. On Monday, I attended the launch of LynC’s first novel, Nil By Mouth (Satalyte), but I didn’t have to buy a copy. She had already given me a signed copy! Thanks, Lyn. Peggy Bright Books is a publisher I had heard of, thanks to the efforts of Edwina Harvey in Sydney and Sue Burstzynski in Melbourne. From their table I bought two anthologies edited by Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie. Again, I have no idea how Peggy Bright mounts a selling campaign or finds a distributor, as Norstrilia Press did in the seventies and eighties. Justin Ackroyd’s Slow Glass Books tables were the selling point for a number of the independent publishers you might have heard of, such as Ticonderoga Pub- lications and Twelfth Planet from Western Australia. I caught up with Russell Farr, co-publisher at Ticon- George Ivanoff launches LynC’s first novel,Nil By Mouth. deroga, for a conversation for the first time in many Stephen Ormsby (Satalyte Publishers) is on far right. conventions, but have yet to natter to his partner Liz (Photo: Jean Weber.) Grzyb, who copy-edits all their books and publishes her own collections. Until the convention I had not been Of the books I bought on Saturday, the book I am able to buy a copy of the third annual collection of The most looking forward to reading is the new Gollancz Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror (edited by Liz, Fantasy Masterworks edition of the complete Lord Darcy with Talie Helene) or Kisses by Clockwork, Liz’s collection stories, by Randall Garrett. When I began buying Analog in the mid sixties, these stories were appearing there. Now at last they are in one thumping big volume. I haven’t dared add up the total damage inflicted on my VisaCard by that hour in the dealers’ room. For the only time that weekend I was pleased that Continuum happens only once a year.

Sunday, 8 June

Sunday afternoon began at 2.30 with an event about which I can say little, because it was organised by David Russell for a few of us at the other end of town from the Intercontinental. David saves all year to take out a few friends every year to some otherwise unaffordable restaurant. This year he took us to High Tea at the Windsor. This very Melbourne event is highly recommended, but Rob Hood and Jack Dann. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) you need to book a long while ahead to gain a table at

9 when he was working at McGill’s Newsagency in the city, the library has become very large, built on donations and review copies. When the Club was forced to move from its rooms at St David’s Uniting Church late last year, the library (the main attraction of club membership, at least for new members) had to go into storage until new rooms can be found where the library can be rebuilt. This has not happened yet. Trevor Clark has a huge collection of what he calls ‘stuff’, but which includes special interest comics, especially from the 1950s in Australia, when most comic books issued here were reprints of American comics. American publications could not be imported because of wartime currency restrictions, which lasted until 1959. Pauline Dickinson, Justin Ackroyd, Cath Ortlieb (Photo: Cath Trev can talk for an hour about comics and make it seem Ortlieb.) like ten minutes. As panel moderator, wanted to explore people’s in- vestments in their collections, their emotional invest- ment as much as financial, but Grant and Pauline concentrated on hard information about the nuts and bolts of curating and preserving collections. It’s a high- stakes business. I realised all over again that a collection is only as good as its curator, which is why Bill Wright and some of us have been interested in establishing Meteor Inc. as a freestanding library of SF collections for fans and collectors. Despite assurances by Grant and Pauline that their own libraries will continue their good work after they are gone, I was left wondering if that could be so. Nothing was decided by the panellists or members of the audience. None of us know what will happen to our collections after we die. However, Grant and Pauline did describe in some detail why the specialist libraries in Australia (including that at Monash) need to know what Liz Grzyb and Russell Farr, Ticonderoga Publications. (Photo: people are collecting, so that collections can go to the Cat Sparks.) right place. For instance, it was reassuring to know that the Murdoch University collection is still seeking fanzine the High Tea of High Teas on Sunday afternoons. Many collections, especially from the pre-1970s era of Austra- thanks, David. lian fandom. Eventually we staggered onto a tram and returned to I had chosen the right panellists. We could have kept the convention. At 6 p.m. it was time for My Own Con- talking for another hour. However, we and members of vention Event, the panel on ‘Collections’ that I was asked the audience had to attend the awards night. to coordinate. I had emailed a variety of people, most of whom I thought were unlikely to attend the convention The emotional centre of most conventions is the awards — but they turned up anyway. ceremony. Some Continuums stage their awards night It was the first time since Aussiecon 4 I had had time on the Friday of the convention. For those of us lucky to talk to Grant Stone. He had been the Special Collec- enough to be nominated for something or other, it’s a tions Librarian at Murdoch University until involuntarily great relief to have the awards out of the way, whether retired a few years ago, but since then has had a wonder- we are winners or not. ful job cataloguing and curating a huge private collec- Traditionally, Australian national conventions stage tion of SF books. Grant radiates enthusiasm whenever we the awards ceremony on the Sunday, as the climax of meet, but is often hard to raise by email. I still don’t have events, before people disappear gradually on the Mon- his home address. day of the long weekend. Tradition won this year. 8 p.m. I see Pauline Dickinson quite often at Continuums Sunday: everybody turned up scrubbed up and ready to (Continua?) and other Melbourne conventions, but had put on a show. The awards committee put on a feast of not had the opportunity until Sunday to ask her what she egoboo for those lucky enough to have their year’s is doing these days. She says she is semi-retired from the efforts rewarded and egos boosted. George Ivanoff and Special Collections section of the Fisher Library in Syd- Narelle Harris took over the role of MCs from the usual ney, but she still sounds busy to me. jokesters Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond. (No Ian James ‘Jocko’ Allen has his own personal collection Mond! Whatever is Continuum coming to? I saw him at home, but he is more famous as the long-time librarian only once, very briefly, on Saturday afternoon.) of the Melbourne SF Club’s library, now in storage. As President of the Australian SF Foundation, I had Established by Merv Binns during the fifties and sixties been consulted about several of the awards. The awards

10 Since Grant Watson, the only other con- tender apart from No Award, has made himself a popular member of Victorian fandom since he migrated from Western Australia a few years ago, I thought he would be a shoo-in. But no! Some voters had remembered that SF Commentary still exists after 45 years of publication. I was so astonished at winning that I said ‘Thank you!’ and sat down. I wish I had thought of something intelligent to say. Other winners were: G Best Artwork: Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan (Hachette Australia) The right-hand side of the Collections panel: Pauline G Dickinson, Bruce Gillespie, Grant Stone. (Photo: Cath Ortlieb.) Best Achievement: Gamers’ Rebellion book trailer by To their left (invisible): Trevor Clark and James ‘Jocko’ Allen. Henry Gibbens.

To me the most important awards of the night were the two lifetime achievement awards (the Chandler Award and the Peter MacNamara Award), the Norma Hem- ming Award, and the Amateur SF Competition. We at the Australian SF Foundation was heavily involved in three of these awards, with Bill Wright putting in a huge amount of effort into the Chandler and Hemming Awards, and Rose Mitchell organising the Amateur SF Competition. Bill Wright had spent weeks of effort into organising the A. Bertram Chandler for Lifetime Achievement, and the Norma Hemming Award. He commissioned gorgeous trophies, plinths, and citation awards to give to each winner.

The Norma K. Hemming Award is awarded each year ‘for excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, Book collectors all!: Bruce Gillespie, Grant Stone, Helena Binns, sexuality, class and disability in Australian speculative Merv Binns. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) fiction’. The judges gave the main prize to N. A. Sulway for her speculative fiction novel Rupetta, published by committee told us: If you are a presenter, get it over Tartarus Press (UK) in February 2013. quick! If you’re awarded something, don’t waffle. The judges (Russell Blackford, Sarah Endacott, Tess Williams, and Rob Gerrand) had sorted through 29 Danny Oz (or Danny Heap, as we have known him for submitted novels. The Honourable Mentions were: most of his fannish career) established the Chronos G Catherine Jinks for her novel A Very Unusual Pursuit: Awards to be given out each year at Continuums for City of Orphans (Allen & Unwin) achievements of Victorians in the various Ditmar-like G Kirstyn McDermott for her short story collection categories. The Western Australian fans have been giving Caution: Contains Small Parts (Twelfth Planet Press). out the Tin Ducks for many years at Swancons, so why The judges commented on the winning novel: ‘In not a Victorian equivalent? Rupetta, N. A. Sulway tells a passionate story about his- Which is okay when Victorian fans show a vital interest tory, truth, power, sexuality, and love. From its opening in their own SF writers and fans, or know who they are. pages, the novel is a joy to read — written with remark- This year there were few nominations in most categories, able craft and authority. It is likely to become a classic of and the only hotly contested category was Best Long Australian speculative fiction, and it confirms that Sul- Fiction. George Ivanoff won with his novel Gamers’ Rebel- way is a major talent.’ As in previous years, the judges had lion (Ford Street Publishing). unearthed a novel written by an Australian author few of This was rather a relief to George, because in a pre- us had heard of. vious category (Best Short Fiction) he had become the only person I can remember who has ever lost out to ‘No For many years, the Foundation has offered a total of Award’. This caused some delightful banter from Narelle $500 to the national convention to distribute as they saw Harris about finally giving an award, after thousands of fit for an Amateur SF Competition. This year Rose failures, to No Award, who had been lying on a beach in Mitchell took charge of the award, presenting the Barcelona all these years waiting for the good news. cheques on the night. They went to: My surprise moment for the convention: my name G First Prize: Lauren Mitchell was read out as a nominee for Best Fan Publication in G Second Prize: Vanessa Kuipers Any Medium. I had forgotten that I had been nominated. G Third Prize: Cameron Burnet.

11 I hadn’t Warner. The recipient was Garth Nix, one of Australia’s heard of any of most successful fantasy authors. He wasn’t there on the these writers un- night, having just returned from overseas. Justin Ack- til now. It will be royd, who accepted the award on his behalf, whipped out interesting to his mobile phone (as you do), phoned Garth at home, look at this list in and told him the news. Garth could hear the cheers from 10 years’ time to our end. We could hear him being gobsmacked at the see how many of other end. them become Ditmar and Were the Ditmar Awards a bit of an anticlimax to the Aurealis win- evening? They could have been if the other awards had ners. taken too long, but they hadn’t. No Oscars Ceremony exhaustion here. The two lifetime Each category in the Ditmar Awards (Australian SF achievement Achievement Awards) was much more hotly contested awards provide than each of the Chronos Awards. The Ditmars have the emotional been run by their own interstate internet committee climax of the during recent years. The committee publicises the nomi- night’s proceed- nations and awards process widely. Too bad I had hardly ings because heard of any of the nominees. But I attend conventions their winners these days to try to find out who people are. are given no The winners: warning of what G Best Novel: Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Un- is about to hap- dead, Robert Hood (Wildside Press) pen to them. G Best Novella or Novelette: ‘The Home for Broken Over the last Dolls’, Kirstyn McDermott, in Caution: Contains 25 years, the A. Bertram Chandler Award for Lifetime Small Parts (Twelfth Planet Press) Achievement in Australian SF has covered a wide range G Best Short Story: ‘Scarp’, Cat Sparks, in The Bride of recipients — from people who have been active mainly Price (Ticonderoga Publications) in fandom rather than in professional publishing (such G Best Collected Work: The Bride Price, Cat Sparks, as me) to people who are known mainly for their writing edited by Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publica- and publishing but who also enjoy and take part in tions) fandom (such as Lucy Sussex or Jack Dann). It is wonderful if the winner can be in the audience on the night, Kathleen Jennings. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) to be gobsmacked when his or her name is read out. This year Danny Danger Oz, this year’s winner, offered the most wonderful gobsmacking performance as James ‘Jocko’ Allen (Danny’s old friend, who wrote the citation) announced his name. Readers of my magazines might remember the name ‘Danny Heap’. This is the same person who now calls himself Danny Danger Oz (see later in this article). In the last 30 years he has resurrected the Melbourne SF Club in the 1990s from near extinction in the late 1980s, and has set up the permanent floating Continuum committee that for the last 10 years has given reality to Danny’s dream. Western Australian fans owe as much to Danny as we do, and I did not know about those activities until Jocko wrote the citation (which you can find on the Australian SF Foun- dation website). The Peter MacNamara Award was put together about 15 years ago by a group of people in tribute to the inspirational publisher and writer, who snatched up the small press publishing baton (as Aphelion Books) after Norstrilia Press and Cory & Collins dropped it in 1985, then handed it on the plethora of new small press people who began publishing in the early 1990s. He died in 2004. Like the Chandler Award, it is for lifetime achievement in Australian SF. Recipients of the Peter Mac Award (as it is called) have tended to come from a generation later than most Chandler awardees. Today Mariann Mac- Namara administers the award, in consultation with one other person each year. This year’s co-judge was Julian

12 G Best Artwork: Rules of Summer, Shaun Tan (Hachette Australia) G Best Fan Writer: Sean Wright, for body of work, including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut G Best Fan Artist: Kathleen Jennings, for body of work, including Illustration Friday G Best Fan Publication in Any Medium: Ga- lactic Chat Podcast, Sean Wright, Alex Pierce, Helen Stubbs, David McDonald, and Mark Webb G Best New Talent: Zena Shapter G William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review (tie): Galactic Suburbia Episode 87: Saga Spoilerific Book Club, Alisa Kras- nostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts; and The Reviewing New Who series, David Alan Baxter, Alex Pierce, David McDonald. (Photo: Cat Sparks.) McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wes- sely. nett and Angela Slatter; Ticonderoga Publications) is a A nice mixture of people I know well, and people I’d special favourite of mine. I’m not sure what Illustration never heard of. Friday is, but I assume it is a website. Rob Hood I’ve met a number of times, but mainly The downer of the evening (but only for me): SF when accompanied by his partner Cat Sparks. I knew that Commentary was beaten by a podcast, Galactic Chat. Not he wrote fiction, but have not read any of it. I could have that my loss was a surprise; if you place podcasts and bought his book Fragments of a Broken Land in the dealers’ websites in the same category as real fanzines, how can room before awards night, but hadn’t, so I’ve missed out there be any true comparisons? I must catch up with on a copy. Galactic Chat. Cat Sparks has been doing many things over the years, As for the other awards ... I have no idea who Zena including running her own small press, Agog, writing Shapter is, but somebody must have noticed that she is stories I like very much, being fiction editor for Cosmos Best New Talent. magazine, and taking photos of people at conventions. And as the person who began the William Atheling It’s a treat to have her best stories finally gathered in The Awards in 1976, I assert that although several of the Bride Price, and to have one of those stories also win a pieces nominated this year (especially an essay by Leigh Ditmar. Blackmore) fit the original criteria of the award, the two In 2010 Shaun Tan won many literary prizes, as well winners do not. Consider this an ongoing grump, long as an Academy Award and a Hugo Award, mainly for his ignored by Those In Charge Out There. astonishing graphic novel The Visitor. Several books later, he has gainedkudos for his less ambitious but still vision- After the awards, the back-slapping (and thanks to the ary Rules of Summer. It’s a pity Shaun could not be at the many people who offered me congratulations, either at convention to pick up his award. the convention or on Facebook) and the drinks at the I thought I had never met Sean Wright before Con- bar (open to midnight on a Sunday night), and the long tinuum this year. (It turns out I was wrong. He remem- ride home on the train. bers talking to me two years ago.) On Sunday night I was still not sure what he does, but he is a very pleasant bloke, and took the trouble to catch up with me. He writes his own blog, for which he gained the Ditmar as Best Fan Kirstyn McDermott, Jason Nahrung, and Rosaleen Love. (Photo: Writer, and organises a podcast, for which he and his Cat Sparks.) friends Alex Pierce, Helen Stubbs, David McDonald, and Mark Webb gained the Ditmar for Best Fan Publication. I hope he sends some articles to SF Commentary one day. It was good to catch up with Alex Pierce, who also runs a reviews blog, and who beat me for Best Fan Writer a few years ago. She has reviewed Steam Engine Time for the AsIf website. Perhaps the most talented person to emerge recently in Australia has been Kath- leen Jennings. I saw her reading her fiction at Conflux several years ago, but since then she has become more famous for her accomplished artwork, especially book covers. Her cover for Midnight and Moonshine (Lisa L. Han-

13 Monday, 10 June 2014 every person should also aim to be ‘a little weird’. Weird things have been happening to Danny all his life. He presses the limits of any situation. Weird things I expected that the final day of the convention would be lead to great achievements, of course, but Danny has also a bit of a letdown, but I still kept meeting people I had been struck down by negative weirdness. Some years ago not seen before at the convention. It was great to catch he suffered from a rare condition that affected his whole up with Nalini Haynes and her husband Stephen. This body with a slow stroke. Many people thought he would year, Nalini’s Dark Matter website was also beaten in the not survive, or probably not walk again. A year later, he race for the Ditmar for Best Fan Publication, but Nalini turned up at conventions supported by a cane, still did pick up the award last year. We shared a long rave at looking subdued. These days he sometimes needs a cane, the bar about the vicissitudes of reviewing, obtaining but on Monday afternoon he was prancing around the review copies, public transport to outer suburbs, and stage in full flight. much else besides. Sharon and he told of the night when Danny forgot I enjoyed George Ivanoff’s launch of LynC’s Nil By who Sharon was. He had been to a party (I assume Mouth, but, as I’ve written already, Lyn had been kind sometime after the onset of his medical condition), enough to offer me a signed copy on the first day of the drank too much, stayed up too late, arrived home ... and convention. could not figure out who was this beautiful girl was who The most entertaining hour of the convention was my was inviting him to bed! In the morning, he woke up, last: the Guests of Honour speech by Danny Oz and and fortunately remembered who Sharon was. Sharon Moseley. Bear in mind that Danny had won the The stories kept coming. The story of how Sharon and Chandler Award the night before, and he and Sharon Danny fell in love is so wonderfully fannish, so romantic were child-free for a few days. They were both tired, of yet unsoppy, that you must ask them to tell you the story course, but on a high. Sharon claimed to be the person when next you meet them. Perhaps our friend Dick who would not speak, but her promptings kept sending Jenssen is the only other person who could find romance Danny off into a very funny and insightful harangue that in the Fibonacci table. told me much more about them than I’ve discovered in the twenty or more years I’ve known them. It was a great convention, one of the best I’ve attended. Why did Danny change his name? He was adopted, I had almost given up on attending conventions, having and his adoptive parents were called Heap. Their grand- dropped in only a few program items of recent Continu- father had changed his name from Heiptz on the verge ums. The venue had much to do with the feeling of of World War I. (In the same year many towns in South excitement around the place, because you could see Australia changed their names from the original Ger- everybody cascading around you. Most people’s only man to an English equivalent.) Endless gormless name- complaint about the Intercontinental were the bar and plays on ‘Heap’ afflicted Danny from childhood on. restaurant prices. I had never before paid $5.50 for a cup Eventually, he exploded when somebody who wrote a of coffee, and those who drink such things were paying sympathetic article about him could not resist a final $19 for a cocktail. In exchange, the staff gave us their full stroke — wishing him ‘heaps of luck’. attention and kept the bar open. (Everybody shudder as What should he choose as a new name? Originally, he we remember the problems with Rydge’s in Carlton a few thought of ‘Danny Australia’, because of his gratitude to years before.) The convention committee did a superb this country for everything it has given him. It sounded job. People turned up for the program items. too corny. A friend suggested ‘Danny Oz’. Danny added What more could one want? Another Ditmar Award several more middle names, including ‘Danger’, so he for Ditmar — Dick (Ditmar) Jenssen, after whom the could tell people that ‘Danger is my middle name’. awards are named, and who was nominated this year for Danny is that sort of bloke — always friendly and Best Fan Artist. sympathetic and creative, but he offers that little extra: a sense of danger. He delivered a wonderful rave-up — Bruce Gillespie, June 2014 sermon about the value of every person’s life, and how every person is better than her or his self-image. And

14 Guests of Honour Danny Danger Oz and Sharon Moseley. Danny also won the A. Bertram Chandler Award in 2014. (Photo: Cath Ortlieb.)

Danny’s Guest of Honour rant: Danny in rapid motion. (Photo: Cath Ortlieb.)

15 Letters of comment

JENNIFER BRYCE Box 1215, Elwood, VIC 3184

I don’t go to my mailbox every day. Quite often I go just once a week. But on such a sunny autumn afternoon, I decided to stroll to Elwood PO. What a surprise to discover the Treasure! I had understood that you were so busy it would be ages before you could publish anything. I haven’t read it all yet, but it looks magnificent. And thanks so much for sending two copies. (8 May 2013)

What is the date of your Nova Mob presentation? (You never know, I might make it to the wilds of Northcote.) I can explain Ros’s and Brad’s absences. Ros had a fall at work a few months ago and fractured her hip. She has been pretty much off work since then — returning gradually on reduced hours but ROS GROSS probably not up to Nova Mobbing. North Balwyn VIC 3104 And Brad and Kelly are expecting their first baby quite soon (June, I think), so that might keep him out of circulation for a while. Lovely to hear from you! Yes, I fell and fractured my right I showed Treasure 1 to some of my writing group — hip early last December. The hip healed, but after I had we met yesterday — and they were mightily impressed, the pins removed, I developed a contusion around the commenting for example on the very tasteful layout, wound, which put me back a bit further. which I must admit I’ve come to take for granted with (4 June 2013) your publications. (9 May 2013) YVONNE ROUSSEAU PO Box 3086, Rundle Mall, Adelaide SA 5000 [*brg* The Nova Mob is Melbourne’s SF discussion group, held on the first Wednesday of the month. I’ve On this day of the annular eclipse, my daughter Vida was known Roslyn Gross for 39 years, and Jenny Bryce able, before rushing onward to her lecture room, to nearly as long. The Nova Mob was revived in the early observe the early stages of the eclipse on the lens of a 1980s at the home of Jenny Bryce and John Foyster in telescope placed for that purpose at Swinburne Univer- St Kilda. Ros had already been a long-time attendee at sity. Good egg! the Nova Mob when she joined ACER (Australian Thank you, too, for *brg* 79: beautiful Ditmar- Council for Educational Research), where she met Brad birthday-card cover, and very interesting contents. Does Jackel and Jenny Bryce. And discovered that both of Alan Stewart truly contemplate distributing Ansible in them knew me and other current members of the Nova Australia again? Mob. I did not know until Jenny got in touch that both Ros and Brad had problems attending the Nova Mob [*brg* Yes. ANZAPA (Australia and New Zealand these days. Last year, Jenny attended her first Nova Amateur Publishing Association) appears every two Mob in many years to hear Tony Thomas and me months, so Alan contributes two issues of Ansible speaking about the books of Graham Joyce. Those talks every mailing.*] will be published in the next issue of SF Commentary.*]

16 And thank you for the glorious Treasure 1, June 2013! (10 September 2013) — with fascinating reading from all contributors. I was startled to see among the headings that I’d contributed Like you, I loved Foyle’s War. I also like the old black-and- an article that I didn’t remember writing: entitled ‘The white movies from the 1930s. I’ve seen an movie called Real Story of Harry Potter and Voldemort’. It would have Dark Angel, which was set before, during, and after World turned out rather differently if I’d meant to submit it as War I. It starred Frederic March and Merle Oberon, a an article, and it would have taken more time, so I’m drama and romance movie set in the UK. grateful for your artistry in compiling it from our ex- Luc Besson has also been executive producer on a change of emails on the subject. number of films, such as Kiss of the Dragon (Jet Li) and (10 May 2013) The Transporter (Jason Statham). A French movie he has done is Taxi. The Americans did a version of this movie, ROBERT ELORDIETA not as good as the French one. I haven’t yet seen The c/o 20 Coster Circle, Traralgon VIC 3844 Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. I’m glad that you know about the series Lewis. I didn’t While I was at work, your Treasure and *brg* arrived in know about Endeavour, a series about a young version of my mail box, on Thursday, 9 May. The envelope was Morse. sticking out of my mail box. Someone took it out of my I don’t have cable TV either. Like you, I don’t have mail box — I’m guessing a teenaged school kid. The kid much spare time. It’s hard to find out what’s out there went to a park, took out the fanzines and then ripped on TV series and movies from Australia as well as over- them to pieces. When I was walking back home I went seas. I’ve seen the Wallander series from Sweden on SBS. through the park. I saw the ripped-up fanzines and then I haven’t seen the British version. the envelope. I saw that the envelope had my name on (25 September 2013) it. I can tell you that I wasn’t very happy when I saw that. Some people have no respect for other people’s mail. WERNER KOOPMANN They have no right to take it and then rip it up. 202c Reihersteig, 21244 Buchholz, Germany

[*brg* The ultimate critical comment — topped only Good to hear that the box reached you. The box was sent by pet animals who use my fanzines for kitty litter.*] on 18 March, so we now know it takes about one month. I do not want anything back. I have enough SF books Once I had a bill taken out of my mail box and ripped here, English ones too. In case you do not want some of up too. The same thing has happened to my unit neigh- them give them to SF aficionados of your acquaintance. bours. We hope to see you in Greensborough in 2015. (12 May 2013) (15 May 2013)

I have seen some of Luc Besson’s films. I saw The Fifth [*brg* Werner sent a whole box of books of criticism Element at my local cinema. I saw La Femme Nikita and The about the SF field, most of them from the late sixties Professional on SBS. I haven’t seen many of Besson’s films, or the early seventies. I suspect many, including first but what I have seen, I’ve loved. The Americans did their editions of books from Advent:Publishers, are now own version of La Femme Nikita, called The Assassin, collectors’ items. I owned more than half of them starring Bridget Fonda. The Americans have also done already, having bought them through Space Age Books. a TV series based on La Femme Nikita. But I do have quite a few left over, which might Even though I’m not a big horror fan, I’ve seen some interest serious readers in the SF field. Enquire at my horror films from the 1930s on free-to-air TV. I loved email address.*] them because they didn’t show blood and gore, and had good story lines. My wife and I will not leave our house as long as my I’m glad that you are enjoying New Tricks (I’ve seen mother- in-law still lives in her old home in Uetersen. She some of New Tricks on the ABC). It’s very interesting to is 86. see them investigating cold cases and trying to solve Ulla and I will be 64 this year. She still loves her them. Other countries that have done shows like this garden, but it’s getting more and more burdensome. If include the USA, Canada, and even Australia. In Austra- and when we move, where we don’t know, it will surely lia it was called Blackjack and starred Colin Friels. In the be some years hence. I still will keep many SF books, USA it’s called Cold Case. English and German, but we don’t think to keep all our John Thaw was great in Inspector Morse. My parents saw books, only those we like most. So downsizing in a new him in an earlier show called The Sweeney. It has also been home will be a must. made into a recent movie, also called The Sweeney, star- (15 May 2013) ring Ray Winston . When John Thaw died, the actor who played his partner (Kevin Whateley) did a spin-off show DORA LEVAKIS called Lewis. I don’t think this show has been as popular Numbulwar, Top End, NT, and Yarraville, VIC as Inspector Morse. I’m currently reading Volume 3 of George R. R. Lance had the time to read my Treasure article ‘Journey Martin’s A Game of Thrones. I’m really enjoying it too. The to Tuva’ and my letters before I did tonight, and was thus books are on average 1000 pages long. I’m a slow reader, first to point out that the caption beneath Gerald’s so it is taking me a long time to read them. painting reads as ‘finalist’ rather than as ‘semi-finalist’.

17 At all other places the painting is correctly referred to as travel to remote parts of the planet such as that place in a semi-finalist. It would be good if this can be corrected Central Asia where Dora pesters the throat-singers. The before it goes onto internet. I’d forgotten how this better-off farmers around Goroke travel every year, particular photo looks and feel pleased at how the paint- either to remote parts of northern Australia in four- ing looks, and that darling Thomas features also; I’d wheel drives of by plane on organised farming tours to forgotten I had included him, the little sweetheart. I’m the USA or South America. (If they visit a few farms, they glad you decided to run with this photo. claim all their expenses off their tax.) They find it hard (14 May 2013) to believe that I’ve never been in a plane and that I’ve sworn never to visit Victoria again. They think a writer is I’m back in Yarraville for a few weeks. As I type this, two someone who wanders around meeting interesting char- boards that I have primed with one coat of white ground acters and situations. are sitting in their modest sections of sun in my backyard, Anyway, I finished the book that I never expected ever just outside the back door, awaiting another coat of to begin: the book that just occurred to me late last year white, followed by a coat of orange and then followed by when I read a certain sentence about the last film to be a red I mix with black. This sequence is what gives me made by Ingmar Berman. I was reading a Time from the the vibrant earth colour I have been using as background late 1980s. Giles has a collection of old Times, and I’m for my portraits of late. Broad bush strokes of the latter reading my way thru them. The Soviet Union will im- layer means that some of the orange glows through ... I plode very soon. Yes, I read this one sentence about a hit upon this sequence one time and like it so much I’ve castle occupied by all the characters from all the films kept it. that Bergman had made, and I went to my desk and wrote Saturday night: when in Coles a vibrantly good- a sentence or two that would have been the first part of looking young man approached me with the reminder a book of fiction called A Thousand Windows, with the that I’d told him last year that I was going to Tuva. I epigraph: ‘The House of Fiction has a thousand win- couldn’t remember him and felt awkward. I answered dows’ — Henry James. Then I told myself not be so politely, expecting him to then walk away. He didn’t. He foolish. Then I tried to forget about the book but stood there smiling, expectant almost. My head was foggy couldn’t. I finished it in mid June, all 55,000 words of it. and I drank in his beauty whilst at the same time, wanted I sent if to Giramondo with the instruction that they to walk briskly away and remain inside the world in my might care to publish it, assuming it to be publishable, head. He told me it is his turn now and that he would be before another book they’ve already accepted, Border going overseas the next day, to Georgia, Italy, and other Districts. They’ve held Border Districts over for the time places. He is a science student at Melbourne University being. They brought out a handsome new edition of studying DNA. He is interested in archeological digs. Inland this year. Plus, Text is bringing out in November I was reminded of my first visit to Tuva and of my a Text Classics A Lifetime on Clouds. Giramondo thought inability to recall the name or face of a young man who three books from me in one year would be overkill. So, approached me and wanted to continue a previous con- in about May 2014, I’ll have a new title in print and a versation. It’s terrible to not remember people. It dis- further book in the pipeline. When I gave up writing connects me from others in a way that is different from fiction in the 1990s, I was resigned to having seven titles when I simply want to stay inside my head. I eventually as my lifetime’s achievement. Thanks to Giramondo’s excused myself and walked away from the good-looking interest and encouragement, I’ll go to my grave with young man. He is from Serbia. twelve to my credit. When home, I wanted to see if I could print a file from (2 July 2013) my laptop to my desk top. It was then that the desk top was affected by a fire at the power point. Because the NED BROOKS passage between me and the power point is obstructed 4817 Dean Lane, Lilburn GA 30047, USA my paintings etc, I reached with a digeridoo to flick on the switch at the power point. How very, very lucky for How do I come to have a loc in a renamed Scratch Pad me that I had not used my fingers. No one would have that I have never seen? ... Aha — I see that it was a letter found me until Thursday when my sister would have to *brg*, written over a year ago. No wonder I don’t arrived at the station and possibly tried my home after I remember it! wouldn’t have turned up. I can’t handle loud either, and have never been to a Now all the sun just outside my back door has gone. rock concert. It could be hereditary. My mother did not Time for the orange coat of paint. like loud noises either. (25 June 2013) I have Ralph Leighton’s book about Feynman’s Tuva quest, Tuva or Bust! and have heard throat-singing. It is an interesting sound, but I’ve read that it causes internal GERALD MURNANE bleeding in the practitioners, so I’m not sure it’s inter- PO Box 40, Goroke VIC 3412 esting enough to justify the health risk. An amazing account by Dora Levakis! ‘Numbulwar’ sounds like a Thanks for Treasure 1, which reached me in late May. I place-name in a Lord Dunsany fantasy. can’t say I read much of it, but I certainly appreciated I’m sure I would not want to drive in India. the piece by Dora Levakis. As I’ve got older and more set Fascinating photo of the 200-year-old Jantar Mantar in my ways, I find it more and more incredible that Observatory! people actually get into those big flying machines and What anyone thinks of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone

18 may depend on the edition read. Peake was well into his 10-foot pole (a piece of PVC pipe with a hooked-back struggle with the illness that finally killed him, and the blade on the end) — and had to take a course of the 1959 book is very awkward compared to the first two steroid methyl-prednisone to get rid of the inflammation Gormenghast books. But I thought the re-editing by on my arm. Langdon Jones improved it a lot. (23 June 2013) Casey Wolf is quite right about Dean Spanley. When I heard it had been filmed I reread the Lord Dunsany JOHN LITCHEN short novel, My Talks with Dean Spanley. It took me a while PO Box 3503, Robina Town Centre, QLD 4230 to get a DVD of the film. When I did, it turned out to be a Blu-ray made in Sweden. There were two problems with Who is Murray MacLachlan and what specifically are his this — as the English soundtrack was untouched, they musical interests? Is he interested in Afro Cuban drum- had added an optional subtitles in any of five Scandina- ming etc? Thanks for the email from him that you vian languages, omitted the ‘no subtitles’ option; and for relayed to me. I did use the links he supplied to have a some reason the sound was low. I had to crank the look at the interview on YouTube with JoJo. It was such volume control all the way up. Maybe some Viking will a long time ago, and even comparing the images in the trade me the standard DVD for this one. poor quality video with some of the photos I have I wasn’t (15 May 2013) sure, because the interview took place some years after I last saw JoJo. In the video he has a moustache and small I received a magazine from Fred Woodworth in Tucson beard, which made him look different from the person (which he has decided should be spelled ‘Tuscon’, even I remembered. However, the nose appears to be the though neither spelling matches the pronunciation, same shape. What convinced me it was him was when he ‘TOO-sahn’). Fred had the same problem with an aged sat down and played a bit of conga drum for the dancer cat as you describe — the vet diagnosed kidney failure to dance to. It was unmistakably his sound, and he plays and said nothing could be done. I will not try to describe an urban version of conga rhythm (Comparsa) very Fred’s line of reasoning, as it’s all outside my experience. similar to what he taught us back in 1962–63 (which is But his conclusion was that he should dose the cat with recorded on the CD from the tape). He wasn’t an authen- coffee. tic Cuban player, but he played Cuban style as it was The amount of coffee he gave the cat, 1 cc a day, practised in the streets and parks of New York in the apparently would not be expected to have any effect on 1960s. He would have to be close to 76 to 80 years old a healthy cat. But he claims that his cat recovered its now, since he was a couple of years older than me. appetite and normal activity. I was curious as to whether There are also many YouTube videos of a female folk this was common knowledge among cat owners but all I singer called JoJo, which can be confusing. It’s weird but found with Google is that there are expensive herbal it never occurred to me to google his name to see what compounds offered for what is apparently a common comes up. In fact I hadn’t thought about him at all until problem in aged cats. I started writing the memoir. (21 June 2013) I suppose I could make a copy of the CD. The quality isn’t good. The sessions were originally recorded on an [*brg* Somehow I think that Elaine would be very Akai tape recorder, then later transferred to cassette. opposed to this attempted solution to the problem of The cheap player I used to record it as a WAV file into kidney disease in cats. Also, Archie was not old. He the computer is not very good (because it is running was only six years old when his kidneys failed in June unevenly). I will look for a better option one of these 2012.*] days. (15 May 2013) Fred is a vegetarian anarchist and may be quite mad. But he is an excellent publisher, and as far as I can tell does Brian Aldiss’s The Finches of Mars has just been released not lie. As a cat person you may well encounter the same via Book Depository in the UK. Brian claims this is his problem again, so I thought you might be interested. I final SF novel. Since he is getting on in years, it may very myself like cats — but could not have one around, as I well be his last novel ever in any form. There are 200 am severely allergic. Just being where there is a cat makes signed copies available at $19.95 with no postage to be my eyes itch. I once touched a bookstore cat — and then paid. I had mine on order for six months, so if others did must have touched my lower lip, as it swelled to double the same when it was first listed there may not be too normal size. many copies left. (21 June 2013) It’s rather sad that a big publisher doesn’t take Brian Aldiss’s work anymore, but at least there are small pub- Re allergies: I have known since I was a child that I am lishers who recognise a major talent and are willing to severely allergic to raw egg white — fortunately not publish him even though print runs are obviously small. encountered as often any more. Cooked eggs are no (10 June 2013) problem. I was an adult before I discovered that I am also allergic to cashew and to a nasty vine called Smilax [*brg* Thanks very much for the copy of The Finches of Bonanox that grew in my yard in Virginia and grows here Mars that you sent me, John. I’m still missing some of as well. Of course there is little chance of me eating any Brian Aldiss’s novels from the last ten years, especially smilax — looking at it seems to make me break out. I Walcott. Looks as if I will have to break my once pulled some out of a photinia bush with an actual self-imposed ban on paying for stuff over the internet

19 in order to complete my collection.*]

DAMIEN BRODERICK San Antonio TX, USA

John Litchen’s piece is very interesting. How old is he now? Mid seventies? The kittens were born in our country place. There were six, but one died. All the parents (there might have been three) are siblings. We’re hoping for more poly-dactyl cats. None of these had two heads. (29 May 2013)

SALLY YEOLAND Preston VIC 3072

I was particularly interested in Jenny Bryce’s latest adventures in India, and Kittens at the Broderick–Lamar residence, a year ago. No doubt they are now all look forward to reading John Litchen’s taller than the car tyre. (Photo: Damien Broderick.) piece. I can’t quite believe that it is almost 40 years to the day that I first met John nane creates truly weird 3D effect, as the elbow appears and Monica, who visited John Bangsund and me at to project out of the picture frame. Wentworth Avenue, Kingston, ACT when they were part John Litchen says that he gave up on The Lord of the way through their honeymoon. I think that I first spoke Rings after 50 pages. I was one of many who found the to John on my brother’s 32nd birthday 10 May 1973, start of the section on The Shire tedious. A friend assures which was a Thursday; then we first met up that weekend. me that one should jump ahead to where the journey It almost seems like a lifetime ago. begins. Then, when that has got a grip, it is easy to nip I just googled Peter Pierce, with whom I was at Hobart back to the start to back fill any background. Matric College. It was my brother’s old school when it Page 67 has an evocative literal: ‘bargoans’ for ‘bar- was still a high school. Peter was a guest speaker at a gains’. I’ve met many of those bargoans down the years. Society of Editors meeting some years ago. I looked him I was intrigued by Malcolm McHarg’s mention of up today because I have only just found out that he’s just ‘teddy boy extraordinaire’. I’d assumed that the teds published another book, which is about our old school, were a purely British phenomenon. Clearly I was wrong; which I only attended for some seven months but where Oz also had them. I made some good friends. The book is Hobart High School to Hobart College 1913–2013, and Fullers Bookshop in [*brg* Not so. Malcolm grew up in New Zealand, which Hobart is posting a copy to me. Peter excelled as a must have also had teds during the 1950s. In student and was brilliant at English, so I’m not surprised Australia, they were called ‘bodgies’ and their at him becoming an editor. girlfriends were called ‘widgies’.*] (21 May 2013) High Society: ‘Did you evah’ has the memorable SF [*brg* And wasn’t Peter Pierce a professor of English, line, ‘next July, we collide with Mars’. specialising in Australian literature, before he retired? I’ve read several of Colin Cotterell’s Laos-set crime He still writes entertaining and meticulous reviews for novels: atmospheric tales, and interesting crossover what remains of the literary sections of Australia’s mashup of the crime genre and the supernatural. major newspapers.*] (29 May 2013) STEVE SNEYD JERRY KAUFMAN 4 Nowell Place, Almondbury, PO Box 25075, Seattle, WA 98165, USA Huddersfield, West Yorkshire HD5 8PB, England It’s always good to have treasure in one’s mailbox, al- Thanks for Dora Levakis’s very interesting accounts of though this was the first time I’ve had Treasure. Ditmar’s Tuva. It has a jagged rock face in one picture, and she DJFractal was a startling eyeful introduction to the issue. makes mention of mountains. I recently read an article Dora Levakis on her visits to Tuva were interesting, on the theorised importance of acoustics in ritual in early and shows that she’s more adventurous than I am. I’m sacred spaces, as in Stonehenge. The article mentions willing to listen to almost anything (once) but not to the theory that Tuvan throat-singing began as a way to travel several thousand miles to hear it in context. I have create echoes in caves or from rocks, interpreted as the heard some Tuvan throat-singing, and believe I even voices of ancestors. have an Ondar album. Remarkable how much he sounds The photo of Dora and the portrait of Gerald Mur- like Popeye (or even Baby Gramps, a Seattle performer).

20 The album includes a cut featuring Richard Feynman, who was also a fan of Tuvan music. I’m surprised a bit that Jennifer Bryce could be so cool about the many scammers she encountered in India. I think I would have been pretty angry. I enjoyed reading John Litchen’s continuing adventures as a drummer, and his thoughts about his reading of the time — all those books that turned out to be classics. I wasn’t as interested in the crayfish, wetsuit, and swimming half of his memoirs. But it looks like once he is finished, John will have included something to interest every reader. In the letters column, I thought Dora’s portrait of Gerald Murnane also bears a resemblance to Canadian actor and funny man Dave Thomas. Top: Casey Wolf, being very Australian (and not at all like her usual genial self) (Photo: (He and Rick Moranis developed a Carole Gray). pair of Canadian ‘hosers’ for a seg- ment of SCTV called ‘The Great White North’.) lope. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I (4 June 2013) immediately got out the $AU20 bill I had sitting around in the closet and said, ‘Casey, you send this right off to JOE SZABO that nice Mr. Gillespie.’ Of course, it’s still on my dresser, 29 Bessazile Avenue, Forest Hill VIC 3131 but it is coming your way eventually. An immense surprise to find myself and Finding It’s been a long time since we last corresponded with Creatures & Other Stories so kindly mentioned. Fame at each other (over two years, I think) and in the interim I last! have been receiving hard copies of all your fanzines, with I very much enjoyed visiting Melbourne in March, as many thanks. you know, and meeting Elaine and Tim and Bill (please For me, work is its usual animal — anxiety ... plenty tell him I did vote as promised). I hope you enjoy these one day and nothing the next. I am currently working as photos. The last one is me at the Melbourne Museum, a graphic designer on a full-time contract with a promo- posing proudly with your Aussie whatsits. Carole Gray tional products company, and — when there is work took that photo, and I took the others. available — working from home as a technical illustrator. One small correction to your reminiscences. I was I haven’t been overly motivated to do my own art, but the last few months have proven to be quite productive. I hope that I will soon have enough work to plan for another exhibition, either later this year or early next year. Last week I was in Sydney seeing Kraftwerk as part of the Vivid festival — a concert that was worth every cent spent on it. Also, Sydney was lit up with some amazing lighting effects. (6 June 2013)

CASEY WOLF 14–2320 Woodland Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia V5N 3P2, Canada

I was so excited when I opened my mailbox and saw a hefty envelope from you! I hadn’t expected to receive another ever, so it was like Christmas on Mars. Before I opened it I looked, for a change, at the postage on the enve- Casey took this photo of Bruce Gillespie (left) and Tim Train (right) at the Nyala Restaurant, Fitzroy.

21 I quietly withdrew from the fray. I do like to get the odd story out there, though I’m pretty inconsistent about sending them out. I’m happy to be getting back to writing for the joy of it and not worrying about whether anyone considers me a Writer or not. More realistically, I’m back to the joy of not writing but simply enjoying the world around and in me, and the many, many books other folk have gotten around to writing. As a matter of fact, I rejoined my weekly writing group when I returned from Oz even though I have no energy to actually write at the moment. But I do enjoy hearing the other people’s work and giving them my shrewd and brilliant critiques. Did I mention that I was rear-ended by a car transport truck a couple of weeks ago, and squished into the car ahead of me? Howard’s car was totalled and I have another nice whiplash. But no broken bones, no bloody Bill Wright, also at the Nyala Restaurant. (Photo: Casey Wolf.) bits, so I am happy and lucky to be alive — and to have my nephew, who was next to me in the car, alive and well, already writing, and involved in fandom, before coming himself. It is a bit annoying that I was the only person to Oz in 1985. In fact, I was at that time and for a brief (besides my nephew) who was not at fault in the accident, moment a member of A Women’s Apa, and met with and I was the only one injured. And more annoying to some of those fine women at a party at Aussiecon. But it discover that our auto insurance corporation is so was a number of years before I began actually sending despised that my chosen practitioners (including the anything out. facial pain clinic at our largest hospital) refuse to have On which topic, it has taken me a while to find a anything to do with auto injury claims. Which means I comfortable relationship to the strange world of publish- can’t afford to get treatment. Our medical system is really ing. There is a frantic assumption that we need to publish going down the toilet in Canada. often and widely and in as big name magazines as pos- I went to a memorial service on Sunday. My friend sible, and we oughtn’t spend too long on short fiction — wrote a marvellous letter a month before what she called we should move on to novels because that’s what will her ‘lift-off’. Very inspiring, actually. And I like the make our names. We must do everything we can to concept of lifting off as opposed to succumbing. I will promote our work and ourselves and we must network, hold onto that the next time I see a semi rushing toward connect, strive to somehow climb to the top (or high up me in my rear-view mirror. on the sides) of the heap. We must blog wittily and gather (10 June 2013) huge followings, and so on and so on, and Bruce, I just don’t feel comfortable with any of that. I tried a little DOUG BARBOUR self-promotion and it felt so un-me that I was very stressed 1165–72nd Avenue, by it. The truth is, I just like writing. I don’t like compe- Edmonton, Alberta T6G 0B9, Canada tition, I don’t like drawing attention to myself, and I don’t like schmoozing. I like sharing my stories with Busy times: Other reading. Editing (I edited three of the other people. But I have a hard time going through the six books NeWest published this Spring, and two of the shenanigans required to do so. novels for the coming Fall; you might enjoy at least one Being sick the last few years has forced me away from of them, Belinda’s Rings by Corinna Chong ). long enough that I have relaxed about it. I do wish I had I’m writing this the week I heard of the (sadly ex- more energy for writing — or for anything. But I’m glad pected) death of Iain M. Banks, two of whose recent novels I read in the last few months, one a Culture novel, the other a multi-world thriller, both full of Banks’s wit, intelligence, provocations, and solid, generative plot- I tried a little self-promotion and it ting. I’m going to miss the possibility of new work, but felt so un-me that I was very stressed will enjoy rereading at least the best of them. RIP. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his kind of SF, and its influence on by it. The truth is, I just like writing. the exciting new British SF of the past decade or two. I don’t like competition, I don’t like I’ve been reading Patricia Meyer Spacks’s fine and drawing attention to myself, and I intelligent On Rereading, a delightful exploration of the whys and wherefores of that activity. Admittedly, she don’t like schmoozing. rereads some material I may never read for the first time, I like sharing my stories with other but also some, like Jane Austen, I have reread a lot over people. the years; but the way she sees the act in its various manifestations feels right to me. It’s enjoyable, thought But I have a hard time going through provoking, and in no way too scholarly book. the shenanigans required to do so. I’ve just discovered another terrific Texas singer- songwriter, Robyn Ludwick, whose Out of These Blues is

22 one of those records I just play and play. evening’s guest beer again. This was something called Visitors are arriving today for a few days, and we have Twisted Wheel, described as having a hint of ginger and to get the house ready, so that’s it for now.(12 June 2013) spice. In fact it was overpowering, and resembled a rather overdone mulled beer. It would probably go well with a STEVE JEFFERY curry like a Jalfrezi on the basis that your taste buds would 44 White Way, Kidlington, already be saturated with ginger and spice. Oxon OX5 2XA, England Saturday was back to see Oxford contemporary choral group Commotio again, with a program that featured For the previous week or so, I’d been getting blisters on Britten (Sacred and Profane) plus works by a new name to the sole of my foot. One of them must have infected, with me, Per Norgard. (I doubt if AOL is up to the odd accents the result that the foot puffed up in an unsightly blotchy required to spell his name properly, but you can check red rash. The doc diagnosed this as cellulitis and pre- it on Wikipedia for typesetting purposes if you want.) scribed a course of antibiotics with instructions to keep Norgard proved interesting when I looked him up online my weight off it and keep it elevated as much as possible the day after. Apart from the piece Commotio featured, for the rest of the week. I Hear the Rain. (The conductor’s notes, when we caught There very little you can do in that position, apart a sneak look at them from the bench in front, where he’d from read or sit rather awkwardly sidesaddle in front of left them, contained the scribbled instruction ‘listen to a computer, so while I was able to log in to work remotely the version on YouTube’, so of course I had to.) Norgard for some of the time, I also managed to make a fair stab has also (re)discovered and uses something called the at George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, which had infinity series, based on mathematical operations to been sitting on the unread-books pile since my birthday generate sequences of notes. The result is somewhere or Christmas. I forget which: rather intimidatingly, the between chaos (in the mathematical sense) and fractals. pile doesn’t seem to be going down very fast at all, and I’ve spent the last couple of days transcribing the algo- still contains Iain Banks’s latest (and now last) Culture rithm in his web page into Keykit so I can program my novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, which I must get round to MIDI keyboard to generate these sequences. soon. I’ve also been playing with something called Nodal, (The pile also contains the new book by Graham whose screenshots look like one of the diagrams on the Joyce, who has also reported he’s been diagnosed with a back of Eno’s Music for Airports album cover. (One of the form of lymphoma, though hopefully with a better prog- examples that comes with the trial download of Nodal nosis than that for poor Banks.) 1.8 is titled ENO 7, and generates appropriately slow It’s been some years since I read the last book of shifting ambient soundscapes.) All this has resparked a Martin’s sprawling epic (in the meantime, we’ve watched fascination with algorithmic and generative music, some both DVD box sets of series 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones) of which ties up with the writing on complexity and and I really wasn’t up to re-reading the previous two self-organisation in the book I’m currently reading, books to try to work out where he’d left his cast of Murray Gell-Mann’s The Quark and Jaguar. thousands. Luckily there’s a whole Wiki for the series, This latter was a find in a book sale in the village with handy timelines and plot synopses. Even so, it took church hall a weekend or so back. Up to a few years ago best part of a day to catch up with where things stood at our friend Graham used to organise a massive annual the start of A Dance with Dragons, which turns out not to event with tens of thousands of books, and Vikki and I be a direct sequel but a companion to the previous would spend the day helping out. Now Graham just holds volume, taking place at the same time but with a different rather more modest impromptu sales whenever he needs set of characters and locations. (Which would have to reclaim some space in his garage. While I only found meant I would have had to read the last two books to find one genre work of interest, a nice hardback of the Martin out where I’d left off. Maybe 20 years ago I might have and Dozois-edited Songs of the Dying Earth anthology. been up for that, but age and eyestrain means I prefer Round about the time Treasure arrived in the post, I reading in short chunks, not something that epic fantasy kept turning up intriguing non-fiction math and science lends itself to.) books, and only stopped when I realised I wouldn’t be The week after the foot recovered enough to wear able to carry any more home. The Gell-Mann was one shoes again and go back to work, we had what for us was such; others included Stephen Inwood’s book on Robert quite the busy social whirl, with the First Wednesday pub Hooke, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Leonard Mlodi- night, followed a day later with a sci-fi-(I use term advis- now’s The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our edly in this case)themed pub league quiz held conven- Lives, and other books on Bayesian statistics and the Four iently at the very end of our road at the local Social Club. Colour Map problem. In the end we weren’t needed to make up the numbers (Yesterday, in the local Red Cross charity shop, I for the pub team, so Vikki and I co-opted our friend noticed a large paperback of a reprint and commentary Judith from the pub meetings and sat in as a scratch team of Newton’s Principia, and suspected this might have of three (against opposition that included at least one been donated from Graham’s unsold stock at the end of previous winner of Mastermind and several who had com- the day, although I don’t remember seeing it there or peted in TV quiz shows Eggheads and Only Connect). I’d have been seriously tempted.) Unsurprisingly we didn’t win, although at one point we Little new music to report, although it appears from were running a creditable third equal, before falling on an email that the Civil Wars, who announced they had the inevitable media round. Still, it was a fun night out, broken up at the end of last year, have re-formed and although I doubt I will make a habit of seeking out that have a new album coming out. I had wondered about the

23 dynamics of this American folk-country duo, both of competition between you and Banana Wings for how whom are married, though not to each other, and sus- many Feature Letters you can get into a single issue? pect domestic and marital difficulties may have had a From space considerations alone, I suspect you’ll win, part in announcement of their break up and subsequent though BW 52 has upped the stakes at four (Andy reformation. The ethereally pale Laura Marling also has Hooper, Liam Proven, Robert Lichtman, and Paul Skel- a new album, which is being trailed a lot on Radio 6. ton) in the same issue. A rather recent discovery was that Kate Rusby had (17 June 2013) done a hauntingly beautiful version of Sandy Denny’s ‘Who Knows Where the Times Goes’, which I’d never [*brg* Maybe I gave permission to Claire and Mark to heard before. Ridiculously prices were being asked for run Feature Letters in Banana Wings. It is a way of the CD version online, but I managed to download the solving layout issues that arise when a great letter mp3 from Amazon for the a reasonably 69p (my first mp3 runs on and on, causing the reader’s eye to skip over puchase, and worryingly simple on Amazon’s One-Click it. It’s wonderful how a few extra headings, photos or ordering service). Then, prompted by your comment to fillos, and boxed texts can lift the Letters section of Murray MacLachan’s letter about the cheapness and any magazine. I didn’t invent the idea (but can’t remember from whom I stole it — probably Dick Geis), value of five-CD box sets (I have one of Jeff Beck’s early but have been using it for well over 40 years. In 1973, albums) I discovered one of the Mahavishu Orchestra’s Philip Jose Farmer, Stanislaw Lem, Sandra Miesel, first set of releases, from Inner Mounting Flame to Visions Franz Rottensteiner, and others argued furiously with of the Emerald Beyond, and including what is still their high each other by means of SF Commentary Feature point, ‘Birds of Fire’. I was actually looking for a Hawk- Letters.*] wind box set (and not sure why I got sidetracked to MO), but could only find the three-CD Parallel Universe anthol- GIAMPAOLO COSSATO ogy of recordings covering 1970–79. I must ask fandom’s guru and fount of knowledge of all things Hawkwind, Mr Cannaregio 3825, Calle Fontana, Plummer. I think my favourite period of theirs is prob- 30121-Venezia, Italy ably around Levitation and Quark, Strangeness and Charm rather than the early Silver Machine era. But hey, it was a I had and still have a very busy period involving a variety silly price, so why not. This could prove expensive, had I of visits to practically all hospitals in my area, which was not converted an award from work last year into Amazon a bit distracting. 71 is already behind, and age is en- gift vouchers (much of which has gone into building a croaching upon my health by displaying a good number teetering pile of book parcels in the spare room for of its weapons. My hands are sometimes trembling, my Vikki’s birthday). ankles seems to be in the grip of a vise (acceptable so I realise I haven’t really written a loc for Treasure 1 at far), and cervical spondylosis and lumber arthrosis are all. This is both the joy and slightly unfortu- nate effect of responding to *brg*-style zines (even those under vari- ant titles), especially those carrying banners like ‘Talking to my Friends’, in that it sometimes becomes an invitation to weeble about stuff in the hope that you and others might find some of it interesting, and forget to mention the content of the fanzine at all, except in passing. So please take it as read that Treasure 1 was read and much enjoyed (even with an elevated foot), especially the continuation of John Litchen’s adventures in SF, conga drum- ming and seedy night- clubs, and the travel articles by Dora and Jennifer. (Is there a

24 gaining grounds. A CAT scan and an NMR also made the that 10 years ago) are still popping up from time to time list, to verify the state of my brain. Apparently it’s still (the Dunes have also landed on the Kindle store, and so working. All the rest is old hat, with which I have been has Lafferty’s Past Master) and now I am scanning and living for many years by now. rearranging some aged comics inspired by Goldoni’s comedies with old friends specialised in the field who are [*brg* In the one photo you’ve sent me, you appear also the writers and artists who created them. They might many years younger than I am. Sorry to hear about the shortly see new life. difficulties that come after turning 70. That’s not far Venice is still the target of my photos, but now memo- off for me.*] rial plaques have become my more specific search. Is a real trove. Some several hundred years old. At times they Still I am not giving up. Some of the translations I are so worn out to be almost unreadable. They come as made with my friend Sandrelli (who passed away more a surprise in the most unlikely places. Composers,

25 writers, poets, scientists, important figures of the old exegesis that seemed to consume his sanity? He was Venetian Republic, martyrs of the various wars, and the extrapolating concepts of time in order to explain un- more banal edicts carved in marble (written in old known phenomena of nature and could not come to Venetian) banning the noise, the blasphemy, the dump- terms with his own revelation. Attempts by physics to ing of garbage, and listing the punishments therefrom explain time seem to me to be doing the same thing, (rather scary, but they would be effective today if applied avoiding the unknowable. to the participants of so-called ‘rave parties’). And others Bruce, my time here in Warrnambool is a strange time to remember the changes Venice underwent along the to me. Sometimes I am not sure whether or not I am in ages. A canal landfilled, a bridge demolished, a church an Experimental Australian Prison or whether this torn down (Napoleon contributed), streets enlarged. country town is ready a castle with attendant polar oppo- (17 June 2013) sites of oppressed peoples. I had thought that a century- old Aboriginal curse, or wubba, has been placed over the For the past year we have been selling books and DVDs land in revenge for white settlers’ atrocities. Whatever it only through e-bay. At the end of this year I will definitely is here, I often feel the call of the concrete jungle, with retire. Health permitting (I have a rather committing its anonymity and variations of behaviour. The twenty- program with the local hospital) I will spend my time first century exists here, but it’s concentrated in only taking pictures of Venice, reading books, scanning old 30,000 individuals instead of 4 and a bit million. David stuff, watching TV shows (a guilty pleasure), and listen- Russell and I get on well together; thank you for initiating ing to music. our contact. I keep working on my large projects. You said to me [*brg* Thanks for the generous financial contribution, that maybe you couldn’t get into the visual language of but I’m even more grateful for your letters and other Transitoria, my first book. I take that as meaning you support over the last 45 years. Thanks for the photos.*] could not read the item that I charged you an inordinate but necessary amount of money for. I reckon if you STEPHEN CAMPBELL persisted with a full reading of it and saw the drawings as 52 Aitkins Road, Warrnambool VIC 3280 picture worlds to assist the dialogue (which are word pictures), you might come to see the pages as different Jennifer Bryce’s travel story in India carried such a stoic sensations of what is basically a straightforward story intimacy of language that I could almost be listening to about alien beings who are the result of a human mis- her speaking and navigating her way through that mys- take. terious ancient land. Never having been out of this island (26 June 2013) continent, I’m enchanted by good tellings about other worlds on this planet, especially by somebody I consider [*brg* It was great to receive a hand-written letter of a friend. Her descriptions of musical tones in the envi- comment from you for Treasure 1. The renaming of the ronment caused me to remember that she plays the oboe magazine seemed just a way of getting rid of the beautifully, and had me imagining the true qualia of her complications of numbering between different journey. fanzines, but now that this New Thing is really up and out there, it feels like a new beginning. Not that its John Litchen’s story exposes an amazing life, and I existence can obliterate the shame of never publishing admire him for his adventurous spirit in encountering another Metaphysical Review. I still have all the vast the mysteries of the ocean: a man of rhythm indeed! number of letters of comment I received on the last I witnessed the slightly scary wonder of throat-singing issue of that in 1998, about 100,000 words, and I once at a concert that featured music from all over the really should publish them somehow, somewhere. world, and was reminded of the film Meetings with Remark- But not now. able Men, which told of Gurdjieff’s wanderings in Siberia. The material in Treasure 1, except for Jenny Bryce’s Thanks, Dora, for the journey to Tuva. The photographs article, should have appeared well over a year ago, so of the wedding were remarkable. SF Commentary is doing well by being only eight I’ve been rereading Gormenghast, which I devoured months late. But I should be working on SFC 88 right when I was young, and found the same delight in the now. However, I cannot survive without taking in language and the strangeness that it describes. I was paying work (mainly indexes these days). So SFC is again wrenched at the demise of Fuschia and angry at again on the back burner for a few weeks, because of Mervyn Peake for making me feel that again. Peake’s an index finished recently, and the need to produce poetic use of language overcame the effect of the rococo this issue of Treasure. I keep hoping to retire, but I names of his characters, to the point where I was even doubt if retirement can ever happen. identifying with Steerpike and saddened by his eventual Jenny Bryce is concentrating on her writing these corruption and death. days, rather than oboe playing. She tried to retire at I agree with Don Ashby about time ‘travel’, and I 65, but ACER wanted her to stay on for five days a suspect that what we think of as ‘travelling’ in time is week. She’s now cut her workload to three days a actually time travelling in us, and the only convergence week, and retains two days clear for writing. I’m sure she’ll produce something wonderful. is the memory of an experience shared with it. Philip K. I would wish you could return to Melbourne, except Dick might agree; alas, he has passed. Is it that the best that if you did so I expect I would see you even less science fiction is that written by the madder of us, more than I do today. You did spend 15 years in Melbourne of a philosophical art than a literature? Does the creator without ringing me, remember. So I’m very glad that become the creation? Why did Philip Dick write an David takes the trouble to keep in touch with you. I

26 don’t know what David does for entertainment, apart comprehend, a failing of mine. from his reading and artwork. It’s a pity he hasn’t been I would definitely enjoy getting and watching the full able to relocate to Melbourne, so he could stretch his run on DVD or Blu-ray of the Jeremy Brett/Sherlock wings a bit. Holmes series produced by Granada an amazing number My problems with Transitoria seem to be technical, of years ago. We recently got a bargain on the ‘complete’ but they’re not. Put simply: I couldn’t tell one Babylon 5. (There is actually one missing disk we plan to character from another. And that’s reminded me of how try to order later.) The only complete series we do have difficult characterisation is, and how it’s an essential on DVD is Murdoch Mysteries, the Canadian Victorian- part of most story-telling. I think it’s really important period police drama. It’s got among the best ratings of in graphic novels, since I suspect many readers don’t any program on Canadian TV. Its first five seasons are read all the dialogue; instead, they enter the drama by out on DVD/Blu-ray, the sixth season comes out in identification with the visual attitudes of the characters. And those characters have to be perhaps November, and the seventh season is in production. even more clearly defined than even in film or fiction. We’re looking forward to the sixth season DVDs: Yvonne I really did have trouble with Transitoria, working out is a background actor in the twelfth episode. who was speaking, what was the story of each Jerry Kaufman refers to a miniature Stonehenge. I saw character, and why he or she should be interesting. I a documentary recently about tracing Norse explorers would have thought that once that was clear, the and traders to archaeological digs in Canada’s northern technical reshaping of the physical figures would islands, going back nearly a thousand years. It referred follow. to a Stonehenge-like structure in the Outer Hebrides. I say this because the reason I don’t write fiction is Wonder if there references are to the same structures. that I don’t believe that I can write fully formed I just turned 54, taking meds for blood pressure and characters who are not me. Some writers, the real cholesterol, and just had an operation to remove a writers, can do this, of course. I speak for only me cataract in my right eye. A bum knee completes this when I write: hence I stick to non-fiction, essays, etc. issue’s health report. What’s wrong with me? I just turned Thanks for the sample of your new work, by the 54. way. I hope the new book(s) is/are speeding along Yvonne Rousseau’s article on Harry Potter: she’s not well.*] the only Yvonne who loves Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. My Yvonne does, too. To Yvonne Penney, the final LLOYD PENNEY book’s first half should have been named Harry Potter and 1706-24 Eva Rd, Etobicoke, Ontario M9C 2B2, the Never-Ending Camping Trip. Too long, and Joanne Canada Rowling obviously stretched out the book for page and word count. ‘Tis the day before Canada Day, the 146th anniversary of Greetings to Casey Wolf! We’ve never met, but from the founding of this fair country, and Yvonne and I plan the looks of your address, we have lots of friends in to celebrate with a picnic in High Park, on the west side Vancouver, from the folks with BCSFAzine and Vcon, to of the city. Before I get on with fixing up the picnic foods, the folks who run the British Columbia Renaissance I thought I’d take the time to write a letter of comment Faire. to you on Treasure 1. (30 June 2013) After *brg* and other titles, I can see why you’d consolidate all your other zines into one. You can keep ANDY ROBSON them all straight, it’s cheaper to get one zine printed at 63 Dixon Lane, Leeds LS12 4RR, England larger print runs and reduced rates, and spread them out for apas and other destinations. I enjoyed the other titles, I must admit I’m a bit surprised that you decided to go but it’s good to keep track of everything you produce. for a large glossy new print edition of Treasure 1 after your I agree that books and other media comprise a good plans to shift everything on-line. Then again it may life, but for me, friends and acquaintances and good simply be because it is so chunky; on-line is a ticking time times shared are a big part of a good life, too. It’s not bomb where anything that can’t be read and replied to likely to happen, but I think I could give up a lot of books in 30 minutes just doesn’t happen for anyone. Some- and moves, and my fanzine collection, if I really had to. thing far more impressive is your ability to run for trains Memories would keep me going, and if memory failed, after three hours of a Neil Young concert. I’m afraid I but, it probably wouldn’t matter any more. can’t run any more these days, and I’m a few years The Rolling Stones recently passed through Toronto younger than you. (Everybody’s younger than Neil on their Recharge-Our-Retirement-Fund Tour, and we Young — even Keith Richard and Willie Nelson!) didn’t go. The cheapest tickets were about Can$200, and Some things are found only in dreams. I’d been they sold out in minutes. I can’t tell you the last time we searching for a couple of months unsuccessfully for saw a live band. They are almost always beyond our ability something. I did eventually manage to acquire one; to pay. Robert Charles Wilson’s wife Sharry has written a although seemingly having to step out of reality to do so. biography of Neil Young, and I gather it’s very good. I knew that all was not quite right when the bus driver Throat-singing is also a part of Inuit culture in turned up wearing dark glasses and using a white walking Canada’s north. Northern singer/artist Susan Aglukark stick. I did return to reality around four hours later, and has added throat-singers to at least one of her albums. I I still had my — yes — rhubarb pie! am not sure I’d like a trip to India or Tuva — perhaps I was listening to an old Shadows record recently (one too foreign or too complex for me, or too hard to of those black round things), which brought back memo-

27 ries of the fairgrounds of my childhood. I still favour the to do another fanzine of sorts, though of what sort, I tiny distortion of vinyl blowing through the darkness don’t know. I couldn’t step into Michael’s shoes if I interspersed with Elvis and the Everly Brothers. wanted to, as I don’t have his background, knowledge, (5 June 2013) and so forth to continue Trial & Air. Speaking of Michael Waite, 24 November would have D. J. FREDERICK MOE been his 77th birthday. Matt and Guy and I visited his 36 West Main, Warner NH 03278, USA grave that frigidly cold Sunday. Guy played Birgitt Niel- sen from the car CD player, we cleaned off Michael’s I read about Treasure 1 in Dale Spiers’ Opuntia 265, and marker, and walked around the lovely old cemetery till am writing to request a review copy. If you’d like, I could we were nearly frozen. Just yesterday, Michael’s house, send you copies of my zines Turntable Operator and Paper which is bank owned, was listed ‘for sale’ and several Radio in exchange. people were looking at it. The bank is asking far less than (5 August 2013) half what Michael owed. I’m afraid of who or what (rental agent?) might snatch it up. If Matt and Guy and I had I enjoyed reading your account of the Neil Young con- any funds to our name, we’d buy it, sort of ‘protect’ it ... cert. Psychedelic Pill is my favourite Neil Young LP since Ah well, nothing one can do but hope for the best. New Greendale. neighbors are always such a frightening prospect. Having been involved in Tuvan throat-singing via the (9 December 2013) Genghis Blues documentary, I very much enjoyed Dora Levakis’s narrative of her journeys to Tuva. KIM HUETT John Litchen’s memoirs fascinated me; and also Box 1433, Woden ACT 2606 Malcolm McHarg’s letter re John Hammond. What is ANZAPA? I’m involved with two apas in the [*brg* The following letter arises from Kim Huett’s US: American Amateur Press Association, and Cunei- scanning of large sections of his file of Norstrilian form, a media–zine-focused apa that I started in 2011. News, the Australian SF newszine that was active The last issue we had five contributors, the most thus far. during the early 1970s. Its name, a tribute to the stories of Cordwainer Smith, was echoed in the name [*brg* I wrote to Frederick, telling him about SF apas Norstrilia Press, the small press that Carey Handfield, (amateur publishing associations), and about ANZAPA Rob Gerrand, and I ran from 1975 to 1985. After the in particular. I really enjoyed the fanzines he sent me, death of NN, various Australian fan publishers about various aspects of broadcasting and music, but maintained SF newszines. Leigh Edmonds published haven’t received any more.*] Fanew Sletter for a long time, and as Kim mentions, various editors maintained Thyme during the 1980s I am enclosing a couple of my humble zine projects. and 1990s. When Alan Stewart’s Hugo-nominated Please keep me on your mailing list. If there is anything incarnation of Thyme ground to a halt in 1998, Marc Ortlieb began the SF Bullsheet, first as a paper fanzine, radio or media related re Australian radio, please feel later as an internet fanzine. Edwina Harvey and Ted free to send along to the email address in the zine. My Scribner kept it going when Marc stopped publishing, preferred mode of communication is on paper, via the but they also found that running a newszine takes a postal service, but email is great for sharing documents. lot of work and gains little thanks from Australian fans I discovered efanzines a few months ago, and wish and pros. more were available on paper. I am not a fan of reading And why was Kim scanning copies of NN? Because on screen. he wanted to put together a history of the Nova Mob, (9 September 2013) especially its very early years (1970s), when it seems that members of the Nova Mob published their own [*brg* The few people who are still producing paper apa (amateur publishing association): APA-Nova, with fanzines in our field are trying to reduce their mailing Carey Handfield as the Bossa Nova. In turn, Julian lists as far as possible. However, some persist, Warner says that he is compiling a history of the 44 including Andy Hooper (Flag), Claire Brialey and Mark years of the Nova Mob. Tantalising bits of this history Plummer (Banana Wings), and Robert Lichtman (Trap can be found in Norstrilian News.*] Door). I like receiving their fanzines more than I like reading on screen fanzines posted only in PDF files The editorship of Norstrilian News always struck me as one online, but realise that the facility offered by Bill big game of pass the parcel, much as Thyme was at a later Burns’ efanzines.net has led to a wonderful flowering date (though, to be accurate, Thyme was passed around of renewed fanzine writing and publishing.*] at a much slower rate). It went as follows: G John Foyster 1 (25 March 1970) to 14 (9 September PEGGYANN CHEVALIER 1970). Ypsilanti MI 48197-5336, USA G Leigh Edmonds 15 (23 September 1970) to 17 (4 November 1970). Thank you so much for your lovely fanzine Treasure 1. It’s G John Foyster 18 (18 November 1970) to 19 (2 a wonderful read — which is why I took so long to thank December 1970). you for sending it to me. G Missing: NN 20 and 21 so don’t know who edited Thank you also for your exceedingly kind and greatly those. appreciated words about ‘Missing Michael’. I would love G Bruce Gillespie 22 (7 February 1971) to 32 (5 Sep-

28 tember 1971). WE ALSO HEARD FROM ... No idea if I’m missing any issues at this point because of NN going to a new numbering system. CAROL KEWLEY (Sunshine, Victoria); THOMAS BULL G John Foyster 2:1 (1 January 1972) to 2:9 (15 May (Doncaster, Victoria); TIM MARION (New York, USA); 1972). MATTHEW DAVIS (Redditch, England), who sent me a Again, no idea if I’m missing any issues because of a copy of Avram Davidson’s Wailing of the Gaulish Dead; new numbering system, but probably not, given how TARAL WAYNE (Toronto, Canada), who publishes close the dates are. Broken Toys frequently on efanzines.com; JOY WINDOW G Robin Johnson V3 #1 (mid-June 1972) to V4 #1 (Lismore, NSW); MIKE WARD (San Jose, California), (mid-November 1972). who was going to write a letter of comment, but didn’t At this point NN stops being numbered at all. get around to it; JAMI MORGAN (Alburquerque, New Mexico), who sent a subscription but insists on G David Grigg September 1972 (1 issue). downloading each of my fanzines from efanzines.com; G Robin Johnson December 1972 to Sept/Oct/Nov CAT SPARKS (Wollongong, NSW); DICK JENSSEN 1973 (8 issues). (Carnegie, Victoria): ‘Wotta Treasure!’; BRUCE TOWNLEY As you can see, your turn at NN was indeed far earlier (San Francisco, California); KIRSTY ELLIOTT: ‘All the than you assumed. You can also see that John Foyster was best with Treasure 1. Vale Scratch Pad.’; JASON being ever so slightly disingenuous when he complained NAHRUNG (Ballarat, Victoria); PAUL VOERMANS about you and Leigh getting your sticky hands on NN (Reservoir, Victoria), who recommends a new book by (though I assume he was being rather less than serious ‘Terrence Deacon, a scientist everyone should read’; about that) given that he took the editorship back on ADRIENNE RALPH (Northcote, Victoria), who has both occasions. Furthermore I think it likely that NN had returned from an extended stay overseas since Treasure more changes of editor than any other Australian 1 appeared; MARTIN MORSE WOOSTER (Silver Spring, fanzine barring, perhaps, Thyme (I’ve not got around to Maryland); MARK LINNEMAN (Sacramento, California), counting up how many editorial changes Thyme went now retired as head of the Law Library of California, through). who asks, ‘Could you please send everything to my I don’t find it incomprehensible that nobody is now home e-mail: [email protected]’; KAARON doing an Australian SF newszine these days. My impres- WARREN (Downer, ACT), who, when she wrote, was still sion is that recent generations of fans and neo-pros are stunned at winning a Shirley Jackson Award: ‘Having very inward looking. They don’t seem much interested been a judge, know what they are looking for, so am in what’s happening in outside of their own particular even more flattered they chose my story! I just need club or interest. It didn’t help either that the format of someone to make a movie of it now and I’ll be set!’; the SF Bullsheet wasn’t appropriate in an Internet ZARA BAXTER (recently returned, I think, from New Zealand to Sydney); ROBYN WHITELEY (Richmond, environment. Rather than try and publish a monthly Victoria), who has just sent us another batch of newsletter the editors needed to copy the format of File concert program books from concerts staged by such 770 and publish news items individually as they ap- organisations as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, peared. This and the ability of readers to comment on Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, and the Australian specific items would have helped build a sense of com- Chamber Orhcestra — concerts we can’t afford to munity for the Bullsheet. Of course that would of required attend, so we were very grateful last year when Robyn a better designed website for the Bullsheet, but surely and husband John let us attend a concert for free when there were SF people out there with the knowledge and they were absent to attend a wedding: ‘It doesn’t look the will to do that, as though we’re going to book the ACO next year, and (June 2014) we’ve taken the MSO at Robert Blackwood Hall’; and WILLIAM BREIDING (Dellslow, West Virginia), who sent cash, lots of letters, and the article that features in this issue of Treasure.

*brg* Nine months later ... My Sparky would be in the ground with his brothers if it was not for a miracle my vet thought of. There is a dog The letter column was finished in January. Publication medicine for nausea call Cerenia. When Sparky’s appe- of Treasure 2 has been interrupted since then. I can’t tite goes down down (for whatever reason) he becomes cover the host of emails that have buzzed me since less and less able to eat and things look terminal fast. then, but I can report the gratitude that Elaine and I Cerenia settles his stomach and allows him to get back feel to CASEY WOLF, who when she heard about our into eating. It takes a few days or a week to get him eating difficulties in keeping 19-and-a-half-year-old Polly well again and then I taper him off until the next time eating, replied as follows. Doses of Cerenia began a he is compromised. return to health by our little old lady cat Polly:*]

29 Feature letters

Leigh Edmonds and Bruce Gillespie

A conversation about music today (especially on ABC FM)

[*brg* This correspondence began with Leigh’s letter of comment about SF Commentary 84. He mentioned that he was reading SFC while travelling by train from Ballarat to Melbourne and Geelong, and that he also listens to classical music during these trips. While nattering, we began talking about recorded music and broadcast music, at a time when ABC FM (Australia’s national classical music network) was broadcasting one of its annual surveys of a Top 100 favourite pieces of music as chosen by listeners. The most recent survey at that time was the Top 100 Pieces of French Music. I probably said to Leigh that I did not realise how many classical composers I disliked until I heard several hours of readers’ choices of French pieces. I should dig up the lists from wherever they dwell on the internet, and point to examples, but I won’t. Let’s just say that I don’t like many French composers apart from Hector Berlioz. Leigh doesn’t like Berlioz as much as I do. However, Leigh and I agreed that one gets more than a bit irritated to hear Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique (for many years my favourite piece of classical music, in the Colin Davis 1968 version) played every couple of weeks on the ABC. Or on 3MBS, which is the subscription-funded Melbourne music station that Leigh cannot pick up in Ballarat. The reason why the ABC repeats a limited number of popular concert pieces is that in the last few years it has abandoned programs based on music released as CDs, and fills many of its programs with concerts by a wide range of orchestras, recorded for other radio stations, and imported from all over the world. Does one need to hear three or four Beethoven symphonies a week, unless the performances are startling new interpretations? Why is it impossible to escape a Brahms symphony, or one by Sibelius? I love these composers, but I find myself turning off performances of their works. Why do most concert organisers stick to such a narrow range of classical pieces? Is it the fault of the people who choose the programs or the public who attend concerts? I hope you find the discussion interesting, although some of my own email replies to Leigh seem to be missing.*]

LEIGH EDMONDS write a lot about why it wasn’t the way I thought it should Ballarat East VIC 3350 be. Besides, it wouldn’t be nice, and my mother always told me to say something nice or not say anything. This I came across this email lingering in my inbox among an led me to a line of thinking that included John Foyster array of much less interesting stuff. I must get tidy in here and his role in ASFR. This, in turn led me to further one of these days — by which I mean that while my room thoughts, and I query which has become an itch that I looks generally tidy this could not be said for my com- can’t scratch. Perhaps you can help me with it. I recall puter, which has all kinds of files and bits and pieces in that John wrote under several alternate names there odd folders all over the place. It reminds me of the (and perhaps elsewhere) but the only one is K. U. F. Tardis, with all kinds of stuff hidden away in dark corners Widdershins. (How could we forget that!) But I’m won- far from comprehension. dering if you recall any of his other names? As I might have written to you somewhere else I took Recently I got pieces of paper from the Department the opportunity to read a lot of stf while in Hobart. It was of Human Services (or whatever they call it) saying that interesting but I don’t know that I could write much it was time for me to change from the Disability Pension about it. To put it another way, perhaps, I could either to the Old Age Pension. I know it means I’m turning 65 write nothing or write a lot and I don’t feel equipped to soon, but how did that happen? (22 May 2013)

30 [*brg* Re John Foyster: Andrew Escot was another of were really shaped while I was doing my PhD. For almost his pseudonyms for ASFR. John Ossian was the name two years I spend five days a week, eight hours a day in a he used for that Cordwainer Smith pastiche for which little room in the middle of the State Library of WA he won a Ditmar in 1970 or 1971. But there’s another reading old microfilm. Radio waves did not penetrate, Foyster name as well, and only leafing through ASFR and trawling old papers is such a tedious and very un- would give it to me. Lee Harding had several names as rewarding for the most part, so you need something to well (such as Alan Reynard), so that between them, distract and entertain. I had a few tapes of music and and John Bangsund reviewing under a pseudonym, the rock and roll gets very tedious after a few hours, and three of them wrote entire issues of ASFR. Good times. having next to no money at the time, buying CDs was out Robert Lichtman reports that you wrote a nice of the question. So I recorded music off ABC’s Classic account of staying in Hobart for SAPS. Could you FM and then played it back to myself during the day. please keep me on your mailing list for your SAPSzines, either paper or PDF? I don’t think I’ve Since each side of a tape was 45 minutes long I liked received the latest one. music that was about that length, but there were often I’ve been on the pension for over a year now, but it gaps at the end of a tape that needed filling. I developed merely tops up my crumbling bank account. Without a system of noting how much time was left blank at the occasional bits of paying work, I would be broke. Also, end of a tape and went through 24 Hours (that magazine I received a bit of money as advance for the reissue of of happy memory) searching for pieces of the right George Turner’s The Sea and Summer by Gollancz SF length to fill the blank spaces. It didn’t matter what the Masterworks. It’s now available in Australia, and I music was, so long as it was the right length. This actually think an e-book as well.*] gave me a very broad education in all kinds of music. So I soon built up quite a collection of tapes, and I’d I’ve been on the pension for over a decade now and I’m take them in to the library and played them to myself moving over from the disability pension to the old age hour after hour with no great care as to what was on pension. I could have stayed on the disability one but I’m them. Sometimes, if a tape wasn’t too bad I’d just let it not sure what the new government we are going to get play through all day so that I listened to a lot of music will do with people on pensions and I thought it more over and over, and it would only be later, when I looked likely that the old age pension will escape tampering at the label I’d put on the tape, that I’d see what I’d been than the disability pension. The pension has been very listening too. As I say, an education. good for filling in the gaps between commissioned his- Those tapes have long ago been abandoned because tories, but with the GFC and the current financial climate of the tape hiss, which is no longer tolerable. So I got there have only been two decent commissions advertised used to listening to music with headphones, of increas- in the past three or four years, so things have really dried ingly good quality and with an iPod when it became up. Fortunately our parents have died and left us some available. money, which is keeping us going. But in a few years I’ll Later, when I spent a lot of time in the archives where have to pick up some new commissions, think of some- the radio reception was completely tolerable, I still thing else to do or live on bread and dripping. We will listened to tapes. The main reason for having head- see. phones or earplugs then was because people can’t help I thought that I had sent you my most recent themselves from chattering and music in my ears is what SAPSzine. If I didn’t, here’s a PDF of it for you. I really I call my ‘cone of silence’. It is also very useful on the should look at finding a place to post them for more train down to Melbourne, where a lot of people like to general reading, but there don’t seem to be enough chatter, which can be a real distraction when I’m trying hours in the day to take on new things, let alone keep up to work. with the old ones. These days I have a very nice set of Sennheiser wireless I don’t recall which of George’s books we have. I’ve headphones that I wear around the house. It is plugged begun unpacking the academic books of history, socio- into the back of my computer, so I can either stream the logy, politics, theory, etc, but the fiction still remains in ABC (or anything else for that matter) or listen to my boxes. I’m starting to build some new bookshelves so, CDs, all of which have been ripped onto the hard drive. hopefully, I will be able to get them out and see what we I’ve also begun the process of copying my LPs on the have sooner than later. Then I’ll see if I need this reprint. computer. It seems such a pity not to listen to them again, I keep on meaning to let you know that I received the even with the inevitable crackles and pops. What a won- two most recent issues of SFC in the mail. Much thanks. der modern technology is. I shook the envelope but unfortunately the five hours My favourite Goldberg Variations is by Rosalyn needed to read them seemed to be missing. I will, of Tureck, which was recorded when she was quite old and course, get around to them as soon as I have to make a takes a very deliberate reading. Gould (at least the train trip to Melbourne or some such thing. famous version) is as keen to show us how good he was In the meantime, having heard more than enough as he was to recount what Bach had to say, while Tureck Berlioz to last a month I found my way to the ABC Classic opens the text up to a very intense reading, to my mind page to make a comment. And what do I see? Your anyhow. smiling face! Is it true that you’re are the ABC Classic’s I don’t get much time just to listen to music. When I only Friend? do I like to read the score — not that I am very good at (12 October 2012) it. It helps to keep me focused, and gives me a better understanding of what the entire piece is about. Some My listening habits, when it comes to classical music, time back I was killing time in the waiting room of

31 Valma’s dentist when I decided to take a look at the art the shelf it disappears from mind as well as sight. The on the walls. It turned out that one large piece was what worst thing is that I gave away or sold a lot of LPs in was probably the manuscript of the famous Chaconne the late 80s on the basis that I had taped the best from the 2nd Partita so, having my iPod to hand, I read tracks, but I would be far more likely to go back to it through while Menuhin played it for me. A great those tracks if I still had the LPs. But I wasn’t to know pleasure. I wouldn’t mind having that to put on my wall that in the 1980s.*] too. (15 October 2012) If you wanted to play jazz in my house you’d have to wear headphones too. Not that I dislike jazz, it’s just that life’s [*brg* I can certainly see how your listening habits too short and besides, there is trad jazz, which should be developed, but since I’ve been able to work at home outlawed. for quite a long time, my experience is rather It seems that you may be a lot more interested in different. The CD machine is the device I had been sound quality than I am. I’m not put off by crackles and waiting for all my life, having to put up with crackles pops on LPs unless they are very insistent. Perhaps I’m and pops and forever-deteriorating styli with turntable more interested in musical structures than sound quality, music. What I didn’t know in 1985 when I bought a CD which may be why I prefer chamber over orchestral player for the first time is that CD sound could have music. I have no great problem with MP3 compression, been a lot better from the start, and that the 20-bit which doesn’t sound any different to me than music sound was chosen almost at random from a number of straight off the CD or LP. I know a lot of people like the possibilities. What is now called SACD sound (24 bit) lush sound of music, especially orchestral music, but the is what CD sound should have been from the why of it is a puzzle to me. It seems to me that perhaps beginning. Even so, many CDs sound infinitely better the only way that I could really get immersed in orches- than the LP versions, or much better than I ever could tral music is to hear it live, and I have very good memories have imagined from sound recording. The only of experiencing the Mahler 2nd in the Perth Concert limitation on my listening to good music from CD on Hall, but even so, better memories of a performance of good speakers is time to sit down and listen, and the fact that under certain circumstances what I play can the Winterreise there. When we were in Washington DC annoy Elaine. I don’t have much jazz, but I have to once, we stayed with a historian friend whose husband play that on earphones. So I have an inferior device in had huge wall speakers that generated very high quality my workroom, which good for ABC radio but less so for sound, but it was still reproduced sound. He also gave playing CDs. me a CD of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, which doesn’t Most other later devices I cannot afford, or seem sound any better on my headphones than it did on his redundant for my needs, frinstance, downloading stuff speakers — but then it is far from my favourite piece. from the net. I’ve ripped all my CDs to hard drive and they sit The other thing I always wanted (apart from what unplayed. I started recording LPs to hard drive as well, proved to be the CD player) was some way of playing but have an intermittent problem with 60 cycle hum, films in my own home, but cassette movies always which is distracting, so I’ve put that off until I can resolve looked awful, so I bought few of them. DVD is a the problem. In fact, I’m gradually working on getting different matter, and Blu-ray even better. However, the everything of interest to me on to hard drive, including only reason why we have a large plasma screen is that books, papers, and anything else you can digitise. This Dick Jenssen gave us his when he upgraded to LCD. I might be the result of seeing my father in his final few don’t know if he has since bought a really huge LCD years living in a room in a nursing home where all the screen. Race Mathews now has one (50 inches), which stuff he loved (his tapes and records and tools) were we see at the monthly film nights at his and Iola’s inaccessible to him. I would like to have the stuff I like place, and it was nice to see 2001: A Space Odyssey on still available to me if I ever end up in that position, so it the other night. I’ve lost count of how many times making that happen is my current project. I’ve seen the movie. Like you, I still have trouble reading off a screen, but But all the more recent devices seem redundant. I like to buy a DVD or Blu-ray so that I have a copy of a I’m working on getting over that. At Aussiecon 4, Rob film on metal in the home. I get rid of movies I think I Gerrand showed me his new iPad and I was very im- will never watch again — although if I were really pressed by the possibilities it presents. Still, I thought I’d honest I could halve the collection on that basis. I buy wait until they got less cumbersome (which they already a few TV shows on DVD, but it’s very easy to get very have) and I have the time and inclination to learn how sick of the formula of any TV show. to use one. My first thought was that they would be very And I hardly need an iPad because I could not stand useful for storing and reading music scores, and since the thought of reading a book on a screen. As it is, if I most of the music I tend to listen to is way our of find an interesting article on the web, I copy it into a copyright it should not be an expensive process. Though Word file, then run it out on the printer before reading buying paper copies would take up a lot of space. I am it. And I don’t need an iPod or mobile phone because also not a mobile phone user. We have one that costs us we don’t often go anywhere. Except last week, when we $22 a month. It exists mainly for emergencies like the car seemed to be out every night. About all that does is running out of petrol (but when it did earlier on this year add kilos when I’m supposed to be trying to lose them. the phone battery was flat anyhow) and for Valma to Back to tapes .... I have two huge drawers of tapes make free calls to her family and friends in Queensland. of edited-up popular music of all sorts, and I never When I was working for the Tax Office they found my think to play them. It’s not even the hissing that stops habit of leaving my mobile turned off very offputting, but me — it’s just that as soon as something is taken off

32 I told them that I was a historian and needed lots of by your local orchestra, provided you ever heard your uninterrupted thinking time. They thought I was a bit local orchestra. Therefore (for instance) Mendelssohn eccentric, but that’s all right with me. was needed to revive interest in Bach and Mozart, Valma and I have the big 52-inch plasma screen. I’m because they had almost disappeared from the told that these days you can buy a similar size LED screen repertoire in 1830 or whenever. for around $1000, which seems very inexpensive. We Not that I have much interest in the watch very little television on it — though we did enjoy toot-whistle-plunk-and-boom school of the Jack Irish programs on the ABC. Hopefully there will twentieth-century music (atonal apples), but it’s always amazing to find a vast amount of ecstatic music be more sometime down the track. We mainly watch old that is still being written and occasionally played and TV series on it. We recently finished off The Avengers and recorded. Charlie Brown in San Francisco put me on to are currently watching Mission Impossible. Next will be The John Adams, for instance — somebody I sort of knew I New Avengers. Just in case you think we only watch old sort of liked, but somebody whose music I hadn’t shows, we so enjoyed Battlestar Galactica that we watched actually heard until Charlie did a Lee Harding when I it twice, and when the complete set of Hustle is released visited him and played some fascinating stuff for me.*] we will get that too. I’d also buy the Doctor Whos that the ABC is advertising, but they are a bit too expensive for What I learned about classical music came initially from us at the moment. We also enjoy watching the Tour de John Bangsund and Lee Harding. Just as well I found my France on it, as much for the scenery as the men on bikes. way into fandom, eh. So I started with Mahler, found my The producers of the show know it, and give us lots of way to Shostakovich, and went on from there. Lee was lovely things to look at. To illustrate my dedication to selling off some records, so I ended up with some treas- digitisation, I copy the DVDs onto an external hard drive ures, including the first recording of Peter Grimes. The and show them onto the screen through a cheap com- thing I found from the French Top 100 was that there puter we bought for that process. The picture quality if was a lot of French music that I did not know, a lot of it no less and it saves all that messing about with fragile bombastic and trite. I was amazed that the pieces I liked disks. It also means I have duplicates if the originals get the most came in the bottom 50, and Boulez didn’t even destroyed for any reason. make it into the second 100 that the ABC later placed on Enough chatter. I find it interesting that we should its website. I guess I keep on underestimating the general have different attitudes to things like sound quality and public’s liking for romantic swill. Once upon a time I digital information while coming from the same genera- expected to spend my final months of life making the tion. Perhaps it comes from my father’s great love for important decision of which Mahler symphony I liked gadgets and new technology (he was the first person I the most. These days I seem to have gone off Mahler knew to own a tape recorder) and I still have all his tapes completely (not that he’s French, of course). I will, from the mid 1950s of family members that I will get instead, have to fill in my time trying to figure out which around to copying onto hard disk in WAV format one of Berlioz piece I dislike the least. these days. But I’m not the early adopter that I used to I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t get ‘classi- be, having had an early Walkman and an early portable cal’ music. Perhaps most people just don’t have their CD player and one of the early iPods. The introduction brains wired the right way. of mass storage devices like external hard drives (now (23 October 2012) available in 3 and 4 terabyte sizes I see) have pushed the technology as far as I need, for the time being at least. [*brg* My life seemed to consist in waiting for Things (23 October 2013) To Be Done Properly. Even before I became interested in classical music in 1967 and 1968, I knew that AM [*brg* I think Lee sold me the very last 20 records in radio was a very poor way of broadcasting music, but his collection when he was really hard up at the end of we seemed to be stopped forever from having FM radio 1969. They were some of the most important records I in Australia. It was great travelling around America in ever owned, until I could buy the same versions on CD. late 1973 and catching the huge variety of music It’s pretty easy to see why most people don’t ‘like’ (then) on FM radio. The ABC did a few stereo classical music — most state schools do not teach broadcasts, remember, especially their broadcast using music any more, at least not above primary school, and the two stations, 3LO and 3AR, of the Solti Wagner none can be found on commercial, or even community, Ring Cycle in late 1968. I was most impressed, not by radio (except for MBS, of course). There are just no the music (I’ve never liked Wagner) but by the fact guideposts anywhere in the culture. that, having started the final opera at 7 p.m., they It’s pretty obvious from listener comments to the were actually willing to go over the midnight time annual ABC polls why they like the sort of music they limit on end of programs in order to finish the opera. do — they want something as soothing and ‘uplifting’ So, FM radio was a revelation, and I bought a as possible, something as different as possible from decent receiver/amp — which seemed forever plagued ordinary boring experience. Can’t say I can knock this, by crackles and sputters — although I plugged it into but I can’t see why people aren’t always looking for the back of the main amp. Much better was the new music that turns on the same buttons. The most medium I had always waited for — CDs. In the early peculiar thing about classical music now and classical days, my dad not only had to change speeds on his music during its heyday is that most concert goers and turntable (built by my Uncle Ian) but also had to listeners really only want repeats of what they have change cartridges when he went from 78s to 33s. When always heard, whereas for centuries it must have been he bought a radiogram in early 1959, it was a bit very hard to find anything but the latest being played easier to play LPs, but the sound wasn’t much better.

33 My own first setup, bought at Douglas Hi Fi (you I’m wondering if a general lack of interest in classical bought yours there too) was an improvement, but music doesn’t also come from its accessibility. True, it there were still the crackles and pops on those LPs. has probably never been more available from a wide CDs are still it, as far as I’m concerned. variety of sources, but in a world in which genres and But we had a swifty pulled on us when ABC niches have become the norm, classical music had also Classical FM began, because none of us thought that disappeared into its own niche. You will recall the days the ABC would rapidly withdraw classical music from when 3AR broadcast a lot of classical music, but lots of what is now called Radio National, leaving only John other stuff as well so that if you listened to that station Cargher and Ralph Collins. (Ralph Collins’ program on you got a wide variety of generally ‘high culture’ things. Sunday mornings was, as much as instruction by These days Radio National seems to be a more or less Harding and Bangsund, my real education in classical perpetual talk station, which I find gets tedious after a music in the late sixties.) I still have no idea how to make connections with while, and all the classical music has disappeared into what’s out there in internetland. I would want WAV Classic FM where you have to specially look to find it. files, 24 bit if possible, which I would somehow have Can’t complain though. Classical music has probably to find a way to play through my regular amplifier. never been more popular. I see that organisations like Since it is about 25 years old, perhaps older, it doesn’t the MSO have to put on three performances of their have a USB connection. most popular concerts to meet demand. Not that I go, I Thanks for all the stimulating chat. As I say, I’ll try wouldn’t pay money to hear most of what they put on in to put all this together to see if it makes a good article those concerts, even if I could afford it. for Treasure.*] (31 October 2012)

I was thinking about what you said about people wanting My father was a bit of an early adopter of new technology, well-known, comfortable or uplifting music in their ‘clas- and had a tape recorder by the mid 1950s. I was also sical’ music these days when I turned on ABC Classic FM aware of stereo fairly early, I recall dad taking me around to hear the usual Saturday night new music and came to the shop in the main street where one bought elec- across yet another performance of the big Brahms violin tronic stuff when I was quite young to listen to it. As soon concerto. Good grief! I don’t know how many people as dad had a two-track recorder we were listening to would want to see performances of Hamlet or Death of a stereo, but my parents’ music tastes were not very excit- Salesman every year, but they certainly seem to want to ing, so the only thing of any interest that I can remember expose themselves to this kind of music as often as they hearing more than once was the Turkish March from The can. It may be because music is, for most people, a Ruins of Athens. As for my own listening habits, my radio language of emotions and they need their emotions was rusted on to 3UZ for most of the 1960s, with Stan soothed or uplifted by being made comfortable and Rofe the highlight of the week. secure. Your ears must be much more finely tuned instru- I wonder how much the invention or radio and re- ments than mine. I can listen to something for quite a cording has changed listening habits. We can now listen while before I realise that it isn’t in stereo, and I’m quite to the old favourites as much as we like but, on the other happy enough with MP3 files, though not highly com- hand, the need for recording companies to keep the pressed. This means that I don’t have to have a large catalogue going has led to a lot of stuff being played and collection of CDs. All my recorded music fits quite hap- recorded that is not really great music. Even Haydn had pily onto an iPod Classic. I suppose that you will be able his off days, but you can still buy complete sets of his 104 to stream audio over the interweb in a while when the smphonies (or at least you could when I acquired most NBN gets built. At the moment the ADSL runs so slowly of mine). And these days you can get the work of a lot of at times that I have trouble with drop out when stream- his forgotten contemporaries as well. When I listen to ing, even at relatively high compression. Roll on techno- the new music programs I hear a lot of music that will logical advances. We might not have a permanent base probably never be heard again. But there are also pieces on Mars, but we do have the ability to listen to almost of great imagination and beauty that may become part every radio station in the world or to spend out money of every day listening. It’s getting to the stage that you on things we don’t really need from the four corners of have to work hard to avoid the Glass Violin Concerto in the world. the ABC’s concert broadcasts, and the Edwards Violin (23 November 2012) Concerto is becoming commonplace too. The same goes for your plink-plunk-plonk music. [*brg* I agree completely about the change in Most of it has been played once and forgotten; in fact, it classical music being in terms of availability. In 1790 seems that most of that movement coming out of the there wasn’t anything but the latest — Bach and Haydn Second Viennese school has disappeared without a trace. just had to keep churning them out, week after week. But it would be hard to say that pieces like the Berg Violin We’re lucky they were written down. Concerto or A Survivor of Warsaw or some of the Webern The real change must have come with radio in the twenties in America and Britain. For quite awhile, miniatures are not worth listening to more than once. I classical music featured on major American networks have to say that I prefer almost any music coming out of as well as on the BBC (and ABC). A strong feeling of that second school to the sickly lushness of Richard improving the experience of ordinary people was Strauss, but most people don’t seem to agree, and the behind this, which led to the creation of a rather solid Four Last Songs comes up regularly on the radio to offend canon. But I don’t know when the rot set in with my ears. orchestras themselves. Even the largest American

34 orchestras seem to have been very adventurous up to DVDs straight from the disk to computer memory using the 1940s — I was recently reading about the something called WinX DVD Ripper. It’s not the easiest breathless waiting for Sibelius’s 8th, which never bit of software to use, but it was cheap and does the job. happened. I suppose the only composers for whom For audio recording I have Sony Sound Forge Audio people wait today are Glass and Part, perhaps John Studio (that I bought for a few hundred dollars, but use Adams and one or two others — but their new pieces for processing and editing oral history interviews). In don’t get snapped up immediately and given their some way that I don’t now recall I set it to record British, American, and Australian premiere as soon as whatever the computer is listening to, so all I have to do possible. Yet that was being done for the latest is turn it on and let it run in the background when I’m Shostakovich and Bartok pieces in America in the streaming something like Classic FB, though it also re- 1940s. cords the sound effects that come with other computer None of this explains what happened to audiences for orchestral concerts, who seem to be a quite processes. I’m using this process to record LPs, using a different crew from buyers of CDs or downloaders of little gizmo whose name I now forget but which connects music. Yet ABC FM is giving in to a very narrow range the turntable straight into a USB slot on the computer. of listeners by broadcasting nothing by sclerotic It’s so long since I copied all my CDs to computer hard concerts, and abandoning CDs altogether, which is very drive that I couldn’t tell you what it was called, but it was strange. I’d just like to hear some of the exciting new commonly available and cheap. I have the feeling that CDs reviewed in each issue of Gramophone. Sonic Foundry might do this too. It is also good for Exactly how did you put all your old stuff on to converting between WAV and MP3 files quickly and hard disk? We don’t have any of the equipment simply. necessary, but I would like to have some idea of what I The saving the files is the easiest part. Buy one of those would have to buy when our old computers die.*] multi-terabyte external drives and feed stuff into it until you can’t imagine that there is any more music in the When in doubt about why things happen the way they world. Of course, if you are a complusive collector like do, there’s nothing wrong with going back to that good some of us you end up having ten or so of these external old theorist, Karl Marx. I recall a conversation with one drives, partly to make backups too of everything that of the ex-Commissioners of Taxation I did during the you’ve lovingly processed ready for storage. ATO history project. He said that there was one ABC Recently I’ve also become a bit of an expert in saving radio station that no government would dare to touch, printed matter to PDF files using a rather expensive A3 and that was Classic FM, because it had too much support scanner and the rather flash software that comes with it. in all the right places. It might also be that classical music I’d been keeping a great deal of material from when I is, by and large, fairly non-contentious and both socialists was tutoring at Murdoch Uni, a lot of it interesting and and fascists can listen to it with equal pleasure. Perhaps potentially useful, but also stuff that I haven’t looked at we can say that ‘classical music’ as it now exists is the for twenty years. This is a more time-consuming process opiate of the intellectual/educated masses. If it were not because you have to show every page you want to keep for Classic FM we’d all have to listen to that well-known to the scanner, but reading off the computer screen socialist network, RN. And if we are busying ourselves (and, one of these days, an iPad) will be a lot easier than debating the best ever performance of Das Lied von Der the cumbersome course guides and readers I had to Erde we are not debating the state of the world and how battle with when I was doing the teaching. Next I think it might be improved. That’s my guess anyway. I might scan and save all my correspondence from the One of the programs on Classic FM that I really did early 1980s (11 boxes of it), because I find that kind of enjoy was the one that compared various performances material easier to handle in an electronic from than on on CD, done by I can’t remember who. I found it very dusty old sheets of paper. Boy, I did keep up a hectic interesting to have things pointed out to me that I was correspondence level in those days. Today’s email to you otherwise not noticing in terms of things like dynamics, are the most I’ve written along these lines in years. tempo, colour, etc, etc. I would prefer that to having to (13 December 2012) listen to some rather uninspiring performances from orchestras in Eastern Europe, but I’m not paying the bills [*brg* Martin Hibble was the great ABC Classical FM so I don’t know which is more expensive to broadcast. announcer who hosted his round-table critics’ program And if there’s a choice between having to listen exclu- in the 1980s. Martin died much too young, and John sively to Classic FM from now until the end of eternity Baxter has sent me an article about him that will and having to spend five minutes listening to a station appear in the next issue of Treasure. The most like 2Day FM, you can superglue my wireless dial to memorable program was the critics’ panel on Classic FM. I’m not brain dead yet. Schubert’s Winterreise. There are two parts to the recording and storing of In recent months, ABC FM has descended another rung of whatever ladder it’s on. It has replaced its music and video. Windows 7 comes with an inbuilt video wonderful overnight program, once called ‘Music to recorder that you can set to record anything on free-to- Keep the Days Apart’, with a colourless carpet of air TV (and perhaps cable if you have it) if you plug your unannounced musical pieces from 12.30 in the computer into the TV hole in the wall. Those video files morning. I refuse to listen to music that contains no are in an unusual format, so you need a free download- enlightenment. Its contents is not even listed on the able converter (I use WTV Converter, which works fine) ABC website. This contempt gives little comfort for any and then you need some video editing software (I use Australians interested in quality broadcasting.*] AVS Video Editor, which cost about $25). I copy my

35 Robyn Whiteley writes: ‘Robyn Whiteley and Bruce Gillespie started working at the Publications Branch of the Education Department of Victoria in 1971. Both learned to be editors, while still engaging in their own writing. Both eventually became freelance editors, but Bruce also went into fanzines, and Robyn became an obsessive letter writer. In recent years, when she and her (much older) husband John Collins have travelled abroad, Robyn has written extensive emails to her 600 or so fans. This is the story of their 2013 trip.’ Robyn Whiteley

Have wheelchair, will travel: A travel diary: May–June 2013

Photographs by Robyn Whiteley and John Collins

Wednesday, 22 May 2013: Magical Melbourne Moments

(With thanks to the receptionist at the Qantas Business Lounge.)

At about 6.20 a.m. we drove to Tullamarine Airport with our house minders, Bill and Pam Christoffel from Mary- land, in the back seat. A traffic report on radio at 6.30 warned us of congestion near the airport, but we hadn’t expected it to start from as far out as Mickleham Road. As we crawled along we came to a four-car nose-to-tail smash. Once we had passed that, the traffic was much easier. When we pulled up outside the international terminal, Pam said, ‘The last time we dropped you here the man barked at us to move on.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘That’s why we’re not going to hang around farewelling you. We’ll just unload the luggage and you drive off’, which they did, once Bill worked out that you had to turn the key on before the car would shift into gear. As I was struggling to find out just how much money it cost to hire a luggage cart (the amount is not on any of the signs, just on the screen of the machine where you insert coins), a tiny security lady (she barely reached my shoulder at her full height) came up to John who was struggling to get the wheelchair out of its fancy new bag, while keeping an eye on two suitcases, his pack, two carry-on bags, the laptop computer, and my handbag. While he got himself into the chair, she loaded the luggage cart, then she pushed it all the way to the Qantas counter while I pushed John in the chair. She was our first angel for the day. In a very short time we were called to the counter by Tamara. When she worked out that we wanted to send

John Collins on his trusty scooter by the Bath Cathedral door.

36 ‘our’ wheelchair as special luggage she secured a Qantas pagne, orange juice, or water to drink. There are no chair so that John could sit in that while she and I prizes for guessing which I chose. John had orange juice. struggled with the new cover. She was most admiring of It takes a while to learn to drive the seats in Business it, and called one of her colleagues over to see the way it Class. I grizzled about there being no footrest and we fits over the chair completely. She completed our check- both felt the loss of the pocket in front of us to store in process without incident, and by 7.20 we were making magazines etc. but a passing flight attendant pointed out our way through security (follow the handicapped signs to me the diagram of a body on the right hand arm of to the head of the queue) where another angel took over the seat, with arrows all over the place. I spent some John and the chair while I pushed through two carry-on minutes pushing arrows and eventually found the foot- cases, the laptop out of its case, and my handbag. I forgot rest and even managed to get the seat fairly flat. Right at to look for the tray into which John had put the contents the end of the ride she showed me how to get the seat of his pocket but when I went back with the mobile upright in one movement, so I’ll have to practise on the phone he had forgotten to take out of his top pocket, I next leg. was presented with the bits and pieces tray as well as the When it seemed that the entertainment system wasn’t phone tray. We felt that people were really looking after working I reached for my talking book, only to realise us. Then it was on to Immigration and Customs (special that I hadn’t put any batteries into it. (John found me queue again) and finally we made it to the Qantas Busi- an adapter, which means I can use my mp3–CD player ness Lounge where the receptionist asked how my day on power and I’ve got out of the habit of carrying had been. When I said we’d met three wonderful people batteries.) When the entertainment system did come on already she said, ‘Magical Melbourne Moments’, so what (or when I learned how to work it!) I discovered Series else could I call this opening section of this year’s travel- 2 of Downton Abbey, most of which I had missed when it ogue? was shown last year, so I caught up on that. Food and The QBL is huge, and early this morning it was almost drink came plentifully, and I even had a little nap, empty and very quiet. We had a delicious breakfast: fruit broken rudely by John trying to climb over me to get to and yoghurt, scrambled egg on toast, and tea/coffee. the toilet. I think I’ll sit on the window next leg because Then, as we sat quietly reading the papers, a waiter came it’s easier for him to get up and down from the aisle seat. past with toasted sandwiches. I reckon I’m going to come home heavier at the end of this trip. When we arrived at Singapore (about 15 minutes late, due to head winds), a wheelchair was waiting with a tiny Our perceptive receptionist came at about 9.15 to sug- pusher holding John’s name. She pushed him so far that gest that it was time for us to go to the gate lounge. There I began to think Singapore is the biggest airport we’ve we joined a line of three wheelchairs, and another came been in, though John thinks O’Hare, in Chicago, is in after us. John decided he would walk down the aero- bigger. John would never have managed the distance bridge rather than ride, but when he found out how far without the chair. She pushed us to the Finnair counter it was, he wished he’d taken the ride after all. Even the to hand us over to their wheelchair pusher, but that wheelchair pusher with whom we were walking com- counter didn’t open for another couple of hours, so mented that we appeared to be walking to Singapore. In eventually we convinced her to push us to the Ambassa- a very short time we were installed in our seats (after the dor Transit Hotel where we were booked in for a six-hour flight attendant who met us enthused over my ‘flying stay. We had a cup of tea and a short sleep, then I had a dress’, the material for which depicts luggage labels from shower and washed my hair, and slipped out to see what airports all over the world) and we were offered cham- I could organise at the Finnair counter. I did manage to

37 organise a wheelchair to come and collect us at the hotel I pushed a trolley with the suitcases and John’s pack and reception desk at 10.30 p.m. despite the fact that the my carry-on bag. I had packed the laptop into my carry- check-in clerk kept telling me it was such a short distance on just to make the business of keeping track of every- to walk. He doesn’t know the state of John’s lungs. We thing that much easier. also discovered that the wonderful Tamara in Mel- At the taxi line, the driver of a Volvo SUV said he bourne had managed to give me two copies of John’s didn’t think he could fit in all the luggage, so we stepped boarding pass from Singapore to Helsinki and no copy back to wait for something bigger, but nothing bigger of mine, so we rectified that, and I returned to the hotel appeared (is there anything bigger bar a bus?) so even- room to find John sitting up surfing TV channels. He tually I said I thought I could pack everything in. That slept more than I did on the first leg, but we’ll both really challenged the driver, so he fitted it all in and John probably sleep on the second leg, which is 12 hours as got in beside him while I squeezed onto the back seat opposed to 8 hours from Melbourne to Singapore. with the wheelchair and its cover. We had a very good ride into town (50 euros) and John finally got some conversation out of the driver. I decided the driver was Heading for Helsinki not taciturn, but rather shy about his level of English. In fact it was very good, but not fluent. The wheelchair pusher arrived in the hotel lobby at 10.30 p.m. as arranged. He pushed John to the Sky Lounge, which is, I think, the business class lounge for a number Stalled by Sokos of airlines. It’s big, but we weren’t as impressed with it as we were with the QBL in Melbourne. Maybe we’re get- Drizzly rain was falling as we drove in from the airport. ting jaded about airline lounges? Getting John a decent The rain was a bit heavier as the taxi drew up to the hotel. cup of tea was impossible, but at least he got some liquid, Where was the uniformed attendant who would take pity and we both had a couple of little filled rolls as a snack. on me with my husband in a wheelchair and appear At 11.05 p.m. the pusher arrived back to take us to the magically with a luggage trolley? In my dreams, I’m aircraft. We boarded without incident and settled in to afraid. The taxi driver landed the suitcases on the foot- find out just how this Business Class ran. The choice of path, just out of the rain, while I struggled to get John drinks on arrival was the same, but the various spots to into the chair. I left him guarding the luggage while I store things were different, better than Qantas, in fact. went to reception to ask if we could check in. ‘Trainee’ However, the food was far inferior, both in quality and (everyone else had a name!) was very quick to point out presentation. Our meals arrived on plastic trays covered that I could not check in until noon. Fortunately I had with glad wrap, just like a meal in economy class. The established this before I left home, so it wasn’t a surprise, only difference seemed to be the free grog. but I was disappointed that I couldn’t talk my way into a John settled down to sleep and I settled down to watch room immediately. Yes, I could leave my luggage. No, movies: Guilt Trip, with Barbara Streisand, Mr Popper’s there was no trolley I could use and, in any case, the Penguins (got some giggles during that one), Water for luggage room was right by the door. So, piece by awkward Elephants and, finally, Amour, but that was really dis- piece, I carried the cases into the luggage room. When appointing because, in editing it to fit the airline screen, everything was finally stored, I struggled through the they managed to cut off the subtitles. I stuck with it, outward-opening door with John in the wheelchair, and hoping I had enough French to get the gist of the film, then looked in horror at the ramp that has been installed but it was probably the reviews I’d heard that gave me at one end of the short flight of steps up from the entry the most enlightenment. I must have slept at some stage to the foyer. In the end, John got out of the chair, walked because John told me he had been off chatting with the up the steps, and returned to the chair. We sat in the flight attendants during the night. They certainly foyer for 10 minutes or so working out how we were going hovered around him like moths around a flame when we to fill in four hours in wet weather after a 12-hour flight finally got ready to leave the plane so he must have on which we had managed to achieve not very much charmed them at some stage. sleep. John wanted his showerproof jacket and he said I should get my overcoat too. I didn’t want to undo my complicated suitcase to get the coat so I said no. He Thursday, 23 May 2013 nagged, I snapped. We weren’t a happy couple. In the end I did as he wanted, and it was just as well I did. The We landed at Helsinki about 6.30 a.m. We waited for a rain was persistent and the wind was chilly. I announced wheelchair to appear at the door, but that one took us that we should find a shopping centre where we could, only a short distance before the pusher got a message to while staying dry, find somewhere to eat and drink and say that our own wheelchair was being brought up from an ATM to stock up on some euros. I took various the hold and the chair John started in had to go to a lady brochures from the hotel’s advertising stand and John who had been following in our footsteps from Mel- found one that had a shopping centre marked and he bourne. Both the pushers we had at Helsinki were enor- reckoned he could guide us there. mous young men, such a contrast to the little girl in Arrayed in our wet gear, we got John out the door by Singapore. We were taken through Immigration and reversing the incoming process and then we faced a new Customs and deposited at the baggage carousel, where obstacle. The streets of inner Helsinki are paved with we said we could manage by ourselves. John got out of very smart-looking modern cobblestones, not the easiest the chair and pushed it with his carry-on bag on it while thing to negotiate in a wheelchair. Several times I nearly

38 doing a version of window shopping that I don’t think Cobblestoned market squaie. I’ve ever done before. We worked out where to find the toilets, we looked at all kinds of things we don’t need, and we finally took ourselves up to the eighth floor for shot John out but eventually, having rejected the process something to eat and drink before we tackled the of pulling the chair backwards up little slopes, I got the cobbled streets back to the hotel, where we arrived at hang of tipping the chair with my foot to raise the front 11.50, and the receptionist didn’t dare to refuse to check wheels to go over rough patches. Green lights for pedes- us in. trians seem to last a long time in Helsinki, so we crossed We had fond memories of the Sokos Vaakuna Hotel several roads safely until we got to the Kamppi Shopping from our two-night stay in 2005. I can only think that we Centre. We prowled along two floors with nary a sight of paid more for our room that time, because the room we an ATM. Eventually we stopped at a little eating place, have this time is quite pokey. There isn’t really a com- and while we had a drink and a snack, I perused the fortable chair. There is a pleasant view from our seventh information on John’s map and discovered that ATMs floor window and there is still heating in the bathroom are called ‘Ottos’. We were then able to ask where we floor, which makes personal laundry easy to dry. In could find an Otto. The lady behind the counter said she dismay I looked at the shower over the tub and wondered thought there was one on the ground floor, the one if John’s general unsteadiness would allow him to climb marked E in the lift (E for Earth?). Before we arrived at into the bathtub. I cursed myself for not having asked for E John announced that he wanted to go to the toilet, so a room set up for someone with a disability. There are so we found that and also found that it cost 1 euro. The coin many more things to think about when you’re travelling disappeared by the time we worked out that you pulled with an oldie! There aren’t any decent ‘toys’ in the the door instead of pushing it, so when the second coin bathroom, either. Who on earth thinks we’ll have time went in we not only pulled the door the right way but we to use strawberry bubble bath? managed to make the coin do double duty. Still search- John set about getting the laptop computer running ing for an Otto, we made a side visit to the supermarket as his first task. I unpacked and ran around finding to buy batteries for my CD player and asked again about things for him. When he finally handed over the com- an Otto. The cashier and a customer both assured us puter so that I could look at my email, I found one asking there was one in the middle of the floor. We found the how we were. ‘Tired and scratchy’ was my response. money changer, but that was no good to us. Eventually, I had made the mistake of not having a telephone under a staircase, we found what looked like public number for granddaughter Ellen, but I felt sure she telephone booths and they were indeed marked ‘Otto’. would have answered my last-minute email from home Victory! asking that question. During our ‘regrouping’ time in The shopping centre had lost its appeal by then and the foyer at our first attempt to check in, I discovered the rain had ceased so we braved the outside world and that I could deal with my email at the public computers made our way to Stockmann, a department store that we in the foyer. There was an email with Ellen’s number so fell in love with on our first visit here in 2005. Its motto I sent her a note saying she should contact us on the is ‘If we haven’t got it, you don’t need it’. We started at number I had put on top of our itinerary, a number that the sixth floor and made our way down floor by floor John had secured when he bought a Woolworths Global

39 and having ‘fixed’ the phone), she bade us be sure to close the curtains carefully because there is nothing more annoying than being woken at 4 a.m. by bright daylight coming in at the window. Once again, we hit the hay, and slept. The bed is soft, so I hope I don’t finish up with a sore back. (In Tours, France, in 2003, I slept on the floor for a week because the bed was so soft.) The bed is made up European style, that is, we have a bottom sheet for the entire bed, then two single duvet quilts, each encased in its own cover, and a fairly heavy cover lies across the The double basses, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. lower part of the bed. I can take my quilt out of its cover when I make the bed and leave just the two-sheets’ weight on my side. The windows Roaming sim card. It’s a bit of a shame he didn’t put away don’t open and I have the air-conditioning as low as it the cardboard cover that came with the card. After it had can go, but I still find it’s too hot. lain on the dining room table for three days, I threw it into the recycle bin - along with all the necessary numbers that made it possible to use the card. I wasn’t Friday, 24 May 2013 popular. Not much wonder Ellen couldn’t get through Valuing Wagner to us, but we were able to phone her, so we arranged for her to book dinner for us for 6 p.m. and for her to come Breakfast is included with our room fee at the Sokos to the hotel at 5.30 p.m. I promptly retired to bed (it was Vaakuna, and it’s the kind of breakfast where you can about 2 p.m.) but regained sufficient consciousness to help yourself to anything and just about as much of it as set the alarm for 5.00 — and I slept right up to the alarm. you like. I’m pigging out on berries and fish; there were There was just time for a quick shower and a tidy-up four kinds of fish to sample this morning. With full before there was a knock at the door, and there was our tummies we were ready to dive into our first adventure. beautiful Ellen. Richard Gill, the Melbourne conductor, is a national Ellen is the elder daughter of John’s younger son treasure. For at least the last two years he has run a Don. Officially she is a third-year Arts student at Mel- three-concert series each year called ‘Ears Wide Open’. bourne University, but she was able to secure a one- With the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra responding semester exchange to the University of Helsinki, and she to every movement of his baton he dissects a piece of arrived here on 2 January. Her birthday is on 25 May, so music and explains how the conductor uses the instru- I suggested to John that we should come to help her ments of the orchestra to achieve what is in the conduc- celebrate the birthday and then go on to visit other tor’s mind. Each concert lasts for 80 minutes and it is friends in Europe. That’s how this whole trip began. both entertaining and informative. At the concert in We chatted for nearly the half hour we had until our March, Richard Gill happened to mention that Finland, dinner booking and then she led us to a restaurant called a country with 5 million people, has 38 symphony orches- Strindberg, a charming eating house that looks as tras! With 23 million people, Australia has just eight though it is set in a library. There are books on shelves symphony orchestras. It seemed to me that if we were all over the place. Part of the establishment is a lounge, coming to Helsinki we should at least try to hear one of with a bar and armchairs or sofas, and part is a restaurant. these orchestras, so I fiddled about with the help of On our table when we arrived was a special menu paying Google and discovered we could attend final rehearsals tribute to the asparagus — every dish on it featured white for 3 euros each. So this morning we made our way to or green asparagus, or both, except the desserts. We had the Music Hall and asked where we needed to buy tickets. a lovely meal, accompanied by a syrah wine from Chile, ‘The concert is sold out,’ the Information Officer said, which lasted us through main course and a shared cheese ‘but I do have 11 tickets here for a group that hasn’t platter. On our way back to the hotel, Ellen found a place turned up yet. If they don’t come, you can have a ticket.’ to buy a new sim card for the phone and offered to help I made sure that I sat right in his line of vision, with John John set it up. We wandered home through what seemed in front of me in the wheelchair, and in a very short time, like broad daylight. Yes, we’ve arrived in this far northern we were whisked off to Door 6, where we were admitted city at the time of year where the sun goes down late and to the upper level of the beautiful auditorium, in a gets up early. When Ellen left us (having escorted us wheelchair position that was right above the double safely back to the hotel, over cobblestones and tramlines basses.

40 Island fortress of Suomenlinna. We had a drink and a snack before we left the Music Hall. On the way back to the hotel, I passed a post office, What an experience we had. We watched the orches- so I went in for a fix of stamps and postcards for great tra members gather. We saw the conductor appear, a nieces/nephews/grandchildren and non-email friends. man named Leif Segerstam, whose waist measurement We got back to the hotel not long before Ellen appeared looked to be at least twice John’s and whose movements again to help us enjoy the afternoon. made him appear to be even older than John (can you imagine!). Google tells me he was born in 1944, so I hope he never gets to read this diary. John was fascinated by Sightseeing at sea the number of microphones in the room and the places at which they were deployed. The program was all Wag- As we emerged from the hotel, the sun emerged from ner music from the operas, so there was plenty of brass. behind the clouds and we cheered. We made our way to I counted 101 musicians on stage at one point. There was the harbour for a 90-minute cruise around the historical every instrument you could imagine, from tiny piccolos island fortress of Suomenlinna and other islands in what to concert harps and hanging bits of metal that John says is called the Eastern Archipelago of Finland. We saw only ever appear in Wagner music. I was amused to see some splendid houses hidden away amongst tall conifer how the different double bassists approached the playing trees, and many of the houses had little sauna cabins of their instruments: one stood, two either sat on or right on the edge of the water, so that when you’re well leaned against the ‘bicycle seat’ high chairs they were and truly heated by the sauna, you can leap into the very provided with; three played with their left feet on ordi- cold water to refresh yourself! Ellen says ‘sauna’ is the nary chairs; one had special footplates on his high stool only Finnish word that has been incorporated into Eng- — I was quite goggle-eyed. The bassoonists and oboists lish, and you can see why there is no English word for had special headrests; I think, as much as anything, the such a barbarous practice! Ellen told us the story of going headrests were to protect them from the noise made by away one weekend with friends who, when they came to the brass instruments behind them. It was a wonderful a fuel station on the way home, discovered that there was spectacle as well as being good music. The hall itself has a sauna there, so they filled the petrol tank and had a curtains that are lowered for concerts to keep out natural family sauna before continuing on their way. I can’t think light, and raised for intervals and at the end of the of any equivalent to that in Australia. concert. The hall is like Hamer Hall in Melbourne, in We started our trip on the m/s Doris sitting up on the that it is below ground level. We were so excited by the top deck with a drink at hand, but the chilly air soon experience that we have signed up for another rehearsal drove us downstairs to a more sheltered spot. Ellen and on Wednesday. The music will be Haydn, Eliasson, and John even copied the locals by using some of the blankets Stravinsky. John says he has had enough Wagner for a supplied to wrap themselves up against the chilly wind while. caused by the boat’s movement. On the way back we had

41 to wait for a swing bridge to move by 90 degrees to let squares, and car parks. Eventually one of the guide book boats through. The bridge does this every half hour, and owners explained that it was ‘clean out the house’ day, road traffic on either side of the bridge simply has to wait so lots of people had gone through their wardrobes and for 10 minutes while the operation is completed. their households to determine what they no longer Back at the wharf, we said au revoir to Ellen who went needed. It seemed to be a perfect example of ‘one man’s off to do her own thing for a couple of hours. We trash is another man’s treasure’. dawdled around the market. By this stage John had given We’ve decided that the car fleet seems to be about as up being wheeled across the cobblestones, and was push- old as ours at home, and the composition of makes seems ing the chair himself, using it as a ‘walker’. I bought some to be very similar, except that there are a lot more postcards, but we resisted strawberries, blueberries, Mercedes Benz here, and they’re a significant part of the bananas, flowers, and all kinds of handcrafts. We wan- taxi fleet. dered back to the hotel past lots of designer clothing I knitted my way around the journey (it turned out to shops, including Marrimekko, a store that was having a be a figure of eight and we did it twice), but no one took fashion parade to exhibit its wares. There were brightly any notice of my activity, unlike the buses in Los Angeles coloured bean bags on the footpaths outside the store where I was an absolute eye-catcher. and flowers were being handed out to passers-by. There When we alighted from the tram John announced were several restaurants with chairs identical to the that he was hungry, so we betook ourselves to the Vltava chairs one sees all over France, and lots of people eating restaurant (or ravintola as the Finnish word is) which and drinking and enjoying the sun. turned out to be Czech. John ordered a pork dish but it When we arrived back at the hotel John succumbed turned out to be much too rich for him. I had a salmon to tiredness and had an hour’s sleep. When Ellen arrived salad, entrée size, and that was just about perfect. The to take us out for an Italian dinner, he was still asleep menu recommended particular beers to go with each of and it took him quite a while to rejoin the world. During the dishes. As the beers came in pint glasses, the next a very pleasant meal, when we were served by a young thing we did after that was lie down and sleep! John slept Estonian man who was 6 feet 6 inches tall, John reck- for a couple of hours and when he woke I could fuss oned, and had spent six months in Australia (he adopted around with the iron and the ironing board to make sure us as ‘my Aussies’), Ellen asked John what we would be I got the creases out of the new black silk top that Lincoln doing tomorrow. ‘Nothing,’ growled John, so I think he Wu brought for me when he arrived last week from needs a rest day. He was in bed soon after 9 tonight, but China. Since we were going out to celebrate Ellen’s I have stayed up typing this diary just to see what time twenty-second birthday, we thought we should make an there really will be no light left in the sky. It’s now 11 p.m. effort. On the way back from lunch I bought her a bunch and you couldn’t really say it’s dark yet. But the sun will of lily of the valley from an old lady seated in the railway be up again about 5 tomorrow morning, so perhaps I’d square. (I don’t think I have seen lily of the valley since better sign off at this point. I planted some in the garden at my Toorak house in 1975, but here it is on sale in many places, and Pam Christoffel, our American house minder, brought some Saturday, 25 May 2013 lily of the valley soap when she arrived this week.) Ellen’s Touring by tram mum sent with us a fun birthday gift (a tube of Vegemite!) for us to present on the day. A proper birth- We slept late this morning despite there being bright day gift will arrive with them, from Istanbul, on Friday. daylight by 5 a.m. John was up first playing mah jong on When Ellen opened the Vegemite she was delighted. ‘It’s the laptop while I listened to another chapter of my the best thing I know for curing a hangover for me,’ she talking book. We had breakfast at about 10 and then said, ‘and I have been rationing my last tube.’ Apparently John announced that he wanted to ride a local tram. when she left us last night she went to a party and then We sallied forth and caught a tram right near the to a nightclub. She said that when she was making her hotel at 11.16 a.m., and paid for a 24-hour ticket. The way home at 4 a.m. the sky was already light. tram was 3T but it changed to 3B along the way. I realised that one of the maps we had collected in the hotel foyer Eating with Ellen had tram numbers on it (albeit in 4 pt type!) so I was able to follow our route to some extent once I picked up the National Opera House as a landmark. We rode around We loaded John into the wheelchair, but he has now for a couple of hours, observing among other things the decided that he won’t be pushed over the cobblestones, tulips growing wild as well as planted in gardens. There with the risk of being tipped out. If he can’t sight smooth must have been at least one cruise ship in port some- paths ahead, he gets out of the chair and uses it as a where, because groups of Americans joined the tram wheeler to get himself over the cobblestones. from time to time. One sat right behind us with the We made our way to KarlJohan, a restaurant that Ellen photocopy of her guidebook that took us right along the had chosen because Trip Advisor gave it lots of ticks. We’d 3T/B route, so we gleaned quite a bit from her. Another be more than happy to add our tick, though John did couple even had the guidebook as a talking book, but find his white fish a bit tasteless. Ellen had reindeer and they didn’t seem to be able to work it. I had lamb kidneys, and we returned our plates so clean As we took off away from the main railway station I they barely needed washing. We complimented the food started to notice what looked like garage sales on foot- with a bottle of bubbles in honour of the occasion. Again, paths and flea markets in parks, gardens, municipal we made it an early night, because Ellen was going to

42 party at her place and then go out. Back in our hotel bourne, which is also near the centre of a (much more room John managed to find an episode of New Tricks on populous) city and there are plenty of single dwellings TV, in English with Finnish subtitles. After that I there. stumbled across a movie starring Shirley McLaine and Toni Collette, which I’ve seen before, but I’m blowed if I can recall its name. (Time to call on Google. It seems Meeting up again with Minna the movie was called In Her Shoes. I can only conclude I saw it on a plane!) When I woke up and it was still playing Although Ellen’s presence here was the catalyst for our I figured it was time to go to sleep. trip, we do have another Finnish connection. Back in 2005, my sister Felicity Woolley hosted a Finnish student for six months under the AFS program, the same one Sunday, 26 May 2013 that took me to America back in 1963. Minna fitted into the Woolley family so well that the two families have been The tram tickets we bought yesterday were good till 11.15 in regular contact and have visited back and forth ever a.m. this morning. I argued that so long as we were on since. When we knew that Ellen was coming to Finland the tram by that time, we were within our rights; that’s we put her in touch with Minna and Minna’s family, and the way it is at home. As it turned out no one ever looked they have become firm friends too. Today was the day at our tickets. This time we decided to ride the 6 tram, that had been arranged for the three of us to go out to but it turned into an 8 and we couldn’t follow the route Minna’s home. Minna’s husband Ville was scheduled to on the map for much of the time. It was almost as though collect us at the hotel at 2.30. Ellen arrived at about 2.15 we had taken the 109 in Melbourne out along Victoria looking a bit tired after two very late nights (early morn- Street, and at the corner of Church Street, Richmond, it ings) celebrating her birthday. She was carrying a bag magically changed into the tram that runs from North containing a TV set (15-inch screen?) that Ville had Richmond to St Kilda and never goes near the city again. loaned her for the length of her stay here. We waited Since John was chief navigator and he was sure we were outside for about 15 minutes, and it wasn’t all that warm! covering ground we’d seen before, we alighted from the When Ellen finally phoned Ville he explained that there 6 or 8 and caught another one even though our tickets was some kind of fun run on and the traffic was all were expired by then. We came to the intersection near snarled up. We were able to add our bit of information the Opera House and the Olympic Stadium and John to that. announced that we were getting off again and catching Ville arrived with his daughter Laura in the car with our favourite from yesterday, the 3T, back into the city. him. Laura is nearly eight, and she has been to Australia By this time I had figured out that the fare we should be once and to the Cook Islands and New Zealand with her paying was 2.80 euros, so I put the right amount of family and my sister and her family, but Laura still coinage on the driver’s little tray but I’d have to say he doesn’t speak any English. Ville speaks good English, wasn’t very gracious about it. and we had quite a conversation with him on the way to We noticed on Sunday that there were several dogs Espoo where they live, covering family news as well as on the trams or waiting at the stops. Maybe that’s the only some of the things we have been curious about since our day they’re allowed to ride. One was an aggressive little arrival. On this trip I finally spotted some single dwell- daschund who told a dog outside the doors that there ings. was no way he was getting on this tram! The trams were When we arrived at Minna’s house we remade our full of women wearing a kind of fuchsia pink t-shirt and acquaintance with her parents Ahti and Marjut and her some had matching windbreakers. We asked a lady brother Mikko. Ahti and Marjut run a cleaning supplies opposite us what was going on. She explained that it was business and Mikko and Ville work in the business too. a women-only 10-kilometre marathon (is that a contra- Minna is a nurse, working in drug and alcohol rehabili- diction in terms?). She asked if we were English and tation. Mikko laughingly explained that the family works when we said we were Australians she told us she had a together five days a week and then goes on holidays Welsh boyfriend. I guess that’s why her English was good; together as well. He says his friends can hardly believe it must be easier than learning Welsh! such an arrangement. The first tram took us to a port area where there were Marjut had prepared a delicious fish and potato soup ships berthed that were big enough to be cruise liners, that apparently Ellen fell in love with when she went with but maybe they were just ferries. There were a few Ameri- the family to their holiday home in Lapland at Easter cans among the passengers today but not as many as time. We each had a couple of bowls of soup accompa- yesterday. Only one small boy of Indian origin was im- nied by various kinds of bread and rolls, and drinks of pressed by my knitting. His mother told him that she was our own choosing. There was much discussion as to how planning to learn to knit so that she could knit him a the soup should be made and how often it needed to be sweater. tasted in the process. Marjut reckons she probably used I commented to John that in all our riding around the equivalent of a bowl just in tasting! After soup and over the last three days, I had not seen any single-family exchange of gifts, the business of the afternoon became dwellings, only apartments, except for houses on the a cooking lesson for Ellen on how to prepare cinnamon islands we saw during our trip on Friday afternoon. He buns that she had also fallen in love with. Ville ran said land was probably very expensive in the heart of around gathering ingredients while Minna produced a Helsinki and single dwellings wouldn’t be affordable. I huge bowl of pastry which she had ‘prepared ahead of said I thought it wasn’t much different from East Mel- time’ in true cooking demonstration fashion. Arrayed in

43 an apron, Ellen set about rolling out the pastry then they are, he has chosen to use the same stain as was spreading it with butter (‘more, more’, Marjut kept originally applied, and is making different windows fit saying) and shaking cinnamon and sugar over it (‘more, the colour scheme. The outbuildings include a former more’). Then together Ellen and Minna rolled up the cold-store shed that he has converted to a practice room pastry and cut it in a particular way to make the rolls. for his band, and another that will become his summer Meanwhile Laura had been using some of the pastry to sauna. There is a winter sauna in the house itself. The make what looked like a gingerbread man with raisins renovations he has done inside make the house a very for buttons. The little man and the rolls were brushed attractive rustic style. with egg (whisked by Ville) and all went into the oven Yet again, the light had us deceived, and by the time (lit and cleaned by Ville while the preparation was we got back to Minna’s it was 7.30. Ahti and Marjut were underway on an adjacent bench). A second batch of going home to have a sauna. Ville suggested we might as pastry was spread with apple sauce and cinnamon and well leave at the same time, and he drove us back to rolled and cut in the same way. They finished up in paper Helsinki, dropping Ellen first at her student apartment patty pans though and I never quite got to the bottom of and then dropping us at the hotel. We’ll see the whole that, but it might have been to do with some unpractised family again on Friday night, when they’re all coming to rolling and cutting by Ellen. meet Ellen’s parents, Don and Anne, who are flying in While the rolls were cooking, we did a tour of the from Istanbul that day. The three of them are moving on house. When John and I visited in 2005, Minna and Ville to Norway next Tuesday. were just beginning an extension. That is long since I had noticed that there was a supermarket attached finished,and they now have a very comfortable three- to the hotel, so I left John to go up to the room, while I bedroom home. At the moment they are building a deck went to see if I could buy milk. Of course I couldn’t read at the back with a hot tub on it. Of course they have a much but Nestles Nescafe looked exactly the same as it sauna as well. I had half-expected that we might be is at home and English Breakfast tea was recognisable invited to sauna, but the afternoon was a bit full. too. I took a chance on some packets that looked like When the house tour was over, we sat down to the cupasoup, and bought a half-litre of milk like the carton cinnamon rolls and coffee, and John got his first decent I had seen at Minna’s. With hot tea and cinnamon buns, cup of tea since leaving home. (Minna, bless her, even we didn’t need any more to eat. I could barely keep my loaned us the electric jug and a couple of mugs so that eyes open and it was almost 9.30. we can make tea in the hotel room. It just shows you how different cooking styles can be. There’s no way we could manage without our electric kettle at home because of Monday, 27 May 2013 the way John cooks.) The rolls were delicious, and Mucking up Monday everyone had more than one. Minna served the coffee in a retro coffee service straight from the 70s that she Ellen told us last night that she didn’t think she could had bought the day before at a Cleaning Day sale, for 10 accompany us on our proposed day trip to Tallinn to- euros. Marjut had bought a whole lot of clothes for morrow because she hadn’t done any study over the Laura, 20 euros the lot, and we were treated to a fashion weekend, but she would be happy to book our tickets. parade. Laura chose one to wear to the birthday party (She is hoping that when she completes her Arts degree she went off to right after the cinnamon buns. It was a at Melbourne at the end of this year, she will be able to four-year-old’s party, and Ville had bought as a gift a go into a Law course called JD, or Doctor of Juris- capsicum plant with both green and orange capsicums prudence. To be accepted for that she has to complete on it, and a watering can to go with it. How much better an exam which is called (I think) LSAT, and she needs is that than a toy of any description! to complete it as well as she possibly can. She can have When we were here in 2005, Mikko was living with his parents but about five years ago he Laura, Ellen, and Minna making cinnamon buns. bought a property about 5 kilometres from his parents and his sister and he is gradually renovating and restoring it, so we were driven out in Ahti’s very comfortable Land Rover to see it. Ahti’s English is not as good as Marjut’s, so she got to do all the explanations to us, and she did a wonderful job. We were very appreciative of her caring for us in a way that isn’t easy for her. The buildings on Mikko’s land are about 75 years old and they’re in a heritage area of the forest (the land is 2.7 hectares) that overlooks a lake and backs onto a national park. Although Mikko says he isn’t obliged to keep the buildings as

44 three attempts. She had her first in Melbourne in Octo- left at 1 a.m. I don’t think 9 p.m. is too late for Ville to ber last year, and she felt that she could do better, so she meet me at the airport so we left the service queue (to has arranged to sit again in June, but this time in Rome. the delight of the people behind) and found ourselves a When her parents arrive in Helsinki on Friday, she plans place when John got a good cup of tea in a huge mug to travel with them for about 10 days in Scandinavia, then and I got a coffee. We then retraced our steps to the bus she will fly to Rome to do the exam. That means this is stop. When the bus arrived, the driver indicated that he her last week for achieving any real study time. She also wouldn’t be going back to town for 17 minutes and the has to move out of her apartment because, as of Saturday, correct place to catch the bus was downstairs in the her building becomes a hostel for the summer. And she arrivals section, but he didn’t care if we got on then and has to pack a suitcase of things she wants to go home waited for him to resume the trip. What a pleasant which we will collect (we hope) on our way back to contrast he was to the first driver. Melbourne through Helsinki on 19 June.) We reckoned Back at the railway station we checked which bus we that with the help of the Lonely Planet guide to Finland catch for visiting the zoo on Wednesday, then we bought which Ellen gave us on Friday, and the relevant web sites, some lunch and came back to the hotel room to eat and we could do our own bookings. I had scheduled that rest. Despite our hanging up our towels as requested, the phone call for 9 a.m. this morning. Apart from that we Maid had been in and left clean towels and had not only had no plans for the day, till we visit Ellen tonight in her changed the sheets and doona covers but had found little apartment, and have dinner with her. where I have secreted my doona (I’m just using the When I knew that we would be travelling business cover) and she left a clean cover for the secreted one as class, which allows us two 23-kg suitcases each, I offered well! to bring home anything Ellen might like to send back. I John spent the afternoon resting while I caught up packed my suitcase inside a bigger one and gave her the with my diary and wrote some postcards to the greats bigger one when we arrived. Ellen won’t be here when (nieces and nephews). At 5.30 we caught a taxi to Ellen’s we come through on our way home, so we asked Ville apartment. The taxi driver didn’t speak English and we yesterday whether he would be prepared to bring it to didn’t really know where we were going so it was a recipe the airport that night. The plan is that at Heathrow John for disaster, but Ellen had been watching for us and she will be booked right through to Melbourne with our two came to our rescue. She took us up to the one-room suitcases and I will be booked to Helsinki with no corner apartment she has lived in since January. It has a luggage. While he sits in the Finnair lounge till our bedroom/living room and a tiny bathroom. She has Melbourne flight, I will go out through Immigration and made some really good friends during her stay here, and Customs and meet Ville with Ellen’s suitcase. I will then this week they are leaving in dribs and drabs, so she’s a check in for the flight from Helsinki to Melbourne, with bit sad as well as being tired from the partying! my suitcase, and hope that I get seated next to John! Our Ellen offered to take us for a walk down to the beach Melbourne travel agent has gone through all these nearby so off we went with John in the wheelchair. I don’t arrangements with Finnair in Melbourne, but there are know how far we walked (around three sides of a ceme- still chances that ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men tery) but we must have walked for the best part of an hour etc.’ When I asked Ville yesterday if he’d be part of this and boy, do I reckon I’m going to be stiff tomorrow! plan I said I would email him the flight details. To my Then we walked to the Kampii Shopping Centre and had horror, when I looked at the itinerary this morning, I saw a Chinese meal at the Emperor Plaza, where we reckon that we were due to land at 11.55 p.m. I thought a we could offer some staff training if they were interested. midnight trip to the airport was above and beyond the I had to load John into the chair and push him to the call of friendship so I told John I thought we should ask exit before they made any move to find the bill we asked Finnair if there could be other arrangements made. At for. Ellen went off to another party (‘but not for long,’ the front desk I asked where the Finnair office is in she said as she kissed us goodbye) and we came home. Helsinki. ‘At the airport,’ said the receptionist. It’s 9.30 but the sun is still shining. It’s such a strange I knew that Bus 615 went to the airport, so I asked feeling! where that left from, and was told ‘behind the station’. Today’s grizzle is about the lifts in this hotel. They are Thank goodness we are so close to the station. As I tiny! I have to pivot the wheelchair to get it to fit in wheeled John in the direction we had been pointed I sideways and then there’s just room for me and one other spotted a 615 loading up so we joined the queue. I asked person. I’m reminded of the sixties game of seeing how the driver for two return tickets to the airport but that many people you could fit in a phone box. was too hard for him so after a bit of misunderstanding on my part and exasperation on his, we bought two tickets to the airport, stowed the wheelchair where it Tuesday, 28 May 2013 would fit, and sat back to enjoy the ride. When we got to Tuesday in Tallinn the airport, I joined the Finnair Customer Service queue and waited my turn. While rehearsing my request (and I was in the bathroom this morning when I heard the being offered alternative lines by John) I checked the alarm clock sound. I pondered that young travellers itinerary again, only to discover that we are due to land these days don’t need clocks (alarm or not), watches, in Helsinki at 9 p.m. and take off at midnight. Ruefully cameras, diaries, pens and paper — they can do the lot I said to John, ‘I’ve done a ferry again’, a reference to a on their mobile phones. But we oldies still pack our mistake I made during our trip to Ireland in 2005 when essential travel aids and feel little loyalty to modern I assumed the ferry went at 1 p.m. when it had actually technology.

45 We followed the timetable I had drawn up for the day and found ourselves at the Linda Line hydrofoil company at the Makasini Terminal soon after 9 a.m. By chance we rolled up to the window being run by the very lady I had spoken to when I booked the tickets yesterday. She took us under her wing and made sure the boat attendants were expecting to help us onto the boat. I presented her with one of those little clingy koalas you can buy in the Swanston Street souvenir shops. I also gave one to the young man who helped us board. He thought I was offering him money and he demurred, but when he saw the trinket he giggled, and took it happily. We weren’t on a hydrofoil but a fast ferry, only 90 minutes instead of an hour and a half. We sat opposite a Finnish woman who was on to her second 250 mL of white wine before we were half an hour into the trip, and a quiet woman who John thought must be a good friend of the Finn, because she knew just to say yes and no and nod her head during the torrent of conversation. In fact, the women exchanged cards at the end of the journey so I don’t think they had ever met before. The second woman was Estonian. She recommended a place for us to have lunch. Next to us were two gay guys who live in New York City, but they aren’t married, even though they are allowed to marry in New York. All of this came out as a result of direct questions from the Finn. She also asked how long we had been married, how old John is, how old I am and how long we would be in Helsinki. She has a daughter who has competed in five Winter Olympics in ice skating, is now very rich and lives in Russia. It was amazing to see/hear this woman operate. On board the boat we bought 2-euro tickets for a bus from the port to the city. We got off the ferry almost last, and there was no information to tell us where to go. I The old city wall of Tallin — and Mercedes. wandered up to a man who looked as though he might know and in a flash, we were in his van, the wheelchair to a planter box of chives, coriander, parsley and rocket. was stowed and we were in for a wild ride through Nearby was a planter box filled with rhubarb in flower. odd-looking paddocks, but we finished up at the Sokos The flower baskets included pansies and chrysanthe- Hotel. That was our pick-up place too, the man indi- mums. The road we chose to enter the old city began cated. with stall after stall of flowers of every shape and hue, I’m getting quite good at picking the best spots to including lily of the valley being sold by people who seem push the wheelchair across roads, the lowest, smoothest, to have picked it wild and brought it in to sell to the least bumpy bits, and I’m getting good at spinning the tourists . It was a perfumed, cololurful welcome to old chair around to go backwards over particularly difficult Tallin. spots like tram lines. But I get dry in the throat, so we At Old Hansa we ate salad with two fish (salmon and started with a cooling fruit drink, then we braved the herring) and drank dark honey beer, all served by a modern Tallinn traffic and entered the Tallinn of old. waitress dressed in period costume who claimed to be an Tallin is the capital city of Estonia. The medieval town Estonian who had learned her English from a teacher that attracts the tourists is surrounded by a modern with an Irish accent rather than an American accent. And business community, and all of this is reachable from here I thought she was just another Irish tourist working Helsinki in about the same time as it takes to drive from her way around the country, like so many of the back- Melbourne to Bendigo. Lonely Planet’s Finland lists a day packers that we have in Melbourne. We should have had trip to Tallin as one of the must-have experiences when the small salad though; our eyes were too big for our you are in Helsinki. LP also describes the trip as ‘the tummies. We wandered through the town square and original booze cruise for Finns’. While Ellen confirmed visited what used to be the town prison to see an exhibi- that within a week of arriving here in January she was tion of photography and a collection of cameras, some swept up for a trip to Tallin to buy alcohol, we saw little of which John knew from his days as a street photo- evidence of that attitude today. What we saw for the grapher. In St Catherine’s Lane John suggested I leave entire day was the enjoyment of tourists from every part him sitting in the chair while I went off to explore the of the world as they sat in the sunshine eating and little shops and artists’ nooks. The lane finished in an drinking in restaurants bedecked with flowers and avenue of stalls that looked a lot like Victoria Market. plants. We fell across the Old Hansa, as recommended There were all kinds of woollen jackets, capes, hats, by our ferry companion and the table we chose was next slippers etc. in that distinctive Nordic fair isle pattern. I

46 didn’t spend too long there in case temptation got the interminable time the girl was able to print us a new better of me. I peeked into a monastery garden, saw the document that allowed us to take our seats on the other entrance to the city wall walk, walked past the windows side of the hall and further back from the orchestra than and doors of people whose houses are in the midst of all we were on Friday, but still with a closer, better view than this tourism and photographed the anachronism of a I’ve ever had of an orchestra in Melbourne. late-model Mercedes Benz nosing its way down the tiny The conductor this time was John Storgards, who was medieval lane. quite ordinary to look at compared with Leif Segerstam, All too soon it was time to return to John, and then but Storgards had none of the audience appeal that for both of us to make our way back to the bus stop at Segerstam did — he virtually ignored us. The music the hotel. But we did have time for an ice cream from began with Haydn’s Symphony no. 94, ‘Drumroll’, but the Garden Café. We suddenly found ourselves caught when the second movement started I recognised it im- on camera by dozens of tourists who were focusing on a mediately as the Surprise Symphony. It was delightful. particular ancient stone dated 1656, but they’re going to ‘Better than Wagner,’ John whispered at one stage. The wonder who it was eating ice cream when they look at second offering was a premiere of a Swedish work by their pictures back home. Anders Eliassson, his fifth symphony, and this one actu- The one souvenir we did buy was a pack of playing ally commissioned for this orchestra. I slept through it cards with scenes of old Tallin on them. We used them and John said he couldn’t see any reason to wake me up. on the way home on the ferry to play cribbage. John beat The final offering was The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky, me in all four games. I’ve demanded time to write a which was first heard 100 years ago and is being cele- postcard for every game he wins, which leaves him with brated all around the world this year. John read a review a problem — to lose so that he can keep playing or to of a Melbourne performance in the Age later in the day. play to win as usual and pay the penalty? I bet you all I couldn’t say I was charmed by the music, but it is quite know which he’ll choose. a spectacle to see the musicians grappling with some- Back in Helsinki we took a cab to the Kamppi shop- thing that must be extremely difficult to play. Again ping centre, but only after the cab driver managed to there were more than 100 musicians on stage, and some interpret what I was saying and not try to take us to the of them were switching between instruments, and that Kamp Hotel. Apparently it’s a matter of how you pro- wasn’t just in the percussion section. nounce the vowels. With good navigation from both of In the interval between the second and third offer- us at the end of the taxi ride we found Ellen waiting for ings, I watched a lady do a complete run of exercises, us at Barbecue House in the same outdoor square where including balancing on a step and rising up on her toes, we ate last night. Tonight we were served by Reuben the using the hand rail to do squats, and exercising all the Spaniard, who lived in Altona Meadows, St Albans, and joints in her arms and her neck. My yoga teacher would Deer Park in Melbourne before he came to Finland. Visa have been proud of her. Only when the other people regulations in Australia proved too difficult for him. Now sitting in her row arrived did I realise she was just killing he (he’s really a chef) and his doctor wife are applying time so people didn’t crawl over her to get to their seats. to live and work in New Zealand. I wonder what chance we would have of instituting After our meal Ellen went off to a movie with some exercises for all the people I see at the Elisabeth Mur- friends. John and I came back to the hotel, where he fell doch Hall or the State Theatre standing by the walls for asleep and I caught up with my email and my diary while the very same reason? keeping one eye on an intriguing film about a young man We feel very privileged to have fallen across these in France learning the perfume trade by killing young rehearsal concerts by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orches- women for their scent! tra in the Music Hall — two people at two concerts for a total cost of 3 euros! From the Music Hall we made our way through bright Wednesday, 29 May 2013 sunshine to the bus stop, where we picnicked on some More music fruit we had acquired from the breakfast buffet, while waiting for Ellen to join us for a trip to the Helsinki Zoo. The temperature reading on the building we can see We like to visit zoos on our travels but we reckon we from our hotel room said it was 17 degrees at 7.30 a.m., haven’t managed one since the Berlin Zoo in 2004. The and the sun was shining; time to break out the sandals bus ride was almost a half hour and the route took us and the silk singlet, though the shorts might have been through the part of town where various embassies and going a bit too far. The station has flags on top that say consulates are situated. There were some grand houses VR, which I think is hilarious given that we are so far from among them and the whole area was leafy green, with the Victorian Railways. (In fact it doesn’t even exist any the sea visible in the background from time to time. more. We now have VLine.) The flags indicated that a Helsinki Zoo doesn’t have a lot to recommend it, stiff breeze was blowing. I know Wellington and Chicago especially if you happen to be pushing a wheelchair! The are known as the world’s windy cities, but Helsinki might Macclesfield lady in the ticket office had two wins for us; get a guernsey as well, in our experience. she let Ellen in at student prices and she didn’t charge After breakfast (we’re now getting it right -— John me at all because I’m a carer, and then she advised us takes his apron and he has given up trying to get a proper which way to go to avoid the worst of the hills. We started cup of tea up there) we made our way to the Music Hall, with a visit to the ‘kangaroos’, which were being fed at where I had to confess that I’d lost the ticket they had that time. We reckon they were all wallabies, but one of given me on Friday but I did have the receipt. After an them had a joey, so the cuteness factor outdid any

47 Robyn and Ellen at Seurasaaren Outdoor Museum.

Ellen at Café Regatta.

48 disappointment we might have experienced at the label- our room and did catch-up things — finances, postcards, ling. There were some emus in the enclosure too, so we emails, and the diary. We had hard-boiled eggs, packet had our bit of Australia for the day. From there we saw soup, and fruit for lunch. Ellen arrived at 2 p.m. and we birds, reptiles, camels, reindeer, bison, lions, red pandas, sallied forth into a beautiful warm Helsinki day. and brown bears. Geese of a variety we didn’t recognise Ellen wanted to take us to one of her favourite were everywhere, just like the ibis at the Melbourne Zoo. Helsinki places, Seurasaaren Outdoor Museum. It’s They didn’t bother us, but there were notices that indi- located on an island about 20 minutes’ drive from the cated you might get a nasty bite if you tried to approach city centre. The bus dropped us at the end of a long them. walking bridge over to the island. On the island is a An hour and a half was about enough for us. As we collection of historic traditional church buildings, got back to the entrance a bus arrived, so I didn’t even manors, farm houses, and outbuildings transferred here get into the shop to see what postcards I might buy. We from around Finland. The museum was established early rode back into town, and Ellen went off to do some study in the 1900s but some of the buildings go back more than and to have dinner with a friend. 100 years before that. They’re all wooden and there’s lots of restoration going on. The setting is green and peace- ful, but in summer, on weekends, it becomes very popu- Meeting Mr Right lar, with concerts and festivals. There are also facilities for grilling sausages, apparently a favourite Finnish (Correctly that heading should be Meeting Dr Wright, tradition, so guess what Ellen produced from her Mary but that would spoil my alliteration.) Poppins carpet bag of a handbag? Sausages! Another picnicking family had the fire going and they were happy Many of my friends are not in the least surprised to find to let Ellen put four sausages on to cook. She wrapped that I know someone just about everywhere we go, but tissues around the sausages to serve them, as did the meeting my doctor in Helsinki would have been a real other Finnish family. We were delighted to become part story if I hadn’t arranged it before we left home. Our of the tradition. wonderful GP Richard Wright, in the course of helping We caught the bus back the way we had come but me find out the cause of my irregular pulse, mentioned stopped off at Ellen’s favourite restaurant, the Café that he was going to Helsinki and we discovered that we Regatta, which is right on the seafront and is open every would be here at the same time. Through the wonders day of the year. It’s near the beautiful Sibelius monu- of email and text messaging, we arranged to meet ment, which I fell in love with last time we were here. We Richard and Gustavo for a drink before they caught the sat at an outdoor table and drank tea and coffee and ate ferry to Tallinn. We spent a highly entertaining 90 blueberry cake and cream and cinnamon buns. All minutes with them, well lubricated by numerous gin and around us people were enjoying the afternoon sun. The tonics. When they went off to catch their boat, we de- café even keeps a fire going for people to grill sausages, cided we’d copy Ellen from the night before and see The and there was a family doing just that. Mind you, they Great Gatsby. We found our way to the cinema, bought didn’t seem to be following our practice of waiting till our tickets, discovered that you can go to the toilet only the coals are hot; they were more of the cook in the flame by waiting till someone comes out and you grab the door tradition. before it shuts and locks or by reading the four-digit code All too soon we realised that the light had caught us on your ticket (who would have guessed!) and then went again and instead of the time being about 3 p.m., it was off to have a Greek meal. We ordered some of the things after 5. We had made a dinner booking for 6 p.m. at a we normally order at Agapi in Swan Street, Richmond, restaurant recommended by our Brisbane friend Denise, and decided that Agapi does them better, but our main so Ellen went into action — she found a taxi number courses (fish for me, veal liver for John) were both good. through the café staff, ordered a taxi for us, then told A bottle of cab sav from Chile went well with the meal the taxi driver where we wanted to go. We dropped her and ensured that I slept through the entire movie! I did on the way because she said she really must do some wake up for the credits though, and sat there grimly, the packing and cleaning before tonight’s farewell party for second last person to leave the cinema, till I saw the name the last of her exchange student friends to leave town. of Adrian Hauser, son of our friend Don, who worked We went on to the Sea Horse. John ordered wiener on the movie in a technical capacity. I was surprised to schnitzel and I ordered vorschmack which, according to find how many Australian actors I had missed seeing. I’ll Wikipedia, is originally an East European salty meat dish have to borrow the DVD from the wonderful Picture served with onions. I confess to not knowing exactly what Search (in Swan Street, Richmond) when it comes out. minced meat I had, but it was garnished with finely We made our way back to the hotel at 11.15, through chopped pickled cucumber and beetroot and it was twilight. By the time we turned the light out at 10 minutes topped with duchesse potatoes and served with sour past midnight, I reckon it really was dark. cream on the side. Wikipedia says schnapps is usually served when eating vorschmack, but I didn’t read that till I got home so I stuck with tap water. Thursday, 30 May 2013 Before we left the restaurant I went to the toilet. It Resting and relaxing turned out to be the smallest toilet I have ever been in. There was barely room for me and my handbag. My Two full days, yesterday and the day before, dictated elbows caressed the walls when I attempted to pull up my some rest for John today, so after breakfast we retired to jeans. It was really very funny. The experience also re-

49 minded me that I hadn’t mentioned the best toilet paper leaving, of course, but we managed to get ourselves dispenser I’ve ever seen. It was on the boat to Tallinn, inside to the ticket booth, where we discovered that there and it was like a giant Wet Ones packet attached to the was a cost for John but I got free entry as his carer. And wall. All you did was pull out the right amount of paper then we were shown where the lift is, so we went to the without tearing off little bits while trying to get the roll top floor and started looking at the permanent collec- moving, or not being able to find the end at all. And each tion. We discovered that there was an audio tour, so I time you pulled out the right amount, there was enough went back downstairs and acquired two brilliant audio left for the next person to have exactly the same satisfying systems — headsets with little torch-like devices attached, experience! which we pointed at the black circle beside each painting We caught the number 3 tram ‘home’. I carefully with a headset symbol and bingo, the commentary came counted out all the shrapnel in my wallet only to be told up instantly in English for the right painting or sculp- by the tram driver that 1- and 2-cent coins are no longer ture. We spent more than an hour perusing the paintings used on public transport. I guess I’ll have to give them on the third floor, most of them by Finnish painters of to UNICEF on my next plane ride. Finland, but there was also a Van Gogh that charmed John to the point that I had to wheel him back so that he could look at it and hear the commentary for a second Friday, 31 May 2013 time. It was the first Van Gogh ever to be included in a Filling in our final Friday public collection. After Van Gogh’s death this particular painting finished up with a friend who was married to a I had set this day aside for packing, resting, and prepar- Finn, and when he died she gave the painting to the ing for dinner tonight, so after breakfast I packed as Ateneum. much of my suitcase as I could and then settled down to The second floor was displaying Treasures from the write postcards to use up all the stamps I had bought, Palace. The President of Finland lives in a palace that especially the ones I had already put onto envelopes. dates from the time that the Russians were in control Within an hour John was restless and announced that he here. The National Gallery uses the Presidential Palace thought we should go to the National Gallery, or the to extend its gallery space, so to speak, and every so often Ateneum, as the branch of the NG close to our hotel is some of the treasures that have not been seen in public called. It looked like a beautiful day outside. Whatever for some time are put on display. The commentary for grizzles I have had about the hotel, there is no denying many of these pieces was by past presidents or their wives, it is in a very central position, and it has such bonuses as who chose paintings from the collection to speak about. a digital time and temperature display as well as an One female president said she found the gloomy old analogue clock on the railway station tower. Certainly the men hanging in her presidential office a bit depressing VR flags have indicated a stiff breeze each day we have so the Ateneum staff went through their vaults and been here, but I took a chance today and wore my shorts discovered a painting called the Young Wife. It hung in and a silk singlet, and I certainly didn’t need a jacket or the presidential palace for as long as that lady was in a cardigan. office. In fact, the stickers we got when we entered The Ateneum is a short wheelchair ride from the showed the head of the lady in the painting. hotel. We didn’t find the wheelchair access till we were After another hour or more we finally felt that we had ‘done’ the Ateneum, and we repaired to the ground

The Ateneum.

50 floor where they have created wonderful café/bookshop space by roofing in a three-storey light well with glass. On this beautiful sunny day, it was a joy to sit in that spot. Of course I ‘did’ the bookshop for postcards of the paintings we had liked best and I decided to buy a print of one of them as a souvenir of this trip. Some of our 80s souvenirs have discoloured very badly so it’s time for a new lot. We went straight from the Ateneum to the post office to buy a mailing tube to send the print home. Simple, eh? Oh, no. The first thing you do at the PO is take a numbered ticket according to whether you are a private client or a business client. Both before and after I took my ticket I prowled the shelves to find a tube. I couldn’t find one but I went to the counter when my number was called and asked if they had such a thing. The man at the counter had limited English but he went off to see if he could find what I wanted and came back saying that they had no tubes at present. Where else should I go? Why Stockmann, of course. That’s the store that claims that if they don’t have it, you don’t need it, so it was fair to see if they could produce what I needed. John has become very good at navigating around Helsinki whereas I would be halfway to England under- water if navigation were left to me. He has even worked out short cuts, so off we went via his short cut and, of course, we arrived at Stockmann. In perusing the boards for each floor, I discovered that Stockmann has its own post office, so we went there, and I took a number. When I got to the counter the lady said no, try the main post John, with an appropriate bottle. office, but I said I’d done that already. So off she went to consult with other staff and she came back to say that I should try the academic bookshop on the ground floor. something to eat, and a rest, so we returned to the hotel ‘No doubt we will see you back here soon,’ she said, ‘we and snacked on the breakfast provender John had pro- don’t close till 9 tonight.’ cured this morning — hard-boiled eggs (he even got salt From time to time John says, ‘Just leave me here and and pepper today) and mandarins. With the last of the you go off’, so this time I left him in among the plants milk and Minna’s jug, we had a hot drink each. I settled while I toured the bookshop. Yes, said one lady, tubes are in to mend my black cardigan and then get back to the in the paper section. I was blowed if I could find them postcards. John finally got around to packing his bag. but when my number was called, the attendant took me At 7.15 we sallied forth in our (relative) finery to play to the shelf and there were some very flash heavy plastic host at a dinner in a nearby restaurant for John’s son Don tubes — for a mere 39 euros, which is about $52. and his wife Anne, who flew in this afternoon from Suddenly this new print was becoming very expensive. Istanbul; their daughter Ellen; and my sister’s Finnish But you can’t keep a good woman down and there are family, all six of them. We had a wonderful evening of more ways than one of skinning a cat and any other old good food, good wine, Finnish beer, and plenty of con- adage you care to insert here for yourself. As I walked versation. Mikko made the first toast of the evening, to through to the book department I spotted some tubes friendship. Ville led us in a toast to Brian, my sister’s — with Finnish posters inside them. So, for 29 euros, we husband, who died in October last year. Over 15 years, are now the proud owners of a tube and a poster of what Brian’s friendship with the Finns was wonderful. My toast the ship from Tallinn to Helsinki used to look like. (The was to my niece, Toni Woolley, who came home from Blossom Dearie poster in the laundry at home is pretty school and said. ‘Mum, can we have a foreign student?’ much faded now and due for replacement, since it was Don had booked a hotel room through hung in 1986!) Bookings.com for himself and Anne and Ellen for three So back I went to the Stockmann PO and took my nights in Helsinki. When Anne arrived at the dinner, she number, and when I reached the counter I was greeted said, ‘The room is like a broom cupboard. There is no like an old friend. The young man who served me asked way three adults can sleep there, and it’s so hot that I will if I wanted the parcel (now holding two prints, of course) never be able to sleep.’ We were over the road from our to go priority or economy. Being the spendthrift I am, I hotel so we suggested that Don try there for alternative chose economy and paid the sum and then asked how accommodation. He and Anne came back about 15 long it would take to get to Australia. ‘A long time,’ he minutes later to announce that they couldn’t get into our said, gloomily, ‘about 10 or 12 days.’ I think he wondered hotel but they got a room at the Sokos Hotel Torni, and why I was laughing as I went back to report to John. the last we saw of them was them making their way there By then it was after 4 and I really needed a drink, after dinner.

51 Saturday, 1 June 2013 side of the central aisle. Business Class differs from the economy seats down the rest of the plane by leaving the Copenhagen’s calling middle seat vacant in each threesome. We also got breakfast on the plane (my third in four hours!) as part of our I had the alarm set for 5 a.m. but of course I was awake fare, whereas the economy passengers had to buy their before that, so I sneaked quietly through the bathroom food. The flight was 1 hour 40 minutes, and John slept routine without waking John. almost all the way. I read; I forgot that I should be writing We’ve always found in our travels that plumbing postcards. presents problems or entertainment as we travel from At Copenhagen Airport we did our usual trick of country to country. We’re pretty good now at figuring waiting till everyone else had departed before we left the out how ‘taps’ work, but the flexible hose with the spray plane. We were met by an older gentleman who took on the end that I noticed first in the public toilet we used John’s arm and escorted him out through the airbridge in Helsinki on the day we arrived, and saw in almost every to a waiting electric cart with a wheelchair secured be- toilet after that, would have had me baffled if Ellen hind it. I climbed onto the back of the cart with the hadn’t enlightened me — it’s the Finnish version of the carry-on bags and John sat beside the driver. We raced bidet. Needless to say, we didn’t use it! through Copenhagen Airport very quickly and I was John woke as soon as I emerged from the bathroom pleased we didn’t have to walk. We seemed to go an so I drew back the curtains for the last time on the railway enormous distance, and past a lot of lovely shops. square and perused the taxi rank, the tram lines and the Eventually the driver parked the cart and unlocked the street, to find that there was plenty of activity as usual. wheelchair, then took John the rest of the way to the While John had his shower I closed my cases, checked baggage claim in the wheelchair. He led John to the the bedroom for anything left behind and then helped Special Baggage section to get our own wheelchair and him dress, especially his shoes and socks. As he gets older sent me to the carousel to get the rest of the luggage. his feet get further away and putting on his socks and Like an idiot, I took the carry-on cases with me instead shoes is a real challenge. It’s not impossible for him to of leaving them with John. That meant I needed a trolley do it, just easier if I do. to collect the two cases and John’s pack. By the time I Reception had rung on Friday afternoon to ask if we had figured out where to get a trolley, the luggage was were the party leaving early who had ordered a vege- coming out, and I finished up with all five pieces and still tarian breakfast. ‘I didn’t think we could have breakfast no trolley. I decided I’d stand still and wait for John and at all,’ I said, ‘won’t it be too early for breakfast?’ ‘Oh his pusher to come and find me, but they didn’t come no,’ said reception, ‘we provide fruit and coffee for and didn’t come and . . . guess who got impatient? A breakfast in the foyer for those who are leaving before couple of men were sitting close to me and one was the restaurant opens.’ Another tick for Sokos Vaakuna. speaking English, so I asked if he would watch my lug- They also sent someone up with a luggage trolley to take gage while I went to get a trolley and he said yes. I then our luggage down the seven floors to the foyer, in the loaded my mountain of luggage on to the trolley and set staff lift. The main lifts are so tiny that I would have had off to find John and his friend. to make three or four trips to get our cases down. They were sitting disconsolately beside the special We were in the foyer by 5.40 and the taxi wasn’t due luggage carousel, and there was no sign of the wheel- till 6 so I had a quick look at our email and was horrified chair. I decided we would phone Rune because he could to see one from our Copehnhagen host, Rune, saying, ‘I have been waiting an hour already. The phone with the see your plane is delayed and won’t be landing till 12.15.’ roaming card somehow wouldn’t phone Rune but the I said to John, ‘Will we wait here or go to the airport?’ pusher loaned me his iPhone and after quite an exten- He said, ‘We’ll be in the lounge at the airport so we might sive argument as to just what numbers I should use, I as well go.’ Thank goodness he made that decision. The made contact with Rune and we told him the story. He Finnair staff said the plane was leaving on time and would said he would wait. What else could he do? arrive on time. The pusher then decided we should walk another When we got to Helsinki Airport there was bedlam in half-kilometre to the office of the baggage-handling the Finnair terminal. I left John standing with the lug- company. There he took a number and waited his turn gage while I went to see if I could find someone who to tell the story. They couldn’t find the wheelchair so I could give us some help. ‘Business Class?’ asked the lady had to supply details of what it looked like, where we I spoke to. ‘Over there,’ where there was almost no one. would be staying and when we would be leaving Copen- In no time at all we were checked in and on our way hagen. The pusher then took us out through the through security to the lounge, while the lady who had Nothing To Declare customs line (should I declare a checked us in took the wheelchair to the special luggage dozen packets of Tim Tams?) and Rune was waiting for section. us with open arms. In the Finnair lounge we had our second breakfast Back in 1984, when John was Assistant Director of for the morning. We didn’t crack the system of getting Adult Education in Victoria, he came home one night on to the Internet, so instead I made an effort to catch and announced that he had volunteered us to host a up on my diary. At the appointed time I wheeled John Danish scholar. We met the delightful Ebbe Lungaard to the gate lounge and we were admitted to the plane at and he stayed with us for about four nights. In 1988 he the head of the line. returned to Australia for a holiday and brought his wife Business Class on a Finnair Airbus 320 consists of the and his two children, the younger one being his son first 8 or 10 rows on the plane, with three seats on either Rune, then aged 12. Ebbe and Rune made several trips

52 to Australia after that, usually not together, but we saw them each time. In 2004 we happened to be in Copenhagen for the first time, and Ebbe turned 60. He had been a Minister of the Crown in the 1990s, so his party was a big affair. On that occasion we spent two or three nights with Ebbe and his wife and another three or four nights with Rune in his inner-city apartment. In 2009, sadly, Ebbe died of cancer, but we have stayed in touch with Rune, and we last saw him when he and his partner Lena and their daughter Lisa spent a month in Australia in 2010. When we told Rune we were planning to pop into Copenhagen after Helsinki, John and Rune outside one of Rune’s coffee shops. he insisted that we must stay at his house, so we accepted, and that scored us a greeter at the airport as well. He confessed that while he was waiting, another group near what he said was the favourite Danish food of our mutual him was waiting ... with an Australian flag! He felt a bit friend Robb Mason. Robb worked at CAE before and remiss in his welcoming routine, so he was glad that after John spent his time there, and Robb knew Ebbe group had gone when we finally emerged. Lundgaard so well that Robb spent a couple of periods Since we were here in 2004, Rune has sold his apart- of months teaching English at the folk high school of ment and bought a house in the suburbs south of the which Ebbe was principal when he first visited Australia. city. About six months ago he and Lena decided they I can’t pretend to remember the Danish name of the wanted to move so they put the house on the market, but food in question, but they were hot bread rolls of various it didn’t sell, and now they’re very glad — they feel it was types which we filled with the many fillings that were on the right decision to stay. The house has three bedrooms, the kitchen table — butter hard, butter spreadable, a bathroom, three living areas, a galley kitchen and margarine, cheese, tomatoes, salami, cucumbers, jam. garden on three sides. Best of all, from our point of view, You name it, it was on the table. Washed down with real it has an extra bedroom at the far end of the house, with tea for John and coffee for me, it was a delicious break- its own bathroom. Talk about luxury! fast, and the conversation that went with it made it that Lisa, the older daughter, nearly six, was at a party much more delicious. The most startling thing we saw when we arrived, but Rosa, who will be two in December, was Lena cutting and buttering a hot croissant and then was in charm overdrive. Carlos the dog was a bit hostile slipping into it one or two squares of dark chocolate, for a short time, but John soon had him under control which melted on the hot roll! Lena is built like a beautiful and under his feet as well. It was well after noon, so Lena whippet. She runs and exercises every day, but she loves set out an amazing array of food and we nibbled at it butter, ice-cream, and dark chocolate. She’s a real while exchanging news and retelling old stories. conundrum. After canvassing various active activity ideas with us, In the course of the conversation over breakfast, Lena Rune made the wise decision to drive us to the new Arken said that Rune is the organised one in this family, and art gallery that has opened close to them in recent times. almost on cue, he brought out a list of things we might He took over pushing John’s wheelchair, and we had a do on our day together. (Lena was staying home to spend pleasant hour or so wandering through the exhibitions. the day with the girls so that Rune could look after us. It In the evening Rune cooked sausages on the barbecue, was very good of Rune’s three ladies to give him up to us while Lisa cooked salmon in the oven. Just as dinner was for almost a whole weekend.) served, our wheelchair was delivered. There was a deli- When we stayed with Rune in 2004, he and two friends cious salad, there was bread, there was fruit salad — what had just established a company called Risteriet (Danish an array of food! We produced the gifts we’d brought for ‘roastery’) with plans to open a coffee shop at which and there was much merriment all round. Once again they would serve coffee that they had roasted themselves, the light caught us by surprise and it was after 10 before as well as supplying coffee to other businesses and private we fell into bed. people. The first coffee shop had been acquired but not opened when we visited. Now, Rune told us proudly, they Sunday, 2 June 2013 have three coffee shops plus another that runs in a summer resort and the odd ‘pop-up shop’ (my words not Travelling with a tour guide his) at various festivities. This morning we visited the newest of the coffee shops, established in an area that When we finally emerged for breakfast it was obvious that seemed to us to be the equivalent of Carlton — students, the family had been waiting for us, at least for the adults tourists, and inner-city residents. It’s a small space in the to eat. Rune had been out early to purchase for breakfast lower ground level of an apartment building. Rune

53 on summer holidays, so we figured they might be packing, and a bit busy to be out on the balcony saying, ‘Nice to see you. Come in for a beer.’ The Danes seem to be very relaxed about their Royals. From the royal squircle we drove through some of the more salubrious suburbs of Copenha- gen on our way to the old capital, Roskilde. Whatever Rune told John along the way will remain forever a secret because ’er in the back seat went to sleep, and missed the entire introduction. But I did wake up for the effort put in to finding somewhere to park. Eventually, Rune gave up and dropped John and me and the wheelchair as close as he could get us to the Roskilde Cathedral, then he went off to park the car. The present brick cathedral was started in the 1170s, but the first church on the site was built in the 900s. For an Australian whose non-Aboriginal history goes back no further than about 1788, it’s all a bit hard to take in. The cathedral houses dozens of tombs of various important people through the ages, but at the same time it is still a working church, and if we had arrived a bit earlier we might have attended the morning service. Compared with other cathedrals we have seen in England and Europe, this Robyn at Roskilde Cathedral. one is so light that it quite gladdens the heart. It seems to be painted white on ceilings and walls and there are many windows that are clear glass rather than stained ordered coffee for us and we also asked for ‘one of those’ glass, and all of this adds to the light. It was a most as an exotic-looking glass went past. It turned out to be pleasant visit. thin, almost drinking quality, yoghurt spiced with nuts From the cathedral we went to the supermarket (is and rhubarb. It was delicious. that from the sublime to the ridiculous?). Rune wanted From the coffee shop we visited a sand sculpture bits and pieces for dinner that night and John was on a competition at which Risteriet had the coffee rights (the mission to find hot English mustard. He and Lena had pop-up shop idea). We’ve never bothered to drive down had a discussion the night before over spicy mustard. We to Frankston for the sand sculpture competition that couldn’t find any prepared mustard that looked as if it happens down there each year, but after seeing these would be hot enough to impress Lena, but we did find remarkable presentations, we might. We then drove out Colman’s Mustard Powder packed exactly like Keen’s to the Little Mermaid. John said he had seen it last time, Mustard at home. When Lena tried it that night, you so he stayed in the car, but I popped over to the fence could see that her sinuses were being given a real work- and grabbed a shot between tourists. Rune said you out! couldn’t be in Copenhagen without seeing the Little From Roskilde we made our way back home and soon Mermaid. after we arrived, Rune’s friend Farig, who is a great fan The next stop was the ‘square’ (it’s more like a circle) of Dr Robb Mason, came to have dinner with Dr Mason’s around which the royal residences are built. Rune could friends. We had a wonderful meal around the dining point out the queen’s palace but he wasn’t too sure table, swapping stories about Dr Mason and hearing where we’d find our Mary and her Fred. He had read something of Farig’s background. Farig’s one great that on the following day the Royal Family was to go desire is to be able to take to Iran all the friends he has sailing around some of the Danish ports before they went made since he had to leave his home country many years

54 Monday, 3 June 2013 Meeting a master

We appeared for breakfast at about 8 a.m., in time, we thought, to say farewell to Lena before she left for work, taking the girls with her to their pre-school and day care. But Lena explained that Rosa was so tired that she figured she would deliver her to day care before we appeared and hope that she would get a good long sleep under the watchful eyes of her carers. Lisa is going through some separation anxiety, so Lena decided that it was better for her to be left behind by her mother than to have to say goodbye to her father and mother and the visitors as well. So we four adults had a great chat over another delicious breakfast. We farewelled Lena (who works as personal assistant to a guy who has developed a series of hair-care products based on Hawaiian ginger) and then we packed the Opel (the car big enough to take the luggage and the wheelchair, as opposed to the little Peugeot) and went off to visit Rune’s warehouse. As well as the roaster, the warehouse houses the online shop’s product s (coffee, coffee machines, T-shirts, posters) and The Age item that led Robyn to meeting Rene Redzepi. a repair shop. Rune starts work each morning at 5.30 a.m. and has the roasting done by mid-morning. One worker ago. When he left Rune’s house that night, he was still then supervises the packing of orders and the driver inviting us all to accompany him on that trip. packs the van to take orders to shops and customers, and I almost forgot to mention that after we had finished parcels to the post office to mail to on-line customers. our first course, Lena insisted that we all had to go for The repair man works part-time, fixing private and pro- ice-cream at a special shop they visit near a yacht club fessional coffee machines either at the workshop or at and marina. So Lena drove us and the girls and the dog, the machine’s venue. As well as doing the roasting, Rune while the men cycled to the spot, and we all met for keeps up the Risteriet web site, and has his office at the delicious ice-cream that came in cup or cone, and drib- warehouse. We heard a good deal about how the busi- bled all over your fingers if you didn’t eat it fast enough!\ ness is run. We’re confident that Rune is doing well, and his dad would be very proud of him. While we were planning our trip early this year I read in the Age Epicure that Denmark’s most famous chef, Rene Redzepi from the restaurant called Noma, likes to eat lunch at a restaurant called Schønnemann, which has proudly served open sandwiches since 1877. Rune Rune and John outside of Schonemann’s. hadn’t heard of the place, but I figured that to take him there (and Lena if she could come, and Kirsten Lund, another Danish friend who, as it turned out, wasn’t able to come) would be a good way of saying thank you for hospitality to us, so I emailed the restaurant from Melbourne and made a booking. Just as well I did! When we arrived, at about 11.20, the doors had not yet opened, but when they did, at 11.30 promptly, the German couple waiting to have lunch and at least another couple who came in after we were seated were told that the restaurant was fully booked for lunch, and that’s the only time it’s open. I told the waitress who served us that we had come from Mel- bourne to dine there on the strength of the information that Rene Redzepi dined there.

55 ‘You’re in luck,’ she said, ‘he’s booked in to come today.’ (John isn’t chancing pork at the moment; his tummy is We spent a bit of time figuring out which young man he a bit sensitive) and we left most of it on the table. We was, and when Rune pulled up a photo on his phone, I then set out for the F4 gate lounge and I thought we was quite sure which one it was even though he is might be walking to England. I reckon we walked at least bearded at present. We spent some time trying to snap a kilometre — well, I did; John had quite a pleasant ride. photos of him, but that didn’t seem fair, so we stopped And the corridors were absolutely silent and deserted. that nonsense and concentrated on our food. It’s amazing that in such a big airport there could be The waitress suggested that two dishes would be moments of solitude. Eventually we reached the right appropriate and we could order more if we needed it. place and once again were conducted to the line that was John and I started with a beer each, but Rune was driving, going to board the plane first. I pushed the airline chair so he stuck to the soft stuff. John had fried herring in right to the stairs leading up to the plane’s rear door, beer broth (herring fried in Schønnemann Ale, served and left it there. with onions) and herring tatar (rough-cut sherry herring fillets mixed with herbs, capers and onions and topped with the yolk of a bantam’s egg). I had the Schønne- Entering England mann’s Schnapps Speciality (boiled potatoes, spicy her- rings, red onion cream, and onions) followed by Sun John slept all the way in the plane and I wrote postcards. over Hauser Plads, in honour of our friend Don Hauser I don’t know that I’m ever going to get to the end of the (Schønnemann’s is at Hauser Plads 16). It was hot- pile I bought in Finland. smoked salmon, grated radish, chives, and egg yolk, We were met at Stansted with a wheelchair and pusher served on caraway bread. Rune isn’t a fish eater, so he by someone who was a wonderfully garrulous English- had veal liver pate (with mushrooms, veal bacon, and man with one of those British accents that I can never cucumber salad) followed by a beef dish that I can’t track anchor to anywhere in particular but a local could with down from the menu. no trouble. He took us on the train that ran from our The waitress explained to John and me that we should terminal to the main terminal, through all the formali- drink snaps with our herring. On the table were tiny ties, to the baggage carousel, and waited till all our stemmed glasses that looked like medicine glasses with- luggage came through. With some difficulty I followed out the markings. We were invited to have a little, a bit him with a supermarket luggage trolley (you know, one more, or a lot. Of course we took the lot, which meant where the wheels don’t want to go where you want to) she filled the glasses to the brim! We had to take the first laden with my case, John’s pack, our two carry-ons, and sip with them sitting on the table. (I was reminded of our the wheelchair in its cover. (We had been warned that first trip to China when we went to a restaurant where Ezyjet were very strict about the size of a carry-on and you the waiters served tea from teapots with yard-long spouts. could carry on only one bag, including a handbag and The waiters stood away from the table and fired the tea laptop. There were notices around saying just that, but into tiny Chinese cups and didn’t spill a drop.) One sip no one seemed to care that I had my handbag over my of the snaps was enough to lift the top off my head, but shoulder. I could have got it into my carry-on at a pinch, John was game for a second glass, so we finished up on top of the laptop, but I didn’t have to.) Once the sharing three different snaps between us. What a meal it wheelchair toppled off the pile and when I picked it up was! I realised the cover had suffered some damage, but As we were preparing to leave, the waitress came up whether it was from the luggage handlers or my inepti- and said that Rene Redzepi had finished the meeting tude, I couldn’t tell. We’ll get it repaired when we get with his restaurant staff and would be happy to greet me. home by the nice man who wanted to charge us $440 to So, you foodies out there, eat your hearts out! I’ve shaken make a cover. hands with Rene Redzepi and had a conversation with Our pusher stayed with us while we organised the hire him, and what a pleasant young man he was. car through Avis, and then led us right to the door of the From the restaurant, Rune drove us to the airport, Ford Focus, and supervised my stowing the luggage. and didn’t just drop us, but came in with us. I said that Then he left with some of the English coin I found in the the information we had pointed out that the check-in filing cabinet before we left home. It was probably small desk for our flight wouldn’t open till 4.25 and it was now reward for the service he had rendered. (And I’ve for- about 3 p.m., but Rune ignored my diffidence and gotten to put it into the Expenses spreadsheet.) marched us up to a line waiting to book on to Ezyjet flights. He then left us to go home to spend time with his family. He wasn’t there to see a staff member come out Cursing the car into Cambridge and guide us to the top of the line, swap our chair for an airlines chair, and point out where we should book our I left home armed with a swag of Google directions wheelchair through. We were flying Ezyjet and restricted sheets, but they all depend on knowing how far you’ve to one check-in piece each, so I left behind at Rune’s gone, so before we left the Avis lot, we asked the relatively house the suitcase in which I had carried gifts from surly young man how to set the trip meter. With bad Australia. grace he figured it out, then locked the door of the office We were then free to go through security and find a and left, maybe so that we couldn’t ask any more ques- spot to wait till our flight was called. I used that time to tions. Mind you, questions such as ‘how do you get the catch up on the diary. Just before it was time to go to the car into reverse?’ and ‘where are the headlight switches?’ gate lounge, we ordered some food, but I ordered badly hadn’t occurred to me on a light-filled evening at 7 p.m.

56 Robyn and the accursed car. and I had signed the registration form, we could make ourselves a cup of tea, phone Pen Pollitt to make arrange- No amount of driving our friend Muriel’s car (and ments for the next day, and fall into (the very comfort- I’ve done that lots of times) has erased from my brain able) bed. the instinct to switch on the turn indicators with my right hand. After all, that’s the way our car does it, so it must be correct! Well, for the first hour (day, week!) of driving Tuesday, 4 June 2013 this car, you could tell when I was going around a corner Pottering about with Pen because that’s when the windscreen wipers went on! The travel agent had said it would cost more to hire an Our bedroom at Hamilton Lodge is right on a busy road, automatic car, so I blithely said to take a car with gears. but neither of us heard anything last night. We woke Of course I can drive one of those, and what fun I had refreshed and took ourselves to breakfast in the dining the last time I did it in Ireland and in the Cook Islands! room, where a door had been opened to admit bright, Were the indicators also on the left then, I wonder? This warm sunlight. I considered the cooked breakfast time, there seemed to be so much going on with my left options and worked out that there were four. I wasn’t hand — gears, indicators, and those bloody directions interested in cheese on toast, but I could eat each of the that kept slipping off John’s lap, covering the gearstick. others on the three days we were staying there, so I There’s a good chance the inside of the car could started with kippers. Bearing in mind the words of one have matched the deep blue of the outside on many of the cardiologists I saw in recent times, I ordered occasions during just that trip. Google said we could decaffeinated coffee and was faced with a new-fangled make the trip from Stansted to Cambridge in 40 minutes. device, a kind of cup-sized dripolator, which sat on top I think it took us nearly two hours, and only when we of the cup while I poured hot water through it. It even asked directions (John asked directions!) at an off- had a lid to keep the heat in while the dripping was licence did we find out that we were in the vicinity of occurring. where we wanted to be, and that man, bless him, was also We had arranged for Pen to come to our hotel at able to show me how to get the car into reverse. Whoever 10 a.m. to be our guide around Cambridge. Dr Penelope would have thought of lifting the gearstick before Pollitt is the eldest daughter of John’s former family moving it to the left? solicitor, Cedric Ralph. Pen did her PhD in Cambridge When we finally got to the hotel, I parked the car, and also married a Fellow of Queen’s College (now probably illegally, and fell through the front door at deceased), so she has strong links with Cambridge and about 8.50 p.m. Julie, the lady who met me, told me how spends some time here each year, although we see her to get to the hotel car park, where we unloaded the most often when she is in Melbourne. Pen rode her luggage and dragged it all the way from the back to the bicycle to Hamilton Lodge and locked it up at the front front of the hotel. Fortunately, we were in the front room wall. We made her a cup of tea to help her recover from on the ground floor, so once we had the luggage inside, the ride, and then she phoned a taxi to pick us up and

57 (Above) Cambridge punts. (Below) The Cam riverside.

58 take us to the Silver Street Bridge, where we caught the getting some more cash, and we took time to admire the hop-on hop-off bus for an orientation ride around Cam- beautiful building in which the bank is situated. We then bridge. I had a little sleep during the trip, but was wide caught a taxi back to the hotel. The driver was very awake when lunch was mentioned! Pen led us to the helpful with John. In fact everyone who has dealt with Graduates Club on the third floor of a building overlook- John and the wheelchair has been polite and helpful. ing the Cam River, and we had lunch while watching the People in the street often don’t realise a wheelchair is antics of people punting and being punted. I couldn’t there till we make it known, and some almost walk into wait to get down there, so we went after lunch and you because they’re so busy concentrating on their reserved three places on the 1.50 p.m. ride being offered phones or the people they’re talking to, but in general, by one of the companies offering ‘chauffeured punting’, we’ve had nothing but goodwill. Scudamores. The staff stowed the wheelchair in their We had been invited to afternoon tea at Girton, a office for us and helped John into the boat, and away we suburb of Cambridge with the friend of a friend. Her went. Our punter was an acting graduate who freely name is Sandi Irvine and her husband is Robin Irvine. admitted that his punter performance would look good They served a splendid afternoon tea (French biscuits, on his CV. scones with jam and cream, and cake) in their beautiful The weather was idyllic, and we were witness to so rear garden, with their two tortie cats providing enter- many images that have been part of our lives as colonists tainment and birds filling the afternoon with song. a long way from the Old Country. As we pushed off we Robin is a professor of biochemistry, so he and Sandi and passed a group of four students sitting on a lawn close to Pen knew people in common. We had a lovely hour with the river arguing earnestly some philosophical question the Irvines and wandered back to the hotel without or other. Many groups were picnicking, and they were incident, having Pen to guide us as to where we needed not just students. There were retired couples and to drive. She invited us to join her for dinner at a pub families, as well as single people lying in the sun or that had been recommended because of the Chinese reading books under trees. Ducks paddled about the food it served, which you chose yourself and handed over river as we glided by. I felt as though I had stepped on to to the cook for his attention. I chose steak, and was a film set for some story set in Cambridge. surprised to see the cook hurl it away. It turned out that Our boat trip took us past the backs of colleges, but he was throwing it onto a hotplate distant from the wok through the splendid trees we could glimpse famous burner where he was working. Having cooked the vege- scenes, especially that icon of Cambridge, the King’s tables, he then concentrated on the meat. I was sorry I College Chapel. Some of the stories we heard might well didn’t have the camera with me. have been spurious, but they were delivered with such sly Pen is about to house-sit for a couple who are going good humour that we couldn’t help ourselves smiling, to Canada for three weeks, and it was they who recom- whether the stories were true or not. We could envisage mended the pub. They asked Pen to bring us to their most of what our punter told us. house for coffee, so we visited their lovely house and their On our return journey we were surrounded by several enormous garden and had a pleasant hour of conversa- punts being steered by private people, not professionals, tion. They then gave us explicit instructions as to how to and the presence of brown bottles with long necks indi- get back to our hotel in 20 minutes. An hour later, we cated that those punters probably weren’t up to the job. chanced upon the hotel while the air in the car was still Our punter never spoke to any of the other professional royal blue as opposed to navy blue. We were doing well punters, no matter how close the boats came, but he had until that ‘diverted traffic’ sign, and when we got to the some exasperated words for the private people who were Newmarket Park and Ride, at least we knew where we making a mess of the activity. were on the map, as opposed to where we wanted to be! When we returned to our starting point, the And I figured out how to turn on the headlights, which Scudamores staff helped John out of the boat and pro- was an advantage at 9.50 p.m! ceeded to put us and the wheelchair onto the road that we needed to follow to see if we could find a bank in order to get some cash. I had offered a 10-pound note Wednesday, 5 June 2013 to the bus driver and he said he couldn’t take it because Wandering around Wimpole Farm and it was an old one! He said a bank would exchange it for Hall us, but even one new £10 note wasn’t going to get us far. During our search for a bank we passed a remarkable When we were planning yesterday what we would do clock that has been installed in one of the former bank today, we discovered that Pen had never been to buildings. The detail of the clock is at , but as far as I was stately home in the vicinity of Cambridge, so on a fine, concerned the remarkable things about it were the warm Wednesday morning we motored off to Wimpole. beauty of the gold and the ugliness of the creature that With John in the wheelchair I was deemed to be a carer sits atop the clock. Perhaps that’s exactly the contrast the and got in for free, saving me £16.10. A buggy drove us clock’s inventor was looking for. to the walled garden, where John had a lovely time The first cash machine Pen and I tried refused to looking at all the fruit trees and vegetables and Pen and recognise my Westpac debit card, but the bank employee I enjoyed the flowers. Both within and outside the walled said we should try Lloyds or HSBC. Leaving John sitting garden were beds of flowers to be cut for the house. happily in his wheelchair in the sun, Pen and I went off There were numerous young sweet pea plants being to Lloyds and succeeded in exchanging the old note and

59 (Above) Pen, Robyn, and John outside Wimpole Hall. (Below) Robyn and Pen in the Wimpole Hall library.

60 trained onto climbing frames, but the frames weren’t on Wednesdays so we had to ‘make do’ with the men, but like ours (metal ones from Bunnings). Instead they were we had no other time, so that was it. Pen guided us to a actual pieces of wood from trees, standing like teepees commercial car park, and then we wheeled John through and tied at the top. The really funny thing was that many the streets to join the queue waiting to get into the of these timber frames were shooting new leaves, even chapel. It was about 5.15 when we got there. No sooner though they were no longer attached to trees. At one had we lined up than a gowned man beckoned us to point we had a long conversation with a volunteer who follow him to the top of the queue and we were con- keeps the lawnmowers running. ducted into the chapel first. Our ‘guide’ was full of droll We’ve been told that England is an ageing nation, and humour as he led us to seats beside the choir stalls. we know it’s the same at home. I think the National Trust King’s College was founded by Henry IV in 1441. It benefits from this, because there are many retired has 600 students. I don’t think I have mentioned that people who volunteer their services in any number of there are about 30 colleges in Cambridge, and you can ways. It involves continued learning for the volunteers, only get into the university if you are accepted by one of and an interest that keeps them busy for as much time the colleges. (Connected to that thought is one far less each week as they wish. lofty: students of Cambridge University are not allowed The other thing we have observed is how much the to have cars, which is why there are so many bicycles in English love their dogs. They take them everywhere! the town!) The chapel is famous for its outstanding They’re in shops, tied up on footpaths, and being walked architecture and its beautiful stained glass. Our guide regularly. It’s good to see. We haven’t seen too many also pointed out to us the Peter Paul Rubens painting border collies, but we’ve seen lots of spaniels. The Adoration of the Magi, which hangs behind the altar, We strolled to the farm and saw donkeys, sheep, draft a gift from an anonymous donor that must be worth horses, and pigs, including a week-old litter of black and millions of pounds. white piglets who tumbled over each other and squirmed Evensong was sung by choral scholars. The music was into tiny gaps between their litter mates in an effort to by Dowland, Tallis, Byrd, and Caustun. None of the keep even warmer than the sun was making them. After singing was accompanied. There is a reverberation in the lunch at the farm café we visited the beautiful old dairy, chapel of several seconds, so the cantor let the sound of tiled to keep the milk and cheese cool in the days before his voice die away completely before he sang the next refrigeration. phrase. The choir, under direction, did the same thing. The buggy arrived at the farm to collect us and drive The first lesson was read by a chorister who obviously us to the hall. With John in the wheelchair we toured the understands the acoustics of the chapel, as did the priest ground-floor rooms, then John was left in front of a DVD in charge. The young woman who read the second lesson to see the rest of the house while Pen and I did the actual didn’t. She had an American accent, which was a bit tour. In one room, two book conservators were working harder to understand; she was so short that you couldn’t to conserve books from the extensive library that had see her or hear her over the lectern; but worst of all, she been damaged by water coming in through the roof. didn’t read slowly enough or wait till the echo of her They were happy to chat to us about what they were voice had died away before going on, so we understood doing, and we had some conversation about the book by nothing of what she read. I loved the way the lectern was Geraldine Brooks called People of the Book, which deals (in turned around, though, so that each side had a Bible with fiction) with the work of a conservator on a particular the appropriate reading, rather than her having to riffle book. It’s well worth a read (or a listen, as in my case) if through the pages to find her place. And the lectern, like you haven’t come across it. the choir stalls, was lit by candles in hurricane glasses. Wimpole Hall is the largest house in Cambridgeshire, She pulled the candles close to the bible so that she could and the present building was begun in 1640. Its last read. The prayer for the day was for St Boniface, Patron owner was the daughter of Rudyard Kipling. When she Saint of Germany. We thought of our close friends the and her husband bought the hall in 1938 it was in a sad Misselhorns, who are exploring outback Queensland state, so she spent 30 years bringing it back to its glory while we’re wafting around over here. days. She left it to the National Trust, along with the We left the chapel last, so that we could enjoy the royalties from all the Kipling books except The Jungle Rubens painting when the crowd had gone. We came out Book, which had been sold to Disney. The farm is a into the early evening air feeling very uplifted. Across the working farm specialising in rare breeds, so that provides road I spotted a little shop selling postcards, so I hopped income to the estate as well. in for a fix. It’s probably just as well the official King’s Historied out, we made our way back to the car park College gift shop was closed. (we were smart enough to bring our handicapped sticker We declined Pen’s invitation to join her for dinner. with us and so far no one has challenged our parking in Tonight is our last night in Cambridge, and there is handicapped spaces) and drove back into Cambridge for much to do to plan for the next leg of the journey. I had our next adventure. contacted a former Publications Branch colleague, Alison Littler, who house-minded for us in 2009, I think. We were hoping to see her and Nick on our way from Kindness at King’s Cambridge to Shropshire, but the landscapers at her house took up two of our available days and on the third With the help of the Irvines yesterday, we worked out that day Alison had a choral commitment, so a change of plan we could get to King’s College Chapel for evensong at was required. The Sheehys, the friends we’ll be seeing in 5.30 today. Unfortunately the boy sopranos don’t sing Shropshire, had told us once about an opportunity they

61 Kings College, Cambridge (from a postcard).

had to be involved in flying birds of prey. When I spotted indicators and wipers willy nilly, careered from one side a brochure for the Bird of Prey Centre at Old Warden of the intersection to the other as the navigator shouted Park in Bedfordshire, I asked John if he would be inter- ‘left’ while I was quite sure the sign indicated right, and ested. He said yes, so I sat down and transcribed the desperately looked not only for somewhere to park so Google directions from Cambridge, producing the kind that we could both look at the map, but making sure it of route chart that the Bush Bludgers have used for years was at a place wide enough to do a U-turn without going to meet at camp sites in the bush. It took quite a long into rotten reverse! Sometimes I wished there was some time. We had enjoyed a big lunch, so we made do with way of recording my thoughts and silent comments dur- some packet soup that had come with us from Finland. ing this saga but it’s probably just as well I couldn’t and, We also repacked our bags so that we wouldn’t have to thankfully, what is said in the car is left in the car, so we open our big cases for the next few days, even if we didn’t don’t stew over what has been said for any period of time. leave them in the car overnight. Mind you, ‘I’ll promise not to interfere with your navigation if you keep quiet about my driving’ isn’t a bad ground rule. I even recall saying at one stage, ‘I promise Thursday, 6 June 2013 not to read any more signs’, but that didn’t last of course. Being surprised at Shuttleworth The scenery is such heaven to drive through that you can’t get angry. It’s just so unbelievably green and lush. On our final morning at Hamilton Lodge I treated The horse chestnut trees are in full flower, huge trees myself to the full English breakfast — poached eggs, with blossoms that stand up like candles. They’re in bacon, sausages, beans, and mushrooms. We wouldn’t gardens, yards and paddocks (fields? meadows?) all over need lunch, I thought. Ha! the place. The hawthorn comes in red and white blos- Our marriage has survived the odd hurdle, but the soms and it’s either individual trees or rows of trees that first few days in this accursed car with me driving and have been cut into hedges. The hedges are full of blos- John navigating have certainly tested us more than some- soming plants that waft their perfumes across the lanes what. Our friend Ian Sapwell once complimented me (I and roads. The roadside wildflowers make you want to think) by saying that I ‘drive like a man’. He wouldn’t throw yourself into them, because they look so soft and have been so sure this week, as I have crashed my way up sweet — and there aren’t any snakes, well, no poisonous and down six gears (who on earth needs six gears, espe- ones anyway. cially on these tiny roads, where you can’t see around We left Cambridge for what Google said was a 26-mile corners or over hedges so you can’t go fast), flipped trip. Wisely I haven’t recorded the proposed time or the

62 distance we actually drove. John’s daughter Gail had told Roads in England are infested with signs. I thought us to double all times that Google mentions, but I’m not the American interstates were bad, with all the advertis- sure that is enough for us either. Anyway, we left Cam- ing boards they have beside them, but in England there bridge at 8.15 and we arrived at our destination at 9.45. are signs at knee height, waist height, eye height, and One little victory along the way was finding a post office above eye height. There are even signs on the road! with a parking spot outside so that I could buy some There are speed signs through every village. There are stamps! I didn’t snap at John for at least 15 minutes after signs that tell you the road will be slippery. There are that, even though we were still going through the ‘turn signs that say the next few hundred yards will be through here and then stop so that we can consult the map again’ z-shaped turns. There are bus signs, street signs, lane routine. (The route chart I had spent so much time on signs, town signs, house names, B&B signs, farm shop was never even looked at!) signs -— you name it, there will be one of them in When we got to the bird of prey centre we discovered England! But when you get onto the M roads there are that it’s just an offshoot to the Shuttleworth collection of no speed signs indicating how fast you can go. There are aircraft and cars, ‘a world famous and unique collection plenty of signs with speed camera warnings but if I don’t of historic airworthy aeroplanes’. Yes, all of them can fly know how fast I’m supposed to be going, how can I be and they are kept in flightworthy condition, though fined? I suppose that’s one of the things that you should some are not taken out very often. The collection was bone up on when you’re hiring a car, and I do remember founded in 1928 by an extremely wealthy only son with that our French atlas has all sorts of driving information a passion for aeroplanes and fast cars. He was killed while in it. Our car doesn’t even have a handbook (clients steal flying at night on 2 August 1940, when he was only 31. them, Pen says) let alone a book of road instructions. His mother, in 1944, formed the Richard Ormonde I sped along with the best of them, wishing I had Shuttleworth Remembrance Trust ‘for the teaching of discussed with John my instinct to stay somewhere near the science of aviation and of afforestation and agricul- our departure point and drive in the morning, rather ture’. (There’s a stately home lurking in the background than drive first and find the accommodation later. At of the collection where there was a wedding exhibition 5.30 I had to admit that I was getting too tired to drive, for two days, but we didn’t get a chance to look at that.) and we pulled off to look for somewhere to stay. While I was buying reviving drinks for the battlers in Eventually we found a hotel, but the lady running the the cursed car, John found out that the aeroplane col- reception desk had graduated with honours from Rude lection looked much more exciting than the birds of School (tram conductresses used to go there) and said prey, so it looked as though both of us were going to have with great satisfaction that she couldn’t help us. When some fun. We did one hangar of the collection, then took we asked for some advice about an alternative, she ourselves off to hear about eagles and owls and to watch mentioned a Travelodge that we never did find. She them demonstrate their training. We viewed lots of owls couldn’t have known, of course, that she wasn’t dealing in cages and were a bit sad to see (and hear) a lone with the brightest pair in the world when it comes to kookaburra. The keepers who spoke about the birds finding your way around England. Oh how I was wishing knew their patter, but we were a bit doubtful about some for the American system, where every interstate exit has of its authenticity. John was not interested in holding any a handful of motels for people who just want to stop for of the birds or flying them, but he did want to see the one night. And speaking of exits, once you get on to one kind of plane that Bleriot flew across the English Chan- of the M roads here, you’re just about there for life! Exits nel, so we made our way back to the restaurant, fortified are unbelievably far apart. Never get on to an M road ourselves with jacket potatoes topped with cheese and thinking you’ll go to the first toilet you find. That ways coleslaw, and made our way through all the hangars spells disaster. except the eighth. There was an audio tour which helped By sheer luck (I say, John says it was good navigation) me to understand some of what I was seeing, but I was we found our way to Tamworth, and there was the actually more interested in the cars than the planes. I Holiday Inn Express. Never have I been so glad to hear took quite a few photos to show to our friend Colin someone say cheerfully, ‘yes, we have a room for you Jenkins until I realised that he can get them all on the tonight’. We booked in, had a meal downstairs (no net far better than I can depict with my camera. gourmet treat, but enough to satisfy us) and then fell into bed. I told John I wanted to watch the Melvyn Bragge program at 9 p.m., but he hadn’t the heart to wake me Moping up the motorway up!

On our first trip to England in 1986 we stayed with an adult education friend of John’s in Nottingham who Friday, 7 June 2013 took us to see a property recently acquired by the Combing Calke National Trust. It had not yet been opened to the public, but we went right along the wonderful driveway to see The fee at Holiday Inn Express included a continental the front of the house, and ever since I have wanted to breakfast -— which turned out to include all sorts of visit Calke Abbey. That was to be our next destination. cooked things as well. I suppose it’s just as well breakfast Both of us had looked at the map (I had done a route doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone everywhere. chart) and we agreed that using the M1 was the most You would think that after waiting 27 years to see this sensible thing to do, so the navigator got us onto the M1 place I would have checked just when it was open. I and we sped along it with everyone else. discovered too late that it is open from Saturday to

63 Calke Abbey.

Wednesday, but I found out that special theme tours are The guide told the story of the last owner going through run on Thursday and Friday, so we aimed to get here on the 100 rooms one by one, simply opening the doors, Friday for a special tour and then we could decide if we looking in and closing the doors again. Charles had wanted to see more on Saturday. finished up living in only three of the rooms. We arrived just before 11 on Friday morning (rela- There were two guides on the tour, one at the front tively easy run from Tamworth — could it be that we are of the group and one at the back. When it came time to getting better at this or was it just that Calke Abbey is go upstairs (wide, shallow stairs so that Sir John’s family signposted so well?) and signed up for the special tour. and guests wouldn’t catch their spurs as they walked up), The lady pointed out that there were stairs, so she said John could manage the climb, and a wheelchair was we could have John’s money back if he felt that he hadn’t given to us on the first floor to go through the rooms we got the benefit of the tour. We then loaded ourselves and were shown there. When it was time to come downstairs, the wheelchair onto Brian’s buggy and enjoyed the ride our wheelchair appeared as if by magic and I was able to through the main gates to be delivered to the entrance. wheel John in that much more easily. Brian is a lugubrious gentleman who doesn’t hurry for From the tour we went to lunch (nice restaurant set anyone, whether it’s loading the buggy or telling a story, up in the stables, which were damn near as big as the but he got us to the front entrance in time for the tour house — Sir John was determined to show he had mar- to begin, and off we went through some of the show ried wealth) and then to the garden. By then we had rooms of Calke Abbey. decided that we would come back on Saturday to see the Calke Abbey began life as a priory in the 1100s. It house before we took off for the west. Brian of the buggy passed through various families until the Harpur-Crewes suggested we leave seeing the church till Saturday morn- got hold of it. Sir John Harpur rebuilt it between 1701 ing, because then we could get a good photo of the light and 1704, and the house was lived in continuously till coming through the stained-glass windows. 1981, when Charles Harper-Crewe died and left it to his Having learned our lesson yesterday about not having younger brother, along with £8 million in death duties. accommodation in place, we asked the National Trust Nothing had been done to the house since the 1880s, people for recommendations. They came up with a list when Sir Vauncy Harpur-Crewe inherited it and spent of possible places, and Brian of the buggy added one that his time and money on natural history collections. Calke he favoured. I tried a couple of romantic-sounding is unique amongst National Trust properties in that it is places, but without any luck, so I opted for the Premier presented pretty much as it was when it was given to the Inn at the East Midlands Airport. We knew it would be Trust in 1985. The Trust has put a new roof on the clean, comfortable, have Wi-Fi and probably a restau- property and prevented further decay by fixing leaks and rant, and practicalities beat romance most of the time. the like, but no restoration work has been done. It tells ‘They have terrible beer,’ growled Brian. We didn’t the story of one of the great houses of England sliding sample the beer, but we did have a pleasant dinner with into (almost) ruin. Many similar properties were simply a bottle of Australian red, and I did have time for a bit pulled down. Our tour led us from reasonably present- more of the diary. able rooms through rooms just left as they were found.

64 Saracens Head in Stafford for lunch, initially in the conservatory, but finally in the garden at the back of the pub because the sun was so bright that the conservatory was hot! From the garden we could see wonderful scenery and flowering trees and a big house tucked into the hillside nearby. There was a family picnicking on the grass nearby, with a baby having lots of fun. It was the kind of day that made you smile. We found our way to Oswestry where we did some shopping at Sainsbury’s and got some money from a hole in the wall to pay the lady from whom we are renting our cottage. We had never successfully paid a deposit, so I wanted to pay her as soon as we arrived to make sure we didn’t get off on the wrong foot.

Holidaying at Hafod

We’re staying at The Zen Cottage at the property called Hafod in Llynclys. Janet and John (do all you Victorians remember the Janet and John books at school?) have at the back of their house this cottage, set in its very pretty garden, and, separately, a space for a mobile home, with a little outdoor patio and a shower and toilet nearby. J&J are working at converting another shed to a bunkroom so that they can offer accommodation to ramblers because there are lots of walking tracks in this area. Our cottage has a kitchen; a bedroom cum sitting room, with TV, armchair, and Stained glass windows in the Calke Abbey church. desk; and a bathroom. It has Wi-Fi! There’s an outdoor setting by the little stream that runs through the Saturday, 8 June 2013 garden, and a summer house with a table and chairs. What more could one need for a relaxing week in the Coming again to Calke middle of a busy trip? We’ve come to this area to see our friends Michael The best-laid plans . . .etc. We arrived at Calke just before and Bobbie Sheehy, who have moved to Pant, the next 10 and engaged (a different) Brian of the buggy to village from here, from Daventry in the Midlands, be- transport us to the Calke church to photograph the cause their son Martin lives about 20 minutes away, in windows and to wander briefly in the little graveyard. On Wales, with his wife Natalie. I’ve known Michael since top of the cross at the east end of the church we saw a 1967, I think, when he came to Portland as the radio robin singing cheerily, which pleased me immensely. But officer on a cargo ship, and I was sent by my sister to the plans went astray after that, when I discovered that the Missions to Seamen to ‘entertain’ the sailors. She house didn’t open till 12.30. We did a conservation tour couldn’t go, because she was going out with a Portland to hear what techniques the National Trust is using to boy and the Portland boys didn’t like girls who went to reach its aim of conserving but not restoring, but I the Mission. It’s a bit ironic that the Mission was run by couldn’t ask John to wait several more hours to get a the Anglican Church, so it was the girls who went to good look at the rest of the house. Ah, well, we always church who went to the Mission. need something to come back to. And I do have a John and I stayed with the Sheehys in Daventry in wonderful book at home that I bought in 1986 and have 2005 and 2007, so we were keen to see them and their never read completely, so that will be a project for our new house but not to add to their stress by staying when return. the new kitchen was being installed. But we did spend Our next destination was Oswestry, on the border of the first night of our holiday having dinner with them in England and Wales. I had a couple of attempts at sug- their dining room, overlooking the village of Pant and gesting we go on minor roads, but John made it clear enjoying the view across to Rodney’s Column on the that it’s easier for him to navigate on the major roads nearby hills. We also had the cheek to take our laundry because there are fewer places we can make mistakes. with us to dinner and Bobbie very kindly put the load And I’m getting better at reading what is written on the through her machine while we were eating. After dinner, roads with regard to the lanes we need to be in when while it was still light, we motored home to our cottage we’re careering around roundabouts. So at about 12.15 and I pegged the clothes onto the clothesline before we we took off for a journey that was supposed to take a fell into bed, congratulating ourselves on our progress couple of hours. We finally pulled into our destination with the English road system. at 4.45, but we had fun on the way. We stopped at the

65 Sunday, 9 June 2013 Statue of Liberty holding her torch aloft. I, on the other hand, have decided it’s quick and easy Roaring off to Rugby to meet Rosemary to have a bath, but I’m amazed at the memories that come flooding in while I’m doing something that I rarely We flew into Stansted with the idea of seeing our friend do at home: memories of sharing the same bath water Rosemary Westwell (she and I did Dip. Ed. together in with the entire family when we lived on the farm in 1968) at Witchford near Ely. But Rosemary was sunning 1953–54 and had only a tank for house water; of sharing herself in Spain when we arrived, and had a busy a bath with Felicity’s girls when they were little; of how schedule in connection with a book she has published Mum longed for a bath when she was in care so when she recently called John, Dementia and Me, a ‘fictional’ and I went to Queensland for a holiday I made sure there account of her marriage to a man who suffered early- was a bath in our hotel room, but she was horrified when onset dementia and has been in care more than 20 years, I took a photo of her in the bath so I had to cover her and the battle she has had to have his care funded under breasts in the photo album with a post-it note labelled the National Health Scheme. The only time we could see ‘don’t look’! Yes, it could take me a long time to have a Rosemary was today, when she was staying with her elder bath, but in some things I can be a bit disciplined. daughter who is married to a teacher at the famous I brought a mild cold with me from Europe, just Rugby School. annoying enough to require deep-cleansing blowing of Even given our newfound confidence with the Eng- the nose every couple of hours. Of course John has lish road system, we allowed more time for the journey caught it too, and with the state of his lungs it’s no than Google recommended. We left the cottage at 9.45 surprise that he has a terrible cough, a ‘coldy’ voice and and arrived at the restaurant at 12.30, leaving enough a runny nose. But we had arranged for the Sheehys to time for a recuperative coffee before Rosemary arrived. come to dinner here tonight and it had been decided Mind you, we did have to have help with the last hundred that a curry would be the appropriate dish, so we had to yards or so of the journey. I went to ask a man in a video do some shopping. We began to drive to Oswestry but shop just where we would find the restaurant and I took on the way found the Llynclys Hall Farm Shop, which with me the Google page that had pictures on it. ‘Oh Michael had recommended as having good meat. In an yes,’ he said, pointing to a photo of a historic-looking effort to do something for the local economy we bought door, ‘that’s the Rugby School and the restaurant is right meat, fruit, and veges there, and then drove on to opposite. They filmed some of Harry Potter behind that Oswestry. First we found a computer shop, where we door, you know.’ The things you learn when you travel! could buy a cable to allow John to download the photos Lunchtime conversation ranged over many topics, from the camera to the laptop. (Yes, we have two cables from simple catching up on family news (we haven’t seen at home, it seems, but neither of them got packed. Now Rosemary since 1998, I think) to the economic situation we have one that can stay with the laptop.) Then we went in our respective countries. At about 3 p.m. John an- to Sainsbury’s and, with John in the wheelchair and a nounced that it was time to go, so we said our farewells, basket on his knee, we sailed through the aisles seeking burdened Rosemary with a postcard to post for me, and the ingredients for our dinner. Back at the cottage John wheeled our way back to the car. John got us on to a prepared the curry and I made up some packet soup for major road going the right way but in a relatively short lunch, with bread and fruit. I did some ironing and time I announced that I needed a nap, so we pulled off washed out (in shampoo, as directed) a silk shirt our into a parking lot and I had a 10-minute power nap friend Lincoln had brought for me from China, and we before we were on our way back to the cottage. Once both had a rest. At about 5.15 I stopped writing the diary again we dined with the Sheehys, who had spent most of and went to set the table outside in the sunshine. the day emptying their kitchen into the rest of the house, Something in the brook caught my eye — an old rag? but had also given some thought to planning the week No, it was the silk shirt, which had blown off the clothes- and that has given us a framework for our holiday. line into the brook on the other side of the fence, but had been washed through. How lucky was I! It could have washed further and never been seen again. As it was, I Monday, 10 June 2013 could fish it out, rinse it clean, and hang it in the Cooking a curry at the cottage summerhouse. Eating outside was cool, but the curry was pro- In our continuing adventures with overseas plumbing we nounced, largely, a success, though John said he could have come to a cottage where the roof is so low in the have done better at home. We repaired to the sitting bathroom that the cottage owners decided they couldn’t room for ice cream and stewed rhubarb cut from Janet’s install a proper shower so the bath has one of those garden that morning. The Sheehys reported that their hand-held shower devices. The bath is quite deep and kitchen was bare and the process was continuing satisfac- the sides are high so John’s shower has become a two- torily. We made arrangements to meet for dinner tomor- person exercise. At 85, and with arthritis in his back, row night at the Cross Guns Inn in Pant. knees and hips, he doesn’t bend easily. He’s still learning All day I have been itching to get to the computer to which way is most comfortable to get into the car, and see who was on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in there was no way he could get into the bath and sit there Australia. Imagine my delight to find my favourite female to wash (he hates baths anyway, he says it’s sitting in your folk singer, Judy Small, my friend Robyn Wallace’s good own dirty water) so I stand there with the shower above friend Jan Harper and, best of all, our friend Hazel him and he washes as usual. I reckon I look a bit like the Edwards. What a lovely end to our day.

66 Tuesday, 11 June 2013 innkeepers being mentioned in censuses going back to 1851. John offered (me) to write a summary of what the Wandering around in Wales census documents showed, and that earned him and Michael a free drink, so we think we’ve done something We woke to find the ground damp, the sky cloudy, and to help the Sheehys settle into the community. We also gentle rain falling from time to time. This is the first day determined that the food the pub serves is good, so we since we arrived nearly a fortnight ago to a rainy morning left wishing Alison all the best for the future, and the in Helsinki that we’ve had anything other than fine Sheehys said they would be back. weather. John’s cough still sounds dreadful but he says he doesn’t feel bad, so after a leisurely start to the morning we took off south on the A438 towards Welsh- Wednesday, 12 June 2013 pool, which is in Wales. I followed a sign to what I thought Having a layday at Hafod was an Information Centre, but The Old Railway Station in Welshpool turned out to be a shopping outlet with An English grey squirrel came to visit as we were having some rather nice clothes. We poked around for a while breakfast at about 10 a.m. today. He darted along the top and John came across some CDs at 3 for £8. We’re not of the fence that separates our garden from that of the up to having talking books in the car (too distracting), main house. We haven’t seen a lot of wildlife — rabbits but we have enjoyed a couple of music CDs I’ve borrowed around Cambridge and in the paddock here, a squirrel from the cottage, so a few more will be good. As we were at the Bird of Prey centre, a pheasant at Shuttleworth, leaving he had another look at the short-sleeved check and some deer in the distance one day when we were shirts on sale at 2 for £30 and came away with some to getting lost. Of course there were deer in the park at replace American shirts he has been wearing since the Calke Abbey, but they were being farmed rather than ’80s. We had a look at the display shed for the Welshpool running wild. There were Portland sheep at Calke too. & Llanfair Railway, which gave the history of this narrow All of the Portland sheep have little horns, both male and gauge line built to link farming communities with the female, even the lambs. Apparently there were longhorn market town of Welshpool. A ride on that train is one of cattle there too but we didn’t spot them on the long, the things Bobbie has recommended we might do while lime-tree bordered drive into the house. We have seen we are here. Highland cattle as well as dairy cattle. From Welshpool we drove further along the A438 to We’ve had a really quiet day today, and given that it Newtown, although we did make a side trip to see a castle was damp and windy, it was a good day to be tucked up advertised on a brown sign beside the road. We missed in our little cottage. I caught up on the diary (and made the castle completely (probably only remains anyway), the mistake of calling the episode I sent number 14 when but we had a lovely drive along a narrow road that wound it should have been number 13, as a couple of readers from deep, shadowed, green glades, to high ridges with pointed out) and John got all the photos renamed. At spectacular views over farming valleys. The road ended 2 p.m. Bobbie and Michael arrived to collect us for a visit in someone’s property, so we returned the way we had to the home of their son Martin and his wife Natalie and come, hoping that no one would come towards us, their menagerie of animals — one horse, one (stable) because it would have been a very long way for either car cat, two goats, two chooks and two dogs. The drive out to reverse to find a suitable passing spot. to the house was magnificent — more of those tiny, Newtown did not offer much that was exciting, but we hedged lanes, but this time up steeper hills and down stopped by chance near a little café that had a ‘Kangaroos into deeper valleys. I haven’t written down the name of for the next 25 kilometres’ sign in the window. We never Martin’s hamlet (all six houses of it) but I’ll find out found out why, but it seemed to be a good omen, and tomorrow. A hamlet is a village without a church. certainly the leek and potato soup we had was delicious. Martin’s house used to be a Methodist chapel, but appar- On our way back to the cottage we stopped at Buttington ently that didn’t fit the definition of church, even though Wharf outside Welshpool. It proved to be just an open people come to look at the building where they or a spot beside the Montgomery Canal where about 30 family member were married/christened/farewelled primary school kids, all in life jackets, were paddling etc. The builder who sold it to Martin and Nat had canoes back towards town. Each canoe held four attempted to convert it to two houses, but without plan- paddlers, and every two canoes were attached so that they ning permission, so when they bought it they turned it looked a bit like twin-hulled vessels. into one splendid house, with fabulous views from its Back at the cottage John got into editing and re- windows. We had tea/coffee and Nat-made chocolate naming the photos while I had a sleep and then sat in chip biscuits plus conversation for an hour or so, and the sun in the summerhouse writing postcards. When then Bobbie drove us back via an even more spectacular John came out with his eyes practically crossed I took route, though it was a bit harder to see it because of the over the computer to go back to the diary till it was time steady rain falling. for us to meet the Sheehys at the Cross Guns. Travelling with the Sheehys allows us to ask questions The landlady at the pub, Alison, confessed that she on the spot about signs, road rules etc. to say nothing of was new to the district, having arrived in March. The village customs, local happenings, and just about any Sheehys said they had arrived in February, so it was a other topic that comes up. It’s the kind of in-depth learning experience for everyone. We asked about the experience we like to have, one which we can’t have in history of the pub, and Alison brought us a book put non-English-speaking countries because we don’t have together by a previous owner showing the pub and its any other language in which to converse.

67 Lake Vrynwy, Wales.

Bobbie dropped us back at The Zen Cottage and I stamps for thank you letters I’d had the chance to write promptly retired to our very comfortable bed for a nap. yesterday. When I woke about an hour later John suggested we Coed-y-dinas Garden Centre is a big shopping centre return to the pub we went to last night, the Cross Guns that has grown around a converted eighteenth-century at Pant (Pant means ‘hollow’ or ‘depression’, Michael barn that now houses the restaurant. The Sheehys col- tells us). We were greeted like old friends by Alison, the lected us at Hafod at about 10.30 and drove us through landlady, and we ordered the special of the night, curry drizzle to the centre. We pushed our way past big pots of and a drink for £6.75. We ordered a beef vindaloo (in colourful azaleas and through some desirable home- honour of Lister, from Red Dwarf) which had a four-chilli wares that took Michael’s eye to the restaurant, to revive recommendation and a lamb marsala, which had a one- ourselves with a cappuccino (tea for Bobbie). Conversa- chilli recommendation. I can’t remember the last time I tion went on for so long that we eventually decided to had a curry that brought me to tears, but the vindaloo have lunch before we went on to look at the shops. John did, and the marsala was almost as hot. If John prepared had a jacket potato (they’re very popular in the UK, it a curry as hot as that at home, I’d refuse to eat it, but seems, at places other than street parades and music since I had ordered it, I thought I should give it my best festivals, which is where we’ve seen them most often at shot. home) and I had parsnip soup. I’ve had leek and potato We’re now having a quiet night in. John is snoring a couple of times since being here but parsnip was new. gently in front of the TV and I’m sharing our evening It was pleasingly sweet. with you. Sweet dreams, everyone. Fortified for the afternoon we wandered off through shops that sold shoes, clothing, guinea pigs, rabbits, fish to put in aquariums, every manner of bed and toy for Thursday, 13 June 2013 dogs and cats, books, cards, crafts, food, and all kinds of Eating as entertainment things for the garden. John found a bargain-priced Bill Bryson book to add to our collection, and a packet of Today’s weather has been a total mixture — drizzle, rain, rocket seeds, which he’s had trouble getting at home. wind, sunshine — and just enough of each to make it For all their looking, Bobbie and Michael didn’t buy difficult to decide how to spend the day. The plan had anything. Apparently they’ve been getting stick from been to go to Powys Castle if the weather were right and their son about the number of plates and mugs that they we all felt up to it, but Michael’s feet were troublesome own, so they’re careful about buying anything more and John was miserable with the cold so we opted for a before the new kitchen is finished and they’ll know just visit to the Coed-y-dinas Garden Centre at Welshpool. what storage they have. When that decision had been made, I nipped out by From the garden centre we went to the local Tesco myself in the car to the post office at Pant to buy some store. John and I vividly remember shopping at Tesco in 1998 and discovering that all signs are in Welsh and

68 courses, we had been told, but it seemed that if you ordered an entrée and a main course you automatically qualified for the five courses because there was the possibility that you would order dessert! I ordered a terrine and a salmon main course, which qualified me for mixed vegetable and orange soup to start (served in a coffee cup with a teaspoon!) and a sorbet served the same way between the entrée and the main course. John and Martin had lamb for main course and it was tender and tasty (the bit of John’s that I tasted, that is). All the produce served at the hotel is sourced locally. We really had a lovely meal, with a couple of bottles of cab sav from the Spee Wah to wash it down and lots John, with Michael and Bobbie Sheehy at Coed-y-dinas Garden Centre. of conversation to spin the evening along. All the time we could observe the lake and the weather over it, from English. This time we’re a bit quicker about finding the bright sunshine, to mist, to more rain. Just have a look English. I also found out from Michael the name of the for Lake Vyrnwy on the web to get an idea of what we hamlet (seven houses) where Martin and Nat live. It’s saw. Bwlch-y-ddar! As close as I can render what I thought I It was quite late in the evening when we left to come heard Michael say, it sounds like Boo-ka-thar, and it home. I was glad that Martin was driving, and if he’d means Pass of the Oaks, although Michael says there isn’t dropped me on the way I could have been lost for life. an oak to be seen there. For a land of 63 million people, it’s amazing how much We arrived back home at about 3 p.m. and I took farmland and forest there is in the UK. Wikipedia says myself off for a nap while John went back to working on the land area of the UK (and I don’t know if that the maps for our next journey on Saturday. By then the includes Northern Ireland) is about 94 000 square miles. sun was shining through the kitchen window, so when I I seem to remember from primary school days that reappeared I sat in the sun and wrote postcards to small Victoria is 88 000 square miles so it’s remarkable to me folks at home until it was time to dress for dinner. We that there can be so many people and so much land in were very close to being ready when Bobbie appeared at an area not much bigger than my home state. the door, indicating that our lift had arrived. Martin and Nat have a seven-seater vehicle, so Martin opted to drive Friday, 14 June 2013 us all. When I had clambered in and we were underway I asked what the vehicle was and I was very surprised to Living the last day at Llynclys hear Aldi. I know that our friends the Misselhorns buy all kinds of things from Aldi but I hadn’t heard about the Today has been the wettest day we’ve had since we left cars. I was fairly quickly corrected; it’s an Audi. home. We hunkered down in our cottage and let the rain Nat and Martin had suggested we all go to dinner at pour down and the wind blow. John read the Age on his a (reasonably) local place where only Nat has been iPad and revisited favourite YouTube sites and noisy before. Talk about Shangri-la! We made our way up hill games. I packed my suitcase for tomorrow’s departure and down dale through tiny hedge-lined roads till we and wrote postcards to greats. At noon John cooked came upon a reservoir called Lake Vrynwy with a remark- lunch using leftover vegetables from Monday night’s able-looking dam wall proudly built in the 1880s and a dinner, snaffled cheese from last night’s dinner and eggs Rapunzel-like tower housing the pumping mechanisms. from our landlady’s chooks. The egg yolks were unbe- And high on the hillside overlooking this beautiful scene lievably yellow so the omelette was delicious. We then is a hotel that looks like it escaped from a fairy tale. Inside climbed into our Ford Focus and motored off to Welsh- it is every bit as romantic as the outside suggests, with pool to visit Powis Castle, a 700-year-old property built great fat armchairs and settees (and love seats) sprawled initially as a medieval fortress for Welsh princes. It gradu- beside fireplaces (not lit at this time of the year, unfor- ally changed into an impressive residence lived in by tunately) and huge windows giving wonderful views of generations of the Herbert family. The property was the lake. It was hard to take in so much beauty. Most of bequeathed to the National Trust in 1952, along with a the trees that we could see covering the hillsides were sum of money dedicated to keeping the property in good conifers, but there seem to be enough deciduous trees order. to make this a place worth visiting in autumn when the We drove into the property along another beautiful leaves are in full colour, to say nothing of winter when tree-lined drive. We think the trees are lime trees, as were the snow is over everything and the fires are lit. I could the trees at Calke Abbey. I’ve now learned to drive to the just imagine myself tucked up by the fire with a warming top of the car park to find the disabled parking spots, but drink in hand ... Maybe on another trip. by doing that this time, I missed the entrance where we Dinner was served on the basis of two courses or five had to pay money. We got through the stables (with the

69 Powis Castle. Saturday, 15 June Travelling tales while video showing the 2009 wedding of the elder daughter Trooping the Colour of the current earl — she was married at the castle and used the 150-year-old State Coach) and the Clive Yes, my friends, if these tales seem even more addled Museum (treasures brought back by Clive of India, than usual there are two good reasons: I’m watching the whose son married a Herbert girl in 1784) before we Trooping of the Colour and I’ve just had a gin and tonic were sprung. The National Trust lady made me promise to reward me for driving today without shouting at to pay our fees on the way out. She then allowed me to anyone other than the car, which still can’t get its gear park John in the foyer of the castle while I made my way changes right. The spectacle on TV is truly spectacular. through the wonderful state rooms upstairs. From the I suppose it’s shown at home, but I don’t recall seeing windows I could see the beautifully laid-out and main- more than a snippet on the news. I have in my mind a tained garden basking in sunshine, but there were still vision of a very young Queen Elizabeth riding in a blue some nasty gusts of wind. Finally we finished up in the velvet cloak. At 87 she’s a bit old to fill that role now, but castle courtyard, where we were entertained by the she is still standing to take the salute of all the groups of squawking peacocks and their demure peahens. We soldiers and that’s no mean effort. There are 75 horses found the National Trust café and tucked into hot drinks on parade this year, including two Clydesdales, who are and chive scones. Yum. the drum horses. My mum would just love all this. We drove home through alternating rain and sun- My morning started on a sour note, literally, when the shine, and had time for a little rest before going back to milk I put into my coffee turned lumpy. Just as well I the Cross Guns at Pant for a final dinner with the brought my Chinese tea. The day was murky too, but we Sheehys. The dining room was quite crowded and there got up and underway and by check-out time at 10 a.m. was a noisy group in the billiard room, so it seems as if we had packed the car, left the cottage neat and tidy, and the landlady’s wish for the pub to become an integral bundled up the linen to present to the landlady, with the part of the community is coming to fruition. One of the key. I gave her a tube of lemon myrtle hand cream, which locals stopped at our table and told us that for the last I hope she will enjoy. I also left her a tiny surprise. Above five years the pub hasn’t been worth visiting, so those the door leading from the bedroom to the bathroom in words are a good omen for the new owners. the cottage, there is a series of small animals. I’ve secreted among them one of those little koalas much beloved by tourists, the kind that clip on to a camera strap

70 and hold a tiny Australian flag. I wonder how long it will are none to be had. Eventually I did a quick left turn, be before she finds it? following a brown sign (usually an indication of some- Our next stop was at the Sheehys’ house in Pant, to thing worth looking at) to a church. The side road to the return a shopping bag they had loaned us, now contain- church was labelled ‘gated road’ but we thought the gate ing the various bits and pieces of food we had bought but might be on the other side of the church so off we tootled not used. We also inspected the new kitchen, which has ... only to be confronted, on this tiny hedged road, by a been installed this week. It’s not finished yet, but we saw truck pulling a trailer. Not only did I have to reverse, but most of it. Then off we motored into the Shropshire I had to reverse uphill! And the truck just kept coming. countryside, the Welsh countryside, the Shropshire I finished up with my head out the window trying to countryside, the Welsh countryside ... yes, it’s like that in reverse straight. As soon as I could I reversed across a this part of the world. The border is not straight. And the farm gateway and when the truck went past, with the scenery is just stunning. driver smiling and waving, I just stayed there, and that’s Two of the special pieces of beauty I have neglected where we ate lunch. We had a wonderful valley below us to mention so far are the copper beech trees and the with different styles of houses showing up clearly. The laburnum trees. The copper beeches are enormous wind was blowing raindrops into the window but we had trees, a kind of purply brown colour, and they add such our picnic. And then we were on our way again. depth to the scenes of green trees and the various In the Town of Bransgrove I passed a Holiday Inn and flowering trees. The laburnums are heavy with golden suggested we stop there, but John wanted to keep going. blossoms, so they add their colour to the scene too. When we managed to get onto the road we wanted, but Apparently the nuts of the laburnum tree are poisonous, going the wrong way and needing to do a U-turn (that’s so there is a move to make sure that they do not grow in when I went in the entrance of the Holy Trinity Interna- schoolgrounds or parks where children might play. tional School and out the exit), I suggested the Holiday Bobbie told us a horror story of her first year of teaching Inn again, but he reckoned that as soon as we got onto when she showed the children a series of nuts, and one an M road we’d find a hotel. And sure enough, we got to of the boys ate the ones that came from the laburnum the Warwick Services and found a Days Inn. It’s not a tree. He finished up in hospital having his stomach luxury hotel, but it has clean linen, hot water, decent TV, pumped. and free WiFi. It doesn’t have a restaurant, but there’s a Our next stop (you can be very proud of us, we didn’t food court nearby where we found very well-cooked lamb get lost once!) was the Land of Lost Content, in Craven shanks with chips for John and mashed potato for me, Arms, recommended to us by our friend Lesley Birks and and peas. The English vegetable of choice when you eat her husband John Fife, both British born but resident in out seems always to be peas, either garden or mushy. And Australia and making visits to the UK every couple of the garden peas always seem to be fresh, not frozen. But years. It turned out to be a National Museum of British where is the broccoli or the spinach? Where are the Popular Culture, and it’s the work of a couple of people beans? who think that much of what we have invented and used In Queensland in February we came across the first in the twentieth century will be lost because we won’t of these food courts beside a motor way and then we value it, so they’ve collected it. The three-storey building discovered one on the Hume Freeway at Benalla and now that was built to be a corn market now holds just about we’ve eaten at one in England. I think we must have been anything you can name from the twentieth century, from leading closed lives. I bet everyone else knew these matchbook covers to portable radios, from girls’ over- existed. coats with velvet collars to a gorilla suit. And it’s all stuffed So we’ve come full circle for this diary entry. The into the building to the extent that you have to squeeze Trooping of the Colour, apparently only a part of what through it. In fact John said he doubted that the museum is properly called the Celebration of the Queen’s Official would be allowed to operate in Australia because in case Birthday, is over, and now we’re into rugby or mindless of fire you’d be hard pressed to get out of the place, even quiz-type games. John was amused to see that the movie assuming you could find the exits. But we had a couple Con Air is showing at 10 p.m. We once fell across that at of pleasant hours of nostalgia, and a cup of tea/coffee Campbelltown in Sydney because it was the next film along the way (John’s first real cup for the day because showing at the multiplex where we had stopped and it of the milk disaster). turned out to be better than we expected, though I can’t From Craven Arms we went to Ludlow, again on say I’ve ever been as excited about the plane careering Lesley’s recommendation. By then the weather was through a shopping centre as John is. (It’s 8.40 p.m. and pretty ugly, so we drove through the town and then, John is tucked up in bed, so I don’t think he’s going to because we did take a wrong turn (towns are hard!) we see Con Air again.)ti looked down on it from a hill and decided that it would be a nice place to spend more time, especially in some sunshine. Sunday, 16 June 2013 At about 2 p.m. John said, ‘I thought we’d have Warbling at Wavendon hard-boiled eggs for lunch’, meaning the remainder of the ones he had bought yesterday for the omelette. ‘If Sunday morning television at home is The Insiders and you find somewhere nice, pull over.’ Any time he men- Business Sunday. This morning we had 90 minutes of tions something like that, immediately nothing turns up lovely gardening programs and then a cooking program. for miles. It’s like looking for a B&B. You can pass dozens If checkout hadn’t been at 11 a.m., we might still be on most days but the minute you’d really like one, there there.

71 Linda was the receptionist who booked us into Days vintage clothing and vintage jewellery. I splashed out on Inn last night. She had been there since 5.30 a.m. and a little pearl bracelet, but five minutes later, as I gave we discovered this morning that she didn’t leave till 7 John a hand to help him out of his chair, the bracelet p.m. last night. She was so nice to us (complimenting us broke, so I might have a go at rethreading it when I get on our accent, making sure we got extra milk in our home. room, delivering a delicious breakfast this morning) that John wasn’t interested in wandering around, but I I presented her with one of the little koalas, and if explored all the bits of the garden that weren’t labelled nothing better happened to her all day, she was certainly ‘Private’. I got some nice photos in the garden and of the happy when we left. house though I couldn’t get to the front of the house I’ve been a fan of the British singer Cleo Laine since without trespassing. I was first introduced to her by my friend Jan Westwood The concert turned out to be two singers singing their back in the 70s. I’ve seen a couple of her concerts in sets to recorded music. Their voices were pleasant but Melbourne, and when we were in America in 1991 I not great. The ’50s was represented by a couple of learned that she and her husband John Dankworth, the rockers called the Broadway Twisters, one playing an great jazz musician, had started a music centre at Waven- electric guitar, one playing a double bass. Their music don. So when I was looking about for things we might do produced some jiving in the back rows, which indicated in Britain I was delighted to discover there would be a that the eldery folks flinging themselves around had concert in the garden of Dame Cleo Laine on 16 June. been good at it in their day. Their music also made me (On 22 June, Cleo Laine herself is appearing in concert think, for the first time, probably, how shocking the but that would have involved staying another week and music of the ’50s really was — all that noise, all those now that we’ve left the cottage John is on his way home!) rude suggestions (they did Elvis’s ‘Tutti Frutti’), all that So today’s navigational adventure was to find The energy! We were also intrigued to see that the bass was Stables in Stockwell Lane, Milton Keynes. We had about strung, we think, with piano wire, and its bridge was made four hours to do it, so I wasn’t worried when John of hard plastic. The snapping of the strings on the plastic announced that he reckoned we had got on to a wrong produced a sound like castanets; it was almost like having A road. We consulted the map together and worked out a third instrument for the set. The weather was quite iffy, that we could still reach our goal by a slightly different with a shower at one stage, but the English were not way. In the last stages of the journey we were relying on deterred; they continued to picnic on the lawns, or sit street signs. Thank goodness the Brits are so good at under little umbrellas. There weren’t all that many those. By noon we had arrived, so we then had time to people sitting under the marquee where our seats were. go off and find somewhere to eat, knowing that we could The concert ran from 2.30 to 5.50. Dame Cleo did not get back to The Stables in good time. We found the appear, but I was happy anyway to have been to Waven- Wavendon Arms, where we ordered roast beef and York- don. In fact we’re going back tonight to see Anne Reid, shire pudding, and finished up with a wonderful meal. who starred recently in Last Tango at Halifax on the ABC, The waiter had talked us into ordering cauliflower who’s doing a cabaret show in The Stables Theatre. cheese as well, but we didn’t realise that other veges came We’re just marking time for an hour or so at the Hilton, with the roast. After all my sounding off last night about Milton Keynes, which is a remarkably quiet hotel. the only vegetable being peas, today we got broccoli, Bobbie Sheehy told us last week that when she started snap peas, green beans, carrot, and cauliflower in a teaching she was at a primary school near here, and Cleo separate dish, as well as baked potatoes and red cabbage Laine and John Dankworth and their son Alec Dank- on the plate. The carrots were so fresh and sweet I reckon worth often came to the school to perform. Bobbie went they were dug this morning. The peas were a joy to eat on to say that the school was near enough to Woburn and the red cabbage was delightfully sweet. What a Abbey for the children of some of the workers there to wonderful meal. be pupils. She said it was not unusual to see a child turn Most of the other diners at the hotel were there for up at school with a baby lion or tiger on a lead! Fathers Day. I commented to John that 20 years ago, you wouldn’t have thought of celebrating Fathers Day away from home, especially with little children. The couple at Singing at The Stables the next table had a girl of about six and a boy of about four. They were seated before we arrived, and I heard We’re back from Anne Reid’s performance and we’re the mother say to the little girl, ‘Here’s the menu for you riding on air. It was a performance by her and a pianist to choose.’ I don’t know if the child could read, but the of mostly obscure songs dealing chiefly with love, but mother got very terse a while later, saying, ‘Make up your including the love of clothes and the love of family. mind. The sooner you choose, the sooner we can order.’ These were interlaced with stories from her childhood Free choice is all very well, but there should be some and her theatre career. It really was a most enjoyable limits. night, a total contrast to the afternoon. The concert today was called ‘Harry and Edna’s Vin- When we go somewhere new John and I play a game tage Afternoon’ and we knew it was to be music of the called ‘Ebbe will be pleased’. Ebbe Lundgaard, of whom ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. When we got back from lunch we I’ve written in connection with the Danish section of our discovered that there were lots of people dressed in ’40s holiday, left Melbourne in 1984 convinced that we knew costume and one woman was doing doo-wop hairdos — everyone. Always when we go somewhere new we try to those wonderful rolls around the back of the head and find anyone we know. Last night we thought there would curls at the front. I was just a little bit tempted. There was be no chance of Ebbe being pleased. At interval we talked

72 10.30. We got lost trying to find our way out of Milton A concert in the garden of Dame Cleo Laine (shown in inset). Keynes, but we happened upon a shopping centre, where I tried to buy some more Strepsils and paracetamol for poor John. No Strepsils, but I picked up Lemsip to the closest usher about the theatre and she mentioned and two packets of paracetamol. At the checkout the that Dame Cleo often attends ‘but she isn’t in tonight. clerk said that she couldn’t sell me all three because the We’ve got Victoria Wood though’. So with Anne Reid on Lemsip contains paracetamol, so I could have only two stage and Victoria Wood in the audience, we felt that we of the three. I don’t suppose I could buy three 100-tablet almost knew people there. In her conversations Anne packs of Panadol the way I do at home occasionally. Yes, mentioned Errol Flynn (born in Tasmania) and the pharmacist does ask why, but when I say one for Dubuque (Iowa, to which I have a connection) and the upstairs, one for downstairs and one for the car, they couple sitting next to us have a nephew in Melbourne, never argue. Things are a bit stricter in Britain, it seems. so Ebbe might almost be pleased. It took us a couple of hours to get to Avebury. John From the lift lobby on the first floor of the Hilton had a coughing fit as we arrived and I went to give him Hotel at Milton Keynes, just before we leave for Bath. a Lemsip, only to discover that I had bought sachets, not tablets. John sometimes says he wonders that I have the 17 June 2013 gall to call myself a proof-reader, because lots of things Aiming towards Avebury I don’t read properly at all. As we were about to leave the Hilton car park this morning I grabbed the Avis contract from the glove box to make sure they had noted the The blackout curtains at the Milton Keynes Hilton were mileage in the car before we collected it so that I could very effective, and I didn’t get out of bed till 8 a.m. Poor work out how far we have driven. On the back of the John is so miserable with his cold and its associated contract I found a list of the speeds one is allowed to go cough that I offered him the opportunity to spend the on UK roads. If I’d read that when I got it, you might day in bed, but he decided he would soldier on. I did have been deprived of one of the most spirited of the notice that when he was anxious about his navigation, he emails I’ve sent during this trip. That one probably got didn’t remember to cough! We hadn’t ordered break- the most responses. fast; we made do with the last boiled egg each and a cup It became fairly obvious that I should have done some of tea/coffee and we scanned the maps and directions research into Avebury before we came as well. It turns to make sure we knew where we were going. I discovered out to be much more than the restored manor house to my delight that the public areas where the free In- (more on that later); Avebury is a world heritage-listed ternet code worked included our floor, so I didn’t have site because, according to Wikipedia, one of its three to go downstairs to check incoming emails. stone circles is the largest stone circle in Europe (bigger Some of you will have seen on the ABC in the last six than Stonehenge), and is one of the best known prehis- months the program called Avebury Manor, hosted by toric sites in Britain. It is both a tourist attraction and a Penelope Keith. I fancied looking at Avebury Manor place of religious importance to contemporary pagans, after seeing the program, so we got underway at about who, apparently, will be turning up in force this coming

73 weekend for midsummer celebrations. Tuesday, 18 June 2013 Despite all this, our first stop was at the pub, for lunch. I tried the smoked haddock bake, which presented me Bathing in the beauty of Bath with spinach as well as peas and potatoes. John tried the Suffolk sausages and a half pint of the landlord-recom- We’re probably in the tiniest hotel room we’ve had all mended bitter, but his poor old system is so out of sorts trip, with a shower in one corner of the room and a toilet that he couldn’t manage more than half a sausage before and washbasin in the other, but the bed is clean and his tummy objected. I offered to rent him a room in the comfortable, the TV works, and we didn’t hear any traffic inn for the afternoon so that he could lie down but he last night. John awoke feeling better after a good long chose to keep going with the program. sleep. Breakfast this morning was good. There are only Avebury Manor dates from the early sixteenth century five rooms in the hotel. There is another Australian in and is surrounded by gardens. In 2008 the BBC and the the other ground floor bedroom, but she has been living National Trust undertook a program to ‘restore’ seven in the UK for the last five years. Our host is personable rooms in the manor house to represent various owners and helpful. He suggested that we hire a mobility scooter over the centuries. In the full picture of Avebury, the for John to get around Bath, and told me where to phone BBC project is small bickies, but I’m sure they must be to organise it. A taxi came at 9.45 and dropped us at the getting more visitors like me, whose interest was piqued mobility centre 10 minutes later. The lady was very help- by the program. Most of the others will probably visit the ful, demonstrating to John how to work the machine and Stone Circles as well. John and I wheeled our way sending us on our way with a map to show us how to get through the downstairs rooms, but John sat and chatted to where the free guided walks start. We went past a to one of the guides in the 1930s room while I did the Barclay’s Bank so that I could get some more cash, and upstairs rooms. We then made our way to the tearooms, we found our way to the (very crowded) square through only to discover that unlike the other NT tearooms we’ve streets lined with some really impressive buildings. visited in the last two weeks, this one is in the library Bath is a beautiful city with a real uniformity because added to the house in the twentieth century. Tea is of the fact that all the buildings, from the Roman Baths served at linen-covered tables in genuine china cups, to the houses built within the city boundaries in the last saucers, and teapots. Coffee drinkers get far less elegant year, are all built with, or faced with, Bath stone, a stuff, and certainly not eggshell thin. Apparently all the limestone quarried locally. Our tour guide, Richard, a china has been donated, and so have the books that cram former Radio Bristol announcer, concentrated heavily the library shelves, available for sale at £1.50 each. Over on the architecture of Bath and on the smart men of the tea we chatted to a couple from Bradford on Avon who Georgian period who were proper town planners. The had just popped up for a visit. I’m amazed at how many famous crescents and circuses, which are as iconic of members the NT has, and the NT staff we’ve met have Bath as King’s College Chapel is of Cambridge, are been quite assertive about wanting to sign us up. We unbelievably beautiful. I’m so sorry we allowed only one forgot to bring Gail’s membership card with us. day for Bath. I reckon I could stay here quite happily for a month. At the back of our group was a local woman who was Battling our way to Bath very helpful to us in finding places where John’s scooter could go when the rest of the group went up steps. She Fortified by our drinks (and a far-bigger-than-I-should- turned out to be Sue Young, and she was training to be have-had slice of indifferent coffee and walnut cake) we a guide herself. She has to go on three walks with guides began our final leg to Bath. Again the countryside was so who will sign a form to say she has been in their groups, enchanting and so different just in the few miles we had then she has three months to study before she sits an to travel that I really regretted the fact that there are so exam and then goes out with a mentor before she is few places to stop to take photos. Mind you, the photos finally accepted as a guide. The three of us had lunch I take are never as good as the scenes I see, and if I want together in a building almost 300 years old, looking out truly professional-looking photos I can go to the In- over the Avon River. ternet. John was having so much fun in the scooter that he It was only once we got into Bath that we got into real wanted to keep going around the streets so we did a bit trouble, but with the advice of a passing fireman who more wandering before he returned it. We went past the took pity on us as we were parked outside his fire station Theatre Royal and checked on tickets for tonight to see with our heads bent over the atlas, and two phone calls Relative Values, a Noel Coward play directed by Trevor to our host here at the Devonshire House Hotel, we Nunn and starring Patricia Hodge, Caroline Quentin, finally arrived. Host Chris even parked the car for me on and Rory Bremner. Fortunately (she says, as John sleeps the busy street outside during the passing peak hour beside her at 8.45 p.m.) there weren’t any good seats left, traffic. As soon as he gave us our room key, I demanded so we abandoned the idea and took back the scooter. It a gin and tonic, and then another one. John has tucked cost us £1 an hour for five hours. What a bargain! himself into bed to try and get rid of the cold. I did use We then bought tickets on the Hop-on Hop-off bus. the Lemsip I bought and I hope that might help him. He There are two routes in Bath. One takes you outside the has done so well, but he is so keen to get home now. city centre to the surrounding hills so that you get wonderful views of this gorgeous place tucked down in the valley, with its beautiful buildings snaking up the hillsides. The other trip takes you through the sights of

74 Day. Tonight Helsinki Airport is like Dimboola on a Sunday afternoon. Heathrow, on the other hand, when we got there at lunchtime, was the railway station in a big city in China on the Chinese New Year Holiday — people and luggage everywhere, nowhere to sit, noise all the time. It was a relief to find the very quiet Cathay Pacific lounge to relax after the morning’s adventures. John was out of bed at 6.30, reading the Age on his iPad. He doesn’t want to be going home, he wants to be home, but that’s not the way air travel deals with us. We were all packed by breakfast time and ready to eat as soon as mine host Chris appeared in his striped apron (he and John looked like twins, with John being the grubby one) ready to heat me a croissant while I ate fruit and yoghurt. We had quite a chat with him about our time in Bath, the business of running a B&B and how to get out of the place (‘as soon as you hit the M4 you’ll be parking the car at Heathrow in an hour and a half’). Ha! Our plane was due to leave at 4.10 p.m. We always aim to get to the airport three hours before we fly, and I had allowed an hour to get the car back and complete any formalities associated with that. So that meant we had to be at Avis by noon, leaving us twice the time that Chris said we would need — well, twice the time after we’d found the M4. Following his instructions, the map, and John’s careful preparation we did find the M4, but going the wrong way. We saw some wonderful views while we were trying to find a place to turn around and the sun was shining so brightly that it seemed unfair that we had to leave. We never did find the road that would get us to the M4 going east; we simply retraced our steps of Mon- day afternoon, back on the A4 via Box, Avebury, Calne, John suggesting he might sample a local attraction. Marlborough, and Swindon. There we did strike an M4 entry, an hour and a half after we’d left the B&B. And it did take just on an hour and a half from there and we the town, many of which we saw on our walk. By the end did fairly well, except for getting to the terminal before of the second trip we were ready for a taxi home, and we’d found the rental return place and the petrol station. John even did a fairly long walk to get to the taxi rank. But even given all those minor trifles, we still had the car He had a nap after a cup of tea, while I repacked my deal all finished and we were in the courtesy car to suitcase in preparation for a 9 a.m. departure tomorrow. Terminal 3 by 12.40 p.m. By a stroke of luck we walked We went to the pub across the road for a curry and a pint. into the terminal at almost exactly the right place to Fortunately it wasn’t a blazing hot curry like the one we check in to Finnair. They checked us in. They booked had last week, but nor was it up to the standard we’re our luggage, including the wheelchair, through to Mel- used to at Brady Lodge. No wonder John felt like he bourne, and they assured me that there would be no needed another early night. difficulty in my getting off the plane at Helsinki to collect the case I had left behind. The asked us to ‘sit on those seats over there’ and a wheelchair would come for us. Wednesday, 19 June 2013 The only airport in the world where we’ve had diffi- Heading for home culty with wheelchairs is Heathrow. In 2003, they backed a huge forklift up to the plane to take John and our We’re at Helsinki Airport, at the end of our first leg on friend Faye and me, along with a couple of other wheel- the way home. The Suitcase Pick-up has gone success- chair people and their carers, down to ground level, then fully, thanks to the wonderful Ville, who was waiting they conducted us to a small room and left us there. patiently, with the suitcase on a trolley in one hand and Eventually the other people were ‘rescued’, but after a coffee (and maybe a doughnut in a bag?) in the other. we’d been there for an hour, John announced that this We’re sitting in the Finnair lounge, just occupying our- was ridiculous and he was leaving. With that scenario in selves for an hour or so till the next leg of the flight — mind we discussed how long we would wait. After half an to Singapore. hour I enquired and was told that there were five or six This is the fourth time we’ve been to Helsinki Airport people ahead of us, but the wheelchair man would be on this trip — the day we arrived, the day I brought us coming. We decided we would make our own way to the out here on a wild goose chase, the day we flew to lounge and get the staff there to organise a chair. On the Copenhagen, and today — and every other time it has way to completing this plan we struck a couple of people been teeming with people, like the MCG on Grand Final wheeling empty chairs so we asked whether it was possi-

75 ble for me to get a chair to wheel. ‘Oh yes,’ they said, ‘just Thursday, 20 June 2013 ask over there.’ ‘Over there’ was a compound of about 20 dispirited-looking people all hoping for a wheelchair Speeding into Singapore some time this century, I’m sure. The compound was presided over by an archetypal public servant who The flight from Helsinki to Singapore was uneventful — doesn’t enjoy his job, and the lack of a smile on his face reading, movie, meal, movie, movie, sleep, movie/sleep, underlined his sour attitude to life. One of the people meal, movie. Finnair Business Class is a bit more luxuri- we had spoken to indicated that we wanted to take a chair ous on the big planes, with bags for your shoes, toybags without a pusher and the PS just shrugged his shoulders in paper bags, menus (though the meals are still served and said, ‘Get one from over there.’ We didn’t argue; we on the economy trays), and plenty of drinks. The pusher took the chair, loaded up John and the two carry-on cases who collected us when we landed walked us about a and zipped through the airport at the speed I like to kilometre to the Qantas Business Class lounge, which is travel. huge, classy, and generous with food and drink. I wonder As business class travellers, we were entitled to use the what on earth happens in the First Class lounge? And I’m fast track at the security point, so we got there fast and amazed at the number of people travelling Business then waited patiently while the couple in front of us Class, not just business people and retired people like us divested themselves of just about everything but their (spending the kids’ inheritance), but numerous families underwear and the man controlling the trays on the with children from tiny babies to late teenagers. rolling shelf stood by, waiting patiently. Eventually it was Obviously travel isn’t regarded as expensive by the our turn, so I abandoned John in the wheelchair, hoping people born since the ’70s! WiFi isn’t good here, so I’m that someone would look after him while I kept an eye leaving this to send from home sometime over the week- on the two carry-on bags, my handbag, the laptop, the end. There will be one final episode after this to sum up iPad, the passports and boarding passes, and the mobile what we learned and to make some reflections on our phone. It was a blessing that the fast track wasn’t busy. adventures. Meanwhile John had found a lady who could push his chair through the security area and check the chair’s Wednesday, 26 June 2013 security, but she had to find a man to do the pat-down and there was no one about. I quickly secreted my laptop Remembering and reflecting back in my carry-on but another lady spotted me trying to put the iPad back into John’s bag and wanted to take I think the best thing about the trip was how well John it away for ‘swabbing’. I wasn’t leaving John and the bits managed. He made two good decisions: to travel and pieces so eventually she swabbed the iPad on the spot Business Class and to take the wheelchair. Both of those then went to the swabbing machine to check that it made the trip much easier for both of us. Whether we wasn’t going to do whatever it might possibly do. A man should have taken a GPS is still a moot point. Would I was found to pat John down and we were free to go. The hire a manual car again? Maybe. I certainly wouldn’t patter-downer even pointed out that the Heathrow chair leave the hire place without finding out how the trip had a spot underneath for a carry-on, which relieved the meter works, where reverse gear is, how to turn on the weight on John’s knees. headlights, and whether the car has cruise control. The Sighing with relief, we made our way to the haven that worst thing was that John has come home with a cold that was the Cathay lounge, and I had three red wines and has really laid him low, and rereading this dairy this John had a whiskey. I started the last lot of postcards to morning, I realise he has been suffering since 10 June. greats and non-email people because I had a stack of Aside from the cold, I think he really did enjoy himself Finnish stamps I hadn’t used, and I figured I could post most of the time. the mail at Helsinki airport or give it to Ville to post for Travelling with an oldie is different. You really have me. to limit what you do and where you go. It’s six years since We had a couple of quiet hours at the lounge, then we last did this kind of trip, and there is a marked made our way to the gate lounge. The plane was very full, difference as to what John could accomplish then and but we were loaded first and settled into the space at the what he can accomplish now. Time to rest is very impor- front of the A320 that Finnair calls business class by tant, even if it’s only time to play games on his iPad. The seating two people in three seats, leaving an empty spot spin-off for me is time to do the things I like doing. I in the middle. We were the seventeenth plane in line to recognised during the trip how much I enjoy the daily take off after 4.15 p.m. and there were eight more waiting writing of a diary, and getting feedback from people who after us! Heathrow is a big airport. were reading it was a real buzz. It’s probably the only time The business class food wasn’t much to write home I really set periods aside each day to write, and while it’s about, but the drinks were plentiful — even a liqueur to not a grand style of writing, it’s what I enjoy. Next year have with coffee and the beautiful Belgian chocolates the US is on the agenda and maybe somewhere else, but that constituted dessert. I wonder what we’ll get on the that is yet to be determined. next leg? Will I be too tired to watch the movies? — Robyn Whiteley, June 2013