JANUARY 2021 NUMBER 50
The postie's dream became a national monument.
Christmas seemed to be accompanied by televised news of more than the usual number of decorated homes. Displaying flashing coloured lights and moving arrangements, traditional and imaginative themes of Santa Clause, sleighs and reindeers embellished houses.
The more elaborate projects might have been competitively motivated. Others perhaps were simply something to do during health crisis restrictions. Some may have been the result of a driven urge to create, others undertaken with children in mind, by chance the product of a visionary idea, or for any number of other reasons - even dreams.
Screened over Christmas by SBS, the film titled “ The Ideal Palace” showed a dream brought to fulfillment through perseverance. Sleeping one night in nineteenth century France, a postie in the village of Hauterives dreamt he was building an unusual, if not strange, structure. His name was Joseph Ferdinand Cheval and his dream was vivid. So brilliant was its detail, he was driven to build what he dreamt.
Over several decades throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Cheval worked at translating his dream into reality. His masterstroke of endeavour was achieved with his own hands, using pebbles and other materials he collected locally. The finally completed mysterious creation was in his words “…a confusion of the senses at first sight...” (1).
Cheval named the building “The Ideal Palace”. It was proclaimed an historical monument of France in 1969.
(1) Cook,Olive, photographs by Edwin Smith. The Postman’s Palace, published in The Saturday Book (1967) edited by John Hadfield.
FEBRUARY 2021 NUMBER 51
A youthful Jane Austen may have been about to emigrate.
An emphasis on manners and refinement prevailed among middle class gentry in England’s wider Regency period. Dinner parties, dancing, sewing, music and singing, visits and cultivated conversation were features of a society familiar to novelist Jane Austen. Her life as a clergyman’s daughter was comfortable. (1)
There was nothing comfortable about the ship Neptune. Transporting 502 convicts, this East India Company carrier was a vessel of unrest and violence before it left for Sydney. On 17 January 1790 it set sail in the Second Fleet, labelled “The Death Fleet ” on arrival. (2)
On board as a paying passenger was D’Arcy Wentworth, aspiring colonial surgeon, tried in London for highway robbery. He and Jane Austen are believed to have planned to travel together on the Neptune. Presumably thwarted by Jane’s parents at the last minute, they went on to lead separate lives in opposite parts of the world. (3)
D’Arcy died aged 65 in 1827, his place in Australia’s colonial history distinguished by accumulated wealth and public service. Jane died aged 41 in 1817, her place in England’s social history distinguished by her writing. Her published accounts of English society and romance endure in films and serialised television of Pride and Prejudice and some of her other novels. It is left to the imagination to speculate what her life would have been like had she gone to Australia.
(1) Bryant, Arthur. The Age of Elegance 1812- 1822 (1950). Le Faye, Deidre, Editor.Jane Austen’s Letters (1995). Cecil, David. A Portrait of Jane Austen ( 1978 ). (2) Ritchie, John. The Wentworths Father and Son (1997). (3) Walker, Wal. Jane & D’Arcy Jane Austen & D’Arcy Wentworth Volume 1 Folly is not always folly Volume 11 Such talent and such success (2017).
MARCH 2021 NUMBER 52
Plans for an underground river caves were thwarted.
Dad must have known I had a good imagination. His idea of a river caves in his cellar under our house appealed to me as a six year old. Crouching beneath a low ceiling in this dimly lit cob-webbed space, we fantasized an underground river flowing alongside scenic backdrops. Confines of space, height and impracticality had no role in our vision.
In the cellar were stored dad’s bottles of beer, brewed in the washing tub of my mother’s laundry. Beneath the tub’s wooden lid, a cauldron brimming of malt and yeast would regularly froth and bubble. Whenever it stretched mum’s tolerance, as it often did, you could hear her bawling dad out. Finally, after bottles of the brew exploded nightly under the house, mum evicted dad from the cellar. The plan for a river caves was shelved.
In a basement beneath his apartment, dad’s brother built a small cinema. Complete in every detail, it screened home movies for our families and friends in a décor unbelievably beautiful and realistic. When the cinema had to be demolished because my uncle had no tenancy of the basement, dad tried an alternative. He converted our dog Smithy’s shed into a tiny cinema, the Dandy Lion Theatrette, screening 9mm films. Smithy was allocated a bed under the laundry tub.
In his late eighties, dad expanded home brewing on an unprecedented scale after mum died. Installing a small keg of beer inside the kitchen fridge, he drilled a hole through the fridge door. The keg was connected to a tube passing through the hole to a tap fastened onto the front of the fridge door.
Most of the family gracefully declined dad’s offers of hospitality. One grandson who took to the beverage with relish fully appreciated dad’s conviviality. He was pleased to accept the equipment when dad died in his nineties.
APRIL 2021 NUMBER 53
In Gympie it is easy to miss the beginning of a change of seasons.
Early in March, despite mid-day heat, autumn light became faintly detectable; late afternoon shadows signified a hint of change. Rainfall on 20th March, the day of equinox, proclaimed autumn’s official start. Fish attracted anglers to Gympie’s coastal bay and beach; Gympie’s Mary Valley became richly green. And the temperature dropped during the first week in April as rain continued.
Celebration of Easter was accompanied amongst other things by the weekend newspaper. Reading two articles reminded me how strongly changes in language are linked to changes in society. They brought to my mind the significance of word growth and changes in the meaning and use of words. (1)
“…Words, words, words…!” Shakespeare’s Hamlet famously replied when Polonius asked what he was reading. (2) There are enough lines of Shakespeare about words to make you wonder whether words were more important then rather than now. They were certainly important centuries later when the Oxford English Dictionary was being made.
One of the most enthusiastic volunteer researchers mailing his work to the Oxford English Dictionary editor was named William Minor. A wealthy former American Civil War surgeon, Minor did his research while imprisoned for murder. Dedicated to words, the incarcerated correspondent wrote from an English lunatic asylum for the criminally insane. An enduring friendship with James Murray the Dictionary editor developed after Murray visited him. (3)
Words, even in an emerging visual age, just might be as important now as they ever were.
(1) Andrew Billen. Are You Woke? Stuart Heritage.The Woke Handbook For Boomers. The Weekend Australian Magazine April 3-4 2021 (2) Act 2 scene 2 lines 185 -225 (3) Winchester, Simon. The Surgeon of Crowthorne A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words ( 1998 ) Screened as the film The Professor and the Madman (2019).
MAY 2021 NUMBER 54
The date for Mothers Day in Australia is the same in Italy.
And the Italian coastal location of Ostia is a place I recall from a gap year 55 years ago. It is near Ostia Antica, where ruins indicate something of what the region may have been like in ancient times.
A scene once enacted in Ostia was later recorded by one of its two participants. Notably fitting on Mothers Day, it takes place inside a house in the year 387. Where there might be a bay window, a 56 year old mother is talking to her 33 year old son. They are sitting together at the window overlooking the garden. The mother’s health is fading.
The mother’s name is Monica and her son’s name is Augustine. Monica is confiding to the once wayward Augustine how his conversion to her faith now made her life complete. The one thing she longed for has eventuated and she dies some weeks later.
In the evening following her funeral, Augustine tries having a bath, but the burden of grieving remains. Later that night he sleeps off some of his remorse, recalling a poetical prayer written by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. He is comforted by its words of softness of slumber subduing sorrow and reinvigorating mind and body.
Augustine acknowledged his mother frequently reminding him of their bishop’s advice to her. It was, in effect, advice that any son who caused his mother such tearfulness could not be all that bad. (1)
(1) Including: O’Donnel, James tr. Augustine ‘ Confessions ’( 1992) Chadwick, Henry tr. Saint Augustine Confessions (1998) Wills, Garry tr. Augustine, Confessions (2006). An abbreviated text of an unidentified translator, The Confessions of St. Augustine Modern English Version, was published by Revell as New Spire Edition (2008).
JUNE 2021 NUMBER 55
Written diaries have a valuable role, especially if you aspire to live twice.
The spectacle of evening Showground lighting was welcomed as Gympie’s Show returned after last year’s absence. By May’s end, the Mary Valley’s afternoon light was shrinking; and the lemon tree was again showering king size produce onto the back lawn.Thoughts loomed of evening soups and lunchtime stews for wintery meals. Music lovers waited for the twentieth annual ABC Classic 100 countdown on June 12 and 13.
It was not so much the onset of Gympie’s usually modest winter, but how quickly each season seems to arrive. Not unexpectedly, younger people want to speed time up while the older want to slow it down. Although neither goal is possible, our perceptions of time may change when we chronicle our daily lives in writing. Keeping a diary potentially enriches daily life.
Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of eminent nineteenth century poet William Wordsworth, kept a diary over four years. It was an account of the daily life of two gifted people, brother and sister, in England’s Lakeland district. Not only descriptions of scenery and seasons make this diary attractive. Its appeal is augmented by a narrative of cooking, eating, sleeping and taking walks, as well as minor indispositions. (1)
In 1,300,000 words, the seventeenth century diaries of Samuel Pepys encompassed almost ten years of his life. They are the diaries once described as more profound than any novel. (2) In a biography, Arthur Bryant, wrote of Pepys having “…the rare justice to see his faults with clear eyes and unflinchingly record them against himself.” (3)
Both these diarists might have been able to claim they lived twice. Their writing casts light on how people lived in previous eras. And it records thoughts and personal observations of things that might otherwise have faded away.
(1) Dove Cottage The Wordsworths at Grasmere 1799 -1803 being The Grasmere Journal by Dorothy Wordsworth together with selections from the correspondence of Dorothy and William Wordsworth edited by Kingsley Hart. Selection and introduction by The Folio Society Ltd. The Folio Society London 1966. (2)&(3) Bryant, Arthur. Samuel Pepys The Man in the Making (1933)
JULY 2021 NUMBER 56
My dreams of simplicity were about to evaporate.
At least it seemed so when someone bought my 96 page book relating to Japanese garden tradition. (1) But after the book was mailed, mental images lingered. Simplicity in courtyard gardens remained in mind. It then became clear not only landscaping has the capacity to counterbalance life’s everyday intricacies. Certain cuisines and written and artistic expressions have the same power.
Until recently, visitors and locals alike enjoyed crushed yams at Shizuoka’s Mariko restaurant. The Mariko’s yams were lapped up by seventeenth century haiku poet Matsuo Basho. In the words of his journal, Basho was drawn “like blown cloud” to journey there on foot in the year 1684. (2) Published in watercolour during 1832 -1834, woodblock artist Utagawa Hiroshige’s sketch of the Mariko depicted customers relishing bowls of yams.(3)
When a Japanese friend and I once lunched at the Mariko, a bus load of Japanese arrived. Animated and dapper in their neat and trim appearance, they were so cheery we wondered who they were. My friend enquired and came back with news they were a haiku group. He also told me a story of haiku competitors long ago. Drinking sake, they wrote haiku on folded paper boats floated between teams at opposite ends of a stream. The result probably depended on the sake.
Abigail Friedman, an American diplomat in Japan, has written of her experience of haiku. Her book shows haiku as something you can enjoy writing and use to express everyday experience.(4) It might hearten anyone disappointed at being unable to travel to the Olympic Games. After all, haiku are written about the Olympics. (5) A Haiku Challenge aims to encourage students aged 5 – 18 to celebrate the spirit of the Games by learning more about Japan and its culture.(6)
(1) Gong, Chadine Flood and Parramore, Lisa. Living With Japanese Gardens (2006)(2) Corman, Cid and Susumu, Kamaike. Back Roads to far Towns: Basho’s Oku-No-Hosomichi (1996) (3) Oka, Isaburo. Hiroshige Japan’s Great Landscape Artist (1992) (4) Friedman, Abigail.The Haiku Apprentice Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan( 2006) (5) www.allpoetry.com (6) www.getset.co.uk
AUGUST 2021 NUMBER 57
Bookselling has its moments.
As uplifting as the Olympics were, my mood was dampened this morning : computer perplexities and inventory problems were more pressing than usual. Things improved during an afternoon of blue skies and subdued distant cloud. A short nap brought tranquility; daylight was lengthening. ABC Classic broadcasted Eight Dances, yes really, for harp, by Carlos Salzedo, soothingly performed by Alice Giles.
By late afternoon it remained only to re-read part of publisher and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s memoirs. They record his grandfather Daniel completing his bookselling apprenticeship, searching unsuccessfully for work as a bookseller in London, finding in Cambridge the employment he sought, and then with his younger brother Alexander, founding the publishing house Macmillan. (1)
Harold Macmillan quotes a biography of his grandfather: “No one who ever sold books for a livelihood was more conscious of a vocation; more the dignity of his craft and of its value to humanity….” (2)This was all the encouragement I needed. Propelled by a spring in my step, I set off on my late afternoon walk to the shopping centre.
Bruce Highway traffic was increasing apace. Gathering momentum from green lights at Gympie’s main intersection, traffic roared downhill. Diesel fuelled heavy vehicles, B-doubles and pantechnicons vibrated; petrol fuelled cars, utes and trucks in their race homewards seemed to be challenging semitrailers.
Returning homewards, my backpack nursed a Shiraz among the groceries. Away from the highway, quietness was soon restored. Alongside the pathway, gigantic Bunya Pines were creating shadows. Sunset cast a shine attractively on some west facing houses.
Work is underway on the M1 extension to by- pass Gympie. The value to humanity of significant books remains as clearly evident as ever, as does Olympic spiritedness.
(1) Macmillan, Harold.Winds of Change 1914 – 1939 (1966) (2) Hughes, Thomas. Memoir of Daniel Macmillan (1883)
SEPTEMBER 2021 NUMBER 58
The measure of a century can be awe-inspiring.
After winter departed, spring slid into place sprouting wattle’s golden hue over Gympie’s hillsides. No wonder Australia’s fifth prime minister suggested (1) wattle’s inclusion in the Commonwealth Coat of Arms: Andrew Fisher was a resident of Gympie.
Between bouts of hay fever, those of us old enough to do so ponder how quickly seasons are now coming and going. Some even contemplate how much living might be crammed into their remaining years, whatever their length may be.
Just how much activity and achievement can be packed into a hundred years is recorded in business histories. In such a history, a century of human effort and long service is celebrated in One Hundred Years of Rope Making. (2)
The story starts with the arrival in 1852 of Michael Donaghy, an immigrant rope maker. With the help of a young assistant, he is soon hand spinning at Geelong the first rope produced in Australia. Photos of successive generations of the founder, his employees and manufacturing processes illustrate the business from its earliest days ; Michael Donaghy is seated in a horse and dray eventually acquired after he daily pushed a rope- loaded wheelbarrow across Geelong.
Within two years he was installing machinery and employing 30 people. Knowledge was passed down two and even three generations of employees as the business grew and changed. And through two world wars and international health and financial crises, a century of business came to fulfillment.
(1) Commonwealth of Australia. Australian symbols. (2000) p10. (2) M. Donaghy & Sons Pty.Ltd.with assistance of Harold S. Stevens. One Hundred Years of Rope Making A Story of Pioneering Achievement 1852 – 1952.
OCTOBER 2021 NUMBER 59
Televised or not, bookshelves can offer unexpectedly thought provoking information.
Early in the pandemic, commentators talked against a background of bookshelves .Trying to identify the books, I would lurch closely towards the television, almost pressing my nose against the screen. But the titles were usually obscure. Returning to my own bookshelves, I took down and read Managing for Results by Peter Drucker (1). Memory took me back to 1997, the year I wrote to the author about one of his earlier publications, The Effective Executive (2).
Dear Professor Drucker, I wrote, when I read The Effective Executive 30 years ago it transformed my working life. In hindsight, I asked, was there anything he would change if he were writing the book today for the first time? The world’s arguably most famous management guru answered he would include his later essay on choosing people (3).
In Managing for Results, Peter Drucker wrote that a business should have an idea. Such a requirement puffed me up because my idea for the business had emerged long ago. It was the idea that the business sells thought provoking information. The bookstock's inventory, its catalogued subjects and Letter from Gympie translate the idea into reality.
Twice in my life Peter Drucker’s writing has brought meaning and purpose to my work. The professor died in 2006 aged 97; I cannot seek his opinion whether my idea is ( as Managing for Results suggests it should be ) neither too broad nor too narrow. But results should demonstrate the extent of the idea's fulfillment.
As for my practice of straining to scrutinise televised bookshelves, well, it is decreasing. As summer approaches, more commentators are talking outdoors against leafy backdrops. Now its restrictions are easing, I can no longer use the pandemic as an excuse for watching too much television.
(1)Drucker, Peter F. Managing for Results. Economic Tasks and Risk-taking Decisions (1999) (2) Drucker, Peter F. The Effective Executive (1967) (3) The reply read “ I’d include the essay Picking People written in 1985, re-published in my 1986 essay volume Frontiers of Management as chapter 13 on page 119”.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 NUMBER 60
“Just now it is the summer of things; there is life and music everywhere…”. (1)
Michael Fairless achieved his ambition when he became a roadmender. He was able to enjoy the surroundings of his rural environment. In between observations and talking with passers-by at the roadside, he would split and scatter quartz until his rest hour.
Michael Fairless nodded affirmatively when a bystander questioned whether he liked cracking stones. Asked if he had ever seen better days, he answered “never”. As to whether misfortune had brought a person of his education to such a low job, he replied: “no, it was the best of luck.”
This nineteenth century roadmender wondered whether others he knew in his youth had achieved their hopes. Would they understand, he asked, what he had attained? Some said he was a stonebreaker, but he believed “roadmender ’’ had a fuller meaning and higher significance. His work gave him what he had asked of life: “…permission to serve, live, commune with others and from earth to look up into the face of God.”
Michael Fairless the roadmender never existed. The name was a pseudonym of mystical British author Margaret Fairless Barber (1869- 1901). Her sentimentality and sense of life’s purpose certainly appealed to readers because her book was so regularly reprinted.
The summer of things in Gympie is shaping as a summer of green; so much seems to grow as you watch.
(1) Fairless, Michael. Illustrated by E.W.Waite. The Roadmender (1931)
© Barry Long 2021