Wollongong to Melbourne, 2015

I have never felt so elated; so excited, so satisfied with a travel experience. I am not quite sure why.
Certainly, one of the factors is our sense of pride in completing the mission that we set out to achieve. We actually did it. We rode from Wollongong to Melbourne, over a distance of 1295 kilometres, following a route that was more or less coastal but avoided all but 200 kilometres of the Princes Highway. We are not super athletes, just a couple of sixty somethings that have only recently discovered that we enjoy cycling, and that if you ride one day after the other, you can eventually ride quite a long way!

Arriving in Melbourne was quietly and smilingly surreal. I say ‘quietly’ and ‘smilingly’ because our entry to Melbourne CBD was via Gardiner’s Creek Trail and then the Yarra Trail, a beautiful tree lined path that meanders along one side and then the other of the Yarra River and didn’t really challenge our cycling skills but instead enabled us to move at a gentle pace. But this was really just the treble cleft where the melody and the rhythm needed to be subdued in order to enable us to maintain our cool, and to get to the finish line without a hiccup. In tension with this quiet control, the bass cleft was playing a more robust tune: shit, we are nearly there; we have really done it; we are in Melbourne.
Arrivals were a source of excitement and achievement on just about all of the 26 days of our journey. The mere fact of cycling into towns such as Ulladulla or Batemans Bay that we had previously travelled to by car was very satisfying. So were departures, especially in the first few days, when the further we travelled away from Wollongong the more we felt the growing sense of adventure and riskiness of unfamiliar surroundings.

But the trip was much more than a series of milestones, of kilometres clocked up, or of difficult ascents climbed. It was also a myriad of simple innovations such as the marvellous rest that can be had on a space blanket that occupies the area of a mobile phone but weighs far less, and yet unfolds to form a blanket big enough for both of us to lie on.
Travelling by bike – being on a bike – enabled us to become deeply immersed in our surroundings. As we pushed up hills at 5 kilometres per hour the senses slowed, taking in intricate details of tiny purple, pink, yellow or white wildflowers, or the gaudy red bulbous fruit on native palms. Smells were acutely experienced: the aromatic perfume of eucalyptus trees in the early morning sun; the sweet smell of freshly cut grass; the anticipatory smell of burning trees, the acrid smell of seaweed; the fetid, swollen hairless corpse of a wombat. Early morning cold stung the tip of the nose, hammered our fingers and sliced at our legs, especially in a rapid descent. The midday sun warmed and then scorched our faces, arms and legs, creating streams of sweat that trickled down our backs and dripped down our foreheads and into our eyes. Droplets of rain crowded my glasses until I was able to wipe each lens with my gloves.

Floral tributes to road accident victims generated a sense of intense fear forcing me to ride past as quickly but as carefully as my legs and arms and eyes and brain would allow. A desire to understand something about the life that had been lost on this bit of road would be pushed out of my consciousness in case the distraction would cause me to fall into the unknown trap that had killed the person whose memory was captured by the little cross and the dead bunch of flowers.

Throughout the nearly four weeks of cycling, the journey felt like a pilgrimage. Each day we were afforded the privilege of meeting people that simply wanted to talk with us or to help us. Perhaps it was the relative novelty – the oddity – of two not-so-young people travelling on bicycles and carrying their luggage in just two bright orange panniers that acted as a magnet. Free of the protective shell that a car offers most travellers, perhaps we were more accessible and more approachable. On the other hand, carrying so little with us, it was highly unlikely that we were going to hang around for very long. Quite clearly, we were on a journey; we were moving through. Whatever the truth of these speculations, we met far more people than we had ever met in any of our many travels over the previous 40 years. Some were attracted by our vulnerability, and very fortunately reached out to help when we really needed it.

We also called in on a very special friend. Vanessa had been our hairdresser for a number of years. Not satisfied to just be a hairdresser, Vanessa completed a degree in fine arts which she studied in part remotely while in Wollongong but also by moving to the university campus in Perth. One way or another we kept in contact; however, by the time we caught up with her at her home in Narawallee Inlet near Milton, she was a mum so we had a fair to bit to catch up on in spending some of our rest day with her and her little boys Sebastian and Gabe.

The southern exit from Tathra involves a steep ascent that begins on a very tight bend in the road and continues for a couple of kilometres before flattening out a little. Having completed this tight pinch, my thigh muscles burning, we were about 10 kilometres out of town when I realised that I could no longer ignore the scraping sound that the bike was making every time I engaged the brakes. So, we stopped on the verge, offloaded the panniers and attempted to identify what was causing the noise. Our bike mechanic skills are less than rudimentary so it is not surprising that we could not work out what was wrong. Fortunately, and unusually, there was a bike shop in Tathra. Having rung to check that there was someone in the shop that would be there to help us, we decided to ride back.
We were just in the process of reassembling our gear when I noticed a lady glance at us as she drove past in a grey SUV. Then about 100 metres down the road she did a u turn and pulled up across the road from us.
‘Are you ok?’ she called.
With relief outstripping embarrassment, we accepted her offer to take me and my bike back into Tathra. There was just enough room to fit my bike in the back of her car, so Steve rode back. She was a local resident, a nurse that worked in a nearby hospital. We chatted about our trip and her work and agreed that Tathra is a lovely place.
‘Where will you sleep tonight if you have to stay in Tathra?’.
‘Oh, we’ll be ok, but let’s hope that we can get the bike fixed and reach our Merimbula destination’, I said, adding that we had accommodation booked there.
‘Well if things don’t work out as you hope, you are welcome to stay at my place.’
As it happened the problem with the bike was simple to fix and so we didn’t need to take up her kind offer but she wouldn’t leave until we had found this out from the bloke in the bike shop. And then, she left, and I realised that I didn’t know her name or how to contact her to properly thank her and to let her know that we made it to Merimbula safely that night.

We also had among the most profoundly moving conversations with people.
There was the cheery, chatty man in his late fifties who was working in a pub that we stayed at somewhere on the Gippsland coast. He had lived in the tiny town all his adult life and for most of that time had run the local real estate agency until his wife needed to have a series of life saving operations in Melbourne for a failing heart. He explained that the business was being neglected because of the time spent in Melbourne. To recover the cost of her health care he sold the business and took up a job on a gas pipeline construction project in central Australia.
Working on a fly in fly out basis, he did 12 hour shifts for 14 days in a row and then had seven days off. At least two of these off days were spent travelling to and from work in a finely calibrated commute involving bus, train and plane. He explained that if the 14-hour flight from Mt Isa via Brisbane was more than 15 minutes late arriving in Melbourne, he would miss his train and bus connections and have stay overnight in Melbourne. So, the rostered days on were preceded and proceeded by travelling days which lasted at least 20 hours, a schedule that he maintained for two years until their debts were cleared. This was a chapter in his life. His wife needed lifesaving medical treatment and, as a consequence, they needed a way of clearing their debts. There was no braggadocio, nor any resentment, just a set of assumptions about a commitment to love.

There are virtually no off-road cycling trails in NSW, so it was with great pleasure that we travelled on a number of unpaved rail trails through the Victorian part of the trip. The first of these took us from Orbost to the tiny settlement of Nowa Nowa, where we stayed for a couple of nights in a tiny cabin on the shore of Lake Tyers. A short walk across the road took us to the only place to eat, the Nowa Nowa Hotel Motel where we could expect to get a chicken ‘parma’ and chips or perhaps a steak and chips, the typical pub fare for most of the south-east coast.
We were just about to walk into the pub when we noticed two men on bicycles approaching us from the rail trail. Their bikes saddled with bulging panniers, this called for an exchange about travel experiences. ‘Hi, where have you ridden from today?’, I asked the younger of the two, a man perhaps in his early forties, longish brown hair, skinny and with a physique that suggested that this was not a familiar pastime. ‘We started in Orbost; left there this morning’, he responded. ‘I’m not a cyclist. I’m accompanying Casey’. In the background, I caught a glance of Casey talking with Steve. Perhaps in his early seventies, his old cycling shirt and nicks revealed legs that had mastered many a hill. The bike was newish looking – probably hired – but it became immediately obvious from the well-worn state of his clothing and panniers, and the makeshift array of other gear on his bike secured by old Occy straps that he was a seasoned two-wheeled traveller.
‘My wife died just a couple of weeks ago and Casey is her dad.’ Casey and his wife were Canadians living in Hong Kong where they had settled some thirty years earlier to establish a Christian bookshop. Shortly after arriving, they adopted Anne when she was a little girl.
‘They travelled to Australia to be with Anne in her last days. Anne’s mum has gone back to Hong Kong, but Casey had always wanted to take Anne on a cycling tour. So, this trip is in honour of her’.
‘Oh my god,’ I said, shocked by the story that slipped from his lips within minutes of us saying hello to each other.
‘Yes,’ he stoically continued. ‘We only met six months ago and fell in love almost immediately. I’m a graphic designer and she was studying fine arts at UWS. We met at uni. Then she was diagnosed with Leukaemia. We got married when she was in hospital. I can’t believe my luck. It took all these years to find somebody.’
‘That’s terrible. What will you do now?’
‘I’m taking a break from work. After this trip – we finish in Bairnsdale – I will go to Hong Kong with Casey and from there just wait and see what happens.’
The four of us ate dinner together at the pub, and as we were bringing back our drinks to the table I said, ‘I’m Louise by the way’. ‘I’m Quentin’, he smiled.

Our accommodation varied a great deal, ranging from simple motel rooms, a room in a pub, riverside and mountain cabins, an occasional apartment, and even a converted church. After a long day of riding just under a hundred kilometres from Morewell up across some particularly hilly (there really were only a handful of stretches that could be described as flat) and intensely beautiful dairy country, we arrived at a comfortable cottage sitting in a pretty garden behind an isolated residential home located on the outskirts of Koonwarra. Our hosts were a retired couple, probably in their early seventies: she formerly a music teacher and he a farmer. Because there was nowhere within easy walking distance to buy dinner or its makings, the landlady had kindly agreed to provide us with dinner for the first of the two nights we were staying there. The following day was a rest day so we would have plenty of time to take a leisurely ride into the village to pick up some food for the remaining meals. While Steve was out shopping, I returned the casserole dish to the landlady. Naturally, I made a point of complimenting her on the cosy comfort of the accommodation, and she told me with much pride that their guests include travellers from all over the world, including a famous European musician who had been on a concert tour in the region some months beforehand.
I congratulated her on their success. However, her response was not what I was expecting.
‘Actually, it’s just as well it’s working,’ she said, with a look of resignation. ‘We lost all of our life savings a few months ago’.
Responding to my expressions of sympathy and horror, she continued to share her story.
Her husband had invested all of their super funds with a financial planner and had lost the lot. They were not the only victims of the scam. It had happened to quite a few people in the area, and none of them was having any luck in getting any of the money back and not much luck in getting him prosecuted.
There was no malice or resentment towards the financial planner just sadness and a sense of powerlessness about their demise. But, there was something about her expression, which suggested that if her husband had been there in the room, she couldn’t have told me about the situation. His absence for a couple of hours enabled her to act on an impulse to share the burden of this terrible thing that had turned the cottage from an occasional hobby into a necessary source of income. ‘I am so sorry’, I lamely offered.

After about 15 kilometres of green rolling hills the ride from Koonwarra gave way to one of the easiest stretches of cycling through relatively flat, dry coastal plains, taking us back to the salty air of the coast at Inverloch. We arrived at this very pretty little town on the Gippsland coast, a few minutes before 9.00am. This was just in time to have to navigate a path through SUVs dropping kids off at school. Negotiating our way through the traffic, we were brought to a stop at a school crossing where a lollipop lady, a shock of bottle blonde hair and a huge smile, sang and danced the kids across the road, swinging the lollipop sign in time with her song and dance routine with the exuberance and finesse of a veteran calisthenics champion.

A second chance encounter that day was quieter but deeply moving. As we stood overlooking the sand flats outside Inverloch, an elderly man using a walking frame shuffled slowly past our vantage point. We started talking, and, with a heavy German accent, he described how he had observed the changes in the shape of the sand bar and the movement of the waters over the course of the year. His wonder and excitement at the power and mystery of these natural forces was obvious and infectious. As we got ready to leave, he said, pointing to the frame, ‘I use this. I have fused vertebrae in my lower back. But’ – he pointed to the track – ‘I have this. It is the best exercise. And it is free. And the air here is clear. It is the best medicine. And it is free’. And he smiled a beautiful smile.

Phillip Island was really our last destination before reaching the end of the journey in Melbourne. It was also one of just a few opportunities to catch up with friends. We stayed in Cowes, the most significant settlement on the island. It’s here that we spent a glorious evening at a great pizza place called the Fat Seagull reigniting our friendship with Ross and Barbara Fairhurst and the other members of the Vivace Singers, an a cappella group that had impressed the crowds with their glorious madrigals at a choral festival that I had run in Wollongong in late 2013. The food and wine were good. The company and conversation were vibrant, and the madrigals were magical.

Our plans for reaching Melbourne were to catch a ferry the next morning from Cowes to Stoney Point, and then a connecting train to Frankston, from where we would ride the final leg of our journey into Melbourne. But the weather gods played foul with this neat itinerary, and instead we sort refuge in a maxi taxi that took us and our bikes all of the 100 kilometres to Frankston.
This was the first time we had been in a motor vehicle in nearly four weeks. Outside, the rain pelted down, shrouding the scenery that passed by at what seemed to our cycling speed brains to be a phenomenal speed. Inside felt warm and safe. Fortunately, Tony, the taxi driver was chatty and pleasant, the sort of man that had probably done it tough but was grateful for his lot. He was a Collingwood fan and we follow the West Coast Eagles. With footy and parenthood in common, and his curiosity and our excitement about our cycling trip, conversation flowed easily. And then his phone rang. ‘Do you mind if I take this call? It’s my daughter and I don’t like not answering.’ ‘Of course’, we responded.
Within seconds the casual upbeat tone became tender, concerned, encouraging. His daughter, he shared with us, was one of two police officers that had been seriously burnt some 15 months earlier when a gas canister exploded at a flat in Melbourne that she and two other officers were visiting while on duty. She was doing it tough, not just physically but also mentally, and she needed to talk to her dad.
Then he told us about the do at his local pub that some friends had organised to raise some funds for his daughter’s rehabilitation. The evening included an auction of a Collingwood footy player’s guernsey, signed and framed. Tony put in a bid for the valuable icon, but others quickly outbid him until one bloke was triumphant, having paid an exorbitant amount for the privilege. Overwhelmed by the generosity of his friends and others that had dipped into their pockets, he told us that missing out on the guernsey was not a high price to pay. But as he was about to leave the pub, the bloke handed him the framed trophy. This is for you he said.
When we reached Frankston, he pulled in along the curb of a busy street in a standing only spot outside a series of tired grubby looking shops. The scene was one of crowded chaos and miserable poverty. Tony helped us remove the bikes and our gear onto the pavement. We probably should have said our goodbyes quickly so that we could give all our attention to assembling our bikes and loading our panniers. But, the moment was too important. We both threw our arms around him, thanked him for the lift and wished him and his daughter all the best.
August 2016

Ocean Pool

‘How is it?’, I typically ask as I drop my backpack on the bench in the female changeroom. ‘Maybe about three or four’, another woman might say, by which she means that it will take about three or four laps before my body adjusts to the organ-gripping coldness of the water.

Port Kembla Ocean Pool sits perpendicular to the coast, and I figure this is why the water temperature especially in the cooler months becomes colder at its eastern end. At Port Kembla my technique for getting into the water on cool or cold days is to gently climb in from a ladder at the western end of the pool, and then, having splashed some of the salty brine over my arms to do a few strokes of breaststroke with my head above the water before changing to freestyle and with it submerging my exploding head into the chilly brine.

During chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment and surgery for colorectal cancer, the sensation was one of gloriously weightless relief from the nausea and the pain experienced when standing or sitting. So happy was I that I could still swim and that my body still worked I smiled while doing my laps. The first time I swam during the treatment I laughed with joy at the painless and empowering experience of being able to move my body through the salty ocean water. But laughing while swimming isn’t a good idea, so I swallowed some sea water and had to stop to clear my throat.

Today I’ve got just enough time to do my 20 laps before my art session starts at nearby Red Point so even though it’s a moderately cold 17 degrees outside, I can’t afford to dither when getting into the chilly water. As I rush into the change rooms I am met by a bevy of bodies – boobs and bottoms and fannies in various states of nakedness. A dozen or more women are joyously chatting as they dry off, pull on knickers, pour themselves into tiny or generous cupped bras and return to shirts and trousers or shorts, and thongs, sandals or runners. Sitting on one of the benches, with her back against the wall, legs astride, is one very large woman, probably in her sixties, her dark, greying wet hair hanging in strips over her shoulders, boobs happily swinging in time with her arms as she loudly laughs at something another woman is sharing with her.

I don’t want to stare so I focus on changing into my swimmers but I’m rejoicing at her comfort in this beautiful chaotic buzzing forum of female chatter. Sitting on an adjacent bench with my back to her, I put on my stretchy short-sleeved top first because it is long enough to cover most of my belly before I slip off my knickers and replace them with my elasticised swimming shorts, aiming to minimise revealing the flesh-coloured stoma bag that hangs from my belly.

Half an hour later, when I return from the pool to the change room, there she is sitting on the bench and still chatting to a couple of others. They are all dressed now, complete with their hijabs.

Urdu Uber – Tuesday 14 July 2026

At 6.30 this morning an Uber driver arrived to take us to Melbourne Airport. Within minutes of settling into the car, a smooth electric vehicle, Omer asked us where we were travelling to. A little wary of explaining that we were going to Perth for my 99-year-old mum’s funeral, Steve explained that we were visiting family there and no we don’t live in Melbourne, we are just visiting our daughters. Instead, we explained, we live in Wollongong.

As usual I asked whether he was familiar with our city. With enthusiastic delight in his voice Omer told us that he knows the place well because he lived there for 7 years, studying at Wollongong uni. On the 27^th May 2007, the day that he landed in Australia and arrived in Wollongong from Pakistan, he and his friends made their way to North Beach and had a dip in North Wollongong Rock Pool. But the 27^th May has acquired even more significance for Omer as it also the birthday of his now three-year-old son.

That the birth of Omer’s child has become wedded to his first day in Australia and in the city that has been our beloved home for more than half our lives, established an immediate emotional connection between the three of us. And that this arrival was celebrated by a dip in the Rock Pool just added to our shared delight. Not only do I love swimming in any one of the many ocean pools that dot the NSW coastline, but as Steve shared with Omer, he calls me ‘the Minister for the Illawarra’ very largely because of the way that I boast to anybody that doesn’t live in Wollongong about the many wonderful natural and cultural attributes of the place including our beautiful ocean pools.

In keeping with my ambassadorial role, I explained to Omer that when the pool was built in 1870, it was exclusively for men and called the Gentleman’s Pool. At the time it was considered inappropriate for women to swim in the company of men. However, some years later, as conventions relaxed a little, a publican from just across the road from the pool built a little cabin with a door at each end. Sitting on wheels, the cabin was towed by a horse down to the water’s edge from where ladies would enter it from the land side full clad, change into neck to knees swimming togs, and discretely exit the cabin from the other end and slip into the water for a ladies only swim.

It soon became evident that Omer’s fondness for Wollongong is deeply personal. Not only has his band of uni friends maintained a strong bond; now living either in Melbourne or Sydney they will shortly be catching up for a few days in Thredbo. But he explained his ‘missus’ comes from the coastal town of Batemans’s Bay about a two hour drive south of Wollongong, and her grandparents were from Shellharbour a council area immediately to the south of the City of Wollongong.

‘So, are you both retired?’ Omer asked. Our response to this question is typically a mix of yes and no. I explained that Steve runs a poetry publishing company, 5 Islands Press. Steve added with a wry smile that this was definitely a not-for-profit project of love. The conversation that followed was as culturally rich as it was intimate. Omer explained that poetry is very special to him: that he has a book of poems that he frequently reads written in his native tongue, Urdu, which he explained is a mixture of Persian, Arabic, and Turkik, as well as a smattering of Sanskrit. He also told us that Urdu is the preferred language that is sung in Bollywood films. Then with joy in his voice, Omer shared that his wife fell in love with him when he translated his favourite poems into English for her.

With such a beautiful connection having been established, it seemed fitting that Steve let Omer know that 5 Islands Press is hoping to publish a collection of poems written in the different native tongues of poets living in Western Sydney, and invited Omer to contact him via the press website if he is interested in the collection.

When we stepped out of the car at Melbourne Airport, we farewelled each other and expressed our mutual gratitude for the serendipitous opportunity to share such a precious exchange. While Steve and Omer enthusiastically shook hands, I stood back, wishing I could throw my arms around him.

My Mum’s Eulogy – 15 July 2026

From a number of perspectives, it is amazing – or according to Mum, ‘ridiculous’ – that she had such a long life. Born in 1927, four and half years later, the WA Govt deemed the family to be destitute and declared Mum and her older brother Joe, Wards of the State, and placed them in St Vincent’s Foundling Home, a Catholic orphanage in Subiaco, (now Catherine McAuley Centre). At the same time, Mum’s mother Vera (Veronica) was placed in the neighbouring Good Shepherd Convent, a refuge for troubled women and troubling young girls. According to State Government records, Vera was suffering from a nervous breakdown, and I believe that she was almost certainly pregnant, and our grandfather, Joseph was described as an ‘unemployed farm hand’ who was of ‘good character’, ‘poor’ but ‘sober’. He was attempting to survive the Great Depression by rabbit trapping somewhere on the outskirts of Perth.

Mum and Joe lived in the orphanage for three years.

The single most telling memory of her time in St Vincent’s foundling home and orphanage is of frequently climbing onto a ledge from where she would look through a window in an attempt to see her mother. These exercises were in vain because she never saw her mother during this period. How confusing and painful this must have been for Mum and Joe.

Fortunately, just in time for Christmas in 1934, the family was reunited and a period of relative normality followed for the next 8 years.

In December 1943 aged just 43, Mum’s mother died. Mum had just returned to live with the family in Toodyay after spending three years as a boarder in St Joesphs College in Victoria Square, her fees paid for by her uncle Johnny Corry. Mum passed her Junior Certificate with flying colours and went on to work as a bookkeeping clerk for Dalgety’s.

In 1946, aged 19 and 22, Mum and Dad married. They parented six children and there were also two miscarriages and a still born. Theirs was a solid partnership. There were the innovative meals that they both produced: Mum’s favourite was Mexican rice and Dad’s was mutton curry. Mum sewed all of my clothes and many of my brothers’ when they were little. Then there were the jumpers that dad produced on a huge knitting machine, and the fancy dress ball costumes that they produced together, not just for Peter, Phil, Tony and me, but also for the other 7 kids that made up our sets at St Mary’s and CBC Leederville annual fancy dress balls. For many years they played tennis together and sang in a choir led by renowned WA musical educator and choral leader John Christmass OAM. And of course, there was our place at Mandurah which, with the help of Peter and Phil and a couple of rellies, Dad built and Mum fitted out with curtains that she made on her Necchi sewing machine. This was our other home – where we spent all of our school holidays and many more weekends.

Perhaps because of her very frugal childhood, Mum and Dad were always on the lookout for a bargain. One of the central elements of this thriftiness was Mum’s fortnightly grocery shopping expeditions. Carried out for many years with her close friend Doreen Beeson who would drive (Mum only got her driver’s licence when I was about 17 and my boyfriend Steve Meyrick taught her to drive) the two of them from one supermarket to another armed with a shopping list that circled the specials advertised in the West Australian by shops such as Matheson’s, Charlie Carter’s, Tom the Cheap Grocer and Freecorns.

When Mum was in her early forties the ravages of nine pregnancies left her seriously ill and culminated in her nearly losing her life to a massive haemorrhage. That she accepted this as her lot was a consequence in part of her tough no-nonsense upbringing and also sadly in keeping at the time with societal and church attitudes to women’s health. But quite fortuitously, the doctor on duty in the hospital was unusually sympathetic and insisted on a hysterectomy. Apart from saving Mum’s life, he also unknowingly unleashed in Mum a huge change in direction.

First, she completed her Leaving Certificate at night school at Perth Modern. One teacher in particular really left his mark on Mum; my brothers will recall her oft repeated refrain, ‘Mr Tomlinson said’ as an endorsement of an argument or a point she would make about an issue.

Three years later she had completed a teaching degree at Churchlands Teachers College (aka Edith Cowan University). And while this is truly remarkable, our tough no-nonsense mum who couldn’t draw for nuts (Dad was our clever craftsperson and watercolourist) blew us out of the water by becoming an accomplished artist. Under the tutelage of her college lecturer, the famous WA impressionist artist Elizabeth Ford, with whom Mum made many trips to WA’s outback, our Mum produced outstanding abstract and impressionist paintings that depicted landscapes and beach scenes, industrial and mining sites, sacred images, and a wonderful composition showing five well rounded women sitting on the retaining wall outside the Scarborough Hotel at the Sunday session. Many of these grace the walls of homes including throughout WA and are proudly displayed in our homes both here and in the eastern states.

Mum faced another tough challenge when Dad passed away in 1979, aged just 55. But, not long after, one of the ways that she moved through her grief was to embark on her first overseas trip. It was just an easy little tour – to India where among her adventures, she collided with a cow while riding a bike – almost certainly her first and I am pretty sure her last time on a two wheeled vehicle. Many trips followed to the Seychelles, Europe, the UK and Ireland – including with her beloved friend Sheila Doran.

After working for many years teaching young boys at Aranmore College, Mum’s retirement years were not spent in a rocking chair. This inspirational woman continued with her art, tutored many young people, volunteered for charities including by teaching refugees, and sang in the Spirit of the Streets Choir until well into her 80s.

I’m sure that many among Mum’s family and friends will have memories that they cherish. Three come to mind that I think capture Mum’s sense of fun and love of life. When our three girls, Dom, Bron and Tess were very little, one of Mum’s favourite tricks was to chase them around the house, usually on all fours, and always with her false teeth suspended outside her mouth, shouting ‘I’m goin catch ya and I’m goin to eat ya’. And of course, they would scream in a combination of fear and delight as they ran ahead of her. Twenty plus years later, the same scenario was then played out with our grandchildren in Melbourne.

When Mum was in her early 80s, and at a family wedding, she could not handle sitting out while other guests, all much younger than her, were dancing. There was nothing subdued about the music or the dancing. It was pumping. But, this was precisely what was making her feet itch and the desire to join the crowd irresistible. She jumped to her feet, joining a huddle of younger women that were already on the floor, and danced as if she was doing an aerobics session for the next 15 minutes or more.

Just as Mum loved to dance, so too she also loved to swim.

Also in her 80s, at the end of a hot day in the Hunter Valley where Mum was holidaying with Sue and Steve, Tessa and me, she was enviously watching us cool off in the pool. Unfortunately, she had not brought her bathers. No more than five minutes passed before she had stripped to her underclothing and was in the pool.

The next day was just as hot and so we all made use of the pool again to cool off. This time Mum borrowed shorts and a T shirt, so we were deprived of the novelty of her outfit of the previous day. However, we were not disappointed. Steve was adjudicating a mock display of ‘Olympic standard’ synchronised swimming that Tessa and I were practising. Mum decided to join us by copying the routine. This involved her fearlessly duck diving to the bottom of the pool and doing a handstand. The challenge was to keep her legs straight for a few seconds and then move them in a series of three scissor kicks. Worried that she was under the water for an inordinately long period of time, I encouraged Steve to pull her up. With hair and water streaming down her face, she asked ‘did I keep straight?’. All we could do was laugh because she is so short that we could not see her legs at all beneath the water.

No doubt you will have your stories and cherished memories about Pat; Mum; or Nana. Please do not hesitate to share them. That’s a good way of honouring her memory. But perhaps an even better way is to recognise in yourself those life engaging characteristics that you may have in common with Mum and grab hold of life with the tenacity, courage, quirkiness and love that she displayed during her 99 years.

What Can I Say?

We bought our tickets to an Eagles tribute dinner dance, the third retro event of this type that we had attended in that year. Run by the City Beach Function Centre in Wollongong, we were invited to all of them by Lesley, one of the ladies in Out of the Blue Singers, the choir in which I sing. Along with about a dozen other members of the choir and their partners, we went to the first dinner dance to give it a go. It was a bit of a ‘why not ‘decision. The food was great, the wine free flowing and the music terrific to dance to. So, that was enough reason to go to the second, which featured a band that played sixties music. Again, it was heaps of fun.

Although much of my choir’s repertoire could be described as retro pop, I have an embarrassingly poor knowledge of pop music, and had barely heard of the Eagles let alone any of their songs. In fact, on the afternoon before the show, I did a bit of googling and came upon and listened to Hotel California. Immediately, I realised that I knew some of the tune and just one line of the song – Welcome to Hotel California. But in listening to the lyrics for the first time I was struck by the surreal and terrifying story that they tell – a man is seduced by ‘such a lovely place, such a lovely face’ but cannot escape from some brutal entrapping force that pervades the hotel in the desert:

‘Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
‘Relax’ said the night man,
‘We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!’

To be honest, we were uncertain about the merits of going to this third show. Steve was nursing an injured knee (running with one of daughters and our eldest grandson a few months before) and this was going to be a serious impediment to his enjoyment.

Neither of us is a confident dancer. My ability to move on the dance floor is about as good as my ability to master the choreography that occasionally accompanies our choral performances. However, I don’t really care, I just love letting my hair down and moving in any way the music suggests to me. And, in coming to these shows Steve’s strategy is to ply himself with enough alcohol to feel relaxed enough to just dance like a crazy. There are no half measures for him, so suggestions that he could take it easy in order to avoid further hurting his knee were met with near contempt.

Even if we sat out a few of the songs, when we did get up on the floor, we both did our thing, moving like idiots together, becoming 16 and 18 again and not caring that were really much older.

Probably because we sat out more than we had at the previous shows, I had the opportunity to take in more of what was happening around me. The crowd was dominated by people in their fifties and sixties. Many in fashionable finery, others in jeans, a few wearing those ‘comfort’ shoes that are designed for oldies. One tall bloke discarded his shoes and was just wearing his socks.

Groups of women were dancing, dancing, dancing in sheer delight as if there was no tomorrow. Arms swinging, bodies twisting and turning, legs stepping, kicking, feet tapping irresistibly in time with the music. The sheer freedom and exhilaration of it all. Sidestepping in chorus line unison or moving in and out of ever forming and reforming circles of friendship.

Then there were the couples. Many embraced, arm in arm, lost to the rest of the crowd. A few old guys with crook hips or knees and big bellies swaggered on to the floor, hips and knees rocking, feet barely shuffling but nevertheless transported by the music back to discos, pubs and Police Boys’ dances from 40 or 50 years ago. We were all teenagers feeling hip, groovy, hanging out with our lovers and friends. Strutting, cooing, cuddling, arms romantically clutched around each other’s necks, staring into each other’s eyes.

We are avid theatregoers, we love seeing films and going to concerts, but neither of us has much appetite for going to the ballet or watching contemporary dance. I don’t think we really get it as an art form. But probably for the first time in my life I realised how utterly enrapturing and magical dance can be as an expression of love and friendship. And by contrast with the seductive nightmarish qualities of the Hotel California, we could happily leave our sweet fantasy world when the music died.

November 2017

The Wedding

The Walkabout describes itself as an Aussie bar, restaurant & guesthouse. It is one of a number of small bars in Jom Tien that are intended to cater to specific national groups. On the opposite side of Soi 9, Rich Man Poor Man flies the American flag, while just around the corner on the waterfront strip are places catering for Dutch nationals, Swedes and Russians.

An oasis for Australian travellers, the Walkabout offers Australian grog and – in large red print – ‘Great Aussie Tucker’. One blackboard at the front of the building advertises ‘All Day big Breakfast – eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages, tomatoes, baked beans, potatoe, toast, orange juice, tea or coffee’ for 150 baht. A second promises chicken with chips and sauce or mashed potatoes. An Australian flag hangs in the back left hand corner, and half way along each wall there are two large flat screen televisions, showing Australia Network programs. From the street, the Walkabout looks like a long, narrow shed – door-less yet dark.

The centrepiece of the place is a chest-high, u-shaped bar that runs from the street and extends for about three quarters of the length of the building. The sides of the bar are covered with the grey corrugated iron that is common on the roofs of old Australian houses. Spilling onto the street are bench tables and seats. But these are secondary places to sit – perhaps to eat as well as drink. The main game is at the bar.

When somebody signals that the bridal party is coming, the groom and his best man set aside their stubbies – kept cool in familiar stubbie holders – and dismount from their stools. They move to a narrow floor space that lies between the right side of the bar and the pool table, which is covered (for the occasion) in a richly patterned yellow Thai silk cloth.

The bride, resplendent in a shoulder-less, full length cream brocade and satin dress, carries a small posy of pink lilies and roses. Arm in arm with her father, she carefully makes her way 150 metres along Soi 9 from the Executive Apartments to the Walkabout. As she comes into view, her face is a study of concentrated effort to keep at bay the rising panic that is threatening to undermine her confidence.

Following the bride are two young women, one – obviously a bridesmaid – in a maroon satin dress, the other in a white blouse and black culottes, which extend to just below her knees. The bride’s mother follows, wearing a soft green multi-layered frock. And falling in behind is the groom’s daughter, a woman perhaps in her late twenties. She is carrying a ten-month old boy, the child of the bride and the groom.

Motor bikes and cars weave around the little party, as it makes its way past trolleys selling mangoes, bananas, an array of fried sweets, brown feather dusters, and miscellaneous bric a brac. The bride’s father kicks away a small plastic bag that clings to his shoe.

A pack of scrawny dogs wanders aimlessly along the soi. Closest to the Walkabout is a Dalmatian, its soft pinkish skin belying an edgy suggestion of aggressiveness.

Waiting in the Walkabout with the groom and his best man are about a dozen or so family and friends. Some of the guests are drinking mates of the groom, for whom the Walkabout is obviously a familiar haunt. Others look less at ease. All have travelled from Australia for the occasion.

The groom and his best man wear black trousers and shoes, and cream short sleeve shirts with Chinese collars (made locally for the wedding). Each wears a corsage of a single pink rose surrounded by delicate leaves and bound together by a green strip. Corsages are also distributed to guests and pinned to shirts and dresses by the bar staff. The corsages are the ingenious creation of the bride’s mother. She has bought flowers from a local street vendor, gathered greenery from the garden surrounding the pool at the Executive Apartments, borrowed scissors from the Walkabout to cut a green plastic bag into strips and pierced the corsages with safety pins.

The celebrant – a Canadian minister from the local Baptist mission a couple of kilometres along the beachfront – makes his way to the appointed position. After much anxious searching, the groom had secured his services only the day before. Smiling gently at the guests and touching them lightly on arm or shoulder as he passes, he silently signals the joyous and sacred purpose of the occasion. Almost without notice, two Thai government officials have also slipped into the bar and stand ready to register the marriage.

Passing the lingering Dalmatian, the bride and her father enter the Walkabout between two tall floral arrangements of pink and white lilies, chrysanthemums and daisies standing proud in front of long palm fronds and banana leaves, all draped in large pink satin ribbons. As the bride and her father make their way through the waiting crowd to the back of the bar, the bride’s delicate cream net veil comes into view. So too does the singlet that her father wears beneath his white shirt: it bears the words ‘Beer Chang’.

Once they reach the celebrant, the bride’s father steps back. The groom steps forward to stand beside the bride, his left arm, adorned with a dense blue tattoo, resting just below the bride’s right arm. The mother of the bride is encouraged by others to take up a position towards the front of the crowd. To the side of the couple, their baby, uncomfortable with the humid heat and the closeness of the crowd, is soothed by the groom’s daughter. Cameras click. The minister begins the ceremony, reminding us of the solemnity of the occasion. His words command respect; all fall into an attentive silence. And then strong and certain and clear, the couple exchange their vows.

Following the signing of papers, the minister’s traditional declaration of the couple as husband and wife is met with cheers and applause. Moments later a naming ceremony is held for the baby boy. The bride’s godparents, her aunt and uncle, pin St Christopher medallions on the little boy and his godparents. This is done quickly to minimise the little boy’s growing discomfort.

Within seconds, the minister departs as do the Thai Government officials, and the wedding party begins. During the ceremony, a young pig has been roasting on a spit at the front of the bar. It is now carved and placed on the pool table, along with bowls of potato salad, coleslaw and garden salad. For much of the rest of the afternoon the guests move between the bar and the pool table, stocking up on pork and then quenching their thirst, mostly with beer. The groom is back on a stool at the bar. The bride finds her place among a group of friends at a table at the front of the bar.

Various guests fuss over the baby in an attempt to cool him down. One guest, a tall African American gently washes his face, and arms and legs. Someone strips the baby of his wedding outfit. Another guest fossicks through a baby bag for a bottle of water and gives him a drink.

There are no speeches, just a continuous flow of grog, food and conversation, punctuated by temporary departures to nearby hotel rooms to change into shorts, t shirts and thongs. Eventually, even the bride decides that it is time to be released from the sweltering effects of her bridal frock.

The focus of attention in the bar shifts – an important football game is about the start. Some of the guests reappear in Dockers sleeveless purple jerseys. The TVs are turned back on, and once the game begins, the barracking is loud and robust, the volume only receding as it becomes obvious that Adelaide is pushing their beloved Freo Dockers out of a place in the next round of the finals.

The game ends. The bride and her baby return to the apartment. One by one, the guests drift away – only a few friends remain at the bar with the groom.

September, 2012

Fat Chicks

I turn right off Springhill Road into Masters Road, when I notice a ute in front of me bearing a sticker. The only word that I can reliably make out is ‘Fat’ and I think that the next word is ‘chick’. Surely not, I think. Curious I think. Is the driver a fat chick? Does the driver have some form of fetish for a ‘fat chick?

The vehicle momentarily speeds away but then takes the Figtree exit that I am headed for. The vehicle slows down to meet the 50 kilometres per hour speed limit and to negotiate the exit onto the Avenue. I am now able to get a better view of the sticker. It seems to read ‘Fat chick make me sick’. I follow him along the Avenue and our cars stop for the red light in front of Figtree Grove – formerly Westfield. So I have another opportunity to read the sticker. My first reaction is one of disgust at the cruelty of the message. But this is also mixed with the thought that the sticker maker and sticker buyer are both a bit thick because the statement either contains a grammatical error or is a command. As it is written it is a command for a fat chick to make the owner sick. Then I surmise that this is a mistake and the intended meaning is that Fat chicks make the driver sick. Another set of traffic lights at the intersection of the Avenue and the Princes Highway avails me a chance not only to confirm the statement but to gain a glimpse of the driver and his passenger before they turn left and disappear. He’s probably in his twenties as is his pony tailed female friend.

Then my mind goes to a different place. Firstly, I wonder about the thought processes and actions that led him to get the sticker. Did he search for and then buy it online after seeing a young fat woman that he found ugly? I assume the term ‘chick’ refers to a young woman. Did he come across the sticker in a shop, and on a whim, decide to buy it because it reflected his attitude about young fat women.

A quick search online makes me realise that I am on the wrong track entirely. There is a whole series of ‘fat chicks’ stickers which it is cool to place on a car bumper. Amazon sells them as does an Australian motor head’s website, Street FX Motorsport, where stickers bearing the message ‘no fat chicks – car will scrape’ are promoted as the perfect addition to your car or as a laugh for your mates.

Then I wondered how the females in his life reacted to his purchase. Did his mum, or his sister or his girlfriend question his motives in placing it on the back window of his ute. Who is he talking to? Does he want other drivers to honk their sympathy or agreement? What about his dad or his brothers or his grandad? What about the other people with whom he works. Does any of them think that there is something unkind and dehumanising about the sticker? I really hope so.

August, 2018

Zion

The directions on my information sheet told me to enter at the main entrance of the convent on St Heliers St and follow the signs to the Linen Room. As I made my way through the elegant grounds of the complex, past a café and other food outlets, contemporary art installations, and pop up markets, and then to my destination for the day, it dawned on me that I had a connection to the convent and its history. This was the ‘Linen Room’ of the old Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, a huge double room with gloriously high ceilings and ornately carved mahogany wood work.

In its heyday the Linen Room would have been a less joyous space serving a less genteel or romantic function. It was an industrial laundry – Victoria’s biggest – run by the Good Shepherd sisters, with the labour provided by its female inmates – juvenile delinquents placed there via court orders by the police, or young unwed pregnant women sent there by their parents in an attempt to avoid moral opprobrium.

The convent closed in 1972, and around that time, my Mum’s cousin Naomi lived there. A social worker by profession, Naomi was also a Good Shepherd sister. While she spent much of her working life in the order’s convent in Leederville Western Australia, she also spent some time at Abbotsford.

I seem to recall that this was also the location of a dramatic standoff staged by a number of young inmates who climbed onto the roof, either as a protest against their incarceration or just as an act of gleeful rebellion. I have vague memories of TV news footage of police cars and ambulances assembled in the grounds trying to encourage the young women back to safety. I was a young woman myself at the time and the incident reverberated not just because of Naomi’s association with the place. She had earlier given me the opportunity to spend a couple of days at the Leederville convent getting some insights into social work and what the Good Shepherd sisters did with young women. The two days were enough to put me off social work for life.

Just a few years ago I sought out Naomi’s assistance to provide me with some documented evidence of my maternal grandmother’s stay at the Leederville convent from 1931 to 1934. I know she stayed there because the state government child welfare records attest to this fact. My mum Pat and her brother Joey– aged 4 and 5 respectively – were made wards of the state in 1931 ‘under a Court Committal Warrant issued in Perth’ and placed in St Vincent’s Foundling Home for the next three years.

Immediately next door was the Good Shepherd Convent, where their mother Vera had been placed having suffered a nervous breakdown, which the child welfare records suggested had ‘affected her slightly mentally’. This was the great depression. My grandfather, destitute and ravaged by alcohol, had gone off rabbit shooting, a common way to scrape together a living.

Aside from their economic woes, in 1928 my grandmother had also suffered the loss of a third child called Joan – aged three and a half months, to ‘Marasmus Asthenia’ or malnutrition. They were living in Belka – not much more than a rail siding – in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia.

Sadly, search of the records at Leederville and at the head office in Abbotsford failed to find anything about my grandmother’s time under the Good Shepherd sisters’ care. My mum believes that Vera gave birth to a fourth child while staying in the convent. While there are no records of this, it is very likely that the child was informally adopted out, the shame carefully hidden by my grandmother’s better-off siblings and the Good shepherd sisters.

Today, I was one of about 150 people gathered at the convent to participate in a singing workshop with Clare Bowditch, a popular singer with a solid following in Melbourne.

Ranging in age from their late twenties through to their sixties (my age), most of the people were from Melbourne, and I suspect the more hip parts of the city. Attire was casual and dominated by colourful summery outfits that you would see in Brunswick St boutiques. A handful of men were among the crowd, mostly in their 40s or older.

He was sitting by himself near the wall, eyes down, nervously fiddling with his smart phone. Perhaps about 16 or 17, with warm brown skin and finely sculpted Asian features, he was a stand out among the buzz of conversations that filled the room.

A lone visitor to Melbourne, I wondered whether I should say hello to this boy-man. As he lifted his head and looked out into the crowd I decided that I would approach him. Immediately, he stood, and his beautiful face lit up with a gorgeous smile. ‘I’m Zion’, he said, and without missing a beat we were talking.

As a guess, I thought perhaps he was Vietnamese. ‘No’, he said, ‘I’m a bit Chinese, a bit Indian and I’ve got some European somewhere’, as his voice trailed off.

He was just a few weeks into year 11 and vocal studies was one of his subjects. This was enough to establish a link because Dom, my eldest daughter had done exactly the same in her HSC just over 20 years earlier. Then our second point of contact was revealed when he told me that he was at Footscray City College. Dom’s first born, Joe had just started there and, as a fresh 7th grader, was having a few struggles settling in. Zion offered to speak to the year 7 coordinator to look out for Joe. I was very touched by his readiness to do this.

Coming to the choral workshop, which was promoted as an opportunity for people who have had little or no singing experience to ‘have a go’, was a big deal for Zion. His Mum suggested that he do so as a way of gaining some performance experience. He told me that he was worried about how he will go with his music studies, nervous because, by contrast with others in his class, he had only just begun to learn singing. But, so far, his assessment marks had been about the same as theirs. He was reassured by this; proud of it. Being at the workshop was clearly an important part of his efforts to build his confidence.

Ok, I thought. I had better not outstay my welcome. So, I left my bag on top of a stack of plastic chairs that were clustered behind and next to where we had been standing and made my way to the Ladies’ toilet. When I returned a few minutes later, Clare had appeared, and people were picking up cushions or grabbing chairs and moving into the workshop space. I retrieved my bag and took a chair. As I did so, Zion followed me, positioning his chair next to mine at the back of the crowd.

As is usual in a choral setting, Clare took us through a series of warm up exercises that involved walking around the room, moving our bodies in silly ways and making silly noises. Zion was fine with that. Returning to the safety of our chairs, we nodded to each other and he added a smile of delight and relief.

Then Clare introduced our first song, the simple but powerful ‘Wade in the Water’. Zion’s voice was tentative, barely audible, taking a while to find the correct notes. As the morning progressed, however, I could hear him more clearly. The notes spot on, the timbre round and warm. The second song, Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’, was a little more complex. Clare introduced a couple of alternative harmonies. Most of the people stayed with the safety of the melody but Zion chose one of the harmonies, singing them confidently, beautifully. I gently touched him on the arm, smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.

At lunch time we went our separate ways, so when we returned to the afternoon session of the workshop, I was a bit surprised that he again chose the safety of our spot at the back of the crowd.

The preparatory notes sent to us before the workshop included advice about bringing something special to wear at the performance for family and friends. In opening the afternoon session, Clare gave us a few tips about managing performance nerves and making the most of life. I found the life lessons a little tiresome, a bit too borrowed from the ‘wellness’ school. Then she reminded us about the dressing up advice for our performance later in the afternoon. ‘Have you got your suit?’, I jokingly asked Zion. I think I shouldn’t have said that. ‘No, I’ve got casual pants and a shirt’. ‘Great’, I said. We both chuckled but there was something in his tone which suggested that I may have momentarily shaken his confidence, and I instantly regretted it.

A third song – not my favourite – and then a fourth song were introduced: Crowded House’s ballad ‘Fall at Your Feet’. Clare suggested that we all move closer to the front. I dragged my chair a little way forward, not wanting to move too far from the comfort of my spot in the back corner. However, Zion left his chair, and made his way into the thick of the crowd and found a place on the floor among the cushion sitters. Yes, I thought, that’s a good thing.

At about 4.00 o clock, the workshop finished, and we were given half an hour to get a bit tizzed up and to rest before a final dress rehearsal and our performance.

My preparations took about 10 minutes at the most. So, I returned to the reception area where people were chatting, having a cuppa and one of the scrumptious treats on offer, or sorting out their outfits.

Then through the crowd I spotted Zion. He was sitting on the other side of the room in the same place he had been early in the morning. He now had another chair in front of him and on it was assembled a panoply of gorgeous cosmetics – foundation, blush, eye shadow, eye liner and mascara – which he was applying with great poise and grace. I glanced at him fleetingly, careful not to let him see me doing so but he was in a bubble of self-absorbed concentration, so I doubt he was aware of me, or anybody else in the room. Nor would it seem that they were they looking at him either. Just before 5.00 o’clock, a middle-aged woman with two little children in tow made her way to Zion and embraced him, and I immediately wondered whether this was his mum and sister and brother.

Newly named Los Valientes – the brave ones – our 150-voice choir performed our four songs; we were loud, a bit rough on the edges but entertaining, and the audience, sitting on chairs or on the floor or hugging the walls just a few metres away, rewarded us with enthusiastic cheering and applause – the type that reflects unconditional love and support.

Afterwards I made my way back through the noisy exuberant crowd of singers and their fans gathered in the reception area. I found Zion with his family. He was triumphant – beaming – as he introduced me to his Mum who said that she was so proud of his performance that she had cried, and with that Zion and I hugged each other. I wished him good luck with his singing and with school and his career.

Just for a moment, all was right in the world. What a joyous experience.

March 2018

Out of the Blue

Singing is supposed to be good for your health. Singing in a choir has the added benefit of providing social interaction among the singers. All of this sounds a bit clinical.

We had just performed in our last Sweet Adeline Convention. There was something rather poetic about the fact that it took place in our city, Wollongong. For me personally, it was doubly significant because the Wollongong Entertainment Centre was where I had first seen Out of the Blue Singers in 2003 and became instantly captivated by the chorus’s four-part a cappella performance of Simon and Garfunkel’s famous song, Sounds of Silence. It was the performance of this beautiful, hypnotic song that made me realise that I just had to become part of the choir. Being a ballad, the singers performed the song with intense emotional engagement.

As a young child I was notoriously hopeless at picking up the words of songs or even committing to memory poems learnt at school. The exception I realise is the few prayers that I was required to learn by heart at the convent schools I attended in Perth in the 1950s and 60s. So, it is with a sense of amazement and deep satisfaction that I ponder the fact that I know many songs and can hold my part in them in the choir: that I can contribute to the beautiful four-part harmonies that we sing.

Competition is the lifeblood of the Sweet Adelines, the centrepiece of the annual calendar for many member choruses (the term they use instead of ‘choir’), and a biannual requirement of maintaining membership.

Normally, each chorus must sing two songs: a ballad and an up tune, on which four judges often from the US each allocate the chorus a score on four different criteria: music, sound, expression and showmanship. So, the judges award points not just for vocal quality and vowel accuracy but also for the way in which the chorus members make their way onto a stage, move into position and add choreography to the song. Of course, choice of costume and personal presentation of the singers are also important criteria. I recall one year our chorus losing points for the lack of uniformity of our eye make-up and the lack of ‘style’ of the hair do’s.

However, a few years ago, a new people’s choice category was introduced. As well as avoiding the burden of being subjected to a formal judgement and score, the new category’s focus on presenting a themed ‘show’ package (lasting no more than 10 minutes) appealed to our sense of creativity and play.

In what turned out to be our last performance in the national convention, we sang a set of three songs which were poignant, funny and joyfully rebellious. Replacing stories of unrequited or long-lost love somewhere in Mississippi or Carolina in the 1950’s, we were contemporary Australian women coming to terms with the realisation that we had lost our youthfulness and instead were at risk of becoming like our nagging, tired parents.

In place of the typical satin and sequins, we wore dreary brown aprons, and carried bright pink tea towels and fluffy dusters. Instead of the usual energetic stride and wide mouthed smiles that are expected of contestants, we dragged our way on to the stage, our hunched shoulders and sullen scowls conveying our weary acceptance of the abysmal lot that life had served up to us.

In yet to be revealed contrast with this suburban motif, one of our members, a sixty-year-old playing the role of Tinkerbell and wearing a lime green fairy dress and carrying a wand, skipped across the stage and into position on the risers. A second woman, also about sixty and dressed to look like an overgrown Pinocchio, wore a bright red tunic with yellow sleeves, black waist coat and a huge white collar from under which appeared a blue satin ribbon necktie. This matched the ribbon that wrapped around her straw boater. Nodding at the audience with a silly gawky grin on her face, her entry was a perfectly clumsy caricature of the overgrown pointy nosed Disney character that she was portraying.

Their role in our daring little musical drama, part parody, part romance was to roughen the silken edges of the child-like dreams of these famous Disney characters with a touch of grown up reality.

The first word of our forlorn song was ‘help’, which we repeated over and over, beseeching the audience to save us from our demise.

But, by the end of the first song, we had ripped off our aprons in a bold rejection of the stereotypes that we had feared we were becoming to reveal gorgeous lolly pink and crimson costumes beneath. By contrast with the dreary reality of the first song, our second song, the well-known Disney theme, When You Wish Upon a Star, was the most romantic and lyrical of our set. It suggested that dreams come true when your wishes come from the heart. (When we first heard that the song was to become part of our repertoire, we shared childhood stories of having dinner in front of the TV while watching Disneyland on Sunday evenings.)

But of course, we also knew that Pinocchio doesn’t always tell the truth and that Tinkerbell’s promise that little girls will all blossom into beautiful happy ever after women was a mere fantasy. Nevertheless, in our third and final song we boldly dared to claim a new identity. Our bodies swaying and twisting in different discordant directions, the mantra was to ‘chillax’ and let yourself go, as we rejoiced in the newfound freedom of becoming whatever we wanted including crazy hipsters.

Only one other chorus performed in the people’s choice category. Being one of Australia’s largest and best choruses, they were taking a break from competing in Australia this year because their ambitions were focused on a much bigger target, the US convention that was to be held later in the year. Although the audience loudly cheered their support for us (mutual support of this kind is the norm at conventions), among the women that had been allocated the task of judging the two choruses, we were deemed to be the less popular chorus. Still to this day, we are very proud of our last hoorah to Sweet Adelines, and we laugh out loud when one or other of our lot claims that we were really cheated of that people’s choice award.

Normally, we take a break from rehearsals on the Wednesday following the convention and then celebrate our efforts and achievements with a party on the next Wednesday night.

Typically, a handful of partners, children or friends come along to the convention to give us support, to cheer us along, but the post-convention revelry is usually just for choir members. This year, an exception was made for one of our groupies, Pat’s daughter Jane who was visiting Wollongong from Melbourne.

About 18 months earlier, Jane and Pat’s son and grandson, Nick, then 17, had been seriously injured in a car accident. Every few weeks, Pat, retired and on a pension, would make the trip to Melbourne to see Nick, whose return to health continues to be painfully slow. On her return to rehearsals, we would ask how he was and offer sympathy and hugs. Every few months, Jane would post an update of Nick’s progress on Facebook and some of our members would respond with comments of support. Many also offered various forms of practical support.

Like many other women, Pat has been in the choir for many years. A former training manager for David Jones, she has a beautiful resonant bass voice – the lowest of the four parts that we sing, and is renowned for the smooth, seemingly effortless, physical warm-up routines that she frequently leads at the start of our weekly rehearsals. Indeed, she is one of our foundation members that date back to the choir’s establishment in 2002.

But that is all really immaterial. Friendships run deep among many members of the choir. More fundamentally, mutual respect and caring among all of our group are rock solid. Just as we rejoice in somebody’s good fortune, and celebrate birthdays, weddings and the arrival of new grandchildren, we are also there to offer support or to come together in grief, when the wheel of fortune is less kind.

When Pat mentioned that Jane was coming to Wollongong but was disappointed that she would miss out on seeing us at the convention, our directors not only decided to change the date of our party so that Jane could be there, but we performed our set for her, complete with our aprons and two-tone floral pink outfits.

The fare at our post-convention parties was, as usual, simple and make-do. Chicken, coleslaw and potato salad (picked up from the local Chicko’s takeaway outlet), soft drink and lots of wine were shared as various speeches gave due recognition to many in our ranks that had contributed in some way to our participation in the convention.

We thanked Vonny and Janette, our musical directors for their choice of such great songs and for their tireless commitment to guiding our performance over the previous five or so months. Lucy, Helen, Bronwyn and Rosemary, our four section leaders were also thanked for the many section practices that they had organised in their homes. Lesley and other women who had organised our costumes and this year’s very successful ‘harmony bazaar’, a pop-up market of more than 20 stalls selling clothing, jewellery and a miscellany of artwork and crafts at the convention, were also given a round of applause.

We exchanged stories about the comments that women from other choruses made about how much they enjoyed our very entertaining performance. We whooped with delight about the various reactions to the wonderfully bizarre installation that Rhonda and Di (sisters) had set up in a particularly busy corner of the main walkway of the convention centre. Capturing the beachy setting of our gorgeous city, the centrepiece of the installation was a bikini clad, red lipped blow-up doll that lay, drink in hand, on a banana bed surrounded by beach balls, brightly coloured towels and other gaudy looking beach apparel – including outsized bright yellow sunglasses. Not quite an up yours, the installation was nevertheless a quiet chuckle at the conservative female norms – the faux glamour – of the competition.

Jane took the floor and gave us an update on Nick’s rehabilitation. She thanked us for our interest and support, and we listened intently, witnessing with awe her down-to-earth courage, and drawing her into our circle of love. Then we sang a few of our favourite songs; chatted, laughed, ate and drank some more.

July 2017

Cappuccino

I had been halfway up the hill to my place after a low-key, pleasant but tiring afternoon attending a mixed media painting workshop, when I talked myself into doing a U-turn back to the shopping centre to pick up some groceries. I rarely stop for a coffee but as it happens, because I was tired, and my brain was still trying to make sense of the confused process of bringing glued paper together with ink, acrylic and oil pastel, I decided that I would grab a coffee and spend a few minutes working out what I needed to buy before proceeding to Coles.

‘Can you spare me a coffee?’, I heard to my left as I approached the entrance to the shopping centre. I turned and placed my hand on his arm: ‘Sure’, I said, ‘What would you like?’

‘Cappuccino’, he answered, and trailing a small bright red wheelie bag, led the way to Oliver Brown’s, a café conveniently located within about 10 metres of the entrance. By the time I reached the cafe he was already asking the young woman behind the counter for his preferred coffee. So, not surprisingly she was a tad confused when I said I was paying for the drink and added my skinny flat white to the order. ‘Would you like something to eat?’ I asked and proceeded to order his choice: a passionfruit topped cheesecake and a muffin for me. By the time I had paid for our order, he had made his way to a nearby table.

Finely built, with grisly grey hair and an angry dark-skinned face, he was a picture of dark on dark: navy blue hoody, navy blue jeans and black runners. I reckon he was in his early 50s.

I sat opposite him but on the chair to his left.

As soon as the coffee and food landed, he used the wooden take-away fork to tackle the cheesecake with great gusto. A few mouthfuls later, he extracted coffee sachets from his red bag, opened a couple and poured the contents into his cappuccino and stirred the stuff briskly into his drink.

‘Wow, that’s a heap of coffee’.

‘Yeh, bought it earlier today’.

‘By the way, what’s your name?’, I quietly asked.

‘Denis’.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Denis.’

‘So, what brings you here?’, I asked.

‘Just out of fuckin Long Bay. Nine months. Hit the fuckin missus’.

‘That’s not ok, you know’.

‘Yeh but I just smacked her’.

‘Ah ha’, I quietly responded, realising that pursuing the topic was pointless and perhaps a tad risky.

‘Where do you hail from Denis?’. He jerked his head towards the southern entrance, ‘South Coast’ he said. ‘Fuckin Eden’.

‘Do you have any kids?’.

‘Yeh six. But they’ve all gone. Moved on. Fuckin cunts. Spent time in … and did isolation in … for a bit too’.

I think I heard Grafton and Goulburn, but it was difficult to decipher what he was saying, and for some vague reason – perhaps fear of what he would tell me – I didn’t think it was a good idea to ask him to clarify.

‘Denis, what sort of work do you do?’

‘Labourer, factories, always worked in factories.’

‘Ok, terrific’, I answered feebly.

‘So where are you staying?’

‘Suppose I’ll sleep on the, on me sister’s what do you call it, on me sister’s bloody front ..’.

‘Verandah?’, I offered.

‘Yeh, her front verandah.’

I think he told me that she lives in Eden. As he told me this, I realised that my question was a tad rash, and my shoulders imperceptibly dropped with relief that he wasn’t asking to stay at my place.

At this point I offered him my partially eaten berry muffin. I wasn’t really hungry and had taken only a couple of mouthfuls. He grabbed the muffin and demolished it within seconds.

Placing his Opal card on the table he said, ‘Can you spare me $20? Need it to top up me bloody card. Need to get to me sister’s’. As I fumbled in the top pocket of my backpack, I wondered whether public transport would get him to Eden. Hadn’t he said his sister was in Eden or did I get that wrong? He stood up, in readiness to go. I quietly handed over $30 which he slid into his jeans pocket and left the café, making his way speedily along the shopping arcade, his red wheelie bag rolling behind him.

May 2026