Swan Magazine June 2017

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f you use Facebook, then you will have seen these posts which end with “copy & paste, don’t share”.

Usually they relate to something that tugs at your heart strings, or it might be political or religious. You read the post and then see at the bottom the line “don’t share, copy and paste”.

Why?????

If you agree with the post and think others should see it, surely clicking the ‘share’ button is the simple option; it is what it is there for, after all.

So why did your friend ask you to copy and paste and not to share?

I bet if you ask them they will say they don’t know.

I bet they simply copied and pasted it from another friend, who also didn’t know why.

There is one suggested reason people ask you to “copy and paste” rather than share that you can find on a few sites if you google, but it is incorrect.

It claims that Facebook reduces the prominence of posts with lots of shares – it doesn’t. So that can’t be the reason for all these “copy and paste” requests.

However, clicking the ‘share’ button may carry audience restrictions. If your friend was using the “friends” audience setting, then if you share the post you may not always be able to set it to ‘public”.

Similarly, if your friend deletes the original post you shared, it may disappear from your posts too.

In this respect, it can be said that a shared post is less prominent that a copy and paste post, however, this is not the principal reason why those heart-tugging posts ask you to “copy and paste, don’t share!”

It should be fairly obvious that there are negative reasons for stating “copy and paste, don’t share!” so here are a couple we have found: SELF SELECTION You are being asked to self-select yourself for something later.

When you simply share a post you like with your friends there is no way to track it further than your first share; no way to find out who else has shared it further on.

But if you copy and paste the post exactly, the potential future scammer can find you and target you.

Here is an example of how the “copy and paste, don’t share” request works There has been a “copy and paste” post going around recently about animal abuse. As well as the directive to “Do not share” but instead “copy and paste” this, the post contains a key phrase with incorrectly spelt words.

A person who copies and pastes it can easily be found by searching Google with the operand site:facebook.com “key phrase here” The potential scammer can now see a long, long list of Facebook users who have copied and 2

COMMUNITY WHY COPY AND PASTE? pasted the exact message about animal abuse.

Now they have a target list of people who they can be reasonably sure will react to a new post, a new “like” request, a new friend request, or some other “support us” plea that is related to animal abuse.

So you have self-selected that you are someone who cares about animal abuse and who is also perhaps a teeny bit gullible (or so the scammer hopes). You are now a target for a scammer and you are likely to soon be asked for money for some supposedly related cause.

Of course, this can work for any subject.

Key phases to look out for run along these lines: “don’t scroll without typing amen.” “if you woke up this morning and you are thankful every day while being bless scroll down and type amen” “how many likes can she get?” “this baby still cute, scroll if you’re heartless” “ignore if your heartless” “Ignore If You Have No Heart” “PLEASE DON’T IGNORE” “Don’t scroll without saying R.I.P”

“This is so sad type AMEN and lets see how many amens and likes he can get” “Don’t scroll without showing respect” “Please don’t scroll down without saying “Amen” “Don’t Press Watch Without Typing Amen” “1 like = 1000 prayers Don’t scroll without typing amen” “Do you trust in prayers? If yes so please pray for this baby take a minute and type “Amen” your one amen is one prayer if you don’t love children so you can skip this” The “type Amen” posts are particularly prevalent at the moment, so avoid those and, if you do happen to be religious, say a little prayer to yourself asking God to help whoever the subject of the post is (they may actually be real and if they aren’t God will know) and also pray for the scammer that they might find a better cause – then move on.

God doesn’t really need you to type anything.

IN THIS ISSUE PAGE

FEATURES

If 5000 people share a hoax or fake news message by clicking Share, and for some reason that original message was removed (for example, deleted by Facebook for being fake!) then all those 5000 “shares” will vanish at the click of a mouse. If the original post being shared is removed, so do all of its shares.

The same doesn’t apply if you copy and paste a message, then post it.

If 5000 people copy and paste a message to their own timeline, and the original gets removed, you still have 4999 instances of the message remaining on Facebook, since they are all separate posts, independent of each other.

Another reason, of course, is that it makes it harder to track down the person who started a hoax, since we’re all passing along a message in a digital game, and the privacy settings of many users often makes it impossible to track the original creator of a particular message.

This is a tactic often employed by hoaxers to help their posts remain on Facebook for as long as possible, and is most often the reason hoaxers prefer copying and pasting, as opposed to sharing.

In summary – don’t copy and paste posts on Facebook until you think for a moment about why you might be being asked to copy and paste.

If you feel strongly about a post, simply share it. But always also remember to check if it is actually true first.

As a minimum, start by running it past Snopes or another fact checker of your choice and search for the original article.

Here is a wonderful guide to Facebook hoaxes and the perils of copy and paste requests with many examples of past hoaxes and the reasons they were created: thatsnonsense.com/hoax-posts-ask-copy-paste/

WHEN COPY AND PASTE MAY BE APPROPRIATE There are occasions when to copy and paste Facebook posts is appropriate, but that should be your decision. Don’t just copy and paste because the post asks you to – consider why you are being asked.

If a post specifically asks you to copy and paste, they really should tell you the reason why they are making the request.

Here are a few reasons I can think of to copy and paste Facebook posts rather than sharing them that, to me, seem quite legitimate: When you’d like to share a post but need to edit it for clarity, spelling or grammar.

When sharing would compromise your friend’s privacy (eg the post has their kid’s names in it or their locality).

When you want to add an image to the post.

When you want to personalise a post.

SPREADING HOAXES When you are sharing information about a Another reason for the “copy and paste, don’t business or group that is important to you and share” request is that by copying and pasting a you want to reach the widest audience. message you are creating another instance of the Courtesy of Oakwebdesign: oakwebdesign.com.au message that is not dependent upon the original.

Books and Writing

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Books Fiction Amber The Ute Death in the Blanik The Secret Writing When the Children Came Letter to Theo Gypsy Dreaming Poetry Harmony Flash Harry The Idler What’s Happening at KSP

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Finance with Steve Networking

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Why ‘Copy and Paste’? Inside Cover City of Swan Rates 2017/18 12 Merry Xmas from Swan Harmony 12 Mobile Vendors Wanted 12 Federal Notes 5

Out and About With Sharron SAFE SVRN

New Lord Street Wandoo Heights Walk Trail 13 Reasons Why Importance of Flu Vaccines What’s On

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World First Discovery Perkins Researcher Appointed

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Transform Your Garden

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Front Page Photograph: Winter Pursuits Photographer: RF123

DISCLAIMER The information in this publication is of a general nature. The articles contained herein are not intended to provide a complete discussion on each subject and or issues canvassed. Swan Magazine does not accept any liability for any statements or any opinion, or for any errors or omissions contained herein.

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Email: editor@swanmagazine.com.au Registered Address: 18 Tokay Lane, The Vines, Western Australia 6069 JULY DEADLINES: Advertisements: 25th June Editorial: 1st July Copyright: Swan Magazine 2017 1

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DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE enry Anderson was a clerkly and careful HDepression, man. He had been raised during the Great the only child of elderly parents,

coming as a great surprise to his mother in her early forties.

Although they had never gone hungry, there was very little money for anything but food.

Little Henry had watched his father, an engine driver, on many occasions while the old man cut up newspaper to line his boots for that day’s work.

Because of the hardship that he had known, Henry’s father was determined that none of his children should be blue-collar workers. He decided that Henry would be a bank clerk.

Henry wasn’t consulted, if he had been, he would have said that he rather wanted to be a farmer. He loved the soil and tended the small back garden faithfully. He even managed to coax a few vegetables from the unrewarding earth.

However, he was a gentle boy and did not want to cross his father, who had a ferocious temper, so he joined a bank as a junior clerk.

True to his temperament, he worked hard and well. His rise in the bank was unremarkable but steady. At the end of twenty-five years of service, he found himself Chief Clerk in charge of the Bills Department of a middle-size branch in an industrial town in the Midlands.

One morning, as he walked to work from his lodgings in his neat city clothes, he witnessed an accident. A commonplace road accident of the sort that happens every day in some city of the globe. Another statistic in tile Road Toll.

An elderly man ahead of Henry stepped off tile pavement without looking. A car coming the other way did not see him in the poor light until it was too late. The car caught him a glancing blow as it swerved wildly and flung the old man into the path of an oncoming bus. It was all over in a second. A scream of breaks, a dull sound like a bag of sand falling; and silence.

A crowd gathered, of course, as crowds will; standing silently around staring until moved along by the inevitable bobby.

Henry did not stop, he walked on, stunned.

In all his forty-four years, this was his first experience of sudden death. He had been too young for the war as a soldier and it had left him largely untouched.

That day he performed his work mechanically, with little understanding of what he was doing.

Adding columns of figures and signing his name countless times in a sort of dream. He told no one of what he had seen. It was too important, too private. It was his own little glimpse into mortality. Besides, he had no friends at the bank.

Acquaintances, certainly, but not friends.

That evening, as he sat eating his solitary supper before the fire he thought to himself: ‘It was so quick. One minute you’re there, alive, a being with feelings and passions, a family perhaps, and worries about money ... and a few seconds later ... nothing, absolutely nothing. A carcass to be stared at by the morbid.

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‘It could easily have been me. I was going to cross there. What if I had? What if that had been me? Life is so short, so ... temporary. I’m a banker. I loath banking. I always wanted to farm.

I wonder why I didn’t?’

He cleared away his few dishes and washed up. He went to bed to stare at the ceiling for a long time before he finally fell asleep.

He looked dispassionately at his face in the shaving mirror the next morning. It was a round, mild face with pale blue, slightly protuberant, eyes.

He saw the unhealthy pastiness of the skin, the eyebrows starting to bristle, the myriad of fine lines at the corners of the eyes. He dropped his gaze to his hands. They were good strong hands, but the nails were beginning to thicken with age and the skin appeared to be covered with a layer of fine scales.

‘My body is aging and dying around me,’ he thought. He took one last disdainful look at himself in the mirror and began to shave methodically.

His resignation came as a complete surprise to the Bank. Like Henry’s father before them, they had Henry’s life planned out in detail and they did not care to have their plans disrupted.

They wanted him to be an Accountant of a small branch. His name had been suggested as a possible Manager but the Bank felt that he did not have the requisite personality. Managers should be able to woo customers, to play golf and generally radiate bon homie. Henry, the bank said in its deliberate way, could do none of these things.

‘Are you sure that you want me to accept this, Anderson?’ asked McKenzie, Henry’s Branch Manager. He tapped Henry’s letter lying on the desk. He sat comfortably behind the acreage of polished oak with fingertips pressed lightly together. ‘Are you sure that you are doing the right thing? You realize it means the end of your pension.’

‘No, I’m not at all sure I’m doing the right thing,’ replied Henry, perched awkwardly on the very edge of the chair. ‘But, don’t you see, Mr. McKenzie, I’ve got to take the chance. If I don’t do it, I’ll always feel that I ought to have, and have nothing but regrets if I don’t.’

‘Very well,” said McKenzie with an ill grace.’

You do know that we can’t hold your job open for you if you fail in this, ah, venture.’

‘Yes, I do know. And I’m going to buy a smallholding, not more than about ten acres, and I’m going to farm.’

‘Hmm, yes. Well I suppose I’d better wish you ‘Good Luck’ then.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Henry’s search for a smallholding took him longer than he had expected. The farms he was shown were either too small or too big; had no water or were mostly swamp; Some had land full of rocks and others were too steep. Just about the only thing they had in common was that they were all asking a price far too high.

The weeks went by. Henry came close to dispair. He had given away his security, recklessly thrown away his pension for what? An idea and ideal that seemed more and more ridiculous the more he thought about it. He seemed to be forever in Land Rovers, bouncing around on dreadful roads, hanging on to his new tweed hat with one hand and grimly holding on with the other, while listening to a steady stream of sales talk from Real Estate men in loud check suits.

Eventually he found it - his ideal farm. Twelve acres of gently sloping land. The soil was a good rich black, moist as fruit cake. It was deeply satisfing to grasp in your hand, make a fist and open your hand to see the earth hold the imprints of your fingers.

There was what the Real Estate Agent called ‘an olde worlde cottage of considerable charm’ Considerable charm it did have, but no running water. Still, to someone who had lived in Boarding Houses and lodgings all their life it was delightful, and there was a stream not far away and a hand pump in the kitchen.

As well as the cottage, there were several sheds and outbuildings in various stages of disrepair.

The asking price was more than Henry wanted to pay, but the smallholding had caught Henry’s heart. This was what he wanted. He knew he had come home.

After some haggling over the price and what went with the property, the farmlet became his.

It made a considerable dent in his capital, but what with the amount he received from the bank and hie own careful savings, he would be all right if he wasn’t extravagant.

‘Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land’ Henry recited to himself as he stood on his own land for the very first time. ‘Scott was talking about patriotism,’ thought Henry, ‘but never mind, the idea’s the same.’

Henry now entered a time of pure bliss.

He toured the countryside in search of tools, equipment and stock. Every waking moment was occupied by the farm. He rose early, worked long, if inexpertly, and retired late. Every muscle in his body ached.

Gradually, the farm took shape around him.

He repaired the sheds, ploughed the land and sowed it, put up fences and cleared the vegetable garden. He even bought a cow. A Jersey cow, with huge eyes and long curling eyelashes that would be the envy of any film star. He called her Marilyn, and learned to milk her. That was difficult, and his thumbs ached dully for days until he got the rhythm.

And then, one menorable day, he bought a horse. It was never his intention to buy a horse, even though there was a stable on his land and he did know how to ride, after a fashion.

He had learned how to ride as a boy from some Gypsies that had camped near his Grandmother’s house in the country. It was during the war when

he had been sent to his Grandmother because of the bombing and his parents felt it would be safer.

The Gypsies camped on the Common and little Henry, not having adult prejudices, had made friends with the lads. For that one glorious summer he had ridden, fished and poached with his friends. The next summer they had gone and had not seen them again.

Henry had fallen into the habit of going to as many auction sales as he could. Sometimes only to watch and get the feel of the prices. Sometimes to buy the odd implement.

This particular day, the sale was at a farm a good way off. The sale was being held because the old farmer had died and had no next of kin.

Henry arrived early, as he usually did, to have a look around and see what was on offer. As he went round he made little mental notes on the prices he could afford on the items. If during the course of the sale, that figure was exceeded, then he would drop quietly out of the bidding.

The farm had a forlorn and un-tended look.

Grass sprouted from between the cracks of the paving and broken panes of glass had been replaced by plywood. A general air of neglect hung over the place like a pall. The buyers and spectators started to arrive. A motley collection of country folk, most in tweeds and corduroy.

The auctioneer bustled up. He was an enormously fat man with a great pendulous belly that hung over his belt. A tiny tartan tie reached vainly towards his belt buckle, failed badly and left about eight inches of straining striped shirt front.

His assistant put down a portable stand and he climbed up and rapped with a hammer. He read rapidly though the Rules of Auction in a high nasal voice. Then went quickly into the business of the day.

The morning was given over to the sale of the household items and equipment. After lunch would come the livestock and farm implements.

Directly after lunch they began. The assistant would carry the stand and put it down near each shed and the auctioneer would mount it and rapidly dispose of the contents of the pen or shed.

Starting with the sheep and cattle he went through all the livestock until all that was left was a horse in the bottom paddock. By this time it was late afternoon and everyone was tired.

The paddock the horse stood in was badly overgrazed. The horse had eaten all the grass and had been forced to pull down what leaves were within reach on the few trees. When this source had been exausted, it had torn the bark from the trunks. Its coat was shaggy with neglect except where the hair had rubbed off at the joints where the bones stuck out. The hooves had not been trimmed in months and had grown long and split.

It stood, pitiful and thin, with its head hanging, too dispirited to even look up as the group formed round it.

‘Well, boys,’ said the auctioneer with an attempt at joviality, ‘who’ll start me off? Shall we say: ‘Fifty pounds?

Silence.

‘Thirty, then.’

Silence.

‘Twenty?’

‘O’ll give ‘e foive.’ called out a wizened scarecrow of a man.

‘You can’t be serious,’ said the auctioneer, ‘why, even as dog meat alone it would be worth more than that.’

‘That’s what Oi want ‘ee fur’ replied the man.

Henry looked at the horse whose fate now seemed certain. He felt a pang of pity for it.

Justthen the horse raised its head and looked at Henry. The eyes were lack-lustre but calm.

‘Fifteen pounds,’ called a voice clearly. Henry was suprised to recognise it as his own, moved by who knew what well-spring of compassion.

‘Fifteen once, .. twice ... Sold! To Mr. Anderson for fifteen pounds. Thank you, Gentlemen, that concludes the sale for today.’ The small crowd broke up and moved away.

Henry was left alone with his horse.

‘Well, horse,’ he said,” you’re not going to be dog meat, but heaven only knows what I’m going to do with you.’

The horse stared back apathetically.

Henry arranged with the agent of the sale to have hay and water sent down to the horse and to have a blanket put over it. Then he spoke to a farmer with a horse float and made arrangements to have the horse delivered the next afternoon.

Henry spent that evening reading up on horses in one of his newly-acquired Farm Management books. He would, he decided, clear that stuff out of the stable in the morning. A coat of paint on the door, a bit of whitewash, inside and out and the shed would answer very well as a stable.

Bringing the horse back to health would be a different matter entirely. He must remember to ring Bob Vickers in the morning.

And so thinking, he went to bed to sleep the dreamless untroubled sleep of very small children and those who are kind to helpless animals.

Dr. Bob Vickers was a very good vet, he had a feeling for animals, an empathy, almost. He wasn’t long out of College but had rapidly built up an excellent reputation in the district among men who were not easily impressed.

He was an ungainly and awkward young man who seemed perpetually tired. He would drape his long body over any available support and stare owlishly though gold rimmed glasses at whoever he might happen to be talking to. A large and smelly briar pipe completed the picture he wanted to portray. Behind the facade he really was a very good vet.

Vickers stepped back from the horse and turned to Henry to deliver his findings. He had spent the last twenty minutes prodding and prying and listening to the horse. He had peered into its eyes, at its teeth and under its hooves.

‘He’s a stallion, about nine years old, basically healthy,’ he said leaning bonelessly over the stable door. ‘He’s been criminally neglected and under-nourished, but basically healthy, as I say. If you take care he’ll recover in a couple of months.

I’ll give you some worm powders now and and call back in a few days. Don’t overfeed him or you’ll have colic to worry about as well.’

He levered himself upright. ‘He’ll make a damn fine hack.’

H enry did as he was told. He fed the horse carefully according to Bob Viokers diet, measuring out the bran and oats with an empty jam tin. He brushed and curry-combed him until the muscles of his shoulders ached.

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Slowly the horse recovered health and strength as Vickers said he would. Under Henry’s loving care and Vicker’s diet of good food, the horse filled out and his coat gleamed and shone where before it had looked like an elderly coconut fibre doormat.

Henry’s daily brushing deepened the horse’s coat from scruffy tan to a dark rich honey-gold. Henry’s Grandfather had had a meerschaum pipe with a stem exactly that colour, so Henry called the stallion Amber.

Amber and Henry prospered and ripened together. Henry lost his office pallor and the surplus weight that had started to thicken round his waist.

He was forty-five now and looked and felt fifteen years younger. For the first time in his life he felt alive.

Amber grew into one of the most beautiful horses Henry had ever seen.

Tall, strong and alert, the powerful muscles in his hindquarters rippled and gleamed dully as he moved in the sunlight.

It was a great day when Dr. Vickers said that he felt Amber was well enough to be ridden. A quiet walk around the paddock to start with, gradually becoming a canter, then a trot, and finally one glorious morning, a gallop over the hills.

Henry somehow identified Amber’s resurrection with his own miraculous transformation from an existence of quiet desperation to one of vibrant eager life. The stallion epitomised to him all that was fine and free in his new life. He had never been so happy, for he was a simple man.

Then came the afternoon when Henry, having finished his chores for the day, went to Amber’s stable to bed him down. The stallion whickered with pleasure when he saw him coming. Amber put his head down against Henry’s chest to be scratched behind the ears. As he did so Henry noticed that Amber’s left eye was inflamed. He made a mental note to ask Bob about it.

Vickers was duly consulted the next time he called.

‘Don’t think its much,’ said the vet, ‘but better safe etc, though. Here,

put some of this antiseptic cream on the eye. Let me know if it gets any worse. How’s Marilyn?’

The cow had had a light case of mastitis and was just recovering, hence the Vet’s visit.

‘She seems to be O.K. now,’ replied Henry and the conversation drifted into other channels.

The inflamation in Amber’s eye refused to clear up. In fact it got much worse, the whole eye socket was red and angry looking.

Dr. Vickers called again, gave Amber a couple of antibiotic injections and took a number of swabs and some blood for testing by the equine labatory.

He returned three days later. He found Henry mucking out Amber’s stable. Henry was glad to take a break. After greetings had been exchanged.

Henry said: ‘Take a look at Amber’s eye, I think those shots might have helped, it looks less inflamed to me.’

‘Henry,’ began Vickers hesitantly, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.’ He fiddled with his pipe and tobacco pouch, glad to have an excuse not to look into Henry’s face. ‘Amber has a malign tumour just below the left eye socket. He is going blind in that eye. I can’t operate, its too far advanced and in too tricky a position.’

‘Oh,’ said Henry inadequately. ‘That accounts for the inflamation, I suppose. There’s more though, isn’t there? You said ‘malign tumour’ that’s ... cancer.’ He hesitated over the word as though once said, it was inevitable.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I’m very sorry.’

‘So it won’t stop there, will it?’ It wasn’t really a question.

Vickers cleared his throat: ‘Er, not necessarily.

We may be able to halt it for a while, it may even go into remission.’

‘But if you can’t ...’ Henry’s voice trailed off into silence and he turned to look at the magnificent animal now under sentence of death.’

‘How long?’

‘Don’t know, really. Couple of months, perhaps.’

‘So soon. Can we do anything?’

‘Lord, yes,’ said the vet,” we’ll start with a course of Gorttamine.”

The disease however was not to be cheated of its prey.

Amber got progressivly worse. He went blind in the left eye as Vickers had predicted. The whole left side of the stallion’s head grew lumpy beneath the skin, like marbles felt through velvet.

The morning that Henry noticed a slight reddening of the right eye, Vickers called again. He examined Amber carefully and spoke, choosing his words with care.

‘Henry, he started, ‘Amber is in pain ...’

‘You mean it’s time,” Henry said flatly in a voice totally devoid of emotion.’

‘Yes. If you prefer I can take him away and do it elsewhere.’

‘No,” said Henry simply, ‘I’ll do it. Leave me your humane killer.’

Henry used the rest of the afternoon digging a grave down under the trees of the back paddock.

Amber had often stood there on hot summer days, flicking the flies away with a lazy tail.

By the time he had finished it was nearly dark. The huge hole gaped up at him like a black stain on the green velvet of the grass.

Next morning early Henry went to Amber’s stable as usual, fed him, though he ate little of late. While the animal ate Henry brushed and curry-combed his glossy coat taking softly all the while. He trimmed and oiled the hooves and combed out Amber’s mane and tail.

When he was satisfied that Amber looked at his very best, he led the stallion slowly down to the back paddock.

The shot, when it came echoed and re-echoed around the little valley.

FEDERAL NOTES HON KEN WYATT AM, MP

Member for Hasluck, Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Indigenous Health 2017/18 Federal Budget will deliver Tall hefairness, opportunity and security for Australians and means great things for

Hasluck.

The Turnbull Government is making the right choices to ensure our nation’s remarkable economic growth story continues, so we can secure better days ahead for the hard-working people of Hasluck.

Schools in every sector in the community of Hasluck will be receiving significant increases in funding due to our needsbased funding model. This announcement is great news for the Hasluck community’s 65 primary and secondary schools and their 23,564 students.

From 2017 to 2027 in Hasluck, average funding per student in the Government Education System is estimated to rise from $2,158 per student to $4,202 and from $7,608 to $11,610 per student in the Independent Education System.

Funding will also continue to grow in the Catholic Education System, with the on average per student growth rising from its current $9,856 per student to $14,461 per student in 2027.

Older Australians in Hasluck will benefit from the Turnbull Government’s assurance of $5.5 billion of continued funding going to the Commonwealth Home Support Programme which enables people to stay in their own homes.

As the Minister responsible for Aged Care, I have seen first-hand the enormous benefits of this program, and how it helps older Australians remain independent and in their own home for longer.

Australians want to remain in their homes as they age, it feels familiar, it's where we feel safe ADVERTISEMENT

Ken chatting to clients at a respite centre about what the Budget means for them

and it’s the one place we can call our own. That is why I was so pleased to be able to advocate for and secure funding certainty for this program over the next two years In this Budget we are extending the incredibly popular Instant Asset Write-Off for local small businesses. There are 13,980 small businesses in Hasluck that can take advantage of this measure.

The Government is delivering small and medium business tax cuts, benefiting 3.2 million small and medium businesses that employ 6.5 million Australians.

This will help the 14,522 Hasluck businesses with turnovers up to $50 million if they are incorporated, and up to $5 million if they are unincorporated, invest and employ more Australians.

Our Government has delivered childcare reform that makes it more accessible and affordable for families and we are moving to fully fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme,

as well as guarantee the future of Medicare.

This budget secures the future of Medicare and quarantines it from politics, once and for all.

The Turnbull Government is acting to bring down the cost of living.

We have intervened in the gas market to ensure that Australian gas is made available to Australians first, putting downward pressure on prices.

We have abolished 457 visas to make sure Australians get the first priority for Australian jobs and we are building the roads, bridges, dams and airports that will set the nation up for future success.

These are only a few of the measures underlining our plan to put Australians first. If you would like more information on the 2017 Budget and what it means for Hasluck please contact my Electorate Office in Forrestfield on 9359 0322 or email me at ken.wyatt.mp@aph. gov.au.

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Donna

KEN WYATT MP Federal Member for Hasluck 9359 0322

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

FARAGHER

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Member for East Metropolitan Region Shadow Minister for Education; Training; Women’s Interests

ken.wyatt.mp@aph.gov.au

kenwyatt.com.au

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Authorised by K.Wyatt MP, Shop 10-12 Forrestfield Marketplace, 80 Hale Road, Forrestfield WA 6058.

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THE 2017/18 BUDGET

Ground Floor, 108 Swan Street Guildford 6055 9379 0840 | Faragher.eastmetro@mp.wa.gov.au Authorised by D.Faragher, 108 Swan Street, Guildford WA 6055.

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OUT AND ABOUT WITH SHARRON COLLECTORS COLLECT AT MIDLAND

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OUT AND ABOUT WITH SHARRON Ivan Ba cic porcela enjoys collec t in, glas s and siling antique verwar e

he Collectables Society of WA hosted their Annual Collector’s Fair at the Midland Town Hall. They enjoy regular meetings and social events. Exhibitors enjoyed chatting with visitors and collectors alike - and there was such variety! www.collectwa.com

Susan Walker, Antique Jewellery Valuer, was on hand to appraise

MILI MARKET DAY

A sunny Sunday was perfection for a MiLi Market Day at The Vines Resort.

There was a huge selection of handmade and unique items along with children’s entertainment and amazing food choices!

Janet W

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im Inn

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at ove

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cents

Natalie Bradley and Tracey McGhee loved the atmosphere and chatting with everyone.

These ladies love the local markets

SOCIAL EDITOR SHARRON ATTWOOD Photograph by ShaBo Studio 6

Fairy Floss as big as your head - what’s not to love?

Jenny Pollard enjoys sharing her love of collectables Sharron and Nathalie Talandier discussing the range of stalls mermaid headpieces to pickled onions! They were great onions

7

WHAT’S ON IF YOU WOULD LIKE AN EVENT LISTED IN THIS COLUMN RING our office on 6296 5161 Entries for non-profit entities are free.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS - Glen Forrest Group Every Monday evening We meet at 7.00pm at the Glen Forrest Uniting Church, Mc Glew Rd, Glen Forrest. Call Dermot 0488 905 211 or John 0448 074 536 or the Perth Office (all hours) 9325 3566.

MORRIS DANCING

All welcome. It’s like bush dancing, with sticks and bells. It’s aerobic exercise and great fun!

Tuesdays 7-9pm practice, Guildford Town Hall, cnr James St and Meadow St, Guildford. And drinks later at the Woodbridge Hotel with live Irish music For more information please contact: AUSTRALIAN BREASTFEEDING ASSOC. Christine Hogan: 9279 8778 Discussion groups, guest speakers, morning Email: madtattersmorris@iinet.Net.Au tea. Free breastfeeding counselling. Expectant Website: madtattersmorris.Myclub.Org.Au mothers, mothers, babies and children welcome.

National Breastfeeding Helpline 1800 686 2686 MUSTARD SEED - DISCOVERING COMPUTERS is a 24 hour 7 days a week service.

Mustard Seed is a fifteen year old non-profit organisation and teaches all aspects of everyday Swan/Mundaring Group meets every Monday, 9:30- computing. Ability levels from beginners 11:30am at the Gumnuts Family Centre, 8 Mudalla onwards. Want help with Windows 10? In need of Way, Koongamia. A qualified ABA counsellor instruction with your Mac computer? Have an iPad is present at each meeting to give confidential or Android tablet and don’t know what it will do? information and support on breastfeeding issues. We can help. Cost is $3 per session. Classes are Contact Natalie 9572 4971. heldat 56 McGlew Road, Glen Forrest. To gain a place enrol now.

Kalamunda Group meets fortnighly on a Thursday, Phone 9299 7236 or 0478 604 163 or 9:30-11:30am at the Maida Vale Baptist Church, E: mustardcomputers@gmail.com Edney Road, High Wycombe.

W: noodlebytes.com Contact Jenny 9252 1996.

Northam Group meets each second Tuesday of the month at the Bridgeley Community Centre, Wellington Street, Northam 10am to Noon.

Fourth Tuesday each month at Toodyay Playgroup, Stirling Terrace, Toodyay. Noon to 2pm. Please phone Louisa 9574 0229.

TUESDAY BADMINTON CLUB

Tuesdays Join us for Social Badminton from 9am - 11am at Brown Park Recreation Centre. Beginners Welcome. Contact Miriam 9274 5058.

THE HILLS CHOIR

Monday Evenings Do you enjoy singing and joining with others to make beautiful music? Come and join the Hills Choir. We meet from 7.30 to 9.30pm at the Uniting Church on Stoneville Road, Mundaring. Contact Margie on 9295 6103 for further information.

SWAN VALLEY SQUARES – ELLENBROOK

Every Friday Night Modern Australian Square Dancing from 8.00 pm – 10.00 pm Woodlake Community Hall, 1 Highpoint Blvd, Ellenbrook. Friendly, fun and low cost. No previous experience necessary. All Welcome. Contact Greg Fawell 0417 912 241 or www.swanvalleysquares.weebly.com

ELLENBROOK COMMUNITY WEIGHT LOSS CLUB

Every Wednesday evening We meet from 6.45pm to 8.00pm at the Woodlake Community Hall, Meeting room 1.

Highpoint Blvd, Ellenbrook. Friendly support group and low cost. Male and females of all ages welcome. Contact Shirley 9276 7938 shirleysardelich@aapt.net.au.

8

HOLIDAY READING THE UTE

ELLENBROOK AND DISTRICT MENS SHED INC.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday We are open at 4 Transit Way Ellenbrook from 10.00am to 3.00pm. Potential members can turn up on those days and there will be someone to explain what we do and give membership details.

Annual fees are low and members can do their own thing, participate in projects for the community or simply just come in for a chat and a cuppa.

We are considering extending our days to include Saturdays or evenings if there is enough interest.

SWAN VALLEY COMMUNITY CENTRE MUSIC CLASSES

Tuesday mornings Learn to play tunes on piano or keyboard immediately – the SIMPLY MUSIC method. Play songs, chords, blues and classical in small groups at a reasonable price.

Call Heather 9296 4181 for more details.

HILLS CHRONIC PAIN SUPPORT GROUP

1st Wednesday of each month Hilltop Grove Estate, 1645 Jacoby Street, Mahogany Creek. Morning tea provided, between SWAN WOODTURNERS GROUP 10.30 - 12.00 noon.

The group meets in the rear hall of The Senior Enquiries Terina 9572 1655.

Citizens’ Centre, The Avenue, Midland, at 1-00pm. on 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Tuesday, and at 7-00pm. MIDLAND MEN’S SHED on 2nd Tuesday of each month. A demonstration Every Tuesday morning and cuppa are the norm. Men and Women are We meet socially every Tuesday morning from welcome. Enquiries to Ted 9295 4438.

9.30am to 11.30am in the Bellevue Baptist Church Hall and our usual attendance is around fifty-five.

TALKING HORSES At least once a month we have a guest speaker on Wednesday evenings 6:00pm a range of topics.

The WA Horse Council equestrian radio We also go on excursions to various places program is now in its seventh year. The of interest (e.g. HMAS Stirling, Aviation Museum, programme is broadcast on the Community Radio Fremantle Ports, ALCOA, etc.).

Station 91.3 SportFM. To ensure that your club, Our workshop with wood working and metal event, breed or business gets coverage, call working is now in Midvale and for the opening Diane Bennit 0409 083 617. hours and further details please contact Rob Cutter on 0419 967 873.

SWAN VALLEY COMMUNITY CENTRE Also in operation is our music group – the Monday Mornings Rockin’ Shedders which is going from strength to The Art Group meets at Baskerville Hall from 9am strength and their repertoire of songs increases – 12pm for just $5.00 per session. each week.

The group leader is Gilly, she can help and For more information on the Shed please advise with most media. Feel free to come and contact Kevin Buckland on 0417 961 971 or by have a look and meet our local artists – they are a email to kebinsv@tpg.com.au. very friendly lot, new members welcome!

For more information call 9296 1976 or EASTERN DISTRICTS MACHINE KNITTERS E: enquiries@swanvalleycommunitycentre.com Friday - second and fourth W: www.swanvalleycommunitycentre.com.

We meet from 9:00am to noon at 10 Brockman Road, Midland.

SWAN HARMONY SINGERS Feel welcome to join us for morning tea and Wednesdays see how easy it is to make your own garments.

Come and sing with us! Swan Harmony Singers For more information contact Pat 9309 3260; is a community choir that meets, 7-9pm, to Liz 9572 7074 or Pat 9295 2793. sing music ranging from jazz to pop, plus the occasional classic. No auditions. Join us at the Salvation Army Church Hall, 371 Morrison Rd, (opposite Swan View Primary School), Swan View.

Enquiries: call Anna on 9299 7249, or Chris on 9298 9529 or 0435 062 728.

JOHN TAYLOR

CHAPTER 1 – THE MEETING illy turned left at the junction; probably the coast had lured him in, away from the neverending, dusty, rugged inland road and sprawling countryside, interspersed by open plain country, creeks and ranges slowing progress at times to a crawl.

Yeah! Billy thought, A bit of sea breeze wouldn't hurt a bit. Wash the dust down and start again. Need a spell! Gets a bit much working around during the season then going home to the old man’s block during the wet. Missed time off last couple of years might make up for that here.

Billy drove slowly into town, parking near a line of Tamarisk trees, not far from an emporium; in fact, not far from everything in town: pub, cop shop, hospital; across the lawn a couple of cattle grazed contentedly. Further over a line of trawlers jagged the horizon with raised booms and dangling otter boards, moored against a land-backed seawall.

A casual “g’day” to a passer-by got conversation going and a general idea of what’s happening hereabouts. Apparently, among other things, a blow was coming in, hence the trawlers tied up in the creek and a bit of bustle around the town. It’s all happened before; no real rush.

Billy mentioned he wouldn't mind a bit of hunting, to which his new found friends replied, “No, worries, plenty of roos and emus!” Billy flipped the tonneau cover on the ute indicating a rifle bag. “.308, that’ll fix ‘em! Best wait up awhile. Don’t want to get caught out in the cyclone. They’ll all be camped up anyway!”

A few more locals joined them at the ute, discussing pros and cons of heavy and light calibre rifles, reloading ammo and on and on until finally someone noticed the wind coming up.

Rising seas flicked rigging on moored trawlers as a playful kid strikes out at toys in a tub. By now the small group around Billy’s ute had forged the first bonds of friendship by mutual interest in rifles, utility vehicles and hunting and were soon to be welded forever in an extended drinking session in the nearby store: “Straun’s Emporium: purveyors of fine liquor”, tobacco, flour, soap, axes, chainsaws and you name it!

“Better put your ute in Straunie’s shed Bill!”

One of the group suggested. “Could get blown away! Straunie will be right. Come on. I’ll open up; then we’ll have a drink! Okay?”

Matthew Straun had been around the north a long time, fought in the Second World War, worked on stations as a kid, moved into trucks in the early days and made a quid.

Carted everything: ore, wool, station stores, machinery; whatever was going went with Mattie Straun; carted fuel out on mail runs for years, then took over the agency and became storekeeper. Billy and his group entered the emporium, nodding to old Straunie moving round amongst piles of gear.

The other young blokes seemed comfy enough with him; Billy was a little wary and shortly a little more so when introduced to Janey.

B

Even Straunie’s emporium had a checkout chick! Phew! Billy exhaled as she breezed by into the office bringing chuckles from the boys helping themselves to a carton of stubbies Matt had plonked on the bar and simultaneously holding out his hand for money.

The emporium double doors were barred, shutters battened down; wind velocity increasing by the minute when frantic battering on the door caused old Straunie to open a small side door.

Bracing himself against the jamb, he allowed a dozen or more trawler men access to the safety and comfort of his store. They headed straight for the bar en masse; maybe twenty of them; hard to see in the lamplight, as electricity had given out almost immediately the wind came up.

The old bloke was handling them, shovelling booze at the mob, deftly grabbing dollars, sorting out who’s who in the mob, any new blokes, troublemakers, or whatever. Big Bert, the fleet master, was pretty primed but still commanded total respect from the mob.

Billy had by now downed a few and was helping Janey at the bar, not that there was much to do, just cart slabs of beer from the fridge as she or Matt handled the money and booze, of which there were increasing amounts.

Janey was immediately impressed with this Billy; he stirred something deep inside her that she had never felt before. Her travels and searching had perhaps led her to this moment.

Her eyes skimmed his hardened muscular frame as he slipped a little with two slabs. Needs a bit of working on though, she thought, applying herself to the job in hand.

Straun’s store was really rocking and rolling; one of the fishos had a mouth organ and they were going for it at about the same velocity as the outside wind. Billy thought about settling things down a bit but nobody else seemed concerned. What could he do? Ah well!

Billy was drinking a bit and thoughts of his

new found female friend were becoming clearer, particularly after some brief encounters at the cool room door, or so he thought, when one of the fishos grabbed Janey and headed out the back.

Old man Straun, the only sober one in the mob, tripped him and caught Janey before Billy’s blurred reactions kicked in, advising the mob to, “Settle down or there’ll be no booze for anyone!” swinging the barrel of his shotgun round to emphasise his point, including everybody on its arc.

“Jeez”, the fisho whinged, rubbing his jaw and his back. “No need for that!”

“Good!” Straunie replied, returning the gun to its spot. “Like a drink?” He offered. A gentler tune wafted around the store; nobody standing straight up, just sitting, sipping; wind roaring.

Can’t leave; might as well enjoy it while the walls still stand, Billy thought. Might leave tomorrow but tonight, maybe there’s Janey to get to know better. This brought a beaming smile to his face as he promised to smarten his ideas up a lot.

Billy was grateful for Straunie’s quick actions and decisive win over the amorous deckie. Janey planted a big kiss on the old bloke’s weatherbeaten cheek, hugging as much of him as she could and went back to her work serving drinks.

Billy assisted, angry at his lack of performance in the fracas, vengeful thoughts seething in his brain, settling a little as time went by, settling as the roaring cyclone settled, as the eye passed directly over town. The occupants of the store noted wind abating, aware it would fire up again as the eye passed equally as fierce.

Still it put people in a different frame of mind, if only temporarily. Billy, smarting from his previous lack of action, had decided on the need to arm himself with a revolver he carried in the ute: Or even the .308! That’d jolt ‘em if they fired up again!

The wind eased considerably. Straunie cautiously opened a small door to survey any damage. In half light of the closing day, aided by heavy overcast conditions, Billy slipped out, heading for the ute. He had a revolver wrapped in oilskin under the seat; fumbled a pack of bullets from the glove box, ejecting half a dozen shells onto the muddy roadway in front of the shed.

Peering intently, reloading in frail light and blustery conditions, easing the hammer into lock position, he shoved the small revolver into an inside coat pocket and headed back to the sturdy store on a slightly rising wind note, rivulets gushing under the verandah down the muddy street.

Sergeant Patrick O'Neill took his town seriously. He had done a lap of the town prior to the wind coming up; advising his pair of constables to keep their heads pulled in and to stay at the station at all costs. He’d been past the trawlers, finding the fishos tying up. They assured him that Straun’s store was for them and there’d be no heroics.

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Imagine the booze up! Sarge grimaced.

The only people he couldn't locate were the construction workers from the camp, end of the bay.

May have left their run too late and the creek came up. Still, if they get some machines in close to their dongers it should stop them blowing away! Probably better out there; imagine the con camp blokes mixed up with the trawler men, pepped up to the eyeballs after a week at sea, all locked together in a liquor store! May as well pull up at the pub. Pretty peaceful.

“Yeah, dasha water mate……no thanks, only half. Got to stay on deck….thanks. How’s the footy going? Worse thing about cyclones,” Sarge mused, “no power. Radio reception will be ratshit anyway. Might camp up awhile.”

He had a couple more and turned in on a lounge in the pub foyer; was snoring gently when the change in wind note stirred him. Hello! It’s dying down! A bit early to be over. Must be the eye directly overhead. Better have a look.

The sun was setting, obscured by a black cloud mass. Rain lashed streets, strewn with debris from shredded trees and partway demolished buildings caused Sarge a few problems walking about, leaning into the wind, wading through storm drains flooding low level sheds and houses.

On the way to Straun’s store a golden glint on the muddy road caught Sarge’s eye, causing him to pause and rake his fingers on the dirt road surface, exposing half a dozen empty bullet shells fanned out over a small area.

Mm'hmm, Sarge mused, shoving the spent ammo in his pocket. Someone’s armed; maybe in the store.

Sarge entered the store a little behind Billy.

Due to the wind dying down so much the door was ajar, so no-one noticed the cop appear in his fawn shirt and trousers, head covered by a hooded Drizabone. Sarge was able to observe people in the store quite clearly without being noticed, slipping from shadow to shadow, away from flickering candles distributed around the store, quietly searching for the person with a revolver.

Definitely a revolver in the way the empty shells had fanned out on the ground; a small weapon at that. Still, a .22 calibre kills! There were no vehicles in the immediate area of the empty shells, so it points to a person walking, stopping and reloading, thought Sarge.

What had they spent the previous shells on?

Why reload? Better get one of the boys in here quick. I’ll look about town. Maybe someone’s tied up with an empty safe and I’d better be quick about it, this quiet ain’t going to last and these blokes are tuning up! Rum, JB’s; who knows what else? Trawler men are no angels!

Out on the Street Sarge had to lean a little into the increasing wind velocity. Better get my two blokes down here; armed, he thought.

“I’ll have a look around town before it blows up too much. She’s coming in! Right, oh, you two, out of those uniforms. Put on jeans, work shirts, boots. Make a quick change to workers, station blokes’ probably best! Don’t answer too many questions, just grunt; act a bit pissed.

“Come on you pair of pansies, shake it up!

Revolvers in pockets, rough it up a bit. Do outside dickheads always shave! Okay, go to Straun’s 10

store, bang on the door as if you’re stranded; ask for a drink straight up and no drinking light! Okay!

And no gulping! Somebody in there’s armed, may be dangerous. There’s no phone or electricity.

“Act as if you’ve been around a bit. Don’t go outside under any circumstances while it’s blowing. See if you can keep the lid on things till the wind dies down. Come on, get going. It’s coming up big time. I’ll be around. Keep an ear out for me knocking.”

Found the fishermen! Now, where would those blokes from the con camp be? Sarge had some difficulty moving about town but it was important to get the lay of the land before the blow ceased and people dispersed, especially if someone was in trouble.

Straun’s store was still rocking. The fisho with a mouth organ and his mob weren’t settling down. In fact, rum was the main thing going down.

Billy had backed off on his original idea of calling order and checked half a dozen times on the revolver, making sure it wasn’t cocked.

A couple more blokes had come in a while back, clean looking types; rum was getting the better of them, though. They stayed pretty quiet; mind you, with the mouth organ, singing and wind fairly howling, it was a bit hard to say who was noisy. Maybe it was their attitude. Rum will tell.

Be a few more hours before this is over.

Old man Straun was looking worried awhile back, but the fishos were cashed up and paying bar prices for bottles, so that helped. Billy had also encountered more contact with Janey at the cool room door which had progressed to an extended amorous session in the fishing tackle aisle at the back of the store, interrupted by Straunie calling out for more booze.

Billy and Janey, well caught up in the moment, promptly stacked the bar, running, Billy carrying three cartons at a time, muscles straining, yakking as they ran, contact between them in the aisle bringing very knowing looks from Straunie, who, of course, was well aware even though the trawler men were keeping him flat out, that Billy and Janey had left the immediate area, leaving him with a cargo of booze on and behind the bar and the fishos to deal with.

“Ah, well,” Straunie commented absently, “life’s good!”

After stacking a number of cartons Janey took Billy’s hand, directing him away from the cool room through a door behind the fishing tackle aisle. Fumbling in the dark, she pushed Billy back onto a bed, urging him to stay quiet, whispering, “back in a moment.”

She returned with two candles throwing a soft light round the room. She slipped quickly out of her jeans and shirt then pulling Billy upright off the bed piled his clothes beside hers on the floor.

Whenever they later reminisced on this first night, they were amazed at the violence of it all; Billy at the strength of this girl, thinking the storm had returned, the lightning and thunder breaking into their starlit grotto until the breaking waves subsided again to flickering candlelight.

Janey transported to an unknown place, not knowing if she was on the bed, the floor, or hovering somewhere above, her trembling fingers tracing a muscle, a jawline, always ready, responding until a deep contented sleep overtook them.

Janey was the first to rise, fidgety like a bird that would pick up bark and small sticks, she started to tidy up, knowing instinctively there was no longer ‘him and me’ but ‘us’, ‘we’.

She moved out into the emporium, surveying the mess of empty stubbies, cans and bodies. Old Straunie was still awake, sitting back in his chair observing her moving through the shop in the half light. Candles guttered in their saucers and ashtrays, flickering ineffectually. Janey stacked rubbish taking care not to step on anybody in the dim light.

She’s a goodun, that one, Straunie observed to himself. Be interesting what happens next.

Reckon I know. I’m going to miss her.

“How are you, girlie?” He offered as Janey came closer, startling her a little as she thought all were asleep.

“Oh”, she replied, “yeah, good night, eh” “Yeah”, Matt replied wisely. “All’s good.

Where’s the young bloke?” Janey avoided this question, clanking cans in the bin, tossing her mane of hair away from her face.

He knows, she thought. He knows I’ll be leaving before I even really know and what about Billy? He’s not even awake. Ah, well! Going to have to work on him! Tough! He’s a goer, if a bit on the sleepy side.

Janey had boiled the kettle and made some tea, taking Matt a cup, sitting beside him as she often did when it wasn’t busy.

“You right, girlie?” Matt enquired, daylight slowly filtering through. “Seems a decent sort of bloke. Reckon you’ll have to give him a try, eh?

You’re always welcome back if things don’t turn out, you know. Might even bring him with you.

“Go on, girlie, give it a run. Everything to gain, you know.” Averting his gaze as he spoke he hoisted himself from his chair, extracting a roll of notes from the tin under the bar. “Better take this, holiday pay, super and a little more you may need. Go on, girlie, give it a run.”

Janey shyly accepted the money, aware that she’d worked well for it and moved away, savagely throwing cans in bins and bags, tripping on drunken bums of deckies oblivious to anything, apart from the now.

“And, of course!” she exclaimed, “What is the now? Only a bloke and a bloody old ute which I haven’t even seen. Way they go on about these utes! And old Matt, what’s he going to do?”

She realised in the same breath he’d be all right, he was one of them once; probably had a horse not a ute. So the early part of the morning wore on, Janey binning cans and bottles, Matt kicking back, sipping tea and dozing.

Billy appeared and helped along, looking a little the worse for wear but going all right. Janey brewed up another pot, topping Matt’s pannikin, approached Billy with a cup, stopping with an arm full of empties, she blurted out as tea sloshed that she wanted to come along with him in the ute and she’d talked to Matt and he’d reckoned it was a good idea and they’d be welcome back, adding, “Matt was nice”, and she “liked it here.”

Billy stood there, stunned.

“Jesus!” He exhaled, depositing empties in the bin, accepting the tea. “Phew! This bird’s a mover”. He noticed Matt rising from the rocker; a few deckies just moving.

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Looks like we’re out of here! Janey already off to her room. S’pose she’s packing, Billy thought.

Better help, I suppose. He moved off to the little room behind the fishing tackle aisle. Janey met him at the door, giving him a big kiss and a little prod in the ribs.

“It was good, Billy. It’s been a great little room and a wonderful time here with old Matt but it will be good to be moving. Come on, fella, let’s get going!”

Sarge had done a quick recce around town as the cyclonic eye passed over. Everything seemed okay: a few shutters flapping, trees, light poles, a couple of roofs blown away. Still no sign of the con camp blokes; must be still out there. When he got back to the pub it was blowing hard so he pulled up.

“Better than Straunie’s”, he mused. “I suppose I should have told those young blokes about Straunie. Bit of a hard case at times but he’ll handle ‘em and those fishos! Imagine what they’ll be like.”

The hospital had seen many blows; blows much bigger than this. Everything battened down and those requiring drugs drugged. Matron Walmsley issued torches and a plentiful supply of fresh batteries to all staff and strict orders to report any structural or patient problems directly to her office. Gas and kerosene lamps dimly lit wards and ablution facilities. Texta-written notes strictly forbade the opening of any door or window.

Who knows what some inexperienced child of a trainee nurse from down south may attempt! Matron Walmsley shuddered to think as she poured weak, black tea into her large, thin china cup, anticipating renewed strength and invigoration from the brew.

Sarge rose early, enjoying a quick cuppa and a sun up with the publican.

“Apart from a few blokes holed up in sturdy sheds in the industrial area, stoking the barbie and sipping cans, that about covers it; apart from those poor bastards in the con camp, end of the bay.

“What with a big tide and a cyclone up its arse, they could easily be surfing. Christ knows why they didn’t come in when they were told.

Greed, I suppose; double time on Sunday!”

He cracked a wry smile. “Then the creek’s up and they’re buggered. Can’t get in! Couple of deckies got squashed fingers and stuff tying up; bet they’re at Straunie’s too. No booze at this hospital! Imagine the mess at the jetty, boats and booms all tangled up. Still, they all came in, that’s the main thing.

“Probably as big a mess at Straunie’s. Still, he’ll get a quid. He can handle it!”

Better get out there, he thought, see what’s what. Be interesting at the store, not too interesting I hope. Daylight was struggling in as Sarge moved around town. Straun’s shed doors were open.

“Hello, hello, somebody’s up!” There was a ute parked outside Straun’s with the bonnet bent in. A young bloke was tying the tonneau cover down, obviously heading out.

“Morning!” Sarge enquired.

“Oh, hello!” Intent on tying down, Billy hadn’t noticed Sarge arrive.

“What happened to the bonnet?”

“Oh, that; parked it in the shed, see; tree fell on the shed; gave it a bit of a dent. I can easy knock it out. Lucky, eh?”

“Yeah, maybe. Don’t leave town, fella; roads are closed!” Sarge said, making a note of the ute number plate. “Got your licence on you, young fella?”

“Yeah, right”. Billy replied, handing over his licence. “Just getting ready!”

“William Ellis; address: Jackson Junction; still live there, William?” The sergeant was looking right through Billy as he waited a reply.

“Yer…when I’m home”, came out from somewhere. Billy wanted to snatch his licence back; he hadn’t been called William in years, except by his mother. Billy, flustered, dropped his gaze and tried again. “Yes, Sarge.”

“That’s Janey from Straun’s, isn’t it?” Sarge asked, indicating the front seat of the ute.

“Yeah; had a late night; sleeping in a bit!”

Late night was an understatement. Straun’s store looked like a bomb had hit it; bodies sprawled round everywhere. Old Mattie Straun lay back in his big chair, cradling a shotgun; bottles and cans on every ledge and the couple injured at the wharf wishing they’d opted for pethidine rather than rum.

Sarge scanned around, spotted Bert coming out of the toilet looking ratshit, buttoning up, hawking, craving a smoke.

“G’day, Sarge!”

“Hey, Bert!” Sarge asked, “This mean anything to you or any of your blokes?” Sarge shoved a handful of empty shells under his nose.

“Hang on, hang on!” Bert exclaimed. “Been putting up with silly old prick with the shottie all night and now you’re shoving…..what’s this, .22 shells under me nose! What! Do you want ‘em reloaded? Might go and get a real gun. Show the bloody pair of you! Might as well use a starting pistol, get real. Where’d you find ‘em?”

Sarge decided he was dinkum and told him the area behind the shed where he’d found the shells.

“Naw, Sarge”, Bert replied. “When we come past there the wind was near carrying us off, let alone me half carrying this pair of hypochondriacs.

Bit of fish poisoning and a squashed foot. What’s the world coming to?” Now they’ll be whinging about the booze. Oh, I’ve got a headache. Oh, I’ve got to spew. What a pack of wimps! Got to go, Sarge; wind’s dying; untangle the mess, you know.”

Bert headed off down to the landing followed by his rag-tag crew, leaving the wounded at Straun’s, half asleep and moaning.

Maybe Straunie would take ‘em to hospital.

Just wishing! The old bastard’s got our money.

He ought to do something! Wasn’t too bad at the landing. Bit of a tangle but if we start at the end with the tide running, should be able to jiggle them out.

We’ll start later tonight, but higher on the tide. Better get those blokes up to the hospital, I suppose, Bert reckoned. Not looking forward to this. Seemed pretty important to have a drink last night. Now we’ve got to face Matron Walmsley.

Rather go back through that bloody cyclone!

They were standing on the veranda, swatting mossies, brushing flies with the injured sitting and moaning on some wicker chairs nearby

when the fly wire door slapped open and Matron stepped outside, disapproval written deeply on each layered, lacquered line, followed by a band of angels clad in crisp snow white.

They swooped up half a dozen deckies, bundling them inside, administered penicillin, lanced boils and demanded quiet by sheer professional conduct.

Bert and two other skippers waited in the catching pen, surreptitiously sipping tea, wishing the tide would turn in more ways than one. The other deckies had slipped off out of it. They had no money so they’d probably be at the boats, scrounging a bit of tinned dog and camping up.

There’d be no credit at Straunie’s or the pub: high tide midnight, so probably get into it about tenish; hopefully out by dawn.

“Ah, well, another night! Things a bloke’s gotta do!” Bert observed quietly to himself.

Sarge wasn’t getting anywhere on his revolver theories.

“Maybe there’s nowhere to go. At worst an unlicensed .22 revolver. Better get moving. Sarge reckoned. “Keep an eye out for me, will you, Matt? Need to check on the construction camp mob amongst a few other things.”

Sarge left in a bit of a hurry, past the station and checked the quarters. Sure enough, two sleeping beauties.

He went back out to the four-wheel drive, thinking of the con camp. He rounded the road closed sign past the main road turn off, heavy lug tyres gripping on the greasy road, and moved onto a track leading round the bay to the new mine.

He slid around tight corners and dipped through gutters and gullies with water up over the wheels, the tide receding, the creek 300 yards wide, draining water from inland and emptying out with the tide. Debris floated past on the surface: dead cattle ballooned, caught in fences, and trees, all festooned with flood froth, ripped up inland and floated by to the sea; all food for the fish.

“It’s big water, big wind; some bad, some good!” Sarge grimaced, heading back after a very greasy three-point turn. Sarge still had empty shells on his mind. When at the main road turn off he noticed fresh tracks cut across his own heavy treads, clearly visible on the red road. Bald tyres too, he thought.

Some Aboriginals coming in, maybe two or three cars; they’re good! No worries for them out here. He’d pulled up to take a leak and have a good look around, pensively hosing the two-wheel tyre marks down, causing little ridges when it became a little more apparent there were more tracks beneath his tread marks.

Not bald, not luggy; all mixed up. Sun was well up and so was his hunger.

Back into town for a feed. I’m not a bloody blacktracker anyway! He thoughtfully engaged gear.

Back in town things didn’t look so bad: the water had subsided in the drains; townspeople and shire blokes were clearing debris from the streets. Down at the landing Sarge walked out onto the jetty, noticing his two blokes amongst the mob when a tyre attached to a jetty pilon flicked his mind back to the turnoff.

Concluded on page 28 ...

11

COMMUNITY CITY OF SWAN RATES 2017/18

I

n accordance with section 6.36 of the Local Government Act 1995 and the Council's "Notice of Intention to Levy Differential Rates and Minimum Payments" the following information details the objectives and reasons for those proposals.

The following rating principles are proposed in this Statement of Objects and Reasons for the 2017/18 rating year:

· Gross Rental Values (GRV) are re-valued every three years with the 1st July 2017 being revaluation year · Unimproved Values (UV) are re-valued annually · Gross Rental Values and Unimproved Values are determined by the Valuer Generals Office · The City has utilised the current values provided by the Valuer General’s Office as at 2 May 2017 to determine the total rates revenue per · Gross Rental Values apply to the following differential general rate differential rate type based on the proposed 3% increase on the categories; Residential, Commercial/Industrial, City Centre and Heavy 2016/17 rate in the dollar. Based on this proposed rates revenue, the Industry City has recalculated the rate in the dollar utilising the new values · Unimproved Values apply to the following differential general rate provided by the Valuer General categories; Farmland, UV General and UV Commercial · The proposed rates model will yield approx. $120.8 million in total rate · Properties are rated according to the Town Planning zoning and/or revenue, this figure is inclusive of ex-gratia rates, interims and write predominant use of the land with each having a separate calculated offs rate in the dollar to achieve greater equity across all sectors · As in prior years, 3% of the rate revenue will be allocated to Infrastructure Asset Replacement Reserve · It is proposed to continue with Specified Area Rates "Midland Drainage District and Hazelmere/Guildford Drainage District" · It is proposed to continue with Specified Area Rates "UV - Hazelmere Industrial Roads and Drainage" and “GRV - Hazelmere Industrial Roads and Drainage" It is proposed to keep the 2017/18 minimum rates the same as 2016/17 The formulation of a rating system is about achieving a means by which Council can raise sufficient revenue to pay for the services it provides.

Throughout Australia, the basis of using property valuations has been found to be the most appropriate means of achieving rating equity; however, the achievement of a wholly equitable rating system for all properties, in all areas, is a difficult task if it is based on the property valuations alone.

For this reason there is refinement options made available, such as differential rating, which the City of Swan has elected to use.

The Valuer General’s Office (a state government agency) values all rateable land within Western Australia and those values are forwarded to each Local Government.

Two basis of valuations are applied for the calculation of rates - Gross Rental Value (GRV) land used for non-rural purposes; and Unimproved Value (UV) land used for rural purposes.

Courtesy of the City of Swan

MERRY XMAS FROM SWAN HARMONY SINGERS

MUNDARING CALLS FOR MOBILE VENDORS

HOUSE AND GARDEN TRANSFORM YOUR GARDEN WITH TREES KATE PHILLIPS

our series of trees for the Western C ontinuing Australian garden.

As the weather heats up, trees can become

your best friend in the garden, providing muchneeded shade from the summer sun. In addition, shade trees can act as a windbreak, reduce noise, attract birds to the garden and have considerable aesthetic appeal.

HONEY LOCUST The deciduous Honey Locust Sunburst (Gleditsia Triacanthus) is an ideal tree for

providing shade in summer and allowing light in during winter.

They lose their leaves quite early on in the season so they are good to plant on a northern orientation so you'll get the winter sun. They also have a light-coloured canopy so the leaves will reflect light.

Also growing up to fifteen in height and 10m Coral Gum (Eucalyptus Torquata) across, honey CORAL GUM locusts are best suited to larger spaces. Other

Gums can be a risky proposition around the varieties also worth considering include the house, you really need a bigger property to use Shademaster and Ruby Lace. eucalypts. They also drop their leaves continually throughout the year, and those leaves take a CHINESE ELM

This attractive tree has a beautiful long time to break down. ornamental bark in shades of mottled But for those who like the appearance and greys and tan and graceful, semi-weeping dappled shade that eucalypts provide, the experts recommended the coral gum (Eucalyptus branches.

Growing up to ten metres tall, the Chinese Torquata). It is a smaller tree, growing to around elm (Ulmus Parvifolia) is semi-deciduous, eight metres and is native to Western Australia. meaning it will only lose all of its leaves Once established, it can withstand drought Continued in July’s issue ... in cooler areas, so it manages to combine conditions. some of the best features of deciduous and evergreen trees.

The tree provides a dense shade and requires a full-sun position for successful cultivation.

Honey Locust Sunburst (Gleditsia Triacanthus)

of interest will open on Friday, 9 June 2017 at 9am for mobile E xpressions vendors to operate on land owned or managed by the Shire of Mundaring.

This follows a public consultation period held earlier in the year. The

The Martini Lounge Trio: Paul Peacock, Avalon Jack and Richard Braham

Harmony Singers are busy rehearsing for their first concert of the S– awan year, and this performance is going to be something a little different Christmas in July show, complete with festive trimmings, to be held in

Darlington Hall, Owen Rd, Darlington, on Sunday 23 July at 3.30pm.

There’s something else a little different about the concert too, as the choir will be teaming up with the Martini Lounge Trio, a musical threesome comprising Swan Harmony’s own musical director/pianist Richard Braham, and singers Paul Peacock and Avalon Jack – plus instrumental accompaniment.

Watch this space next month for more details about program for the July performance – but in the meantime, make a note of the date on your calendar.

12

draft Mobile Vendor Policy was consequently adopted by Council at its meeting in April 2017.

The Shire had received significant interest from mobile vendors in the past. They have expressed a desire to trade on Shire owned and managed land such as parks, ovals and recreation facilities. The adoption of this policy means they will now have that opportunity, which will only enhance our many beautiful public open spaces.

The policy incorporates a guide which will help assess and determine suitable mobile vendor applicants. It will also ensure the process is fair and consistent. The applications will be assessed in the order that they are received.

Locations that have been identified as suitable for mobile vendors include: • Chidlow Oval, Chidlow • Sawyers Valley Oval, Sawyers Valley • Mundaring Community Sculpture Park, Mundaring • Brown Park, Swan View Expressions of interest should be directed to shire@mundaring.wa.gov. au. For further information about mobile vendor EOIs, please contact the Shire’s Health Service by calling 9290 6742.

13

HOLIDAY READING

DOUGLAS’ WINERIES AND DINERIES

GYPSY DREAMING - MT ISA CAMEL LOVING

These are the restaurants and eateries, casual and formal, and wineries that I personally reccommend and eat at for pleasure.

KARLA HOOPER

Part three of Karla’s love affair with life .. inally, 9,000 kilometers later, Rusty and I had arrived in ‘The Isa’ – Mount Isa, in outback Queensland Australia, where wild camels were roaming in the not too distant area. We were a long way from the comfort of our own home.. now, home was wherever we laid our head for the night.

Our destination had been set after a 1 hour phone conversation with Paul. Rusty and I were living in Darwin at the time and Paul had camels in Mount Isa. It was set, I was to drive to Mount Isa, live with Paul and his family and he would introduce me to camels.

I had no idea what to expect when I first rocked up. Paul and his family lived in town and his camels were on different properties spread around the outskirts of Mount Isa. After a cuppa and chat it didn’t take long to come to the conclusion Paul was a bloody top bloke and his family were fabulously wonderful.

I will forever be grateful for their extreme

F

generosity, kindness, warmth and for instantly embracing me as part of their family.

And Paul was mad about camels. He lived and breathed camels, had extensive racing knowledge, had caught and trained camels from the wild, and loved to impart his passion and knowledge to others.

Cuppa over and it was time for my first camel encounter. Paul and I jumped in his ute and headed out to his awaiting herd.

We pulled up and I instantly fell in love.

Camels are ah-mazing. They were so big and awe inspiring, and completely intimidating.

From a distance I safely watched Paul herd a bunch of camels into the yard, feed them some pellets and shut them away for the night. It was a whirlwind, all the camels looked the same to me, I couldn’t ever imagine being comfortable around them and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be comfortable being in the yard with them.

Then we headed to the next spot where one of Paul’s newly castrated bull camels lived. This experience was a bit different, less intimidating as there were only a couple of camels.

Reggie instantly caught my attention, he was big, but also short and stumpy and he had a ginormous bulldog head on him… I lurve big boof head animals. With Paul’s support I felt comfortable enough to go into the yard and meet Reggie in the flesh.

It wasn’t long before his gorgeous sooky 14

personality shone through and he had his head rested on my shoulder while I gave him a head massage. Reggie loved a good head massage, it would turn him to putty. He instantly became one of my favourites.

We left Reggie and headed across the road to meet Paul’s other recently castrated bull camel – Banjo. Now, let me tell you, Banjo was in a league of his own. He was huge, like seriously massive.

To this day, he’s the biggest camel I’ve had

the pleasure of knowing, and he too, was a big soft gentle giant. He was magnificent. Banjo also liked to have a head massage and would go all gooey if you got the right spot.

It didn’t take long for me to learn camels are an exceptional species of animal. All have completely different personalities, they’re different sizes, shapes and colours and, of course, are easy to tell apart once you get to know them.

And it should not be underestimated how they get deep into your soul, unlike any other animal (or human for that matter) camels become a passion and obsession that can be recognised between all fellow cameleers. The decision had been made… I wanted a camel of my own.

For the next few weeks I stayed with Paul and his family, helping with the camels where I could, listening and learning as much as possible, read camel related books and was generally a sponge.

I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction. It was

a perfect way to build my confidence and learn from a person who had the utmost respect for these gracious creatures.

Before long I started to think about getting a job to get some money coming in. At first I applied for a professional position in an area that I’d enjoy and could further develop my career. I was offered the job, but I had to have stern words with myself… I was on an adventure… I came to be outside of my comfort zone, travelling, free, on the road with camels in my sights. I declined the position and decided to look for something more appropriate.

I decided to go for a drive to job hunt. I looked at what was within a hundred kilometres of Mount Isa and went for a day trip out Cloncurry way.

I ended up in a place called Quamby – population of four. It was a pub in the middle of nowhere, it had a pole in middle of the bar and I got the impression ‘anything goes’. But best of all there was a camel in the paddock next to the pub.

I went to find the publican to ask if there were any jobs going. It just so happened the cook was leaving and they needed a replacement.

I could start in a week. I took a deep breath, warned I wasn’t too sure how I’d go with being a cook, but I’d give it a go. And best of all I could keep a camel there if I got one.

Perfect!

Little did I know I was about to be branded “Karla the Tucker Fucker”, break up a gun fight and break my drinking abstinence, all in a period of two short weeks….

Fully Licensed Lunch & Dinner A Great Family Friendly Restaurant Only Minutes From Home!

Hours: Mon, Tues & Pub Hols Closed Wed & Thurs 5:00pm – 9:00pm Friday 5:00pm – 9:30pm Saturday 11:30am – 9:30pm Sunday 11:30am – 9:00pm

9453 9698 BOOK ONLINE

quills.com.au

Wattle Grove Shopping Centre, 338 Hale Road, Wattle Grove

Licensed Premises Thursday to Monday and all Public Holidays 12 noon to 9.30 pm (last orders) Bookings highly recommended Phone: 9757 3232 Email: katch-up@katch-up.com.au Hw Margaret River 2/151 Bussell Hwy, www.katch-up.com.au

15

DINING OUT

HOLIDAY READING WHEN THE CHILDREN CAME

The Thoughts of an Ageing, Balding Foodie

TABETHA ROGERS BEGGS

quiet on top of the hill now they no longer Ito t’scome.

Adventurers who came without mothers play wars and make friends. Pretending to be

COWTOWN CLASSIC CAFÉ

DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE owarumup (formerly Cowarumup Siding) came into being in 1925 as part of the group settlement era.

Cowarumup’s name is believed to be from the Noongar Aboriginal word cowara, meaning purple-crowned lorikeet. It’s a pretty little town of some 600 souls right in the middle of the Margaret River wine region.

Historically agricultural and viticultural with a heavy inclination towards dairy - hence the town’s nickname of ‘Cowtown’.

In 2012 the town, supported by the local Lions Club, installed forty-two life-size fiber-glass Friesian cows - all over the town. They are just lovely and every July they form the centre of a local Country Fair, called ‘Deja Moo’.

The sleepy, charming village lies on the Bussell Highway and if you come out of Margaret River it makes a splendid place to stop and have breakfast.

Now I have spoken elsewhere (and often) of my affection for breakfast as a meal and I do value and cherish restaurants and cafés that have as much affection for this delightful meal as I do.

On the right hand side of the road as you make your slow way to Perth is the ‘Cowtown Classic Café’, a meandering, organic, building with rustic brick interior, large terracotta tiles, bare wood tables and comfortable chairs.

The walls are decorated with paintings - of cows; some cartoons - of cows and a general bovine atmosphere.

I ordered the ‘Big Breakfast’, a large cup of coffee and took a seat where I could see the main street, the cows and the passers-by.

I have spoken elsewhere (and often) of my

C

affection for breakfast, which we assured by my mother is ‘the most important meal of the day’.

The Cowtown Classic Café’s idea of breakfast consists of two slices of excellent toast, three eggs scrambled, three chipolata sausages, two hash browns, grilled tomatoes, three rashers of bacon, lightly sauteéd mushrooms and a pot of baked beans. I could not finish it.

The coffee, in a satisfyingly large mug, was excellent.

Very Highly Recommended Indeed.

Fully Licensed Lunch & Dinner A Great Family Friendly Restaurant Only Minutes From Home!

Hours: Mon, Tues & Pub Hols Wed & Thurs Friday Saturday Sunday

Closed 5:00pm – 9:00pm 5:00pm – 9:30pm 11:30am – 9:30pm 11:30am – 9:00pm

9453 9698 BOOK ONLINE

quills.com.au

Wattle Grove Shopping Centre, 338 Hale Road, Wattle Grove 16

men.

Their stories gather dust like spinifex in the wind.

Parents bring their children to play among the ghosts, watching them, hawks circling, telegraphing their every move, ready to reprimand or rescue.

From my vantage point near the grassy patch, I see the exercise army rising through the gum trees. Never the same battalion. Never the same war. They steer their NASA-designed prams along the path.

One offers a smile.

The others can’t see me under my invisibility cloak of old age.

I watch the mothers drinking coffee in paper cups. Their uniforms, black and tight fitting.

Bright-coloured running shoes, too clean to have seen any real action. No mud, no blood. They line up their strollers in formation, releasing the small prisoners from their shackles.

‘Stay where Mummy can see you,’ they sing, as the toddlers run for freedom.

‘What a lovely place,’ remarks a toned and tanned mother with an infant strapped to her chest like a joey in a pouch.

‘So peaceful,’ considers another, before the bellow of a child splits the serenity like the screech of tyres.

The four mothers jump to attention, rushing over to inspect which child is damaged. An ant bite? A prickle? Nobody is sure. They console the child with a kiss and a biscuit, and return to their conversation.

‘I heard Joanne, sent Prenda to school with red items in her lunch box ’ A gasp from the group.

‘No’ they coo collectively.

It’s the scandal of the week.

Mrs Notice Me sports a t-shirt that reads ‘Say No To Camel Toe’ across her gravity-defying breasts.

‘Say no to fake boobs’ would be a wiser campaign, though I keep my opinion to myself.

She pulls a phone from the waistband of her exercise pants and a glimpse of tattoo peeps out. ’Say no to those too.’ I want to say.

‘Where are we again?’

‘Are you checking in?’

‘Selfie! Tag us all in.’

‘It’s Blackboy, something.’

Camel Toe scrolls a glossy red talon up and down the screen. ‘Is it Blackboy Hill Commemorative Site?’

‘What’s it commemorating?’

‘Blackboys, I guess.’

I bow my head. Ashamed of the young. Their ignorance, their righteousness.

‘You can’t call them that now.’ Antbite’s Mum proclaims. ‘They’re Australian Grass Trees’ The children play nearby sucking on honkey nuts and licking the salty stream of snot trickling

from their noses.

What colour is that on the lunchbox chart?

One child finds me curious.

He approaches without trepidation. I hum the Grand Old Duke of York; he charts the lines on my face like tributaries on a geographical map.

‘Tell Mummy,’ I say, ‘The ANZACs trained here.’

Eyes wide, he rests his hands on my knees, fearless. ‘Did they have guns?’

‘Yes, and horses.’

He wants more. I’m high on the scent of his youth.

‘We were called Diggers.’

‘Why?’ ‘Because we dug the trenches to fight from.’ I grip his warm sticky hands. Delighted to be heard.

Our exchange is over too soon as Camel Toe snatches him up in a one-handed scoop. His palms slip away, as she hisses ’paedophile,’ like a cobra spitting venom.

In a flurry the women gather the children, scattering like startled doves.

I overhear the boy ask, ’Mummy, is a paedophile like a digger who fought in Gallopoly?’

His question falls upon deaf ears.

The world has stopped listening.

FOOD TRIVIA R Apples can wake you up in the morning better than coffee due to their high levels of fructose.

R If you eat too many carrots, you may turn you slightly orange due to the beta carotene found in them. Unfortunately, they won’t make you see in the dark. That was propaganda spred by the British during WWII to conceal the existence of radar.

R An average person will consume twelve pubic hairs in their fast food every year!

R Chicken contains 266% more fat now than it did forty years ago. That’s 33% less protein and that’s all down to our modern day farming methods. That’s why it’s always best to opt for free-range or organic meat.

R The M’s in M & M’s stand for Mars & Murrie, the co-creators of the sweet. The chocolates debuted in 1941 and are one of the best selling sweets of all time.

R Honey is the only food with an eternal shelf life. It won’t rot and it can last up to 3000 years.

R The amount of jars of nutella sold in a year could cover The Great Wall of China eight times.

Something we’d love to see.

R If you need to speed up the ripening process of an avacado, put a banana or apple around it.

Fruits such as these give off ethylene gas which creates the effect.

R Garlic acts as a natural insect repellent but be warned, it will also repel prospective love interests if you eat too much.

R It’s very common that mass produced ice cream contains seaweed. And no, it’s not because people want a taste of the ocean, it’s because it acts as a vital thickening agent.

R Kale is the most nutritiously dense vegetable.

Just one cup of raw kale has only 33 calories yet it contains 684% of vitamin K, 134% of vitamin C, 206% of Vitamin A as well as iron, folate, omega-3s, magnesium, calcium, iron, fiber, and two grams of protein

When the Children Came by Tabetha Rogers Begg was adjudged Third Place award winner of the Peter Cowan Writers Centre Short Story competition 2017.

Judge Peter Jeffery OAM - “ANZAC was in the air when I was judging the competition and this story was most timely with its interesting insights into generational difference and cultural heritage.

“It is a gently unfolding narrative and may need a re-reading to understand the subtlety of its stages and levels. Beautifully modulated.”

We congratulate her on her splendid result and her continuing excellent work with the KSP Writer’s Centre

R Ortharexia Nervosa is an eating disorder where the sufferer is obsessed with eating healthy food.

R Ketchup was sold in the 1830’s as medicine.

R Dry swallowing one teaspoon of sugar can commonly cure hicoughs.

R In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket.

R The fear of cooking is known as Mageirocophobia and is a recognised phobia.

The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.

17

ENTERTAINMENT

ENTERTAINMENT

CREEPY EVENING AT KADS

CHURCHILL - REVIEW DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

K

alamunda Dramatic Society has a long history previously and he recently married his new of supporting local talent, from actors, American wife a former actress on Broadway. directors and playwrights to the technical crew. The house is dark, cold and apparently For example their series of radio plays empty. Then things began to happen. currently being broadcast on KCR Radio featuring The cast consists of Paul Williamson, entirely local talent.

Charlotte Weber and Geoff Rumsey (understudied Their next production is a case in point - an by Les Marshall). evening of unearthly delights - of two short plays by local playwright, John Lewington; Portrait of My Love and Coming Back.

John is retired veterinarian and the author of a standard text book Ferret Husbandry, Medicine and Surgery.

He has written short stories with some published in magazines. Unpublished, but finished novel is a Science Fiction story called Cosmic Epilogue, and two children’s fantasy novels Tails Of Greensleeves Dreamings Set in UK and written there. Also Uncle Nicholas set in Australia. Still looking for a publisher.

In Australia as a playwright he is a prolific writer and has written a number of full plays of comedy and drama - Past Voices, The Inspector Recalls, Mistaken Identity, Hit and Running, So Far, So Good and Basil.

Playwright John Lewington Several of John’s plays have been staged at local theatres. Plumbers Delight at Camelot Theatre (2010) A Detective’s Wish at Marloo Portrait of My Love is directed by veteran Theatre (2011) and Jack and Jill Climb Hill at Anita Bound, who with many awards to her credit Garrick Theatre (2012). All comedies. Two he is sure to make the very best of the material. As directed. His one act play The Anzac Tapes was a long time director Anita brings considerable staged at Old Mill Theatre (2015) as part of the acting experience to her directing skill set. She 1915 centenary commemorations. was last seen on stage The two plays selected by Kads are Portrait of as the aging diva Jean in My Love and Coming Back.

Quartet.

Portrait of My Love is the story of Jean By contrast, Simpson and her mother and stepbrother who Alexis Marr, director of have returned to England from Australia after the Coming Back is making death of Philip Turner, Jean’s mother’s first husband.

The house and contents have been left to Jean including a mysterious portrait ...

The cast is Jean Turner, Naiomh Healy, May Simpson, Colleen Bradford, Tony Simpson, Dan Wilson, Andrew Glover and Jaymon Bound.

Coming Back is set in an old Cotswold house in the UK. Trevor and Rosemary Hastings have come back to Trevor’s old home to snatch a quick holiday break before returning to work in London as a surgeon.

The house was the scene of a murder seven years ago. Trevor’s Anita Bound in character as Jean in Quartet (Photo by Robert Dekker) wife died seven years 18

actor cast as Sir Winston Churchill has a A nyhuge challenge on at least two levels.

Firstly, Churchill is possibly the most instantly

Alexis Marr, director of Coming Back

her directorial debut, after much experience backstage as crew.

By providing opportunities such as this for emerging actors, directors and playwright, Kads is doing a good deal to promote community theatre health and ensure this vital medium continues and thrives in the Perth scene.

The unearthly evening runs from June 30th until July 22nd at the Town Square Theatre, Kalamunda from 8:00pm each evening.

Tickets cost $20 ($17 concession) and are available from Lucky Charm Newsagency in Kalamunda - 9257 2668.

recognisable human of the twentieth century with an unmistakable voice and delivery so that every actor is measured against the reality and often found wanting.

It’s not as though he’s a character in a book capable of a wide variety of interpretations.

Secondly, there is a huge pantheon of truly great actors who have gone before into the spotted blue bow tie - Richard Burton, Robert Hardy, Albert Finney, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Simon Ward, Timothy West, Bob Hoskins and, most recently, John Lithgow.

Into this stellar array strides Brian Cox, a magnificent actor with a rich, full voice more than capable of living up to the legend in the movie Churchill.

The movie covers only four days of Churchill’s life - the 2nd to the 6th June, 1944, the three days immediately preceding D Day and the day itself.

As something of a student of Churchill I must say with every conviction, that Churchill is a superbly acted, magnificently and lovingly photographed, perfectly dressed, dreamily musically accompanied, load of twaddle.

Churchill himself, in a staggering likeness by Cox, is presented as a drunken buffoon totally

opposed to D-Day and doing his best to prevent it, even going so far as to pray for bad weather to prevent what he believes will be wholesale slaughter of young soldiers in an action reminiscent of the disastrous Gallipoli landings.

The movie has no real plot, merely a series of vignettes, beautifully filmed and relying heavily on the photogenic qualities of cigar smoke, allied with immaculate and accurate costuming (Churchill is shown, preposterously, in full Court Dress at an outdoor meeting of the Allied Commanders, but wearing, correctly, the ribbon and badge of the Companions of Honour).

The script is mundane at best, seldom rising above high school cliché (the junior typist rebukes Churchill for being negative and he immediately apologises to her and changes his attitude).

A truly surprising number of the preview audience seem to feel that they were watching an acted documentary rather than the farrago of misinformation, fiction and animus

towards a great man. The HMS Belfast incident is particularly egregious. The King did not agree Churchill and he could go ashore in the first wave and then change his mind.

The true story is far more interesting and just a little inspiring - look it up.

If most political biographies are ‘lives of Lady Catherine De Burgh written by Mr Collins’ this is a picture of Churchill that would delight Mr David Irving.

Brian Cox is brilliant, the supporting cast is outstanding (particularly Miranda Richardson as Clemmie) but it could all have been so much better. Huge talents totally wasted.

Not Recommended.

AN UNSPEAKABLE TRIUMPH AT HOLY CROSS DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

on Zolidis’ plays for young people are among the most-produced in the Din every United States and have received more than 7,500 productions, appearing state and fifty-one other countries.

Don received the Princess Grace Award for playwriting in 2004 after having twice been a finalist. His plays have received two Edgerton New Play awards and multiple NEA grants among other honors.

In 2013 his play White Buffalo was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

His charming play, An Unspeakable Triumph of Supreme Brilliance is the latest production from Holy Cross College under the direction of Chris McRae. Like many other plays about plays this has as it’s plot line an incerdibly inept theatre company under a maniacal director and that’s pretty much ok with the Moss River Community Players until one day they receive a stunning offer.

An insanely wealthy woman is offering a ten million dollar prize for the best community theatre show in North Central Minnesota. The catch? They only have two days to put it together!

All heck breaks loose as the cast tries their best to present An Unspeakable Triumph of Supreme Brilliance, but with one actor deathly afraid of the stage, another trying to dominate the show, and a set about to collapse, will the riches slip out of their hands before curtain call?

An Unspeakable Triumph of Supreme Brilliance runs on the 22nd, 22rd and 24th June at the Holy Cross College New Norcia Performing Arts Building, 18 Strathmore Parkway, Ellenbrook.

Tickets cost $15 (Concession $10) and are available from Trybooking www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=260404.

I’d book fast, this is going to be a hoot!

19

HOLIDAY READING LETTER TO THEO Dear Theo, I'm a whole week and a half late writing your birthday letter this year, but I assume you'll forgive me because at this point in time you don't even know these birthday letters exist and by the time you read this I doubt you'll even notice that the date is slightly off, so basically I'm just ratting on myself.

What can I tell you about yourself at six? Watching you grow is like watching a flower slowly bloom; every time I think I've guessed the shape of what it will be, it changes. But it also only ever becomes more itself, the self it was always going to be.

Seeing a child develop is to see someone who is in a constant state of flux and yet is only ever becoming more themselves. You are the same person you were at two or at four, the same person you have always known yourself to be. It's the rest of us who are racing to catch up as we try to learn about you.

I am always learning new things about you. This year, as we took a wild three week road trip through America, I discovered that you are an excellent traveller.

Our ambitious itinerary, which saw us driving southwest to New Mexico, then east to Louisiana, then northeast to Washington DC and finally to New York and then home, meant that we often had days where we drove for ten hours or more.

I wasn't sure how you would handle this, but you were amazing - every day you woke up and climbed into the car, ready for adventure. You were so eager to see and experience new things (although you were significantly less eager to experience new foods, which means that you have now eaten chicken fingers in at least ten different states).

In the past year, you've begun to show a real interest in and love of history, which obviously delights me to no end. During our road trip we stopped at several space centres and museums, all of which heavily feature John F Kennedy.

We also went to the Sixth Floor Museum at the Texas Book Depository in Dallas (and took

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a shameless selfie on the grassy knoll). You came home all starryeyed about JFK, to the absolute delight of your Boomer gr a n d p a re n t s, and it's only slightly weird that you like to watch videos of his funeral procession (to be fair, what you like most about those is his horse, Black Jack).

This fall, you and I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy, the story of her husband's childhood on a farm in upstate New York, and I was astonished at how smitten with it you were.

I thought the (somewhat lengthy) descriptions of the daily life of a 19th century farmhouse would bore you, but you loved it. Then we took a trip to Toronto's Black Creek Pioneer Village, which is set in the same decade as Farmer Boy, and you loved it so much that you wanted to go back the next day.

But your biggest historical fascination this year has been Hamilton. We started listening to the soundtrack and you were immediately taken with it; you wanted to hear it over and over, and listening to it has become a bedtime routine.

You have so many questions ("why do they wear that ... like ... cauliflower-looking collar on their shirts?") and so many hilarious misheard lyrics ("penises, lower your voices - you stay out of

HOLIDAY READING THE SECRET trouble and you double your choices).

You've memorized many of the songs (video evidence below), and we often catch you muttering them under your breath to yourself. You especially love Lafayette because he's French, like you, and you wish there was a musical about him and the French Revolution.

I love that you love history. I love that we get to share this. I love telling you interesting factoids and watching your eyes light up as you beg me for more information.

I love the moments when I don't have the answer and we get to look it up and learn something new together. I love how we get excited about the same things. In some ways, I feel like this is the part of parenting that I've been looking forward to the most, and now that it's happening it's even more fun and gratifying than I'd imagined.

What else can I say about who you are now? You're funny. You have a sharp memory.

You're endlessly curious, and you notice the smallest details. You're very social, and you make new friends quickly.

You've got my head for languages and you're now fully bilingual in English and French. You've grown your hair out this year and refuse to get it cut; between that and your preferred uniform of graphic tees, skinny jeans and hiking boots, you're pretty much the perfect lil hipster baby.

You're still as stubborn as ever, and it's a struggle to get you to do something you don't want to do (a struggle we often lose). You still hate bedtime. You still love building and creating, and your teacher this year is sure you'll be an architect of some kind.

You still love outer space. Actually, one of my favourite stories from the road trip was when we went to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston; you were so excited to see the original mission control, and when you saw a picture of the Apollo 11's crew in a stairwell you yelled out "LOOK, LOOK, IT'S NEIL ARMSTRONG AND BUZZ ALDRIN AND MICHAEL COLLINS." When we finally got to the shed where they keep the Saturn V, you were so overwhelmed with emotion that you nearly started crying. You kept running up and down the length of it pointing out things you recognized.

The tour guide was so taken with you that she took off her own Apollo 11 mission pin and gave it to you; she said she'd never seen a kid so young who knew so much about space travel.

I've put the pin away somewhere safe for you to have when you're older. I have a feeling you're going to have it with you when you finally go to Mars, or on whatever other amazing journeys you're destined to take in life.

A blog from The Belle Jar - https://bellejar.ca/

SUE MORLEY

up the withered flowers from Swashethethegathered urn on the grave, it seemed as if she only visitor at the cemetery today.

The wind was bitter cold and she shivered in the thin coat, she wore no hat or gloves.

Fiona McIntire looked around her at the rows of headstones. “You're all here, I'm alone now.” She whispered as tears ran down her pale face.

Fiona was a regular visitor, every Sunday she'd bring fresh flowers to place on the graves of her family. Her mother and father had been here for several years since the car accident that took them both so suddenly, her husband’s grave was newer, the headstone showed the date of only six months ago.

Michael McIntire 1960-2014 Loving husband of Fiona and father of Benjamin and Stella RIP Her fingers lovingly traced the words. Her thoughts travelled to her children, both living in far away Australia, she felt bereft as she knelt on the freezing ground arranging the flowers, her fingers numb.

“I'll join you soon Michael.” she kissed the cold marble.

Groaning, she stood up, rubbed her stiff red knees and prepared to leave. She glanced around the deserted cemetery, there was a lone figure, head bowed, sitting on the bench near the entrance.

She saw it was an old man, his grey hair sparse, he was unshaven and Fiona wondered if perhaps he was homeless and taking advantage of a place to rest. His ragged coat had buttons missing and she could see the tattered dirty collarless shirt underneath.

As she neared he raised his head and looked at her, smiling showing tobacco stained teeth.

“Chilly one today missus, not fit for man nor beast, best get going, it looks like snow.” He said, lifting his rheumy eyes to the leadening sky. As he did so the first few flakes of snow fluttered down, one landing on his red varicosed nose.

Fiona suddenly felt compelled to stop. She sat on the cold metal beside the old man.

He seemed surprised obviously used to being ignored. “ You shouldn't be out either.” She replied, looking at his thin frame. “Are you visiting someone here too?”

He laughed a phlegmy laugh. “They're all here missus, I'm alone now.”

She realised she'd said the same thing a few minutes ago as she'd sat amongst the ghosts of her family.

On a sudden impulse she took his wrinkled dirty hand in hers. “Lets go and find a cup of tea shall we?”

The cemetery café was empty of customers on this freezing day, a day when relatives imagined the dead could do without a visit. “Do

you live around here?” Fiona asked as they both She knew she was taking a risk by having this sat with fingers wrapped around the welcoming stranger in her home, but somehow she knew warmth offered by the mugs of tea. that he was harmless and anyway what had she to lose?

“At the Seaman’s Mission, when there's a bed available, otherwise anywhere I can find a bit of Two years later... warmth, oh please, don't look like that.” The old Fiona was bustling around the kitchen, when man said, seeing the look of sympathy on Fiona's she glanced out of the window at the spring face. “It's not so bad, there's always somewhere sunshine. The garden was looking splendid, out of the weather, y’ just got to know where to thanks to Bill’s green thumb she thought. look, I've got my secret places.” He winked and She smiled at the scene, her family were gave his thick cough again. having a game of backyard cricket. “ You're out!”

Came a cry, followed by “That's not fair Mum she “What's your name?” Fiona enquired. was out!”

“William, everyone calls me Bill though.”

All the family were visiting from Australia, “Have you got a bed for tonight Bill?” Fiona both her son and daughter with their partners heard herself say, thinking she could almost feel and all the grandchildren.

Michael nudging her. Was he telling her not to be Bill sat in the midst of all the action, drinking so stupid? tea, no longer battling the alcoholism that had “Nah, not tonight Miss, the Mission is full in contributed to his downfall. this weather.”

Fiona cast her mind back to the day when “Come on.” Fiona suddenly stood up. “We're she’d met Bill for the first time. Had in fact her going home.” dead husband sent him to stop her doing the When they reached Fiona's house, she asked thing she'd just promised at the graveside?

Bill if he would like to have a bath while she found The thing she'd kept a secret from everyone. him some clean clothes. Bill’s eyes filled with The bottle of Nembutal she'd intended to use was tears and he nodded. safely locked away, because her life had taken a As she rummaged in the linen cupboard dramatic turn for the better when she'd invited a searching for clean towels for her surprise poor derelict to share a cup of tea. visitor, her hand touched the thing she'd hidden She glanced again at the scene outside the there between the sweet smelling sheets. Hastily kitchen window and knew that the secret would pushing it back into it's hiding place, she went in never be shared. search of something for her guest to wear.

Later that night with Bill warmly dressed in DISCLAIMER Michael’s jeans, shirt and thick woollen jumper, he The information in this publication is of a general nature. The articles contained told the story of how he'd reached rock bottom.

A litany of bad choices, both in business and herein are not intended to provide a personal. He told of children who want nothing complete discussion on each subject more to do with him, grandchildren never seen, and or issues canvassed. Synhawk Pty Ltd does not accept any wealth lost and the ill health which was soon to Publications liability for any statements or any opinion, take his life, according to the doc. or for any errors or omissions contained Fiona's heart broke as she saw the regret herein. for a life wasted as he related his misfortunes.

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HOLIDAY READING DEATH IN THE BLANIK years, Celine was to remember it fondly I nasItlater the case in which she first fell in love. was all very well for the police to say that

JAMES FORTE

the unknown killer had done society a favour, but for the petite, serious, young girl it was really about a gracefully shaped piece of metal and what a skilled pilot could do with it.

The Let L-13 Blanik is meant for the sky. On the ground the sailplane looks like a rather dull grey tube with overlong wings and tail fin.

Parked, it has one wingtip dug in the dirt and the other sticking up at an odd angle. In flight, with the sunlight reflected from its precisely shaped surfaces, it is beautiful.

As Celine read the reports, she was struck by the consistent and lyrical descriptions of the start of Brug’s last flight. On this particular Friday in September, as he took off, his face was lit by the morning sun, shining through the dark clouds and directly down the runway.

Everyone at the airfield predicted the coming downpour would be his undoing; in fact, it was the rain which led to the immediate discovery of his body.

standstill. The flaps were retracted. The pilot held the aircraft level until it had almost halted before yawing port wing into wind and gently lowering it to earth.

Jake realised he had been holding his breath.

He gave a brief ‘woohoo’ at the success of a tricky manoeuvre. He jumped back into the car and sped over to the glider. Skidding to a halt a few metres from the starboard wing, now tilted above him, he leapt out and strolled around to the front of the aircraft.

The pilot looked about twenty-five, a big fellow crammed into his seat. He appeared exhausted – his head with white cloth hat and sunglasses was staring down at something in his lap.

“G’day. That was pretty neat,” Jake called.

There was no answer. Perhaps the pilot had not heard above the sound of the wind around the Perspex cockpit.

“Need a hand?” he shouted.

The occupant still did not move. Jake could only see his head beneath the hat and above the collar of his red shirt – which was turned up to

giving access to both seats, would lift off and tilt over to the right.

Immediately the wind caught the frame – almost jerking it out of his hands. He dragged it back down with one hand while reaching in with the other. He touched the pilot’s shoulder and when there was no response, his face.

Behind the sunglasses, the lifeless eyes stared into space. The skin was cold to the touch.

The man had been dead for some hours.

Jake slammed the canopy down and it latched into place. He stood frozen in horror. He had seen many dead animals – some even with their throats cut – but that was somehow normal on a farm. This was very different.

He thought of opening the canopy again and trying the radio. Perhaps he could talk to the pilot’s base. But his brain screamed to get away. He turned and ran back to the car, his boots slipping in the mud. With a shaking hand he snatched up his mobile phone and called the police.

The country station was not well set up to handle aircraft containing dead pilots. The

~oOo~ At four in the afternoon, Jake Vernon was just back at his farm after leaving the family on holiday in Perth. The brief flurry of scudding showers was easing and he decided to take the Range Rover around the big paddock to check the surface moisture and the level of the dam.

At the gully, he switched off and buttoned up his jacket before getting out. He scanned the clouds, speculating on how much more rain they might hold.

In general, people do not notice sailplanes.

It is noise that attracts attention and gliding is known as the silent sport. But this one flew straight through Jake’s field of vision.

Although he had a limited knowledge of flying, he was certain of three things: this plane was extremely low, there were no airfields in the vicinity and the weather was worsening. Clearly the thing was heading for his paddock.

He walked around the car to keep it in view. The straining bushes along the fenceline confirmed the wind was gusting, perhaps forty to fifty kilometres an hour.

“This is going to be interesting,” he mused.

Still, the glider appeared to be expertly handled. It sped past him, chasing the wind, at perhaps three times the height of a tree – if there had been any trees around. It then did a very crisp left bank to fly across the wind for about ten seconds. Then another smart left turn to face directly into wind.

Jake realised that he would be landing on a muddy slope – still he supposed the pilot could cope. The main wheel beneath the fuselage was already down, the ‘plane changing its shape dramatically as the flaps were extended and airbrakes emerged along the upper wing.

In an instant it was down and bumping to a

protect his neck from the sun. The sun? Well it had been quite hot earlier.

The glider was a two-seater made of aluminium. The pilot was in the front compartment. Behind him the second seat was empty apart from a tarpaulin canopy cover.

Jake turned back to the front and knocked on the Perspex. “Hey! How you going?”

Then came the shock. The pilot’s shirt was not red – it was white. It had a collar that was reddish-brown, exactly the colour of dried blood.

A lot of it.

It took the briefest of moments to work out that if he could slide open the small window, he could reach inside and pull the handle on the canopy. This was hinged on one side of the fuselage so that the whole Perspex structure,

constable on duty listened carefully to the farmer’s account then told him to secure the site as best he could. A patrol car would be there in half an hour.

“The wind’s rising,” Jake told him. “The plane is going to be in bits across the paddock before then.”

“Can you tie it down?”

Jake thought back to a long-ago visit to an airfield. “I think they put old tyres on the wingtips to hold them still.”

“Can you do that?” the policeman asked.

“I’ve a sack of fertilizer.”

“That’ll do, I’m sure.”

Jake was instructed not to touch anything.

Just keep an eye on things. He pulled a hessian sack of phosphate out of the back of the four-

22

wheel drive and carried it over to the left wingtip.

And his second shock.

There, in the mud, was a fresh footprint. Not his. He looked around. There was no one in sight.

This was getting seriously scary. He dumped the sack onto the wing, returned to the car and took out the twenty-two he kept for shooting rabbits.

He climbed onto the tailgate to get a better view.

He was about to phone his neighbour for more help with the shuddering aircraft when he spotted the battered Holden Ute. It was pulling a long trailer. Entering the drive to his house and then turning off and bouncing down the track towards him. It came to a halt behind his Range Rover and the driver jumped out smiling. He looked about the same age as the dead pilot.

“G’day” he called, a little cautiously at the sight of the rifle.

“G’day” Jake replied, putting the gun back in his car. “You know about gliders?”

“That’s my aircraft” the young fellow nodded towards the sailplane. “Where’s Brug?”

“Brug the pilot?” Jake asked.

“Yup. My name’s Arthur.”

“Jake Vernon.” They shook hands. “I’ve some bad news for you. Brug’s dead.”

“What? What happened?” Arthur started towards the aircraft.

“I’ve phoned the police. They don’t want anyone going near it.”

“He was OK just now. Saw him heading this way.”

Jake shook his head. “I think his throat’s been cut. There’s a lot of blood.”

“Can we get him to a hospital?”

“Just told you. He’s dead. Been dead a while.

Cops should be here soon.”

Arthur reeled back against the car, his hands nervously rubbing his face. They stood in silence a moment.

“The plane’s shaking itself to bits. I’ve put a sack on the wingtip. That OK?” Arthur lowered his hands. “Yeah, good move. There’s a tie-down kit in the trailer.” He hesitated. “Brug’s in the cockpit? I won’t go near it. Just tie the tail down.”

He fetched stakes, rope and a hammer from the trailer and went straight to the tail. A minute later it was lashed down and the shaking had eased.

As Arthur got over the shock, he started thinking. “If Brug’s dead, how did he get down?”

“Beats me. It was a really neat landing.”

“Well if he’s dead, there must have been someone else in there flying it.”

“Nope,” Jake shook his head.

“That’s crap. There must be someone. Maybe hiding. Back seat. I’m going to have a look.”

“The cops said ‘No’. Don’t go near it.”

“I won’t touch anything. Just look.” Arthur skirted cautiously around the plane and then approached the cockpit. He stared in at Brug and then had a good look at the empty rear seat.

“That’s not possible. Gliders don’t land themselves. There’s a bit of space behind the back seat. Maybe someone’s hiding in there.” He reached for the canopy release handle.

“Don’t touch it,” Jake called. “Just watch it.

No one can get out. The cops can check it.”

Arthur returned to the cars. They climbed inside the Range Rover and watched. There was

no rain but the wind howled. The police arrived ten minutes later. One male and one female, both in uniform.

They immediately recognised the body as Brug Mangles.

“Somebody’s sorted him out at last,” the policewoman muttered.

“There’s a boot-print” Jake said “Not ours.”

“Show us.”

Jake led them all to the spot near the port wingtip where he had carefully noted the strange footprint. And stopped dead. All around, there was nothing but smooth undisturbed mud. ~oOo~ Inspector Baird labeled it The Case of the Invisible Pilot.

Jake Vernon was the key witness. He recounted the expert landing in detail and his discovery of the body. He also tried to describe the footprint.

Arthur Robinson was questioned and explained that Brug Mangles was on a long crosscountry flight. Not an easy task in an aircraft without an engine, on a day with such poor weather. To prove he had succeeded the glider had a flight recorder, a type of black box, giving a continuous trace of location and height. Arthur showed them where it was installed behind the rear cockpit. He removed it and the policewoman locked it away in the patrol car.

A local doctor turned up and checked the body before it was taken away. The throat of the pilot had been ripped open from ear to ear by the repeated application of some form of serrated edge.

Later the forensic pathologist was of the opinion the wound was caused by several passes of a small garden or pruning saw. The pattern of blood spatters suggested the canopy had been closed at the time.

Asked to account for his movements, Arthur explained that it was his job to retrieve the Blanik should it not be able to make it back to the airfield at Beverley. The wings could be detached and the whole thing loaded onto the trailer and driven back to the gliding club. He had left soon after the glider was launched. A bit after ten.

He had spent the day at a friend’s farm about eight kilometers down the road. They had waited for a phone call from Brug to say he had outlanded. Soon after four, they had seen him flying quite low and heading this way.

“Your friend’s name?”

“Sam Werner,” Arthur replied.

“And he’ll be able to confirm your story?”

“Sam’s a ‘she’. Of course. I can give you her mobile number.”

“Do you know anyone with any reason to kill Mr Mangles?”

“No one liked him. He’s a… was… a lawyer.”

As if that explained everything. “Not a very good pilot. “I’m surprised he kept it up for six hours in this weather. But maybe it wasn’t him flying.”

Sam Werner was visited later by Inspector Baird and confirmed that Arthur had arrived about half after ten. They had shared a beer over lunch while waiting for Brug to call. She had learnt to fly in Germany before her family migrated. There was an airstrip on the property and she was quite familiar with sailplanes.

They had seen Brug pass overhead, not very high, around four and Arthur had raced off after him with the trailer.

Baird was curious. “If he was low when he flew over your farm, why would he go on to land in the Vernon paddock when you had a good runway available?”

“Surely that’s obvious, Inspector” she replied.

“Whoever was flying knew they had a dead body in the front. They’d not want to land where there were witnesses.”

Jake was questioned again and confirmed that he had returned from Perth a day early. His farm might have been chosen because the family was away. He went on to insist that he had checked the glider immediately after it landed and that there was no one else in it.

The Blanik sailplane was inspected with considerable care. There were no serrated blades or jagged bits of metal. There was no space behind the rear seat where anyone could hide – and in any case, the seat was wired and locked into place.

Further, the control stick was missing from the rear cockpit. It was later revealed that it had been removed back at the airfield before flight.

Therefore, the glider could not have been flown from the rear cockpit, which was stuffed with a large canvas cockpit cover.

Mori Baker was questioned at length. Mori had a deeply tanned face and a white beard.

He was a senior member and the certification officer for the gliding club at Beverley Airfield.

He confirmed that he had carried out the daily airworthiness inspection on the aircraft and that it was fit to fly. It had been booked out to Brug Mangles for that Friday to enable him to attempt his ‘Silver C’ badge. This required a five-hour flight of at least fifty kilometers distance and a five thousand feet height gain.

In his opinion, Brug was not trustworthy. He did not like him. Brug was also an incompetent pilot. Mori told him he was wasting his time attempting a long flight with such a poor forecast. Brug went ahead anyway.

Mori had checked the two-seater was being flown solo from the front seat. He had unscrewed the control stick from the rear cockpit and stored it in the hangar. Then he had initialised, sealed and signed one of the club’s two flight recorders and secured it in the space behind the rear seat where Brug could not get at it.

These were black boxes which recorded time, position, speed and altitude. After the flight they could be plugged into a computer and the pilot’s claims confirmed. He remembered that Brug had put off his launch several times, eventually going at five past ten in bright sunshine.

He had reached in and started the recorder just before closing the canopy and sending Brug on his way. Arthur had volunteered to take the trailer and pick him up after the inevitable (in Mori’s opinion) out-landing. He had departed soon after the glider took off.

The police produced the recorder and Mori confirmed that he had signed and sealed it. Its readings were scrutinised and they confirmed the 10.07am take off from Beverley and 4.21pm landing on the Vernon farm. It had been in the air continuously between those two times, reaching twelve thousand feet – which was higher than 23

one ought to go without oxygen.

Brug had earned his silver gliding badge.

Everyone in the club was surprised that a guy with such pathetic flying abilities had made it in such bad weather.

The police shrugged their collective shoulders. Put simply, an invisible pilot had been in the rear cockpit during the take-off. In mid-flight, he or she had reached forward to cut Brug’s throat with an invisible saw. Hours later, the invisible pilot had carried out a tricky landing in bad weather using invisible controls and then departed leaving an invisible footprint. ~oOo~ Inspector Baird did not give up immediately.

There was an appeal for witnesses. Few people were out that bleak Friday afternoon but spurious sightings of gliders came in from as far away as Southern Cross. There was a report, from a Cessna pilot flying from Kalgoorlie to Jandakot, of a Blanik seen about 11.00am. It was close to the track on the flight recorder. The Cessna had to change course to avoid a possible collision. The one person, in the front of the sailplane, was staring straight ahead and clearly not maintaining a proper lookout.

Communication logs were checked. There were no radio calls to or from the Blanik. And Brug had switched his mobile phone off for some reason.

The Blanik was transported on its trailer to Perth for an intensive examination. There were bits of duct tape in the aircraft. It was pointed out that tape was the engineer’s all-purpose repair kit. The flap and airbrake handles were rubber covered and a jumble of smudged fingerprints.

All club members were checked. Arthur and Mori had their prints all over the glider, but that was hardly surprising. Arthur had taken it for a failed long-distance flight just the previous Sunday.

Baird consulted several aeronautical engineering experts.

He had come across an account of how a plane could be flown by remote control, from the ground or another aircraft. No, they told him, there was no radio system linked to the control surfaces which would have allowed it to be flown like a drone. It could only be flown from the cockpit.

Would it be possible for someone to have hidden inside the fuselage and flown it from there? Yes, but only with video cameras in the nose showing pictures on screens in the fuselage.

And there would need to be special controls fitted. And Mori would have spotted them when he did his inspection and the police when they looked afterwards. And how would the assassin get out of the fuselage and kill Brug in the air?

Could someone have parachuted down onto the glider in mid flight, opened the canopy, killed Brug, closed the canopy and used a reserve chute to reach the ground? Much hilarity and rolling around on the floor laughing. Definitely not.

Perhaps the readings on the flight recorder had been doctored? Perhaps the glider had not actually been flying the whole time. A computer expert ruled that out. Mori had sealed it; the police had unsealed it. Anyway, you would need some specialised machinery or a tug aircraft to 24

get the Blanik back into the air. All the soaring clubs were checked. Another false trail.

After several months, the aircraft was reassembled and given a thorough clean and overhaul before being returned to Beverley airfield and its duties as a flight trainer. There was some reluctance of members to fly it and it was eventually sold to someone in the eastern states.

From the plane, Inspector Baird turned to the people. No one involved had ever been in any trouble with the police.

Except Brug. He was a bully with an inflated view of his own importance. As the only lawyer in town it was known that he had pulled off several shady land deals through legal technicalities.

Although he had no convictions, there had been times when his dodgy behaviour had stayed only just within the law. On several occasions he had come close to being struck off.

At his divorce, he had won custody of his small son – until a long period of physical cruelty and neglect had seen the boy reunited with his mother.

Everyone in town knew it was Brug who poisoned a horse, when the owner refused to cooperate in one of his schemes. The RSPCA had tried to prosecute. Brug had found a young and naïve vet to give expert testimony, that the animal was dying from some obscure disease.

The prosecution was dropped.

At the inquest, the coroner recorded an open finding. The death of Brug Mangles was caused from loss of blood after multiple severe cuts to the throat, from a serrated blade such as a pruning saw, made by person or persons unknown, whilst he was strapped in a glider.

Eventually from lack of progress, the police team was moved onto other work. The file on the Case of the Invisible Pilot remained open but untouched.

Someone had done the community a big favour. ~oOo~ It was two years later that Douglas Cromarty, always looking at ways to boost circulation of his weekly paper The Avon Messenger, decided to conduct a cold-case review. It was the long summer after the sensation of the Duckmanton College murders and the controversy over genetically modified crops was no longer selling papers.

Beverley is an important town on the Avon River and his chief reporter, Jessica Smith, had plenty of material on the Case of the Invisible Pilot. As was their custom, they met for morning refreshments in the Jacaranda Tearooms.

“Baird has given up on the case. ‘Too hard’ basket,” Jessica declared.

“No prime suspect?” Douglas poured himself a cup of Darjeeling.

“As I remember it, everyone was suspect.

Everybody hated the guy.”

“You still in contact with Celine?”

Douglas was referring to Celine Davies, the schoolgirl who had solved the Duckmanton case - to the chagrin of Inspector Baird.

Celine looked a typical ‘girl-next-door’ – but one who had inherited a stubborn curiosity and a mathematical streak from her parents.

When their marriage failed, she had been sent to Duckmanton as a boarder for her final years of school. Poor, unhappy and not particularly popular, she had devoted a fair amount of effort trying to move from the country back to the city.

After her brilliant solution of the college murders, the Headmistress had insisted on privacy for her student. Her name was not to appear in the newspapers. As one of the few students left in the school, she had received personal tuition and had gone on to obtain excellent results in her final exams.

“We exchanged Christmas emails,” Jessica confirmed.

“Where is she?”

“With her dad and brother in Perth. Starting uni in March. Maths.”

“Why don’t you go and see her? Take the file.”

“Think she’d be interested?” Jessica asked.

“How d’you motivate young ladies these days? Do chocolates and champagne still work?”

“Of course. With Celine, tickets to the theatre should do it.”

“Good. Take a couple of days. See what she can dig up.” They moved on to other topics.

As it happened, merely the challenge of an impossible crime did the trick. Celine returned Jessica’s phone call with an offer to meet her in Beverley the next weekend. She spent a day in preparation at the State Library looking at newspaper coverage of the story.

She also tracked down the coroner’s report which had a diagram of the landing in the big paddock. Thoughtfully she made a few notes. ~oOo~ On Saturday morning, Celine turned up at Beverley driving a beat-up old Peugeot 306 with probationary plates. She was wearing rather worn jeans and the only ‘Duckmanton Leavers’ t-shirt that had been issued that year. Jessica met her at the aviation museum in the main street.

This had an exhibit on the murder mystery. Celine took a photo with her iPhone of the map showing the route of the fatal flight, as taken from the flight recorder.

“Do you see anything strange about that flight path?” she asked.

“The whole thing was impossible in those weather conditions,” Jessica thought.

They retired to the Hotel Beverley next door for lunch. Celine had a weakness for small cakes.

She came straight to the point. “I’ve checked the gliding club web site. I can get a passenger flight this afternoon. Get a feel for what it’s like. It’s two hundred dollars.”

Jessica nodded. She doubted if Baird had ever actually gone for a flight.

The airfield was just a kilometre out of town.

It dated from the 1940s and had two gravel runways which crossed in the middle of the grassed field. An attractive fringe of eucalypts gave afternoon shade along the western side of the main runway, hangars and clubhouse.

Mori was no longer with the club but Arthur Robinson was on the list of available instructors.

Jessica used all her journalistic charm to convince the Duty Pilot that she was writing an article on air sports in the Avon valley.

It would be great publicity. He thanked her but the flight would still be two hundred dollars.

He did oblige them by allocating Arthur as their guide for the afternoon. It soon became obvious that the main interest of the journalist was in the two-year-old murder.

Celine scanned the row of white sailplanes, neatly parked on the side of the strip, each with its left wingtip weighed down with an old car tyre and its right wing pointing at the sky. None looked like the pictures she had found of Blanik trainers.

“I don’t think any of those are Blaniks,” she commented to Jessica.

Arthur overheard her. “There is a Blanik here.

Not the one involved, but just like it. Would you like to see it?”

“Very much,” Celine confirmed. “Could I have my flight in it?”

“I’ll check.” Arthur thought it might be possible.

Celine reviewed the contents of a web site.

The Let Blanik was designed in Czechoslovakia in 1956. A solid, reliable, two-seat trainer fully aerobatic and which won many gliding records.

More than 3000 were constructed and it is still the most numerous glider in the world.

When fibreglass became the standard for high performance sailplanes, the sturdy metal Blanik soldiered on.

Jessica looked at its rugged, if rather shabby, appearance and decided that she was glad she was not going up. Celine on the other hand, could not wait to get into it. She danced around behind Arthur as he had it pushed out of the hangar, then stood meekly watching everything as he carried out a systematic engineering inspection.

“Don’t you love men who are so capable?” she confided to Jessica.

Almost apologetically, he asked Celine her weight - and then told her that she could sit in the front seat but that they would have to install several bricks of lead ballast to compensate for her petite frame. He also whacked several big cushions onto the seat to improve her view.

Celine helped with everything, pushing at the wing root to move the aircraft onto the strip. Before the briefing, they put a couple of tyres onto the wing tip. She studied the tip thoughtfully. Next she tried both the back and front seats with the canopy closed.

“How could anybody in the back seat reach forward enough to slash the throat of someone in the front?” she mused. “They would have to release their seat harness and… the aircraft would be out of control and… it’s all too hard.”

Arthur agreed. He helped her into the front, secured the lap and shoulder straps and started explaining the controls and instruments.

“We will be towed up by that Piper Pawnee over there. I don’t want you touching anything on take off or landing. Just sit quietly and enjoy the view. This is real flying. Not like an Airbus or a Boeing. I will let you have a go at the controls when we get up high. OK?” “Wow. OK.” “It’s perfectly safe. I have a complete set of controls and instruments in the back. We’ll find a couple of thermals and see how high we can go.”

“Cool.” She paused. “If you thought I might go a bit mad – when we’re up there - you could remove the control stick?”

“Yes. But that’d be unusual. If I thought a

passenger was likely to try and crash the plane, I wouldn’t get into it.”

Jessica found a seat in the shade of a tree and watched the towrope being attached. They took off in a cloud of dust, the Blanik skimming along just above the ground. Half an hour later she studied the glider as it did a left hand circuit and landed. Celine hopped out and helped the ground crew push the glider into the shade. Then she thanked Arthur and scampered over.

“That’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. There’s no ride at the Royal Show comes even close. We climbed in a thermal and I flew it a bit. Then Arthur did loops and chandelles and spins and… and simply everything.”

“Not joining the ‘mile high’ club, I hope,” Jessica teased.

Celine went bright scarlet. “C, c, c, course not.”

Jessica had never heard her stutter before.

She hastily moved on. “Worth two hundred I hope.” She frowned at the thought of getting her expenses past Douglas.

“Oh, yes. I know how the footprint disappeared.”

“You do?”

Celine enjoyed her revenge as Jessica leapt to her feet. “Absolutely. And who was flying when it landed at Vernon’s farm.”

“Did Arthur tell you?”

“Oh, no. But I’m sure he knows.”

“And you’ve worked out who killed Brug Mangles?”

“Not quite – but we’re getting there. Can you come with me?”

Celine walked over to Arthur who was completing the securing of the aircraft with a cover over the canopy and chocks under the main wheel. Very politely she asked if it would be possible to see a flight recorder. He gave a start and a slight frown. Then nodded.

Celine and Jessica followed him to a cupboard in the back of the clubrooms. There in all its glory was a GNSS receiver. A small metal box with a dot matrix screen and a USB port for linking to a computer. Apparently GNSS stood for Global Navigation Satellite System.

“What is the precision of the trace it gives?”

Celine asked.

Arthur stared at her. “It can give a reading every second or so. Both for position and altitude.

Location accurate to ten metres.”

“Is this the one used on the Brug Mangles flight?”

“That or one very like it.”

Arthur was a little taken aback when Celine reached up to grab his neck. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for taking me flying. Best afternoon of my life. I’ve decided.

I’m going to learn to fly.”

Jessica paid for the flight with a company credit card and then they returned to their cars.

“You going to tell me over tea in town?”

“I can tell you right now. Arthur was flying the Blanik that day,” Celine whispered.

Jessica gawped. “That’s nonsense. He was driving the Ute with the trailer. Couldn’t be in two places at once.”

Celine did her Mona Lisa smile. “Do you think we could call on Jake Vernon?”

They worked out the route to the farm, about

forty kilometres to the east.

Half an hour later Jessica’s Toyota Camry was followed by the Peugeot into the Vernon driveway. Jessica took charge. She introduced herself to Jake and his wife; said she was doing research for a newspaper story on the murder and asked if it would be possible to view where the glider had landed. Clearly Jake was a little tired of the notoriety but nodded his assent and soon his Range Rover was leading a small procession down to the big paddock.

Celine jumped out with a road map, the coroner’s diagram and the picture of the flight path from the aviation museum.

“Could you tell me, please, where the glider was when you first saw it?’ she asked.

Jake pointed out a pathway through the sky and showed them where the Blanik had come to rest.

“I’m sorry – but you are absolutely sure of that?”

Jake was not used to being checked by teenage girls. “Too damn right.”

“So the port wing would have been just here?

Near the fence?”

“It was very muddy. Just about there.”

“And that is north?” She pointed to a spot on the horizon somewhat to the right of the sun’s position.

“Unless the Earth’s jumped off its axis.”

Celine turned to Jessica. “We have a major discrepancy.”

“You calling me a liar, girly?”

“No. No, Mr Vernon. I’m sorry. I’m certain that your story is absolutely correct.” Celine took a deep breath. “I checked the weather reports for that day. The wind was blowing from there.”

She pointed. “And the plane landed that way.

Directly into wind. Just as you said.”

“So?” The flight recorder shows that the glider landed that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction. “See?” She held up her phone so that he and Jessica could see the screen. “The flight recorder was lying.”

“How could that be?” Jessica asked.

Celine smiled her most innocent smile.

“Perhaps Miss Sam Werner can tell us.” She turned to Jake. “Do you know the Werner farm? I think it’s about eight kilometres…”

“Not well, but we know them.”

“They have a private airstrip.”

“Sure. Young Sam had a small plane she used to fly. Maybe five years ago. Then she switched to an ultra-light. Just a frame with a triangle sail and a lawnmower engine.”

Jessica saw the possibility. “Could you use one to tow a glider up?”

Jake laughed. “Doubt it. They look like fun but I don’t think they could pull a cream pastry out of a paper bag.” ~oOo~ Celine led the short way to the Werner farm. As she pulled in, she noted the airstrip and hangar and then grinned when she spotted Arthur Robinson’s Holden Ute parked next to the house.

Sam Werner answered the door. She was a slim, blonde woman in her late twenties with a slight German accent. “You’re Celine Davies. And 25

you’re the lady from the newspapers. Arthur thought you’d be calling pretty soon.”

Sam led the way to a back lawn where Arthur was sitting at a table under a large umbrella, just starting a beer. Drinks were offered and accepted. Sam went inside to get glasses.

“How do you think Sam can help you?” Arthur wondered out loud.

Jessica shrugged and looked at Celine.

Celine leaned forward. “I’m guessing she wasn’t involved in the original plan. That she was caught up in it through Brug’s poor flying.”

Arthur was wary. “Maybe.”

“I’m also guessing that Mori Baker knew that the flight recorder was wrong but didn’t say anything because he hated Brug so much.”

“No comment.”

Sam returned with drinks. “How much do they know?”

“Too much,” Arthur said.

“Oh, dear. Too bad,” Sam frowned.

Jessica went pale and turned to Celine. “Are you suggesting that Arthur and Sam killed Brug?”

Without waiting for a reply, she blurted out: “You can’t silence us. Too many people know we’re here. We’ve just come from the Vernon’s.”

Celine decided to take the initiative. “I’d like to tell you what I think happened. You can confirm it or not, as you like.”

“Go on.”

“Brug was a nasty piece of work.” Celine started.

“You know he poisoned my friend’s horse?”

Sam asked.

Jessica nodded. “I’ll make sure it’s in my story. And the abuse of his son.”

Celine organised her thoughts. “Brug was a piece of filth. But he really wanted his gliding badge. Unlike most things, he couldn’t buy it or steal it. So he cheated. He came up with a plan.

Coerced you. Some piece of blackmail or some threat…”

She waited for Arthur’s confirmation or denial but there was only silence.

“There was an item in the papers at the time,” Jessica added. “Something about your young brother and drugs.”

“Not true. But Brug had a few mates who would make up evidence for him,” Arthur said.

Celine resumed her explanation. “So somehow he forced you to cooperate. The previous Sunday you told Mori Baker you were going to attempt a record flight. He gave you a signed and sealed flight recorder.

“You took off soon after ten and landed soon after four… on the Vernon’s farm. They were away on holiday in Perth. The weather was good.

Brug turned up with the trailer and you derigged the Blanik and took it back to Beverley.

“You told Mori that the record attempt had failed, so you didn’t need him to check the flight recorder. Which Brug hung onto. Probably smudged the date next to Mori’s signature.”

Arthur nodded his agreement. “He thought the weather would be pretty similar the following Friday.”

Sam smirked. “That was his first mistake. It looked like rain and the wind was all wrong.”

Celine continued. “He had Mori sign and seal the club’s second flight recorder and install that in the back of the plane. All he had to do was hang 26

around until ten, take off and fly the forty K to the Vernon farm where he would land and…”

Arthur interrupted. “I was supposed to turn up with the trailer, a camera, and a couple of bottles of wine.”

“You’d wait until four, take some photos, derig the glider, substitute the GPSS recorder from the previous week and drive back to the airfield. One gliding badge in the bag.”

“Except that he was a useless pilot. He couldn’t even make it to the Vernon’s.” Sam laughed. “His second mistake.”

“He barely made it to your airstrip?”

“He was off course. Couldn’t navigate for nuts.” Sam confirmed.

“I’m guessing a bit here.” Celine addressed her thoughts to Sam. “He tried his usual tricks, threats, on you. From his law practice he knew little secrets about everyone.”

Arthur jumped out of his chair and started pacing around. “I was right behind him with the trailer. He was laughing his head off. Twisting her arm, taunting her. Vicious. So sure of himself.

Came up with a second plan. We would derig the plane here at the airstrip, drive it over to the Vernon’s, take some photographs and then head back to Beverley. Replace the flight recorder as before.”

“All he had to do was get Sam’s cooperation,” Jessica realised.

“He wasn’t getting that! His third mistake,” Sam whispered. “I was just about to prune the hibiscus when he landed. I ran over to help and then saw who it was. Told him to get his heap of scrap metal off my airstrip. He was stuck, still strapped in, but he grabbed my wrist, laughing at me. Said I was going to help him. I still had…”

“Shush” Arthur snapped. He turned to Celine and Jessica. “Let’s just say that ‘person or persons unknown’ happened to have a garden saw handy.”

“The bastard died a lot faster than that poor horse. We slammed the canopy closed to cut off the screaming.”

Celine returned to the story. “So there you were, with a corpse in a glider, sitting on your runway.”

“We thought of staying with Brug’s plan – derigging the glider and hauling it over to the Vernon’s for them to find next day when they returned from Perth. Didn’t seem like a nice thing to do to them,” Arthur said.

“Only I’m not strong enough to handle those long metal wings. You need at least two big guys,” Sam added. “But the main problem was the flight recorder. If we left Brug’s in, it would show the police that he landed at my airstrip. If we substituted Arthur’s, it would need the glider to be at the Vernon’s in one piece after four in the afternoon. That would give Arthur an alibi of being at my place all day waiting. Then he could pretend to find the glider about four-thirty and report the death.”

“Neat plan. All you needed was a couple of guys to help you rebuild the glider at the Vernon’s,” Jessica noted. “Except that’s not what you did. It was flown there.”

Celine turned to Sam. “You’ve still got your old plane in the hangar here. Even though you now fly an ultra-light.”

Sam shook her head. “Not now. But I did

have it two years ago. An Auster. Not registered.

Just collecting dust. Arthur managed to get the engine going.”

“I had an old tow rope in the trailer” Arthur added. “Quick solution. We just tied it to the tail wheel assembly and then hooked the other end on to the glider. Sam could fly the Auster while I flew the Blanik from the back seat.”

“Except you didn’t have a control stick. Did you take the one out of the front?” Celine asked.

“No. Brug had a death grip on it. Covered in blood. Chopped up one of Sam’s broom handles and made it fit with duct-tape. Not very safe but we were desperate.”

“Don’t you love men who are so capable?”

Jessica quoted.

Celine hid her feelings by hurrying on. “Then you put the canopy cover on the Blanik, just to keep the body hidden. While you took the ute and trailer over to a side road near the big paddock and Sam drove you back here. Ready for take off about four.”

Arthur stared at Celine. “You really have worked it all out haven’t you?”

Celine stared back. “Must have been a hell of a shock when you saw Jake’s Range Rover in the paddock.”

“Yeah. But I had nowhere else to go. I landed.

Turned the glider away from the car. Ripped the broomstick out of its tube. Gave me room to hide in the bottom of the cockpit, on the rudder pedals, under the instrument panel. Covered myself with the canvas. As soon as I heard Jake run away I peered out and saw my chance. The raised right wing hid me. Opened the canopy climbed onto the fuselage, let it fall shut, slid down the port wing.

Took the broomstick with me.”

“With one step, made it to the fence line,” Celine agreed.

“Five minutes later I was with the trailer entering the farm. That’s it.”

Sam looked at Jessica. “So what do we do now? What are you going to print? You going to give us a couple of day’s start? Get to Brazil?”

There was another silence as each considered the options.

Celine looked at each in turn. “Far as I can see, we can’t say anything - without giving Baird enough clues to reopen the investigation.”

Jessica scratched her head. She had a great story here.

Celine moved around the table to sit next to Arthur. “I’m on their side. You can’t publish any of this. There’s no evidence. None! I’d help Arthur and Sam sue the paper for defamation.”

Jessica caved in. “I’ll have to tell my editor all the ideas were dead ends.”

Celine looked like she wanted to give Arthur the biggest hug. Instead she laughed. “I’m a bloody useless detective.” ~oOo~ Without too much trouble, Jessica talked Celine into a late refreshment at the Jacaranda Tearooms. With a pot of Earl Grey and a plate of tiny cakes in front of her, Celine braced herself for interrogation by Douglas. It never came.

Jessica shielded her with a declaration of journalistic ethics and not revealing one’s sources. Douglas grumbled about the time and expenses but agreed that at this point there was

no story. Jessica then turned on Celine. “How did you work it out?”

Celine cleared her mouth of cake. “Even the police must have seen that the flight recording was wrong. Somehow they couldn’t take the next step. Brug was a liar and a cheat. They didn’t ask themselves: ‘How was he cheating?’ It was as simple as that.”

“What about the invisible footprint?” Douglas wanted to know.

“That was the breakthrough. If Inspector Baird had studied gliders on an airstrip, he would have spotted it. The footprint was never invisible.

It moved. Or rather, its frame of reference moved. Jake Vernon saw it, in the mud, next to the port wingtip. But the wind was blowing the aircraft around. And Arthur moved it a bit further when he tied the tail down. The wingtip was now pointing at a piece of clear mud several metres away from where it had been. Then when Arthur went over to the rear cockpit, he made sure it became part of his track. That was when I knew it was his print. It had been Arthur landing the glider. He was the key to the puzzle.

“Brilliant,” said Douglas. “Our secret.”

“I could never give his name to the police.

He took me on my first glider flight. Took me to heaven then returned me safely to earth.”

Douglas and Jessica tried to hide their expressions.

“D’you think your paper could fill my tank?

I don’t think I’ve enough petrol to get back to Perth.” Celine gave Douglas her biggest, brightest smile. ~ The End ~

POETRY HARMONY SERPENTINE JOE

Atop the last hill before the sea awaiting the arrival of our shimmering host at an early hour to paint the scene with a kaleidoscope of living colour of gray sea and sky and sand and tree till the master wields his brush and dissipates the fog with a puff of breeze born pink silver blue and green trees rustle bathed in dawns first golden blush twinkling across the aqualine bays where silver sands meet foaming surf framed with patches of glistening turf manicured and tangled clumps of grass sit on fingers of land beneath the pass of half an hour of birds chorusing the arrival of their release from dark

POETRY FLASH HARRY AND THE FISH KING

WAYNE PANTALL he sea was a tranquil millpond, a calming Flash Harry shot onto the fish-board, Brando emerald green, Marlin style, on the day I swear I witnessed, the fishiest back-flipped straight onto the deck; gone the thing I’ve seen. flashy smile.

I’m not one to reel in mates, or spin them scaley The King of all the biggest, toughest, fighting tales, fish you’ve seen, but what took place out there that day, would leapt right up into the boat, and kissed his scare the fins off whales.

Mermaid Queen.

T

I was drifting in my tiny boat, and dangling my line, when this Cadill-Aqua Fifty Foot, near dumped me in the brine.

As he screamed past at fifty knots, I copped his Moet cork.

Flash Harry and his Bimbo doll, stopped right where I could gawk

He flashed his fearsome pearly whites, and gave an evil grin.

Flash Harry greened around the gills. I thought he’d jump back in.

“Well, hail the king of fishermen, who knows where they’re all biting.

Ya better put ya dooks up, Sunshine. Time to come out fighting.”

She rubbed him down with varnish, and put gel in his hair.

I felt myself a Groper (gawking), trying not to stare.

She looked like a mermaid, and him, a car sales shark.

I became a mullet, (stunned), beside his massive ark

The fish shaped up like Ali, and mouthed off like Mundine.

Harry copped a pectoral left, the likes you’ve never seen.

A roundhouse dorsal decked him, but he came back like a blowie.

He tried to match up toe to tail, and dong him with the Moet.

He boasted “I shall now free-dive, straight down a hundred feet, and bring you up as many crays, as you could hope to eat.

I’ve caught the most, the biggest, best, from the roughest, deepest sea.

There’ll never be the fish nor man, that can compete with me.”

“I love catching, boofish blokes; I bait up every week.”

The fish had barely raised a sweat, yet Harry couldn’t speak.

“This jab’s for the plastic bags; the upper cut’s for bottles, the cans, the junk, the undersized, and rivers that you’ve throttled.”

He took a swig of Moet, he burped, and then departed, with a triple somersault and pike, down to the deep he darted.

She threw back golden flowing hair, and flashed a wink at me.

I turned blushing, Emperor (red), and blubbered “Golly gee.”

“I’ve beaten Billy Saxton too, the big gun of the south.

And Rexy wasn’t sexy, when I smacked him in the mouth.

What a load of cobblers; You? Flash Harry, Fishing King?

Get back up here, yellow tail, and cop it in the ring.

As I grin Cheshire Catfish-ish, she transmogrifies, from Bimbo to a Mermaid Queen, right before my eyes.

Holy Mackerel; Bluff my oysters; how can this be so?

“Just sit back; relax” she smiled, “For now we start the show.”

We’ve started up a union now, of fish for equal rights.

Buzz off and tell your flathead mates, we’ve taken up the fights.”

As deeply fried and battered Harry, gave the scene a miss, Myself, the King and mermaid, sat and polished off his …Moet.

to a wonderland wrought by light with subtlety and strength resisted by trees and blended on reflection kalimna smiles on her domain invigorating the stroller sipping his morning tea an honoured guest at dawn’s soliloquy grasps his hat dons his cap wanders on farewelled by a bell warbling in his carillion 27

BUSINESS - NETWORKING

FINANCE

THREE LITTLE WORDS ...

2017/18 FEDERAL BUDGET

SHARRON ATTWOOD

‘Three little words’ that will harm your business….. at the breakfast, a coffee chat or just Ylandsou’re catching up with friends when the question – “So what do you do?”

We have spent a few months together now, exploring your options when it comes to answering it. We have also looked at how best to maintain your brand online – be it through business posts or personal commentary.

However, there are three little words that can be your greatest undoing.

Back at the breakfast – where you are prepared with a great base statement about your brand – you know the problem you solve for the room you are in – and they know what’s in in it for them.

It’s all so clear – but then you drop those three little words – and that look of certainty drains away from the listener’s faces. You just couldn’t help yourself as you utter ‘And I also’ at the end of an otherwise eloquent and succinct introduction.

As humans, we love certainty. We like to understand how things fit together and where we fit in. As we listen to you speak about your business, your interests, your goals or your family – so often we are subconsciously filing the information away – and it needs to make sense, particularly if we are looking to refer business to you.

I’ve done a lot of very scientific research for this column – reading Facebook chats and surveying colleagues at networking events – to gauge their reaction when someone drops the ‘And I also’ into their intro.

To be clear – I’m not concerned by a Plumber who also works with gas – or a finance broker who’s a bit of a generalist.

I’ve gathered feedback on the ‘wow that came out of left field’ type of thing. The mortgage broker who also works as a florist or the Personal Trainer who does some Copywriting on the side. The Photographer who also designs web sites.

Now I’m not saying you can’t do these things. There are lots of reasons why you would want to wear a few hats.

As the weather changes we often hear from business owners who need to level out the peaks and troughs of a seasonal business.

They have the option of leveraging their existing business and it’s customer base to develop a product or service 28

offering that boosts their income in what has traditionally been the ‘off season’. This may be something complementary to what they already do – or completely irrelevant.

I once employed a chimney sweep – a winter type business - who ran a pool cleaning business in Summer.

Sometimes a business is so well niched that there just isn’t enough work to sustain you – so you need another arrow in your quiver which may or may be in line with your niched enterprise.

Other times you just get bored and need a side hustle to keep life interesting. It can be a paid gig or even a voluntary thing as your ‘give back’. It may, however, give off the vibe that you are not focussed or not completely committed to your industry if not discussed the right way.

This is a particular issue for traditional business owners who suddenly try the ‘and I also’ with a MLM or Direct Sales type model. If not presented in a well thought out way – you can just confuse people and end up worse off. You are giving them too many options.

However – you need to think about the brand you are representing at the time. It may also be worth considering who is funding the interaction.

If it’s your employer – they expect you to be representing them. Just them.

Who is in front of you? Do they need to know everything you do or is it just confusing? It’s generally accepted science that the confused mind always says no. If we can’t understand what you do – or what’s in it for me I’ll just forget about it – and you.

Similarly – if we are going to refer someone in business, just like a great GP we want to refer to a specialist.

We want to know you will look after the presenting issue. If you seem to be too busy or just not focussed, I lose faith in your ability to

follow through. Whilst conducting my research the common concern was, ‘Will they be up to date’ and ‘What takes priority’.

You don’t have to have just the one string to your bow – but you need to be clear about who is in front of you and just address their needs.

They are more important than your need to tell everyone about everything you do. Keep it relevant.

Over time people will or may become aware of other things you so – but keep the forgoing information in mind.

As we go forward more and more business owners will have other projects on the go, for a variety of reasons.

I’m certainly not in a positon to judge as I personally wear a few hats – though you’ll only ever see me wearing the one that is relevant to us and building our relationship.

After all, I am passionate about building great networks, and I also, have other hats.

Courtesy of BrandEtiquette Concluded from page 11 ...

Wideys! That’s it! That’s the young bloke’s wide tyre ute track under mine and the Aboriginals’ narrow bald treads under the lot!

This morning, straight after I saw him he left. Bit of rain; poor visibility!. I didn’t see his tracks until I came back. Probably took Janey with him!

Sarge walked out onto the jetty where a little river still gushed out with the tide. He reached into his pocket and dropped half a dozen golden shells into the stream.

End of Chapter One. Chapter Two next issue.

The Ute is a story by John Taylor set in the Australian outback, telling the story of life, love and the hardships of mustering cattle amidst the endless characters unique to Australia.

Primarily a poet, John Taylor describes himself as ‘an outback Aussie character befuddled by our “economic rationalised, daylight-saved and quality assured” Australia. Is all this really happening? Have we all lost sight of the big picture?

Truckie, Scrounger and Poet Downunder – John Taylor has ranged the outback of Western Australia for more years than he can care to remember.

Living and working under the harsh but strangely beautiful conditions of the Australian bush, JT (as he is known to his closest friends and readers) appreciates the spirit of those hardy souls that have survived the modern challenge.

If you would like to read the whole novel, it can be purchased as either an epub for kindle or iPad. Go to John’s website - www.poetdownunder. com or www.lulu.com/shop/john-taylor/the-ute/ ebook/product-22566720.html or on the Apple store www.itunes.apple.com/au/book/the-ute/ id1086709294?mt=11

n Tuesday 9 May, the Federal Government Ofinancial handed down its Budget for the 2017–18 year.

Here are a few of the key Budget announcements, noting these proposals will only become law if they are passed by Parliament.

FIRST HOME SUPER SAVER SCHEME From 1 July 2017, individuals can make voluntary contributions (e.g. salary sacrifice, personal tax deductible, and non-concessional contributions) of up to $15,000 per year and $30,000 in total, to their superannuation account to purchase a first home.

These limits apply to each individual – that is, a couple combined can contribute up to $30,000 per year and $60,000 in total.

Voluntary contributions under this scheme must be made within existing superannuation caps.

Withdrawals of the contributed amounts along with the deemed earnings will be allowed from 1 July 2018.

The amount of earnings that can be released will be calculated using a deemed rate of return based on the ninety day Bank Bill rate plus three percentage points.

The withdrawals of concessional contributions and associated earnings will be taxed at the individual’s marginal tax rates less a 30% tax offset.

When non-concessional amounts are withdrawn, they will not be taxed, but it is anticipated that the earnings will be taxed at the individual’s marginal tax rates less a 30% tax offset.

The First Home Super Saver Scheme will be administered by the ATO, which will determine the amount of contributions that can be released and instruct superannuation funds to make these withdrawal payments.

STEVE BLIZARD balance. Further, both members of a couple will be able to take advantage of this measure for the same home, meaning $600,000 per couple can be contributed to superannuation under this measure.

The principal place of residence must have been held for a minimum of ten years and equity released with be included in the Centrelink Asset Test, potentially adversely impacting any aged pension received.

These contributions will be in addition to any other concessional or non-concessional contributions individuals are eligible to make.

SMSF BORROWING The Government was proposing to include the outstanding balance of a Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangement (LRBA) in the calculation of a member’s total self-managed superannuation fund balance (TSB).

However self-managed superannuation fund trustees have been given a reprieve from the rule that would have curtailed their ability to borrow to buy property and, potentially, resulted in forced sales of houses, apartments and business premises.

Treasury officials have advised the super industry that they will undertake further consultation on a measure that would force selfmanaged fund members to include the value of a loan when calculating their total super balance.

In submissions to Treasury, self-managed fund experts warned the policy could prevent some schemes from being able to repay the interest on their loans, could make banks far less prepared to offer such borrowing arrangements, and in some cases lead to forced asset sales.

While a bill proposing changes to the way loan repayments are treated under the new $1.6 million ceiling on the amount of money that can be transferred to a tax-free private pension was tabled in Parliament recently, a measure to PROPERTY-DOWNSIZING INTO SUPERANNUATION include Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangement The Government proposes that from 1 July arrangements in the $1.6 million super balance 2018, people aged sixty-five and over will be has been delayed. able to make a non-concessional contribution into The new rule is due to commence on July 1. their superannuation of up to $300,000 from the proceeds of selling their home, irrespective of Marginal income tax rates and thresholds their age, work status, and total superannuation While marginal tax rates are unchanged from

2016-17, as legislated, the Temporary Budget Repair Levy (TBRL), an additional two percent on the top marginal tax rate, will expire on 30 June 2017.

However the Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) remains unchanged which gives resident taxpayers an effective tax free threshold of $20,542 in 2017-18.

Older Australians eligible for the Seniors and Pensioners Tax Offset (SAPTO) have an effective tax free threshold of up to $32,279 for singles and up to $28,974 for each member of a couple, also unchanged.

MEDICARE LEVY Proposed to commence from 1 July 2019, the Medicare levy is set to increase from two percent to two point five percent.

Opposed by Labor, the increased Medicare levy will be used to assist the funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Fringe benefits tax rate and the rate applied to employment termination payments in excess of the ETP cap (currently $195,000) will also rise, where linked to the top marginal rate.

The Medicare levy thresholds for low-income singles, families and seniors and pensioners will increase in the 2016-17 income year.

The threshold for singles will increase to $21,655.

The family threshold will increase to $36,541 plus $3,356 for each dependent child or student.

For senior singles and pensioners the threshold will increase to $34,244.

The family threshold for seniors and pensioners will increase to $47,670 plus $3,356 for each dependent child or student.

RESIDENTIAL INVESTMENT PROPERTY DEDUCTIONS From 1 July 2017, travel expenses incurred in inspecting, maintaining or collecting rent on residential investment properties will no longer be tax deductible.

However residential property investors will continue to be able to deduct fees paid to real estate agents or other property managers for these services.

In a separate proposal, depreciation deductions for plant and equipment in residential investment property (such as ceiling fans or dishwashers) will be limited to the actual expenditure incurred by the investor.

Courtesy of Roxburgh Securities (The 2017/18 budget is a complex statement and raises many issues and there may be further articles on it.)

DISCLAIMER The information in this publication is of a general nature. The articles contained herein are not intended to provide a complete discussion on each subject and or issues canvassed. Swan Magazine does not accept any liability for any statements or any opinion, or for any errors or omissions contained herein.

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SWAN VALLEY AND REGIONAL NETWORK NEW LORD STREET

State Government will construct a new TLordhedual-carriageway road parallel to the existing Street to ease congestion in Perth's north-

Street is expected to significantly reduce congestion on the existing Lord Street - currently used by about 14,000 vehicles a day.

Meanwhile, new bus stops, bus priority measures and a new park and ride facility in Henley Brook means public transport users can expect a faster, more reliable service between Ellenbrook and Bassendean.

A shared path will also run adjacent to the road, providing improved access to Whiteman Park for cyclists and pedestrians.

Work on the project will begin shortly and will include the relocation of a communications mast

eastern suburbs.

In one of the first steps towards building the Morley-Ellenbrook Line as part of Metronet, the new road corridor will complement the future train line to Ellenbrook.

The Government has renegotiated an existing contract for the construction of a bus transit way to Ellenbrook, removing it from the New Lord Street project to instead facilitate the rail line to be completed in 2022.

New Lord Street will generally run parallel to the existing Lord Street, which will be retained as a local road to service Ellenbrook and the rapidly growing suburbs of Dayton, Whiteman and Brabham.

The redistribution of traffic to New Lord to make way for a Metronet station in the heart

of Ellenbrook.

The project is expected to cost $57 million and is due to be completed by mid-2018.

Premier Mark McGowan: "A bus lane for Ellenbrook was never going to cut it; that's why we've moved swiftly to build a new dualcarriageway to ease traffic congestion and start work on the rail line to Ellenbrook.

"Our commitment to the north-eastern suburbs was to deliver road improvements and Metronet - and that's exactly what we're going to do."

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti: "Together with NorthLink WA, road capacity will be increased significantly, while the future MorleyEllenbrook Line will connect some of our fastest-growing suburbs with Perth and the Metronet."

WANDOO HEIGHTS WALK TRAIL his unique wildflower walk has a diverse collection of Topportunity wildflowers and native plants. The walk provides an to view the panorama of the Swan Coastal

Plain and to appreciate the unspoiled beauty of our natural bushland.

This property is a unique bush landscape on the Darling Escarpment and is situated thirteen kilometres from Midland. Comprising of two lots totalling twentytwo hectares, Wandoo Heights is part of an original block of 4,000 hectares on the Upper Swan, granted in 1830 to George Fletcher Moore, the Advocate General for the Swan Colony.

Because of its general unsuitability for farming, Wandoo Heights was not cleared in the early days and is still in its virgin state (as would have been observed by the early botanists in the 1820’s).

In 1960, the property was acquired by Miss Olive Gear and Mr Harry and Miss Adela Hyde. Unfortunately Mr Hyde drowned two years after the purchase of the property.

Undaunted and with the help of volunteers, the ladies maintained the property in excellent condition, while at the same time improving access to enable the extensive range of wildflowers to be observed without damaging the environment.

In 1988, the property was entrusted to the City of Swan as it was becoming too difficult for the ladies to manage effectively. The deed charges the City with maintaining Wandoo Heights as a flora and fauna reserve for present and future generations.

Dieback has recently been identified in Wandoo Heights. Prior to entry, ensure all vehicles and footwear are free of soil. Please keep to the paths, take only photographs, and leave only footprints. Please note that it is the responsibility of individuals to be aware of fire bans in place.

This is a controlled access walk trail. Permission is required through the City of Swan, contact 9267 9267.

Please call 9267 9326 or visit www.swan.wa.gov.au for further information about other City of Swan Walk trails or additional tourism information visit the Swan Valley Visitor Centre corner Meadow and Swan Streets, Guildford. Open seven days between 9am and 4pm.

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SWAN VALLEY AND REGIONAL NETWORK 13 REASONS WHY f you haven’t seen 13 Reasons Why but want to Idecide discuss it with a young person, or are trying to whether it is suitable viewing for a young

person in your care, this summary may help.

It covers the basic plot and describes content that viewers may find disturbing. 13 Reasons Why is not consistent with many guidelines for media reporting and depiction of suicide, and watching it may be distressing for young people, especially those who are vulnerable.

13 Reasons Why is a high school based drama recently released internationally on Netflix.

All thirteen hour-long episodes were released together, on March 31st 2017.

It is the story of Hannah, a young woman who has died by suicide before the show starts.

She has left a box of audio-tapes with Clay, the protagonist of the show, each revealing one of the thurteen reasons why she decided to die.

On the tapes, she details a number of highly traumatic events that contributed to her developing thoughts of suicide, mostly involving her classmates. Clay is the last of several people who were to listen to the tapes, according to her instructions.

As Clay plays them, he learns about many things that happened during Hannah’s life.

Classmates who have already heard the tapes are involved at various points, providing additional (sometimes conflicting) information and trying to keep him on track.

On the surface, the show clearly set out to do something important, like the novel of the same name; to show that actions have consequences.

Hannah was raped, bullied (both on and offline), stalked and harassed. Obscene photographs of her were circulated. The list goes on; as you can imagine, the list is Hannah’s ‘13 reasons’ for taking her own life.

The show contains several distressing and graphic scenes, including Hannah’s suicide and two rape scenes (one of these is Hannah’s rape, the other, of an almost unconscious classmate, while Hannah is hiding in the room terrified to act).

The story is told out of sequence. Sometimes we see the world through Hannah’s eyes, and sometimes through Clay’s eyes after her death, often with her voice narrating events as he hears her on the tapes.

This can give the impression that she is present after her death, and that she is seeing the impact that her death has had on her classmates and others. Her locker is decorated by classmates who take selfies in front of it, further romanticizing and trivializing her death.

A critical plot point is that towards the end of the show, Hannah does reach out to an adult.

She sees this as her last attempt to get help.

She talks to a school counsellor and he handles the situation very poorly, and ultimately lets her leave his office without doing anything to help.

While this was probably intended to show one specific adult who failed to help, the impression is that adults can’t or won’t help.

In the end we learn that Clay, who has spent most of the show convinced that he above anyone else must be responsible for her suicide, is the only person she doesn’t blame. She included him in the process so that he would understand why she’d pushed him away when they were kissing, after acknowledging their feelings for each other.

If a young person hasn’t yet watched the show and wishes to, encourage the following: • It’s okay to fast-forward through upsetting scenes. Viewing them in full is not necessary to understand the story. Suicide and rape are not romantic, and should not be considered entertainment.

• Consider watching the show with a trusted responsible adult as this would allow them to ask questions about themes and scenes that are upsetting or confusing.

• Just because all the episodes are there, doesn’t mean they need to all be watched at the same time. Watching an episode a couple of times a week or even less gives a young person time to think critically about the show, rather than risk feeling upset by it.

IMPORTANCE OF FLU VACCINATIONS Hon Ken Wyatt MP, Federal Member for Ta fluheHasluck, has highlighted the value of getting vaccination through your local community

pharmacist by getting his yearly shot at Maddington Chemmart Chemist.

“It is important that everyone knows how easy it is to get their flu shot with trained community pharmacists who are able to directly administer the flu vaccine,” said Mr Wyatt.

“Anyone can visit their local pharmacy that is providing this service and easily organise their protection against this year’s flu strain.”

Mr Wyatt said that having flu shots available through pharmacies was a terrific aid for communities in Hasluck.

A Flu Vaccination Study commissioned by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia in February shows that more than seven million Australians aged

eighteen to sixty-four years are planning to have a flu shot this year.

The study found that more than six million Australians would be more likely to have a flu shot if it could be administered at a local pharmacy, including two million who previously had no intention to vaccinate against flu.

Maddington Chemist proprietor Paul Jardine said that having pharmacists deliver vaccinations was a huge benefit for consumers.

“In the short time that community pharmacists have been allowed to administer the vaccine there has been a high percentage of people being vaccinated for the first time,” he said. The convenience, affordability and ease of access to pharmacy flu vaccinations means more people are getting protected against this disease” said Mr Jardine.

• It’s okay not to watch the show at all, even if other friends have.

IMPORTANT TALKING POINTS • It’s important to remember that 13 Reasons Why is a fictional story and many aspects should not be taken as a reflection of real life.

• If a person dies by suicide, they are not there afterwards to observe the aftermath. Because of the way Hannah’s story is told, it often feels like she is there watching and seeing how the story unfolds. Some young people may view suicide as a way of punishing someone or getting revenge, however they need to understand that a person who suicides will never see or know how things turned out after their death.

• Young people who find that they can identify with Hannah, her life experiences, and thoughts of suicide, need to know that there is help available.

• The poor way the school counsellor reacted to Hannah’s statement that she had been raped, and his lack of attention to her, such as taking a phone call during their session, is not typical of counsellors. Counsellors are professionals who are trained to listen and provide help, and seek additional support for a person if needed.

• A young person who believes that adults can’t or won’t help because of the show’s themes need to be encouraged to be persistent. It’s a matter of finding the right person, and there are many suitable people who can help.

• Keeping secrets about traumatic events such as rape and bullying is never okay. When these things happen, there are people who can help.

Keeping secrets can delay a person’s recovery.

• Suicidal thoughts are painful and difficult to endure, but most people who have thoughts of suicide don’t act on them. A young person who feels like there are no other options left needs to hear that there are always other options.

• Young people who have lost a friend to suicide need to know that there is no one to blame in a situation like this. Young people who feel guilty need support and counselling.

• People can learn to recognise some of the signs that indicate a person is at risk of suicide.

If a young person thinks that a friend is at risk of suicide, they should ask the friend directly e.g.

“Are you thinking about killing yourself?” If the answer is yes, they need to get an adult involved right away.

• Though it is normal to feel guilt when a friend suicides, no one is to blame for another person’s suicide. Young people may point to characters in the show, particularly the classmate who raped Hannah, and those who bullied her, and say that these characters are responsible.

While those characters are guilty of the things they did, and should face legal consequences, this is not the same as being responsible for her suicide. If a young person is distressed and in need of support, they can call or visit: • Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) or kidshelpline. com.au, eheadspace.org.au or Lifeline (13 11 14) of lifeline.org.au.

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THE IDLER The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Mind

A SNEAKY DISPLAY OF AFFECTION

Sunday 11th June 2017

Glennys Marsdon

2.30pm

kay, so I knew The Rise of Sneaker Culture at Oprofessional. the Art Gallery Of WA would be interesting and

Eastern Hills Senior High School Music Auditorium Keane Street, Mt Helena Choral Director:

Storme Reeves

Accompanist:

Libby Patrizi

Featuring the Hills Choir and Guest Artists

Tickets: Tickets available from Choir members, Ian on 9295 6103 or the Mundaring Community Bank® Branch Bendigo Bank on 9295 6411 Tuesday to Friday.

For further information call Margie on 9295 6103.

Website : www.hillschoir.org.au

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email: thehillschoir@gmail.com

Adults: $20.00 Children (under 12): $ 5.00

idera c y e l l a v n a sw COS03324

n

dale.COM.AU

What I hadn’t realised was that it’d be utterly fascinating, highly educational and ultimately inspiring. While there’s absolutely no way I can do it justice, especially not in one article, I can give you a flavour of some of the highlights for me.

First up the sheer volume of the exhibition.

It’s a great workout in itself. Then there’s the professional looking displays. The exhibition is stunning. How would you have displayed several hundred pairs of years old sneakers?

Most of all though it’s the stories behind the sneakers. To be honest I don’t always read the signs next to the paintings in the gallery (shhh don’t tell anyone) but I urge you to do so this time. By reading the panels I found out that …

Michael Jordon’s gold shoes were different sizes to accommodate his size 11 and 10.5 feet.

I was super lucky to actually be there to watch him run in these once. One of those pinch me moments which the exhibition enabled me to relive.

A humble looking kangaroo inspired sneaker that has a secret pouch and is one of only sixty pairs.

A minty fresh looking shoe based on The Astor Theatre, yes Perth’s Astor Theatre, for the

25th anniversary. The only pair of its kind ever made.

Then there are the extremely rare prototypes complete with mark ups, like the moon boot by artist Tom Sachs.

Some of the older styles are stunning.

Amazing that they’re still in such good condition.

The exhibition is held under soft lights to make sure they don’t degrade any further.

Then there’s the ‘pump’ pair made out of tennis ball material. Wonder why we haven’t seen any modern day players using these? They might help mop up some of the sweat.

And the ones with the Obama foot tread.

As I sit here a day later still pondering what I’ve seen my advice is …

The exhibition is discretely educational in so many ways, sure you’ll learn about shoe design but also branding, marketing and heaps of pop culture references.

Make sure you eat lunch before setting off on the journey and leave enough time to really get

involved with what you’re seeing.

Be prepared to be dwarfed by hundreds of those rarely seen creatures … the six foot plus lanky male Australian teenager. They were everywhere on Saturday. I’ve never seen so many in one place.

This is yet another ‘must see’ exhibition from the Gallery. Thank God it’s on for a while. Many thanks for bringing it to us.

Stay tuned for more from this exhibition. In the meantime make sure you get to see this one.

It’s free!

For more information go to Art Gallery of WA All photographs courtesy of The Ponder Room.

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BOOKS JUST OUT Title: Author: Publisher: ISBN:

After the Tumbles and Tangles Angie Salamah Balboa Press Australia 9781 5043 0411 5

A

ngie Salamah’s willingness to help people through hard times prompted her to write her book titled After the Tumbles and Tangles: A Guide to Good Thoughts which shows readers how to change the undeniable relationship between their thoughts and the lives they create for themselves.

This collection of short, thought-provoking poems inspire readers to take small, accessible steps to a healthier emotional life. It includes encouraging quotes providing a positive outlook through difficult times. It can be used as a reference through hardship or times of feeling down.

“This book will appeal to readers because people will be able to relate to some of the quotes, from their own personal e x p e r i e n c e s ,” Salamah says. “It is very raw and speaks from the heart. This is something people can identify with.”

After the Tumbles and Tangles hopes to provide readers with a feeling of optimism and a knowing that they are not alone.

Salamah would like readers to feel a sense of belonging and understanding through the poems she shared in this book.

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Have a book to publish?

R Family History R Non-Fiction R Autobiography R Biography R Fantasy R Fiction R Poetry

Get expert advice on layout, editing, costings, publishing and marketing from professional editors First consultation free Free quotes

Swinburne Press (founded 1989) P: 6296 5161 E: douglassb@iinet.net.au

34

Publisher: Balboa Press Australia ISBN: 9781 5043 0703 1

your life, both positively and negatively.

About the Author By understanding more fully, perhaps Angie Salamah is a clairsentient. She was a even more clearly, you will be able to successful advertising manager, working with negotiate your life within these universal leading magazines. She often found herself at laws to fulfill your needs, wants, and the end of board meetings, providing insight to desires for yourself. When you gain a fuller others. understanding of universal laws, you will This led to her decision to use her gift to be able to create a happier and more joyassist people through their setbacks and to bring filled life experience, one you wish for their attention to the effectiveness of positivity. yourself: the wonderful life you deserve.

She lives in Sydney with her husband and their two children. The self-professed caffeine addict works from home, writing and painting. Readers Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble can catch her on Twitter: angieswallofhrt and on About the Author Dr. Elizabeth Conway earned a doctorate in Instagram: angieswallofheart. metaphysics. She was a teacher for twenty years before becoming a small business owner for the ~oOo~ next twenty years.

Title: Beyond the Law of Attraction Conway then embarked on a personal study Author: Elizabeth Conway of spirituality, completing her Reiki masters.

Publisher: Balboa Press Australia A certified counselor, Angel Intuitive and ISBN: 9781 5043 0707 9 metaphysical therapist, she is the owner of ISIS r. Elizabeth Conway marks her debut in the Vision Institute, a spirituality school. publishing scene with the release of Beyond the Law of Attraction: How to Work with the ~oOo~ Universe for a Happy and Successful Life Journey . Title: Black Sand and Betel Nut This guidebook Author: Suellen Holland offers a discussion Publisher: Balboa Press Australia of universal laws ISBN: 9781 5043 0738 3 to help readers understand the hen her family moved again from Australia power they possess to Papua New Guinea in 1960, little to create the life of did Suellen Holland know the land and their choosing. its people would change her life dramatically,

“There is a mold and shape harmony and her character, balance to our lives and bring her even though we adventures and may not realize it, e x p e r i e n c e s particularly when beyond belief. our lives seem out Black Sand and of balance,” Conway says.

Betel Nut details Gaining a better understanding of how life her childhood in can work through the harmonious connection Rabaul, the town with universal laws is what this book is about. she grew up in, that It answers the following questions: What was completely is “The Secret” and the law of attraction? How wiped out by a can one implement them? What are the other volcanic eruption universal laws? How can one use these laws to in 1994. Holland’s create a successful life experience? How do the candid collection of universal laws work with the law of attraction? stories recall the halcyon days of her childhood How can a person connect with spirituality? and pays tribute to a place she will always call “There are many looking for answers to home. life and how they can live a better and happier “There are only a few books written about life. Beyond the Law of Attraction teaches pre-independent Papua New Guinea. Black Sand self-empowerment through metaphysical and Betel Nut offers an insight to a different way spirituality,” the author shares. of life,” the author shares. “It is for a life so very “You have the power to successfully create different from the normal.” a happy and joy-filled life of your choosing Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble because you have been given the insights for understanding along with strategies and tools About the Author that work so you can stay on track.”

Suellen Holland was born in India. When she A snippet from the book reads: was three, her family left India to start a new life This book will not only teach you universal in Australia. Four years later, they left Australia spiritual concepts, it will also empower to live in Papua New Guinea. you with knowledge from understanding, knowledge that is beyond what you ~oOo~ currently know. This book is all about Title: Two White Pigeons understanding better how you create Author: Sylvia Hammann

D

W

I

nspired by listening to ghost stories as a child, Sylvia Hammann wrote Two White Pigeons to share with readers an amusing supernatural tale, rather than a frightening one.

In the book, a young woman named Julie encounters ghost named Lilli begging her to help her still-living husband.

When Julie’s husband, Dan, dies unexpectedly during surgery, Julie finds herself overcome with grief. Intent on escaping the memories, she runs away, ending up a small town aptly named Runaway. Evading the past and the townsfolk and following a mysterious voice, Julie finds an abandoned house with a horse wandering around.

Julie stays the night and meet a ghost named Lilli who died riding the horse. Lilli wants Julie to save her husband, Dale, who has been living in a booze-filled stupor since she died. Although she plans to leave, Julie discovers there is no way to leave Runaway until she does.

Hammann hopes that her book will appeal to readers because of the range of emotions covers, saying that it has scary, funny and romantic moments, as well as themes of love and death.

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

About the Author Sylvia Hammann grew up in a remote small town in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia. She left school at the age of thirteen and eventually became a fisherperson.

She has three children and sixteen grandchildren and now lives in an Australian fishing town named Karumba. Hammann has also written Under a Morning Glory Cloud. ~oOo~ Title: Author: Publisher: ISBN:

A

Awakenings John Hall Xlibris Australia 9781 5035 0949 8

wakenings describes the unfolding poetic journey as the writer explores his connection with God - the Universe - as a result of exposure to various meditative practices.

In reality, Hall reveals his journey as he learns to “connect” with self and listen to his “inner” voice. He endeavors to capture those thoughts that he believes “oftentimes, pass through all of our minds and seek answers or, perhaps, recognition and acceptance.”

“Many people are grappling with the meaning of their life – my poetry shares with them my thoughts on this subject – my poetry may resonate with some of them.” Hall says.

About the Author John Hall says he is a man on a mission – to better understand himself and his place in the world. Over the years he has explored various modalities to understand the meaning of life – including therapy, meditation, reading – it was only in poetry that he finally found himself able to express the wandering thoughts in his head and, more importantly, to express his “feelings.”

Hall’s poetry is more about “feeling” than thought and, whilst he only started writing a couple of years ago, he has found connection with other “kindred spirits” who have found themselves on the same journey. ~oOo~

REVIEWS Title: Author: Publisher: Reviewer:

Y

Echoes in Death J D Robb Piatkus Books Karen R Treanor

et another adventure in the ongoing saga of Lt Eve Dallas, set in the slightly distant future. New York in 2061 is even more dangerous than Midsomer County; victims literally walk out in front of the police, even when they are off duty.

On the way home from an obligatory appearance at a charity ball, Eve and her incredibly rich and handsome husband Roarke see a naked, bloody and nearly frozen woman walk in front of their car.

Dashing to the nearest hospital with the victim, Eve starts investigating what is clearly a crime even as the ER doctors work to save the woman’s life.

Daphne Strazza has been brutalised, drugged and frightened near to death—and when Eve goes to her home to inform her husband, she finds him in even worse condition—stone cold dead.

Daphne has a hard time remembering what happened, but keeps insisting the devil himself was the killer. When Eve brushes off her first thought, that the woman is hallucinating, she

looks into other crimes involving strong violence and inhuman-appearing criminals.

Not surprisingly, she turns up a similar case where a man made up as a vampire attacked a woman in her own home and beat her husband badly.

Pulling together her usual team of sidekick Delia Peabody, medical examiner Morris, the bull pen of detectives including Baxter, Trueheart and the Carmichaels, Eve hopes to track down the sadistic killer before another death lands in her precinct. This is a forlorn hope: the killer strikes again, and this time he kills both the husband and the wife.

The investigation takes Eve into the foreign territory of events organising and party catering, activities that she has up to now been happy to leave to her husband’s major domo, Summerset, on those occasions when she’s had to entertain a crowd.

Thanks to information from one of the organisers, Eve gets a clue to the person she’s looking for. Re-interviewing some of the previous victims and comparing their experiences with the testimony of the latest victim, Eve begins to form a picture of the killer.

Quite early in the investigation she’s sure she’s on the right track - a very dark and bloody track - but she needs solid proof, something a jury can’t ignore.

Finding the souvenirs the killer takes from each crime scene would close the case, but judges in 2061 aren’t any quicker to grant search warrants on a cop’s hunch than they are now.

Readers familiar with the series won’t be surprised at Eve’s way of overcoming this hurdle.

As with the previous books in the “In Death” series, author Robb has juggled crime, mystery, romance and fast action with a deft hand.

She’s not going to win the Nobel Prize for literature, but her books always satisfy a reader in search of a few hours of well-plotted escapism.

Nora Roberts (aka J. D. Robb, Jill March and Sarah Hardesty)

35

HEALTH

WRITING WHAT’S HAPPENING AT KSP

WORLD-FIRST DISCOVERY

SHANNON COYLE

AWARD FOR PROFESSOR PHILLIPS

it. I was used to kissing hands and books, especially holy books. Kissing doors didn’t strike me as an odd thing to do,’ says Hannah, the main character in The Historian’s Daughter.

Rashida is an author from Perth currently undertaking a residency at the KSP Writers’ Centre in Greenmount to progress her second novel.

A

t the Open Day of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Edith Cowan University Honorary Professor Glen Phillips was presented with a Community Service Award commemorating thirty-two years of dedicated service to the Centre.

On behalf of the Minister for Volunteering, Hon Mick Murray MLA, Jennifer Matthews (Director General of the Department of Local Government and Communities) said the award recognised Glen’s extraordinary and significant commitment as a volunteer to building the spirit, creativity and resilience of the community.

Chairperson of the KSP Writers’ Centre, Tabetha Beggs, reminded the Open Day audience that it was Glen who had written, back in 1984, to the then Minister for the Environment asking to acquire the former home of Australia’s first great international novelist, Katharine Susannah Prichard.

It was to be ‘for a community arts venue which would be the envy of other states and indeed be admired by other countries.’ Tabetha reminded that Glen was elected inaugural chairperson at the Centre’s first official committee meeting in August 1985.

Since then Glen has many times served as Chair, vice-Chair and several other capacities as well as serving as a long-time representative of the Centre on the board of writingWA. These days he is a member of the KSP Literary Advisory Board and is the Centre’s official Patron. Glen provides the opening address at the KSP Annual Open Day and at the celebration of Katharine’s Birthday’ each year. One of the writers’ studios in the Centre’s grounds is named after him.

Tabetha ended by saying: ‘We on the board are constantly amazed

by Glen’s output as a poet, publishing multiple books each year and presenting papers at international conferences … He is also a proud advocate in preserving the memory of Katharine Susannah Prichard, giving talks about her legacy as a renowned but often controversial West Australian author.’

In his current capacity of Director of the International Centre for Landscape and Language at ECU, Glen says he intends to continue to provide a link between the Writers Centres and the writing students of Edith Cowan University.

In the past many students have gone on to become members of these centres, even selected as Writers-in-Residence or serving in management.

It was an ECU writing student, Trudy Graham, who was the founder of the Northern Writers Association which became the Peter Cowan 36

Writers Centre.

With the recent loss of state funding to WA’s literary organisations, it is more important than ever to grow and strengthen these connections in order to save the sector.

It should go without saying, but it’s worth reminding ourselves, that the WA literary community owes Glen a debt of gratitude.

This special award goes a small way in recognising over thirty years of contributions to the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre and in shaping the Perth writing community as a whole.

RASHIDA MURPHY BRINGS CONQUISTADORS TO PERTH Conquistadors, otherwise known as sixteenth century Spanish conquerors, are brought to life in Rashida Murphy’s debut novel The Historian’s Daughter from UWA Publishing, which spans India and Perth.

‘For a long time I thought it meant come-kissthe-doors. I thought it meant I was supposed to kiss the doors of the library every time I entered

The residency also offers a variety of public events in which to meet Rashida – and her conquistadors.

Rashida’s work has been published in various international literary journals and anthologies.

In 2016 she was the joint winner of the Magdalena Prize for feminist research for her thesis – including the novel The Historian’s Daughter – which was also shortlisted in the Scottish Dundee International Book Prize in 2015.

For more details, please visit the KSP website on www.kspwriterscentre.com.

MUNDARING ARTS CENTRE Come in to discover the latest exhibitions and a wide range of locally made, hand crafted pieces, many of which are exclusive to the Mundaring Arts Centre Viewing Hours

10am - 5pm Tues – Fri 11am - 3pm Sat & Sun Closed Mon & P/Holidays + 25 Dec-13 Feb

7190 Great Eastern Highway (corner Nichol Street) Mundaring WA 6073 | T: +61 8 9295 3991 www.mundaringartscentre.com.au

n a world-first discovery, scientists at Sydney’s Iidentified Westmead Institute for Medical Research have a protein that causes liver fibrosis

(scarring), paving the way for new treatments for liver disease to be developed.

For the first time, researchers have unequivocally shown that variations in the interferon lambda 3 (INLF3) protein are responsible for tissue damage in the liver.

The international team, led by Professor Jacob George and Doctor Mohammed Eslam at the Westmead Institute, had previously identified that the common genetic variations associated with liver fibrosis were located on chromosome 19 between the IFNL3 and IFNL4 genes.

Building on this research in their latest study, the team analysed liver samples from 2000 patients with Hepatitis C, using stateof-the art genetic and functional analysis, to determine the specific IFNL protein responsible for liver fibrosis.

The research demonstrated that following injury there is increased migration of inflammatory cells from blood to the liver, increasing IFNL3 secretion and liver damage.

Notably, this response is determined to a great extent by an individual’s inherited genetic makeup. Lead author of the study, Professor Jacob George, said this was a significant outcome that will help to predict risk of liver disease for individuals, enabling early intervention and lifestyle changes.

“Liver disease is now the fifth most common cause of death in Australia, affecting six million Australians, and with significant financial cost to the health system.

“We have designed a diagnostic tool based on our discoveries, which is freely available for all doctors to use, to aid in predicting liver fibrosis risk.

“This test will help to determine whether an individual is at high risk of developing liver fibrosis, or whether a patient’s liver disease will progress rapidly or slowly, based on their genetic makeup.

“This important discovery will play a vital role in reducing the burden of liver disease into the future,” Professor George said.

Co-lead author, Doctor Mohammed Eslam, said this discovery holds great promise for the development of effective therapeutic treatments for liver disease.

“There is an urgent need for a safe pharmacologic therapy that can prevent of regress the progression of liver damage.

There are currently no treatments available for patients with advanced fibrosis, and liver transplantation is the only treatment for liver failure.

“Now that we’ve identified IFNL3 as the cause of liver scarring, we can work towards developing novel treatments specifically targeting this gene.

“This could be medicine targeting IFNL3 that is tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup, but could also include modifying usual treatment depending on whether a patient has IFNL3 risk genes. Our results show that it is possible to develop new targeted treatments for liver fibrosis and possibly even scarring in other organs such as the heart, lung and kidneys.”

Dr Eslam said these outcomes fulfil several promises in the modern era of precision medicine.

“Firstly, it brings us closer to the goal of personalised medicine. Secondly, we have a better understand of biology and the way the human body works. Finally, we are a step closer to developing novel potential treatments for liver disease,” Dr Eslam concluded.

The research team will now extend their work to further understand the fundamental mechanisms of how IFNL3 contributes to liver disease progression and to translate these discoveries into new therapeutic treatments.

The results of the study were published online in the Nature Genetics journal on 10 April 2017.

Key facts: . Liver disease is now the fifth most common cause of death in Australia, affecting six million Australians. . Half of all deaths in the Western world are attributed to disease of tissue scarring, including liver fibrosis. . It is projected that eight million Australians will have liver disease by 2030. . Interferons are naturally occurring proteins that are part of our immune response. There are several types of interferon proteins that, once activated, promote immune attack against viruses and other causes of injury. . Uncontrolled activation of the IFNL3 protein leads to tissue damage in the liver.

About The Westmead Institute: The Westmead Institute for Medical Research is one of the largest medical research institutes in Australia, conducting research into a wide range of important human disorders affecting both adults and children.

Their research spans cancer (including melanoma) and leukemia; infectious and immune diseases; liver and metabolic diseases; eye and brain related disorders; and heart and respiratory disorders.

Our ‘bench to bedside’ philosophy ensures patients benefit from our latest research discoveries. The Westmead Institute is proudly affiliated with The University of Sydney and Westmead Hospital.

PERKINS RESEARCHER APPOINTED of Australia’s leading scientists has Ofromnebeensixteen chosen alongside forty researchers countries to receive a prestigious

international scholarship that will fund his research.

Professor Ryan Lister, who heads the Epigenetics and Genomics Laboratory at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and the University of Western Australia, has been appointed as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholar.

HHMI is an eminent science foundation based in Maryland USA, dedicated to advancing biomedical research by investing in scientific thought leaders, emerging research pioneers and students who aspire to be tomorrow’s scientific innovators. In its program to develop scientific talent worldwide, HHMI partners with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Professor Lister is recognised for conducting ground-breaking work in mapping the epigenome, the millions of chemical tags added to the DNA of genomes in various locations that can control whether nearby genes are turned on or off.

Professor Lister said the $650,000 USD award delivers strong long-term funding to support a range of new research programs.

“This award allows us to conduct longer-term research projects that can be more challenging to undertake in conventional shorter-term grant funding cycles, and it provides us with the flexibility to explore new ideas and research directions. I’m thrilled to be appointed an HHMI International Research Scholar, and extremely grateful for the generous support that the award provides.

“This award will enable my lab to pursue new research aimed at understanding and manipulating the epigenome in health and disease states. Furthermore, it will provide new opportunities to interact and collaborate with other HHMI scientists from around the world.”

Professor Lister has previously been awarded some of Australia’s highest scientific honours in recognition of his leadership in stem cell research.

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The Royal Western Australian Historical Society Inc. Annual State History Conference of Affiliated Societies 8th to 10th September 2017

Wanneroo Where History Meets Today

Program Friday 8th September – Civic Reception Saturday 9th September – Conference Conference Dinner Sunday 10th September – Tours, Lunch and Closing

COULD YOU LOVE TILLY ?

Proudly Hosted by Wanneroo Historical Society Inc.

management, write stories for publications, do public relations and administrative work.

Email and internet makes volunteering possible from anywhere.

We’d also love to welcome more foster carers to our network in Perth and across the state. Fostering is a vital role as it provides rehabilitation, training, caring and loving of animals to prepare them for their new lives with permanent owners.

We are always in need of donations to pay vet bills - every rescue animal has to be desexed, vaccinated and microchipped. Volunteer fundraisers and marketers to help raise these much needed funds.

If you’d like to donate: www.safe.asn.au/How_to_help/Donate.html If you’d like to make a difference and join our team of volunteers and foster carers, please email karratha@safe.asn.au or phone us at SAFE Karratha at (08) 9185 4634.

PETS DOGS IN PUBLIC Shire of Mundaring is seeking public Twherehefeedback on dog exercise areas and locations dogs will be prohibited.

Registrations now open Contact: margaret@Inet.net.au or birchmont21@hotmail.com

Tilly - picture by Darren Bridges, Shutter Paws

t SAFE we are very proud of the fact we are Avolunteer a state-wide organisation coupled with support from right across Australia.

SAFE was founded in the small north-west town of Karratha in 2003 by Sue Hedley and has now expanded to include an additional nine branches across Western Australia: Broome, Port Hedland, Newman, Carnarvon, Goldfields, Albany, Esperance, Bunbury and Busselton.

In addition to that our Executive Officer is based in Tasmania, our profile writing and photography co-ordinator is in Melbourne and our design and communications guru is based in Mandurah…and that’s only a few of our extensive team.

We have volunteers across the country supporting the work that all our branches achieve.

Our diversity means we are able to have animals in foster care in an array of locations while they await their permanent homes.

Our connections mean they often then fly around the country to their new homes.

Long-legged Tilly is currently in foster care in Perth. This one-year-old pup is tall and lanky and full of loving energy. She’s still growing and can be a little clumsy as she grows into her body.

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Tilly would be a great pet with children over eight who are big enough not to be knocked over by her excited waggly tail.

Tilly loves walks, playing with other dogs and exploring her back yard. This little lady needs a couple of walks a day and would happily go four or five times if you’re keen!

With consistent training she will add quickly to all the skills she’s already learned.

Tilly is such a softie that after all her playing she loves nothing more than a nap and cuddle with her favourite humans, even if she is getting a bit too big to be a lap dog.

This gorgeous girl can’t wait to meet her new family for some fun and laughs. Call SAFE Karratha on 08 9185 4634.

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING FOR SAFE? Have you thought about volunteering for SAFE? SAFE is a not for profit organisation that saves rehomeable animals from euthanasia.

We have volunteers working effectively from all over the country performing an array of tasks. Our overheads are kept small as we rely on our volunteers to care for the animals, take photographs, write profiles, co-ordinate photographers and profilers, do website content

The specified areas form part of a proposal which was supported at a recent council meeting.

Shire President David Lavell said the proposal was developed because Council wanted to provide the community with further clarification around where they could and couldn’t exercise their dogs.

“It also means people who are not necessarily dog lovers, know they can visit a public place in a dog-free environment,” he said.

A dog exercise area is a location where a dog can be exercised “off leash” by someone who is capable of controlling the dog. In addition, that person must also be carrying a leash in case the dog needs to be restrained.

The proposed dog exercise areas are listed on the Shire’s website and include Bellevue; Chidlow; Darlington; Glen Forrest; Helena Valley; Midvale; Mount Helena; Mundaring; Parkerville; Sawyers Valley; Stoneville and Swan View.

Proposed prohibited areas include shireowned and managed public buildings, Blackboy Hill Memorial, Mundaring and Wooroloo Cemeteries, Lake Leschenaultia and Sculpture Park Children’s Playground. Under the current proposal, dogs will not be permitted within the boundary of play equipment areas and on sporting ovals during play and maintenance work.

Any public place that is not specified in the proposal as either a Dog Exercise Area or a Prohibited Area would come under the general requirements of the Dog Act 1976 which means dogs must be on a leash.

Comments can be provided via email to shire@mundaring.wa.gov.au noting “dog exercise/prohibited areas” in the subject line.

Alternatively, hard copy letters can be directed to Shire of Mundaring, 7000 Great Eastern Hwy, Mundaring, WA 6073.

The public notice comment period closes at 4pm on Monday, 19 June 2017.

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