Swan Magazine, January 2017 by Douglas Sutherland-Bruce

Unit 8 Vale Town Centre 31 Egerton Drive Aveley WA 6069 Phone: 9296 7688

Email: frank.alban@mp.wa.gov.au

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Entertainment Fun & Excitement

Entertainment From 4pm Onwards

AUSTRALIA DAY 26th January 2017

Then 6pm for Guinness World Record Attempt

Sir James Michell Park South Perth

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25 MARCH 2014

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FORM THE BIGGEST HUMAN BLOOD DROP On Australia Day we come together to celebrate what’s great about Australia and being Australian. So on January 26th 2017 thousands of people throughout Perth will head down to Sir James Mitchell Park in South Perth and join the celebrations in ‘The Great Aussie Blood Group’ ‘every body counts’ Guinness World Record’ attempt to form the world’s biggest human blood drop! The Great Aussie Blood Group Guinness World Record attempt is not only an opportunity to celebrate the ‘uniting of people’ but also to increase awareness that blood disorders can happen to anybody, at any age, at any time, with no real warning!

FOR MORE INFO, CALL 9368 7589

BE A PART OF HISTORY! 100%

greataussiebloodgroup.org.au COST $10 PER PERSON OR $30 FAMILY OF 4 { 2 ADULTS, 2 KIDS } { INCLUDES HAT & CERTIFICATE }

Club of Mill Point 2

IN THIS ISSUE FEATURES

PAGE

House & Garden

Are Solar Panels Worth It?

Books Editorial Fiction The Time-Travelling Bullets A Weighty Problem Freedom Flight 515 Gypsy Dreaming One Space or Two? Poetry Evening Poem for Ryan Mr Genomi Gardenomi The Inexplicable To My Legs

32 2

Business Card Board Finance with Steve

44 31

Child Abduction Federal Notes International Child Abduction Letters to the Editor Notes From Parliament

36 5 10 30 5

Books and Writing

Business

Community

34 39 40 3 33 6 11 19 41 13

SWAN MAGAZINE

PAGE People’s Choice Award for Youth 6 Protecting Local Treasures 7 SAFE 43 SVRN 8 Icon Opens in Midland 8 City of Swan Wards Review 9 Ellenbrook - Bring the Noise 9 What’s On 15 Woman on the Rise 3 Entertainment

2016 Finley Results Film with James Kookaburra January Theatre with Gordon

29 26 27 28

Douglas’ Wineries & Dineries Drink Junction Icecreamery Letter from South Africa Mandoon Rose and Crown Turns 175

20 23 22 25 21 24

Styled by Kirsty

Food & Wine

Style & Fashion

WEBSITE:

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

THE GREAT AUSSIE BLOOD GROUP ADRIANA FILIPPOU

he Perth Blood Institute together with Rotary Club of Mill Point will come together with the Community in a celebration on Australia Day 2017! Rotary Club of Mill Point unites West Australians from different backgrounds, cultures, religious and political beliefs from all over WA, allowing ordinary people to do extraordinary things! On Australia Day we come together to celebrate what's great about Australia and being Australian. It's the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great country. So on January 26th 2017 thousands of people throughout Perth will head down to Sir James Mitchell Park in South Perth and join the celebrations in ‘The Great Aussie Blood Group’ ‘every body counts’ Guinness world record’ attempt to form the world’s biggest human blood drop! 'The Great Aussie Blood Group - every body counts’ Guinness World Record’ attempt is not only an opportunity to celebrate the ‘uniting of people’ but also to increase awareness that blood disorders can happen to anybody, at any age, at any time, with no real warning! Promoting and championing our Mission, Perth Blood Institute Ambassador, Shelley Taylor-Smith communicates and generates awareness of our purpose within the local community. As Shelley says ‘together we can make a difference and ‘Remember, Life is a team sport!’ Register your interest now! For further info, please contact Adriana Filippou on 9200 4904 or adriana@pbi.org.au.

Front Page Photograph: Australia Day. Photograph: Roboriginal (123Rf) See editorial on page 2 ...

EDITORIAL FIRES, CHANGES AND NEWS

s I sit at my computer writing this in my office in Upper Swan the air is still thick with the acrid smell of yesterday’s bushfire that came so close, but that did no damage to any property in the more than 120 hectares it has burnt out. Reminding us again, if reminder were needed, of the selfless men and women of the professional and volunteer fire brigades who risk their lives to protect us and our property. Yesterday, at the height of blaze, when more than thirty homes were at risk, with the wind blowing strongly from the wrong direction and the temperature in the high 30s, I went out anxiously looking at the pall of smoke and thinking that I was very glad that there were people out there working and that it wasn’t me. On which entirely selfish thought I’d like to express my admiration for their courage, dedication and, I am sure I speak for all Western Australians here, thanks to the management and personnel of the Bush Fire Service, Volunteer Fire and Emergency Services, Department of Parks and Wildlife and Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

Photograph courtesy of City of Swan

Ingrid Shevlin from Kwa-Zulu Natal. Ms Shevlin has worked in newspaper publishing and has been a journalist and editor since the early 1970s. Now retired, she has opened a food blog called Shrewd Food detailing trends, reviews and memorable meals. She is very knowledgeable about her chosen passion and the restaurant scene in Kwa-Zulu Natal. When I left South Africa in 1974 the restaurant scene was barely in existance - most restaurants were in hotels, there was one FASHION EDITOR Chinese Restaurant in Durban and almost no Our talented and dedicated Fashion Editor, stand-alone restaurants. Take-away fast food Kirsty, is moving onwards and upwards, moving was unknown - burgers consisted of a Wimpy Bar her business, now re-branded as Kirsty Milligan - in the OK Bazaars and only in 1973 did Durban get Stylist, to Melbourne. a pizza joint - Napoleon’s off Smith We wish her well in the move, Street. but we’re not saying ‘good-bye’ Actual take-away food was but ‘hooray’, because she is going the Durban invention, a Bunny to be continuing to give us her two Chow, half a loaf of bread with the page spread each month, featuring middle scooped out, filled with rich the latest from Melbourne mixed hot lamb curry and the plug pushed in with her informative hints and back in (cost then, five cents) tips and gorgeous photographs. Today, all that has changed, By the same token it’s now although the Bunny Chow is at over two years since we went Kirsty Milligan - Stylist least as popular (cost now roughly entirely digital and on-line and the thirty-five rand. There are 100 readership went from thirty odd thousand to over cents to the Rand) and South Africa has as a hundred thousand and while we are still based sophisticated a dining scene as anywhere else, in the Swan Valley and Perth Hills, electronic with gifted chefs and an incredible range of copies are sent to Tasmania, the Eastern States, fresh, native ingredients and produce. the United States, the UK and South Africa, so If you’d like to check out some of Ms Shevlin’s it’s probably time we expanded our base into the writings and get a good view of the dining scene Eastern States. in KWN do visit her blog: www.shrewdfood.co.za We already get feedback from the east and it’s well worth a visit and a browse, although have writers and contributors who live there and guaranteed to make you hungry. while we’ll always have local content many of the articles have a wider application and the thought HOLIDAY READING pieces are obviously universal. As most people are now on holiday, enjoying a well-earned break, toasting gently on a beach NEW WRITERS somewhere, or just having a lazy ‘stay-cation’ at Speaking of South Africa, where so many home with the phone off the hook and your feet of Western Australians come from, we are very up, its your chance to catch up with some light pleased to announce that we have managed reading and this we have provided in abundance. to secure the services of foremost food writer Complete in this issue, for example, is a 2

short story by James Forte, an award-winning playwright now having a crack at his first love detective fiction. But not just any detective fiction, the locked-room mystery kind which has fascinated him ever since he could read. The locked-room genre is a perfectly unique division of the ouvré, invented in 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe with his short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, widely accepted as the first real mystery story and which established the traditions of the amateur expert, an idiot friend, an unexpected solution and the solution before the

explanation. This was the formula that was followed by Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson); Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings); Dorothy L Sayers (Lord Peter and Bunter); Margery Allingham (Albert Campion and Maagersfontein Lugg); Harry Blyth (Sexton Blake and Tinker); Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin) and so on and etcetera. James’ effort is well worth a read and an admirable effort, although his depiction of the newspaper’s editor is entirely unbelievable. Holiday is also a time to dine out and we have reviews of holiday food - ice cream from the wonderful Junction Icecreamery in Midland as well as fine dining at Mandoon Estate. There are reviews of books, films, plays, and information about up-coming events and a good deal of ‘what to see’, what to do’ and ‘where to go’. We have poetry, thought pieces, long and short fiction as well as background information that we all need to know. Please enjoy our bumper holiday reading issue and we here at Swan Magazine, Publisher, Editor, staff and contributors wish you all a safe, happy and prosperous New Year.

HOLIDAY READING

COMMUNITY

GYPSY DREAMING - HITTING THE OPEN ROAD

WOMAN ON THE RISE

KARLA HOOPER

eriously, it didn’t all happen straight away… me quitting my corporate job, hitting the wide open road and chasing camels around the outback. Firstly, it was freakin scary, especially the thought of driving around remote Australia as a single female. If you’ve seen Wolf Creek or heard of the Falconio case, you’d understand what I’m talking about. So, my new motto became ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. You see, there’s always little seeds planted along the way, before we make our big decisions. My friend had travelled solo around the great Ozzy outback, and not only was she OK, but she made it look easy. I was inspired that I could do the same. But I was living in Darwin, and there were no camels up that neck of the wood. So where the bloody hell should I start? I was in no rush. I was waiting for the universe to give me a sign. I always got signs. And then, I was reading the local Darwin newspaper (NT News) and I saw an ad for camels in Darwin… what the?! I called straight away. On the other end of the phone was an interesting character from Mt Isa, passionate about camels and so committed, he’d been putting ads in newspapers all around Australia to source other fellow camel people. After an hour

on the phone it was decided… My first camel stop was to be Mt Isa, an outback mining town in Queensland. Often known for simply being ‘bloody hot’. It was time to hit the wide open road. I packed Rusty and I into the car, chucked in a couple of backpackers for support and good measure, and we-were-off. The adventure had begun! First up was a quick stop off in Perth. I used this opportunity to offload some goods, catch up with friends and family and get prepared for the adventure ahead. And then it was time to go solo… I was Mt Isa bound and the Nullarbor Plain was in my sights. For those not familiar, the Nullarbor comes with a few stories of its own… namely (in my case). UFO’s. Holy eeeek, I’d be lying if I said this didn’t play on my mind. There were thoughts of abduction, sightings and all sorts of crazy things. But actually this treeless stretch of straight road that lasted two days was absolutely magical and the freedom I felt on my first night camping will be etched in my mind for eternity. Rusty and I were free and loving life. After many hours and days of driving, we finally arrived in ‘The Isa’ and my first camel encounter was near… To be continued…

ills business woman, Jay Crisp Crow, a copywriter from Parkerville, has been recognised for her business success and willingness to help others as part of the Women on the Rise awards. The 2016 panel discussion and event is run by Business Women Australia, a Perth based nationwide group for women in enterprise. “The majority of my clients are women in business,” Jay said. “After receiving such tremendous assistance from business women both locally and online to begin my business, it’s both an honour and a responsibility to share what I’ve learned”. The event was a panel ‘Oprah style’ interview session by Noongar Wellbeing & Sports CEO, Karyn Lisignoli. Panellists were asked questions about values in professional and personal lives, challenges faced as young, female entrepreneurs, and for advice about support and networks. All three panellists at the event were nominated multiple times by their clients and peers and more than one hundred business women attended the awards event to hear the panel speak about their successes and lessons learned. Business Women Australia Director Lyn Hawkins said that the judges chose Jay to be on the panel because her nominees described her generous spirit and business acumen. "Jay is a successful solo entrepreneur whose honesty, work ethic and values underpin her achievements - she is a strong role model for women in business." This is what was described about Jay by her nominees: "Jay Crisp Crow is definitely a woman on the rise and she is helping other women in business find their rising stars too. She has a fantastic business to help and inspire women to live their dreams." Jay established her communications business in 2014 to offer her skills as a writer and editor and help individuals, as well as small businesses around the globe. “Jay is renowned for helping people communicate and has developed training for numerous women in business. She is one of those special women who will go a long way in business, but she will also help others rise too. Jay encouraged women in business to cease to feel intimated by the success of other women” says Ms Hawkins. “It can be tough to admit you don’t have all the answers. You often look at these vibrant, powerhouse women from the outside and assume they have it all under control – family, business, lifestyle,” says Jay. “I’ve begun to realise that the truly successful small business women are the ones who can build a community and a support system. “When we can share insights and advice, that’s when we really start to thrive.” 3

NOTES FROM PARLIAMENT HON ALYSSA HAYDEN MLC

Member for East Metropolitan Region

A HOME FOR MIDLAND MENS SHED

I set up a Working Committee with members of the Midland Mens Shed, City of Swan and Cr Daniel Parasiliti to find and establish a location with the deadline being before Christmas - and we have just scraped in with an interim solution being found. The Midland Mens Shed has signed an agreement with the City of Swan to use the Midvale Clubrooms in Swan Avenue as its base and Cr Daniel Parsiliti and I attended the official signing of the agreement and celebrated with members. The Square Dance Association of WA and the Callers Association of WA have generously surrendered their space in making the “workshop space” available to the Midland Mens Shed. The Swan Districts Homing Club and the Swan progressive Axemens Association have all also agreed to accommodate the requirements of the Midland Mens Shed, while we search for a permanent home. I wish to thank all these clubs for their compassion and understanding. When the Premier was in Midland during the Community Cabinet two weeks ago, I took him around to show him an alternative long term solution and we hope that we may be able to commit to a permanent home shortly. The benefits for the Midland Mens Shed having their own home will enable them to undertake many more community projects that will engage all ages from around the region.” HON KEN WYATT AM, MP As always, keeping you in touch with my Member for Hasluck, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care activities.

n my role as the local Member for the East Metropolitan Region, I have been working closely with the President, David Savage and Secretary, Kevin Buckland of the Midland Mens Shed looking for a new home for the group for quite a few years, identifying locations for a permanent home. I have also been working collaboratively with the City of Swan and Cr Daniel Parasiliti, who is a member of the Midland Mens Shed, to agree on a location. The Midland Mens Shed is a very successful organisation and I congratulate them on attracting such a high number of members to their meetings which are currently held at the Baptist Church in Bellevue. However they have outgrown this venue for their meetings and we have been on the hunt for a location that will cater for their weekly meetings as well as workshop space to house their machinery and tools. I am disappointed it has taken so long for the Mens Shed to find a home as it may be the only Mens Shed without a shed.

FEDERAL NOTES

AGED CARE

would like to take this opportunity to wish all the Swan Magazine readers and their families a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous 2017. I hope you have enjoyed the festive season with your loved ones and are looking forward to another year of adventures, new successes and milestones. It is an absolute honour for me to find myself in the position to be able to guide and provide stewardship to a process of aged care reforms announced last year. In 2017, we will see a consolidation of these changes which are both necessary and will bring a great deal of benefit to our communities, across the whole country in all its diversity. Our reforms are built on the core principle that people are the centre of the system – and individual consumers, now and in the future, must be able to choose the kind of care and support they need, where and when they need it. The reforms taking place this year will streamline and integrate the system to preserve its strength, ensuring it is sustainable, responsive

and puts the needs of individuals at the centre of care. We have more older people, and life expectancy is increasing. Life is from 0-105, or even more, and getting older is just another step along the way – but still keeping busy, active and in charge of what you want from your life. More people will stay at home for longer and the system – once based on a notion of ‘putting people into an aged care home’ – has to be radically overhauled to offer more choice and be more flexible. The key to change is moving from ‘doing for’ to ‘doing with’. Aged care is a partnership – the consumer, their carers, the providers, the policy makers, and the government. I look forward to continuing this partnership with the constituents of Hasluck and all stakeholders in the new year, to ensure that you and I, our parents, grandparents and the people we love are looked after and given the independence, dignity and care we all deserve.

KEN WYATT MP Federal Member for Hasluck 9359 0322

ken.wyatt.mp@aph.gov.au

kenwyatt.com.au

kenwyattmp

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

COMMUNITY

POETRY

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD FOR YOUTH

EVENING

MAUREEN DE LA HARPE

JOHN TAYLOR

he shadows are extending, laying flat as the sun slides. Close on the horizon, darkening countryside. Rib bone gullies tapered on the ranges slowly merge as darkness dresses slowly before a soft white moon. Rising slowly beaming softly, rekindling light and space in an outback amphitheatre, boulders jumbled ’round the place. Scudding moonlight probing, leaving pockets cross the range in deeps of dark till daylight, bursts out cross the plain. Chasing dark from rib bone gullies tapered down rock strewn range as sunlight forges up and onwards proclaiming brand new day.

L-R: Megan Fraser, Darlington Arts Festival’s Youth Art Co-ordinator, and Sally Croft with her winning elephant portrait

t was intense, painstaking work and took six months to complete, but her portrait of an elephant brought Sally Croft of Gidgegannup the People’s Choice Award in the Youth Art exhibition at the Darlington Arts Festival. The $250 award is sponsored annually by the Mundaring Bicentennial Scholarship Trust, and is open to students aged thirteen to eighteen. Sally (17), who has just graduated from Swan Christian College, has always enjoyed art but it wasn’t she started high school that she realised she had talent: ‘I had two really great art teachers who encouraged and helped me a lot.’ At the start of this year, when her teacher suggested an animal portrait, Sally opted for an elephant. She likes working in black and white or shades of one colour, focusing on the lights and darks, and chose to use a fine-liner pen and

Toppling on its zenith, descending through the day. Slowly giving over to a full moon night display.

water to create a meticulously detailed work that was supposed to be completed in one semester. It took much longer. ‘It was hard work and really draining,’ Sally confessed, ‘but it was worth it because it turned If you like John Taylor’s poems . . . out well.’ She obviously hasn’t been turned off by the effort involved as she is currently planning a rhino portrait. Her ambition, however, is to become a primary school teacher and she intends to make a start by enrolling in an educational assistance course during the coming year.

JOHN DAY

Liberal Member for Kalamunda

e on y er v e g n i h s i W ar e Y w e N y p p a aH 9293 4747

Consider buying his yarn The Ute Less than five dollars for Kindle: http://tinyurl. com/gvjnebl

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

John.Day@mp.wa.gov.au

Authorised by J. Day, 16 Mead Street, Kalamunda WA 6076.

COMMUNITY PROTECTING LOCAL TREASURES ROD HENDERSON

s a long term local resident, I greatly appreciate the unique role that Whiteman Park plays in enhancing community life throughout West Swan. I have long been an admirer of Lew Whiteman, whose story is outlined below. His enduring commitment to this community is an example to all of us. I am very proud to have been a strong advocate fighting to support the Park as a community hub – indeed, my advocacy within the Liberal Party played a part to oppose that blatant attempted Labor Party land grab for urban development in 2007. Many suggest that Whiteman Park is in fact the ‘Kings Park of the northern suburbs’ – as I have been out door knocking in the community some residents have raised their concerns with me about the issue of a proposed Cemetery development in areas of the park. As the local Liberal candidate, it is my responsibility to talk to as many locals as possible, take their feedback and present it to the decision makers to get the best possible local

outcome. I passionately believe that Whiteman Park is a unique space, one that our community treasures. We see Whiteman Park as an area for active public use, family recreation and a getaway in our own backyard. I look forward to working to enhance the Park for these purposes, which is why I will be discussing this issue with the relevant Ministers to achieve this. WHITEMAN PARK A HISTORY Lew Whiteman was a horseman and actively worked the area grazing cattle. The southern parts of the Park should not only include general sporting fields but also other horse riding activity areas, yet these are not shown on a proposed master plan for the area. In the 1970s then Premier of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court, approached Lew Whiteman to buy his land because it was located over the Gnangara water mound and a growing Perth City needed access to its pristine drinking water. Lew’s condition of sale was that the land

be held for public purpose as a park in perpetuity. I’m told that this was agreed on a handshake between gentlemen, something that is rare these days. I hope that Lew’s vision of an open spaces park, pristine Australian bushland, community facilities and wetlands for our wildlife can be maintained and protected. It is certainly something that I will fight for. I would like the community to consider honouring Lew more publicly at the park, and am certainly interested in sparking that conversation. We should all be grateful for the great gift that he gave us all by negotiating the sale to ensure that the Park was held for your family and the community to enjoy. There are still threats to Whiteman Park that need to be addressed, and I am committed to discussing them both now and into the future with local residents and Government stakeholders. Whiteman Park must be retained for our future generations I will continue to fight hard for its future. But it needs more than me – it needs you to stand up and tell your representatives that this is our ‘Kings Park of the northern suburbs’ and must be respected. You can support the Friends of Whiteman Park, a community group dedicated to Whiteman Park and its future: www.friendsofwhitemanpark.com

WHO WAS LEW WHITEMAN? Manton Lewis ‘Lew’ Cyril Whiteman was one of five children born to a family who made their fortune manufacturing bricks from the rich clay soil of the Swan Valley. The Whiteman family came from England in 1886 and Lew’s grandfather took up land on Jane Brook in Middle Swan, where Lew’s father established a brickworks. Lew was born in 1903 and spent his youth chasing brumbies around the freshwater lakes of Mussel Pool, Lake Gnangara and Emu Lake. With his heart set in the sand country, Lew began purchasing land around Mussel Pool in 1939, and owned up to 835 hectares in this area at one time. He used the land to graze cattle and as a place to ride horses. In 1963, Lew enlarged Mussel Pool and developed it as a picnic ground for friends, neighbours and later, the wider community. After selling Whiteman Brick in 1966, Lew indulged his passion for collecting old machinery and draught vehicles, which he displayed at Mussel Pool, as well as antiques and curios, which he kept at his properties in Guildford. In 1977, Lew sold the land around Mussel Pool to the State government, and in 1986, Whiteman Park was officially opened and named in recognition of Mr Whiteman for his pioneering development of the public open space. Lew was well known in the district as an excellent horseman and a good Samaritan. Lew never married and he never lived on the lands here – he lived the first part of his life in Middle Swan, near the brickworks, and moved to Guildford in the 1950s where he lived for the rest of his days. Following his death in 1994, Lew made a generous bequest to the people of Western Australia. In an agreement with the Western Australian Planning Commission, selected objects from his collection, relevant to transport and development, were transferred to Whiteman Park, to be kept in perpetuity.

Rod HENDERSON Liberal for West Swan

Rod is a proud local who will be a strong voice for West Swan

Fighting for family and community 0428 944 781 Rod4WestSwan rod.henderson@wa.liberal.org.au rodhenderson.com.au

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Authorised A Cox, 2/12 Parliament Place, West Perth WA 6005.

SWAN VALLEY AND REGIONAL NETWORK ICON OPENS IN MIDLAND HON ALYSSA HAYDEN MLC

am delighted to share with you the latest local investment by the Icon Group, one of Australia’s largest dedicated cancer care providers. Icon will be establishing its cancer care services in Midland and will be part of the ever expanding Midland Healthcare precinct. I met Icon’s WA Manager, Russell Hill on site with Cr Daniel Parasiliti to discuss the plans for the facility which is due to open in the second quarter of 2017. It will certainly add another outstanding service to the growing medical hub at the historic Midland Railway Workshop site. Icon Cancer Care will be strategically located across the road from St John of God Midland Public Hospital and co-located with the GP Super Clinic. Icon will deliver the first radiation therapy services to Midland with two new machines and another fifteen chemotherapy chairs. The Icon Group has invested in excess of $200 million in providing services such as this across Australia and continues to be the champion of world-class local cancer care for Australians. It is well understood that cancer treatment needs to be easily accessible to cancer patients to ensure they maintain their personal treatment program. The site location will improve access to cancer care services for East Metro residents as they will soon be able to access additional chemotherapy chairs and radiation treatment as private patients much closer to home. These services will also positively impact patients in Perth’s north-eastern corridor and the Wheatbelt region. Investments by private companies such as the Icon Group not

only deliver the latest technological treatment available to patients closer to home, they also become a local employer with forty jobs expected to be created on site. Icon’s uniquely holistic approach to cancer care means all treatments, whether chemotherapy, radiation or treatment for blood disorders will be delivered onsite by one dedicated team committed to exceptional cancer care. The centre will have the capacity to deliver more than 12,000 chemotherapy or haematology treatments and 18,000 radiation therapy treatments annually. I am sure you will join me in welcoming Icon Cancer Care to the health community in Midland.

The Pillowcase Project Get your kids Prepared for Bushfires The Pillowcase Project is a fun emergency preparedness session designed to help build knowledge and capacity in disaster preparedness for young people. Aimed at 8-12 year olds, the session includes a discussion about the importance of being prepared and interactive activities to help young people prepare their mind for an emergency and consider what to pack in an emergency kit. Participants are given a pillowcase to decorate and take home, to start their own personal emergency kit. 8-12 year olds Gidgegannup 12 Jan 2017 10am -11.30am Gidgegannup Hall Toodyay Rd, at the showgrounds

Bullsbrook 17 Jan 2017 10am -11.30am Lowery Park Hall (13 Eden Dr, Bullsbrook)

Free!

To register go to https://www.swan.wa.gov.au/Events or contact Bullsbrook Community Library on 9207 8989

SWAN VALLEY AND REGIONAL NETWORK

CITY OF SWAN WARDS REVIEW

hen a local government district is divided into wards, at least every eight years the local government is required to review wards and representation. It has been less than eight years since the City’s last review in 2012/13. However, the Local Government Advisory Board has requested the City complete a review. The need for a review was triggered by inequitable representation across wards at the time of the October 2015 ordinary elections. On 1 July 2016, a boundary change that resulted in a part of Noranda being transferred from the City of Swan to the City of Bayswater caused further imbalances in representation across the City’s wards. The City’s last review of wards and representation occurred in 2012/2013 where the following changes were made: • Midland and Guildford Wards were combined and three Councillors allocated to the new Midland/Guildford Ward, • the number of Councillors in the Ellenbrook Ward increased from two to three, • the localities of Red Hill and Jane Brook moved from Midland Ward to Swan Valley/Gidgegannup Ward, • the Upper Swan locality was moved from North Ward to Swan Valley/Gidgegannup Ward, and • the localities of Bennett Springs, Dayton and Brabham were moved from Swan Valley/Gidgegannup Ward to Altone Ward. These changes were implemented for the 2013 local government ordinary elections. The following will be considered as part of this review: • the number of Councillors for the district and for each ward, • the number of wards and their boundaries, and • the names of wards. When considering changes to wards and representation, a number of factors must be taken into account by a local government as part of the review process. These factors are: • community of interest,

• physical and topographic features, • demographic trends, • economic factors, and • the ratio of Councillors to electors in various wards. If the Advisory Board considers the local government has submitted a proposal which correctly takes into account these factors it will recommend the proposal to the Minister. The next elections will be held in October 2017. To ensure any required changes are made to the City of Swan’s ward structure, the City will need to make a submission to the Advisory Board by 31 March 2017.

ELLENBROOK YOUTH BRING THE NOISE KATE PHILLIPS

group of up and coming Ellenbrook music artists are making some noise on YouTube with a song and music video about their home town. The group wrote, recorded and produced the song as part of the City of Swan’s ‘Make Some Noise’ music workshops held at the ‘Cool Room Ellenbrook.’ The workshops were just one of a number

of activities to come out of the Ellenbrook Arts Program, which is run in partnership with Ellenbrook Arts and funded by Healthway. City of Swan Mayor Mick Wainwright said he was impressed by the group’s work and their community spirit. “This piece of music not only shows pride in their community, but promotes the community as a positive place to live and spend time, which is

great to see,” he said. Ellenbrook Ward Councillor Cate McCullough said the music video uses footage of a range of activities from the Arts Program including skate clinics, BMX events as well as the music workshop. “Around 1000 young people attended City workshops and activities in 2016, which I think shows the need for youth events like these in the community,” she said. “All of these activities not only engage and stimulate local youth; they promote the Act Belong Commit message of positive mental health and well-being.” The City’s youth team will run another funfilled program of activities through the ‘Cool Room Ellenbrook’ these school holidays including workshops, clinics and daytrips to Adventure World and laser tag. Registrations are essential and forms are available at Ellenbrook Library, the Ellenbrook Place Office or on the ‘Coolroom Ellenbrook’ Facebook page. For more information please visit the City’s website or call the City on 9267 9267. You can view the music video on YouTube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cca-uHPOfE 9

COMMUNITY INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTION

f you suspect your partner or another person might be intending to take your children to a foreign country, there are a couple of things you may be able to do to prevent that from happening before they leave Australia. First and foremost, if your child does not yet have a passport, do not sign any passport application forms. You can submit a Child Alert Request on the Australian Passport Office website www.passports.gov.au to warn the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that there may be circumstances that need to be considered before issuing a passport to a child. But a Child Alert will not prevent your child from travelling if they have already been issued with an Australian passport or a travel document issued by another country. In that instance you will need to contact the Embassy, High Commission or Consulate of that country in Australia to find out if you can apply to stop a foreign passport being issued for them. You can find contact details for foreign government representatives on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website: www.dfat. gov.au/ If your child already has a passport and you are worried they may be abducted overseas, make sure you have their official documents including their passport in your safe keeping. Also make sure you have recent photos of the child and their other parent as well as any contact details of family or friends overseas where your child may be taken. If you are involved in family law proceedings, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) can put your child’s name on the Family Law Watchlist. To do this, you must obtain a court order or apply for an immediate order to stop your child being removed from Australia. You would be best advised to speak with a lawyer, community legal centre or legal aid commission about assistance in getting these orders. Child abduction and retention across borders has been a problem for a long time, and before 1980 efforts to repatriate abducted child citizens was a tedious process. The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was a recognition of the need for like-minded countries to facilitate the return of another countries child citizens in a prompt and time efficient way, when they had been taken to or retained in a foreign country without both parent’s permission. The Hague Convention recognises that fair and equal access to both parents is essential for the well-being of the child, and that the interests of the child are of paramount importance in matters relating to their custody. The Hague Convention is not particularly interested in laying blame at either parent’s feet, but rather in ensuring the swift return of children to their normal place of residence. The key requirements for making an application under the Hague Convention are:

ELISA KESSEY

• Your child must be under 16 years of age; • You must have “rights of custody” in relation to the child; • You must have been exercising rights of custody at the time your child was wrongfully removed or retained outside Australia;

Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The below countries have acceded to the Hague Convention, but it is not yet in force between these countries and Australia:

• Your child has not been kept outside of Australia for more than 12 months; • Your child must have been habitually resident in Australia immediately before your child was wrongfully removed from, or retained, outside Australia; • Your child must have been taken to, or retained in, a country which is a party to the Hague Convention; and • Your child must have been taken from Australia or kept in another Convention country without your consent, or without a court order. Countries which are party to the Hague Convention are: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bahamas, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong (China), Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau (China), Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova (Republic of), Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea (from 1 June 2015), Romania, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Trinidad and

Seychelles, Morocco, Gabon, Andorra, Russia, Guinea, Lesotho, Kazakhstan, Iraq, and Zambia. If your child has been abducted to one of these countries, you cannot seek a return to Australia under the Hague Convention. Australia also has bilateral arrangements on child welfare with Egypt and Lebanon—the Australia-Egypt Agreement and the AustraliaLebanon Agreement. More information on these agreements can be found on the Attorney General’s website: www.ag.gov.au If your child has been taken to another country, you should seek legal advice in that country. So, how do you apply for a claim under the Hague Convention, and what is the process? The first port of call is the Attorney General’s website, which has a wealth of information and useful links to help you. There are private law firms that will assist you in your Hague Claim but a good place to start is International Social Service Australia (ISS) www.iss.org.au/ a not for profit organisation which provides social work, legal and mediation services to families and children across international borders. Their services include family tracing and reunification, international family mediation, kinship care and other child welfare matters, and assistance for families experiencing international parental child abduction. As this is their field of specialty, they are able to offer a combination of legal and mediation services, some of which are covered by

government funding, and some of which attracts a small contribution fee, to assist you in having your children returned smoothly to Australia. They are based in Melbourne and you can call them on (03) 9614 8755 or 1300 657 843. Email iss@iss.org.au ISS, or a private law firm of your choice, will help you fill out the formwork required for your Hague claim to proceed. Information required includes the child’s birth certificate, evidence of Australia being the child’s usual permanent residence, photographs of the child and parents, evidence of the other parent’s usual address in Australia, court orders regarding the custody arrangements (if any) and an affidavit explaining the circumstances of the abduction. It is important to realise that, unlike a Family Law Court proceeding, there is no lawyer or barrister to plead your case, only the paper work that you submit, and so every effort must be made to ensure this application is completed with as much relevant detail as possible. This paperwork can make or break your application, and no detail should be glossed over or overlooked. Once the claim has been completed to your legal adviser’s satisfaction, it is then submitted to the Australian Central Authority (ACA) which is a department within the Attorney General’s office responsible for the administration of the Hague Convention. They will assess your application against the requirements of the Hague Convention and will either approve or reject your claim. If the claim is rejected, reasons will be provided (for example, you were not exercising your rights of custody as you had failed to pay child support as ordered by the family court, or you were not complying with your Parenting Plan as agreed). You can appeal through the Federal Court if your claim is rejected and you can also apply directly to the central authority in the other country without going through the ACA. You would want to get some legal advice about the court processes in the other country if you take that route, though. If the claim is accepted, the ACA will forward your claim to the authority in the country where you believe the child to be. It is vital to understand that each country has sovereign rights over the application of law within their own country and the ACA cannot interfere in the processes of that country. It is the central authority in the claim country that will determine how they will proceed with your case. Sometimes, they contact the abducting person and seek voluntary return of the child, filing your claim in the relevant court of that

country if a voluntary return is not made. In any case, the ACA will liaise with them and provide updates on your case. If more information is requested by the other authority, the ACA will pass that on to you. As each application is unique and must be treated on its own merits, and each foreign country has its own processes and ways of dealing with claims, it is very difficult to give an estimated time frame for the completion of a Hague claim. If a voluntary return is achieved, the process will be much quicker than if it goes to court and the decision appealed. Patience is necessary. Keep in mind that the other country may refuse your request for the return of your child if: • It is not convinced that the key requirements of the convention have been met; • It determines that you had agreed to the child being relocated or later acquiesced to the removal or retention of the child; • The child has been in that country for more than 12 months and is settled there; • The child is old enough and mature enough to object to being returned; • Returning the child would expose them to a grave risk of physical or psychological harm or some other intolerable situation; or • Returning the child would breach their fundamental freedoms and human rights. The principle of “acquiescence” mentioned above is also very important. “Acquiescence” means consenting to or allowing something to happen. It is up to the court to decide if you have consented to or allowed the abduction to take place and common actions that raise this question are: • Engaging in court proceedings in the other country apart from those related to the Hague claim (as this may show that you have given permission for the child to stay in that country by submitting to its jurisdiction) • Giving verbal or written consent to the abducting person that you consent to the child being taken to, or remaining in, that country (either before, during or after the abduction) or • Helping the abducting person make decisions about the child’s living arrangements in the other country It is very important, therefore, to do nothing that gives rise to the belief that acquiescence has been demonstrated. Finally, if you are the parent considering taking your child overseas from Australia without the other parent’s permission, you should think twice. Unless you can prove you or the child were subjected to an intolerable situation, this is a criminal offence that may be punished by up to three years imprisonment. If you want to move overseas with your child, it is in everyone’s best interests to negotiate relocation through the Australian Family Law Courts, or gaining the other parent’s agreement in writing through mediation.

POETRY POEM FOR RYAN

ANNE-MAREE RYAN

e sit at the table Christmas day is here And yet for us There is no cheer A chair sits empty Where you should be Our hearts are heavy Instead of happy Christmas is not the same anymore We look and we hope You will come in the door And yet we know That will never be You’re gone forever Our lives are now empty You could fill a room With laughter and love It was impossible to ignore you As your voice boomed above Your cheeky grin Full of mischief and glee Is now gone forever It’s just a memory Oh what we would give To hold you once more To have you with us To see you walk through the door But we know that won’t happen And so we pretend We go through the motions All to no end For our lives will never Be the same without you And Christmas just brings home How much we miss you So darling Ryan, Wherever you may be Know that we love you Our hearts are empty As Christmas Day draws to an end It’s a relief to stop having to pretend Perhaps one day if there is life after death You will be there when I take my last breath I will love you, and kiss you And hold you once more And together we can walk through that door

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HOLIDAY READING TO MY LEGS LUCY SEWELL

his is no glamorous staged bikini pic, but I love it anyway because of what it represents to me. We had ten minutes before we had to be back at the hotel to check out, and I stripped off to my gym bra and pants because I just wanted to swim in the sea one last time. I would have never have shown anyone this before in a million years. For one, I'm in a pair of wet undies, and my hair is a riot, but mostly because of my legs. It got me thinking about the woman who approached me in the gym earlier in the week saying she wished she had legs like mine, and that she'd always been unhappy with hers. It made me think about how unhappy I too had been with mine most of my adult life, and also the fact that when you're in that place, when you're so unhappy with yourself, while it's nice to hear, it doesn't really matter what anyone says, as it really makes no difference to how you feel inside. The truth is that until fairly recently, I would never have put up a photo of my legs without the perfect lighting, angle, and without tensing my quads to hell. Do I think my legs look bad here? No, I don't. I happen to love this photo because I look really happy here, but there was time when I would have picked this photo apart, and torn into my legs with comments like ’small’ ’soft' 'no definition' etc. But this isn't about me seeking validation and for people to say how great my legs look. It's not the point of the post; rather, it's to mark the change in relationship I have with them. And I guess to say to those who are suffering with poor body image, you can work towards healing the relationship you have with yourself. After all this has nothing to do with legs and body parts and how they measure up, and everything to do with mindset and the relationships we have with ourselves and our bodies. There was a time in my life when my body disgusted me. When I suffered from anorexia, along with scrutinising myself in the mirror multiple times a day, I would check in with my 'thigh gap'. I've never had lean legs. Rather fondly looking at how much my legs now squash together, I find it hard to believe there was ever a gap there. But there was, and this became my marker of how successful I was being at dieting/starving myself, because my thighs were the thing that I noticed first in terms of weight-gain/weight-loss. Even when I was no longer on a mission to become the smallest version of myself, the goal became to look as muscular and lean as possible. I chased perfection. My legs were never big enough, never muscular enough, never lean enough. My calves were tiny and out of proportion. My knees were knobbly. My legs were altogether too pale. I wanted nice tanned legs. I

hated everything about them. This scrutiny applied to my whole body of course, but my legs always got it the worst because my upper body was alway leaner in comparison. I've spoken about this before but I'm not sure when the turning point was for me but somewhere down the line, it was the realisation that I would never be happy. That I would someday look back at my life and realise I’d spent it entirely obsessed with my body, with eating 'clean', with training as punishment, always pushing harder and harder, failing to listen to my body, even when I felt ill. And all the while, never being present with my favourite people because my thoughts were always consumed with calories, macros, mealtiming, 'good' and 'bad' foods, rules, scrutinising myself in the mirror, and constantly comparing myself to other people. I fully get that it doesn't change how you feel when someone says you just need to accept and love yourself. What does this even mean right? If only it were that easy. As much as it's been an on-going process over the last few years, it makes it difficult to pin-point exactly how my thinking has transitioned and also the fact that changes in mindset are never linear in nature, every day is a new challenge. Of course there has been a huge shift in how I approach myself, now with a fostered care and respect, and with with compassion and an understanding that I am human, and inherently imperfect, instead of going full-on inner-bitchmode and beating myself up (at least most of the time). But it’s still something that I have to work on and practice every day; it will always be.

I think part of it was also a huge reality-check for me. It was about saying, THIS IS WHAT YOUR BODY LOOKS LIKE! This is reality. We don't walk around with great overhead lighting and everything perfectly tensed all the time! Perfection isn't real life. Perfectionist thinking doesn’t serve you. Comparing yourself to photoshopped images doesn't serve you, and other people's bodies are NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS. Yes, I store fat on my legs, and the rest of my body, the same as everyone else. Does this make them any less amazing? Does this make me any less worthy as a human being? HELL NO! There has also been a weighing up of priorities, and then owning my choices. Yeah I could have leaner, more muscular legs but I'd have to eat differently, train differently, maybe diet, maybe train more, maybe train and eat in ways I don’t enjoy, but ultimately I’d have to think about how I eat and train more. And for me, it's just not worth it. Because I love my training more. I love how I feel when I train more. I love my strength more. I love that I don’t ‘need’ to go to the gym. I love that I can go out for food anywhere without it having to fit any ‘criteria’. I love that I can now be present with my favourite people. I love the fact that my life is bigger now. And that's what I choose. These things are way more important to me than what my legs look like. Our bodies are really amazing. They allow us to do so much, and this has been the thing that has really taken my focus away from what I look like all the time. The taking a step back and appreciating all the things I take for granted; that my legs are strong and allow me to train and move in ways that I love. I think it’s really nice to remember that we all have such great capacity to just do amazing stuff rather than simply look a certain way. And lastly, I'll leave this here. I was in my element the other day cycling along the boardwalk in Miami, the first time I’d been on a bike in years, and we passed a teenage boy being pushed along in a wheelchair by I'm assuming his mother; an image that hit me like a train at the time, and has stuck in my head ever since. We all moan about how we'd love to change this and that about ourselves, but we really have so very much to be grateful for. I’m not sure who wrote this but I’m in love with it: “None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you're carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There's no time for anything else.” Life is far too short to be at war with your body. 13

SWAN VIEW TOY LIBRARY PRESENTS

FUN PLAY DAY SATURDAY 14th JANUARY 9-11am

Struggling to ﬁnd a school holiday activity? ........................................

Bring the kids for ◆ Water Play ◆ Kitchenettes ◆ Ride-ons ◆ Play dough ◆ Toys of all sorts large and small

Mini Movers Music

will be joining us to sing, dance, rhyme, move & play with instruments, balls, scarves & much much more. So come on down & enjoy the fun!

Brown Park Community Centre Swan View Location:

FUN DAY Promotion - $1 Membership*

Take out a trial membership and see what it is to be a part of our library. *Trial includes up to 3 months membership with full borrowing entitlements, finish date is 13th April 2016 no matter when you join. The completion of one voluntary roster shift (2hrs) is a requirement and date must be chosen when joining. Full training is provided during the shift and you are welcome to bring your children. A security fee of $50 is required to activate a membership, this would be refunded when your membership expires. address:

Brown Park Community Centre, Salisbury Road, Swan View WA 6056

Opening hours: Saturday & Tuesday's 9:30-11am email: swanviewtoylibrary@gmail.com web: swanviewtoylibrary.wixsite.com/swanviewtoylibrary facebook:

www.facebook.com/SwanViewToyLibrary

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, commercial entries are welcome at $10 per fifty words. 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 Way, Koongamia.  A qualified ABA counsellor of instruction with your Mac computer? Have an is present at each meeting to give confidential iPad or Android tablet and don’t know what it will information and support on breastfeeding issues. do? We can help. Cost is $3 per session. Classes Contact Natalie 9572 4971. are 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. SWAN WOODTURNERS GROUP Northam Group meets each second Tuesday of The group meets in the rear hall of The Senior the month at the Bridgeley Community Centre, Citizens’ Centre, The Avenue, Midland, at 1-00pm. Wellington Street, Northam 10am to Noon. on 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Tuesday, and at 7-00pm. Fourth Tuesday each month at Toodyay Playgroup, on 2nd Tuesday of each month. A demonstration Stirling Terrace, Toodyay. Noon to 2pm. Please and cuppa are the norm. Men and Women are phone Louisa 9574 0229. welcome. Enquiries to Ted 9295 4438. 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.

TALKING HORSES Wednesday evenings 6:00pm The WA Horse Council equestrian radio program is now in its seventh year. The programme is broadcast on the Community Radio Station 91.3 SportFM. To ensure that your club, event, breed or business gets coverage, call Diane Bennit 0409 083 617. SWAN VALLEY COMMUNITY CENTRE Monday Mornings The Art Group meets at Baskerville Hall from 9am – 12pm for just $5.00 per session. The group leader is Gilly, she can help and advise with most media. Feel free to come and have a look and meet our local artists – they are a very friendly lot, new members welcome! For more information call 9296 1976 or E: enquiries@swanvalleycommunitycentre.com W: www.swanvalleycommunitycentre.com.

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 10.30 - 12.00 noon. Enquiries Terina 9572 1655. MIDLAND MEN’S SHED Every Tuesday morning We meet socially every Tuesday morning from 9.30am to 11.30am in the Bellevue Baptist Church Hall and each month we have a guest speaker on a wide range of topics. We also go on excursions to various places of interest (e.g. HMAS Stirling, Aviation Museum, ALCOA, etc.). There is the chance to also do some woodworking or metal work at external sites. Our music and art groups are functioning extremely well and welcome new members. For more information please contact Kevin Buckland on 0417 961 971 or by email: kebinsv@tpg.com.au

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 SWAN HARMONY SINGERS Wednesdays ELLENBROOK COMMUNITY Come and sing with us! Swan Harmony Singers WEIGHT LOSS CLUB is a community choir that meets, 7-9pm, to sing music ranging from jazz to pop, plus the Every Wednesday evening We meet from 6.45pm to 8.00pm at the occasional classic. No auditions. Join us at the Woodlake Community Hall, Meeting room 1. Salvation Army Church Hall, 371 Morrison Rd, Highpoint Blvd, Ellenbrook. Friendly support (opposite Swan View Primary School), Swan View. group and low cost. Male and females of all Enquiries: call Anna on 9299 7249, or Chris on ages welcome. Contact Shirley 9276 7938 9298 9529 or 0435 062 728. shirleysardelich@aapt.net.au.

BEAUTY Desk Summer is well and truly here and by now your skin will be showing it. Meet summer skin challenges head on with these tips from triple threat hair artist, makeup artist and model, Zoe Mitchell. It’s hot. We all know it’s hot. We know it’s hot because the makeup we put on this morning had melted off by lunchtime. Summer presents unique challenges for our skin. So how do we get that fresh, natural look when we’re roasting like a pig on a spit? I asked my resident hair and beauty expert Zoe Mitchell for her top tips for looking fresh and fabulous this summer. ‘Getting that fresh, natural look is all about mixing your make-up in the right combinations.’ Ms Mitchell stated during one of our hottest spells.

Zoe explained that the key to making your skin look dewy and glow during the summer months was learning how to mix creamy highlighters, matte eyeshadows and lipsticks to lip glosses.

That smooth, flawless look we all want is all about the skin radiance. To stop the summer sun melting your make-up, always start with a good oil-free primer. Napolean Perdis is absolutely right when he says it’s a crime not to prime. From Covergirl to Napolean and L’Oréal you will find a primer that fits your skin type and budget. Applying your foundation in summer is a ‘less is more’ moment. The less you have on, the less there is to slide off. Apply sparingly with a foamlatex sponge swiping from the nose outwards in short strokes. Give your foundation a moment to set before continuing. Don’t over highlight or contour, keep it light this summer, just a dewy blush will do nicely.

Here are two of Zoe’s favourite make-up looks for summer ’17.

Remember that summer make-up should let your true, natural beauty shine through.

LOOK 1 Skin: Apply your oil-free primer and liquid foundation. Use a cream contour and highlighter on the upper eyelids, upper cheeks, forehead and chin. Just lightly. Apply concealer as necessary and eye brightener. We love Becca, Bobby Brown and Revlon for eye brighteners.

Keep your skin and your body hydrated. Use plenty of sunscreen and keep your skin moisturised. Exfoliate regularly and invest in as many sun hats as you like, La Luna Lifestyle are my favourite.

Eyes: Use a nude matte brown at the outer edges of the eye with a golden bronze shimmer. Add brown eyeliner to the eye line and water line. Apply mascara on the top lashes. Lips: Finish with a nude lip-gloss. LOOK 2 Skin: Apply oil-free primer, liquid foundation, cream contour, highlighter just like in Look 1 and concealer as necessary. Eyes: Apply mascara only on the top lashes and liquid eyeliner on the bottom line and water line. Lips: Depending on your complexion – for warm skin tones and brown/green eyes go for a burnt orange lip. For fair skin tones and cool blue/grey eyes go for a brighter pink tone lipstick.

Kiss your heavy lipsticks goodbye this summer and opt for a lighter gloss, stain or tinted balm. Keep these tips in mind and soak up every gorgeous moment of this sunny season. Pictured clockwise from top left: Zoe Mitchell; Zoe Mitchell & Maddy Anderson; Zoe Mitchell & Hannah Cavanagh; Zoe Mitchell Make-up Artist with Hannah Cavanagh. Follow Zoe Mitchell on fb Zoe Mitchell Hair & Make-up Artist Instagram @zoemitchellhairandmakeupartist For bookings and enquiries call Zoe on 0477 721 212

STYLED BY KIRSTY

www.shopandstylespecialists.com

HOUSE AND GARDEN ARE SOLAR PANELS WORTH IT? FINN PEACOCK

he short answer is ‘Yes”. But only if you avoid method called AC coupling. So don't lose years of these seven costly mistakes: savings waiting for cheap batteries to arrive. Consider going solar now - with the knowledge 1) Putting off buying solar because you are waiting that you can easily retrofit batteries later when for batteries to drop in price they will pay for themselves - not before. Despite the hype about solar battery storage, any honest solar installer will give you the same 2) Not getting multiple quotes advice: Batteries will not pay for themselves in I swear this isn’t a shameless plug for the 2016. free service that my website provides: www. At the moment, something like the Telsa solarquotes.com.au/quote/?postcode=6069. Powerwall will cost you around $10,000 to install, It’s absolutely critical to get multiple quotes and will take about fifteen years to pay back. The wherever possible (and not just when it comes unit is warranted to last ten years. You do the to solar!), as some unscrupulous installers are maths. still going around charging people $20,000 for a Unfortunately, all the hype in the mainstream $5,000 system. media about batteries has made people question By having multiple companies give you a the viability of solar without batteries - to the breakdown on how much solar will cost you, you extent that people are waiting for 'affordable can gain a real understanding of whether solar is batteries' before they invest in solar. right for your budget, and whether or not you’re But even though the cost of solar battery being ripped off (in either price or quality). storage is projected to decline year-over-year, it makes no sense to wait to get solar. 3) Being unaware of how the ‘rebate’ works or how Every day you don't have solar is another day to calculate paybacks from solar you do have to pay high electricity bills. A well Another big mistake that I see people make designed solar system without batteries can give comes from their (mis)understanding of how the you tiny bills. solar ‘rebate’ and feed-in tariffs (what you're Waiting two, three or four years for batteries paid for sending excess solar energy back into to become affordable means another two, three the grid) work. or four years of high bills. I explain in greater detail here, but to One day, batteries will make lots of sense summarise, the solar ‘rebate’ is a federal - and when that day comes they can easily be government financial incentive and the feed-in added to any existing solar system using a tariff is a state government financial incentive. The main misunderstanding about paybacks from a solar system comes from one of two erroneous beliefs:

a fat cheque in the mail every quarter from their electricity companies. This will only happen if you were lucky enough to sign up to a gross feed-in tariff four or more years ago. With net feed-in tariffs hovering around six to eight cents per kWh mark around Australia, the days of a solar system being a license to print money are in the past. This doesn't mean that you can't significantly reduce your electricity bills with solar - my latest power bill was only $33 for a six person household. 2: "The only benefits of solar are what your electricity company prints on your bill." Most people don’t realise that the true benefits of a solar system are ‘invisible’ – that is, not written on your bill – and don’t understand that paybacks for solar systems are faster than what they initially seem.

4) Not knowing what protections you’re entitled to under Australian consumer law This may come as a shock to some people, but you shouldn’t believe everything a salesperson says! Almost every week someone will tell me that they've had a solar installer tell them that they need to have their systems serviced once every two years (or more) in order for the system to stay in warranty. This is bollocks. Speaking as a chartered electrical engineer, good-quality solar systems will only need to be serviced once every 5 years, and cleaned once per year. If you have a salesman telling you that you’ll 1: People think that having a decent-sized solar need to pay some kind of ‘maintenance fee’ to system means that not only will they never have keep your panels in warranty, show them the to pay an electricity bill again, but they’ll also get door.

POETRY MR GENOMI GARDENOMI

WAYNE PANTALL

eaf as a blooming post, you are. Blind as a blinking bat. Thick as two short planks, and what’s more, ignorant at that. You never lift a finger to help It’s like you are in a trance. As you stand leaning on the shovel, I weed all the plants. Your dress choice is ridiculous – completely out of date. You’d better have a spruce up soon, lest you be out the gate.

Another tactic that dishonest salesmen use is to assure you that your solar systems will have a twenty-five year ‘performance warranty’, to make it seem like any problems that befall your system will be covered under this apparent twenty-five year warranty. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. It’s very easy for solar manufacturers to wriggle out of this ‘performance warranty’, by claiming that any defects in the panels fall under the ‘panel warranty’, which can be as few as five years in some cases. In reality, there are actually four separate warranties that you get with your solar system - the ‘performance warranty’ being one of them. The other three are for your inverter, the panels themselves, and the workmanship. In terms of warranty, what you really want to look for is: A 10 year warranty for your inverter A 10 year warranty for your solar panels A 5 year warranty for the workmanship Check that the warranty is backed by an Australian Entity. I've seen cheapo deals where the Chinese manufacturer’s warranty states that the owner has to post the panels back to China at the customer's cost to get them tested! If you're looking to get quotes for solar from installers within our trusted network, that are looking out for your needs (and not just their own wallet) then simply click here to start the process 5) Not asking the hard-hitting questions to separate the solar installer wheat from the chaff The only thing shonky installers hate more than an ACCC investigation is a customer who knows their stuff! With knowledge comes power, and if a shonky installer realises that you know solar, their ability to rip you off just took a nose dive and they know it. Always, always, always independently verify information, whenever possible. There are numerous resources available to

help you verify what solar salesmen tell you (the Whirlpool forums are one of my favourite sources of such information), but if Google can’t help you, I will. Just shoot me an email here. 6) Not knowing what size system is right for your home This one is easier to solve, because most reputable solar installers will sit you down and do a full analysis of your electricity usage habits before they provide you with a quote. They will ask you what your financial goals are and how much you’re willing to spend in order to accomplish those goals – because it’s not as simple as purchasing a solar system size that matches your energy usage.

Your demeanour and your pallor, have gone from bright to dull. I know I haven’t caught you yet – Have you been on the mull? When first I feasted eyes on you, I felt you were the one. Enthusiasm oozed from you. Look now what you’ve become. Dirty, dreary, dodgy and dumb – in need of overhauling. When someone else replaces you, don’t come back here crawling

My gaze has cause to wander – lately; others catch my eye. Invitingly they smile suggesting, 7) Thinking that because your roof doesn’t face the optimal direction or because there’s some shade on “I could be your guy.” your roof, solar isn’t worth it This couldn’t be further from the truth! Solar “If you take me in your arms, panel efficiencies have reached the point where, and hold me to your breast, I’ll stand tall and strong for you, even if your panels aren’t facing north, you only just put me to the test”. lose 10-15% of your solar system production – which means that the system is still well worth I took you as Eve took Adam. the investment. In fact, depending on the time of day you use My Eden was for you. The fruits of my toil surround us your electricity, it may make more sense for your solar panels to face east or west (for morning Yet little did you do. or evening heavy electricity usage habits, If you did something for me, Genomi, respectively). If you're considering installing solar panels perhaps I wouldn’t moan. But you’re off with the fairies now, for your home or business, SolarQuotes can help you you useless garden gnome. get quotes from high-quality installers quickly and easily: About Finn Peacock: Finn is a Chartered Electrical Engineer, Solar and Energy Efficiency nut, dad, and founder of SolarQuotes.com.au. My last "real job" was working for the CSIRO in their renewable energy division. Since 2009 over 250,000 Australians have used my site to get quotes for high quality solar from pre-vetted solar installers. 19

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DINING OUT

The Thoughts of an Ageing, Balding Foodie

MANDOON

DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

ne of the joys of being a food writer and reasonably well-known is that you get a lot of suggestions about where to dine to get a good meal (and occasionally a bad one - people can be odd sometimes). One of the places that has been recommended to me several times over the last few months is Mandoon Estate, so I was keen when taking lunch with a very old friend to suggest Mandoon, about which all I knew was ‘It’s great’. And ‘great’ it most certainly is, although the word that most readily springs to mind is ‘professionalism’. Mandoon, which you get to by going past Bandyup and under Reid Highway, is actually not so much one thing as several. A Beer Garden and Deli, a winery and cellar door sales, an Art Gallery, Homestead Brewery bistro and a very sophisticated fine dining restaurant. It was this last that we took lunch on a hot weekday, although every section of the estate was busy, even on a week day. Every area is superbly upkept. Immaculate, emerald green lawns neatly trimmed, row upon row of fecund leafy grape vines, cleanly varnished outdoor Jarrah, plashy fountains and inside, crisp white napery, charming efficient servers and a menu of polished tribute to the power of good food prepared under the aegis of Executive Chef Michael Hartnell. Your choices are either a five ($130) or seven ($140) course degustation meal - each course partnered with an appropriate wine or the a la carté menu. We ate off the a la carté, and we each took entreé, Tony’s choice being the Marron tail, cauliflower pureé and seaweed with funori ($29), a glutinous gum extracted from seaweed. My own selection was White Rocks veal, very thinly sliced carpaccio style with tuna and served with capers and anchovy and ‘cooked’ in lemon juice in the ceviche manner ($20). It was just magnificent, rich and tasty, cleanly, elegantly balanced between flavours and textures. We accompanied this with the server’s suggestion - a charming Canadian girl - of the Mandoon Verdelho, acidic rather than sweet and perfect for the food. I do like it when servers make suggestions when asked. I think it shows they care about what they do and indicates a level of pride and engagement.

My main, also her suggestion, to help break the agony of indecision, was baldly described as ‘Lamb rump, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, gratin, mint’ ($38)- see photo. It was perfection, the lamb sublimely seasoned and cooked, served with a clear mint sauce with tiny flecks of green like gold leaf in Flaschengeist wine. Beautiful and jewel-like. Tony’s main course was a warm duck salad ($41) of crisp skinned duck breast with endive, broccolini, sherry, nectarine and pastilla; which in theory should conflict, but in fact blended with an elegant simplicity into a perfect whole. Sweet course ($16) for me was ice cream, of which I am particularly fond, a Cherry, vermouth, hazelnut and roast almond flavour of considerable charm. But Tony’s was truly spectacular, being a Lavender cloud, frozen in liquid nitrogen and so served wreathed in clouds. After coffee we took a turn around the extensive grounds and facilities, determining to return to try the rest. Superb food, excellent service, value for money and magnificent surroundings. Very Highly Recommended Indeed. 21

FOOD JUNCTION ICE-CREAMERY

DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

hen I was young lad I used eagerly to anticipate visits from my grandparents because at the end, no matter how long or short the visit, Granddad would press a half-crown into my grubby, slightly sweaty hand with the injunction ‘Buy yourself some hokey-pokey, son’. ‘Hokey-pokey’ was what it was called in Edinburgh before the First World War when he was growing up delicious Italian Ice Cream sold on the streets in scoops at ‘a penny a lump, that’s the stuff to make you jump’. Ice cream is one of those foods that is universally popular and which appeals to all ages. And if you doubt the truth of that statement, stand for while outside the Junction Icecreamery in Midland, cone in hand, and observe the variety of people wandering in and out to sample the delights on offer. The Junction Icecreamery is the brainchild of the McKay family who opened it in 1987, co-incidentally the year I published my first restaurant review, so we are professionally speaking, as old as each other. But, and here’s the point, finally, I had never ever tried their goods until last Saturday when Angela and I dropped in for some hokey-pokey. The most immediate observation is that Junction Icecreamery is not only a vendor of ice cream, but a cafe offering light meals, cakes, sandwiches and a wide range of ice creams, ice cream cakes, pies, genuine Cornish pasties and lots more. Saving the actual frozen goodness we started with a cup of coffee for me and a cappuchino for Angela as well as a slice of lemon cheesecake and an individual baked raspberry cheesecake. We sat out on the small verandah under an umbrella and looking out over the park with families sitting out under the shady trees and peoplewatched for a few minutes until the server brought us our goodies. The coffee was excellent as was my baked cheesecake, the acidity of the raspberries nicely cutting the sweetness of the filling making a rather elegant dish altogether. But, the real hero was Angela’s outstanding Lemon Cheesecake, which was superb, smooth and delicious, crisp and clean with a lovely citrus flavour over-all. While we sat and ate in the sunshine with a light sea-breeze keeping the heat down we watched the endless array of passers-by and diners - old, young, happy families, young couples on bicycles and at least one family with a large and lovely bull mastiff who thoroughly enjoyed her ice cream served in a floor container. She licked it up snufflingly with every appearance of enjoyment while the family sat round with their waffle cones and watched her with affection. Obviously dogs can’t go inside, but they’re welcome on the verandah and there’s a large bowl of water by the door for them - a nice touch, I thought. Any one who’s nice to dogs gets my vote, any day. Once we’d digested our sweets we went to have a browse among the frozen desserts. And it could have been a longish browse, because, boy, do they have range. As well as what we might call standard ice creams, for which the Junction Icecreamery has won more than a hundred medals at various shows, they offer Italian Gelato, Soy, Sorbet, Yoghurt and Sorbet making gluten free and vegan options. As for flavours there is no fixed list, as new and seasonal flavours come and go, but the range the day we were there included: Apple Pie, Bubblegum, Banana, Black Forest, Boysenberry, Caffee Latte, Caramel Twist, Chai Latte, Chocolate, Choc Cookie Biscotto, Choc Nougat Heaven, Choc Rasperry, etc etc etc.

A total of over forty, including the Christmas flavours of Plum Pudding, Christmas Cassata and more. My idea was to try a selection before settling, but unfortunately the first I tried was the prize-winning English Toffee Supreme and Pecans and with a mouth full I said ‘I’ll have this one’. Once you choose you can have a traditional cone, waffle cone, one scoop, two scoops, the same, contrasting flavours and extras - sprinkles, nuts and so on. My icecream was just soooo good. The flavour subtle, nostalgic and smoothly delicious. Angela had a light lemon sorbet deeply reminiscent of one she used to eat as a girl in Germany. So, although I can’t give you a comprehensive breakdown of the range, I can tell you that what I tried was absolutely first rate and that I shall be back to sample the rest on a regular basis. Hopefully over the next thirty years. Very Highly Recommended Indeed.

OPENING HOURS (summer) Sunday to Wednesday 9am -6pm Thursday to Saturday 9am -9pm

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DRINK SHIRAZ FOR ASIA

STILL TIME FOR GIN

ANDREW SPENCE

CALEB RADFORD

ne of Australia’s first dedicated gin distilleries will begin ramping up production in the next few weeks following the arrival of a new still. Kangaroo Island Spirits (KIS), located on a pristine island off the coast of South Australia, has taken delivery of a 300-litre pot still and hopes it will eventually allow the business to increase production by up to tenfold. KIS was established in 2005 by Jon and Sarah Lark and has just produced its 500th batch of its original Wild Gin in its 80-litre copper pot still. The distillery at Cygnet River now produces two vodkas, liqueurs and up to six gins including its Old Tom Gin, which took out the Champion Gin Trophy at the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards in April. Jon said the new 300-litre pot still featured a Carter head specifically designed for gin, making it much more efficient. “We won’t know until we’ve done some test runs – but we could be looking at 10 times the capacity,” he said. “The 80-litre still was running twice a day in double shifts – it was ridiculously small and there was no room for us to grow with that. “A 300-litre still is quite small in the scheme of things so it definitely will still be craft. The products that come out of this new still will be absolutely the same gins - they may actually be smoother but I don’t think they will be discernably different.” KIS currently produces about 20,000 bottles a year and is sold in more than 200 bars, restaurants and bottle shops across Australia. Its gins boast a distinctly Australian flavour enhanced by the inclusion of local botanicals such as foliage from the coastal Daisy bush (olearia axillaris), native Juniper (myoporum insulare) and locally grown Lemon Myrtle and Aniseed myrtle. Jon said he was fielding inquiries from Hong Kong, Mainland China, the United States, Spain, UK and New Zealand. “We are finding there is increasing demand

for our products and export is certainly on the horizon but we keep surprising ourselves with how much the domestic market is sucking up, which is great,” he said. “We’re already thinking down the track – in two or three years time we might need to get another small still.” Jon’s brother Bill Lark started Australia’s first craft distillery in Tasmania in 1993 and has built Lark Whisky into a globally respected product. “We were probably the first Australian dedicated gin distillery when we started ten years ago,” Jon said. “We felt the early rumblings of this coming out of the UK and we decided we wanted to do small batch gin by hand using some local botanicals.” Kangaroo Island, Australia’s third largest offshore island, is about 150km southwest of the South Australian capital Adelaide. Known for its natural beauty and wildlife, it is a tourism icon drawing more than 40,000 international visitors every year with the majority coming from Italy, Germany and North America. Jon said the mystique, beauty and tourism appeal of Kangaroo Island had helped his business. He said the proliferation of other Australian craft gins in recent years had done little to slow the growth of KIS. “Demand for our spirit hasn’t fallen off at all. “Once our still is in place we’ll do some trial runs this year of a rum and a whisky and there’s great potential on the island to work with KI Pure Grain and local beer guys to do some mash runs for us, which would be a nice co-operative arrangement for the whisky.” Photo credits: Dean Wiles

wo cool climate Shirazes from South Australia have been awarded Asian food and wine pairing trophies in the results from the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine and Spirit Competition. Adelaide Hills winery Bird in Hand was awarded Best Wine with Cantonese Braised Brisket for its 2013 Nest Egg Shiraz. Eden Valley producer Eden Hall won Best Wine with Wagyu Beef for its 2015 Springton Shiraz. Eden Hall General Manager Graeme Thredgold said he hoped the win would help the small winery secure a distributor so it could ramp up exports to Asia. He said 2015 was the best vintage at the winery in “probably a decade”. “It’s just a great food wine – soft, delicate with lovely silky tannins,” Thredgold said of the winning Shiraz. “Hong Kong and China are absolute key markets for us, there’s not a lot of opportunities in Australia for an independent brand so we need to be diversifying and finding export opportunities for the brand to be sustainable in the future.” Bird in Hand Winemaker Jared Stringer said the award showed the versatility of the Adelaide Hills region for growing Shiraz. He said the use of 100 per cent French oak barrels at Bird in Hand also helped to maintain the subtleties of the region’s Shiraz grapes “Over the last twenty years we’ve been homing in on very specific sites to grow some of the best cool climate Shiraz in the Adelaide Hills,” Stringer said. “It’s a bit more subtle than Shiraz from the Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale. Ours is more perfumed and that prettier style lends itself to dishes that are as delicate as Cantonese Braised Brisket.” Director of the Cathay Pacific HKIWSC, Debra Meiburg MW said the food pairing section had proven popular, achieving a fifty per cent increase in entries on 2015. “The Asian food and wine pairing categories were the star of the show this year,” Meiburg said. “The combination of a great set of new dishes – like Singapore Chili Crab and Indian Butter Chicken – plus the increasing focus on Asian food and wine pairing, both in Asia and internationally, were key contributors to this remarkable increase.” “These results offer both Asia’s food-loving community and restaurant industry expert guidance on the very best international wines to try or recommend to their customers. As the awards are judged by a team of Asian born, Asian based judges, the results are always culturally appropriate – judged for Asia, by Asia.” 23

FOOD ROSE AND CROWN TURNS 175 ALLEN NEWTON

He said that in the past there had been attempts to knock the building over, but he and his wife Tracy had invested millions of dollars to turn it into a historic showcase. He hoped its legacy would live on for another 175 years. The birthday party celebrations included tastings of the Rose & Crown’s regular dishes such as rabbit pie, sausage and mash, mee goreng and pork belly along with nibbles and little desserts. The main building is Georgian style, built from hand-made bricks laid in

Today Tonight reporter Chenee Marrapodi and 96fm executive Brock Walter

a Flemish bond with a pitched roof made from local and English hardwoods, originally covered in shingles. Original owner Thomas Jecks is said to have bought the block of land in 1839 for the price of a goat. He went on to establish a haberdashery store on the site, which expanded over the years to include a licenced inn by 1841. Plenty of mystery surrounds the hotel with more than its fair share of ghost stories and a sealed up tunnel once used to move goods between the Swan River a short distance away and the hotel. A still operational well in the extensive cellars of the hotel gives credence to the tunnels being secretly used for moving illicit contraband. Thomas Jecks continued to expand the hotel and by 1856 the hotel looked much as it does now. Sadly it was during one of these expansion phases that a large beam fell on Jecks killing him on January 24, 1856, aged 42.

Today Tonight executive producer Natalie Bonjolo and husband Warren Easther

ore than 300 people gathered in the gardens of Guildford’s Rose & Crown Hotel to celebrate the hotel’s 175th birthday. It was a garden party atmosphere with marquees offering tastings of Swan Valley wines from Upper Reach, Faber Vineyards, Sandalford, Talijancich, Westfield, Sittella and Fairbrossen along with Naked Apple Cider and Feral Brewing providing tastings of their cider and beers. Rose & Crown owner Mark Weber told the crowd he and his family were proud to be custodians of the hotel, which is the oldest operating pub in Western Australia and the second oldest in Australia.

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FOOD - LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA ANOTHER DAY IN DURBAN, ENDLESS SUN, SEA AND SKIES INGRID SHEVLIN

hen Durban is beautiful it’s heart-achingly beautiful. And New Year’s Day in Greater Durban was truly beautiful. Great expanses of cloudless blue skies, kilometres of azure beaches, pounding surf, and a whisper of a breeze. Perfect for a day on the beach. And eating. While Durban’s main beaches were so crowded is was hard to see a speck of sand between beachgoers, our beach was deserted. And gorgeous with its rock formations, rock pools and long swathes of pristine sand. The beach is on the North coast beyond Umhlanga [pronounced ‘umm-shlangah’] and difficult to access unless you knew how. It’s one of the many deserted spots that attracts Durban chef and restaurateur, Marco Nico; a man passionate about foraging and the edible flora and fauna of KwaZulu Natal. Marco is a man known to screech to a halt along freeways and byways because he’s spotted mfino - wild spinach – or nasturtiums growing wild, which he prizes for its peppery-tasting flowers. His foraged flora is often the star of his Italian-inspired restaurant dishes, along with other foods produced in KZN. ‘Support local’ is his mantra. Durban and KZN is generally unappreciated when its comes to culinary matters. We barely feature on national restaurant award lists. But we are a modest lot. Not given to boasting. We hold our culinary secrets close to our chests. Such as a humming restaurant industry offering a great variety of eating that is not franchise driven, and chefs who are passionate about supporting local food producers. ‘Local is Lekker’ [‘good’ - Afrikaans] is another mantra. Shisa nyama (‘bbq’ed meat’ - Zulu) taverns continue to flourish reflecting the vibrancy and culture of township life. They range from the humble roadside braais (bbq) to five-star eateries offering top branded booze, live music and a wide range of meat options. Kwaito musicians (a genre of music featuring the sounds of Africa) and soccer stars are frequent guests. We have seafood on our doorstep, and we have the country’s best curry restaurants – thanks to our large Indian population. And we own the bunny chow (a half loaf of white bread filled with curry), which is unique to Durban. And it’s never, ever too cold to eat (or swim) outdoors on the East Coast of KZN. But I have digressed. We are on this deserted beach to ostensibly help Marco pry clams from the rocks. For our lunch. But the rocks are dangerous and only those with the right equipment can extricate the clams. So we watch instead, chatting, and steeping our bodies in the deliciously cool sea. It’s hellish hot and humid. Eventually Marco gets his clams and we head for his home. But not before he makes a stop on a side road to collect some New Zealand spinach. You can’t keep a good forager

down it seems. Back home Marco and Scott (an Irish chef from Belfast in Northern Ireland who once lived in Durban) set to cooking the clams. There’s also Scott’s wife, Casey; and David, a professional comic and radio presenter; his partner Helen and Meleney, another representative of the hospitality industry. And two kids. We sit, we talk and eat and eat. Marco serves starters of red and yellow peppers roasted in olive oil and aubergines swimming in a mustard sauce. Along with freshly fried samoosas filled with potatoes and mint. Delicious. We then eat more deliciousness; clams and pasta in a rich Napoletana sauce with the New Zealand spinach, grated Parmesan and garlic artisan bread. Clams barely two hours old! How cool is that. Not for the clams of course. This is when the talk, inevitably, turns to politics, The three men have very strong opinions. The women do too, but they seldom get a word in. The two South African men disagree heatedly over whether white South Africans are still as privileged as they were twenty years ago, when the new South Africa was born, and about white guilt. Should we still be feeling it? They all agree, though, that President Jacob Zuma is a lost cause. That former public protector Thuli Madonsela is a hero. Everyone fears Julius Malema, leader of The Economic Freedom Fighters party, and his promise to forcibly confiscate white-owned land to hand back to the “people”. One man makes a prediction about our country’s dire future if Malema gets into power. The men feel the Democratic Alliance (the official opposition party) has still far to go. One man insists the DA will never get into power because of it’s “white” legacy. I disagree. The the Irishman talks about living in Belfast and about the sectarian hostility between Protestants and Catholics, which still exists. He (a protestant) and his wife (from KZN) talk about how careful they are to never stray into Catholic territory. It’s still dangerous. We all gape. We thought all that was over. But no. The afternoon turns into evening and the men take a break and swim in the pool. Later talk returns to politics. They express anger at the Indian-born Gupta family and the charges of state capture made against them by Thuli Madonsela before she left her post as public protector.

”And they are not even South Africans”, remarks one man angrily. The Gupta family has very close links to Jacob Zuma and have been accused of wielding undue influence on him and the governing process. Then we get hungry again and the left-over garlic bread is torn into chunks and dipped into the roasted peppers along with the aubergines. Delicious. Marco falls asleep, tired after his stint in the sun and cooking. Undeterred the men keep talking. We eventually leave. Just another typical day in Durban. Great food, great company, great weather …. and politics. ABOUT INGRID SHEVLIN

Ms Shevlin was a journalist of thirty or so years, writing a food column for the Sunday Tribune for close on twenty years. Now retired she has the time to focus on her passion for all things food and coffee related. And of course eating out, of which she never tires. Ms Shevlin is based in Kwa-Zulu Natal,South Africa. Her reviews and articles can be read on her website - Shrewd Food here: www.shrewdfood. co.za/ 25

FILM REVIEWS FILM WITH JAMES

A Man Called Ove In Swedish with English subtitles.

made the English versions), is surrounded by people who do not give a damn about rules - but still care deeply about him. The counterpoint to the grumpy, fifty-nine year-old man theme is provided by Sonja, his wife, and Parvaneh, as the pregnant Persian migrant who moves in next door. The story is extremely simple: Ove lost his mother as a small boy and his father when he was sixteen. His house is burnt down when property developers want the land. In his fifties he is retrenched from his job in a railways workshop. His father taught him that Saab makes the best cars in the world and then he discovers that his best friend drives a Volvo. However the dark times are merely there to provide background for scenes of happy highlights. The meeting and romance of Ove and Sonja is a gem. Despite a somewhat inevitable ending, this is a movie which leaves you feeling very good indeed. Perhaps I will buy myself a copy and watch it every New Year’s Day - to remind myself what is wrong and right with the world. A Man Called Ove opens at Cinema Paradiso on January 19th.

he essence of this film is perfectly captured in the opening scene. Ove, a large bear of a grumpy old man, is buying a bunch of flowers at a florist. A woman is a fraction of a second behind him in approaching the counter. She is curtly told that the queue starts behind him. It is not that he is rude to ladies; it is just that rules are rules. It then turns out that he has misinterpreted -oOohis voucher and the cheaper price for the flowers Arrival only applies if he buys two bunches. He asserts Aliens making contact he should only pay half the voucher price for one bunch. The girl at the counter bravely stands her f all the various sub-genres of science fiction, ground. A minute later we see him placing two first contact with an alien species has to be bunches of flowers on his wife’s grave. amongst the most fascinating. The shock to our culture, values and principles when we first meet an alien, most likely with an intelligence and technology superior to ours, will be overwhelming. From H G Wells’ War of the Worlds, through Arthur C Clarke’s 2001, A Space Odyssey and Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Carl Sagan’s Contact, authors and directors have tried to imagine that first meeting and explore the impact. To the above list of classic SF, we can now add Arrival - from a short story by Ted Chiang, directed by Denis Villeneuve. Comparison with that list of classics is not made lightly. This is

The screenplay is a close but necessarily condensed version of the best-selling 2012 Swedish novel by Fredrik Backman. Ove is pronounced ‘oover’, as in a vacuum cleaner with a silent ‘h’. Writer and director Hannes Holm has made a film with piercing insights into people who find happiness in rules and stability, in contrast to those who believe that laws are entirely optional guidelines. Ove, played wonderfully by Rolf Lassgard (the Swedish Wallander before Kenneth Branagh 26

great science fiction. The aliens are not cute humanoids with large eyes, nor diabolical green slime. The heptapods are interesting. Their writing is novel and spectacular. This film is not just thought provoking, it is FUN. The plot is reasonably straightforward. One day, at twelve locations around the globe (including Western Australia), huge vertical cigarshaped spaceships appear. They do nothing but wait for humanity to make contact. Predictably, the radio shock-jocks urge governments to attack and destroy them. An underlying theme looks at the reactions of the various governments when they find one of these things in their countryside. When progress with communication slows, the Chinese General Shang breaks step with the others and commences a count down to military action. The film concentrates on the efforts of the Americans to talk to the spaceship which has landed in Montana. Initial attempts fail and a team based around a linguist (Amy Adams) and a physicist (Jeremy Renner) under the control of Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) is given the task. Why have the aliens arrived? What are they offering? What do they want? All these, plus some insights on the nature of time, are thrown into the mix. There are minor blemishes. The plot requires a warming relationship between Adams and Renner which was tepid at best. And it should be beyond dispute that the best medium for communication with aliens is mathematics, not the ambiguity of natural language. To be fair, trying to talk in sentences rather than equations is much more appealing to cinema audiences. And it leads to tension when Amy Adams tries to distinguish between “tool” and “weapon”. How refreshing to have a film about alien contact with a female lead holding books, rather than a space ranger with a ray gun. The result is the best science fiction film of recent years.

ENTERTAINMENT KOOKABURRA’S BACK - JANUARY PROGRAMME

ring your picnic basket and enjoy a meal under the stars before the show. Blankets and cushions are advisable if cool. This is the Hills’ icon’s twenty-first programme, both varied and interesting: Trolls (G) US. Animated Screens: Friday 13th January Directors: Mike Mitchell, Walt Dohrn Starring the voices of: Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Russell Brand From the creators of Shrek comes the most smart, funny, irreverent animated comedy of the year. Enter a colourful, wondrous world populated by hilariously unforgettable characters and discover the story of the overly optimistic Trolls, with a constant song on their lips, and the comically pessimistic Bergens, who are only happy when they have Trolls in their stomach. Features original music from Justin Timberlake.

Tells the story of how the rebels led by Jyn Stars: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Lizzy Caplan, Erson (Jones) stole the plans to the Death Star, Jared Harris, Matthew Goode the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. The story of intelligence officer Max Vatan, who in 1942 North Africa encounters French The Golden Years Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour on a (PG) UK Comedy/Action deadly mission behind enemy lines. Reunited in Screens: Sunday 22nd January only London, their relationship is threatened by the Director: John Miller extreme pressures of the war. Stars: Virginia McKenna, Bernard Hill, Simon Callow, Phil Davis, Una Stubbs Arthur and Martha Hacksaw Ridge Goode (MA15) US Action/Thriller In the face of increased medical bills, the Screens: Saturday 4th, Sunday 5th February possible loss of their pension and the prospect of Director: Mel Gibson their social club being sold, the group turn to a Stars: Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Vince life of crime, robbing banks to take back what Vaughn, Luke Bracey, Sam Worthington they believe was theirs in the first place. The extraordinary true story of conscientious objector Desmond T. Doss who saved seventyRed Dog: True Blue five men in Okinawa, during the bloodiest battle (M) Aust Drama of WWII, without firing a single shot. Screens: Thursday 26th; Friday 27th January Believing that the war was just but killing Director: Kriv Stenders was nevertheless wrong, he was the only Stars: Jason Isaacs, Levi Miller, Hanna Mangan American soldier in WWII to fight on the front Lawrence, Bryan Brown lines without a weapon. As an army medic Doss The prequel to Red Dog, True Blue traces the single-handedly evacuated the wounded near origins of the kelpie who became an urban legend enemy lines - braving enemy fire and putting his in Western Australia’s Pilbara region in the 70s. own life on the line. When eleven year old Mick (Miller) is shipped He was the first conscientious objector to off to his grandfather’s (Brown) cattle station in ever win the Congressional Medal of Honor. the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, he prepares himself for a life of dull hardship, but Please note: CLOSED SATURDAY 14TH JANUARY instead finds myth, adventure, and a friendship with a scrappy, one-of-a-kind dog that will change his life forever.

Nocturnal Animals (M) US Thriller Screens: Sunday 15th January Director: Tom Ford Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Arnie Hammer, Isla Fisher, Michael Shannon, Aaron TaylorJohnson A haunting romantic thriller of shocking intimacy and gripping tension that explores the thin lines between love and cruelty; Revenge and redemption. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival. ******************************** ***SPECIAL EVENT*** MUCKY DUCK BUSH BAND plus the movie, RED DOG: TRUE BLUE Saturday 28th, Sunday 29th January Gates open at 6:15 for this special event at Kookaburra. The Mucky Duck Bush Band will play and lead a bush dance from 6:30, followed by the movie, Red Dog: True Blue. Adults $25 Children $15 (Cash Only– No cards)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (M) US Science Fiction Screens: Friday 20th; Saturday 21st January Director: Gareth Edwards Stars: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen

NOW OPEN

******************************** Allied (M) US Thriller Screens: Friday 3rd February only Director: Robert Zemekis 27

COMMUNITY THEATRE REVIEWS THEATRE WITH GORDON

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. - Helen K eller CINDERELLA …. THE PANTOMIME

his is a lively and colourful pantomime written by UK pantomime writer David Maughan, and sponsored by the City of Swan, the Ellenbrook Cultural Foundation and Healthway. This two hour Ellenbrook Theatre Company’s spectacle can be seen at the Ellenbrook Performing Arts Centre, 100 Main Street, Ellenbrook on Sunday, 18th December at 2.30 pm and 7.30 pm, as well as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7.30 pm. All credit to the City of Swan for sponsoring this – one of only two – Perth Christmas pantomimes. The sets are stunning. The flats are book style, being hinged in the middle this allows them to be turned over for a set change. The artwork on the five massive flats is exceptional. The village green, the kitchen, Palace Garden, the woodland glade, and the ballroom, each truly a work of art in its own right. Bright attractive colours, perfect perspective and crammed with detail. Set painting by Stacy Gardoll. Her company, The Painted Room do murals and art designs for the home. Many unusual props, such as truncheons and glass slippers were sourced by Ian Howard, Brian Harris, Bryony Oliver, Jordan Lenihan and Suzanne Perry. The complex show was smoothly stage managed by Guy Jackson. The sound and lighting design was by Mark Turnbull. It was exciting and most professional. The makeup was clever and bright thanks to Jan Oliver, Sylvia Guest and Jasmin Lenihan. The numerous colourful and unusual costumes were designed by Jan Oliver (of Masquerade costumes) and very well made with the help of Bryony Oliver and Nicky Stewart. The whole production was supervised by Jan Oliver – a massive amount of work. In a forest, we meet a Fairy Godmother (Sabrina Davies) and her young assistant

(Ruby Oliver). They explain, in rhyme, and with heavenly singing, what is happening at the Palace. As they finish, a local thief, Burglar Bill (Damion Brown) is pursued through the wood by the town’s incompetent police force – PC99 (Alex Griffin) and Sergeant Letsby-Avenue (Lyndsey Turner). We see a young girl in tatty clothes, she is Cinderella (Emily Schinkel) helping an old lady pick up sticks for her fire. What Cinderella doesn’t know is, that the old woman is the Fairy Godmother in disguise. The fairy gives Cinders a magic token, a star. Walking through the woods comes Prince Charming (Jordan Lenihan) and his reliable servant, Dandini (Lloyd Matias). The Prince falls in love with the peasant girl and so gives her a ticket to the Royal Ball. However, Cinderella’s cruel stepmother, the Baroness (Meredith Corr), has forced this

What will happen next? I often feel that the word ‘Chorus’ can suggest that the remaining characters in a pantomime were just hangers-on. Far from it, here every dancer, even the tiniest had tremendous stage presence, and carried out the dance routines – Gangnam, tap, several very different styles – with smiling confidence. They were Jasmin Pradhan, Kaitlin Pradhan, Kasey Burgess, Breannah Rigoli, Letisha O’Neill, Charli Crouch, Ebony Crouch, Hollie Burgess, Jordan Reith and Madison Reith. The print artwork, the poster and programme (Sean Breadsell of Immaculate Photography) were of the highest quality. Director Chris McRae has gathered a wonderful, keen and talented cast. Many of the young cast members could have a real future on the stage. Chris has given us a sing-a-long, great music and just a delightful fun show. The choreographer – and colourful sunflower – Shirelle Burgess, with the aid of the dance captains, Max Hughes and that terrific dancing Christmas tree, Renae O’Neill, has trained the youths (aged from 8 to 17) to an incredible standard. Ugly sisters – boo hiss – were terrific. They communicated with the audience wonderfully. In fact I am fixed up with one for later in the week. The super Baroness had a wonderful air of grandeur and dominance, putting fear into the audience (well slightly – there was nothing truly frightening). The Fairy Godmother, Sabrina Davies, is a professional star and has happily given her time to this wonderful cause. Ellenbrook is one of the few community theatres that can produce a professional looking show every time. Another solid success – but are there any tickets left? SCROOGE crooge is a light-hearted, musical play based on Charles Dickens’ 1843 book, A Christmas Carol, with the music, lyrics and book all written in 1976, by James Leisy. This version of Scrooge is devised around the 1970 screenplay. This Old Mill, ninety minute production can be seen at the Old Mill Theatre, Mends Street in South Perth. This curtain up at 7.30 pm each evening until Saturday 16th December. Tickets are scarce. The stage has two sets; on one side is the office of Scrooge and Marley – the flats were a grubby brown – and on the other side of the stage is the Cratchit’s kitchen. Centre stage became Scrooge’s meagre bedroom. The set was designed by Justin Friend, and then built by Justin, Les Hart and Phil Barnett. The production manager, Sheila Wileman provided most of the antique props. The copyright owner supplied the orchestral music on CD, but this was melodiously enhanced by the choral accompaniment provided by the talented cast in the wings – well-trained by the musical director, Justin Freind. Stage manager, Megan Burley, had a cast of thousands to control, but they entered and exited

S Cinderella (Emily Schinkel)

daughter of her new husband, the Baron (Peter Boylen) to do all the housework. So, poor Cinderella’s only friend is Buttons (Bryony Oliver); her two ugly, loud and hideous stepsisters, Gwyneth (Giordarna Rigoli) and Gwendolyn (Rebecca McRae) are desperate for a husband, but have no quality and absolutely no chance of success. Following the Fairy Godmother’s advice, Buttons helps Cinderella collect a pumpkin, a pair of lizards (Angela Gethin, Chardonnay Mitchell), a big rat (Lisa Reith) and a pair of mice (Isabel Davies, Lexi Brindley – delightful). Soon the fairy’s magic is worked and with a pair of horses (John Paul Botha, Max Hughes) the gold carriage arrives.

smoothly, from both the wings and the rear of the auditorium. This worked very well and added to the audience involvement. The set changes were smooth and unobtrusive. The operation of the sound effects (Nina O’Doherty) and smoke machine were faultless. John Woolrych’s lighting design was one of his best yet. Real candles lighted Scrooge’s office and the accompanying glow was of perfect tone and level. There was also good selective lighting on the soloist singers. One costume had small blue lamps built into the seams, well worth the extra work. The limelights of the era were replaced by two strips of LEDs that gave a chilling effect to some of the dream sequences. Ian O’Doherty faultlessly operated the lighting. The miserly owner, Ebenezer Scrooge (Barry Park), has paid Bob Cratchit (Craig Menner) minimal wages for decades. Ebenezer’s partner, the friendly and well-loved Jacob Marley died several years earlier. Poor Bob has also to help the two trainee accountants, Thomas and Richard (Blake Jenkins, Cooper Jenkins – great soft shoe shuffle) learn the trade. When Scrooge announces to his staff that they must come into work as normal on Christmas Day, the locals, Harold (Ashley Garner) and his friends (Cassidy Pemberton), Topper (Bonnie Kerslake) and Polly (Eliza Malcolm) are horrified and discuss Scrooge’s meanness. Bob lives in a decaying house with his dear wife, Mrs Cratchit (Hayley Grant) and their daughters, Belinda (Tahlia Menner) and Martha (Atira Shack). They also have a weak and disabled son, Tiny Tim (Orlando Borg – beautiful solo). Bob answers the office door to two charity workers, (Harriett Du Pont, Jenny Trestrail), who are asking for donations for the poor. As they leave empty handed, Scrooge’s nephew, Fred (George O’Doherty) and his girlfriend, Emily (Claudia Sciano) call around to invite Scrooge to their home for Christmas dinner – the reply is ‘bah humbug’. On Christmas Eve, as the clock is striking

midnight, Scrooge climbs into bed. Soon he is asleep. In a frightening dream sequence, he sees his old partner, Jacob Marley (Grant Malcolm – fabulous) wrapped in chains. Then he meets the Ghost of Christmas Past (Matilda Jenkins – beautiful voice), who shows him the happiness that once surrounded him as a schoolchild (Bradley Paulet) with young friends, Fan (Tashie Baker) and Wilkins (Jamie Buttery). Then, years later as a young man, Scrooge (Felix Malcolm) is seen spending his Christmas doing bookwork with his old kind boss, Fezziwig (David Major). Even a visit from his childhood sweetheart, (Jade Gibbons) fails to make him happy. The nightmare continues as the ebullient Spirit of Christmas Present (Nelson Clemente – more of a bubbly champagne than a ‘spirit’) appears as a wild Spanish dancer; with castanets clicking, he shows Scrooge the sadness and poverty of the Cratchit’s home, and the mercenary local pawnbroker (Wesley Williams) ripping off poor Mrs Dilbert (Georgia Dixon). Then the 3 metre tall Spirit of Christmas Future (Grant Malcolm), draped in black with a skeletal skull and arms, arrives and demonstrates to Scrooge what a difference he could make to his workers’ lives. Could life be changing for this wretched old miser? This the year of the Scrooge. This version, directed by Justin Freind, is different to all of the others. It is filled with superb singing, fun and at times frightening ghosts. With a young cast, age range from eight to eighteen, the show sparkled and bounced along at a perfect pace. The numerous costumes were all carefully considered for the period and beautifully tailored by Jenny Prosser. Michelle Buttery’s makeup design was excellent, with Marley’s ghost looking particularly creepy. With such a large cast, the importance of knowing how to move around the stage without bumping and causing chaos had been well learned. There were some novel touches, such as the white-faced ghosts wandering around Scrooge’s bedroom and then the audience. Barry ‘Scrooge’ Park has been nominated this year for a Finley, and here he is with great characterisation and a soft, mellifluous voice, again proving why he was nominated. An exceptional cast, I looked for the ensemble member who may nod off or be distracted – not even one, everybody was focused and dedicated. Justin Freind’s shows are always quality, and this is another wonderful show to add to his résumé.

George O’Doherty and Barry Park in Scrooge

THEATRE 2016 FINLEY RESULTS Results of the Robert Finley Awards 2016 ITA Awards: THE YVONNE LYNCH BREAKTHROUGH AWARD Rob Warner, The Foreigner – DTP THE BRIAN MADDOCKS AWARD FOR YOUTH George O’Doherty, The Trolleys – Playlovers THE VERONICA OVERTON-LOW AWARD FOR YOUTH Sophia Matthews, A Little Princess – Playlovers THE YVONNE HOUGH-NEILSON ADJUDICATORS AWARD Noel O’Neill – Prolific Body of Writing. HYWELL WILLIAMS AWARD FOR TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT The Cat and the Canary – Roleystone Theatre THE ELIZABETH CREWES FRONT OF HOUSE AWARD Wild Caper Theatre SHEILA BUCHANAN AWARD Wild Caper Theatre BEST CHOREOGRAPHER Maddison Price, The Witches of Eastwick – 9 Lives Productions BEST MUSICAL DIRECTOR Lyn Brown, Blitz – Wanneroo Repertory BEST SET (MUSICAL) Footloose -Darlington Theatre Players BEST COSTUMES (MUSICAL) The Little Mermaid – Koorliny Arts Centre BEST ACTOR (MUSICAL) Mitch Lawrence, Spamalot – Koorliny Arts Centre BEST ACTRESS (MUSICAL) Shanice Palfrey, The Little Mermaid – Koorliny Arts Centre BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (MUSICAL) Chris Ball, Footloose – Darlington Theatre Players BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (MUSICAL) Rachel Monamy, Spamalot – Koorliny BEST DIRECTOR (PLAY) – SUSAN HAYWARD AWARD Ryan Taaffe, Tuesdays With Morrie – Stirling Theatre BEST ACTOR (PLAY) Alan Kennedy, Tuesdays With Morrie -Stirling Theatre BEST ACTRESS (PLAY) Jenny Howard McCann – Shirley Valentine – KADS BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (PLAY) Cal Silberstein, The Habit of Art – Old Mill Theatre BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (PLAY) Cordelia Clarke, The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband -Harbour Theatre BEST SET (PLAY) – THE DAVID CREWES AWARD The Foreigner- Darlington Theatre Players BEST COSTUMES (PLAY) – THE BRENDA STANLEY AWARD Wyrd Sisters, Darlington Theatre Players BEST DIRECTOR (MUSICAL) – MARY WEBB AWARD Brad Tudor and Natalie Burbage, The Little Mermaid, Koorliny Arts Centre BEST YOUTH PRODUCTION The Trolleys -Playlovers RUNNER UP BEST PLAY The Foreigner – Darlington Theatre Players THE ROBERT FINLEY AWARD FOR BEST PLAY Tuesdays With Morrie – Stirling Theatre RUNNER UP BEST MUSICAL Spamalot – Koorliny Arts Centre THE ROBERT FINLEY AWARD FOR BEST MUSICAL The Little Mermaid – Koorliny Arts Centre 29

COMMUNITY LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AN OPEN LETTER TO PETER FITZSIMONS Dear Mr FitzSimons We have received your unceasing diatribe on a republic courtesy of the Canberra Times Christmas Eve Edition. Now, we don’t expect the Canberra Times or most journals to give us equal space because the media is no longer bipartisan but pushes a left agenda. Having said that, I emphasise that the Australian Monarchist League is not connected to any political party. In fact we have voters from all political parties both mainstream and minor. We are composed of members from all ethnicities and most religions. The sort of people we don’t have are business magnates and multinationals. They appeared to be in your camp. For what reason we wonder? You talk about the Canberra-based ANU poll. That is just one which indicates a rise in support for a republic. Most polls have been indicating a decline. I wonder whether you will be broadcasting the next poll so aggressively if it is not in your favour? Your constant mantra seems to be: “Australians can do better in the 21st Century than find our Head of State from a family of English aristocrats living in a palace in London.” Are you inferring that we should look to a palace, in Australia in terms of course, in Point Piper? The fact is in the lead up to Federation, the Australian electorate voted to be a constitutional monarchy under the Crown of the United Kingdom. Since that time our own constitution, established in 1901, has developed Australia into an independent sovereign state. We are not dictated to by the British government or Parliament nor are we dictated to by the Queen, whose underlying purpose is to ensure that “your mates” in politics don’t assume total power. In 1999, the vast majority of Australians voted NO to a republic. In fact, virtually the very same Turnbull-model type of republic that you have been proposing. You say that our system is ‘broke’ because your children can’t grow up and become head of state. That is absolute nonsense. Immediately upon appointment by the Queen the GovernorGeneral assumes the role of the monarch in Australia and becomes our effective head of state and since 1965 our Governors-General have all been Australians. Since 1931 all Governors-General have been nominated by the Australian Prime Minister. You say that your task is to: “ideally to get 30

the numbers to sixty per cent, at which point we can be absolutely sure of getting the job done.” Well, Mr FitzSimons, I am afraid you’re in for a big surprise. In the first instance whatever republican support there is will be divided into various models. You may have a plebiscite and if it is a trick question you may win that, but that doesn’t mean that all republicans will support the choice. Furthermore, once the detail of any change is put to the people at referendum, most will resile from it. If one of your “mates” in government puts forward a trick question such as: “do you want an Australian as head of state,” we may challenge that in the High Court as an improper question. However, we don’t think we would need to do that because when the Prime Minister said: “our head of state should be one of us” at your dinner last Saturday, 17 December, most people, even republicans, would have run a mile. You say that in promoting a republic: "this really could be the unifying cause our nation needs” but you are wrong. A republican debate is the most divisive argument that Australians can have. It will divide household against household and friend against friend. Don’t you think that, particularly at this time, there are so many more important issues that need to be resolved before embarking upon changing something that is working so very well? Have you considered the danger of altering our system of governance when our politicians are at each other’s throats, both inside and outside their political parties? Our economy is on a knife edge. Our hospitals badly need revamping. Our Social Security is in danger of collapse. Government expenditure is fast exceeding income and no government is prepared to tighten its own belt, let alone the people’s for them. A republic? It’s not on anyone’s list except yours and your “mates”. We should get one thing straight. When journalists and your political “mates” from all sides of politics start pushing a republic, what they are actually promoting is the removal of the Crown which is at the very core of our Constitution and the very fibre that runs through our system of governance. If you want your republic, you can’t just Tippex words out of our current constitution and stop there. It would be like removing the foundations of a house and just hoping it will keep on standing. To get your republic you have to rip up the current constitution and start all over again just like the Americans did in 1787. And as for keeping the name Governor-General why don’t you call a spade a spade and mean what you say and that is that your head of state will be a president. Malcolm Turnbull tried the soft approach in the nineteen nineties and failed miserably. We did think of suggesting to a third party that there should be a debate between us sometime in 2017, but we really don’t think you have anything new to say. Philip Benwell National Chair Australian Monarchist League

Dear Sir: Thank you to all who hit their stride for stroke this November. On behalf of the Stroke Foundation, I would like to thank local residents who took the challenge to Stride4stroke this November and those who supported their efforts. Collectively we strode all around the world, clocking almost 60,000 kilometres or more than 1400 marathons. Our striders hit the streets in droves, walking, running, wheeling, cycling and even rollerblading in a community-wide effort to get moving while raising funds and awareness for the Stroke Foundation. Stride4stroke participants and their supporters were united by one common purpose – to beat stroke.

Stroke is one of Australia’s biggest killers and a leading cause of disability. It kills more women than breast cancer and more men than prostate cancer. One in six of us will have a stroke in our lifetime and its impact can be devastating. Most of our striders have seen this devastation first-hand, either having experienced a stroke themselves or watching a loved one suffer. Stroke is far too common but we aim to change that. Stroke is largely preventable, it is treatable and I, alongside the hundreds of Australians who took part in Stride4stroke, believe we can beat this disease. To beat stroke we need to attack it on all fronts. We need to: * Empower Australians to take positive lifestyle changes to avoid a deadly stroke in the first place. * Ensure all Australian households know the signs of stroke and know they must call 000. Every stroke is a medical emergency. * Research the development of effective treatments to ensure that survivors make their best recovery possible. Action takes money and your support makes all the difference. Together you raised more than $170,000, which will make an enormous difference to the thousands of stroke survivors and their families in the community. However we know there is still much to do. Stride4stroke may have finished for 2016 but you can still be part of the Stride movement, supporting our mission to prevent, treat and beat stroke. A small donation will help us continue take great strides in the fight against stroke. Visit stride4stroke.org.au to get involved. Sharon McGowan Chief Executive Officer, Stroke Foundation

FINANCE BOOK REVIEW - WELFARE OF NATIONS BY J BARTHOLOMEW STEVE BLIZARD

Australia’s pension system exposed uthor and journalist James Bartholomew was introduced to Margaret Thatcher at a party in May 2006. He mentioned to the former British prime minister that he had just written a book arguing that Britain would be better off if the welfare state had never existed. Straight away she demanded to know what should be done about it. He replied that he couldn’t suggest anything, or at least nothing that would ever be acceptable in a democratic society. “You can’t say there is a problem and not come up with a solution!” she declared in the peremptory tone that her former ministers knew so well. “If you say the welfare state is no good, you must suggest an alternative!” Bartholomew’s book, entitled The Welfare of Nations, is his attempt to provide an answer to Lady Thatcher. His book is an unparalleled investigation into how welfare states “are changing civilisation”. He takes the reader on a journey that visits institutions in eleven countries, from schools in San Francisco, hospitals in Holland, and a tough-minded benefits office in Singapore. But the paradox is that as the wealth of the nations has increased, so has the number of people apparently in need of the nations’ welfare. Analysts on the Left, most recently Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, see it as a consequence of out-of-control capitalism, which the inequality between the have-nots and the have-yachts stretches ever wider. The welfare state, as its advocates contend, always promises a better society, with higher levels of equality. Bartholomew provides ample evidence that welfare states worldwide have produced a range of disastrous consequences, including

unemployment, ‘broken families’ and social slashed or cut altogether. isolation, despite the best intentions of their The maximum amount of assets a person architects. can have before their pension is hit, has been reduced. MEANS TESTING COUNTERPRODUCTIVE Under harsh new means-testing, Australian An influential document in the founding of retirees are now being impacted by a “savings the UK welfare system, Bartholomew makes trap”, whereby they are being punished for doing reference to the “Beveridge Report”, chaired by the right thing by saving during their working the Liberal economist Sir William Beveridge. lives. Published in November 1942, the report Pensions will cut out more quickly for those was officially entitled Social Insurance and Allied with assets exceeding $375,000 for homeowner Services. couples, $450,000 for single non- homeowners, Amongst other concerns, and $575,000 for non-homeowner couples. Beveridge was opposed to This is an appalling long-term policy message "means-tested" benefits. to be sending to the community, of which the His proposal, ultimately Federal Coalition Government in Canberra seems undermined by bureaucrats, incapable of recognising as being a problem. was for a flat rate contribution As Bartholomew notes, means tested rate for everyone and a flat rate benefits discourages work, honesty and selfbenefit for everyone. reliance. Means-testing was intended With Australia tightening the Age Pension to play a tiny part because it means-testing regime, but excluding the family created high marginal tax rates home (irrespective of value), the system here for the poor, otherwise known is now rife for abuse, fast becoming highly as a “poverty trap”. inequitable against those doing the right thing. Bartholomew cites the The message from the government for example from the UK of Pauline Australian workers now is don’t save, because it Ford, who lived frugally in a will cost you a small fortune in lost aged pension mobile home while claiming later on. welfare benefits. In contrast, when Bartholomew visited New Pauline never went out and Zealand, he discovered that the Kiwis have a flat didn’t smoke or drink. rate universal pension for all citizens over 65, In 2011 she was convicted of fraud because providing they have lived there for at least 10 she hadn’t disclosed that she had built up savings years. of £22,000. Means-tested pensions were first introduced Obviously under means testing she NZ in 1898; however the Kiwis eventually should have disclosed this under the law, but abolished income and asset means testing of the Bartholomew says that if she had drank and pension, with the introduction of the 1938 Social smoked, or if she had bought furniture or gold Security Act. chains, she wouldn’t have had the savings and In New Zealand today, you don’t need to be therefore not committed any crime. “retired” – you can have a full-time job, save and This example demonstrates how the British still collect the full pension, if you choose to apply welfare state discourages saving by the poor, for one. because if they build up savings, they will cease to be entitled to certain benefits. HIGH ADMINISTRATION COSTS Another weakness of means testing that AUSTRALIAN AGED PENSION CHANGES Bartholomew identifies is the massive increase in From 1 January 2017, 300,000 Australian administration costs. retirees will see their Centrelink Aged Pensions The latest Department of Social Security annual report (2015-16) reveals that it cost $622 million to administer our total pension system. Of this, $325 million in salaries were paid to over 2300 employees, with most based in Canberra. Part of this massive administration impost is to regularly monitor the assessable assets and income of millions of Australian pensioners. This unnecessary and pointless overhead is simply not incurred under the New Zealand system. With Pauline Hanson now paying close attention as to how the Aged Pension system is failing hard-working Australians, be assured we have not seen the end of pension reform in this nation. Courtesy of Roxburgh Securities 31

BOOKS skills—and you’d probably want to try them again. Eve is as certain as death that she has a LDSK on her hands—a long-distance serial killer. Title: Apprentice in Death Her assessment is borne out by Dr Mira, the Author: J D Robb police profiler. What isn’t initially obvious is the Publisher: Piatkus Books motive—is this a thrill killer, or is the shooter Reviewer: Karen R Treanor working to a plan? Using every possible clue, Eve narrows down the killer’s specific target from D Robb’s “In Death” series runs to a formula, amongst the dead at the skating rink. rather like a salad dressing. You know there She suspected from the start of the case that will always be olive oil and some sort of this might be an ABC edible acid, but it’s the other ingredients that make each offering different and tasty in its own way. Some of the volumes in the series have been darker than others; some have had more humour; some have had a full cast of characters, others have involved just the lead character Eve Dallas and a handful of her friends and workmates. The latest in the series is a J D Robb complex mixture of family loyalty, revenge, pride and sorrow. And horror: with Eve Dallas, there’s always going to be horror. The story opens in Central Park’s Wollman Skating rink, once rescued from ruin by Donald murder--one target Trump. The year is 2060. Happy citizens are and two decoys--and when there i s enjoying winter sport when several of them fall another spate of killing, with a connection to the and begin to bleed on the ice. Panic ensues, and previous one, she is certain. by the time Lt. Eve Dallas and her Scene of the Quite early in the book Eve theorises that Crime crew arrive, nobody has any idea of what’s there’s one killer and one person directing the happened. killer—an apprentice and a master practitioner. It doesn’t take Eve long to figure out a sniper She identifies the killer, but knowing and has been at work, and with the aid of her super- finding are two very different things. So far the rich and incredibly tech-savvy husband Roarke, apprentice has been following orders, but there’s she finds the sniper’s hide in a building far from evidence that the master’s control is fraying. the scene. Soon the apprentice will be pursuing a larger and You’d have to be highly skilled to kill three even more horrifying agenda. people from that distance, even with a state- Amidst the blood and gore of her daily work, of-the-art laser weapon. You’d be proud of your Eve occasionally has time for romantic interludes with her handsome husband. She’s still learning the “Rules of Marriage” which have complicated Have a book to publish? her once lonely life, and this makes for often entertaining byplay amid the more serious R Family History R Non-Fiction themes of the novels. R Autobiography R Biography Many of the characters we have become R Fantasy R Fiction attached to in the previous books turn up in this one. Present are Delia Peabody, Eve’s partner, R Poetry and her main squeeze McNab, he of the neon clothing and jingling earrings. Get expert advice Morris the medical examiner is on the scene, on layout, editing, costings, publishing still recovering from the murder of his lover but beginning to come out of his grief. On the and marketing from professional editors periphery are Eve’s old friend Mavis and her First consultation free family; plus the entire New York Police and Free quotes Security Department, including Eve’s boss and his boss, who take a personal interest in the case Swinburne Press (founded 1989) when a police officer is killed. This is yet another in the long list of successes P: 6296 5161 for the amazingly prolific J D Robb. What’s her E: douglassb@iinet.net.au secret? I think it is the formula mentioned at the top of this review. Besides the oil and the acid, there’s plenty of spice and flavour. Most importantly, there’s an

REVIEWS

assurance that evil will be punished and innocent deaths be avenged, something that we can’t always be sure of in real life. With thanks to NewMysteryReader.com About the Author Nora Roberts (born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950) is an American bestselling author of more than 213 romance novels. She writes as J. D. Robb for the ‘in Death’ series, and has also written under the pseudonyms Jill March and for publications in the U.K. as Sarah Hardesty. -oOo-

JUST OUT Title: Author: Publisher: ISBN:

Leading into the Future Hans J. Ornig Balboa Press Australia 9781 5043 0401 6

uthor Hans J. Ornig wants to add value and provide some clarification and context to assist people in understanding the ‘so what’ and the critical need (and complexities) of global governance which is important in ushering in the technology evolution. Humanity is transitioning from biological evolution to one driven by technology. Leading into the Future presents three pillars that underpin understanding of a collective future: being human, technology and leadership. It explains exponential technologies, their impacts, what they are leading humans to and what it all means globally and for the individual. It is a summary of key exponential technologies, what they mean and what the future challenges will be. An excerpt from the book: “Technology, people and events are leading us into a future that cannot be imagined or understood today. How do we manage this? Who or what will lead us into the future? Understanding and dealing with the implications of technologies in the global and human context; the ‘so what’, ‘why it matters’ and ‘what if’, requires wisdom and its application to our management of humanity.” “Humanity is transitioning; rapid and hugely significant change is imminent. Our future requires a plan, some control and perhaps brakes,” Ornig says. He hopes to awaken readers’ gradual awareness of exponential technologies and their certain impacts on humanity. “Leading into the Future” explains them well. About the Author Hans J. Ornig is a graduate from Australia’s Royal Military College, Duntroon, with an engineering degree from the University of NSW. Following twenty years of military service he held various senior management and C-level positions in a diverse range of industries. He has a unique understanding of the existing and emerging technology fueled disruptions that are impacting everyday life at an increasing rate.

HOLIDAY READING ONE SPACE OR TWO? JAY CRISP CROW

oooooh. Mention this issue on a Facebook digital business forum and watch it light up. “Noooooooo!” cry the learned-on-atypewriter folk, “do NOT tell me I have to change this too!” Yep, that’s right. We’re tackling the age-old question: Do you put two spaces between sentences, or just one? This global controversy is right up there with the great Canvas Versus Plastic debate (canvas, please!) and whether the chicken or the egg came first. (Both delicious!) Here’s the question. From time to time, you’ll see people add two spaces between sentences. So, like this: “Here’s one sentence. Here’s the other sentence”. And the double-space camp is saying that’s the right way to do it. Because it was, historically. Then you see lines with only one space: “Here’s one sentence. Here’s the other sentence”. It may seem like a minor difference, but if you’re typing 1000 words of copy, you’re going to notice the extra spaces. And some believe if you’re READING 1000 words of copy (so, on a Sales page, for example) you’re really going to notice. So which way is right? To understand why people add two spaces, we’re going to jump into our Copywriter’s Time Machine and zip back to the late 1800s, when typewriters were all the rage (if you don’t know what a typewriter is: it’s basically a computer with no screen that writes emails on dead trees. Also, I am jealous of your youth). Typewriters used something called ‘monospace’. Monospace referred to the amount of space each letter took up on the page. Technically it existed before typewriters, but it found practical application there. Basically, every letter took up the same amount of space regardless of how wide that letter was. So a narrow letter (like a capital ‘I’) took up the same amount of space as a wide character (like a capital ‘E’). This lead to some weird spacing, which made it more difficult to tell where sentences ended and began. And everything looked a bit sloppy. It was hard to differentiate between two sentences, and sometimes even words looked to have an extra gap where one shouldn’t be. In short, type was harder to read with monospacing, so typographers implemented the whole double-spacing system. So, fast forward a few years (and add a few wrinkles). Early computers used monospacing due to graphical limitations but as word processors became more advanced, monospacing went the way of the Dodo. Narrow letters were given less space than wider letters. Copy became ten times easier to read... …except for the copy that still clings to the ‘double space’ method, which – because non-monospaced writing is easier to read – actually makes writing

harder to read, rather than easier. So, should double-spacing be banned? No, not necessarily. Technically it’s correct. But you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. Spaces between pauses represent pauses. A pause on the page prompts the reader to pause. That’s brilliant, because we want our readers to feel a natural, conversational flow when they’re ‘listening’ in their heads to our words, we want our voice to take a breath in their minds,

but we don’t want them to trip over a large gap between sentences – a trip big enough to stop them in their tracks. I know I’ve harped on about this a bit, but we know that website readers don’t really read. They scan. When we’re writing for a reader who is scanning information to find the relevant parts, the last thing we want to do is make that reader work harder. You won’t be surprised there are books written about how to space out your copy. David Jury is the author of About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography. “It’s so bloody ugly.” (He said lots of other clever things too, you can find the book on line). Because we might just create them a gap large enough for them to fall in, then bounce away. And bouncing is bad. Even then, nowadays a common perception is that double-spacing is a relic left over from the days of the typewriter, and that those who still do it are making a mistake. Sure, there are some die-hard double-spacers out there who will agree, but there are a bunch of single-spacers who see double-spacing and think of it as a mistake. Remember – because much of modern typography is single-spaced, your doublespace demographic probably won’t notice the single

spacing. And that’s good. Because when it comes down to it, you want your reader to notice your message, feel something tingly and good about your service or product, love your voice, and be in alignment with your values. Not spend a single moment considering your spacing. So weigh up your options. -You can double-space. Of course you can! Just like you can use multiple exclamation marks after a sentence if you want, or wallow in ellipses. Part of your email list will may think you’re making a mistake, which undermines your credibility. Some may stop and ponder for a second and lose their flow. A couple of folk might think your formatting is dodgy, or check their screen for wobbles. Your double-spacers won’t notice because that’s the way they were taught. Or -You can single-space. None of your email list will think you’re making a mistake. Your double-spacers still won’t notice because single-spacing is so prevalent. You’ll nail the almighty flow. Which is the smarter option? Now, I’ve tried to be impartial. It’s my job to deliver a concept to you and for you to decide whether it suits your communication style. I am certainly not passing judgement. Actually, that’s fibs. I want your copy to be better. I don’t want to see you undermine your credibility because of an outdated belief. I want you to get rid of that extra space and appeal to a broader audience and be easier to read. I think you know the right thing to do. Courtesy of Crisp Crow Communications

HOLIDAY READING THE TIME-TRAVELLING BULLETS JAMES FORTE

t is an essential feature of Australian country towns that there should be an older gent propped against some verandah post, watching the world go by. On this particular October afternoon, opposite the Jacaranda Tearooms, he would have witnessed an unusual degree of excitement and activity. First to emerge from the tearooms was a police inspector with a mobile phone to his ear. His face was bright red and his demands easily carried across the street. He was requiring the immediate presence of a patrol car at the nearby girls’ college. The old gent sucked on a tooth. Perhaps the rumours were true and they were going to arrest that German teacher after all. The policeman was immediately followed by the editor of the local newspaper, a particularly selfsatisfied-looking portly man with a Colonel Sanders beard and moustache striding down the hill towards his offices on the riverbank. A few minutes later, the fly-wire door of the tearooms banged open a third time and the headmistress of the college and one of her students came out, a slender girl of perhaps seventeen. They looked as if they had recently gone through a major cathartic experience. They turned towards the school and silently trudged up the hill. The petite girl, whose name was Celine Davies, was dressed in a uniform and shoes which had seen better days. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail with a plain white ribbon. She was pondering the effect the simultaneous deaths of three brothers would have on a family. Their sister had founded the college a century ago. Celine tried to imagine what it would have been like to have met that sorrowing lady. ~oOo~ Miss Gertrude Duckmanton was attractive, intelligent, educated, wealthy and single. It was not surprising that there was a multitude of young men in her life. Sadly she died a spinster of the parish. She was inventive and quick with her hands, a useful skill on a farm; she produced sewing samplers of elegant design, which was not. She never left the small town in the Avon valley, east of Perth. “Eccentric”, her neighbours said. This was the polite term for a lady who was rich and powerful. Actually she was deranged. In 1914 she had waved her three brothers off to war. They survived Gallipoli and were transferred to the Western Front. All three died

the same night at the Somme, stemming a German advance in 1916. The family never recovered from the shock. Her parents died a few months later, leaving her the sole beneficiary of the large and prosperous farm. Running the farm was not a happy time for Gertrude. Every corner of every building and paddock held memories of her brothers and she soon gave up, sold everything and moved into town. She used her considerable funds to build a large boarding school for a hundred and twenty boys. Duckmanton College was intended for the

Gertrude Duckmanton 1887 - 1925 sons of soldiers who never returned. She lived in a modest house next door and chaired the Board of Governors. When she died, in 1925, a memorial to the family was erected over her grave in a corner of the grounds. It was in the school that the murders occurred. The tragic event was precisely one hundred years to the hour, from that battle in France when the brothers fell. The school was organised on the English model and the students belonged to one of the three houses. These were named Reginald House, Alan House and Frederick House after Gertrude’s brothers.

The head boy or captain of each house had the privilege of moving from the dormitories to his own small room on the top floor looking over the Avon River. By 1955 the school was losing money and looked as it might have to close. But at the time the need for better female education facilities was being recognised. The school gained a large grant of government funding, was renovated and reopened as a college for girls. The headmistress continued with the traditional houses and the captains’ rooms were now occupied by the head girls. On the night of the murders, there was merriment in the air. It was the start of the southern spring and the Jacarandas and wild flowers were in full bloom; the whole school was to have a week’s trip to Perth and then, after the minor blemish of end-of-year exams, there were the long summer holidays. It was at one in the morning, the precise time of the start of the German attack, that the three students were shot in their beds. The weapons were apparently World War One vintage .303 Lee Enfield rifles. ~oOo~ The Jacaranda Tearooms, during daylight hours, was the social centre of town. A large house had been converted with the courtyard shaded by the two mature purple trees which gave the establishment its name. Douglas Cromarty was the editor of the local weekly paper, the Avon Messenger. As was his custom, the morning break was spent in the Tearooms with chief reporter, Jessica Smith. Today the condition of the wheat crop was being relegated to page five to make way for a much bigger story. “Press conference this morning was a waste of time. Dr Hensley is trying to save her school’s reputation. Inspector Baird just flapped his arms about. To quote Agatha Christie: ‘The police are totally baffled’. “Baird seems to think the time and date are significant. “The three brothers were killed exactly a hundred years ago. “The ghosts of the Duckmantons have risen from their graves.” “You don’t really believe that.” Jessica muttered. “Reached into a sealed time capsule inside a stonewall and took three rounds of ammunition. Loaded their rifles, quietly walked through walls into locked bedrooms where they shot three girls. Then killers and weapons just vanished” he replied smugly. “Going to put ‘Ghost’ in the headline?” she asked.

“Don’t need to. Could put ‘Lizards Like Limp Lettuce Leaves’ and still triple our circulation.” Douglas sipped his Darjeeling. “How about: ‘The Time-Travelling Bullets’? I’ve always wanted to write a headline like that.” “Time travel?” he snorted. “Just as good as your ghost thing!” she jeered. “Somehow three shots fired in 1916 entered a time warp and emerged in 2016.” “And travelled from France to Australia”, Douglas observed. “Sounds like they’re the only clue the cops have got.” He consulted two ancient issues of the Avon Messenger, retrieved that morning from the archives. “When the school was built, back in 1917, the founders had a time capsule sealed up in one of the stone walls. Filled it with mementos of the times. Of the war. Including a Lee Enfield magazine containing ten rounds of ammunition.” “Live rounds?” Jessica asked incredulously. “Apparently. People were rather casual about guns in those days. ’Specially farmers. There’s a photo of Miss Gertrude Duckmanton and the mayor placing the capsule in the hole in the wall. The contents were listed in the article.” “All the students knew about it when I was there.” Jessica remembered. “Chiselled into the stone: ‘Time capsule to be opened in October 2016’. Didn’t know it had real ammunition though.” “We should check with the police… or the army… what condition it might be in after all this time.” “I’ll give them a call.” Jessica made a note on her pad. “Dr Hensley has been organizing the ceremony for the opening of the time capsule for weeks. Finance no problem. Large bequest from the founder. Whole school to go to Perth - for a week of commemorative and educational activities on the war.” “And everything was ready?” She poured herself another cup of Lapsang souchong. “Yup.” “For the day after the girls were shot.” “Yup.” “And people turned up Tuesday morning for the ceremony. Found they were short three house captains.” “Yup.” “So old Hensley went ahead anyway?” “Of course.” Douglas laughed. “There were police everywhere. Parents were taking their distressed daughters home. The place was in meltdown.” “So…?” “The police pulled out the stone, in case it was relevant. The capsule was still sealed and covered in dust and muck. The Head opened it. There were only seven rounds in the magazine.” “Doesn’t prove anything.” Jessica interjected. “Just heard from Baird. The bullets recovered from the three rooms were nickel plated and round nosed. World War One. Since then .303 rounds have been pointed. Can’t get that sort of ammo anymore. Either ’specially made by a gunsmith or from some museum.” “Both extremely unlikely.” “Moot point.” Douglas continued. “Baird has

confirmed they came from the same batch as the ammunition in the capsule. Indisputably. Modern forensic testing.” “Not possible.” “Shooting three students - in three locked rooms - in a girls school - with a modern security system - isn’t possible either.” Jessica looked at her notes. “My sources say there was nothing recorded on the CCTV system. Nothing moved in the top floor corridors. Ghostly or girly. Not ’till someone called a teacher. When woken by some loud bangs.” “And then?” “The recordings show a student and two teachers, one male one female, doing a search of the top floor. No one else coming or going.” “Sure about that?” Douglas asked. “Impeccable source. They knocked on the doors of the head girls. Thought they heard a groan.” “I heard they stayed outside demanding entrance, while they sent a student to get the keys.” “Thought they’d found some drug dealing.” “Why were the doors locked?” Douglas’voice showed interest. “A legend. On the anniversary of her brothers’ deaths, the ghost of Gertrude Duckmanton walked the corridors. Sort of early Halloween. So the girls used to take advantage. Spooky nocturnal pranks, particularly on the house captains. Or maybe the girls just wanted some privacy.” “So” Douglas summarised, “When they unlocked the door they found a dying girl with a stomach wound. Window latched against the cold. No killer and no gun.” “Called police and ambulance. Then went to check on the other two houses. Same result.” “Not quite.” “Okay, to be accurate. One dead and one who died in the helicopter on her way to hospital.” Douglas thought for a minute. “We can keep this story going for several special issues. Today we’ll do the basic facts. But I want more on the people involved. Human interest. Do you still know any of the teachers?” “Better than that. I can talk to the girl who found the bodies.”

~oOo~ Celine Davies was petite, intelligent, educated, poor and rather lonely. She was in her final year at Duckmanton College and had been badly beaten in the election for head girl of Frederick House. She considered herself a city girl. The simultaneous breaking up of her parents’ marriage and the gaining of a scholarship saw her stuck in the Avon valley for her secondary schooling. She had been lying awake reading a theatre magazine on her battered iPad. There was no wind but the old building still creaked. Outside the moonlight showed white shapes of early morning mist growing among the trees. Definitely ghostly. She shivered and snuggled into the blankets as she read. The school had been crackling with excitement over dinner. Tomorrow would be the opening of the time capsule, immediately followed by a week in the big smoke. A service in St George’s Cathedral to commemorate the sacrifices of the Great War then visits to universities, art galleries, museums and, best of all, theatres. The problem was Janet in the next bed. She could not sleep and wanted to chat… about boys. Celine maintained her half of the whispered conversation with non-committal murmurs. “Herr Boehm is yummy, but totally cold. I was talking to that new trainee in the post office. Pretended to accidentally brush his hand when I picked up my stamps. Went bright red.” “Mm” went Celine. “That Barry Cartwood was hanging ’round today. The creepy carpenter. Old Hensley was talking to him.” “Mm” went Celine again. “Trying to get him to do something urgent. Spends more time looking at the girls than fixing the building. Had a wheelbarrow full of sawdust.” Janet added. “Didn’t understand the meaning of the verb ‘to leer’ until he started checking out my legs.” “Mm” went Celine for the third time. “Wanted to tell me the difference between socks and stockings. Socks are faster to take 35

off, stockings more fun.” Before Celine could ‘mm’ yet again, she clearly heard the three loud cracks. Definitely not the creaking of the building. Tree branches snapping or gunshots? And close. She held her breath and listened. “Did you hear something? Gertrude’s ghost?” Janet whispered. “D’you think it was shooting?” Celine asked. Finally civic duty had overcome inertia and she used her mobile to quietly call the duty teacher in the office. Ms Mitchell, the history teacher, also thought she had heard something over the late night television. A quick glance at the CCTV monitors showed that everything was quiet, but Davies was a reliable girl. If she thought something was wrong… Herr Boehm, one of the two men on the staff, still had his study light on. Two minutes later they were climbing the main staircase to the top floor. When a knock on the door of the Frederick House captain’s room produced a groan, the teachers were as much concerned about a suicide attempt as drug taking. Janet was told that there was nothing to worry about – go back to sleep - and Celine was dispatched back to the office to get the keys. After she unlocked the door, she stood watching, pulling on a thin dressing gown over her pyjamas. Everyone was very levelheaded. There was no screaming. Ms Mitchell commenced first-aid while Herr Boehm seized Celine’s phone to call emergency services and then the School Principal and the resident nurse. Celine was ignored. She sniffed the air. Was that what gun-smoke smelled like? Carefully she looked around, noting the latched window. Bravely she looked in the wardrobe and under the bed. No one and no gun. There was a whispered debate between the two teachers. If there was a gunman loose in the school then the students should be roused immediately and locked down in a place of safety. If, however, it were a suicide attempt, then the incident should be kept as quiet as possible. Celine took it upon herself to suggest a compromise: could Ms Mitchell continue with the first aid until the nurse came - while she and Herr Boehm did a head count of the sleeping girls and searched the top floor? Reginald and Alan Houses were just along the corridor. Celine checked the dormitories and confirmed that all beds appeared normally occupied. The teacher checked the other rooms, cupboards and stairwells. He tapped on the door of the captain of Reginald. Celine still carried the keys and opened the door. The girl was quite dead, shot in the head, her pillow covered in gore. The two then raced to Alan House. Suicide and drugs had just dropped off the list. The head girl’s door was also locked. Celine opened it. 36

The girl was still alive, moaning and losing a lot of blood from her left thigh as she tried to crawl towards the door. The teacher of modern European languages was thought to be quiet and mild-mannered. He transformed to Action Man. A stocking was used to bind a padded up shirt over the girl’s wound and then in one smooth motion he scooped her up and headed back along the corridor to Ms Mitchell. Celine devoted two minutes to another search. Window bolted from the inside. Nobody hiding anywhere. No sign of any type of gun. She locked the door on the bloody scene and ran to the staff quarters in the east wing waking everyone there. Dr Hensley lived in the Founder’s house next door and appeared with a coat over her nightwear. Celine surrendered the keys, was interrogated and told to go back to bed and stay there. Two staff-members were sent to the front door to guide the medics and police when they arrived,

Reginald, Alan and Frederick Duckmanton

while other pairs started an intensive search of the building. They found nothing. When the police arrived they did the same - with a similar result. ~oOo~ Celine was one of the eight girls left in the school during the week that followed. The trip to Perth, art galleries, theatres and all, had been cancelled. Her father had phoned with an offer to get her into a city school. An offer she would have killed for, a week earlier – but not now. And that was that. She was, she supposed, de facto Head of Frederick House. Sadly without the privilege of

her own room – which was still sealed with police tape. There were no classes. So she accepted the invitation of high tea in the Jacaranda Tearooms with Jessica, chief reporter of the Avon Messenger. Duckmanton girls were not supposed to talk to the press. As far as Celine was concerned it was a chance to barter for information she could not get any other way. In return for a highly detailed account of the night of the murders, Celine squeezed Jessica for autopsy reports and the story of the old ammunition. Each girl had died from a single shot fired around one in the morning. A stomach wound, a head wound and a shot which had smashed a thigh and severed the femoral artery. Each had been asleep and was shot by someone standing not far from the bottom of the bed. It was as simple as that. The spent bullets had been dug out of the woodwork. They were, without doubt, from the same batch of first world war ammunition as that in the magazine of the sealed time capsule. They had been fired at roughly the same time from three different rifles. There was not much in the way of rifling marks on the rounds but sufficient to show that they were consistent with the weapons of 1916. Jessica provided photocopies of the old newspapers and the account of the sealing of wartime mementos, including a Lee Enfield magazine with ten rounds of ammunition, in the capsule. There was even a photograph of the contents before they were placed inside. The photographer of the Avon Messenger had artfully taken a similar picture of the same items laid out in the same way after the capsule was opened. All present and correct. Except for three missing rounds. There was the black magazine with a dull brass, blunt nosed, .303 cartridge visible at the top. Celine was particularly interested in the police examinations of the three small but identical bedrooms. The exterior walls were solid stone around forty centimetres thick. Interior walls were a wooden frame with laths plastered over. Ceilings were pressed tin-panels. The floors were made from thick planks laid over solid beams - from the days when good timber was plentiful and cheap. There was no evidence that any of them had had anything solid pass through them in the last hundred years. The window latches and door locks were old but effective. There were no bolts on the doors. The only curiosity was from the time of the renovations in 1955. When the old light fittings had been replaced, they left some small holes where it was thought electrical wiring had been shifted.

The attics above the rooms were thick with dust. No one had been up there in ages. The CCTV footage of all the corridors, including the spaces outside the three doors, confirmed only the stories of Celine and the two teachers. No one had entered or left those rooms since lights out at ten thirty. “You know there are supernatural stories about those three rooms?” Jessica asked. “Sort of.” “I wrote an article about haunted houses in the valley a year ago. Your school was supposed to have the ghosts of the three brothers.” “Never seen a ghost.” “Funny thing was, my research suggested the rumours came from the school’s founder.” “Miss Duckmanton? Oh my God. Her ghost comes out on the anniversary of the battle.” “Tell me about Herr Boehm”, Jessica pressed. “He teaches French and German. And Italian pronunciation when the music class is doing opera”, Celine replied. “How long has he been at Duckmanton?” “Not long. Two years, I think.” Celine added. “Could he have a thing about the war?” Jessica wondered. “He’s about thirty. His great-grandfather was probably in the First World War.” “I’ve been doing some checking on Herr Boehm. What if I told you he served in the German Army? Special forces?” “Before he became a teacher? A lot of the girls like him. The head of Alan worshiped the ground he walked on.” “Locked-room mysteries. You should always suspect the person who breaks the door down.” Jessica mused. “He didn’t break the doors down. I unlocked them. He was first in. Each girl had already been shot.” “They were definitely locked?” “I tried the handle.” “What about another cupcake?” ~oOo~ As Celine walked back to school, she considered the problem of the rifles. There were no guns inside the rooms – her searches had confirmed that. Therefore the guns must have been outside and fired into the rooms. Not through stone walls; that was nonsense. But what about those small holes in the walls? The police had dismissed them as holes for electrical wiring. The walls were only ten centimetres thick. You could fire a rifle through plaster and lath. The rooms were no longer locked. The police had done their forensic examination and then simply left a yellow tape across the door. She eased the door open and shone her torch up into the corner of the room. Yes – there was a small hole there. She memorised the position and then went next door. Would it be possible to fire a rifle so that the bullet would emerge through the existing hole? Probably not, but she found a ladder and went over the other side of the wall inch by inch. No holes. Nor holes recently plastered over. As far as she could see, no rifle had been fired through that wall. Not satisfied, she did the same with the other two rooms. Identical layout. Same result.

She sat down in the quad and thought about it. Maybe the girls had been shot earlier and the killers had let themselves out, locking the doors behind them with a stolen key. Then had fired some shots elsewhere at around one in the morning to give a false time. Herr Boehm perhaps? He was still awake in his room then. Nope. There had been no earlier shots heard. The CCTV footage showed no one going down those corridors after lights out, over two hours earlier. And the captain of Alan House had only just been shot and was crawling across the floor when Celine opened the door. Her next stop was the library. She wanted to know more about the school’s founder and her brothers. Ms Mitchell was there, writing a job application to a school in Victoria. She pointed Celine to a two-volume history of the College and also to an archive of minutes of meetings of the School Board. These went all the way back to the nineteen-twenties when Miss Duckmanton had been the chair. There was also a pamphlet on the contents of the time capsule. The rifle magazine had been posted home to Gertrude by her brothers from the Western Front after Gallipoli. “Now why would they do that?” she mused. Three hours later she emerged convinced that Miss Gertrude Duckmanton had been raving mad. She had believed that the ghosts of her brothers haunted those rooms. Her opinions were in the minutes. The head master was a skeptic and had organised the students into ghost-hunting parties. Great fun but the ghosts failed to show up. She had tried to have the rooms condemned as unfit for the boys. The house captains had rebelled. They loved their rooms with the view of the river. In 1921 she had been deposed as Chair of the Board. In 1922, she had been caught trying to break into the school carrying a large butcher’s knife. Fortunately it had been a holiday with no students in residence. The police were not amused. Celine took out her phone and called Jessica. She had information to swap. She confided the results of her examination of the walls. Perhaps the Avon Messenger could give her more information about those missing rounds from the time capsule. What did they know of any dealings the police might have had with Miss Gertrude Duckmanton? Did she have any relatives still alive? Jessica promised to find out. ~oOo~ Another day, another high tea with wonderful little cakes. Celine decided she could get used to this. Jessica arrived with a clutch of photocopies of old newspaper articles. It was confirmed that Gertrude had died in 1925, leaving no known relatives. One particular item caught Celine’s eye. Gertrude had been ill with a fever and admitted to the local cottage hospital. A nurse clearly remembered hearing her say “I have killed three boys”. She never recovered. The police did checks on any unsolved cases of missing boys from the last twenty years. There were none. Not in the Avon Valley, not in Perth, not

in Western Australia. To the locals it was more evidence of her eccentricity. “Do you think she was referring to her brothers? Had she pressured them into enlisting?” Celine asked. “Possible, it happened.” Jessica replied. “We know that later, during the war, she was convinced the Germans were too strong for the allies and would win. There were letters to the editor complaining about her lack of patriotism.” “Wow.” “She wrote some replies – if the Huns ever invaded Australia, she’d be doing her fair share of resisting.” “This was after Gallipoli?” “The Duckmanton brothers survived that. There are letters they wrote about how the Turks were so fierce.” “So the war wasn’t going well?” Jessica thought a minute. “Check with Ms Mitchell. I think the Russians were having big problems, the Communist revolution was just ’round the corner. The French were being ground down at Verdun.” “So the British… and the ANZACS… were doing it tough?” “There were terrible casualty lists. When she heard her brothers had died, she went a bit mental.” Celine reached for another petit four. “Weird. Putting a rifle magazine in a time capsule.” Jessica smiled. “I want to write a headline: ‘The Bullets that Travelled through Time’ – that should get a reader’s attention.” Celine jerked forward. “I think I know what happened.” “You know who killed the girls?” “I’ve a theory. And I know how we can test it.” ~oOo~ Celine explained her idea to Jessica and half an hour later they were calling on the office of Cartwood & Son, master builders. Cartwood senior was out on a job but the offspring, Barry, was happy to see them. Celine recalled Janet’s comments on the creepy carpenter. It was quickly confirmed that the Cartwoods had been contracted by Dr Hensley to do a structural inspection of the wall and cavity where the time capsule was hidden. They had drilled holes around the stone the previous Monday. When all appeared safe, they had removed the old mortar and eased the slab out. They checked the presence of the capsule – it appeared covered in dust and grime - and then put the stone back and wedged it in. The next day, at the ceremony, the Head Mistress would invite students to put items in a new time capsule - which Cartwood & Son would seal in for another century. “Did you touch the capsule?” Celine asked. “This about the murders?” Barry prevaricated. “Just stop staring at my chest and answer the question”, Jessica snapped. Barry was unabashed and ambiguous. “Had a good look at the capsule. Didn’t touch it.” “Was it sealed?” Jessica insisted. “Didn’t touch it. The cops checked it the next day. The dust hadn’t been disturbed. Still sealed. Red sealing wax. Dr Hensley broke the seals with 37

me and Dad and the police there.” “You looked at it in the wall cavity?” Celine wondered. “We had torches.” “You didn’t pick it up?” “Didn’t need to. It was on a sort of metal tray which slid out of the hole.” “And you slid it out?” Celine demanded. “Only a short way. Everythin’ was okay for the ceremony. We put it all back. Just like we found it. Didn’t do nothin’. Ya know?” Celine and Jessica glanced at each other. “We did everythin’ exactly as she wanted. We’re still waitin’ to finish the job. Seal a new capsule in.” Barry asserted. “Was there any damp in the alcove?” Celine asked. “Nah. Dry as the Sahara in summer.” “Is the covering stone back?” “Just wedged in. But there’s nothin’ there. Cops took the capsule away. Just a hole in the wall.” “Could you open it for us again?” Celine gave him a big bright smile. “Easy. But who’s payin’?” His eyes slithered over Celine. “What if my paper gives you some free space for an ad?” Jessica growled. Twenty minutes later, they were all back at the college. Barry had a large box of sawdust just under the slab and with a crowbar levered the stone out. Celine peered inside. And two minutes after that they had a solution. ~oOo~ Back at the Jacaranda Tea Rooms, they found Douglas escaping the heat of the afternoon with an iced tea. Jessica threw herself into a chair and excitedly explained their discoveries. Celine ordered a pot of Lemon Scented and a plate of scones – to go on the Avon Messenger’s account. The editor needed convincing. “How did you work it out?” Jessica turned to Celine who was making a start on the cakes. “It was all so illogical”, Celine explained. “There was no motivation. Who would want to kill the head-girls? No one gains.” She paused. “Except me. I’m the new head of Frederick. I get my own room. But I didn’t do it!” “Right.” “How could you have bullets which were in the time-capsule and not in the time-capsule? How could you have gunmen neither inside the bedrooms nor outside? How could you ensure the shots would be fired exactly a hundred years after an event? Coincidence? I don’t think so!” “Right.” Celine was the prize exhibit. Douglas would invite Inspector Baird to the Tearooms to hear her solution - in return for twenty-four hours head start in publishing the story and lording it over those big city papers. Jessica had departed back to the office to start writing the copy when the hassled policeman arrived. “These impossible murders at Duckmanton. You know what happened?” “Yes”, said Celine. Douglas leaned forward. “What Miss Davies means is that we have a theory which we are 38

prepared to provide to the police. In return for certain publishing rights.” “Don’t care what Miss Davies means. If you’re withholding evidence, I’ll have the two of you in front of a magistrate so fast…” “Calm down. Cup of tea? All I’m asking is that you don’t give any press conferences until my paper has gone to print tonight. Deal?” “No deal. Not ’til I hear the story.” Douglas smiled. “Inspector, you have three impossible locked-room murders here. Someone reached into a sealed time capsule inside a stonewall to take three rounds of old ammunition. Then entered three locked bedrooms without waking the girls and shot them. Then gunmen and rifles disappeared. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how it was done?” There was an awkward pause. Douglas broke the silence. “I shall take that as an agreement to give my paper certain privileges.” Baird turned to Celine. “Let’s hear it. Who killed them?” Celine awarded herself a long pause for effect. “There were three killers. But…” “Not some story about ghosts of soldiers?” “…but no one intended to kill the girls”, she continued. “So who were they? I want names.” Baird demanded. “Mr Barry Cartwood, Dr Jane Hensley and Miss Gertrude Duckmanton.” “You’re accusing the Principal?” “Well, sort of…” “And the school’s founder? She’s been dead ages.” “Ninety one years”, Douglas confided. “This is stupid. If you’re wasting police…” Douglas decided to go with Jessica’s headline. “The bullets that travelled through time.” It was at this point that Dr Hensley arrived and demanded to know why one of her students was talking to the press and being interrogated by the police, without a responsible adult present. Douglas ventured to suggest that he considered himself a responsible adult and was cut down with a snort and an icy glare. The Inspector then asserted that this was a murder investigation and suffered the same fate. Celine kept her head down and reached for another morsel from the cake stand. The headmistress was all for removing Celine back to school and contacting her father. Celine nudged Douglas who enquired whether Dr Hensley considered herself a responsible adult and would like to stay and hear the solution. A waitress brought her a Chai Latte. Celine took a deep breath and tried to remember the Principal’s preferred structure for

an essay. “The solution is part engineering and part psychology”, she started. “There were three shots fired in three rooms in different parts of the college at practically the same time. Three gunmen? Or one with some kind of shooting device? And if he or she doesn’t have to be in two of the rooms why be in any of them? The CCTV coverage proved that no one went in or out of those rooms. The guns were fired by remote control.” “What guns? There weren’t any guns in those rooms,” exclaimed the policeman. “Logic. If the guns were not inside the rooms and not outside the rooms, then they had to be in the walls.” “Oh!” from Baird and Hensley in unison. “We have to get inside the head of Miss Duckmanton. Some of this is conjecture. But I’ve read bits of the school history.” Celine laid it out like pieces of a jigsaw. How Gertrude had been pushed to the brink of insanity by the loss of her brothers and then her parents. She moved to town and considered how to help the war effort. Someone had suggested a school for the sons of the fallen. In 1916, two ideas had crystallised. The German, Austrian and Turkish empires were too strong and efficient and were winning the war. Russia was dropping out. France was being bled dry at Verdun. America was isolationist and keeping clear. The British Empire would be alone and would lose. She said so and was condemned for being defeatist. She didn’t reveal her second mania. If the Huns ever invaded and made it as far as the Avon valley, she was going to be very busy killing them. Her new Duckmanton College was the grandest building in the valley. It was bound to be taken over as some sort of military headquarters. She would booby trap it. The design was simple for a farm-girl who was inventive. Three bedrooms on the top floor with good views. Small enough that the beds and wardrobes could only be arranged one way. Cavities in the stonewalls large enough to take a Lee Enfield rifle with its barrel and butt sawn off. Clamped into position and firing out through the plaster, just under the ceiling, at the only place a bed could be. Loaded with rounds which she had put aside for the time capsule. In 1916, when a lady stated she had put ten rounds in the magazine, no gentleman was going to take it out and check.

HOLIDAY READING A WEIGHTY PROBLEM SUE MORLEY

“I

can’t understand it!” Gladys stared at the numbers displayed on the bathroom scale. “I’ve actually gained a kilo.” She shook her head in denial. “What’s up Mum?” Sharon looked at her mother’s cloudy expression, as Gladys wandered into the kitchen. “There must be something medically wrong with me, I just can’t shift this weight no matter what I try, y’ know I hardly ate anything this week, it’s not fair!” Sharon glanced over at the portly figure absent mindedly finishing off the toast that Sharon had left on her plate. “Yes Mum, of course eating standing up doesn’t count does it, or if it’s finishing off other people’s scraps?” she said, looking pointedly at her Mother who was obviously unaware of what she was doing. “No, I definitely have something wrong with me. I’ve got today off so I’m going to the doctors today.” Sharon left to go to work, her slim toned body in sharp contrast to that of Gladys, who was now gazing into the fridge. “Okay Mum, have a nice day, good luck with the doc.” Gladys lived in a picturesque village in Dorset, her house only a few kilometres from the doctor’s surgery, and decided to walk to her appointment. This was an unusual activity for her; she usually drove her little old Morris car everywhere, but wanted to be able to make a good impression today, when she told the doctor she walked

everywhere. Later sitting in front of old Dr Thompson, Gladys asked for tests to prove it was some medical condition that was preventing her losing the weight she so desperately wanted to be rid of. “I’ve tried Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Light and Easy, the Five Two diet, High fibre, Low Carbs, Doctor I’m desperate.” Doctor Thompson was getting ready to retire, he’d known Gladys for many years, he could remember her as a slim vibrant young bride, and had watched as she’d gradually got heavier and fatter over the years. He’d heard that her husband had left recently; the rumour was for a younger, slimmer model! “Exercise?” he enquired, raising his bushy eyebrows. “I never stop running around; I don’t sit down from morning till night.” Gladys complained. “I hardly eat a thing Doc, it’s a wonder I’m not a shadow.” “Okay Gladys we’ll do a blood test, it might be your thyroid.” This is what she needed to hear and nodded. “Yes that’s a good idea, my grandmother had thyroid problems, it’s probably in my genes.” Dr. Thompson glanced at the jeans that Gladys was squeezed into, rolls of fat bulging over the top. “You could be right; we’ll wait until we get the results.” After having the blood taken, she wandered home via the High Street, she’d missed breakfast and was feeling deprived. “I need a coffee.” she thought, opening the door of the Blue Kettle Cafe,

her favourite source of sustenance when she needed a sugar fix. “Hiya Gladys, you alright love, you look quite peaky?” Marge behind the counter asked. “Just been to the doctors Marge, he reckons I’ve got thyroid problems.” “Oh no! My mum had that, can make you feel rotten, that can.” “Yeah, that’s why I can’t lose this weight Marge; I used to be like a twig when I was younger.” “Oh, you poor thing. What you having then? “A flat white, large, and a chocolate muffin warmed up please. I didn’t have time to eat today.” “Sugar?” “Yes please, put two in, it’s been a shock.” Gladys felt better and decided to call in at the local sweet shop on her way home; she felt she deserved a treat after having all that blood taken. “How did you go on with old Doc Thompson Ma?” “I told you I had something wrong with me Sharon, he’s sure it’s all to do with my thyroid. It prevents you losing weight; your metabolism slows right down. I told him I didn’t eat much, he’s worried.” “So sorry Mum, sit down, put your feet up. Have you eaten today?” “No, I’ve no appetite, a cuppa tea would be nice though love.” As Sharon went to put the kettle on, Gladys had a thought. If I always eat in private; if no-one ever sees me eat, I can always blame it on my thyroid!

Celine stopped in case there might be questions. Nothing but a shocked silence, so she continued. Cords ran from the triggers down to the hole in the outer wall where the capsule would be placed. Gertrude’s brothers had described to her how they had rigged guns on Gallipoli to continue firing at the Turks after the ANZACS had evacuated their positions. Holed tin cans full of water or sand would slowly empty, like an hourglass, into another can - which when heavy enough would drop and pull the trigger. The time-capsule would be placed on a tray which when pulled out would allow sand to fall into a tin can… If the enemy ever took over the College, Gertrude would be an avenging devil. All she had to do was remove the stone covering the time capsule, pull out the tray and then replace the stone. That night three rifles would shoot three sleeping officers. And she would be far away with a good alibi. It was only after the war, when the allies had won and there was no possibility of Western Australia being invaded, that the enormity of what she had done occurred to her. Every night, three boys were going to sleep with loaded rifles pointing at them. She could have just told someone. She did not. No one will ever know why. Fear of being

certified? Instead, she tried to rectify matters. As chair of the school’s Board of Governors, she had sought to have the time capsule opened; perhaps more material commemorating the victory could be included. This would give her an opportunity to make the trigger device safe. She had been over-ruled. She wanted the rooms condemned as unfit for habitation. The boys rebelled. They loved the privileges of being House Captains. She spread rumours of sightings of ghosts of her brothers in the rooms. The Headmaster helped the boys organise ghost-hunting parties. She donated thick cast iron shields to the three houses and insisted they be hung in the corners of the bedrooms. They were removed and hung in the senior common room. At this point her eccentricity was too much for the Board and she was removed as chair. It was the following year that she was caught trying to break into the school during a holiday. She had a large knife with which she planned to attack the plaster and remove the rifles. Ostracised, she fell back on a strategy of ensuring that when the time capsule was eventually opened, there would be nobody sleeping in those rooms. She left a large bequest to the school to be used in taking all the students to Perth for a week - immediately after the opening.

Dr Hensley gasped as she realised her role in the affair. As a part of the preparations for the time capsule ceremony, she had had the builders open the stone cavity. In moving the tray Barry Cartwood had started the slow falling of the sand which would eventually fire the rifles that night. The Inspector switched off the recorder on his smart phone and stood up. There was a brief flash of jealousy in his glance at the pale student. “I will need you to sign a statement at the station tomorrow.” The school principal turned on him. “She’ll do no such thing. I will sign to confirm the account of what we have heard here this afternoon.” “Very well,” Inspector Baird departed to organise men to remove the plaster in the rooms and find the Lee Enfields. Dr Hensley shifted her glare to Douglas. “Furthermore, my student’s privacy is to be respected. Her name will not appear in your newspaper. Understood?” The Editor nodded his agreement. He reached forward to squeeze Celine’s hand and then departed to organise that night’s special edition. The Principal and the new captain of Frederick House were left sipping their tea and avoiding each other’s eyes. Silently they rose and slowly walked back to Duckmanton College. The End 39

HOLIDAY READING FREEDOM FLIGHT 515

‘A

ustralian Royal Flying Doctor, Flight 515 to Air Control, returning to base,’ radioed veteran pilot Reg Brown. ‘Copy that RFD 515. How many of you coming

in?’ ‘Usual crew, me, nurse Sharon Tricket and the new junior Doctor Steven Ryhmes I don’t think you’ve met him yet George. No patients.’ ‘Any extras?’ ‘No.’ ‘What not even a disillusioned blue tongued lizard or hungover kangaroo? That case must go down as your weirdest ever. It’s been a pleasure working with you Reg, how do you plan to spend your retirement?’ ‘Thanks for reminding me.’ How could he forget, thought Reg. When an angry ex-heavyweight boxing champion turned farmer suffers a heart failure 2,000 kilometres from nowhere, and he insists on bringing his pet kangaroo with him, what was he meant to do. ‘The wife and I’ll be disappearing around Australia in a caravan.’ ‘Something safe then?’ ‘Yeah, well I might even write a book about all our close calls, that won’t be so safe for you will it George?’ Reg laughed. ‘Even ..?’ ‘Yes even …’ Reg’s voice drifted off. The thought of his most difficult case, his one regret, flooded his mind. I may not have been able to save the baby girl but I can certainly make sure she’s not forgotten. ‘Well good on you Reg, you deserve a good retirement after all the families you’ve helped.’ ‘Put the kettle on George, the sooner we get in the sooner it’ll begin.’ ‘Copy that.’ As Reg looked out the window his minded drifted back to the little girl, just four months old, curly ginger hair standing out from an otherwise chocolate brown body. Her pea green eyes rolling back in her head, the whites haunting him forever. ‘Hold on Reg, something’s up at Ayers Rock, can you swing by on your way back?’ ‘Copy that, what’s the problem?’ ‘Not sure, trouble at the Sounds of Silence Retreat. Local elder Uncle Jimmy called it in.’

GLENNYS MARSDON

‘On it,’ confirmed Reg rubbing his short thick fingers across his forehead, the tips caressing each worry line. The feeling reminded him of his grandson running a stick across the corrugated fence that protected his home from the growing population of wild camels. After a rub of his bald head, he flicked on the audio in the main cabin. ‘We’re stopping by The Rock on the way home. Steve why don’t you come take over, add some flying hours to your tally?’ Student pilot Steve Ryhmes joined Reg in the cockpit. Steve pushed the pilot seat back to accommodate his lean six foot two frame and pointed the single prop Pilatus PC-12 towards the setting sun. The spinning propeller sliced the yellow rays into mandarin-like wedges. Forty minutes later Steve dipped the wings to catch a better look at the deep orange glow that lit up Ayres Rock. The warm tinge reminded Reg of the heat lamps in the little girls’ incubator. Why had George reminded him of the little girl? The case continued to haunt him fifteen years on. It was Easter Sunday. He’d been called away from his family’s celebrations as no one else was available to help out. He was sure he hadn’t had too much to drink, just two glasses of wine and a beer. Sure he’d followed all the procedures but there remained a nagging doubt. Could he have done more? ‘Stunning,’ chimed in Sharron over the intercom, ‘I never tire of this view, not even after ten years.’ As The Rock changed from orange to deep purple Steve’s long fingers flicked switches. Some of the switches looked different from those on the flight simulator. He felt his breath release in a long sigh as the whine of the descending wheels stopped, and the plane bumped down sending clouds of cinnamon dust swirling through the air. ‘Well done son,’ said Reg patting Steve on the shoulder as the plane taxied up to a gathering of two hundred people sitting on red-dirt-stained plastic chairs, under the shadow of The Rock. Sharron slid open the long side door of the plane and walked the short distance to the crowd.

‘Is that …?’ asked Reg as he peered out the front window. ‘Can’t be,’ said Steve as he watched the tall male figure with thinning hair, fling his arms into the air making the fairy lights stuck on the back of his leather jacket blink as one. ‘Dean Troublon what’s he doing in the middle of Australia, isn’t he meant to be filming a movie with Tarantino?’ ‘Looks like him. Better swap places son and tidy up the cabin for our international guest.’ ‘Hi Uncle Jimmy what’s up,’ asked Sharron as the local elder approached her. ‘I’ve been looking for freedom …,’ sang Troublon the fairy lights becoming brighter as the light faded. ‘Mental health issue, Shaz.’ ‘His?’ ‘Ours.’ Jimmy motioned to the crowd gathered nearby. ‘He was meant to give the opening talk but keeps goin’ on about freedom, and some wall in Berlin. The mobs had enough.’ ‘Nasty looking cut on his head?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘So why’s he sitting on top of that podium?’ ‘He don’t like dogs.’ Sharron knew to wait for more information rather than ask another question. Uncle Jimmy, like a lot of people living in the outback, they worked to their own timeline. ‘Mad Bob thought some local hospitality might stop him sing’n. Asked if he might like to meet his dog.’ ‘You mean his dog, Blood, the psycho dingo devil?’ ‘That’s the one.’ ‘And …’ ‘They didn’t get on. Poor bloke started running in them high heel cowboy boots didn’t he? Man should know not to run from a wild dingo. Tripped didn’t he? Hit his head on the deck, then jumped onto that thing. Won’t get off.’ ‘Berlin Wall,’ sang Troublon his knuckles white from gripping the podium. ‘Please come down Mr Troublon,’ instructed Sharron placing a hand gently on his back. ‘Born a rich man’s son … singing at the Berlin Wall,’ he sang his reply while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Blood. ‘Please Dean,’ Sharron pleaded but he just gripped the shiny black podium tighter. The strobe light on the front panel blinked out a beat that was most likely Morse code for get this idiot off me. ‘Like tryin’ to get Mad Bob into that new gym in town, ain’t gunna happen Shaz,’ sighed Uncle Jimmy. ‘What’s he doing?’ asked Reg from inside the cockpit. ‘Not sure, looks like Sharron and him are singing,’ said Steve. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ growled Reg as he thought of the dark could across his wife’s face. ‘I promised I wouldn’t be late home from my last flight.’

‘You have to get on the plane Dean, you don’t want that nasty looking cut to scar your handsome face do you?’ tried Sharron. ‘Good point lass and I can serenade you on the flight home … walking down the road with my heavy load.’ Dean sang as he climbed down from the podium and looked towards the small plane. ‘No Dean you can’t take that with you,’ said Sharron grabbing the podium he was dragging through the dirt towards the plane. ‘It’s one of a kind. Made to my height. I added the lights, and the two bricks at the bottom are from the Berlin Wall. I sang there when it came down you know. ‘I sang … looking for freedom … it’s on YouTube look it up. Besides …’ he added nodding towards Blood. The dog was still stalking him from the other side of the podium, his head low, ears back, eyes bright. ‘Sir, Mr Troublon you can’t …’ Steve insisted as he peered out the side door of the plane. ‘What’s happening back there Steve, we have to take off before it’s completely dark?’ ordered Reg. ‘Today I’m going to find the freedom I’ve been searching for …’ sang Troublon as he quickly shoved the podium half way through the door, squeezed through the gap at the top and sat down on the empty bed inside the plane. ‘Dean Troublon, nice to meet me,’ he held out his hand for Steve to shake. ‘It’s stuck,’ said Sharron from outside the plane. ‘The podium’s wedged sideways in the door.’ ‘Well pull it out or push it in, and turn that strobe light off before it sets off my migraines,’ demanded Reg as he emerged from the cockpit. Uncle Jimmy, Mad Bob and another local pushed and pulled the podium until finally, ‘she’ll be right,’ yelled Mad Bob. ‘Thanks Uncle Jimmy’ said Sharron as she climbed on board and over the podium that now took up most of the cabin. ‘RDF Flight 515 ready for take-off,’ radioed Reg, not mentioning the extra load for fear of being told he couldn’t take off, and the additional paperwork waiting for him on arrival. As the plane took off and the dark mass of Ayers Rock grew smaller, Sharron noticed something move under the blanket draped over the stretcher across from her. ‘That a patient?’ asked Troublon. ‘He’s not contagious is …?’ ‘Blood Dog how’d you get in here?’ screamed Sharron as the growling red-eyes of the dingo came into view. Blood jumped on top of the podium and stared down Troublon who screamed ‘Freedom’. Unaware of what was happening in the plane Reg pondered his own freedom, exploring Australia with his wife, their feet firmly placed on the solid ground, until … Buzz, Buzz, Buzz. The ground proximity warning bell started blinking next to Reg. Glennys Marsdon is a regular columnist with the Swan Magazine, writing as ‘The Idler’. The piece you’ve just read was written as a challenge within a 24-hour time frame after being given the writing prompts of - location (a plane) and item (a podium).

HOLIDAY READING THE INEXPLICABLE

KATY WARNER

any years ago, before I'd turned my back on teaching for the first but not the last time, a student of mine was murdered. She was a beautiful person. I can say that because it was true. I was teaching an all female Drama class. It hadn't been planned, it just worked out that way because the boys had all chosen something else, I suppose. The were extraordinary young women and I was their teacher. A young woman myself. One day, she didn't turn up which was unlike her. One day, the rumours were flying that someone had been killed. One day, one of the girls said, I think it's her, miss, and I said, no, no, it's not. One day, the school psychologist came to my classroom door and took me to the conference room and told me yes, yes, it is. We journeyed and negotiated through the grief process together. A bunch of 17-to-18 year olds and their not-quite-24 year old teacher. I knew nothing of that kind of grief. We would make Milo together and eat Tim-Tams because some professional development I'd attended once suggested all teachers keep a packet of TimTams in their office for student emergencies. This was so much more than an emergency. I'd say, let's take class outside today, and we'd sit in the sunshine and someone would cry and we would forget about the lesson plan for that day. I don't know how her family got through it. I don't know how her friends got through it. I assume they haven't. It's not the sort of thing you just get through. I was too young and too inexperienced to approach the family, to knock on their door and offer them a Tim-Tam. I wish I had. But I did what I could with the young people I was responsible for. My drama class. And then, years later, a man turns up in my inbox. He is writing a book about it and would I be willing to be interviewed. He needed different perspectives, stories, things his careful research wouldn't uncover. He had her parents' blessing and trust and he was a respected journalist. He was good at what he did. I Googled. He was. Would I agree? To be interviewed? I said yes. I don't know why. And we meet at the coffee shop and he wants to record it and he does. And I cry and say sorry a lot because I shouldn't be crying. I have no right to cry. Not after all these years. Do I? I don't think I ask him that but I think it. I offer stories and details, those seemingly unimportant things I remember and probably never got to tell anyone. People get bored of other's grief pretty quickly. They don't care for anecdotes. Silly little details you remember and want to share and hold on to. During the funeral, one of my students reached out and held onto my hand. She squeezed my hand tight and cried and we walked up to put a rose on the coffin together. She is a teacher now. I talk with the man, the stranger, the respected journo, for hours.

He pays for the coffees. He says, do you want to be mentioned by name and I think, no, no, no, this isn't my story. This isn't about me. But I say, let me think about it and he says that is fine. He says he will send me the pages and I can see how I feel about it. About my name being in his book. He says he'll check in with me first and I believe him. Only he doesn't. He emails and says, the book is done, I'll invite you to the launch. Only he doesn't. And then people I barely know message me on Facebook. Some write on my wall: is that you? Are you the Katy Warner, the Drama Teacher, in the book? Thumbs up. Like. What the hell is going on? I email the respected journalist turned author and, with respect, I say what the hell? He replies, I'll send you PDF copy. Only he doesn't. And he still doesn't. And he still doesn't. And he Tweets, today, with a gif of a cat highfiving a human, that his book is a top five, nonfiction pick of all time for someone who must be a Someone. And I think: a GIF? Really? A cat gif? Really? And I think how difficult it is to write a book. And how much more difficult it would be to write a book about someone who lived and breathed and was loved and was taken from us too soon, too tragically, too violently, too inexplicably. And I think about emailing him, again. I think about Tweeting him in 140 biting characters. I think about why I agreed to the interview in the first place. I think about that drama class and how they're all about to turn thirty. I think how this isn't about me. Or him. Or launches or top-five lists or cat gifs. I don't know what it is about. But it still makes me cry.

Katy Warner is an emerging playwright, actor and theatre-maker who wishes she had Shirley MacLaine’s haircut circa 1960 but isn’t brave enough to try it ... Her blog may be found here: https://katywarner.com/author/katywarner 41

This i s the Swan Valle y Time to get cosy with a glass of Swan Valley Red

COS02019

POLO THE PUP ... AND AFTER

ife has a habit of throwing us curveballs and sometimes changes in circumstances can mean people are no longer able to care for their pets. Every animal adopted from SAFE comes with our lifetime guarantee: if you can no longer keep your pet, we will take it back. Polo is looking for his new permanent home after his adopted family recently relinquished him back to SAFE. Sometimes it’s hard to tell just how big a SAFE rescue puppy will become and, at twelvemonths-old, Polo surprised us all by growing into a sturdy large breed, a bit too big for his previous owners and their young children to handle. We were happy to take this beautiful boy back into foster care until we can find him a more suitable permanent home. Polo loves his two walks every day and running alongside his carer while out bike riding. He is quite the man about town and likes to socialise! He would be best suited to an active home without small children as he doesn’t know his own size and strength at times. He aced his puppy training and would excel with a strong leader. Polo’s most unique attribute is his bob tail which wags with excitement when he sees his favourite people coming. Polo is desexed, microchipped and up to date with vaccination. Would you like to welcome this energetic boy into your life? Contact SAFE Karratha on 08 9185 4634. VOLUNTEERING IN 2017 Are you looking for a new challenge in 2017? Have you thought about volunteering for SAFE? Email and internet makes volunteering possible from anywhere. We are a not for profit organisation that saves rehomeable animals from euthanasia. We have ten branches around the state and are always in need of volunteers in many different roles to help our animals into foster and permanent homes. 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, coordinate photographers and profilers, do website content management, write stories for publications, do public relations and administrative work. 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 would be valued to help raise these much needed funds. If you’d like to donate information can be found on: 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. 43

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