Swan Magazine July 2018

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IN THIS ISSUE PAGE

FEATURES Books and Writing

Advice from a Literary Agent Celebrating People Launched Death in the Sea of Grass KSP - What’s On in July Relative to What?

Temple in the Rain The Engine That Vanished The Idler Two Pink Raincoats

4 5 28 3 53 21 24 57 20

Business Card Board

Finance with Steve Networking

43 52 53

Federal Notes Letters to the Editor Out and About with Sharron SAFE Standing Up for Swan Hills SVRN

The Compassionate Friends What’s On

16 19 17 58 14 54 59 18

Business

Community

Front Page Photograph: The Essential Holiday.

Photograph courtesy 123RF

Corridors College

Our RTO

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PAGE Food

Chef Explorer Douglas Wineries & Dineries Help Save Slate Cafe Penny Garden on the Move Sweet Temptations Tour The Old Fig Tree Restaurant

12 10 17 13 11 8

Cinefestoz News Footnote People in History Beyond a Joke at Garrick Film Reviews Theatre Reviews Theatre with Gordon The Decadent and Depraved Cleans Up TV with Chris Western Sky Theatre Downstairs at The Maj

43 56 44 38 40 50

Entertainment

Leisure

15 48 15 45

Art and Artists 49 Di Salvo 46 House and Garden 6 Lawn Grass 6 Washington Capitals Champions 47 DISCLAIMER The information in this publication is of a general nature. The articles contained herein are not intended to provide a complete discussion on each subject and or issues canvassed. Swan Magazine does not accept any liability for any statements or any opinion, or for any errors or omissions contained herein.

SWAN MAGAZINE WEBSITE:

www.swanmagazine.com.au

Email: editor@swanmagazine.com.au Registered Address: 18 Tokay Lane, The Vines, Western Australia 6069 AUGUST DEADLINES: Advertisements: 1st August Editorial: 1st August Copyright: Swan Magazine 2018 2

BOOKS AND WRITING KSP - WHAT’S ON IN JULY SHANNON COYLE

SPOOKY SCHOOL HOLIDAY PRESS CLUB

behalf of Little Black Dress Productions.

The competition is free to enter and each year has a loose theme. The theme for 2018 is ‘night’ and the deadline is – naturally – Friday the 13th July.

Young writers aged between 8-13 years old looking for assistance with writing and submitting their ghost stories may like to book into KSP’s spooky-edition school holiday Press Club on 12th and 13th July.

This program also features a special guest interview with the Ghost Story Competition judge, Carolyn Wren, and full access to the reading list of past winning stories.

Announcement of competition winners will be held as part of KSP’s annual Spooky Stories Night fundraiser on Saturday 25 August from 6.00pm. This is a fun event for the whole family including Halloween activities, marshmallowroasting and face-painting.

Due to space limitations, advance bookings are essential.

Tickets start from $10 and can be purchased online via KSP’s website.

To book or for more information on KSP’s Ghost Story Competition, Spooky Edition Press Club and Spooky Stories Night, visit www.kspwriterscentre.com

Thursday 12 and Friday 13 July 2018, 9.30am-3.30pm each day

This Spooky junior edition of the KSP Press Club will have young writers – KSP cadets – aged between 8-13 years unleashing their creative minds.

With the guidance of the facilitator, participants can create, polish and submit a story to KSP’s 2018 Ghost Story competition. The program includes games and exercises, interview with a competition judge, personalised Press Pass on lanyard plus lunch and snacks both days.

Tickets from $110, advance bookings essential.

KSP SUNDOWNER SESSION

featuring Laurie Steed, Friday 29 July, 6.30-8.00pm

At KSP’s bi-monthly Sundowner Sessions, guests can enjoy an engaging author talk and have their book signed by a local author. In July, acclaimed short-story author Laurie Steed will chat about his debut novel, You Belong Here published by Margaret River Press, which delves deep into a marriage ‘that rocks’ to a marriage ‘on the rocks’. The novel features a nostalgic 1980s and 1990s Perth setting.

Glass of complimentary wine on arrival thanks to our friends at Lion Mill Winery.

Tickets only $5 for members or $10 for guests.

KSP LAUNCHES 2018 GHOST STORY COMPETITION

The Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre in Greenmount is the perfect place for a Ghost Story Competition and Spooky Stories Award Night.

The heritage-listed property is rumoured to be haunted by the ghosts of its former owners, Katharine Susannah Prichard, author (died 1969), and Hugo Throssell VC, Gallipoli hero (died 1933), who both passed away at 11 Old York Road.

Alice Pung, bestselling author of Unpolished Gem and former Writer-in-Residence at the Centre, heard steady footsteps walking up and down the polished wooden floorboards of the house during her stay. To calm her fears, Alice turned on the radio and slept with it on until morning.

KSP’s Ghost Story Competition was first launched in 2016 by the then Chairperson at the time, Tabetha Beggs, who said: ‘The Centre’s history and its eerie old building surrounds provide the ideal setting for ghostly winter readings. We were taken aback by the huge community turnout in the first year and it continues to be popular.’ Tabetha is now the primary sponsor of the competition, on 3

BOOKS AND WRITING ADVICE FROM A LITERARY AGENT SANDRA O’DONNELL PH.D.

A

fter reading thousands of queries, here are the most common reasons we don’t move forward after receiving your submission:

• We do not represent your genre.

• The query is poorly written or dead boring.

• The premise doesn’t grab us or hold our

interest.

• The word count is too low or too high.

• The sample pages need more work, which means the manuscript isn’t ready.

• Your social media numbers and web presence are low or non-existent (for non-fiction).

Let’s look at each of these in detail.

You submitted a query for a genre we don’t represent.

This is our easiest pass. We are very clear in our submission guidelines and on our About Us page about what we do and do not represent.

If you submit science fiction, children’s books, erotica, or any of the genres we don’t rep, we immediately pass on your query. Reading the guidelines for every agent you query will help save time for you and the agent and ensure you aren’t waiting for a reply from an agent that wasn’t a good fit for your manuscript because of they don’t rep your genre.

We really can’t emphasize this enough. Querying is not a one size fits all proposition.Read the submission guidelines for each agent you query and follow the guidelines.

you have to switch from author to promoter and salesperson, get in that mode when you write your query. Sell it!

We offer a lot of advice on our blogon writing query letters. If you think you need help read our blog and listen to our podcastson queries.

The premise doesn’t grab us or hold our interest.

We are big readers. If we aren’t reading queries, we’re reading the Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) we picked up at Book Expo or get from publishers, or the books we purchase ourselves from independent bookstores, or those recommended by friends or people we follow on social media or we are listening to books while we are driving, getting dressed or doing chores (yes we have houses, with laundry, and families who need to eat just like you do).

We are in this business because we are passionate about books and writers. But just like you, not every story jumps out at us. If a premise doesn’t grab us, we aren’t the agent for you. Don’t take it personally. Keep querying. If the writing is there and the story is great, the right agent will come along.

The word count is too low or too high.

This one is fairly easy. The publishing industry has basic standards. We get so frustrated when we see posts in writing groups where writers advise other writers to ignore the standards. These conversations begin with a new writer asking about word count and are quickly followed by a well-meaning writer advising that their opus is “250,000 words so a book can be as long as it needs to be.” Or “you are the writer, you know best how long your story should be.”

The query is poorly written or dead boring.

Think of this as a job interview. You are applying for the job of writer. You’d be surprised how many writers dash off poorly written query letters, full of grammatical errors, that read like an afterthought. You get one shot, two minutes at best to grab our attention and make us want to know more about your story and you as a writer.

Your query letter needs to be engaging. It needs to get us excited about your story. It needs to pique our interest and compel us to ask for more. That is the sole purpose of a query letter. Sell us your story. Once your book is signed by a publisher THE PETER COWAN WRITERS CENTRE is proud to announce the opening of THE 2018 TRUDY GRAHAM-JULIE LEWIS AWARD FOR PROSE COMPETITION Maximum of 2000 words per entry Theme: Open Age: Open

The chart above shows the standard guidelines. The ranges are targets for you to consider. Most adult fiction and memoirs fall in the 80,000 to 100,000-word range. That is the sweet spot for publishers and readers. If you submit a manuscript that is significantly under 80,000 words or significantly over 100,000, we will wonder if your book is underwritten or needs a serious edit.

When we are asked about word count, we often get a response back saying, “Yes. But what about the exceptions!”

When J. K. Rowling submitted Harry Potter, every major publisher turned down the book. One of their concerns was that the books were too long to hold the interest of young readers.

So how was Rowling able to move past the word count hurdle? Her story was fascinating, her characters were complex, the setting was unique, and the books were incredibly well-

Prises: 1st $200; 2nd $100; 3rd $50; Novice Award $50; Four Highly Commended Certificates and Four Commended Certificates

Entry fee: $15.00 each;

$25.00 for two entries;

$35.00 for three entries Closing date: 10th August 2018.

For further information, including registration form, please visit the Peter Cowan Writers Centre website: www.pcwc.org.au or ring (08) 9301 2282 (Tuesday or Thursday only) 4

BOOKS AND WRITING CELEBRATING PEOPLE LAUNCHED written. Story and writing won out over word count. Those rare gems are exceedingly hard to find.

The sample pages need more work. The manuscript isn’t ready.

This is one of the most heartbreaking passes for us. We read your query letter and get excited about the premise of your story.

Then, we read your first fifteen pages or your proposal and find, that the manuscript feels more like a second or third draft rather than a polished manuscript ready to go out to publishers.

Agents are not book coaches, developmental editors, or copy editors. It is not our job to polish your manuscript. We do work with authors we sign to take their manuscript to the next level, but we only do that with manuscripts that are free of typos and grammatical errors.

Our job is to sell your story to editors and to get you a book contract. We cannot take an unpolished manuscript out to editors.

If you are the only person who has ever seen your manuscript, it isn’t ready.Find a tribe of writers to share your work with. Find beta readers. Hire an editor. Get your books in the hands of readers who will give you honest feedback and then consider their suggestions.

Read your book out loud and record yourself. You’ll be amazed at the hiccups you will find in your dialogue, pacing, and overall story when you read it out loud. Make another pass, then another. Then and only then, should you send your book out to agents.

CARLI ALLEN

R

ise has launched their second annual coffee table book celebrating the stories of their people.

The Celebrating People Book 2016-17 is a bound book which shares photos and quotes from clients, staff and volunteers.

Rise CEO Justine Colyer said dozens of people came together at the head office in Middle Swan recently to launch the book.

“Following the great success of our inaugural book last year, this book is another brilliant collection of stories and photographs,” she said.

“As Rise has had significant growth over the past two years it is fantastic to showcase our centres, clients and staff from all over Perth.

“We managed to keep the book under wraps so it was lovely to watch the book stars, their families and our industry partners react to the finished product.”

Rise provides services for aged care, people with disability, mental health and youth all across Perth.

Celebrating People Book 2016-17 celebrates people from all service areas, including our volunteers.

There are plans to release a new book every year to share more great stories.

Copies of the book are available from Helen’s Place at 12 Leslie Road, Middle Swan. You also can read regular stories on Rise’s blog.

For more information visit www.risenetwork.com.au

Your social media and web presence are low or non-existent.

When we see you are writing about a nonfiction topic, we assume that you are an expert in your area.

If you tell us you are the next Chip and Joanna Gaines or Tim Ferriss editors will expect to see a social media following and a professional web presence that is substantial. If you hope to enter an ongoing conversation, editors will want to know you have established yourself as a thought leader.

Without a following, selling self-improvement, how-to, or big-idea book to editors will be a tough sell. Memoirs fall into this category as well. The unfortunate truth is that numbers drive nonfiction decisions these days. If you’ve been toiling away on a nonfiction book, spend some time building your platform before submitting to agents. And be sure that your book is as wellwritten as it is helpful or telling.

We hope you find these tips and reasons we pass helpful!

Best of luck with your manuscript.

Book star and former Rise Chair Patrick Crichton with Rise General Manager Helen Dymond DISCLAIMER The information in this publication is of a general nature.

The articles contained herein are not intended to provide a complete discussion on each subject and/or issues canvassed.

Swan Magazine does not accept any liability for any statements or any opinion, or for any errors or omissions contained herein.

Dr Sandra O’Donnell is a Founding Partner of RO Literary Agents & Creative Consultancy a boutique agency specialising in adult literary and commercial fiction, and a wide range of non-fiction including memoir, biography, history and narrative. www.roliterary.com 5

HOUSE AND GARDEN LAWN GRASS

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e have received a letter from a reader (thank you, we always like feedback) which said, among other things, ‘You know what makes great ground cover? Grass.

And lots don’t need too much water any more.’

And, of course, that’s true, so this month we’re having a look at the various types of lawn available. All of these are available by the roll from dealers and duppliers like Perth Turf Supplies (www. perthturfsupplies-srp.com.au) Different turf types provide different benefits, so there is a range of turf options to give you a selection to choose from.

For example, Empire Zoysia has a medium leaf and a deep root system that makes it drought tolerant and more suited to sunny areas.

Conversely, Palmetto turf has a broader leaf and a higher tolerance for cold temperatures, making it a good choice for shady locations. Palmetto will also keep good colour during the cold seasons.

MARION LOGIE

Empress is the ideal choice for applications where a fine, small leaf, soft textured turf is desired. It is well suited for home lawns, golf courses, parks and sports fields.

• Drought tolerant once established due to its deep root system • Moderate to good shade tolerance • Excellent at out competing weeds once established thanks to its tight mat • Licensed and patented variety EMPIRE ZOYSIA (Turf of the future) Empire Zoysia exhibits a unique combination of texture, proportion, colour and functionality that provides the ideal foundation to make any garden look like a work of art.

It adapts to a wide range of soil types and requires less water than most other grasses, even in sandy soils. Its massive root system runs deep and sustains the grass through periods of drought, heavy use and harsh conditions, while providing rapid injury recovery.

Characteristics • Dark green, eye-catching colour • Soft to touch and feel • Fine, tight blade growth • Small leaf blade of 1-2mm • Excellent tolerance to cold • Good shade tolerance • Great resistance to wear • Ideal for coastal suburbs • Fantastic recovery rate • Good salt tolerance • Low water usage • Licensed and patented variety.

More next month ...

PALMETTO (Easy care lawn) Characteristics • A low maintenance soft leaf buffalo grass with exceptional performance • Stunning emerald green colouring • Wide-bladed soft leaves create a carpet-like appearance and feel when kept high • Exceptional shade tolerance and performs well in full sun areas • Drought tolerant due to its massive root system • Cold, hardy and frost tolerant, holding its winter colour longer than most alternatives • Recovers quickly from wear and is low in maintenance • Licensed and patented variety SAPPHIRE (Fine leaf Buffalo) Characteristics • Complete with a fine, soft texture compared with other buffaloes • Sapphire leaf folds back, giving a much finer appearance when matured • Grows quickly across ground, providing fast recovery from injury • Amazing deep green colour, staying excellent in winter

Characteristics • Dark green, eye-catching colour • Soft-to-touch feel • Fine, tight blade growth • Excellent autumn colour retention • Small leaf blade of 5-7mm • Grows in sand, loam and clay soils • Excellent resistance to insects and diseases • Outstanding cold hardiness • Requires less fertiliser than Buffalo and Couch grass varieties • Easy weed control • Low water usage • Less mowing required • Licensed and patented variety EMPRESS ZOYSIA (Visually appealing) The Empress Zoysia is a rare selected native cultivar of Zoysia Japonica, chosen for its fine blade texture, tight growth habit, and superior colour.

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CORRIDORS COLLEGE OUR RTO - TAKING YOUR DREAMS SERIOUSLY SARAH HICKEY

C

orridors Group in Midland is a C.A.R.E College for Secondary students but also a Registered Training Organisation. A little known fact is the RTO services and courses are not limited to Corridors College students but are indeed available to the general public.

A Registered Training Organisation (or RTO) is an organisation that has been accredited by the Australian Skills Quality Authority.

The ASQA group operate as the national regulator and ensure that all courses and trainers meet a quality standard which maintains a national consistency.

Simply stated, an RTO is a tertiary organisation that is a less formal institution than a University, open to more schedule flexibility and is an overall more personalised way to study and obtain a qualification.

On the Corridors RTO scope there is a list of courses available but some of the most popular are;

BSB30715 Certificate III in Work Health and Safety

BSB41415 Certificate IV in Work Health and Safety

BSB51315 Diploma of Work Health and Safety

BSB60615 Advanced Diploma of Work Health and Safety

BSB42015 Certificate IV in Leadership and Management

BSB51915 Diploma of Leadership and Management

BSB61015 Advanced Diploma of Leadership and Management

ICT10115 Certificate I in Information, Digital Media and Technology

ICT20115 Certificate II in Information, Digital Media and Technology

SIT20316 Certificate II in Hospitality

SIT30616 Certificate III in Hospitality

OPTIONS

With so many options in the market, why should you consider Corridors RTO?

Firstly, they are not like other training companies who will sign you up for a course without analyzing your current career position as well as your desired career trajectory.

The consultative approach taken to your learning pathway means you can be assured you’re doing exactly the right course or qualification. They offer face to face, self-paced, distance and online training as well as enable you to identify any recognized prior learning (RPL) that will automatically fulfill courses or units.

Each year they survey students to keep on the continuous improvement path. In the last round of surveys comments that were left included “great support during my learning” and “lots of information about my course”.

So! Where are you now? Where do you want to be in the future?

Get in contact with Corridors RTO and get yourself a training plan and a SMART goal list. Consider them your ‘career mentors’ who are going to help you steer yourself in the right direction.

The contact details for the Corridors RTO are 08 9250 6222 and when you call through, just ask for Danni!.

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DINING OUT

The Thoughts of an Ageing, Balding Foodie

THE OLD FIG TREE RESTAURANT

DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

S

ad though it was to see the Valencia Winery close all those years ago in 1982, the fabric of the place has been in constant use ever since - a wonderful example of heritage up-cycling.

The collection of buildings sheltered under a huge, venerable, spreading, Port Jackson fig tree have been used to house restaurants, craft centres, community ventures, Ironbark Brewery, a motor car museum and many more.

The Vineyard Restaurant was there for many years spreading cheer and good food via owners Mike and Marjie Hurst. But time passes, people move on and retire and the restaurant, built by Mike from recycled timbers stood empty for a while before new owners and operators Ryan and Kathleen Van Biljon took it over and extensively expanded, refurbished and re-imagined it.

It had been some years since I was last there so I was intrigued to see the improvements, in particular the dining hall, painted as a Tuscan Villa, with trompe-l’œil murals of views of the Tuscan country-side.

There is also an extensive al fresco area, some under cover and some under vines. The tables and chairs, all of good sturdy timber, are comfortable, cushioned and festooned with fairy lights at night and warmed by vast outdoor heaters.

The Van Biljons have extensive hospitality experience overseas and have brought all of it to bear to create a charming, family restaurant of excellent, modestly priced, homey food.

The menu, which is quite extensive, has few surprises - you won’t find marron in lime and avocado mousse, but you will be offered lots of much-loved favourites.

We have eaten at The Old Fig Tree Restaurant twice recently, the first time as a dinner to celebrate our forty-fifth wedding anniversary (and they said it wouldn’t last) as a family and secondly as a family lunch with friends just to check that

it was really that good (and it is) so I can give you a pretty good overview of most of the menu.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that the portions are considerably generous, so pace yourself. Two entrees are not a bad idea if you’re devoted to dessert - and you should be at The Old Fig Tree.

Entrees run along familiar lines, but I have no cavil with that, I particularly like simple foods cooked well from fresh ingredients. For example, I had the Soup in a Bun ($15.50) which changes daily depending on what’s fresh - this particular Tuesday it was butternut pumpkin, served in a baked fresh cob loaf, hot, delicious and good to the last drop, then you can eat the bowl what a great idea.

The others tried a variety from Chilli Mussels ($17.50) of fresh black mussels cooked in a mild chilli Napolitano sauce and a timbale of steamed rice. The mussels were small, but tasty and fresh and the sauce was perfection to the Peking Duck Salad ($17.50) of strips of duck breast and salad of Cherry tomatoes, green leaves, pickled ginger and cashews - totally gluten-free for those to whom that’s important.

In addition the Garlic Sour Dough Bread ($9.50) was just amazing and as an added benefit vampires will give you a wide berth.

Main Course menu is much bigger, offering Butter Chicken Curry ($31.50), which was Angela’s selection (It isn’t too hot is it?) and was rich, succulent and served with Naan bread and a small dish of Riata (that yoghurt and mint mix designed to put out any curry fires). It lived up to the server’s promises.

On that subject, service was swift, helpful and polite, provided by young people neatly clad in black and white.

If you are of a vegetarian persuasion you might like to consider the Honey Glazed Pumpkin Panzerotti ($29.50) of fresh Buffalo cheese, spring onions and roasted capsicum spiced with basil and served with a creamy rosé wine sauce.

I don’t know why this dish, so popular in Puglia in Italy, is so little known in Australia where we go mad for the similar calzone, but it’s well worth trying.

For my main I chose the Hickory OPEN FOR LUNCH 6 DAYS A WEEK Smoked Beef Brisket ($36.50) which, as I’m sure you know, has to be cooked very BREAKFAST ON WEEKENDS & PUBLIC HOLIDAYS long and low to reach its full flavour DINNER WEDNESDAY TO SATURDAY potential, as indeed it was here.

James is very fond of ribs as a meal, NOW AT CARILLEY ESTATE, 45 HYEM RD, HERNE HILL (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all) and he ordered one of the Fig BOOKINGS: 9274 7277 trees most popular and iconic dishes - the American Baby Back Ribs ($45.50), a full www.pennygardenrestaurant.com.au rack of pork ribs, served with chips, a 8

small salad, in a rich, sticky BBQ sauce made on the premises.

Now, I have eaten the best ribs in the world, those made by Jack at the now defunct American Ribs and Grill, and I have to say these were damn near as good, which I suppose, as you can’t get Jack’s any more, promotes them into top place. Certainly James polished his off with a good deal of zeal and gusto.

If The Fig Tree Restaurant has a signature dish it would have to be their Slow-Roasted Pork, crisp crackling that sounds like gunfire when you eat it, roast potatoes, seasonable vegetables and a particularly delicious shiraz-based jus. This is usually $31.50 but is offered as a special on Sundays at $20 - given the price and the taste, it’s amazingly popular, of course.

These in addition to the usual Steak sandwiches, burgers and Scotch Fillet steaks with optional sauces.

Dessert remains the temptation is always was and the choice, though small, lived up to Blackadder’s words - ‘the agony of choice’. We’ve now tried them all and I can tell you the best, by a margin, although they’re all pretty spectacular, such as the Peppermint Crisp Tart ($10.50) based around a South African chocolate bar and being caramel mint mousse, sandwiched in butter biscuits and topped with the actual Peppermint Crisp bar.

Or the Cheesecake of the Day ($6.50) or the Orange and Cointreau Creme Brulee ($10.50). All good, even exceptional, but compared to the Sticky Fig Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce they were as dust and ashes. Now I love Sticky Toffee Pudding, Sticky Date Pudding and in fact puddings of all kinds and this is the absolute best I’ve ever had, it’s just that good.

We rounded off our excellent meal with coffee and waddled away beaming, replete and slightly sticky.

We ate off the a la carte menu, naturally, but there are regular mid-week and weekend specials I’d be happy to try, not forgetting a special Kids Menu and the popular High Teas.

The Old Fig Tree is licensed and has a useful wine list at not much above bottle shop prices, but you can bring your own special tipple if you’re so minded.

There are few restaurants I can unreservedly recommend for everyone, but The Old Fig Tree Restaurant is very definitely one.

As Oscar Wilde wrote ‘After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations’.

Very Highly Recommended Indeed.

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DOUGLAS’ WINERIES AND DINERIES

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

The hidden gem of a bar in Bassendean 77 Old Perth Road

OPEN Wednesday - Thursday 5-10ish Friday 5 - 10:30ish Saturday - Sunday 12 - 10:30ish HAVING A FUNCTION? - FULLY CATERED & NO HIRE FEE

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FOOD SWEET TEMPTATIONS TOUR DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

L

eaving Mondo Nougat with slightly sticky fingers we moved on down the road to where our fingers could get potentially substantially even stickier - Rupert and Kim’s House of Honey.

Rupert is an apiarist of long standing, having started at the tender age of eight, when living on the family farm in Natal, South Africa, he became fascinated by a colony of wild bees in a tree on the property.

When he came to Australia in 1982 bees and honey became his life’s work as well as a lifelong passion. In 2008 he and wife Kim (the Queen Bee herself) began construction of the House of Honey including the Sticky Spoon Cafe.

The House of Honey is devoted to all things honey and bee related products honey, obviously, bees’ wax candles, royal jelly, mead, propolis and so on.

Propolis, if you’re not familiar with it, is the material that bees use to glue the various parts of the hive together, made from bees wax, the resins from conifers and other buds - not that appetising by that description, but it does have undeniable anti-biotic and antiseptic properties and may well

also have anti-viral and anti-inflammatory qualities.

It can be used in a variety of goods ranging from creams and unguents and even in toothpaste, most of which are made on the premises from their own bees and sold in the House of Honey shop by the staff (Worker Bees).

A recent extension offers a wide and growing range of mead, probably the oldest alcoholic drink known to man, dating back to about 7000BCE, some nine thousand years ago.

Usually made with only three ingredients - honey, water and yeast, mead can be flavoured with fruit, spices or hops to create some wonderfully rich and varietal beverages.

Inside the building, and spilling out onto a paved patio around a lovely water fountain are the tables and chairs of the Sticky Spoon cafe offering rich Devonshire teas of home-made honey scones, strawberry jam and cream as well as traditional German Beesting cake, Bohemian Honey Cake of layers of caramel, honey and walnuts, a variety of teas and coffee.

But it is, naturally, honey that is the main focus of the House of Honey, honey in all its many varieties and tastes.

Until you taste it, you couldn’t imagine the difference between honey made by bees from the flowers of Marri from that made from orange blossom or Geraldton Wax. You can browse through the many goods on offer or at the absolutely fascinating glass-fronted beehive, watching the little invaluable little beggars hard at work making their delectable deliciousness. There is even a small library of educative books and pamphlets, informing us of the essential role bees play in our delicate ecology and how to help them in their task.

Well worth a visit and very highly recommended indeed.

Next month - Swan Valley Café 11

FOOD - CHEF EXPLORER EMPADAO DE BACALHAV (Cod Fish Pie) Ingredients 750g Bacalhav (Salted cod fish) 25g butter 100ml olive oil 2 medium onions, chopped 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 medium tomatoes, grated 2g black pepper, ground 125g cheddar cheese 10g Parmesan cheese 125g breadcrumbs 2g ground nutmeg Mashed potatoes: 1kg kg potatoes Salt & pepper 125g cream 4 eggs separated 10g chopped parsley

A TASTE OF THE 2018 WORLD CUP

PORTUGAL hen I think of Portugal, I do not immediately think of the awesome football talents of Ronaldo, but of the town of Porto looking at me on my office desk, courtesy of a touristy souvenir! Mainly, because I spent a fifty years old reunion with me old Mancunian school mates (and mad football fans, a mixture of Man United and Man City!) in 2010.

We had an absolute ball with both the banter and the luscious Port flowing frequently and often! Port. Yum! I hope you know, that matched with English Stilton cheese, it is a marriage made in heaven!

Of course other folk might think of the Algarve, or Cod fish pie (a recipe I just had to choose), or talking about folk, go listen to the ‘Fado’ folk Music.

I spent some time in Porto and just loved it. There is an old saying there, from the Porto folk who reckon they are the more hard working; “Porto works, (it sure does, visit ‘Sandemans’ Port tours etc), Coimbra studies (You just have to go to medieval Coimbra, I went on the way to Lisbon and climbed those stairs popping into little bars on the way up), Braga prays (well somebody has to! Maybe for Ronaldo to score the winning goal in the final?!) and Lisbon plays!”

Lisbon is a laid back capital that just oozes charm especially around Alfama, the cobbled winding maze of alley ways where little gem of restaurants lurk, accompanied by a Fado singer, or get that famous tram No 28 what explores the whole city.

I returned to Portugal and Lisbon in 2014 when my son was actually having trials at the mighty Benfica. So it was a mixture of Football (we were there too when the World Cup semi finals were played) and Chef Explorer when I also explored World Heritage listed Evora and the fairy tale palaces of Sintra. We stayed on the coast at Costa da Caparica where I have to say we feasted on the best and freshest seafood I have ever tasted!

W

Method 1. Soak the fish beforehand (overnight and change the water in the morning or at least six hours before).

2. Remove the skin and bone from the soaked fish and cut into cubes.

3. Place the oil and butter in a pan and sauté the onion and garlic for five minutes.

4. Add the fish, tomatoes and black pepper and simmer for twenty minutes.

5. Meanwhile boil the potatoes in their jackets until tender.

Peel and mash them.

6. Separate the eggs and whisk the whites until stiff.

7. Season and beat in the cream, beaten egg yolks and parsley.

8. Place the fish mixture in a food processor and blend for thirty seconds using chopping blade. (Do in two batches) OR you could leave the fish chunky.

9. Mix the potato with the fish mixture, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and place in an ovenproof dish.

10. Mix together the cheeses, breadcrumbs and nutmeg.

11. Sprinkle over the fish and potato mixture. Bake in a preheated oven at 180c until golden.

The rest is up to you!

So come along and join him on this great culinary, cultural and football journey on www.chefexplorer.com.au

A TASTE OF THE WORLD CUP

Brendan Murphy the Chef Explorer and long time writer for the Swan Magazine is about to publish his second book titled A Taste of the World Cup, in preparation for this years upcoming World Cup 2018 in June.

His first book in a ‘Chef Explorer Series’; A Taste of the World was published in 2010, and it is just that, a Taste of great food and true Chef-and Travel stories, plucked from Brendan’s thirty years of Travel Diaries! His aim is to entice families and especially children to join him and explore great food and culture themselves and get back around the table as a family should do, and discuss their findings.

This next book is an extension of that theme. With an added extra multi-dimensional ‘ingredient’ thrown in the pot: Football!

In celebration of the greatest sporting event the world has ever seen, Brendan profiles all the thirty-two countries that have qualified to the 2018 competition, mainly as a Chef, then as a mad Football fan. His aim is to give you great authentic recipes each countries football history and a few travel stories to consume as you enjoy the beautiful game at its highest level.

12

FOOD HELP SAVE SLATE CAFE DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

A

portion of Marshall Road in Bennett Springs and Dayton Boulevard in Dayton has been temporarily closed from May 1, for a period of sixteen weeks, as part of the New Lord Street project.

The temporary road closures will allow for the construction of a new intersection, a significant upgrade which will eventually remove the highly congested roundabout at St Leonards Boulevard.

In addition, Marshall Road will be widened and realigned to join Dayton Boulevard and a new roundabout will be constructed to connect Dayton Boulevard, Lord Street, Marshall Road and Isoodon Street.

Altone Ward Councillor Peter Lyndon-James said

nearby local businesses will remain open and accessible at all times during the temporary road closure.

“Slate Café, Sikh Gurdwara and Shree Swaminarayan Temple are all open over the next sixteen weeks, and will be accessible via Marshall Road from Altone Road,” he said.

Which is all well and good, of course, but Cafés rely heavily on passing trade and the livelihood of the owners and staff hang in the balance over the next four months.

They need you to keep going with your family, kids and pets to this charming café - do yourself and them a favour and keep going.

PENNY GARDEN ON THE MOVE

G

DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND-BRUCE

ood news for lovers of good service, good food at moderate prices and a great view.

Penny Garden, that much loved family restaurant on West Swan Road, has up sticks and moved across the valley and into Carilly Estate, another restaurant with great views.

Charlie Rego has collected his crew, chef, menu, loyal patrons and approach to hospitality and moved into the Carilly Estate premises.

I have always enjoyed my meals at Penny Garden and I’m thrilled to have them at such a wonderful new venue. For the transition period they will be known as Penny Garden at Carilley Estate, but in due course they’ll be just Carilly Estate, which is

reasonable since the penny was found in the old garden when the restaurant was being built. The only things you’ll find in this garden are tables, chairs beautiful brides and handsome grooms, plus a large hard-working staff.

It’s only the location that’s changed - everything else remains the same. Try them out if you don’t believe me.

Winery - Restaurant - Wine Tasting - Kids Playground Thursday - Sunday 10.30am - 4pm - Friday 10.30am till late Ph: 08 9296 6190 45 Hyem Rd, Herne Hill WA 6056 www.carilleyestate.com.au

13

STANDING UP FOR SWAN HILLS ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL JESSICA SHAW MLA – MEMBER FOR SWAN HILLS

I

am absolutely passionate about animals and believe it’s important to ensure that they are cared for and protected, in their domestic, agricultural and natural environments.

I love spending time with my own special ones (mini schnauzers Poppy and Harry, my cats Millie and Buttons, and George the retired thoroughbred!)

As your local Member, I support better welfare outcomes for domestic pets and agricultural stock, and work to protect the native fauna we’re so lucky to have in our local natural environment.

Poppy and Harry recently celebrated national “Bring Your Dog to Work Day” with our Swan Hills team, recognising the many benefits that pets can bring to work places (although I’ll admit that I take Poppy and Harry into the office whenever I can – if only I could take them into Parliament!)

I hate to see animals mistreated and am a member of a group of dedicated Labor MPs that regularly meets to address animal welfare issues.

STOP PUPPY FARMING!

Dogs provide us with unconditional love and companionship. It breaks my heart to see the cruelty inflicted by puppy farming. It’s an inhumane, barbaric practice that must be stopped.

The McGowan Government is seeking public feedback on

the options outlined in our Stop Puppy Farming discussion paper, including:

• compulsory sterilisation

• mandatory breeding standards

• centralised registration system to track dogs

• transitioning pet shops into adoption centres

These options can help protect dogs from the suffering and neglect inflicted through puppy farming. To have your say, attend a workshop or read the discussion paper, visit: www.dlgsc. wa.gov.au/stoppuppyfarming

Submissions close on Friday 3 August 2018.

Let’s end puppy farming in WA!

Jessica Shaw MLA LOCAL MEMBER FOR SWAN HILLS

@JessicaShawMLA Jessica.Shaw@mp.wa.gov.au 9296 7688

LIVE EXPORTS

I have been inundated with complaints from people, deeply disturbed by the cruelty shown in recent 60 Minutes footage of a live export voyage to the Middle East.

People expressed their disgust at the appalling conditions, which led to the death of more than 2,400 sheep.

They, like me, are horrified that animals endure long journeys, in scorching summer heat and over-crowded conditions. The sheep were clearly hungry, thirsty and hot. The suffering demonstrated was inhumane and unacceptable.

I wrote to the Hon. David Littleproud MP, Federal Minister for Agriculture, to convey these concerns and call for a phase out of this cruel trade.

The State Government investigation into potential breaches of WA’s animal welfare laws is continuing and will include the footage aired on 60 Minutes.

Together with WA Minister for Agriculture and Food, the Hon. Alannah MacTiernan, I strongly support the establishment of an Inspector General and an Independent Office of Animal Welfare at the Federal level.

I also keenly appreciate the need to have an orderly industry transition plan. The State Government is working with WA farmers and meat processors, to ensure the best possible outcomes for animals and industry.

I will continue to advocate strongly on the issue of live exports and particularly support initiatives to develop a WAbased chilled meat export industry.

Continued on page 56 ...

HERE TO HELP Aveley, Bailup, Belhus, Brigadoon, Bullsbrook, Chidlow, Ellenbrook, Gidgegannup, Melaleuca, Mount Helena, Sawyers Valley, The Vines, Upper Swan, and Wooroloo.

Office Address 8/31 Egerton Drive Aveley WA 6069

Postal Address PO Box 2265 Ellenbrook WA 6069

Standing up for Swan Hills Authorised by Jessica Shaw, 8/31 Egerton Drive, Aveley, WA 6069

14

ENTERTAINMENT WESTERN SKY THEATRE CAMERON GOODMAN

W

estern Sky Theatre is a company that produces chamber musical theatre and cabaret in Western Australia.

Started by Andrew Baker in 2017, it aims to offer creative opportunities in Western Australia for musical theatre professionals who have a connection to Western Australia.

Western Australia has one one of the most notable musical theatre courses in the world, this being at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. However the gap between graduating and working full time in the art of musical theatre in Western Australia is practically impossible.

This would be due to lack of opportunities to be able to present and perform musical theatre in a independent capacity year round. Currently the only opportunities that graduates from these courses are able to get to create and perform independent musical theatre is through Perth Fringeworld. This leaves many graduates to head interstate or even interntionally to seek opportunities.

The desire that Perth audiences have for musical theatre is obvious with the big touring musicals that visit year round, constantly being well received and well attended. Western Sky Theatre exists to fill a gap of being able to create high quality productions of musical theatre by West Australian connected artists for West Australian audiences on a more accessable scale.

Before Western Sky Theatre was officially formed as a production company, the company had been developing through its collabrations with other like minded organisations, like Holland St Productions.

This team of collaborators produced Gutenberg! The Musical! the first time in 2016 which was performed at the Helenic Club. The show was incredibly well received laying the ground work and

building momentum for future works and ideas.

In 2017, Western Sky Theatre was officially formed and its debut production of Once We Lived Here was performed at the Blue Room Theatre in October 2017 to very impressed audiences.

The production was written by the critically acclaimed team of Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank, and is a funny and touching look at a passing way of life.

Western Sky Theatre went on to receive awards for their Blue Room Theatre Season at the annual Blue Room Theatre Awards, a key event in the independent theatre scene.

They were awarded:

2017: Best Production Team (Once We Lived Here)

2017: Audience Development Award

Western Sky Theatre continues to capitalise on the momentum its gained, by remounting Gutenberg! The Musical! as part of Subiaco Theatre Festival in June 2018.

THE DECADENT AND DEPRAVED CLEANS UP

L

ocally written, directed and produced feature movie The Decadent and Depraved has scooped the pools at the monthly Oniros Film Awards taking out the following categories:

Best Cinematography

Best Prosthetic Make Up

Best Song - Peter Renzullo

Best Main Theme

Best Original Soundtrack

Best Sound Design.

If you haven’t heard of them, the Oniros are an affiliate of the Los Angeles Film Awards - in which the

MARION LOGIE

film won best Independent Film, Best Actor, Best Western, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography and honourable mention for a first-time director!

These honours are in addition to the Melbourne City Independent Film Awards 2018:

Best Picture

Best Actor - Ben Mortley

Best Cinematography .

Huge congratulations to all concerned.

15

FEDERAL NOTES HON KEN WYATT AM, MP Member for Hasluck , Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Indigenous Health

NEW CHILDCARE SYSTEM

T

he Turnbull Government’s new child care system is providing greater support for families to get ahead.

From July 2 more than 3,900 families in Hasluck will benefit from the changes which are designed to deliver support to those who need it most.

If you have not done so already, please visit www.education.gov.au/childcare to estimate your new subsidy and make the switch to the new system.

The changes increase the subsidy from around 72 per cent to 85 per cent for families earning $66,958 or less a year.

We’ve also removed the annual rebate cap for families earning $186,958 or less a year – that’s 85 per cent of families using child care.

This new and improved system is all possible thanks to our strong economic management and the hard work of Australians right across the nation.

In addition to this increased investment in child care, we have committed $870 million for preschools in 2018 and 2019 to support 15 hours of preschool a week for children in the year before they begin school.

Only the Turnbull Government has a plan for a stronger economy that will continue to create jobs and guarantee the essential services Australians rely on, including the new child care package, support for children in preschool and record education funding.

ADVERTISEMENT

REGISTER

If you would like to register your interest in attending the child care forum I am planning with Hon. Simon Birmingham, the Minister for Education, please call my office on 9359 0322 or email me on ken.wyatt.mp@aph.gov.au. Please also don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like assistance in figuring out what the new child care system means for you and your family.

AGED CARE FORUM

I will also be holding an Aged Care Forum on Wednesday, 8 August at Camp Wattle Grove from 9:30 - 12:30pm. Please come along and hear about how the Turnbull Government is delivering for seniors in Hasluck. To RSVP and to find out more details please contact my office via phone or email – details as above.

KEN WYATT MP

GET A KEN-VIRO BAG!

WA's plastic bag ban has officially begun! Yay! If you would like some of my 'Kenviro Bags' to help make the transition a little easier you are more than welcome to stop in at my Forrestfield office and pick some up.

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.

16

OUT AND ABOUT WITH SHARRON

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND COMMUNITIES SUNDOWNER

of Commerce and Communities June Sundowner at Girls Without Limits (Ellenbrook) A fabulous event generously hosted T he Chamber

by Loan Market and Girls Without Limits – a local Not for Profit running very popular after school programs for girls.

The Chamber runs regular events with an upcoming breakfast featuring Mayor David Lucas and a Sundowner in Bullsbrook.

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WHAT’S ON IF YOU WOULD LIKE AN EVENT LISTED IN THIS COLUMN RING our office on 0418 934 850 Entries for non-profit entities are free.

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

A demonstration and cuppa are the norm. Men and Women are welcome. Enquiries to Ted 9295 4438.

SWAN VALLEY COMMUNITY CENTRE

Monday Mornings The Art Group meets at Baskerville Hall from 9am – 12pm for just $5.00 per session.

Group leader Gilly 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 enquiries@swanvalleycommunitycentre.com www.swanvalleycommunitycentre.com

AUSTRALIAN BREASTFEEDING ASSOC. Discussion groups, guest speakers, morning tea. Free breastfeeding counselling. Expectant mothers, mothers, babies and children welcome. National Breastfeeding Helpline 1800 686 2686 is a 24 hour 7 days a week service.

Swan/Mundaring Group meets every Monday, 9:30-11:30am at the Gumnuts Family Centre, 8 Mudalla Way, Koongamia. A qualified ABA counsellor is present at each meeting to give confidential information and support on breastfeeding issues.

Contact Natalie 9572 4971.

Kalamunda Group meets fortnighly on a Thursday, 9:30-11:30am at the Maida Vale Baptist Church, Edney Road, High Wycombe.

Contact Jenny 9252 1996.

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

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

SWAN HARMONY SINGERS

Wednesdays Come and sing with us! Swan Harmony Singers is a community choir that meets, 7-9pm, to sing music ranging from jazz to pop, plus the occasional classic. No auditions. Join us at the Salvation Army Church Hall, 371 Morrison Rd, (opposite Swan View Primary School), Swan View. Enquiries: call Anna on 9299 7249, or Chris on 9298 9529 or 0435 062 728.

COMBINED MIDLAND PROBUS CLUB

3rd Wednesday of the month Are you 55 or over and wish to join a non-fundraising club and meet new friends, explore new places and discover new interests in the company of fellow retirees then Midland Probus is the club for you.

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.

ELLENBROOK COMMUNITY WEIGHT LOSS CLUB

Every Tuesday evening We meet from 6.45pm to 8.00pm at the Woodlake Community Hall, Meeting room 1 Highpoint Blvd, Ellenbrook.

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

. . . ?

N E H W R E B M REME

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.

LY CART FESTIVAL THE INAUGURAL HILLS BIL

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: Christine Hogan: 9279 8778 Email: madtattersmorris@iinet.Net.Au Website: madtattersmorris.myclub.org.au

Sunday 28th October

Keane Street East, Mount Helena

www.hillsbillycartfestival.com

visit our website to become a competitor, register your interest or become a sponsor.

SWAN WOODTURNERS GROUP

The group meets in the rear hall of The Senior Citizens’ Centre, The Avenue, Midland, at 1-00pm. on 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Tuesday, and at 7-00pm. on 2nd Tuesday of each month.

Printing proudly funded by customers of Mundaring Community Bank® Branch

18

Bigger than a bank.

WHAT’S ON Meetings are held at: Bellevue RSL Club, 2 Purton Way Bellevue from 12:30pm -to 3:00pm. Interesting Guest Speaker every month.

Our basic purpose is to advance intellectual and cultural interests among adult persons. Probus offers many member benefits and a chance to enjoy your retirement with likeminded people For Fun, Friendship and Fellowship contact John on: 9297 2219, 0419 962 872 or Email: jayveegee@iinet.net.au

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.

MUSTARD SEED - DISCOVERING COMPUTERS

Mustard Seed is a fifteen year old non-profit organisation and teaches all aspects of everyday computing. Ability levels from beginners onwards. Want help with Windows 10? In need of instruction with your Mac computer? Have an iPad or Android tablet and don’t know what it will do? We can help. Cost is $3 per session. Classes are heldat 56 McGlew Road, Glen Forrest. To gain a place enrol now.

Phone 9299 7236 or 0478 604 163 or E: mustardcomputers@gmail.com W: noodlebytes.com

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.

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 our usual attendance is around fifty-five. At least once a month we have a guest speaker on a range of topics.

We also go on excursions to various places of interest (e.g.

HMAS Stirling, Aviation Museum, Fremantle Ports, ALCOA, etc.).

Our workshop with wood working and metal working is in Midvale and for the opening hours and further details please contact Rob Cutter on 0419 967 873. Also in operation is our music group – the Rockin’ Shedders which is going from strength to strength and their repertoire of songs increases each week.

For more information on the Shed please contact Kevin Buckland on 0417 961 971 or by email to kebinsv@tpg.com.au.

EASTERN DISTRICTS MACHINE KNITTERS

Friday - second and fourth We meet from 9:00am to noon at 10 Brockman Road, Midland.

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

For more information contact Pat 9309 3260; Liz 9572 7074 or Pat 9295 2793.

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.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sir,

The consensus from business circles seems to be that failure to lower company tax will damage business.

Firstly, you don’t pay tax unless you make a profit. If your business becomes unprofitable, you don’t pay the tax anyway.

Secondly, the lie is that it will prevent businesses from investing in jobs and growth. If any business spends money on legitimate investment, those costs are tax deductible, which Click on the link below register means they gettothe company tax back.

Thirdly, profits paid by way of dividends within the Australian tax zone come with dividend imputation credits which means the shareholder gets the company tax back as well.

To sum up, company tax reductions seem to benefit foreigners only, who seem to be good at avoiding paying tax in Australia anyway.

So, Mathias Cormann, explain why you want this again?

Tony Jackson Rockingham 19

FICTION TWO PINK RAINCOATS

W

JOHN BEATON

e decided that we wanted to see Huangshan, and, starting from near Shanghai, that’s what we did. Wikipedia said: “Mount Huangshan is one of China's major tourist destinations and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan pine trees, hot springs, winter snow, and views of the clouds from above.”

TripAdvisor gave it 4.5 out of nearly 3,000 reviews.

We made our plans, and set out with high hopes. But not all tourist destinations deliver the brochure promise. Here’s my diary reminder of a travel highlight we don’t talk about much.

Monday 12th July

Had breakfast with other tourists in the hotel (Y38* each) and sorted our stuff for travel to the Yellow Mountain. Bagged our laundry and spent some time trying to make ”wash clothes, please” understood by the giggling, nearly hysterical maid who grabbed a guest to translate for her and us.

Put the case away and off by taxi to the bus station and easily got our tickets to Huangshan. A very big, very efficient and cheap bus service. Waited a little while, then boarded for a 2.5 hour trip down what seemed a new freeway, to the dusty bus station in Tunxi near Huangshan City.

Besieged by touts for maps, hotels and taxis, but avoiding them as best we could, we got a tuk-tuk with Ping Wang who told us he was a writer. Above the traffic din and the roar of his motor, he yelled to us that China was not free and he was going to change the government to make China free. He persuaded us to ditch our pre-booked hotel and go to one he knew (sixteen floors, true three star, very, very safe - he knows the manager and only Y180) So we did.

Awful place. Plus Y100 for the plastic key. – i.e. the plastic key. A deposit. Yeah, right. And I’m Sean Connery.

Up to the room, crank up the noisy a/c and add to the roar of the noisy traffic outside. We went for a walk to buy tea bags (impossible) but got fruit and what we thought was milk but was yogurt and looked to buy a new, red cap for Penny. No joy. Back to the hotel and we fell asleep quickly, despite the din.

Later, we got a smiling woman with a pedal trishaw to take us down town for some dinner in an upstairs restaurant. Good food, food service but very close to our table was an incredibly noisy party room with half a dozen blokes and three or four hookers, all of them a bit Brahms and Liszt. Actually – very pissed.

But the food was delicious– fried rice Anhui style, pork strips with bamboo shoots and another rice dish which was too much for us, so he had it bagged and gave it to the trishaw driver who we hoped would not be insulted.

Back to the awful room for a re-pack again and prepare for a 4.30 am start tomorrow to get the 5:00am bus to TungKao. We were encouraged to get the early cable car to the mountain.

Rob (our son living in China) rang about 10.30 pm to give us some ideas about what to see and the best places to visit in Huangshan. We’re excited about tomorrow.

Tuesday 13 July

Up at 4.30am - very bloody early - for a scramble to pack and get down to the buses by 5.00am. But despite about twenty different busses and taxis and people ordering us on to this bus or that one, and others trying to sell us plastic raincoats and maps of the mountain, nothing happened until a train arrived about 5.30am and more people got off, ambled about and were eventually steered on to a bus. We joined them.

The small bus left and the lady with the mike shouted at us for forty minutes without taking a single breath. There was a ten-minute break and we arrived in Tung Kou. Off the bus. Back on the bus. A short drive and off the bus again. Now – where are we? No signs (at least none in English) and it’s raining. There are small groups of yellow or pink plastic raincoats wandering around. Oh - follow this group to a building and buy a bus ticket to the Cable Car. Back on to the bus.

Up a winding, wet road with occasional sheer drops of several kilometres either side. And mist everywhere. Get to the cable car. But where is it? There’s a museum and other buildings but suddenly, OK, there is the cable car, around the side of that building.

Hundreds of wet people climb the stairs and in groups of eight we are herded into a cabin.

Quiet.

Suddenly we’re swinging up above the trees, over chasms of mist and rain and giant rocks hundreds of metres tall. For ten minutes. One of those rides that would be spectacular if it was (a) not raining, and (b) the cabin wasn’t misted over.

At the top, we bail out and climb some wet stairs higher up to get a good view. Any view, really. But the view is less than 500 metres, the rain is steady and the cloud is thick.

Despite my Y3 raincoat and the red umbrella, I’m getting wet. And it is cold.

We join a few other bedraggled tourists and climb a dozen more steps in the rain and wind and make a few decisions. The weather isn’t going to change. We can’t see much at all. Maybe it is time to go back. It is 9.00am. We have a paid a lot to see mist and wet trees.

Back on the cable car (please pay again - Y10 each) and decide that a bus to Huangshan City is not for us, so we get a cab.

Concluded on page 23 ...

20

FICTION TEMPLE IN THE RAIN

T

STELLA MCMILLAN

he sky, dazzling from our westfacing windows, is dull blue and flecked with grey and iridescent, pink-orange clouds. The wind behaves as a paintbrush and in artful strokes spreads the clouds horizontally across the sky; thus the swathes of cloud recline in varying opaqueness and transparency.

The luminous clouds are lit from below by the sun as they, clouds, bound in the earth’s atmosphere, and sun, whirl inexorably apart.

I once walked out along the jetty in Penang between the rows of ancient, Chinese-style wooden houses. In the shallows, wooden dinghies rocked fitfully.

At the end of the jetty we came suddenly upon an enormous, newlybuilt Buddhist temple. Ornate red and black arches marked the entrance to the two-storey structure which stood on stilts over the water.

Rows of Chinese lanterns lined the courtyard on the lower storey.

Passing through a further archway, I came to stand at the edge of the structure, looking right down at the sea from behind a low glass wall that seemed incongruously modern. As I stood here, it started to rain very heavily. I remember the thousands of circular ripples the rain drops made as they hit the grey water.

Under an awning near the entrance to the temple, two old men sat at a long trestle table drinking tea. We had no language in common with them, but they beckoned for us to sit and take shelter from the rain, and gave us some tea.

So we sat there with them, drinking tea and watching the rain over the sea.

I look up the temple later. It is called Hean Boo Thean Temple or Kuan Yin Floating Temple, and is devoted primarily to Bodhisattva Kuan Yin, ‘The Goddess of Mercy’ or compassion.

‘The original Hean Boo Thean Temple,’ I read, ‘dates back to 1972, when it was just a humble shrine on stilts, perched over the sea. Due to its amphibious situation, it was often inundated during high tides.’ It was renovated and expanded in 2012.

Lately I think a lot about my visit there, realising sadly that at that moment I had been in no way equipped to enjoy its beauty, that though I was conscious of beauty it inspired in me no real emotion. I often wish I could return to that day, if only to pay its perfection the attention it deserves.

Rather, to rephrase: if only to pay it the attention I wish I had paid it. The perfection of the scene itself glows independently and is indifferent to my ability or inability to perceive it.

I try, as always, to dream about the sea and am, as always, unsuccessful. Instead, I find myself descending into one of the torpid subways that surround the elaborated Flinders Street Station of my subconscious.

Down here, an unattended stall sells second-hand jewellery. Hundreds of earrings, bracelets, rings are jumbled in trays on the counter. I rummage through these objects with the anxious feeling that I am looking for something specific.

The jewellery is mostly of low-quality metal that has discoloured with age. Many pieces are inlaid with fake jewels of coloured glass. A wide brass ring with a piece of blue glass a centimetre across, heavy silver earrings in an art nouveau style, artificial pearls; a pair of rusty hoops that hurt my ears but which I wear anyway.

Behind the counter, a white-haired woman whom I know is talking to me sternly about cohesion. What does the temple

in the rain, she demands, have to do with the jewellery? I feel a furious anxiety to make her understand. This is the message; everything has to do with everything; they are related simply by virtue of their existence.

But I am utterly unable to order these thoughts or to speak.

She doesn’t ask me what the temple in the rain has to do with sex, and I assume that at least she understands this. I am looking at her pendulous breasts, so suggestive of heaviness. The skin is pale, wrinkled and uneven, dimpled in places. The reality of these signs of age strikes me powerfully, and I am desirously conscious of my own tits as this ineffable, subterranean sense of intimacy encompasses me.

I dream about three cities. They are Melbourne, Bombay, and New York, which I have never seen. I dream about the central railway stations of each of these cities. For all my meditation on the open sea, I dream about the torpid, polluted water around the cities, subdivided by boardwalks and bridges and sea walls.

Whenever I find myself in New York, I weep with gratitude.

One terribly hot evening in January Evie and I went to Brunswick Pool. It was still light outside, it was about eight o’clock, and the gauge on the wall said 34 degrees. The pool was still crowded. Above the high brick wall, you could see the tops of the trains as they went past, shaking the electrical wires. We treaded water in the deep end, talking and laughing, the sound getting lost in all the echoing noise of the pool. As the light began to turn grey, a hot, tropical rain came.

Next time I saw the temple on the water, I would be ready. ~oOo~

I go to see J. in her office on the fifth floor of the English faculty building. Her window looks out over the tops of the trees and the other beige-brick buildings of the campus. I am writing an essay about the conception of beauty in Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, but my contemplation of it has become just as confused and fraught as that of Mizoguchi in the novel.

J. gestures for me to sit down on the low, squishy seat on one side of her table; she sits down opposite on a hard-looking old couch with a colourful throw over it. This is her home, I realise as I look at J. leaning comfortably back on the sofa, surrounded by her own books and papers. She looks into my eyes and asks how I am going with the assignment. Overwhelmed with the intimacy of the situation, I mumble meaninglessly, ‘Okay.’ J. nods inquisitively, intently.

21

Seeing no alternative, I launch into a jumbled explanation of my ideas.

‘I guess the closest I can come to any coherent interpretation of Mizoguchi’s trouble with beauty—he says, ‘The first problem in my life was that of beauty’—anyway, the best I can come up with is that he’s tortured by the impossibility of possessing beauty, by the knowledge that it “can never be totally grasped,” as, um—’ I rummage through my notes, ‘as Swann writes. It’s transient. The only time he is not tortured by this is when he believes it, the temple, beauty—will be destroyed in an air raid, during the war.

‘Then, maybe, its his personal sense of impending loss, loss to himself, that allows him to possess the temple’s beauty. Its beauty for once becomes subject to the tortuous wheel of life, subject to attachment and loss. Finally, by burning the temple… well, he acts out the koan where they kill the cat because it’s beautiful, and I don’t understand it.

‘Is it that by destroying the object of beauty he rids himself of attachment, restoring peace? And by resolving to do this, he finally seems to solve his problem of beauty right before he burns the temple… the temple reveals to him the fabric of its beauty, which is its harmony, its fractal harmony, you know, containing the total beauty of existence… fuck, that’s what I just make of everything though.

‘It’s essentially true, but there are complications. The temple seems to fluctuate between being treated as an eternal, mystical, enlightening beauty, and a kind of covetous beauty, the love of which is akin to sexual desire and needs to be expunged.

A lot of the writing on the novel treats it as the latter.’

J. listens patiently, and responds, ‘I think that sensual aspect to the temple’s beauty is definitely in there. It occurs to me that Mizoguchi’s pain and bafflement when he becomes acquainted with the temple is similar to falling in love for the first time.

‘You know, when you fall in love as a teenager, joyous as it is, almost immediately there is this pain, inexplicable and excruciating. Perhaps it comes from this terror that Mizoguchi feels, of beauty existing without your possessing it; the terror that now you are aware of this powerful, perfect beauty, it goes on shining regardless of you. In many ways, Mizoguchi’s relationship with the temple is very much like a tumultuous love affair. Not that I’d know anything about those,’ she laughs, holding up her right hand as if to swear.

‘Look at not only his all-consuming obsession with it, his idealised concept of it, but also the way his love transforms into hatred and the desire to hurt. Sexual imagery is present, too; remember when he says, “the heavy, luxurious darkness of the temple was enveloping me.”’

I look again through my research notes, and quote, ‘“The entire central lesson of Zen lies here. By clinging to and attempting to possess the cat, the priests have given way to sensual desire and worldly attachment. Beauty should not be an object of desire wrapped in the false illusions and distinctions of private, individualised knowledge. It must sleep, must remain in a state of unconsciousness—‘pure consciousness’—for both the viewer and the viewed.”

But later this article says, “the temple itself is free of the sensual desire for beauty that created it…its beauty unifies the contradictions and disharmonies of all its parts… Examining the parts of the temple next, Mizoguchi finds they are not the essence of beauty because each is incomplete in itself. Beauty lies only in the complete, unified whole whose essential nature is not its parts but nothingness.” I guess at first I thought of it only in the latter sense, not really making the connection with sensuality.

‘Another article talks about Bataille’s views on eroticism, about how eroticism is the ‘joy’ of ‘profaning’ the beautiful… what does he say? “Beauty has a cardinal importance, for ugliness cannot be spoiled, and to despoil is the essence of eroticism.”

‘I don’t know if I agree with that, I never looked at it that way. But I know that what we talk about when we talk about

eroticism- it’s not just limited to sex. So then I started thinking, when we experience beauty, I mean, when it really overcomes you—imagine you are staring at the ocean and watching rain drops as they hit the surface of the water, and you’re consumed by this—that feels erotic, too;’

J. nodded thoughtfully, agreeing; ‘Then is the source of this eroticism the awareness of profaning perfect, impersonal beauty with your desire for, and enjoyment of it? At any rate, I agree with the other Bataille quote; “Eroticism is assenting to life up to the point of death.”’

‘It’s an interesting point,’ says J., ‘And I definitely think it ties in well with what we were saying about Golden Pavilion.

Personally though, less and less do I find myself connecting erotic feelings with the—shall we say, spiritual experience of beauty such as the one you describe. It’s an odd book, Golden Pavilion, and I feel like the experience of impersonal beauty, to experience beauty as unrelated to the self, to experience it as a ‘formless’ essence, is not so rare as Mishima makes out.

‘Do we not often speak of being humbled by beauty?

Surely that is an intimation of the insubstantial nature of the self, inspired by the encounter with beauty? At any rate, maybe this is just me getting old, but where once I think I associated sensuality, even specifically sex, with that kind of beauty, now I see sensuality as of this world, material, personal, though nonetheless, you know, great,’ she laughs. ‘Mishima makes the golden temple the erotic object for Mizoguchi, but Mizoguchi is a seriously damaged, seriously fucked up character, demented even.’

‘Do you mean, there’s no reason to take Mizoguchi’s confusion about beauty as representative of people or experience in general?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Phewf,’ I say, wiping pretend sweat from my brow. ‘Do you think Mishima intends for us to, though?’

‘Impossible to know. But if we’re going to start judging Mishima’s work based on his personal views, well he was kiiind of a fascist. But anyway, maybe this is why you’re struggling to engage with many of the ideas about beauty in the novel, because, well, from a lot of angles they don’t make sense.’

‘Yeah. When the war ends and the temple is safe, the temple takes on a new kind of beauty and Mizoguchi says that it “rejects all meaning”. But it’s not just that iteration, all of his vociferations on beauty are meaningless. Sure, beauty is sad, and its sadness feels inexplicable, and so does its joy, but also it’s easy to understand. We know its essence instinctually, and that knowledge is intelligence, and it’s obvious that we just have to accept its inexplicable aspects. This book was beautiful, but Mizoguchi? I don’t know what his problem is.’

Rising, J. wishes me luck with my assignment. ‘I think you’ll figure it out,’ she says, reaching around me to open the door. I blush. I’m not so sure. ~oOo~

Forgetting what I have come in for, I find myself browsing the shelves of an Indian grocery store. They are packed with all kinds of garishly packaged products. Each one disseminates a unique, piquant smell; the mix of these smells is intense and a little sickening.

Chubby Ganeshas preside in serenity over boxes of incense cones. A row of clumsily-drawn ladies gaze with bewitching looks from bottles of hair oil. On enormous packets of spices, a peaceful village scene plays out; women in coloured saris stand and gossip, water urns balanced on head or shoulder.

Silhouettes of great ships sail on the bright red oceans of matchboxes. Jasmine and roses bloom thick and fragrant on packets of agarbatti. I idly inspect all of these objects in the cavernous room.

As always, I am anxiously looking for something. New realms of the shop, however, seem to keep opening up, and my chances of finding it seem to grow more and more remote. I find repositories of cookware, brass dishes in all shapes and sizes. A sketch of a dead rat with crosses for eyes grimly adorns packets 22

of poison. There are little electrically-charged paddles for electrocuting mosquitoes.

The inevitable array of fish becomes visible; strings of tiny, dried fishes hang like streamers above trays of larger, oily-looking creatures. Small, transparent bottles are labelled ‘Ganga Water’ in Hindi script. Beside these are even tinier bottles with bright yellow labels marked in English, ‘Black Hole.’

They seem to contain some kind of clear liquid or gel.

Inside this dim room filled with disparate pungencies I finally notice the blue-grey sphere hovering about a foot off the floor. Its circumference is about two metres, big enough to be imposing, and it is so still, preternaturally still, that I get the impression its stillness is actually vibration at such a high frequency it cannot be perceived. Its surface is also smoother than anything I have ever seen—I do not touch it.

It is not matte, for that implies roughness, but it does not reflect light. Its gunmetal surface is smooth and uniform; preternaturally still and preternaturally smooth. Rejecting all categorisation, the sphere exists without an aura, no visible disturbance in the atmosphere surrounds it, yet it clearly radiates a powerful amount of energy. One feels the potential for magnetism.

So utterly blank that it not only suggests nothingness but trembles on the verge of consuming the complexity around it, the blue-grey sphere is simultaneously the most massive object in existence. Its density is evident even from a distance. It is so dense, I realise, that it has gravity of its own, but in that setting its gravity is inert and acts upon nothing. Its silence, which could emanate only from something of such weight, is so powerful as to be nearly indistinguishable from sound.

I stand for an undefined amount of time looking at the blue-grey sphere that hangs above the floor of the grocery store.

It rejects all meaning, its surface so entirely without texture that nothing can catch on it. Taking a deep breath, I try and for a moment feel the sphere’s magnetism in my chest.

This electric feeling descends in turn into my stomach, my lower abdomen, and down even further. But this, too, the indifferent sphere will not engage in. Retracting its powers into itself, it remains featureless and unreactive. I think of neutron stars, which radiate such energy it causes the fabric of space and time to ripple. The surface of a neutron star is just about as close to being perfectly smooth as anything in the universe.

But they are intensely hot, many times the temperature of our sun. Nonetheless I name the sphere a neutron star. Inert in this

locale, the neutron star hovers above the floor of the grocery store.

I am trying to explain to a whitehaired woman about cohesion. I am anxious to convince her. I am trying to tell her about beauty that rejects all meaning, but, to my alarm, she refuses to listen.

The elegant foreshore in Pondicherry is bordered by an embankment of rocks, over which the Indian ocean tumultuously throws itself day and night. To swim, one must travel some kilometres out of town; the sea by the foreshore is choppy and violent. The water’s constant movement, however, and the shushing that ebbs and flows along with it, is better than telly. The waves rush in with a splash, filling the gaps between the rocks, and are quickly sucked out again.

As these waves, born far out at sea, deliver themselves on the rocks, the cliché of being at the edge of the world comes to mind. Twice I have been immensely moved by this scene. On the first occasion it was night; a sea breeze was systematically soothing the heat of the day, and we perceived the waves principally by their sound.

Perched as far out on the rocks as was possibly safe, Anna said to Curtis and me, ‘Never let me forget this.’

I said, ‘I won’t. I will write a story about it.’

‘Promise?’ said Anna.

‘Promise.’

The second occasion, some years later, I walked down in the afternoon, alone except for that stray dog that followed me.

Again I watched the sea, that never seemed to calm down, crash on the rocks. I was filled with an ecstatic peace unlike any I had known in a long time. If the temple in the rain slipped through my fingers, perhaps I have been allowed a fullyconscious engagement with these sea-worn, Deccan rocks.

So, Anna, here’s your story.

Concluded from page 20 ...

Who drives us down to TungKou, where he tips us into another car and a different driver for the hour’s drive to Huangshan City – all while it is raining heavily now. Y200 later and by 11.00am we are back in our “I know the manager; very very safe” and awful hotel.

Back to our room, check our property including getting our Y100 deposit for the key and then get a taxi to the bus station where we’re calmly overcharged for two bowls of rice and some pork and vegetables.

The bus (complete with Japanese movie and ads on the video screen at high volume) takes three hours to Hangzhou, and we get a taxi back to the hotel there.

We check in again (the clerk varied his charges during the conversation from Y398 to Y600). We paid Y400 and got a good room in the main building which was quiet and clean.

We spoke to the girl in the business office and after a while, managed to book a hotel in Chongqing plus a flight on China Southern tomorrow at 12.10.

Off to a nearby restaurant for three dishes. Cold duck, beef and beans (good but salty) terrific dumplings and cold local beer for $20.00. Back to the hotel for a shower and we’re asleep by 9.00!

One day, we’d like to go back to Mount Huangshan and see “the views of the clouds from above.” In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for some cloud views from a window seat in Qantas. * (The “Y” stands for Chinese Yuan. Y10 + approx. AU$2.00) 23

FICTION THE ENGINE THAT VANISHED A CELINE DAVIES MYSTERY JAMES FORTE

C

eline Davies once observed that many detective stories start off with a wild coincidence. Two total strangers at the same place at the same time. And mayhem ensues.

And so it came to be that she met Jeremy. It was the Friday afternoon of a long weekend and she was on her way to visit a university friend who lived on a wheat farm. Her route from Perth passed within a hundred metres of the Jacaranda Tearooms and so, naturally, she halted her journey for afternoon tea with Douglas.

At the same time as Jeremy turned up.

Later she decided that the coincidence did not matter; Douglas would have contacted her anyway. Douglas was a gentleman, on the distinguished side of fifty with a Colonel Sanders’ beard and moustache, who had a taste for the finer points of gastronomy and a comfortably rounded waistcoat.

Jeremy was a twelve year old with acne who, when his family had migrated, had swapped standing next to cold wet English railway lines for hot dusty Australian sidings.

And Celine? She was just an average fresh-faced undergraduate with a ponytail, a beat-up old Peugeot 306 and a penchant for solving impossible crimes.

Douglas was on his second cup of Lapsang Souchong and speculating on whether it would ever be possible to publish the Case of the Invisible Pilot, when Jeremy made his way across to their table.

He apologized politely for interrupting and asked if Douglas was the editor of The Avon Messenger. Douglas was.

Then Jeremy had a great story for him.

Douglas confirmed that he was always on the lookout for such stories. But no, he could not confirm a large payment until he had heard the details.

“A train’s gone missing!” Jeremy whispered. “Disappeared into thin air.”

“When?” Douglas asked.

“This morning. Just like in Sherlock Holmes and Ellery Queen.”

“Did this train have a driver?” Celine queried.

“Course it did. He waved to me as he went past.”

“And did he disappear too?”

“Must have… “

“Then the police should be looking for a missing person.”

“…I suppose. I only know the engine is missing.” Jeremy could not really care about the man. All he knew was that one of his beloved blue diesel-electrics had been heading south, had been witnessed by Jeremy at York and had never arrived at Beverley, where his friend Rick had been collecting engine numbers.

Rick had phoned Jeremy to query his sighting of the unscheduled train. Suspecting a crash, they had jumped on their bikes and cycled towards each other following the track. They met in the middle with no sign of it. Somewhere along the thirtythree kilometres of single track with no sidings or branch lines, an engine had totally vanished.

“Hmmm. Does sound like a good story,” Douglas said.

He took out his phone and called Inspector Baird. The chief detective of the Avon Valley was out but the sergeant offered his assistance. Douglas identified himself and asked if there had been any reports of a missing train.

“Missing?”

“As in vanished.”

“No. I think I’d have heard,” the sergeant said. “Can you give me any details? When did this happen?”

“This morning. Apparently. We only have a single source.

Reliability unknown. I’ll check it out and get back to you.”

Douglas put his phone down. Jeremy was incensed.

“I am reliable. I saw it. An engine passed me going south and never arrived at Beverley. And it’s nowhere in between!”

Douglas calmed him with a wave. He checked his directory and called an old friend at the Avon railway yard.

“Sam! Long time no see. Quick question. Any of your engines missing?”

There was an excited voice exploding over the phone such that Celine and Jeremy could hear it from across the table.

Douglas made a negative motion to Jeremy. “They have all their locos logged and they know exactly where they are - at all times.”

But before he could hang up, Jeremy in turn exploded.

“Ask him where 071 Town of Coolgardie is - right now!”

Douglas switched the speaker on. “Did you hear that?”

Sam came back loud and clear. “Sure did. 071 is in the Avon Yard. I can see it from my window.”

Douglas made the usual noises about a beer next time he was in Northam and rang off.

Jeremy went bright scarlet. “It can’t be there… I would have seen it.”

Celine did her best to calm him. “No one is calling you a liar.

It’s just that we have a mystery. I like mysteries.”

Douglas chimed in. “Conan Doyle. The Case of the Missing Special. Ellery Queen. A Snowball in July. Both wonderful stories.

But locomotives don’t disappear in real life. They’re too big and heavy.”

Celine smiled. “Well I believe you. Tell us what happened.”

But there was nothing to tell. At 7.30 that morning, Jeremy had logged 071 running by itself (which was a bit unusual) heading south. Rick had been at the other end of the line and it had not arrived. They had cycled the length of the line. It had vanished.

A short time later another train had headed north over the same track. It had not derailed nor collided with a phantom engine. There were no sidings nor branch lines. The main road ran a short distance from the railway. Surely a heavy crane lifting a locomotive off the tracks would have been noticed? And why would anyone do that? And anyway either Rick or Jeremy would have seen it. And now they said it was back in the Avon Yard.

“Can you describe the engine-driver?”

“Oh yes. I know him. We talk about steam engines - when he stops at the station here. Been driving trains for a long time. His name’s Reg.”

Douglas rang Sam again. There was only one driver called Reg on the line down to Albany. He lived in Brookton. Yes - he had been driving last night and early this morning.

Celine needed to get going. “Okay, Jeremy. Give me your address and phone number and I promise to talk to Reg on my way back to town on Tuesday. Then I will call you and let you know.”

“And if it leads to a good story, I’ll make sure you get a spotter’s fee,” Douglas added. After writing out his details, Jeremy solemnly shook hands with the two of them and departed. ~o0o~

That weekend, Celine received four phone calls. The first was from Sam Gregson, the manager at the Avon Yard, who had been given her number by Douglas. Acting on a hunch he had gone out and checked locomotive 071. Its fuel gauge did not tally with the log sheets. They would do a full audit on Tuesday and give her the results.

The second was from Douglas. The railway grapevine is 24

highly efficient and Reg had heard that someone was looking for him.

Douglas would not give out Celine’s number to people he did not know. But he was now certain there was a story here. He had made an appointment for Celine to see Reg in the Lounge Bar of the Bedford Arms Hotel on the Tuesday.

For safety he was sending Jessica Smith along too. Jessica was the chief reporter on The Avon Messenger.

The third was from Inspector Baird – who as usual sounded extremely suspicious of her actions and motives. What was all this about a missing engine? Celine told him what Jeremy had said. Somehow she forgot to tell him that she would be talking to Reg on Tuesday. She wanted to get to him first.

The fourth did not identify himself and had blocked the calling number. A gruff voice had enquired for Miss Celine Davies, the amateur detective. Celine confirmed her name. She was then told in an extremely blunt manner that any investigation of a missing locomotive could be very bad for her health. In vain Celine had tried to tell him that she was not a detective, she simply enjoyed solving unusual puzzles. The caller repeated his threat and hung up.

Celine, like most twenty-year-old girls, had never received a threatening phone call before. Not even so much as abuse on social media. She rang Jessica for advice. Surprisingly, Jessica sounded pleased.

“Awesome. Shows there’s a big juicy story here. Don’t worry, threats go with the job.”

“With your job, maybe. I’m a uni student.”

Thus after a less than relaxing weekend, Celine found herself in Brookton on her way back to Perth. Jessica met her in the hotel car park at lunchtime. Reg was waiting for them. He looked exactly as they expected for a railway man who was nearly sixty and had worked since the last years of steam. Jessica offered to get drinks but Reg was old school. He did not accept drinks from ladies upon first acquaintance. He bought Jessica a beer and Celine a lemon squash.

Celine took the part of an interested observer and let Jessica ask the questions. At first the interview was quite unsatisfactory. No, he had not been in any engine heading south early on Friday. Jeremy must have been mistaken. No, he had not seen any single engines that morning. On the contrary he had been hauling sixty empty wagons up to Avon Yard. All the way from Katanning.

Celine noted the time and realized that his must have been the train that Jeremy had seen heading north - after his engine had gone missing. Perhaps Jeremy had confused the two drivers.

Reg was skeptical that any engine could go missing. The amount of checks the drivers had to go through. These engines were worth squillions. The company kept close tabs on them. And that was that. Celine started to collect her things.

“Quite a mystery though. Thanks for the squash and thank you for talking to us.” But Reg wasn’t letting them go so easily.

“You can earn your drink - by solvin’ a mystery for me.”

“Oh?”

“Same night. Thursday goin’ into Friday mornin’. Just north of here – headin’ for Beverley. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

Celine and Jessica looked at each other and resumed their seats.

“I was drivin’. Mike was in the right hand seat. Hummin’ along on schedule. Doin’ about eighty. Halfway to Beverley there’s a straight stretch with a road crossin’ the line. It’s a sealed road but there’s not much traffic so no boom gates. I sounded the horn in good time. The usual warnin’. Train comin’.

Middle of the night - so didn’t expect to see nothin’. Then... “ Reg’s face went pale. “I can still hear her screams. I’m havin’ nightmares every night. There was a young girl. Teenager. In a red dress. Being tied to the rails by two men.”

“Girl on the track? That’s only in old movies,” Jessica said.

“There’s no lights there – but our headlights showed everything. She was hysterical. Terrified. Screaming her head off. They’d got her legs tied to one rail and her right arm and maybe her neck to the other. They were trying to grab her left hand – it was clawing at the ropes. I think she hit one in the face.

Anyway the two guys – when they saw the train – gave up. Ran for it.”

Reg was sweating. Mopping at his face. He took a large gulp of his beer. “There’s no way you can be ready for anythin’ like that. You’re just sittin’ there – pourin’ yourself a cup of coffee from the thermos. Then that!”

Jessica’s throat had gone dry. “So what happened?”

“Not enough time. Nowhere near enough time. For her to get free. Or for us to stop.”

“Did you hit her? Did you feel anything when you…?” Jessica asked. Reg looked scornful. “When a train that big… hundred tons… you don’t feel anything. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look.”

“Oh my god.”

“Pulled up. Soon as I could. Mike and I went back to the crossing. Heart going a million miles a second. I just wanted to spew.”

“There was nothing there. No body, no blood, no ropes, nothing. We got our torches and looked around. Nothing on the road. Maybe they were watching? Just laughing at us. Nope. We looked all over. Nobody. Nothing to show that… we’d seen what we’d seen. We couldn’t both have hallucinated the same thing.”

“Did you report it?” Celine asked.

“How could we? We’d just look like loonies.”

“What about Mike? Can we talk to him?”

“That dog? Wouldn’t believe anything he says.” Celine frowned.

“But he’d be able to confirm your story?”

“Oh sure. I’ll give you his number.”

Jessica called him. Without prompting, Mike corroborated Reg’s story. The only difference was that Mike had not closed his eyes. He had seen the girl right up to the moment his view was obscured as she went under the wheels.

“Not like that wimp, Reg. Screaming his head off. Hands 25

over his eyes. Looked like about to faint. Pathetic.”

Jessica asked if he had any theory as to what had happened.

Mike laughed.

“Sure I do. That scumbag was playing a trick on me.

Probably put something in my coffee. What do they call it? Autosuggestion – or sommat like that? Not losing any sleep over it.

He’s having you on.”

Reg didn’t say a word until after they had hung up.

“Told yer. What a dingo. I’m the one losin’ sleep. If you could tell me what happened. Stop these nightmares… I’ll buy you drinks for the rest of me life.” ~o0o~

that he knew Celine’s uncle who lived in Narrogin and had worked for the railways. He took pleasure in showing them 071 just outside his office window. Celine had discovered that 063 was the same class and she wanted to get a good look at one of these monsters. Sam apologized for it being so dirty – smeared with diesel oil and grime – but after all, it was a working engine.

“You’re certain this really is 071?”

Sam grinned. “Yes. I checked very carefully after Douglas called me.” He showed her the illuminated number on the front, the ‘071’ painted on the side and the name plate Town of Coolgardie. “This must have been what young Jeremy thought he saw. Still not convinced?”

He let her into the cab, which was reasonably clean, and showed her the manufacturer’s plate. She surrendered gracefully and agreed that this was indeed 071. She sat in the left hand seat and had the controls explained to her. She asked about lighting and emergency braking and the view from the cab at night - which puzzled Sam somewhat.

Jessica was about to explain Reg’s mystery when she received a severe glance from Celine. Celine launched straight into questions about a Cab Voice Recorder - like they had on airliners. Sam confessed that railways did not have them.

However there was an Event Recorder System like an aircraft’s Black Box. He showed her.

“It has the last 48 hours of operations on it. We’ll have the data analysed on the computer later today. If it went out on Friday – and I’m starting to think that it did – then we’ll have the details here.”

They went back inside. A secretary provided tea and biscuits as they settled around a table in the conference room.

Sam had returned to work that morning determined to get to the bottom of 071’s fuel figures. There was a suspicion it had been taken out of the yard for an hour.

There might be all sorts of reasons, perhaps for testing after some maintenance. But there was nothing on the log sheets. It all looked very dodgy. Linked to Jeremy’s story, it appeared to have been visible going out and invisible returning.

Jessica looked hard at Celine – who shrugged. So Jessica told him Reg’s story of the girl tied to the tracks. Sam was incredulous. “I’ve never heard of anything like that - in all my years here.”

Celine put her cup down. “I think I know what happened.”

“You do? This whole mess?”

Celine turned to Sam. “What would you do if your train was doing eighty, at night, and you could see a girl – in a bright red dress - being tied to the railway line?”

“Nothing. There’d be nothing I could do. The range of the lights is maybe two hundred metres. I’d be able to see something on the tracks. But I’d need at least five hundred to pull up. Prob’ly more.”

“You can’t just sit there. You’d have to do something. Throw your hands up? Cover your face?”

“If I were in the simulator, I’d sound the horn and bring the train to a controlled stop. But the girl would be dead. When we’re being tested, they sometimes put a car on a level crossing. You just go straight through it. That’s the procedure.”

“And what if you weren’t in the simulator? Real life? There’s a girl – hysterical, screaming, frantically trying to untie herself.”

“I’d slam on the emergency braking. Wouldn’t do any good.

She’d still be dead.”

Celine nodded. “It’s what any of us would do. I think we ought to have a good look at 063.”

Sam scooted his chair over to a computer in the corner. He logged in and did a few checks.

“It’s here in the Yard. Somewhere. I’ll find out where.” He went off to make some enquiries.

Celine turned to Jessica. “Are there any amateur theatre groups in Beverley or Brookton?” Jessica shook her head.

“Not advertising any shows in The Messenger. Too small.

Maybe a drama class in the high schools.”

“What about York?”

“Sure. A couple of shows a year. Run by Abigail Summers.”

Celine and Jessica drove north afterwards and stopped at the crossing that Reg had marked on the map. It was a perfectly normal crossing. There was the straight stretch of track.

Good view in both directions. Signs saying ‘STOP – Beware of Trains’. No strange marks on road or rails.

“This is really creeping me out. Middle of the night. No lights anywhere. Just a girl on the tracks,” said Celine. She lay down on the road where it crossed the railway. Bitumen had been laid up to the outside of the rails. “How would you tie me down? You couldn’t. You’d need stakes hammered into the road. There are no holes. She must have been tied further along the track.”

Celine got up and walked a short way along the track and then turned and marched back to the crossing – pretending to be Reg’s train. She looked thoughtful. As she turned back to her car she noticed something in the ditch at the side of the road. It was a wheel which looked like it had just come off a kid’s go-cart.

Besides a wheel, the kids had also left hamburger wrappers and empty cans of cold drink. Celine expressed her disgust.

Jessica was also thinking hard. “Bit of a coincidence.

Jeremy seeing a phantom engine. Reg seeing a phantom girl.”

“They’re connected alright. But how?”

Celine decided to abandon the direct route back to Perth.

First stop, Beverley. Its magnificent old station no longer has passenger trains. But in its day it was an important stop in the overnight trip from Perth to Albany and the travellers enjoyed a good meal in the dining room.

At the end of the platform was a duplicate Jeremy. Celine decided this must be Rick - skipping school. After introductions, Rick was able to add to Jeremy’s tale. He pointed out where Reg’s train had sat for a couple of hours while they waited for 071 to come down from York on the single track.

Except it never arrived. As with most people who are passionate about their subject, he was able to provide far more detail than they required.

“Most grain trains are top and tailed. They have an engine at both ends. One pulling, one pushing - with linked controls so they can both be driven from the front cab. But this one was just empty wagons. So just one locomotive.” He consulted an extremely grubby notebook and was able to add that Reg was driving 063 Town of Cunderdin.”

“You know Reg?” Celine asked.

“Course I do.”

“So if he was driving 063 then Jeremy couldn’t have seen him in 071?”

Celine watched the conflicting facts cross his face. Clearly he wanted to say that if Jeremy saw Reg driving 071 then it must be so. But he had seen Reg with 063. Both at Beverley and then later hauling its wagons up to York.

“Where would Reg and Mike be - while they were here waiting?”

“Dunno. Breakfast somewhere. They wouldn’t be together.

Hate each other. Reg put sugar in Mike’s beer once.”

Celine made some notes and then she and Jessica had lunch in the Hotel Beverley – for old time’s sake. They had last eaten there during the Case of the Invisible Pilot. There was always the half hope that Arthur Robinson might walk in through the door.

Afterwards, they resumed their journey all the way to Northam and the Avon Yard. Sam Gregson was happy to receive them. Western Australia is a very small place. It turned out 26

“Abbey! She was a year ahead of me at Duckmanton.”

Jessica interrogated her mobile. “Here’s her number.”

“Ring her please. Put it on speaker.” Abbey answered almost immediately. There were the usual greetings. Must get together sometime. Jacaranda Tearooms? Next Wednesday afternoon?

Then Celine hit her between the eyes. “I’m calling about that stunt, Thursday night, Friday morning, north of Brookton.”

There was a silence that went on far too long before Abbey said,

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”.

“Yes you do. I have names. Mike – the engine driver.”

“Shit… There was no harm done. Just a bit of fun. Harmless prank.”

Celine and Jessica exchanged a silent thumbs up. “You put that young sister of yours in a red dress and got a couple of your actor mates to tie her up. I’m guessing you drove the getaway car.”

“Look. Can I see you in the Jacaranda? Ten minutes? Explain everything.”

“It’s Okay. I’m in Northam right now. But I’ll want full details.” Celine grinned at Jessica.

“I’ll try and keep it out of the papers.”

“Thanks Celine. I owe you big time. Mike promised us a whole lot of new LED lights for the theatre. All we had to do was ...” Celine cut her off as Sam re-entered the room.

He looked confused.

“We’ve lost another locomotive. 063 is logged as being in the yard. But we can’t find it anywhere.”

Celine’s triumph was complete. She walked over to the huge map of the rail network hanging on the wall.

“I think you’ll find it at Mount Kokeby. South of Beverley. In the siding there. With a great big tarpaulin thrown over it. You can’t hide something that big for long. But it gave them a couple of days over the long weekend.”

“Kokeby? How the hell did it get there?”

“Yes,” Jessica chimed in, “Explain!” ~o0o~

on the real tracks. It’d be hit by the engine. Broken glass all over.”

“True. But they were clever. They mounted the mirror on wheels. Tied it to the back of a truck – and pulled it clear at the last second. In fact they were unlucky. One of the wheels came off and ended up in the ditch. No matter. They had plenty of time to cut the girl free, load the rails and mirror into the truck and drive off. It was probably five minutes before Reg and Mike could get back to the crossing with their torches.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll try it out on my son’s train set. Stick a pencil torch on the front and turn off the lights.”

“But now they had a problem. Mike was having a good laugh inside at Reg vomiting everywhere. But he had somehow expected the train to be brought to a controlled stop. As per procedures. The emergency braking of metal on metal had damaged the engine. It had worn flat spots on the engine’s wheels.”

“No one was going to believe a story of a girl tied to tracks.

Reporting it to the police would lead to an investigation. The whole thing looked like incompetent driving – as if the train had somehow got away from their control. A new set of wheels would be extremely expensive to replace. Drivers had been fired for less. They slowly limped into the siding at Beverley and scratched their heads. They needed a plan to hide the problem.”

“They decided that they could quietly ‘borrow’ an engine from Northam over night. The wagons would be pushed to a spot just north of Beverley. Their engine 063 would then be driven south to a siding and hidden. They borrowed a car from someone and drove up to the Avon Yard at Northam. It was still not quite dawn, there wasn’t much work on and most people were going to be away for the long weekend anyway. With the full access of senior drivers it was not difficult to take 071 for a couple of hours.

“The signal box was no problem but they hadn’t allowed for being spotted so early by Jeremy at York.”

“Just north of Beverley they hitched the loco to the empty wagons and changed the identification number. Maybe they hand painted the number on cardboard and stuck it over the top of the real number. Didn’t have to last long. The nameplates were smeared with oil and dirt leaving the Town of C visible. The locomotive, now apparently 063, was ostentatiously taken back

Sam made a phone call for somebody at Brookton to go up to Northam, logged by the signal box and upon entrance to the to Kokeby and look for a missing engine.

Yard. Quietly they changed its identity back to 071.”

“Somebody here is going to have some explaining to do

“By this time, Jeremy and Rick were getting worried. But all - about logging engines in and out.” He ordered fresh tea and they saw was 063 with wagons heading north.” cakes and then turned to Celine.

“It was unlikely that anything would be noticed until

“Perhaps you can tell me what the hell has been going on”.

Tuesday – after the long weekend holiday. 071 would be present

“I’m not too sure how you roster drivers for the trains. and correct – as if it had never been out. 063 had officially Whatever. Reg and Mike hate each other. Everyone knows arrived with its trucks. If no one could find it, then the only it. They’ve been playing pranks on each other for ages. They conclusion would be that it must have been stolen from the Avon shouldn’t have been in that cab together. This time it went way Yard.” too far.

“The damaged loco would be found within a few days – but

“Mike thought it would be fun to hit Reg with a Perils of with the Black Box left running for 48 hours to overwrite any Pauline - like in the silent movie serials. He could have just tied recording, there would be no evidence as to how it had got a dress-shop mannequin to the rails. But he wanted something there. Reg and Mike thought they were in the clear.” better. He knew some acting friends and talked them into doing

Sam laughed again. it. He showed them how to set it up so that the poor girl who was “Normally we hate train spotters. Bloody nuisance. Jeremy tied up was still quite safe. All she had to do was act. I don’t think will be getting special privileges.” there was much acting involved, it would have been terrifying.

Jessica thought a moment. “What about that threatening

“Mike knew the time, early Friday morning, when his train phone call you had?” would be passing the crossing. He knew the single source of

“I don’t know everything! Probably Mike - who had heard lighting and the drivers’ view. He organized two short lengths of rail to be placed on the road at right angles to the railway line. about things on the grapevine. He definitely didn’t want any kind of investigation. Lots of people have my number. My uncle, for

With very careful positioning of a large mirror at forty-five instance. He works for the railways.” degrees to the track, the view of the real track is replaced by

Later as Celine drove back to Perth along the Great Eastern a view of the dummy rails. Don’t forget this was at night on a Highway, she hummed happily to herself. Some long weekend straight stretch and they knew the exact height and position of holidays were definitely more fun than others. the driver in the approaching cab. ~The End~

“Now all you have to do is put your maiden in a bright dress and tie her to the dummy rails. Leave one hand free for frantic Note from John Young: The identification of diesels in 2017 is an waving. Plenty of screaming. Possibly amplified. So much better identification number on the side and a manufacturer’s plate in the cabin. than a shop dummy. Of course you would lose the reflection just Both would be made of brass and (because brass cannot be welded onto a before you hit, but the driver could have been distracted or, in steel body) bolted onto the engine. Thus all that the drivers would have to this case, have closed his eyes.” do would be to get a spanner and swap the plates.

Sam objected. “What about the mirror? It would have to be 27

FICTION DEATH IN THE SEA OF GRASS KAREN R W TREANOR

T

TSHANILAND, 1935 PROLOGUE

uniformed aide-de-camp at the front desk as Trevelyan entered the foyer.

“Nee sabona, Khaba,” replied the Commissioner, sketching a salute to his right-and- left-hand man. “Any chance of tea?”

“I’ll get Tolo to bring you a tray for two,” said Zadok Khaba.

“You have an appointment with The Ear of the Queen in ten minutes.”

“Oh, Lord, what does he want now?” sighed Trevelyan, running possible problems through his mind. The Queen’s liaison officer was not so much a thorn in the side as a constantly twingeing sore tooth. If it wasn’t a complaint about a breach of protocol it would be something to do with the Honours List.

Hananiah Molapo was as single-minded in his pursuit of a knighthood as he was in the interests of his young queen. Not for the first time, Trevelyan wondered if he could survive on his pension if he retired from the Colonial Service of Great Britain.

The peace of an English county tugged at him, some days more strongly than others. Days when he had to see Molapo it tugged strongest of all.

Stepping behind the Zanzibari screen in the corner of the office, he rinsed his hands and face in a bowl of water. Looking in the cracked mirror over the washstand, he combed his hair and moustache. A face weather-tanned by years in the African sun looked back at him, its grey eyes looking tired but still alert.

Several years of administrative work had not much blunted the keen awareness developed during Trevelyan’s years as a district officer, in the bush more often than in a town.

he sound of feet moving through the long grass made the hunter think of snakes.

His quarry was in fact a species of reptile, the lowest of the low, a sneak and a spy.

These people would always try to cheat, the hunter thought, raising the weapon and sighting carefully just ahead of the now panting quarry. One didn’t expect them to understand one’s own code of honour, but one had to make an example occasionally.

The noise of the weapon sang over the grass toward the quarry, which heard and turned too late. The feathered death hit just under the sternum, ripping through the stomach and coming to rest in the ploughed up liver.

So much the better—less work for me, thought the hunter as he strolled toward the thrashing body. Displaying nothing more than mild interest, he stood and watched while the life at his feet bled out on the tawny grass.

When it was over, he unsheathed his knife and knelt.

CHAPTER ONE

“I will never get used to the idea of a woman doing this sort of thing,” said Redmond Trevelyan as he watched Claire Winter peering into the unlovely remains on the bench. Her red-blonde hair was bundled up in a Java cloth headscarf not unlike those worn by the market women. She wore an overly large white lab coat that had been ineptly basted to reduce the length of the sleeves.

“You men are a squeamish lot,” said Claire.

“Surely you can’t think that anyone who has seen or experienced childbirth is going to be put off by a slightly dead body? Besides, if I don’t examine this man now, who will? Do you think you can get a pathologist to come to Tshaniland from Johannesburg to investigate the death of a black boy?”

“All human life is important,” said Trevelyan.

“Yes, you’re right, but that isn’t a view held by everyone.

Old opinions change slowly; in some ways this might as well be 1835 as 1935. Anyway, you’ve got enough on your plate with a possible royal visit coming up, so why don’t you go while I get on with this? The sergeant and Percy will help me if I need it.”

Relieved, Trevelyan left the shed that served as the police mortuary for the Protectorate of Tshaniland and headed for his office.

Equally relieved, Claire watched him go. She preferred to do post-mortems without having senior government officials hanging on every snip and stitch. Her total experience in forensic medicine prior to coming to Africa had been a threemonth residency in the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s office in Boston, and a lot of reading on the three week sea voyage to Cape Town. She was more experienced now, but still uncomfortable with an audience.

“More water, please, Percy,” she said, motioning her assistant to rinse off some of the blood so she could get a clearer view. While he did this, she had a quick look at Gray’s Anatomy, which lay on a shelf, open to the section on the upper abdomen. It made her feel a bit more confident when the things she found in a real body matched up to the drawings in Gray’s.

Outside, Trevelyan took a deep breath and hoped that this murder would be solved quickly. He wondered if the young doctor would be able to provide him with clear evidence as to what had happened to the dead man. Somehow he doubted it. Squaring his shoulders, he went up the steps to his headquarters.

“Nee sabona, Tata, I see you, Father,” said the crisply 28

The waist was a bit thicker, perhaps. He sucked it in and squared his shoulders. Must get out for a bit of a walkabout some time soon. He went to the back window of his office and looked out over the enclosed yard where two dusty Land Rovers and three bicycles were parked. In the lane behind the yard a fox furtively sniffed a metal trash bin, hopeful of a meal.

He briefly considered pulling out his revolver and shooting the beast. It would relieve his tension for a moment, and save some farmer’s hens from a gory visit. The chance of hitting the fox from this distance was slight, and the commotion that a gunshot in his office would stir up so great that Trevelyan sighed and sat down at his desk.

One had always to be on guard against doing anything that would bring disrepute on His Majesty’s servants abroad. Taking pot-shots at vermin would be considered undignified. Not to mention embarrassing if he missed. Stacking up a pile of folders that begged for attention and would not get it yet, Trevelyan prepared to receive Hananiah Molapo.

Precisely on time, Khaba showed Molapo into the office.

After the obligatory and prolix opening exchanges, Trevelyan showed the old man to a chair. Today Molapo was tailored by the best of two continents: Harris tweed jacket, French silk tie in a subdued stripe, and a Java cloth skirt in a green and black paisley pattern. The goatskin loincloth—by accident or design— matched exactly the lighter grey in the tweed.

An intricately braided elephant-hair bracelet encircled one thin brown wrist. A gold-framed pince-nez depended from a black satin ribbon and clicked softly against a porcupine and bead breastplate. Over it all, the old man wore an invisible cloak of dignity that unified the disparate garments.

“So, Ear of the Queen, what service may I do you today?”

Trevelyan asked, having judged the time ripe to approach the reason for the visit.

“There are many things that concern Her Majesty, the Great She-leopard, and her advisers,” said Molapo, rubbing his hands gently together with the sound of leaves rustling.

“Yes, I imagine there are. But perhaps one thing in particular...?” persisted Trevelyan, waving Tolo into the room when he appeared at the door with a tea tray.

“Ah, tea, just one of the many benefits of our beneficent English protectors.” The old man, with no perceptible sarcasm, leaned toward the pot appreciatively. “And Brandon’s Biscuits as well; how very nice.”

Sighing inwardly, Trevelyan poured tea and prepared himself for a long afternoon. ~oOo~

Back at the mortuary, Claire Winter was finishing the postmortem examination.

“Where was he found, Sergeant?” she asked the uniformed man who stood as close to the door as he could get and still remain in the room.

“In the Sea of Grass, madam, about here.” He indicated a spot on the flyspecked wall map of Tshaniland. “There was much blood. I think the jackals had found him, and it is certain that the vultures had done so. That is what drew me to investigate— all those birds.” He looked uncomfortable, but not for anything would he have admitted his feelings to this foreign woman.

“Well, I can give you some preliminary findings, but I’ll have to do a bit more work before I can say for sure. It appears he was shot, but not with a bullet, with an arrow. You see this?” She held up a ragged fragment in her tweezers.

Sergeant Moliesa, carefully avoiding looking into the gaping corpse on the table, stepped over to look at the tiny clue.

“It’s a feather, or part of one, Sergeant,” explained the doctor.

“From the vultures, perhaps? They were fighting greatly over the body.”

“No, I don’t think so; watch.” She stepped over to the soapstone sink with its one corroded tap and rinsed off the

fragment. Patting it gently with a clean rag, she went to the door and held it up again where it could catch the sunlight. “See? It’s red. And it’s dyed, not natural. I think it’s from a commercially made arrow, the sort of thing people use at archery clubs.”

“I do not think we have any archery clubs in Tshaniland,” the sergeant stated firmly.

“Well, it needn’t be a formal club. It could be from someone’s backyard archery set. It’s become quite a popular sport in some areas.”

“So if this person was killed by an arrow, then he was killed by a foreigner. A white man.” The sergeant was not slow to pick up the direction of Claire’s thoughts.

“That’s a bit of a jump on thin evidence. Let us say that it is more likely to have been someone who has some skill as an archer, perhaps a foreigner.”

Claire returned to the corpse. “However, there was damage beyond what the arrow did. As I see it, the man half-turned, perhaps in response to a call from his killer. The arrow tore from left to right and slightly upwards, slitting open the stomach and lodging in the liver, managing to sever the hepatic vein and several arteries on its way.

“Then another wound was inflicted, probably by a knife.

See here, and here, these are cuts from a sharp blade.” She indicated the injuries.

“I wouldn’t testify under oath about it, but I think the man was dead of the arrow wound before the cuts to the upper abdomen were made. The killer was careful to take the arrow away with him, but missed that small fragment of feather.”

She stepped back and looked at the corpse again. “Could it have been a muti murder, done to get parts for magic? Don’t pretend that sort of thing doesn’t happen any longer; we both know it does,” she added, cutting off any protest before it came.

Sergeant Moliesa frowned and said, “Occasionally, in remote areas, but the parts they usually take for such things do not seem to have been taken.”

29

Claire knew what he meant; both the heart and genitals were still in their proper places, although she would not have said so aloud for fear of scandalising the sergeant. In Tshaniland there was a convention that men’s private parts were never spoken of directly. All manner of coy circumlocutions were used if the matter had to be mentioned at all.

“Yes, although the murderer might have been interrupted.

But if it wasn’t done for magic, why was it done?” Claire mused.

“An enemy has done this,” said the sergeant firmly.

“Someone hated this man, and hunted him down.”

“Yes, but why cut up his stomach? He would have bled to death in ten or fifteen minutes. Why take the chance of staying at the scene of the crime and then cutting him up further? There isn’t any folklore about this that I am aware of. Not like cutting out the tongue of traitors, as used to happen in the old days,” said Claire. In the previous century there had been a ghastly punishment inflicted on anyone convicted of treason by the High Council.

The guilty one’s tongue was cut out and he was hung by the heels until sundown. Few survived this, and those few probably wished they hadn’t.

“Well, I’ll write up my report later and send it over to the Commissioner. I don’t suppose we know who this man is yet?”

“No, but some woman will come seeking him, a mother or a wife. Can you keep him here until that happens?” asked the sergeant.

“Yes, but not indefinitely. The cellar is cool but we don’t want him around too long. Why don’t you go, Sergeant? I doubt I will learn anything more of importance.” Claire saw the look of relief cross the hard-set features. The sergeant stood to attention and marched himself out of the mortuary, no doubt headed for the nearest cold beer. She didn’t blame him; this was one of the nastier deaths she’d had to investigate in her fourteen months in Tshaniland.

“Percy, I’m nearly done here. You can take him away to the cellar in about ten minutes,” she said to the small thin man who had been hovering around, passing swabs and scalpels. Percy rarely spoke, and what he thought of his job as her assistant Claire had never discovered. He received four shillings for every post-mortem on top of his pay for his regular job as watchman at the Main Roads Department depot. She supposed that the extra cash made up for the unsavoury nature of the responsibilities in the morgue.

Returning to the corpse, it was pretty clear to Claire that the arrow wound had been the cause of death, but she gave a cursory look to the rest of her involuntary patient. She felt a roughness on the left tibia that was probably an old break that had healed strongly but not quite straight. The man might have limped very slightly. Other than that, there was nothing of particular interest.

Reaching for the black silk that she used to sew up those cuts that wouldn’t be seen once the body was in the coffin, Claire started to whip together the edges of the ghastly wounds. As she did there was a tiny sound, like a rock falling onto a hard surface.

She stopped to see what it was. There in the gory underlay of the body was what looked like a piece of broken glass. Picking it up with tweezers, Claire rinsed it well and put it in a glassine envelope to look at it later.

Claire finished sewing and stepped back for Percy to take over. With the care of a nanny presented with a dirty child, he began sponging and cleaning. When he was done, a cloth soaked in methylated spirits would be draped over the body, followed by a canvas sheet, and the whole parcel stowed in the stone cellar where the temperature was considerably cooler than the mortuary proper.

It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best this little country could provide. One day the budget might run to a refrigerated compartment, but at present Claire was lucky to get a modest wage for her part-time medical examiner’s work, never mind a well-appointed workplace.

Stretching the knots out of her back, Claire left her gloves and lab coat for Percy to take care of and made her way across a courtyard to the back door of her house. After stopping to scrub

her hands in the kitchen, she went down the hall to the front room where her nurse-secretaryguardian angel held sway.

“Anything new, Duchess?” she inquired.

“No, Doctor, it has been very quiet. To-oo quiet, perhaps?” smiled the large black woman, quoting from the radio serial which purported to be a true life African adventure, broadcast every Tuesday afternoon on the BBC Empire Service.

Duchess and Claire had taken to having their afternoon tea by the radio and enjoying the fifteen minutes of foolish escapism and the frequent unintentional humour.

“I’m sure that won’t last. In fact, I hear someone at the gate now.” Claire got up and went into the hall to the front door, to the despair of Duchess, who was trying to teach her the proper behaviour for an important person like a doctor. Doctors did not answer their own doors.

Quite unconscious of her faux pas, Claire opened the door to find a pair of young women on the doorstep. One held a thin stick with a white envelope wedged in a slot at the top.

“We see you, Doctor,” said the taller woman in Sitshana.

“I see you also, little sisters. Will you have tea?” responded Claire in the same language, getting a giggle from the younger woman, who rarely saw any foreigners and still found them exotic.

“May your cooking fire never burn low,” said the elder, speaking the formal Sitshana thanks phrase used between women, then switching to English. “However, we must hurry back as soon as you have answered this message.” Refusing to come in and sit down, the young women retired to the stone front wall, where they watched Claire open and read the letter.

“I’ll just write an answer and you can return to the Great She-leopard,” Claire called The letter was from the Queen and requested (in demanding tones) that Claire pay a visit to the royal village as soon as possible.

Claire rummaged in her desk for her fountain pen and wrote at the bottom of the letter, “I would be pleased to call at Enkalovu this afternoon at 4 o’clock.”

Not for the first time wondering at the odd customs the English had spread around the world in the wake of their empire building, Claire went out and fixed the envelope in the cleft stick and watched the messengers trot off toward the royal village.

The idea of the stick was to keep messages from becoming dirty or crumpled, as well as to keep the importance of the mission in the messenger’s mind.

The Batshani had adopted the custom enthusiastically, as had many other people in Africa and Asia. Everything from grocery orders to important legal papers transited the country in cleft sticks.

Returning to the office, Claire looked at the appointment book. “Mrs. Wilson-Gore. Did she say what she is suffering from this time, Duchess?”

“No, but I’m sure you will find it interesting. After her is Mrs. Mohale, the magistrate’s wife. Something is wrong with her younger daughter. After that you are free for the day until you go to the German Farm to give some injections this evening. Then you are finished.”

“Well, in that case you can hang up the ‘closed’ sign at three-thirty and go home early. I am summoned to Enkalovu and won’t be back for a while, I imagine. I can do the men at the farm on my way back.”

Picking up the file folder for Mrs. Wilson-Gore, Claire went into her office to re-read the previous notes. So far this year Mrs. Wilson-Gore had suffered from self-diagnosed typhoid, cholera, malaria and snakebite, which had proven to be influenza, colitis, hay fever and spider bite respectively. No doubt today’s illness would prove to be something equally simple.

The front door opened and closed and Mrs. Wilson-Gore’s twittering voice rose and fell as Duchess greeted her and ushered her into the office.

“Oh, Doctor, thank you for seeing me; I’m quite distracted with worry,” exclaimed the little blond woman, perching gingerly on the edge of her chair and twisting her gloved hands together.

30

“It’s, er, it’s…well, there’s something wrong, down there, I know there is. I had an aunt die of cancer of the, er, womb and she was just like this, they say things like this run in families, although she was an aunt by marriage, but perhaps—”

“Mrs. Wilson-Gore, let me just check out the usual things first,” said Claire, breaking into the spate and wrapping a blood-pressure cuff around the thin arm. “You really mustn’t get yourself in such a state. Remember how you were worried about that snake bite, and it was only a spider?”

Claire pumped up the cuff and found that her patient’s blood pressure was perfectly normal, although her pulse was a bit erratic. Like patient like pulse, she thought to herself.

“Now just what are these symptoms that are worrying you?” she asked.

“I’m passing water too often, and I have funny cramps low-down, you know,” Mrs. Wilson-Gore waved a hand vaguely at her abdomen. “And I’m ever so tired, it’s not like me at all. I like to keep busy, you know, but I just can’t seem to keep going lately. I’m sure it’s cancer. I don’t know what Harold will do if I die. He can never find his cufflinks or socks, how will he manage? And I had so hoped to live to see my grandchildren, but Clive isn’t even married and…”

“Mrs. Wilson-Gore, please, let me do the diagnosing.

Come, hop up on the examining table and lie on your back.”

Claire took her firmly by the elbow and escorted her behind the screen.

“Now you’ve had this done before, so there’s no need to tighten up. Just relax, take deep breaths, and let me feel around a bit,” Claire said, gently laying her fingertips on the pale skin.

“There’s a lump, I know there is. How long do I have?

Will it be painful? Aunt May was in dreadful pain toward the end she went all grey and pinched-looking. They gave her opium but it did no good.” Mrs. Wilson-Gore would not be stopped; her self-diagnosis was set firmly in her mind. Any minute she’d start discussing funeral arrangements.

“Mrs. Wilson-Gore, I need to do an internal examination.

It’s a bit uncomfortable, but it won’t hurt, I promise. I want you to bend your knees, like this.”

Protesting in squeaks, Mrs. Wilson-Gore suffered the ensuing indignities.

When her patient was seated again, by now a quivering mass of worry, Claire said, “I want you to take a deep breath and be ready for a shock.”

“It’s cancer, I knew it! I knew it, there’s a mass there, and it’s going to kill me,” moaned the little woman.

“No, it’s not cancer. Yes, there is a mass there, but it isn’t going to kill you. Give you many difficult times perhaps, but it won’t kill you. It’s a baby. You’re pregnant.”

Complete silence for once prevailed. After a long halfminute, Mrs. Wilson-Gore said shakily, “What? What? A baby? No, it can’t be a baby. I’m forty, I can’t have a baby.”

“Many women have babies at forty. You’ve already had one baby. You shouldn’t have any trouble with this one.”

“Doctor, my baby is twenty-one! I can’t have another one!

What will people say? What will Harold say?”

“He’ll probably be pretty proud of himself, if I know men. I want to see you in two weeks just to be sure everything is going well, and after that every month. You are about four months gone.”

“It was the anniversary party!” exclaimed the woman.

“Harold made me one of those champagne and cassis things, and—but—oh, dear!” A tear trickled down her cheek.

“Perhaps it will be a little girl. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Claire offered, desperately trying to find a way to make this unexpected diagnosis acceptable.

The mopping up and consoling and congratulating process took time, but eventually Claire saw her patient out, raced through the rest of her appointments, and at quarter to four was

driving her elderly Austin up the road to the royal village, Enkalovu. In her pocket was the small stone she had found at the autopsy.

On the drive she considered what sort of problems the Queen was going to dump in her lap. From the day they met seven years ago, Malaila’s life had fascinated and baffled Claire.

It was an amazing amalgam of folk tale, National Geographic and current affairs.

When she was an intern at Boston General in 1928, Claire had been assigned small medical problems on which to practice her newly acquired skills. Malaila had come into the outpatient department in misery, with easily diagnosed chilblains. The prescription, a pair of Claire’s grandmother’s homemade mittens, was received as if it had been a gift of emeralds. When an impala fur bed cover had been delivered to her one-room apartment, Claire discovered that the tall, brown-skinned girl she had treated was not just any foreign student, but the heir apparent to the throne of Tshaniland, a place she had never heard of.

Seeking the girl out among the many students at Commonwealth University, Claire found her in a modest apartment off Kenmore Square. “The bed cover is much too grand for such a small favor, and besides, I’m paid for my work,” she explained to the tall grim-faced woman who acted as Malaila’s duenna or governess.

“The Great She-leopard would be offended if you refuse the gift,” the woman explained. Claire had no idea who that personage might be, but stayed for the offered meal and soon knew more than most people in Boston about the tiny British protectorate of Tshaniland in southern Africa.

The Great She-leopard was Malaila’s mother, the Queen, whom she would succeed in due course.

The duenna, Elspeth Masilani, was a distant cousin of the Queen. Her job was to watch over, feed, and protect the 31

heir while she undertook her college education.

“The Princess will be the first in her family to complete a university degree,” Elspeth explained proudly. Claire understood that; she was the first woman in her family to have gone past high school, and was a source of endless pride to her own mother.

Despite the slight difference in their ages, Claire and Malaila became friends.

The girl had never experienced any but the best treatment, and was often jolted by the new environment. Everything from the demands of her teachers to the weather to the racial prejudice of some of her classmates came as a shock to Malaila.

One day, after hearing a jeremiad from the Princess, Claire became exasperated and said, “You’ve only got two choices: give up and go home, which you tell me will please the conservatives in your High Council, or grit your teeth and carry on to the end, which I think will please you. What’s it going to be?”

After that Malaila buckled down and graduated with a grade average of 3.7 out of a possible 4.0. Asked why she had chosen to study geology when there were easier and more useful courses a future ruler could pursue, she said it was because geology was serious science and if one was going to test oneself, it should be against a worthy foe.

Privately she admitted to Claire that English Literature bored her rigid and she had no skill at arts or music, which left only the hard sciences or mathematics.

It was because of the Queen’s knowledge of geology that Claire had brought the odd little stone from the autopsy. Malaila could probably identify the stone and explain how it had become attached to the corpse. The grasslands where the man was found formed a thick mat and it was unlikely any small stones lay about on the surface. It was probably not important, but it was an anomaly, and that rang a tiny alarm bell in Claire’s mind.

Deep in thought, Claire drove through a herd of goats with barely slackened speed, managing more by luck than skill not to hit any.

“Nee sabona, Tshadola,” said the guard at the gate as Claire drew up and stopped.

“Nee sabona, butilo,” she replied, mentally chuckling at the idea of this six-foot four-inch man being anyone’s little brother.

He had addressed her as Tshadola, which meant something between an adopted sister and a special friend, and was a title not given lightly.

The royal village was an interesting combination of old and new. There was a store cum- trading post, a doctor’s office, a post office, and a community hall, all made of unremarkable stuccoed brick roofed with red clay tiles. There was a handsome little stone church, built by the Bristol Bible Society in hopes it would shelter scores of converts one day. The society was still waiting patiently for the converts, but was acknowledged to have one of the best choirs in the country.

The royal residence was a large grey stone building, behind which clustered a small village of woven grass huts that housed the Queen’s staff and relatives.

Claire was shown into the Queen’s sitting room, a modest chamber behind the grander formal reception room. Never quite sure how much their early friendship had been changed

by Malaila’s assumption of the throne, Claire remained standing until the Queen arrived. A tall, sleek young woman in a gray silk suit strode into the room and threw herself into a chair.

“You are looking very elegant today, Great She-leopard,” said Claire. “Official function of some sort?”

“Tea party for the new diplomatic wives, cucumber sandwiches and fish paste and all that. I got away as quickly as I decently could and left them to be given the grand tour of the palace compound.

It makes them feel superior, until they get to the throne room and see all that gold.

Never mind about those boring women. sit down and read this!” demanded the Queen, thrusting an envelope at Claire.

Inside was a newspaper clipping from a Washington newspaper headlined “Baltimore Girl to be Queen?” With it was a letter. Claire raised her eyebrows interrogatively at Malaila, who flipped her hand impatiently and said, “Read it all.”

The newspaper piece was a bit of fluff by a society writer, suggesting that one Wallis Warfield Simpson, soon to become a divorcée for the second time, might be about to wed the Prince of Wales and in due course be Queen of England.

The enclosed letter was a chatty three pages from one of Malaila’s college friends, saying how exciting it was that an American woman might soon be on the English throne. Claire read as rapidly as she could, very conscious of the Queen’s drumming fingers on the arm of her chair.

“All right, so what? Newspaper gossip.

Why has this upset you? The Prince has had lady friends before and will no doubt have them again. How does this affect Tshaniland?” asked Claire.

“You don’t understand! What if he wants to bring her here? I cannot receive such a woman at Enkolovu!” Malaila sprang from her chair and began pacing the floor like her namesake totem animal.

“But why should he?” Claire was more puzzled than ever.

“His Highness is supposed to be going to the grand opening of the Birchenough Bridge over the Zambezi. Apparently, it’s the greatest engineering feat of the decade. Once he gets that far, he’s bound to carry on to visit us. He enjoyed himself no end on his last visit, and promised to return. What’s more likely than that he’ll take the chance to visit us after the bridge opening?

And he’ll bring her and then there will be an international incident, and—argh! Why do these things happen?”

“For heaven’s sake, calm yourself. Number one, nothing has happened yet and nothing may ever happen. Number two, you have a staff of skilled speakers who can talk the hind leg off a wildebeest; they will find a way to say no without appearing to do so. And number three, you can always be out of reach—a retreat to consult the ancestors, perhaps? Failing that, I can check you into the clinic for exhaustion. It wouldn’t be that much of an exaggeration, come to think of it.”

“If I were the King of England, I would have the woman removed. Either pay her to go, or have her dropped into the North Sea. That would solve the problem.”

“You know that isn’t how things are done in England. Once, perhaps, but not now. The very idea of King George hiring an assassin is ludicrous.”

“I bet there are days when he’d like one,” said the Queen with a grin. “All right, perhaps I’m worried about nothing. Forgive me, Claire. Let’s sit on the back veranda, drink gin and gossip.”

Once settled with a generous gin and tonic, Claire filled the Queen in on what had been happening lately. Little of what she said appeared to be news; the Queen’s intelligence network, known as the Ears of the Queen, clearly had already reported most items of interest.

As she listened, the Queen opened a drawer of a small table 32

and brought out a package of cigarettes. “No, do not lecture me.

It’s my only vice.” She lit the cigarette and drew the smoke in deeply. “Don’t frown at me, Claire, it will give you wrinkles.”

“I will say nothing, but you know my opinion of tobacco,” said Claire.

“Yes, you’re in the camp of James the First in that, aren’t you? A lot of doctors recommend an occasional cigarette for relaxation.”

“A lot of doctors recommended bleeding their patients and killed them in the process,” said Claire with some asperity.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on this matter,” the Queen said with an air of finality.

“Now, the dead man with the slashed stomach: what do you make of that? So far no one seems to be missing, but probably word has not reached the outlying areas yet.”

“I suppose the DC will have an article put in the newspaper.

That might bring the man’s family to look at the body. I hope it’s soon; the weather is warming up and we don’t have a refrigerator.”

“I’m working on that. I had the Minister of Finance put an item in this year’s budget and it might just squeak through. I haven’t forgotten.”

The Queen had enticed Claire to Tshaniland with the promise of a lucrative private practice with wide and fascinating experiences, as well as a soon-to-be-upgraded national forensic centre. The centre presently consisted of one stone building, a microscope, centrifuge, soapstone autopsy table and Percy as an assistant. The private practice kept the wolf from the door, but payment was as apt to be made in negotiable domestic fowls as cash. If it weren’t for the few foreign patients, Claire would be poor indeed.

“I’ve got something interesting to show you. Tell me what it is and I’ll tell you where I got it.”

Claire gave her the stone that she had retrieved from the gore of the post-mortem. Malaila took the stone to the window, held it up to the light, bounced it on her palm, and tapped it against her front teeth.

“I hope you have a good explanation for this, otherwise I’ll have to call the guard and have you speared,” she said, only half joking.

“Why, what is it?” Claire asked.

“A diamond, about twelve carats and quite good quality.

More to the point, it’s one of what we call the Tears of Alilo, a lavender diamond, and absolutely forbidden to be owned or even touched by outsiders.”

“Oh, dear; I only brought it to you because you know about stones. I didn’t think it was anything valuable. That makes where I found it even more puzzling.” Claire told the Queen of hearing the small noise during the post-mortem and finding the stone beside the wreckage of the dead man’s abdomen.

“Initially I thought the stone had stuck to the clotted blood, which would be unusual given that the man was apparently killed in the Sea of Grass and there aren’t many loose pebbles lying around there. I brought it to you more as a curiosity than anything else.”

“It’s a curiosity all right. How did a murdered man come to have such a thing on him?”

“Or in him—it’s possible the stone was inside him, although I can’t think why,” Claire mused.

“I can. In the South African diamond mines people sometimes swallow stones to get them out of the miner’s compound. Some of the big mines have taken to fluoroscoping departing workers to identify swallowed stones. Many of our men have been to work in the mines of the Transvaal, and they’ve no doubt heard all the tricks for secreting diamonds,” the Queen explained.

“But we don’t have any diamond mines here, so how would that matter?”

The Queen gave Claire a rather odd look, then turned back to the window and re-examined the stone. “Perhaps this man worked in South Africa in the recent past.”

“He was definitely some sort of workman, because his

hands and feet were callused. But that would apply to almost any adult male, except a clerk or a teacher,” said Claire. “Tell me about these Tears of Alilo.”

“They are rare. Over the years they have been found here or there in alluvial deposits. There are some in the Mafulunga; you probably would have seen them there. The tradition is that any such diamond found must be brought to the Queen.”

Claire thought back to the last time she had seen Malaila in her full ceremonial costume, complete with the Mafulunga headdress. She didn’t recall noticing any lavender diamonds, but in an uncut state, probably they didn’t look any more impressive than the translucent lump she’d taken from the gore of the autopsy table.

“And Alilo was the original Lady of the Winds, wasn’t she?”

“We prefer to say she is the original Lady. Her spirit is still with us in the Cave of the Winds, and sometimes she chooses to put on flesh and speak to us again.” Malaila was suddenly not a twentieth century college graduate, but a personage to be ranked with Ayesha or Sheba. Claire always found it rather spooky, the way the younger woman took for granted that one could talk to a six-times-greatgrandmother.

Her tall figure seemed to get taller, and her curiously oriental eyes glittered when she spoke of the ancestors.

Something in Claire’s eyes must have told the Queen the effect she was having, for she smiled suddenly and sat down. “Sorry; I’ve frightened you.”

“Well, not frightened so much as disconcerted me. You get this look and it makes me feel as if you’ve turned into someone else.”

“Don’t worry; I’m not dangerous to you, Tshadola.”

Claire thought that she wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Malaila. There was something about the young queen that made one suspect she’d be a very bad person to cross.

“You get a sort of Chinese look when you talk about the ancestors,” observed Claire.

“It is said that a Chinese princess was shipwrecked off the coast of Mozambique and was rescued by a group of Batshani who had gone to get sea water for the Umshola festival. She came back with them to Tshaniland with her maidens and one old man who must have been some sort of shaman. The royal family is supposed to be descended from these people, who settled down and intermarried. I used to wonder about whether it was just a myth or fable, but there’s a historian in Germany who has discovered documents that support the story. Or so I am told

by Reverend Berghof.”

“Watch out, he may be trying to convert you,” laughed Claire.

“I don’t think I would enjoy his brand of stringent northern Christianity. If I were going to convert, I would choose something with more incense and ceremony. I used to enjoy going down to the harbor and watching the Blessing of the Fleet when I lived in Boston. Those Catholics really know how to celebrate.”

“I can just see you now, arriving for Mass in the Mafulunga and your monkey-fur skirt and all that gold!” chortled Claire.

The Queen joined the laughter, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

“We must not make light of such things. We are naughty girls as Elspeth would say.”

“How is she? I haven’t seen her for months. What does she do now that you don’t need her the way you did in Boston?”

“I am worried about her. She has odd spells sometimes, but pretends they’re nothing. I tried to get her to visit your surgery but she would have none of it and said she’d brew up something the inyanga gave her for coughs. I did what I could to make her life easier by putting her in charge of the regalia room and giving her a helper, but you know how stubborn she can be. That is not your worry; let us get back to the important thing: how do we find out where that diamond came from?”

“We? I’m just a humble doctor, not a detective. Surely you have people skilled in finding out things.”

“Yes, but they don’t have your access to some places we may need to investigate.”

33

“I think we should get Mr. Trevelyan involved if you are really determined to find out about the diamond. He’s far more likely to get results, and as this is a case of murder, he needs to know about the diamond; it might have a bearing on the killing,” Claire said.

“He is a man of discretion, if a bit patronizing. I will leave it in your hands what you tell him, but I must know where this diamond came from. It’s much more important than you could understand.”

Claire felt a bit miffed at this statement. There were times when Malaila treated her like a not-too-bright child. “I did manage to get all the way through medical school, Your Majesty,” she said.

“Don’t get huffy, Claire, it’s childish. I’m only asking you to take it on trust that this is important, but if you insist, I can turn you over to Mr. Moleponi to explain the history of the Tears of Alilo and their place in the mythology of Tshaniland.”

“No, no, that’s all right; I’ll take your word for it,” Claire said hastily. Some things it was better for one not to know, and Mr. Moleponi’s lectures came into that category. The official Tshaniland historian, the old man spoke as if he had years, if not decades, in which to make his listener understand the importance of a topic. Claire vividly remembered his speech on the occasion of the first anniversary of Malaila’s accession, which coincided with her own arrival in the country.

After the second hour, most of the audience had fallen into a stupor bordering on coma. It was worse than listening to someone read the ‘begats’ from the Old Testament.

“If there’s nothing else I can do for you, I must be going.

I have to call at the German Farm before I go home.” Claire collected her handbag and gloves and stood up, awaiting official dismissal.

“You haven’t finished your drink,” the Queen protested.

“No, not when I have to drive up Dead Man’s Hill after dark. Thank you anyway.”

“All right, you may go. Keep me aware of what you find out, and I will set some eyes and ears at work here.” Without a further word, Malaila swept out of the room, leaving Claire in midfarewell.

Pondering the complex creature she doubted she’d ever know well, Claire got into her rackety car and started it on the second attempt. With only one backfire, she got to the main road and headed back toward Entshanini.

A few miles further along, the road branched and ran beside green fields neatly fenced with white-painted boards looking not unlike those in Kentucky’s Blue Grass country.

Several large signs announced what was in the fields, and that the project was sponsored jointly by Her Majesty and the Department of Overseas Development of the Third Reich.

Turning into a meticulously graded and raked driveway, Claire arrived at the main farm building and parked her car beside a Mercedes truck still dripping from its daily wash. Say what you would about the Germans, they had good equipment and knew how to take care of it. If only they weren’t so…German, Claire thought.

Barely had she stopped her car when a young man in khaki work clothes, the creases sharp enough to plough with, was at her elbow.

“Fraulein Doktor, wilkommen,” he said, snatching her medical bag from her hand and all but standing to attention.

“The men are assembled.”

In the dining hall, a dozen brown-skinned men wearing identical khaki shorts and sleeveless shirts sat at tables, their chairs squared up with military precision. On a side table lay a white cloth upon which Franz set Claire’s bag, snapping it open like a salute, and standing back ready to help if required.

Claire greeted the men. “Nee saboni, babuti.”

A chorus of greetings came back to her, but none of the dark eyes met hers. Claire took a syringe from her bag, passed the needle through the flame of the Bunsen burner, and filled the syringe from the large bottle Franz brought from a locked cabinet. The specially imported vitamin cocktail was given to the workers every week, and Claire had to admit they all looked very healthy.

Herr Albrecht had convinced the Ministry of Health to allow him to conduct tests on worker health, and the vitamin injections were part of the overall scheme. This was only the second week of the project. Claire wasn’t happy with it, despite having read the hefty folder of information Herr Albrecht had supplied about the wonders of vitamin therapy. There was no single thing she could reasonably object to; still, Claire had some niggling questions. Why, for instance, did they choose to run the program in Tshaniland? Weren’t there any German farmhands in need of vitamins?

Swallowing her baseless concerns and mindful that her employer, the Department of Health, had approved the project, Claire put on her best “this won’t hurt” smile and faced her patients.

The men formed up in a line and one by one accepted the injections with varying bravery. Claire opened her notebook and recorded the date, dosage and blood pressure against the names written there. “Franz, I’m short one man, Thabo Khonzi. Is he ill?

It will spoil the test if we lose one of the subjects,” she said, trying to call the man’s face to mind.

“Thabo had to go home. A family problem—a death, I believe,” Franz said. “Perhaps he will not be returning to us.”

Claire caught one of the workers looking surprised at this statement, but said nothing.

“And now you will visit the Pastor for a meal. He has particularly asked you to join him,” Franz said, stowing Claire’s equipment away with a practiced hand and snapping her bag shut. The large ampoule he put back in the wall cabinet, locking it and pocketing the key.

“That is very kind of him. Perhaps you will put my bag in the car and tell him I’ll be there directly,” Claire said with a smile.

Franz hesitated for a moment. “Of course, Fraulein Doktor.” He left the hall and Claire started to follow him, but slowly.

“Bendhu, you wanted to say something?” she asked the worker who had shown surprise at Franz’s explanation of Thabo’s absence.

34

“No, madam. It is nothing, only that I did not know that Thabo had family. I thought—no, I must have been mistaken.” He backed away quickly and left the building through the rear door.

Claire went outside, thoughtful. Franz appeared at her elbow. “I will escort you. The path is rough,” he said.

“It’s not necessary, Franz,” she said, but he would not be put off. At the top of the path, Claire reclaimed her elbow and said, “Thank you. I’ll be all right from here on.” Franz made a sort of aborted arm movement and turned on his heel, leaving Claire thinking that he was a very peculiar sort of farmer.

She rapped on the door of the house that sat on the slight slope above the farm machinery yard.

“Ah, doctor, guten Abend,” exclaimed Mrs. Berghof, flinging open the door and releasing a wave of good smells onto the still evening air. “We heard you were coming, and knowing how late it would be, thought you would enjoy a meal with us.”

“Very kind of you, Mrs. Berghof; is the Pastor at home?”

Claire stepped in and laid her hat and bag on a table by the door.

“I will bring him out of his den with promises of good food and good company. Come, sit.” Mrs. Berghof pushed Claire into a chair by a small cosy fire. “The evenings are still cold, nein?

And the fire is always the heart of the house.”

“I would not be surprised to learn that heart and hearth have the same roots,” Claire said.

“And you would be most probably correct,” said Pastor Berghof, coming out of a back room looking rather like a bear newly awakened from hibernation. His reading glasses perched crookedly on a wild nest of greying brown hair, and an Indian file fastener nested incongruously in his beard.

Mrs. Berghof pounced on it like a robin on a worm, “tsk-ing” loudly. “Truly, you are not safe to be let out alone, nor in either. So untidy! What will the doctor think?”

“Marta, do not fuss. It is bad for the blood pressure. Mine, if not yours. What about something to warm us up, some of your cinnamon cider perhaps?” With a broad smile, the pastor engulfed Claire’s hand with an ink-stained paw.

“And how have you been, young lady?”

“Very well, thank you, Pastor. Or as well as one can be on a day which has included a postmortem.” Following a noise that sounded like “tchak!” the pastor exclaimed, “Another road accident? It is becoming unsafe to walk anywhere these days.”

“No, this is worse. It appears to be murder. But that’s no sort of topic for dinnertime; tell me, how you are coming along with the plans for the school?” Easily diverted, the pastor soon had the dining table covered with drawings and lists, to the distraction of Marta, who was trying to put plates and silverware around. Claire stood sipping the hot cider and making admiring noises as Pastor Berghof explained the Lutheran School that would soon rise next to the church on the back side of the hill overlooking the experimental orchards.

“It will be a wonderful thing, to bring education and the true word of God to these young men,” the pastor said.

“Isn’t it tempting fate to put school boys and fruit trees in such proximity?” Claire asked mischievously, sidestepping comment on the advisability of trying to convert the Batshani.

“No, they will be so tired from studying they will not think of sneaking into the orchard at night,” said the pastor confidently.

Claire and Marta exchanged knowing glances, both thinking it was highly unlikely that fatigue would overcome the attraction of forbidden fruit.

“Also, we will have an assistant master sleeping in the anteroom to the boys’ dormitory, so they will not be going anywhere he does not know about,” finished the pastor, rolling up the plans and piling them haphazardly on the sideboard.

“We shall want you to be the doctor for the school, of course.”

“I’m flattered, but you might find a male doctor preferable.

Batshani boys are by and large a modest bunch,” Claire said, wondering how she’d fit a school doctor’s work into her already packed schedule.

Marta Berghof served her usual huge and delicious meal.

Tonight it was sauerbraten and red cabbage, with strong coffee

and apple strudel to follow.

“A little kirsch to settle the stomach?” the pastor asked, as Claire sat back feeling like a very small python that had consumed a very large goat.

“I dare not. I must drive home tonight,” Claire said.

“A small taste will not dim your reflexes,” persisted the pastor. “Or you could stay with us, we have a guest room.”

“No, thank you very much. I would have another cup of that marvellous coffee if you offered,” said Claire, feeling herself sliding toward torpor. She had the feeling the Berghofs wanted her to stay longer, and wondered if it was because they got lonely with no one to talk to but the militaristic Franz and Herr Albrecht, whose own mother wouldn’t have described him as a cosy person.

She accepted the coffee gratefully, but waved away the offered second serving of strudel.

“No, really, it was wonderful, ambrosial even, but I can’t eat another bite, Mrs. Berghof.”

“You work hard; you will burn up the calories quickly,” Mrs. Berghof said, then fell silent. Claire intercepted a glance between the two Germans that reminded her of patients she’d had who struggled to bring themselves to the point of asking a delicate question. Finally, she said, “Look, I have the feeling there’s some reason you wanted to see me tonight, other than the hospitality. Why don’t you just tell me what it is. Is it a medical problem?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s...that is to say…” began Mrs. Berghof.

“It’s a friend,” Pastor Berghof said, “A friend of a friend, of Marta’s, really. From Austria, but she has lived in Germany. She needs a place to stay. It’s just that we cannot invite her to stay here, because…it would be awkward, you understand? I am not explaining this well.”

“What the Pastor means is there are people giving bad advice to our leader. We must hope he sees through them, but meanwhile, others, innocent people, are often in trouble,” put in Marta Berghof. “It is not good for Germany, this trouble. But one has to be careful what one says. There are those who report every little thing and make a small mistake look like a big crime, you know?”

“Ah, I begin to understand. Your friend’s friend has run afoul of a tattletale and been reported for something,” said Claire, thinking she was seeing a bit of light in the tangle of words.

“Tattletale? Ah, yes, yes, that is the word. So we were hoping…” The pastor trailed away again.

“You were hoping that because I have several spare rooms, 35

SWAN VALLEY

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handcrafted artisan produce

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I might like to have a lodger for a while, is that it?” Claire asked.

“I know it is a very big—what is the word?— imposing on you. We are hoping the friend will be able to go to America, she has relatives there. For the moment she has been able to get a permit to stay in Tshaniland, but only for six months.”

“How did she get out of Austria if she had run afoul of the authorities?”

“There are ways—not always very direct ways. She has been many weeks getting here. She is an artist, a brilliant woman. You will like her. And she can pay a bit; she has some funds.”

“Well, then, what about the hotel?

Or a rented house?” asked Claire.

“There are no suitable rental houses, we have already asked. And the hotel would use up all her remaining money before a few months. She is staying there now, but cannot remain long. We would help, but we receive only a small stipend,” said Mrs. Berghof.

“Marta! The doctor is not interested in our wages,” the pastor protested.

“Are there no other German families around with a spare room?” Claire asked.

She wasn’t at all sure she wanted a houseguest.

“Only a few technical aid people and they are not the sort she would feel comfortable with. It would not be suitable for her to stay with an unmarried man, for instance.” Pastor Berghof tugged his beard impatiently. There was an air of tension in the room, which had been steadily building since the matter of the friend of a friend had been brought up.

Why, they’re frightened! Claire thought to herself.

“Marta, we cannot make this imposing, it might put the doctor in a difficult position. We must think of something else!” the pastor exclaimed, mistaking Claire’s silence for unwillingness.

“No, no, not at all!” protested Claire.

“It was just a surprise, that’s all. It might be good for your friend to stay with me if she’s trying to get an American visa.

I know some people in the diplomatic service; perhaps they could help. Why don’t we give it a try?”

There was no mistaking the look of relief on the Berghofs’ faces. They couldn’t look any more relieved if I’d stopped holding a gun to their heads, Claire thought. There is a lot more to the story than they’ve told me. Hoping she hadn’t just offered hospitality to an axe murderer or anarchist, she said brightly,

“Well, let’s meet the friend.”

“She is in Cottage Three at the Rangeview Hotel. I told her that if we were successful, we would send you to her tomorrow morning. I know that is presuming of me, but we know you have a good heart and were—”

“It’s all right, Pastor,” said Claire, having second thoughts far too late. “I’m sure we will get along. It’s a big house and there’s plenty of space. Perhaps she can teach me to cook.”

“About that I cannot say, but if you wish to learn about art, she will be happy to share what she knows,” he said.

“I was just joking, Pastor—a feeble attempt at humour. Well, I had better get on home if I’m going to meet my new lodger in the morning. What’s her name?”

“Ri—” began Marta.

“Rita. Rita Lerner,” interrupted the pastor, looking rather sternly at his wife.

Claire was too tired to bother figuring out this little oddity and just smiled and said goodnight. The pastor insisted on escorting her back to the Austin, which she noticed someone had washed while it sat in the yard. Better get home before they throw me in the shower, she thought with a smile.

Safely up Dead Man’s Hill, she took the turn onto Roberts Street and was soon at her own home. Stopping only to check that the surgery was locked and the coal stove banked for the night, she tumbled into bed without another thought.

Chapter Two next month ... ~oOo~ With Karen Treanor’s kind permission, Swan Magazine will be serialising Death in the Sea of Grass over the coming year but if you can’t wait to find out who dunnit or why they didit, you can buy the whole book as a downloadable ebook from Fido Publishing for the bargain price of only $4.99 from their website on www. fidopublishing.com.

While there you might like to browse her other books which are all available through Barnes and Noble (www. barnesandnoble.com.) or Amazon on www.amazon.com.

KAREN R TREANOR

Karen R W Treanor (Photograph by Rob Watson) 37

KAREN Treanor has been writing since the age of six. Discovering bandicoots in her backyard, and learning that nobody was writing about these engaging little beasts, she started Quenda Books, which publishes the Scoot, Scoot, Bandicoot® series, in 2003.

For many years she was a frequent visitor at Western Australian schools and libraries, talking about bandicoots and book publishing.

Karen worked for Swan Publishing for several years, and her book reviews, poems and short stories have appeared often in the Swan Magazine.

She lived in Mundaring with many visiting bandicoots, possums, bobtail lizards, and magpies; plus some resident chickens, cats and a very tolerant husband until 2014, when she packed up the cats and husband, and moved to Tasmania where she spends her time wallaby wrangling, making sourdough bread, and writing.

FILM REVIEWS ~oOo~

BROTHERS’ NEST Fun in a farmhouse Reviewer: James Forte

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JILL BILCOCK– DANCING THE INVISIBLE Fun in a farmhouse Reviewer: Sharron Attwood

hink of the blackest thing you can.

Something really dark. Bottom of a disused coalmine at midnight. Then add more black.

That is the level of black comedy in Brothers’ Nest. There are many laughs to be had – but they are mainly of the nervous variety.

The sort of gurgle people make when they are thinking: ‘am I really seeing this?’

The action takes place in an old farmhouse in Victoria. A house that I suspect will become as much an icon of Australia as that place at the end of the runway in The Castle. Tourist coaches will include it in their itinerary.

It has all the best elements of an Aussie farm – a shallow dam, a yard full of the rusting hulks of discarded cars, a paddock with an old horse. And the house is gloomy with wide verandahs, small windows, an antiquated fuse-box and memorabilia of better days. All are integrated into the action.

The story starts with a simple idea. The widowed and terminally-ill mother of two boys, Terry and Jeff, has remarried and is likely to leave the family farm to the new stepfather, Roger. So the brothers ride out to the farm to kill him. To say that they are quite inexperienced in eradicating pesky stepfathers is an understatement. Everything else follows from that premise.

The middle-aged Terry and Jeff are played by real-life brothers Shane and Clayton Jacobson. Shane is well known for being the writer, director and producer as well as playing the dunny man in Kenny.

Kim Gyngell plays the stepfather and Lynette Curran is the mother. It is a pleasure to watch these four actors in action.

The screenplay (almost a theatre play script) is by Jamie Browne and Chris Pahlow. The direction, also by Clayton Jacobson is perfectly paced as the action escalates and the atrocities mount.

This is a fun Australian film. It could easily achieve the kind of cult following of Crocodile Dundee. A five-star movie for lovers of black comedy, three-stars for everyone else.

Fun fact: Clayton Jacobson also plays bass in the Appalachian folk band The Duck Downpickers.

Brothers’ Nest opened at Luna Cinemas on June 21st.

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hen a great film, especially a great Australian film, is released to much fanfare and acclaim – we readily acknowledge the actors, the writer, perhaps the producer even – but what of the editor?

Having just seen Jill Bilcock – Dancing the Invisible – I have an entirely new appreciation for and understanding of, the work they do – the artistry of their contribution.

Jill Bilcock has lead a colourful life which provides a wonderful back story for the amazing career she has had and is continuing to have – as one of our most innovative and in demand film editors.

Jill Bilcock, Academy Award nominated film editor, is rightly depicted in this feature documentary as a brave, intuitive and inventive story teller. Treasured Australian film director Bruce Beresford bluntly states ‘Jill Bilcock is one of the best film editors in the world’ – and we hear from many other film luminaries throughout the documentary including Rachel Griffiths, who’s film Muriel’s Wedding was skilfully edited and reedited by Bilcock, who shares that Muriel was not very likeable in the original course of filming. It was her ability to edit and recraft the viewers journey through the story that made ‘You’re terrible Muriel’ the icon it is today.

Including previously unseen footage of Bilcock in the editing suite, you can truly appreciate the pace and rhythm of her craft – and the inventive way in which her ground-breaking approach to editing Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet made the international film industry take notice. Her bravery saw Bilcock embrace the changes in editing technology – a move to digital – and really challenge the viewer and bring Luhrmann’s unique vision to the screen.

The documentary format of Dancing the Invisible can show us how she achieved the style of the film and the way she immersed herself in the project.

This dedication was appreciated and expected by collaborator Luhrmann – who at one point had all but moved in with Bilcock during the editing period – a time of tea, afternoon walks and total focus on producing a beautiful piece of cinema.

Now aware of Bilcock’s flair – I can see her stamp all over many iconic films she has worked on – Moulin Rouge, Red Dog, Japanese Story and The Dressmaker – all of which show case in this documentary, where we see outtakes and original filming to highlight where Bilcock’s skill has brought out the best in what she has been given by the directors and actors.

Of working with Bilcock on Elizabeth Cate Blanchet said ‘She’s so full of life, so irreverent, but is incredibly respectful of other people’s voices.’

That seems to be the point of her craft and her point of view – to respect the intent, the writing, the Shane and Clayton Jacobson in Brothers’ Nest vision and make them sing! As she 38

says, if it doesn’t fit, take it out. If it stays it must earn its place.

‘It’s a dance, and she makes you feel as if you’re the perfect partner’ shares Director Phillip Noyce, who worked with Bilcock on Catch a Fire in South Africa.

Documentaries such as this are a joy to watch – celebrating someone still relatively unknown to the public – yet openly acknowledge as an icon to her peers - and shining a light on a part of the industry I naively thought I understood but now realise I truly did not appreciate – until Dancing the Invisible.

Screening from July 26th at Luna Leederville. ~oOo~

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here are an incredible number of films out there from talented filmmakers and studios, many of which go un-noticed and fly under the radar, either as tele-movies, taking the straight to DVD route or as independent releases.

In this new ‘Little Known Film Review Corner’, we will bring you reviews of films you may not have heard of in order to bring some light to those hidden gems hiding online, in your stream library or in the bargain DVD bin.

habits) to transform not only the students’ classroom results but their manners, sense of respect and their outlook on life.

Perry trades his charismatic comedy chops for this dramatic and uplifiting role in which he is believable and relateable as the inspirational Clark.

There are moments which leave you on the verge of tears as these troubled children’s lives are played out on screen and ultimately transformed through Clark’s dedication and care. The message in the film becomes less about the concept of teaching to the test and more about building trust and respect between student and teacher in order to learn life’s valuable lessons.

One of my all time favourite films and highly recommended, not just for teachers but for anyone seeking an uplifing and inspirational film with a tender heart and an important message.

The Ron Clark Story is available on YouTube (www.youtube. com/watch?v=xVsld1Wls10) and DVD.

THE RON CLARK STORY (2006)

In 2000, an American school teacher by the name of Ron Clark was granted the highly prestigious Disney Teacher of the Year Award.

An inspiring educator, Clark transformed not only the classroom but the lives of students at Inner Harlem Elementary School with his incredible methods and inspirational teaching style. He has gone on to found and coordinate ‘The Ron Clark Academy’, a revolutionary elementary school based in Georgia.

In 2006, a telemovie entitled The Ron Clark Story was produced by the TNT Network which chronicled this incredible tale of a teacher and his students. The role of Clark was portrayed by Friends star Matthew Perry.

The film is more than just your standard ‘inspirational teacher film’. Clark puts his students first both in and out of the classroom, sacrificing his security, safety and sanity for the students under his care.

Constantly facing adversity from the tough Harlem community at first, Clark perseveres and implements some radical classroom rule based strategies and relationship building techniques (including learning how to double dutch and getting the canteen staff on side in order to encourage good 39

THEATRE REVIEWS

L to R: Geoff Kelso, Cameron Steens, Luke Hewitt, Brendan Hanson, Will O'Mahony, Caitlin Beresford-Ord. (Photograph by Philip Gostelow)

ASSASSINS A gun-crazy musical Reviewer: James Forte

integration of the movie footage with the stage action. Jangoo Chapkhana is to be congratulated on the musical direction.

I am known to have been a little critical of some sets designed for Black Swan productions. The one for Death of a Salesman a few years ago subtracted rather than added to the production and I mentioned last month how I had reservations about the ‘Doll’ set.

On the other hand many have been superb. Boy Gets Girl and more recently Switzerland have left me gasping. The set for Assassins is in the superb group. Giving a feel of a gritty industrial space, six great arches provide screens for the projection of newsreel footage of the events.

At stage left, a bastion with steps provides a podium for grand political speeches. At stage right is a decking where four musicians accompany the songs.

The Black Swan production of Sondheim’s Assassins is outstanding. It concluded at the State Theatre Centre on July 1st.

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he great thing about this Stephen Sondheim musical is that the audience gets double value for money.

There is an entertaining story with music, songs and fascinating characters. Then there is the message which has you leaving the theatre thinking a little deeper about the state of human affairs. Can you solve every problem with a gun?

Tom Stoppard noted that if you get the right words in the right order, you can nudge the world a little. Sondheim does it with music.

Using the storybook by John Weidman, the play depicts nine historical events, from 1865 (the killing of Abraham Lincoln) to1981 (the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan), where American citizens have decided to kill their president.

Each explores, in song, the motivation of the assassin.

From the redress of political grievances to an obsession over actress Jodi Foster. From the horrific (Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was a disciple of Charles Manson) to the hilarious (Sarah Jane Moore throwing bullets at Gerald Ford).

The attacks roll merrily along for ninety-five minutes leading up to Lee Harvey Oswald shooting JFK. A housewife sings about how everyone can remember where they were when they heard the news – as the rear projections show Jackie Kennedy crawling over the boot of the speeding car to assist the secret service agent and her husband.

Director Rodger Hodgman is a Sondheim specialist and capably pulls together all the elements of this complex drama.

The eight actors who make up the gang of assassins are without fault. Their chorus in the song Everybody’s Got the Right as they point their guns at the audience is genuinely chilling. Am I obsessed with Mackenzie Dunn sufficient to go out and kill the President? Perhaps not – but she is very good.

Michael Carmody deserves a special mention for his

CONSTELLATIONS A play worth waiting for Reviewer: James Forte

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s a mathematician, I am always on the lookout for theatre with a scientific theme - readers may remember Proof

by David Auburn, Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard and Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore – outstanding examples from recent years.

Fortunately, Black Swan has always been open to this theme and has mounted productions of three of the above. (I am also hoping that we will have Galileo by Bertolt Brecht back again soon – hint, hint.)

In 2012, Constellations, by new British playwright Nick Payne, had a critically-acclaimed premiere in London’s West End. It starred Sally Hawkins and Rafe Spall. In 2014, it opened on Broadway with Ruth Wilson and Jake Gyllenhaal. Its mindboggling idea was to employ the theoretical physics concept that we are living in one of an infinite number of multiverses.

You can probably appreciate how much I wanted to see it.

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ENTERTAINMENT daily from America or in reports of a terrorist attack. There is no rationality to the violence. It is not done for money or any other motive we could understand.

It is done for hatred of something and the victims are chosen at random from that world. It might have been us. And there is no defense against it. And so we are left asking ourselves repeatedly: Why?

There is one similarity between the two. They both use music to rest the audience from the action – one from the laughter the other from the horror.

In The Events, there is a multicultural community choir at practice. We do not see the violence, as the members are gunned down, we are told about it in retrospect. Claire, an Anglican minister, witnessed the atrocity but was spared and, apart from her crisis of faith, is now trying to rebuild the choir.

She is asking WHY over and over again.

The play is essentially a two-hander with Claire played by Catherine McClements - who has made the part her own around Australia. It is a compelling performance.

Johnny Carr plays all the other roles – both male and female – from the gunman to the friends trying to help Claire cope with her memories. This needs a strong actor able to quickly and accurately switch to a new persona – without changing costume or face.

In the last four years it has had productions in most Australian capital cities. It was scheduled for the Perth Fringe Festival in February 2015 but was cancelled - after I bought tickets. So frustrating!

So my congratulations and thanks to the Irish Theatre Players for finally bringing this drama to Perth.

But would it live up to my expectations? I am pleased to report – YES – in practically all aspects. The director, Brendan Ellis, is well known for his success in tackling interesting scripts and here he is outstanding.

He selected a strong cast. Maddy Jones, Curtin graduate and drama teacher, played the astrophysicist Marianne. Finley Award winner Paul Davey played the bee-keeper Roland.

On stage for the full seventy-five minutes (no interval), their interaction as they work their way through their relationships in a number of parallel universes is mesmerizing.

The small bare stage (spattered with flecks of paint - all the constellations in the sky?), the lighting and sound (design

by Laura Heffernan) all reinforced the points in time and space when the pathways of these two people intersect. If that sounds complicated, it is not.

Think of the film Groundhog Day with each time slot representing a possible eventuality in one of their lives. With just the lightest of scientific touches, this is a play about a moving human relationship.

This year is developing as one of the best for Perth theatre.

And this play will stay in my memory as one of the highlights. I am sure it will be prominently featured in this year’s awards ceremony.

I am giving it four and a half stars.

Constellations was presented at the Irish Club, Subiaco from June 7th to 16th.

THE EVENTS A simple question - Why? Reviewer: James Forte

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he Events is by David Greig – a Scottish playwright whose Midsummer – a play with songs was performed in Perth by Black Swan in 2013.

The two plays are quite different. Midsummer, directed by Damon Lockwood, was a light comedy. The Events, directed by Clare Watson, is a heavy tragedy. Very heavy.

It focuses on a gun atrocity - such as we hear about almost

Claire (Catherine McClements)

It also requires a high level of dedication and concentration on the part of the audience.

Greig wrote the play as a reaction to the massacre of seventy-seven people (mostly children) in Oslo and on Utoya island, Norway in 2011. Australia had an equivalent atrocity at Port Arthur. The work has since played, to critical acclaim, around the world – and in the Norwegian town next to the island.

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The Events Johnny Carr and Catherine McClements. (Photograph by Daniel J Grant)

This is strong theatre. There is no answer to ‘why?’ but if you have the strength, this play might help you cope with the unfathomable.

Black Swan has paired this play with Sondheim’s Assassins - with an obvious common theme. This production of The Events concluded at the Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre on July 7th.

piano with stool, several stackable chairs, three tiers of timber risers, and a simple coffee and tea station.

The performance opens with The Boy (Johnny Carr), envisioning the arrival of white settlers to Australia. As he muses about going back in time to warn the original inhabitants about strangers arriving by boat, his advice to them is chilling.

Soon, progressive Anglican minister Claire (Catherine McClements) begins herding her flock of choristers to their places. Each night’s performance features a different local community choir, and The Mighty Camelot Chorale (the first to portray The Choir in Perth) were engaging and enthusiastic.

Their well-rehearsed performance supported the play perfectly. The playwright requires that choristers prepare set pieces of music ahead of time but must not read the script, only receiving on performance day assigned cues and lines for them to read at certain points in the narrative.

When not singing, the choristers are positioned onstage to mirror the audience, helping us to witness the Events from their perspective and providing commentary in classic Greek theatrical tradition.

There is an undeniable sense of dramatic irony (especially for those of us who have sung in choirs), as we watch the Choir and await what we understand is to come.

We get an early sense of Claire’s quirky yet inclusive nature, as she cajoles us: “if you feel like singing, sing. And if you don’t feel like singing, that’s okay, too. No one feels like singing all the time”. The Boy enters the hall.

Jump to the present day, where Claire, the only survivor of The Boy’s rampage, struggles to make sense of what happened.

Johnny Carr also plays the roles of Claire’s lover Katrina, The Boy’s father, a counselor, politicians, journalists and various others whom Claire encounters on her quest for understanding with ease, adjusting vocal and physical mannerisms for each.

At first I found the transitions a little confusing, but once established, I was able to differentiate between characters easily. This confusion may be an intended effect, allowing us to identify with Claire as she loses her grasp on reality and sees all

THE EVENTS A thought-provoking gem of a show Reviewer: Lisa Skrypichayko

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was by turns uplifted, crestfallen, amused, fascinated, horrified, confused, and consoled by the preview performance of playwright David Grieg’s The Events, deftly directed by Clare Watson.

It is no spoiler to disclose that this 75-minute-without-interval play takes place in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Despite the subject matter, little physical violence occurs onstage.

The suspense exists in the spaces between grief and forgiveness, understanding and rage, faith and disillusionment, as Grieg through his protagonist Claire seeks to understand and express the humanity of victims, survivors, and perpetrators of unspeakable violence.

In July 2011, Anders Behring killed 77 people and injured over 300 (including many children) in two sequential attacks, a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, and mass shootings at a youth summer camp on the Norwegian island of Utøya. The Events, as such things are often euphemistically called, inspired Grieg’s play and challenge us to find ways to rise above and carry on in the face of terror.

As we enter Black Swan’s Studio Underground, we get the sense that we are late to rehearsal. All the stage and house lights are on and people are milling about, preparing to begin. We are in a simple, box-shaped church hall with work lights, an upright 42

through the lens of the Events.

Carr is particularly mesmerising when playing The Boy, unselfconsciously preoccupied with Nordic shamanism, violent video games, heavy music, image obsession and other stereotypical trappings of toxic masculinity, in a quest to save his tribe and do something memorable before his time runs out.

The scene where The Boy drives himself into a frenzy preparing for his moment of immortality, shows Carr at his most vulnerable. The Boy’s occasional flashes of self awareness are tragically funny, as he measures the ridiculousness of his situation against its seeming inevitability.

McClements plays Claire as an obsessed survivor, demanding to know how The Boy could commit such heinous acts, and why she was spared from them. “How can I hate him if I don’t understand him?” she asks without irony. Claire’s cheerful demeanour and stubborn insistence that she’s okay belie the truth.

Many welcome moments of humour arise, even as McClements allows Claire’s pain to slip through the cracks in her mask of resilience, revealing the fragility of survival.

Clare Watson’s direction is (as it should be) virtually unnoticeable, but one memorable scene uses clever staging and stackable chairs as Claire tries to escape Kartina’s well-meaning attentions, declaring with self-righteous entitlement “I’m the victim!”

I will provide no further detail on the plot, as how Claire decides to reconcile herself with the Events should not be spoiled.

Technically, the play is designed for ease of touring.

Geoff Cobham’s set is practical and versatile, with basic set pieces, easily found and / or transported. His lighting design makes effective use of colours, angles, and strobe to delineate locations as well as to reflect The Boy’s and sometimes Claire’s altered states.

I could detect no miscues in lighting or sound. John Browne’s music (with musical director Benjamin Hogan and musical supervisor Luke Byrne) supports the show, both in terms of the songs chosen by Claire for her choir (and her own healing), and that chosen by The Boy to fuel his destructive rage.

The Events runs until 8 July, so don’t blink or you’ll miss this thought-provoking gem of a show, however, The Events will be touring to Geelong, Tamworth, Lismore, Wollongong.

GPAC, Geelong 11-14 Jul:

www.gpac.org.au/event/970/the-events

Capitol Theatre Tamworth 17-18 Jul:

www.entertainmentvenues.com.au/

Lismore City Hall 20-21 Jul:

www.lismorecityhall.com.au/whats-on/the-events/

Merrigong Theatre, Wollongong 24-28 Jul:

www.merrigong.com.au

CINEFESTOZ NEWS

C

inefestOZ returns 22-26 August, 2018, with the festival planning another superb lineup of film and festivities.

The CinefestOZ Film Festival team are busily working away to finalise this year's program. Get prepared for the festival by booking your accommodation and keeping an eye out for Early Bird tickets and Cinepasses available now.

As with all major film festivals, CinefestOZ relies on the generosity and dedication of a special group of ‘Movie Crew’ volunteers each year. These volunteers are the face of the festival; performing important roles to ensure the CinefestOZ experience is an exceptional one.

Movie Crew volunteers view festival films, sport the easily identifiable CinefestOZ uniform and attend an exclusive thank you celebration event.

Volunteer for the whole festival, or for as little as a day.

Interested in becoming part of this crew of volunteers?

Register here: www.cinefestoz.com/support/volunteer/

Any questions please email moviecrew@cinefestoz.com.

vibrant local and national film industry while showcasing our beautiful South West to the world.

HELP KEEP CINEFESTOZ THRIVING INTO THE FUTURE

By supporting us you will be helping to: CinefestOZ is a not-for-profit organisation. We invite you to • Showcase Australian, particularly Western Australian films become a donor and help CinefestOZ play its part in building a to new audiences; • Deliver a uniquely involving and educative screen culture and filmmaking program to ADVERTISEMENT schools throughout the South West; • Provide a high profile platform for engaging our talented Aboriginal filmmakers and build an audience for Aboriginal films; • Enable Western Australian filmmakers to build their skills through industry workshops and opportunities to meet national and international jp mlc filmmakers at the festival.

All donations over $2 will receive a tax receipt Member for East Metropolitan Region and are tax deductable.

Shadow Minister for Education; This winter, put a hold on hibernation and Training; Women’s Interests visit Margaret River between July 13 and 22 for as much quality wine, seam-splitting comfort food, fireside brews and general good times as your body can handle.

Ground Floor, 108 Swan Street Guildford 6055 Experience chocolate, cheese and coffee 9379 0840 | Faragher.eastmetro@mp.wa.gov.au appreciation, wine dinners, degustation menus, Authorised by D.Faragher, 108 Swan Street, Guildford WA 6055. bonfires, brews, live music and more.

Donna

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

FARAGHER Here to help!

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ENTERTAINMENT BEYOND A JOKE AT GARRICK OLGA DE MOELLER

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he name Derek Benfield may not mean much to most people.

Perhaps, if you’re a fan of British TV, you may know him as the husband in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates or Albert the clerk in Rumpole of the Bailey and you might think, ‘Ah yes, another quirky British character actor.’

But you’d be wrong - he is so much more than that - he is the playwright behind some of the funniest British farces ever staged - you remember Running Riot, Post Horn Gallop, A Bird in the Hand and Garrick Theatre's next production Beyond A Joke.

Directed by experienced actor and director Andrew Watson, who has assembled a terrific cast of talented local actors.

As in all farces, the plot is suitably complex - Jane (Taneal Thompson) and Andrew’s (Peter Neaves) pleasant country house is accident-prone. Six people have already died there in unfortunate and embarrassing accidents.

When daughter Sally’s (Virginia Moore Price) young man Geoff (Chris Kennedy) arrives for the weekend, unaware of the house’s reputation, he mistakenly deduces from conversational confusion that the deaths were due to sinister circumstances.

A body is discovered in the cupboard and a visiting vicar Alan Shaw) passes peacefully away in the garden just as Geoff’s parents (Sarah House and David Gribble) call unexpectedly.

Jane and her sister-in-law Vicky Williams) persuade Andrew to keep up appearances by hiding evidence, which involves trundling around with bodies in wheelbarrows.

Geoff is nearly convinced that he is mistaken, unaware that one of the bodies has been mistakenly stowed in the trunk of his parents’ car.

Beyond a Joke opens on July the 19th at Garrick Theatre, 16 Meadow St, Guildford and runs until August the 4th at 8:00pm, with matiness on the 22nd and 29th at 2:00pm.

Tickets cost $25 (Concession $22) and may be booked by ringing Elaine Gilberthorpe on 9378 1990, by email: bookings@garricktheatre.asn.au or online at www. trybooking.com.

The Cast of Beyond a Joke in rehearsal

Director Andrew Watson 44

ENTERTAINMENT DOWNSTAIRS AT THE MAJ PIA FRUIN

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erth’s best cabaret venue, Downstairs at The Maj has announced its jam packed 2018 season featuring tribute acts to musical greats, including homages to Kylie Minogue, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell and Elton John.

The 2018 season runs until December, featuring an eclectic mix of iconic musical tributes and returning cabaret favourites.

Netherlands cabaret supernova Sven Ratzke returned to Perth for the season debut with his only performance of From Amsterdam To Mars, featuring songs from the likes of Brecht, Bowie, Weill and Wainwright, which played to very appreciative audiences.

Venue Manager Helen Stewart said she was excited about the upcoming season and the cosy cabaret style atmosphere Downstairs at The Maj offers.

‘This year the season is better than ever!

Downstairs at The Maj is the perfect winter venue to enjoy a great night out with friends, good food and wine! Make sure you stay around afterwards to meet the performers it’s fresh, exciting and enchantingly unpredictable, but one thing is certain: you’re guaranteed a great night out!’

The remaining shows of the season are: Blue: The Songs of Joni Mitchell 19 - 21 July

Starring cabaret chanteuse Queenie van de Zandt, dives into the depths of Joni Mitchell, perfectly capturing both the beauty and sorrow of Mitchell’s era-defining music.

The Perth Cabaret Collective Good Day Sunshine: The Lennon and McCartney Songbook 16 - 18 August

Starring Melissa Langton, Mark Jones and Libby O’Donovan - three of Australia’s top cabaret performers are joining forces to take you on a Magical Mystery Tour through a collection of the finest pop songs ever written. #VAL: A Glittery Ode to Queer Men and Their Mums 13 - 15 September

In an evening of hilariously honest, unconditionally loving and at times just plain awkward tales, John O’Hara will sing (and possibly dance) his way over the rainbow as he weaves in and out of his own experiences with his mum, Val. The Breast is Yet to Come 27 - 29 September

Famous for her tales of debauchery, Amelia Ryan has taken a turn towards the domestic: she got knocked up (cue panic).

Roles Open for Audition at this Time.

10.30am – 11.30am (Main Cast Singing and Speaking Roles) Prince Louis (Male aged 18 – 30) Gaston – egocentric and very vain man (Male aged 18 – 30) Lumiere – Beasts confidant and main servant (Male / Female aged 15 – 50) 11.30am – 12.30pm (Main Cast Speaking Roles) Dolly Donut – Pantomime Dame (Male aged 25 – 60) Nutella – Pantomime Ugly Sister (Male aged 25 – 60) Canderel – Pantomime Ugly Sister (Male aged 25 – 60) 1.00pm – 2.00pm (Main Cast Speaking Roles) Crouton – Bakery Worker (Male / Female aged 18 – 30) Mr Baguette – Bakery Owner (Male / Female 40 – 65) 2.00pm – 3.30pm (Minor Roles limited or non-speaking) Paramedics (Male / Female aged 14 – 50) Villagers (Male / Female various ages) Wolves (Male / Female various ages) Bakery Workers (Male / Female aged 14 – 50) Castle Servants (Male / Female aged 14 – 50) Mrs Potts (Female aged 25 – 60) Chip (Male / Female aged 7 – 14) Cogsworth (Male / Female aged 14 - 60) Those interested in minor roles can turn up from 2.00pm.

Please note that Dance Auditions will be held at a later date.

Date: Saturday 21st July 2018 Location: GraceLife Church Hall 66 Woodlake Blvd, Ellenbrook (near to Woodlake Community Centre)

Lucky: Songs by Kylie 11 - 13 October

Helpmann Award winner Michael Griffiths explores the songs, stories and locomotion of our very own impossible princess, Kylie Minogue. Put your hand on your heart and step back in time, Kylie wouldn’t change a thing!

You’re My World: The Cilla Black Story 1 - 3 November Danielle O’Malley is back with this biographical cabaret full of powerhouse vocals and self-deprecating humour that made Black one of the UK’s most beloved performers.

Still Standing: A Tribute to the Great Piano Men 22 - 24 November Australia’s favourite piano man, Trevor Jones, returns with a tribute piano heavyweights, featuring songs by Billy Joel, Elton John, Peter Allen plus a few surprises.

Moonshinin’ 6 - 8 December Starring the Perth Cabaret Collective, an award-winning eleven piece, jazz/cabaret band who will transport you to the 1920’s jazz scene, specialising in everything from the sexy and sultry to the downright dirty.

See you there!

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SPORT AND LEISURE DI SALVO BRINGS THE THUNDER DOWN UNDER CHRIS MCRAE

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any say in the fast paced, often brutal sport of Ice Hockey that you have to be slightly mad to be a goalie.

For Canadian bred goaltender and Perth Thunder import Peter Di Salvo, the nickname ‘Mad Dog’ has stuck and he has become a fan favourite in the Perth hockey community.

For the twenty-seven year old Oakville, Ontario native, the chance to play throughout the North American off-season in Australia was too good to pass up.

Di Salvo first pulled on the pads down under in 2015, playing six games with the Perth Thunder (the state’s representative team in the Australian Ice Hockey League) as a fill in goalie. Two years later, Di Salvo returned to the West Coast, playing a full season in 2017 and currently back with the Thunder again for the 2018 season.

“Having the opportunity to play in Australia is amazing” he said. “Perth just feels like home to me and I don't want to play for any other teams” he continued.

The Perth lifestyle is a highlight with Di Salvo relishing all that Perth has to offer during his time down under. “The beaches would be a highlight for sure” he said. “Even in the winter time here, the weather can still get hot, especially for a Canadian like me” he continued.

Like many Canadians, the road to professional hockey began at an early age for Di Salvo, participating in competitive hockey from aged five. At the age of fifteen, he joined the Ontario Hockey League (one of the three major Junior Hockey Leagues which make up the Canadian Hockey League).

For five years, Di Salvo padded up for the Sarnia Sting, Barrie Colts and Oshawa Generals before going on to College level, playing two seasons at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. This led Di Salvo to minor leagues, the East Coast Hockey League and Southern Professional Hockey Leagues (known as feeders for the NHL).

Di Salvo played five seasons for these leagues, most recently finishing up with the Macon Mayhem, based in Macon, Georgia.

Now a regular and starting goaltender for the Perth Thunder, Di Salvo has brought a wealth of international hockey experience to the organisation and loves providing thrilling hockey action for the fans in Perth.

“The hockey community here in Perth is one of the best” he said. “Everyone is always so welcoming to the import players and I have a lot of respect for them” he said in relation to the fans and members of the hockey community.

“Without our fans we can't have a hockey team so hats off to them” he concluded.

Coming from the professional leagues of North America and Canada to the amateur Australian Ice Hockey League has provided a change of pace and scenery for Di Salvo. Throughout this season, the Thunder will not only play home games at their home rink (Perth Ice Arena in Malaga) but will also travel to Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle and Adelaide for away games against the other seven teams in the league (Melbourne Ice, Melbourne Mustangs, Sydney Ice Dogs, Sydney Bears, CBR Brave, Newcastle North Stars and Adelaide Adrenaline).

“The skill level is different for sure but the league is still very competitive here” he said. In comparison to leagues back home for Di Salvo, the regularity is the biggest change.

“The big difference is only practicing twice a week and only playing twice a weekend here” he said. “Overseas you are practicing almost every day and playing two to four times a week” he continued.

The camaraderie across the AIHL is a feature of the familylike nature of the hockey community in Australia and Di Salvo has enjoyed every minute of his travels as part of the Thunder roster.

“Meeting other players, coaches, owners, and fans from other teams is always fun” he said. You create new friendships and get to experience stuff that only a handful of people in the world do” he continued.

Many fans of hockey would only see Di Salvo’s talents on the ice, padding up in net. However, off the ice, Di Salvo is a man of many talents, identifying music as a particular passion of his.

“I love listening to music” he said, identifying Punk, Alternative, Rock, Heavy Metal and Gangsta Rap as his favourite styles.

Another unknown fact that many hockey fans would not know is that Di Salvo is currently undergoing training to become a hair barber. “It is a career I want to pursue when I retire from hockey” he said.

As for Di Salvo’s game day routine? “I have the same meal before every game, nap, shower, do up my beard, get changed, listen to the same music setlist in the same order, tape my stick, 46

SPORT AND LEISURE WASHINGTON CAPITALS - CHAMPIONS

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CHRIS MCRAE

orty-four years of disappointment and heartbreak were erased in an instant last month as the Washington Capitals ended one of the longest droughts in National Hockey League history, winning one of sport’s most famous trophies, the Stanley Cup with a 4-1 series victory over the Cinderella story Vegas Golden Knights (who made their own history by making the cup final in their inaugural season).

The Capitals’ victory was historic on many levels, providing the first championship for the franchise since their inception into the league as an expansion team in 1974 and the first Stanley Cup for decorated captain and NHL superstar Alex Ovechkin after fourteen seasons, 1,124 games, 669 goals and 7 Rocket Richards trophies (awarded to the leading goal scorer each season).

From an Australian perspective, the Capitals also boasted the title of drafting and playing the first Australian in the NHL. Nathan Walker had a rollercoaster season since making his debut against the Montreal Canadiens in October last year.

But after being brought back up to the Capitals roster after some time with American Hockey League affiliate, the Hershey Bears, Walker was there and kitted up when the Capitals took the Cup, becoming the first Australian to lift hockey’s holy grail.

A season of ups and downs for the Capitals saw them find their form towards the business end of the season, ending up on top of the Metropolitan Division for the third season in a row wth forty-nine wins from eighty-two games. No stranger to the action of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Capitals set themselves in order to face their demons and the bitter disappointment of campaigns that had come before.

Their first round match up against the Columbus Blue Jackets began with a shaky start, dropping the first two games to the Blue Jackets. It didn’t take long to find their groove however with a Game Three victory sparking a Caps comeback, as the boys in red, white and blue went on to win the next four straight, winning the series four-two.

The second round proved more a mental barrier than anything with the Caps facing off once again (for the third straight season) in Round Two against bitter division rivals and 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cup Champions the Pittsburgh Penguins, led by superstar captain Sidney Crosby.

The Penguins, responsible for knocking the Capitals out of the playoffs for two seasons straight, came out firing, taking a tight Game 1 before the Capitals responded with two straight victories in Games Two and Three.

stretch, drink Gatorade, get physio, put on my gear the same way and I’m ready to go” he said.

It is no secret that Di Salvo loves what he does and is loving every minute of being able to provide some thrilling hockey action for fans here in Perth. “You’ve got to have fun, and the best way to have fun playing hockey is winning and playing every game like it's your last” he said.

Peter Di Salvo plays with the Perth Thunder in the Australian Ice Hockey League and home games are played at Perth Ice Arena, 708 Marshall Rd, Malaga.

More information can be found at http://thunder.theaihl. com/

The series was levelled once again as the Penguins refused to lie down, claiming a Game Four win. Washington’s offence soon lit up and the demons were exorcised as Captain Alex Ovechkin led the Caps to victory in Games 5\Five and Six, claiming another four-two series victory and setting up a date with the in-form Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final.

Australian Nathan Walker also made his NHL playoff debut in Game 6 against the Penguins, recording an assist on a vital goal for the Caps.

The two most exciting words came into play in the Eastern Conference Final. Game Seven. The Capitals’ series with the Lightning was one for the ages with the Caps and the Bolts trading pairs of wins to open the series. Three straight victories from the Lightning in Games 3, 4 and 5 put the Capitals on the ropes in Game 6 with the Lightning looking to close it out.

However, Washington hung tough, with goalie Braden Holtby recording a 3-0 shutout in Game 6 before backing it up with a 4-0 shutout display in Game 7, sending the Capitals to only their second Stanley Cup Final appearace (the first of which came in 1998).

On the other side of the draw in the Western Conference, history of a different kind was being made as the Vegas Golden Knights, in only their inaugural season, were crowed Western Conference Final and booked a date with the Capitals in a hotly anticipated Stanley Cup Final.

A Golden Knights victory in Game One gave the Las Vegas fans a sniff that the Cinderella inaugural season could well be capped by a Stanley Cup Championship. However, the Capitals took their first win of the final in Game Two.

Celebrated Vegas goaltended Marc-Andre Fleury looked rattled as the Capitals offence exploded and goalie Braden Holtby made one of the saves of his career to put the Capitals on the verge of history. It was all over by Game Five as the Capitals clinched the 2018 Stanley Cup with a convincing four-one series win. The unbridled joy on the face of Alex Ovechkin, coach Barry Trotz and the rest of the Capitals roster (including Aussie Nathan Walker) was evident as the boys from D.C raised the cup for the first time in franchise history.

What followed was a non stop party for the team and the city. The victory was so much more than a mere championship.

These are some thoughts from local fans who have been through thick and thin right alongside the team.

- “After decades of loss and heartbreak it just seems so surreal right now” (Gene Thayer, Virginia)

- “My father took me to my first Caps game in 1974. We have waited 15,941 days for this. I am so happy that they won the cup while he is still around” (Keith Cross, Washington DC)

- “A Stanley Cup championship for the Capitals is a win for all Americans” (Kelly, DC Hockey Mum and Fan over three decades and two centuries)

- “For Washington DC, this win highlights our great city, fans and team” (Sean Wieland, Washington DC)

With the NHL Pre Season only several months away, the Capitals are on top of the hockey world and will enjoy their summer with sport’s most accessible trophy. Until October when Washington will look to go back to back and have thirty other teams in hot pursuit as NHL 2018-19 kicks off!

Is it October yet??

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TV WITH CHRIS TV REVIEWS: JUNE 2018

Chris McRae

CHAMPIONS Starring: Iain Anders Holm, Andy Favreau, JJ Totah, Mouzam Makkar, Mindy Kaling Network: Netflix

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crolling through Netflix, I happened on this gem of a comedy from the creators of the US version of The Office and one of the latest in a growing list of Netflix ‘Original Series’.

The offbeat comedy in Champions is perfectly placed as it follows brothers Vince (Anders Holm) and Matthew (Andy Favreau) who live a simple life which revolves around chasing women and working out at Vince’s gym ‘Champions of Brooklyn’, right in the heart of New York City.

Michael’s mother Priya.

The laughs do not always come thick and fast in Champions as you would expect from a sitcom but the humour is very well placed and never forced.

A good watch if you are after a lighthearted relatable comedy.

Champions Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix THE WORST WITCH Starring: Bella Ramsey, Claire Higgins, Wendy Craig, Nicholas Jones, Amanda Holden, Mina Anwar Network: Netflix ased on the beloved children’s book series and television series of the same name, the Worst Witch received a vibrant and successful reboot in 2017 which saw Game of Thrones star Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont) take on the role of Mildred Hubble, the worst

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Their harmonious existence is disrupted by the sudden arrival of Michael (JJ Totah), Vince’s teenage son and the result of a high school fling. With Vince and Matthew striving for the best bodies and egos to boot, Michael throws a spanner in the works as he strives to be the next Broadway star, introducing the brothers to the worlds of showtunes, fashion and the Kardashians.

Firstly, the series has opened to mediocre reviews which are not entirely deserved. The premise of a generation and culture gap is not a new one when it comes to pop culture portrayals.

However, the offbeat and often charming relationship between Vince and Michael has a lot of heart. The script is very witty with some excellent one liners, mainly courtesy of Totah’s Michael who has plenty of sass and a showtune repertoire to rival a Broadway veteran.

Holm and Favreau are believable as the likeable brothers Vince and Matthew and the show possesses a solid support cast which include Mouzam Makkar as Britney, Vince’s onagain, off-again girlfriend and Mindy Kaling (also one of the co-writers) as 48

ART AND ARTISTS JULY AT MAC JESS BOYCE

WORKSHOP

OIL PAINTING FUNDAMENTALS WITH MARIE HAASS Fridays 20, 27 July, 3 & 10 August from 10:00am - 1:00pm

Acquire the practical methods and techniques used to create successful oil paintings in this four week series with artist Marie Haass.

Marie’s dynamic teaching style will inspire and inform, imparting the skills needed to handle oil paint confidently and expressively.

Exploring various subject matter weekly such as still life, landscape and abstract painting, the workshop is a fantastic introduction to the fundamentals of both the technique and theory involved in oil painting.

Marie Haass is a French/Australian visual artist. She studied and worked in Paris and Berlin before moving to Perth with her family. Her work is represented in major collections.

She has held several lecturing positions in Visual Arts at Curtin University, Edith Cowan University and Central Tafe.

Suitable for participants fifteen and over.

Materials required:

Oil Paints

• Cadmium yellow hue • Cadmium red hue

• Alizarin crimson • Ultramarine

• Titanium white • Ivory black

• Yellow ochre • Burnt sienna

• Burnt umber

Wooden palette witch at Cackle’s Academy. With all the magic of the original maintained and familiar characters making a return, Season 1 was charming, inventive and magical.

Now comes Season 2 which sees Mildred return to Cackles Academy for her second year. Friendships are strengthened and rivalries re-forged. It doesn’t take long before Mildred finds herself in the thick of the action and in trouble once again when a mishap causes the collapse of half the school.

As the school looks to rebuild, the discovery and disappearance of the school’s foundation stone causes plenty of mystery and chaos. With new students, clones gone wrong, bats galore, potion mishaps and plenty of magic, it is set to be another eventful year at Cackles.

Season 2 ramps up the action and magic, being able to do what the original series couldn’t in terms of special effects and magical trickery. The aesthetics of the show are perfect with the ‘Hogwarts-esque’ castle proving the perfect backdrop to the spellbinding storylines.

The young cast do well to bring a warmth and charm to their characters with Ramsay particularly good and easy to empathise with and Jenny Richardson playing a particularly snide villain in Ethel Hallow.

The adult cast are just as strong with Clare Higgins portraying an effective, if sometimes clueless Miss Cackle and Kate Duchene bringing an excellent chill to her portrayal of Miss Hardboom.

Essentially Harry Potter for a new generation, Season 2 of The Worst Witch is perfectly placed for young audiences and the young at heart like myself who grew up with the original series.

Magical mayhem and very entertaining.

Season 2 of The Worst Witch streams on Netflix in July 2018.

Brushes

• 3 Filbert bristle brushes, size 6,4,2

• 3 bristle round brushes, size 6,4,2

• 2 sable round brushes (imitation sable), size 2,1

• 1 sable Filbert brush , size 2

Comfortable, messy clothes, paper towels, rags, sketch book Cost: $180 ($162 MAC Members) Midland Junction Arts Centre 276 Great Eastern Hwy, Corner of Cale St, Midland.

VISIBLE MENDING WITH TOM OF HOLLAND Thursday, August 9 from 10:00am to 5:00pm

Join internationally renowned artist Tom of Holland (Tom van Deijnen) in a workshop designed to rethink our attitudes towards clothing.

Learn to repair clothes using traditional mending techniques, making a beautiful feature of the repair. Tom of Holland provides mending inspiration so you can wear your artistic repair work as a badge of honour. This is a unique opportunity to learn from a visiting specialist maker and be part of the rise of the Mending Movement.

Bring along one or two garments in need of repair and variety of fabrics for patching.

Suitable for participants sixteen years and over.

Materials and light lunch supplied Cost: $198 ($178.20 MAC Members) Midland Junction Arts Centre 276 Great Eastern Hwy, Corner of Cale St, Midland.

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COMMUNITY THEATRE sound designer Daniel Toomath and operator Justin Camilleri.

THEATRE WITH GORDON

The local peasants are gathered on the village green, waiting for a visit from the Story Teller (Patrick McLanaghan). Oakley (Adam Lebransky) sits on the grass chewing his toenails, while Willard (Blake Hughes) and Maxwell (Doryan Kurtovic) talk about the girls’ physical attributes. The Story Teller’s stories do not appeal to the youngster and so he asks for suggestion of the themes they enjoy.

King Percival (Regan Agostini) wants another child and heir from Queen Boadicea (Tori Brown), but the uncaring midwife (Vee McGuire) only likes boy babies. However, the King’s right-hand man, Brown Nose (Jane Triffit) has a suggestion for the perfect baby.

When the young and flighty Prince Ryland (Blake Hughes) falls for Kylie (Alex White) they are guarded by the Men-at-arms (Tim Riessen, Chris Kennedy).

There are visits from various fairy tale characters such as Snow White (Tania Morrow).

Will the tyrannical king survive? Will everyone still live happily ever after?

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.

- Helen K eller

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A FAIRY TALE OF SORTS

Fairy Tale of Sorts is the latest ‘M-rated’ madcap offering for big kids, from Perth playwright John Grimshaw, who was named best new writer at the 2009 and 2010 Dramafests.

Over the last two decades, Johnny Grim staged more than a dozen productions with his own company ‘A Lad in Sane’. This prolific writer has several plays listed with South Australia’s

Limelight’s gifted wardrobe lady, Shelley McGinn, has come up with another array of perfect costumes.

Now the sad news. Never direct if you are the writer, especially if you are a nice person. When selecting a cast it is always good to see new talent getting a break, but be aware that each new actor needs personal training and mentoring.

Unfortunately Johnny Grim’s generosity has let him down again. Never give a part to a friend as a favour or to some untalented person just because you would like to see them get on in the theatre world.

One poor cast member, especially in a rip roaring comedy – and this script was very funny, a bit unsubtly crude, but funny – and the whole cast can be dragged down. The actors MUST know their lines (this show was under rehearsed), have good comedy delivery, learn not talk to the rear wall, have powerful projection with a good speaking pace, and if the character is speaking with an accent then the performer should speak even slower. A few of the actors were barely at talking volume and their mumblings hard to hear past the second row.

There were even a few pauses as the actors decided who had the next line.

This was opening night and of course there were the usual nerves, but a lot of work was still required.

The good news is, that had the script been delivered properly, it was very funny. There were some excellent performers, especially Regan Astini whose presence lifted the scenes. The actresses performed strongly, with good diction, enthusiasm and good stage skills.

The audience loved the references to well-known songs and seemed to quite enjoy the production. Next time, perhaps, the playwright should choose an actor whom he admires to direct the play.

Sorry Johnny, disappointing.

Moore Books and Lazy Bee Scripts in England.

This two hour wacky comedy, which is a collection of wellknown fairy tales that have been described as ‘Disney meets Monty Python’, can be seen at the Limelight Theatre on Civic Drive, Wanneroo.

Scene: 1300 AD in an English village. Scenic artist Carol Keppler.

Set: on each side of the proscenium arch is a castle tower. The towers were built by Dave Browning, The Tuesday Task Force, Wally Fry, Malcolm Hiscock and Patrick McLanaghan.

Other than a few props including garden benches and a Royal Throne, the setting was created by well-chosen photos projected onto the stage backcloth.

The scene changes were slowly carried out with an open curtain; with one stagehand having to move everything. Just get the cast members to pick up a piece of furniture as they leave the dimmed stage.

The creative lighting design and operation was by reliable Wally Fry. The sound effects were crisp and clear, thanks to 50

~oOo~

‘pimply and smells of compost’. Alais, however, is not as mild as she appears; she is quite ruthless and in love with Henry for a reason.

Eleanor and Henry have three ‘full’ sons between them; Richard, Geoffrey, and John. Eleanor despises her children, and yet is still protective of them. The icy and calculating, suave Geoffrey (Gavin Crane), who owns and rules Brittany in North West France, manipulates his youngest brother, John. The handsome, war-mongering gay, is Richard the Lionheart (Rhett Clarke), the eldest son who is in love with Philip II Augustus Capet (Thomas McCracken), who has been King of France since he was fiteen.

Philip and his half-sister is Alais, want England in their French empire.

Eleanor has had a few other ‘keep it in the family’ partners.

With everyone trying to manipulate Henry for their own benefit, who will actually win the King’s crown?

THE LION IN WINTER

The Lion in Winter was an Oscar winning play from Chicagoborn playwright, James Adolf Goldman. The story is based on real historical characters, although the dialogue and events are fictional. James’ brother William was also a screenwriter, and he won two Oscars.

This two and a half hour, commanding production by the Darlington Theatre Players can be seen at the Marloo Theatre just off Greenmount Hill near Mundaring. Performances are on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7.30, until Saturday the 14th July. The Sunday matinées are on 1st and 8th July at 2.00 pm. Tickets are at sensible prices.

Sets: Chinon Castle’s reception hall, Eleanor’s bed chamber, Philip’s chamber, Henry’s chamber and the wine cellar. These four major sets were designed by George Boyd, Brendan Tobin and Graeme Dick.

This team never settles for ‘basic’; the walls looked like genuine limestone blocks, with an arched doorway and rounded recesses in the walls. The doorsteps are dark grey slate. Set Construction was by the designers, and Michael Hart, Michael Vincent, Peter White, Sam White, Adrian Ashman and Owen Davis.

In Philip’s chamber is a curtained, rude teak, four-poster bed.

In Alais’ room, is a narrow, single oak bed, with an impressive headboard. The quality furniture and wrought iron properties were thanks to George Boyd and Graeme Dick.

Michael Hart’s lighting design included night scenes and the flickering glow of a large fire.

The sound was designed by Mike Smale, who also operated the lighting and sound.

Stage Manager Graeme Dick and his assistant, Christine Offlinger swiftly carried out the well-planned scene changes, dressed as medieval servants. For the larger scene changes, the cast helped.

The scene: Christmas Eve 1183 at the French Royal Fortress, Chateau Chinon, situated between Poitiers and Le Mans in North West France.

King Henry II (Tim Fraser) – thanks to 1066 and the Battle of Hastings – is now King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy, and now, by marrying Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (Siobhan Vincent) is King of Aquitaine – the whole area in the West of France, from the English Channel to the Spanish border.

Being the Count of Anjou, Henry is staying at his castle in Chinon for Christmas. The King has become estranged from his tough, manipulating wife – a beautiful, French cougar, 10 years older than her English husband – who has been a queen for nearly 46 years. Feeling threatened by this controlling woman, Henry has had her imprisoned for the past ten years, but has kindly let her out – temporarily – for a Christmas break. The two get huge pleasure provoking each other.

Whilst Eleanor has been in prison, Henry has taken a mistress, his innocent ‘niece’ Alais Capet (Rhiannon Cary) who is loved by the sixteen year old, immature, wimpish, spoiled, hot tempered, morose and sullen Prince John (Jonathan Hoey).

John is the youngest, but favourite son of Henry and Eleanor. He is

Marjorie DeCaux’s superb medieval costumes comprised a large range of gowns, with various surcoats and overdresses, all of the highest standard. Henry had a rustic outfit, but Richard had an impressive Crusader’s outfit. Philip was most regal.

Many congratulation to Marjorie, Lynda Stubbs, Shelly Miller, Yvonne Miller and Sharon Zuiddam for their excellent thread work.

Director Lynne Devenish, as always, has obviously explained to the cast the story behind the story, along with the intricate historical connections and relationships. This knowledge then allowed the cast to put all of their efforts into delivering the script with confidence. At times the dialogue became quite heated, but the enunciation was still clear. The pace was perfect throughout.

Henry had to show his determination and strength, with power and authority, yet hinting at how aware and susceptible he was to attack. Eleanor, the old viper, could switch between a simpering weak woman and her real character of being a fiery manipulator. The exchanges between Henry and Eleanor were special pieces of theatre – engrossing and at times leaving the audience breathless.

What a magnificent show, packed with first class drama, comedy and action. The two leads are amazing and outstanding, and they were backed by a very strong cast. A difficult show to stage, but handled perfectly by Lynne Devenish. Give the cast a standing ovation at the end – they deserve it!

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FINANCE I WISH MY HUBAND NEVER RETIRED ADAM CAREY

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his is a true story. Only the personal details have been redacted for privacy reasons.

Jack and Diane have been married for forty-three years. Jack is seventy-one and Diane sixty-eight. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

Diane works four days a week in a local business – just because she enjoys the patter.

Her wage is a bit of pocket money. Her three days off are filled with grandchildren, lunches, pilates, plus the usual home maintenance. Diane is the sort of lady who is either doing something or thinking of what she’ll be doing next.

Jack retired about six years ago to get a hip replacement and according to Diane, it was the biggest mistake of his life.

Before he retired, Jack was the manager of a hardware store for thirty-six years. He was a ‘chippy’ by trade, which made him a hand-in-glove-fit for the job.

But more importantly, the shop was his ‘network’.

He knew exactly what the older builders wanted and what the younger builders needed, and they loved him for it. However, Jack severely underestimated one thing; his job fed his soul - it gave him meaning and purpose.

His soul was a shadow of its former self.

Slowly, his mental state declined and his desire to do anything began to fall away as well. As did the intimacy between he and Diane.

The only thing he wanted to do was hang around the house and give Diane a chronic case of the ‘you-know-whats’. Her space was being invaded and not surprisingly, she couldn’t wait to get to work each day.

So, what happened to Jack?

Put simply, within the space of two years… Jack went from being a steering wheel to a spare tyre.

He now has diabetes, depression, and a marriage that is growing further and further apart. She has an aching heart.

She has her week planned with work, pilates, friends, etc. and he has nothing.

I often wonder how many of those builders would love to hear his voice again or get an opinion, even for just one day a week. Or what if he rocked up to a building site one lunch to say ‘hi’?

And then there are the knock-on effects. His situation has also created tremendous concern for their children. The kids are worried about Diane and angry with Jack.

“I’ve done my bit” becomes a very selfish way of being. It starts as a holiday and slowly becomes a new home, a habit.

I’VE DONE MY BIT

After he got fitted out with a new hip, Jack took six months off to get back on his feet again. Sadly, to help justify doing nothing, he joined the most dangerous club of all for retired men. The, ‘I’ve done my bit’ club. This club is nasty, it ruins lives as well as marriages. It’s like an invisible wrecking ball.

Let’s look at what happened to Jack.

Jack did nothing for the first six months of retirement because he had a ‘good excuse’. Very soon, that six-month ‘holiday’ became a new home, a habit, and Jack stayed there, eventually doing less and less every week.

He then started getting up late, spending more time in his PJ’s, and not having anything planned for the day. He moved about less, and slowly filled his time with more eating, TV and meaningless conversation.

THE RETIREMENT TEST

Some blokes are not going to like this test, but right now I’m thinking of the “Diane’s” of this world.

There are two things I think ALL blokes should do before they retire: 1. Old blokes lunch – they should do at least three different lunches with blokes who have already retired just to get an idea of how boring some of their lives are.

(I warned you!)

Continued on page 60 ...

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BUSINESS - NETWORKING GET YOUR NET WORKING SHARRON ATTWOOD

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ook at who surrounds you on your business journey. They say your vibe attracts your tribe – but who is in your inner circle and why are they there?

Jim Rohn is famously quoted as saying ‘You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with’’.

However, I for one am not the biggest fan of this quote as I see people taking it at face value – to be rich you must surround yourself with rich people. To be successful you must be surrounded by successful people.

Others though, myself included, take this quote as a call to look at who is around us and to evaluate what it is they bring to our journey. How do they contribute to our growth and ultimately to our ability to reach our full potential?

Their contribution may be that they allow you to participate in their journey.

It may not serve you to be surrounded by others on the exact same path as you – but rather to have a tribe of people who compliment areas where growth, challenge and success are found. In turn, you form part of their tribe at some level.

Put more simply – a mentor of mine asks “Who’s on your

POETRY RELATIVE TO WHAT? TARJA HETTONNEN

hey say its all relative Relative to what?

We should prioritize (So the order of importance is seen) The importance of order Be practical Logical Responsible Where does that leave living?

Touch, sound, sight, smell, taste Everything is now Fast Consume Take it away Slow down, breathe, look around The seconds are ticking away When was the last time you played?

Touched a loved one Heard a motorbike frog Saw a child innocently play in the park Smelt a truly fragrant red rose Tasted home made strawberry jam Lived Loved It all counts, all of it Do it now.

bus” and this I like. It puts me in the driver seat and I realise people will come and go – on and off the bus – as I swerve and sway along my path.

So, what of the five people – they can come and go – as they need me and I need them. You may also feel the bus is a bit crowded at times (some paying their way and some freeloading!)

– but those five will be there.

Looking back, I can see who they are – the people that made a difference. I probably didn’t realise it at the time – but I can now.

Monday’s expert I may be – but going forward I take this understanding with me, and can share it with you now. At times things are a blur – you just grab on to anyone who offers to drag you out of a hole – not pausing to acknowledge how they have added to your journey.

In turn you have also added to theirs. Was it a resourceful hook up? Meaning was it healthy – were they enablers or perhaps even out to restrict you? We don’t always stop to analyse it – but you will get that gut feeling when something is just not right.

When starting out in business – you feel as if you have ‘hit the scene’ when you venture out to build networks. Some people I now know are renowned for clambering all over the newbies.

Looking to build their reputation on a base of contacts that don’t yet know them well enough to run away!

You will meet those that seems to know everyone – be everywhere – and have an opinion on everything! Stay alert – not alarmed – but take their enthusiastic welcome with your head and not into your heart so quickly.

You need to know your own path lest you be led by others keen to have you on theirs.

Now I am not suggesting you doubt everyone – just be sure enough in your own sense of self that you don’t get caught in the wrong crowd.

Remember your Mum’s advice! Some are sent to test us – or to hold up a mirror to the issues we have with ourselves.

I am beyond fortunate to now be surrounded by several great groups of friends – colleagues and assorted randoms that I know I could not do without. At times, it is obvious what their contribution is – they test me, educate me, allow me to educate them – they coach and they just let me be. Some are loud and obvious – others barely have to whisper to make an enormous impact on me.

There’s a sense of flow to my five – as they hop on and off the bus – but I’m driving and I know where I am going – I just can’t get there on my own. Tickets please!

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SWAN VALLEY AND REGIONAL NETWORK UNRESTRICTED BURNING PERIOD

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Check with your Local Government for information on when you can burn in your area. The best time to burn in the South West is generally between late June and early September as the weather conditions and the moisture in the vegetation will cause the fire to burn cooler and for a shorter period of time. Large tree limbs, stumps and logs are unlikely to catch fire during this time.

Based on advice from your Local Government and weather information from the Bureau of Meteorology website (www.bom.gov.au), determine a possible date for your burn.

Contact your neighbours at least four days prior to burning to let them know your plan. You may be able to help each other by burning together.

he City of Swan is now in the unrestricted burning period which means that you can burn without a permit. The unrestricted period runs from June 15 until September 30. These dates may be amended due to seasonal conditions.

Please note, due to the impact of smoke, burning is still prohibited on land under 2000 m2.

REDUCING FUEL

Reducing vegetation (fuel) around your property may help protect your home from bushfire this summer. The intensity (heat) and spread of a bushfire is determined by the amount of fuel available to burn. If you reduce the amount of fuel around your property, a bushfire will burn more slowly and will generate less heat. This will reduce the risk to your home and assist firefighters in extinguishing a fire.

There are a number of ways you can reduce fuel levels:

• Hand clearing (raking and removing leaf litter).

• Slashing (using machinery to remove vegetation).

• Chemicals (using herbicides to remove vegetation) or

• Burning - Fire is a natural part of the Australian environment and therefore burning is a popular and efficient method of reducing fuel.

The winter months are the perfect time for you to use fire to reduce fuel on your property. The weather conditions in winter will assist you in safely and effectively conducting your burn. If you are planning to burn, the following steps will assist you in preparing and conducting your burn.

ON THE DAY OF THE BURN • Check the wind forecast. The wind needs to be between 12 and 19 kilometers per hour. At this speed leaves and twigs will be in constant motion. If there is too little wind, the fire may not burn or smoke may linger. If there is too much wind it may be difficult to control the fire.

• Check the wind direction. This will assist you to predict which direction the fire will burn, and where the smoke will blow.

• Look at the sky and make sure it is clear and not hazy.

This is to make sure smoke does not become a problem. Do not burn if the Bureau of Meteorology has issued a haze alert for either the day of the burn or the next day.

1. Plan a five to ten year rotation for your winter burning

Each year burn up to 1/5 of the available area by dividing the bushland on your property into at least five areas.

Use existing breaks such as paths, driveway, cleared areas, creeks, or rock outcrops to assist you in dividing your property.

When using fire on your property, it is important to establish and maintain a combination of burnt and unburnt areas. Burning one small area at a time will ensure that the burns are of a manageable size and intensity, and will reduce the impact on the environment.

• Check that it has been between 5 and 10 days since the last time it rained.

UNDERTAKING THE BURN

• Wear appropriate protective clothing. This includes cotton or wool long sleeve shirt, trousers and socks, leather or cotton gloves and wide brimmed hat, eye protection and boots.

•

2. Assess the fuel load and determine which area to burn

The area with the highest amount of fuel should be burnt in the first year. Generally, you should aim to reduce the fuel around your property to less than eight tonnes per hectare.

Light the fire with a single ignition point after 3:00pm.

• The ignition point should be within 5 metres from a firebreak with the wind blowing towards the firebreak.

• If the fire does not look like it will burn the entire area, you may wish to ignite another point 15 – 20 metres away from the first one (within 5 metres downwind of a firebreak).

3. Sketch the burn site

Neatly sketch the area you have decided to burn.

Include buildings, driveways, fences, large trees and water sources. Include firebreaks that need to be constructed.

Firebreaks are areas of bare earth or non combustible material (e.g. a raked path, a road or driveway) that separate the burn area from buildings, sheds, fences, and unburnt areas.

You will need a firebreak of at least one metre in width around the perimeter of your burn area. You may also decide to construct firebreaks within the burn area around specific plants or assets that you wish to protect from fire (e.g. a rare orchid, fibrous barked trees, a shed or a fence).

• Have a hose or another source of water on standby in case you need to put the fire out.

• The fire should burn slowly and self extinguish by 6:00– 6:30pm.

• When the flames have gone out, use a metal rake to turn over the smouldering vegetation. This will help to fully extinguish the fire. Water can also be used to put out any smouldering areas.

4. Prepare the area

Using your sketch as a guide, construct the firebreaks using a rake, these should be at least one metre in width. Locate and test water sources to ensure they are adequate. Hoses should be long enough to reach around the perimeter of the burn area. If your hose is not long enough, ensure you have a number of buckets available.

•

Monitor the fire until it is extinguished.

• At the end of the burn there may be some patches of unburnt vegetation and leaf litter on the ground.

The day after the burn check the burn area to make sure the fire has not reignited. There should be no smoke, smoldering vegetation or glowing embers.

5. Determine when to burn 54

A

SWAN VALLEY AND REGIONAL NETWORK PIA’S PLACE

major universal design nature playground - complete with more than 40 play features - will be built at Whiteman Park thanks to a $1.25 million grant from the McGowan Government.

The grant will be provided to the Touched by Olivia Foundation, which will manage the construction of a new play area suitable for children of all abilities including those with all disabilities and mobility challenges.

The project was initiated by Tony and Amy Rudd, who started this project in honour of their late daughter Pia. The Rudds were supported in efforts to raise funds for the project by the Noranda Lions Club and the Touched by Olivia Foundation.

The nature-based playground will feature custom-built play equipment including an elevated lighthouse, polished concrete slides, a basket swing, an wheelchair accessible carousel, a sensory garden and family-friendly shelters.

In addition to the grant, the Western Australian Planning Commission will be building an all-access 'changing places' facility with lifting hoist to ensure the new playground is accessible to people with a range of needs.

The Touched by Olivia Foundation works with government, corporations and communities to create inclusive play spaces for children of all abilities.

Pia's Place will be located near the Mussel Pool East tram stop with car park access and toilet facilities.

Planning Minister Rita Saffioti:

"As the local member for West Swan and mum of three, I have witnessed the joy these types of playgrounds give to local children. Last year, I saw the opening of the Livvi's Place in

REQUEST FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

Photo courtesy of Touched by Olivia

Whiteman Edge, where hundreds of young families are moving each year - this will provide another area for them to enjoy.

"I commend the commitment and dedication of the Rudds and their supporters for bringing their vision to life. Whiteman Park is already a very popular destination for people with disability and Pia's Place will offer another all-access activity for young - and young at heart - visitors to enjoy."

PLACE ACTIVATION

T

bullsbrook Pop Up Play Space JULY 18 – AUGUST 15 BREARLEY PARK, BREARLEY AVENUE, BULLSBROOK For further information on the Pop up Play Space, please contact the City of Swan on 9267 9267 or visit the City’s website at www.swan.wa.gov.au

www.swan.wa.gov.au

55

The City of Swan is bringing pop up play to Brearley Park.

A range of ‘loose parts’ material such as logs, pipes, tyres, timber and shade cloth will be placed for children to play with in diverse, imaginative and creative ways.

How does ‘loose parts’ play benefit children?

Loose parts play invites children to be creative, experiment and most of all have fun.

Unstructured play has been shown to assist child development in a multitude of areas including physical ability, social interaction, creativity and problem solving.

CoS1548

he City of Swan has prepared a Draft Local Planning Strategy which is now available for public comment.

The Draft Local Planning Strategy sets out the vision and long-term planning directions for the City, pursuant to Part 3 of the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Regulations 2015.

The Draft Local Planning Strategy represents the culmination of a number of City of Swan Council approved sub-strategies including its Local Rural Planning Strategy, Urban Housing Strategy, Local Commercial and Activity Centres Strategy, Biodiversity Strategy and Transport Strategy.

Public feedback previously received on the substrategies has been considered via City of Swan Council approval processes and is reflected in the Draft Local Planning Strategy.

As a valued stakeholder in this process, your comment is sought prior to the City finalising the Strategy. A copy of the Draft Local Planning Strategy can be found on the City’s website at: www.swan. wa.gov.au/haveyoursay.

Written comments, including the name and address of your organisation, to be lodged by 4.00pm on Monday, 3 September 2018, should contain the reference Draft Local Planning Strategy Submission and can either be made online, in the online form, found in the website link above, emailed to the City at swan@swan.wa.gov.au or posted to:

The City at City of Swan,

PO Box 196, Midland WA 6936.

Should you have any queries, please contact Tony Naumoski in the City's Strategic Planning team on 9278 9609.

FOOTNOTE PEOPLE IN HISTORY CHARLES HAROLD ST. JOHN HAMILTON

I

f you were asked who was probably the most prolific writer in the English language, depending on your age you might guess Enid Blyton with some 760 books to her name, or you might think Dame Barbara Cartland with her seven hundred and twenty-two books.

If mystery thrillers are your bent, you would consider John Creasy, who wrote more than 600 books under twenty-seven different aliases.

If you’re American you might think of L Ron Hubbard, who as well as founding The Church of Scientology wrote over a thousand novels on science fiction, adventure, westerns, mystery and religion. Or you if you’re a fan of Nancy Drew you may consider ‘Carolyn Keene’ one of Edward Stratemayer’s many pen names under which he wrote the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series as well as the Bobbsey Twins series - but he was more of a syndicate of several writers.

The name that might not leap to your lips is Charles Harold St John Hamilton, even if you were given the hint ‘Frank Richards’.

Hamilton was born on the 8th August 1876 in Ealing, London, one of eight children, the son of John Hamilton, a master carpenter. He was privately educated and intended for an academic career, studying classical Greek, Latin and modern languages.

His father died in 1884 and at the early age of twenty he embarked on a career of full time fiction writer, his first story being accepted and never looking back.

It was the time of the magazine and short stories were in great demand, often with long runs of specific characters (think Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, Father Brown).

Hamilton began to write, allocating a pen name to each set of characters and theme - Ralph Redway for The Rio Kid stories, Martin Clifford for stories about the fictional Public School ‘St Jim’s’. Few have lasted with the exception of the ‘Frank Richards’ stories about Greyfriars school and the chaps - Bob Cherry, Harry Wharton, Horace Coker, George Bulstrode and ‘The Owl of the Remove’, ‘The fattest schoolboy in the world’ William George (Billy) Bunter.

The stories and Hamilton’s easy, well-written style proved immensely

popular and Hamilton continued to write for the rest of his life - he died, aged eighty-five, in 1961, having lived from the height of Queen Empress Victoria’s reign until the modern age, writing television scripts for the BBC in the 1950s.

It is estimated that he tapped out on typewriters over a hundred million words in his lifetime.

Taking a book as roughly 80,000 words that’s the equivalent of well over twelve hundred books.

The total is only an estimate because he wrote under many pseudonyms (25 at least) and not all may have been identified.

He wrote in a lightly ironical, gently humerous style very reminiscent of PG Wodehouse (who also wrote a long series of Public School stories early in his career).

Although engaged twice, he never married and lived a comfortable bachelor life indulging himself with chess, music, pipesmoking and gambling at Monte Carlo when not writing.

“Bunter was blinking now behind his big spectacles, and his spectacles were damp as he blinked.

In Bunter's fat circumference, under his many layers of fat, there was a heart, and in Bunter's heart at the present moment there was a horrible quake. His mother was ill!

Bunter, for once, was thinking of someone other than himself. He was thinking of his mother. The mater was ill, and she wanted him! The poor old mater!”

The Magnet (1931) 56

THE IDLER The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Mind

PLOTS AND MORE URBANE GUERILLIA

F

rom time to time I flip through the ‘womens’ magazines that my wife buys – Womens’ Day; Womens’ Weekly and, for all I know, Womens’ Monthly.

I tell her it’s for ‘research’ – but the truth is I quite like magazines. I may not care too much about who Ms Kardashian is married to this month or what Lady Gaga wore to the Cannes Film Festival, but what I do find morbidly fascinating is the way in which the editorial staff direct the attention of the reader.

In particular it seems that the late Princess of Wales has all the attraction dead that she held in life and even the most tenuous link is enough to create a screaming headline ‘Woman Who Once Talked to Diana Found Dead’ – leads one to an article about an eighty-nine year old pensioner who has died of natural causes.

My absolute favourite came as recently as this month, when blazing banner headines proclaimed ‘Diana’s Death – Conspiracy Revealed’. A sucker for conspiracy theories, which give me immense amusement, I bought the magazine and turned eagerly to the article.

With a perfectly straight face the author assured us, the readers, that ‘Princess Diana’, as they insist on calling her was killed, probably by the British Secret Service, although they were too coy to actually come out and say so, because …. wait for it. Wait for it … she was in a plot to place Prince William on the throne of England.

Now, if I were an expert on the British Monarchy’s genealogy, I would say this was a plot that had every chance of

success seeing that he is the eldest son of the Heir Apparent – Charles, Prince of Wales.

Now, you are probably asking yourselves, why would she take part is such a hare-brained scheme.

Simple. Diana is directly descended from Mary Magdelene through the Merovingian Kings and by supporting William onto the throne she would be establishing a Stuart Monarch to stand against the Windsors.

This was confirmed by no less an authority than the Stuart Pretender – Prince Michael Stewart of Albany, whose claim can charitably be described as tenuous at best.

The man who calls himself ‘HRH Prince Michael James Alexander Stewart, 7th Count of Albany’ as well, on occasion ‘Comte de Blois, Duc d’Aquitaine and Baron Lafosse de Chatry’ was born plain Michel Roger Lafosse in 1958 at Brussels in Belgium. When he was twenty-one he developed his new identity, creating the ‘documents’ to ‘prove’ his descent from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s mythical second marriage to someone unknown to history.

Lafosse’s best-selling book The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland outlines his claims in what has been charitably described as ‘a clash between conventional academic history and the romantic version of history spread by amateurs and conspiracy theorists.’

Nevertheless Lafosse claims to be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ through his wife, Mary Magdelane and the Merovingian kings.

And if you’ll believe that, I have a large bridge in Sydney which I think you might like to purchase.

Overlooking the fact that by the time William becomes King all the Windsors (his grandmother, the last of the House of Windsor, Charles will be the first of the House of Mountbatten-Windsor) will be dead, this silliness as obviously intended to be taken seriously and is a perfect example of people who really ought to know better feeding pap to the unsuspecting public.

I am a supporter of the concept of a constitutional monarchy, believing it to be the best possible combination of an apolitical head of state and a democracy.

This does not mean that I like, admire or venerate any particular member of the Royal Family, although I have great respect for HM The Queen’s devotion to duty and many long years of service.

There can be few heads of state, for example, that can recall discussing state matters with Sir Winston Churchill or have lived through so many Prime Ministers.

My problem with this nonsense is not that people might believe it but that space is given to this rubbish that would far better be given to any one of the many issues that really matter and it is done knowingly and cynically because it will sell copies.

I don’t know of a time when good journalism was more necessary, and sadly, more lacking.

57

F

SWEET ROSIE’S JOURNEY

oster carers make such a positive contribution to any SAFE animal’s life.

In foster care our animals learn house manners, socialising with humans and other animals and training skills which they can continue to build on as their lives progress.

One and half year old Rosie has been lapping up everything she can learn from her foster family and has been especially fortunate to be taken to regular group training classes.

This beautiful girl is one big lovable bundle of fun. The photos from her special website photo shoot show just how amazingly happy young Rosie is.

Although still a pup she’s a big dog but her new training skills and sweet personality make her easy to handle at home. She has excellent manners, is house trained and isn’t destructive or a digger. She adores people, especially her foster family, and is super happy to meet any new humans that come her way. Like any baby, Rosie has a lot of learning still to do. Because of her size it Photographed by Michelle Morgan, Shutterpaws Photography is easy to forget how young she is and it is important that her new family be keen to work hard on Rosie’s training and lead walking to continue WANTED – FOSTER CARERS moulding her into everything we know she can be.

Becoming a foster carer is a great way to help an animal

Rosie isn’t good around other dogs and therefore can’t in need by opening your home to a cat, rabbit or a dog on a live with other animals or be walked in busy places such as dog temporary basis.

It is a very fulfilling experience to be involved parks. She adores long walks though but her new family will in enabling an animal who had little hope for the future to be need to walk her in quieter spots. Rosie is a big lovable goof ball, placed in a permanent loving home. a friendly and happy girl with lots of energy who is sure to put a

Foster care enables our animals to learn good house smile on your face every single day! manners, interact with other people and other animals and

Contact SAFE Avon Valley on 0409 000 259 to meet Rosie. generally build skills to make their transition into permanent homes a smooth one. And all the while, they feel loved and SAFE. It allows SAFE INC. AT A GLANCE them to relax so we can see their true SAFE is WA’s largest volunteer-based animal rescue and rehoming service using the personalities and make great matches foster care model. Our goal is to save homeless pets from unnecessary euthanasia by for them and their adopters. fostering, desexing and rehoming them.

Your time as a foster carer with us can We are a not for profit organisation administered by a skilled board of directors, range from a short to long-term foster meeting high standards in the charity sector. SAFE Inc. is a proud member of Animal care or even just on one occasion - your Welfare League of Australia. choice.

SAFE began in the Pilbara in 2003 and has grown to a network of 12 branches You will have ongoing support from around the state, with an average of over 300 companion animals in care each month. SAFE whilst you have an animal in your With more than 20,500 cats and dogs desexed and rehomed since our inception, care. Examples of the support we provide we are making a difference! are behavioural advice if needed, supply

Click on the link ~ of food and kitty litter, and payment of Join our team of volunteers: safe.org.au/volunteer/ authorised vet visits. And if a placement Be a financial supporter: safe.org.au/donate/ isn’t working out, we’ll find another Look at our animals available for adoption: safe.org.au foster home for the animal.

Continued on page 52 ...

58

COMMUNITY he Compassionate Friends of Western Australia Tregardless strives to support families who have lost a child, of that child’s age throughout WA.

We are a non-profit, non-government funded charity that provide peer call support, group meetings, a drop in centre, sending out quarterly newsletters, Anniversary Cards, we hold Walk of remembrance and a candlelight service (non-religious) at Christmas.

We are run by volunteers and bereaved parents that are further along in their grief and wish to help others who have suffered this tragedy.

Although everybody’s grief is different it helps to talk to someone who has actually had this tragedy happen to them.

They WON”T say “I know how you feel” as no one can, but they will say “I don’t know exactly what you are feeling but this is how I felt when my child died”.

WALK OF REMEMBRANCE HELD IN MARCH EACH YEAR Events like these above give the bereaved some hope of a life after the death of their child. They connect with others that have been through the same tragic experience.

In doing so its helps them to feel that they are not alone in their grief, that there is a worldwide connection to other suffering the same.

DONATIONS Donations allow us to purchase stamps so we can send our booklets and other information to the newly bereaved, community groups, doctors surgeries and hospital throughout Western Australia.

They help us cover advertising cost in newspapers throughout Western Australia, pay for our office and utilities allowing us to have Peer Support Workers come in and contact to bereaved that wish to have contact.

The Compassionate Friends of WA Inc. receives no Government funding in any way.

We raise funds by holding events, charity drives and donation from our members and outside bodies.

Although this is fantastic, we still struggle with the cost of keeping our doors open so any suggestion on fundraising or donations are gratefully accepted.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED We are always looking for volunteers to help man Sausage Sizzles, Charity Shopping Centre Drives and other events along with peer support volunteers (bereaved parents) for telephone support and group meeting facilitation.

54 Simpson Street, Ardross 6107 6257

Remy - Photograph by Emile Cowell 59

more valuable than they think and lots of us are willing to pay for it.

Hobby 2 days/wk– every man needs a hobby. I think a good hobby should separate him from the usual grind but connect him with something that really invigorates his soul.

And if that means he disappears into his cave for a few hours, two days/wk, he’ll be a better man for it. But hobbies must be consistent. Therefore, what’s fun gets done.

Concluded from page 52 ...

2. One-year break – I think all blokes should have a year off (funded out of super) before they decide to retire permanently or completely. I’m not convinced that going from one extreme to the other is the right approach, and I’m not sure it’s healthy either. When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.

So, what’s the solution?

Walk a country mile 3 days/wk – a good walk with at least one hill in it, three times a week is a must… and every day is even better. I also think a bit of resistance work (e.g. weights) to maintain bone density is equally important. Don’t make it fancy, just get going.

KICK BACK, BUT KICK ON

The reason Jack fell into a hole, which he could easily get out of, is because he didn’t define a new role for himself in retirement. (BTW…hobbies and holidays are not it. Sorry).

At Suncow, we’ve been working on an idea which I think is a must for Baby Boomers as they transition into retirement. The aim is to redefine the role of retirement for blokes and put some genuine purpose back into their lives.

The idea is called, ‘Kick Back, But Kick On.

It’s simple enough to do but just enough for most men to scoff at. It goes like this…

Mind matters – some sort of mental gymnastics each day such as reading, crosswords or sudoku is vital. Even if it’s just for 20 minutes. Make it a habit and keep your marbles active.

THE DIFFERENCE

So, what was the ultimate difference between Jack and Diane? In a sentence, Jack just wanted to kick back, Diane wanted kick on. She filled her days with purpose. He thought he’d already done his bit.

Special thanks to Dr Taylor for being such a good bloke and a great sounding board for this Moowsletter.

Note from Steve Blizard - this article has been reproduced courtesy of Adam C arey of Suncow Wealth, NSW.

Concluded from page 50 ...

Your opinions about the placement process for your foster pet will be strongly considered.

Our animals are all vaccinated, desexed when old enough and microchipped.

Would you like to join us in saving lives by sharing your home with one or more of our foster cats, kittens, rabbits or dogs? Call our Perth branch, SAFE Avon Valley avonvalley@safe. org.au.

Work 1 day/wk – I think every retired bloke should give his back to something at least one day a week. It’s not about the money, it’s about reconnecting with the world in a purposeful way. It also makes you appreciate your days off as well.

Not only that, every bloke I know has a great knowledge base they can offer others in some small (or large) way. It’s much

Concluded from page 14 ...

We have an opportunity to end live export cruelty and also to create WA jobs and business opportunities.

POULTRY STANDARDS

People regularly contact me to express their concerns about poultry welfare.

They hold the view that chickens should be able to practice natural behaviours and overwhelmingly support the phase-out of battery cages.

I prepared a submission to the Animal Welfare Task Group on the draft Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry, highlighting these concerns. Over 165,000 other submissions were also lodged.

Minister MacTiernan is aware of the clear community support for better conditions for egg-laying chickens and has publicly proposed a phase-out of conventional battery cages in WA.

We have also been working with representatives from the poultry industry and animal welfare groups to ensure more humane conditions for poultry in WA.

PROTECTING THE WESTERN SWAMP TORTOISE

I recently joined community volunteers, the Friends of Western Swamp Tortoise, WWF-Australia and the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions - Parks and Wildlife staff, at a recent (wild, wet and windy!) planting day at the Ellen Brook Nature Reserve, to rehabilitate the habitat of the critically endangered Western Swamp Tortoise.

The Western Swamp Tortoise received another boost, with a $50,000 grant from the State Natural Resource Management Community Action Grant, to improve fencing and significantly extend the reserve and habitat area.

Only fifty of these critters survive in the wild – and only occur in the Ellen Brook. We are so lucky to have them in our backyard - their habitat must be protected!

I’m always happy to listen to your concerns on animal welfare. Please feel free to contact me at my office.

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