Paula from Tasmania
BY PAULA XIBERRAS
TOM’S ELF-Y VIEW ON LIFE When you talk to Tom Keneally you can’t help but notice the impish charm, maybe not Santa exactly but a mischievous elf and one that isn’t content to sit on the shelf. Tom’s propelled himself off and with that impressive vocabulary and language lilt he’s qualified for a good old rant backed by impeccable research. In his book ‘A Bloody Good Rant’ he tells the reader that he feels extraordinarily privileged to have been born in the 1930’s and grown up in an Australia tempered by the depression and war. Growing up believing in a sense of a fair go, his rants include joyful ones of discovering the joys and challenges of grandparentage and ones of sadness in how the treatment of Indigenous Australians and refugees leaves much to be desired, as well as the need to give more acknowledgement to climate change. Tom reminds us that the indigenous occupation of Australia preceded the European occupation by thousands of years and is two and a half times older than the famous French Lascaux cave painting. On a less serious topic, Tom explores being a grandparent and the turnaround from him telling his 82 | THE IRISH SCENE
teenage daughters he would be happy to welcome their future offspring for 5 minutes at easter and Christmas and hand them the required chocolate treats. Now those 5 minutes have turned into Tom seeing his grandchildren as incipient Noble Prize winners misunderstood by their teachers and predicting that at 22, his grandson will both open the bowling for Australia and restrict himself to making two feature films a year while he finishes his doctorate on astrophysics. Another grandson is doing the groundwork as he studies the complex patterns in fences. Tom says that what the youngsters might give in germs, they make up for in enhancing his cardiovascular and mental health, fitness and flexibility. For example, at Sydney’s Olympic Park in Parramatta the treehouse is half the size of a grown human, making it easy for children to climb but not for grandads with knee problems. ‘A BLOODY GOOD RANT’ BY TOM KENEALLY IS OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY ALLEN AND UNWIN
WATT A TASSIE LEGEND Every year it’s a pleasure to catch up with honorary Tasmanian and prolific author Peter Watt. In his latest book ‘The Colonial’s Son’, his protagonist is Josiah Steel, son to the famous Queen’s colonel Ian Steel, who is the protagonist of Peter’s previous novels. Josiah has said he wishes to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the military. Ian is at first not supportive in this desire, as he wants his son to have a safer occupation and had hoped Josiah would choose a business career. However, Peter himself tells me that only the morning of our interview he attended a dentist appointment where he
