The Last Post Magazine - Edition 34: 2024 Remembrance Day Edition

ART IS LIFE, LIFE IS ART REMEMBRANCE DAY 2024

foreword

Greg Melick

MAJGEN Greg Melick (Retd)

AO RFD SC

RSL Australia

National President

At 11.00 a.m. on 11 November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous war. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month has attained a special significance, and people in Australia and many other countries pause for a minute of silent reflection in memory of those who’ve died while in military service.

This Remembrance Day, please join us in honouring our veterans, whether it be by attending a service, wearing a red poppy, observing a minute’s silence at 11 a.m., or donating to the Poppy Appeal.

The Returned & Services League is committed to leading the nation in commemoration, and Remembrance Day services will take place at cenotaphs, memorials and RSL sub-branches across the country. As a nation, we will remember all those who have served and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.

For more than a century, the RSL has served its members, our nation’s current and former service personnel and their families, commemorated their service, advocated for their rights and benefits, and strongly supported the defence and national security of Australia.

As our veteran community well knows, we are living in challenging times, with our world seemingly becoming more unstable as each day passes.

The ongoing war in Ukraine; the never-ending conflict in the Middle East and the current fighting in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, threatening to spread to Iran and wider; China’s increasing expansion in the South China Sea and ongoing uncertainties regarding Taiwan; and the tension between North and South Korea, are indicative of an increasingly unstable world.

Undoubtedly, this instability impacts Australia and the security of our nation and region. It points to the need for Australia to be vigilant and maintain a close watch and emphasis on its defence and security. These vital issues are regularly discussed by the RSL’s Defence and National Security Committee, and input from members and the wider Defence and veteran community is welcomed and encouraged via our website (rslaustralia.org/dnsc)

There is power in standing together. We stand and commemorate together. We fight for veterans’ rights together. We encourage discussions about National Security. We look out for each other, support each other and have each other’s backs.

The RSL welcomes new members and invites all current and former serving ADF to belong to the RSL.

GREG T ROSS

Diary of an independent publisher

Each edition of The Last Post is a pleasure to produce with the support, as it’s been since 2011, of Kirstie Wyatt from Wyatt Creative.

This edition, the 34th, based on art and its medicinal and empowering qualities for the individual and the communities, was a particular blessing to be part of. With help and support from a wide range of Australians, to give focus to the importance of being able to express yourself. For whilst we are one, we are also completely individual. There will never be another you. Or me.

Inspirational Australian Women Lindy Lee and Kathryn Kat Rae head the interview list, with sporting guru Ken Piesse, speaking about his life and his latest book, Living the Dream. Stephen Dando Collins also, speaking about his latest book, The Buna Shots. We tribute Ray Lawler, renowned Australian playwright of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. We take a look at sporting legend and indigenous artist, Gavin Wanganeen.

In this edition, we also travel to outback Queensland and it’s role in our military history. We also visit the beauty of outback WA as part of our expansive WA feature. We also visit the Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory and learn more about Cyclone Tracy, on the 50th anniversary of the lethal storm.

Monique March and Moira Partridge give us unique insights into Travel.

Mat McLachlan also returns with his regular column about his Battleground Tours.

Welcome to this historic edition Art is Life, Life is Art. Remembrance Day 2024.

#thelastpostmagazine

#diaryofanindependentpublisher

2 RSL Australia Foreword

4 From The Publisher

6 Ken Done

10 Peter Goers - The former ABC announcer and forever arts guru speaks about the importance of art

34 Stephen Dando Collins Interview – The Buna Shots

40 Vale John Bryant

42 Archibald Holman – Tobacco Tin Diary

44 Vella, Eddy, the Ross Brothers, Guts, guts, guts - Vale Adrian Burton

46 Impact 100

92 Warrior Soldier Brigand – Ben Wadham and James Connor TRAVEL

47 The Last Post Visits WA

58 Meandering Mons

60 Rhinos on the Verandah – Stan Wilson

62 Moira Partridge from Uluru

66 Mat McLachlan – Battlefield Tours

68 Annabelle Brayley Interview – Morven Vietnam Nurses Memorial

72 Abigail Farrawell Interview – Charleville’s Secret WWII Base

76 Jared Archibald Interview – MAGNT Cyclone Tracy Exhibition

HEALTH

82 The Uncle Jimmy Thumbs Up Good Tucker Program

94 How wearable tech can help older indigenous people

ARTS

11 Art Gallery NSW – Angus McDonald 2024 Archibald Prize

12 Vale Ray Lawler – We pay tribute to the renowned playwright, author of Summer of The Seventeenth Doll

14 Margaret Anderson Interview – Old Treasury Building

20 John Olsen – Prof Ross Fitzgerald pays tribute to his friend and famous artist

22 Gavin Wanganeen Art

24 Lindy Lee Interview

28 Aboriginal Contemporary Art

30 Kat Rae Interview – 2024 Napier Waller Art Prize Winner

SPORT

96 Ken Piesse Interview – Living The Dream

101 SACA – Playing kit unveiled

102 Victoria Veterans Cricket

Last Post Magazine has been

Art is Life, Life is Art

Art is the most primitive and basic action a human being can take. The act of making a mark on something to either represent their surroundings or the people or animals that make up their life. It’s been happening since man and woman began and it will continue to the end of time, which hopefully will be a long way off.

Art is important to the individual because it’s the simplest way they can explain their role in the world or their most basic feelings. It can represent an event or an experience. It places artistic expression within the community as a whole and can be a way to make sense of the world.

For me, I like to make things that are beautiful and give the viewer pleasure over time, which is how I imagine most people want to fulfil their lives.

My father and my grandfather and my uncles were all in the war. My grandfather at Gallipoli and my Dad as a bomber pilot in the Second World War. My aunts and my Mum all worked in a munitions factory, so everybody did their bit. I can only hope that my grandchildren are spared conflict and the world can become a safer and happier place.

KEN DONE

Photo by James Geer.

Aqua reef, 2023, oil and acrylic on linen, 150 x 120cm

Art is unavoidable. It’s everywhere and everything. If you’ve ever owned or followers a Holden car you’ve appreciated the Holden lion badge and logo designed by sculptor George Rayner Hoff in 1927. It is the best known and most popular work of art in Australia.

If you listen to music, read a book, read this and any other magazines, watch TV, look at a building, tell a story, doodle, stick your kid’s kindergarten painting on the fridge, look at the design and packaging of anything, if you’ve clocked a mural, a painting, been to the theatre, to a concert of any kind, if you’ve admired a crepe paper football banner, been awed by fireworks, enjoyed fashion or been flummoxed by it, if you use furniture, if you’ve whistled, hummed, laughed at a gag or a cartoon, sung in or listened to a choir or speech, been tattooed and worn clothes you are embracing art.

Vastly more Australians attend live performance than all sporting codes put together. Only art truly unites us.

PETER GOERS

Angus McDonald awarded 2024 Archibald Prize ANZ People’s Choice award for portrait of Marcia Langton AO

Seven-time Archibald Prize finalist Angus McDonald has won the 2024 Archibald Prize ANZ People’s Choice award for his portrait of Aboriginal writer and academic Marcia Langton AO. McDonald is only the fifth artist to have won the People’s Choice award more than once since the prize was first awarded in 1988.

Based in Lennox Head, McDonald is a strong advocate for human rights and social justice and has been working with refugees for a very long time, as shown through his painting and filmmaking practice. He flew to Melbourne to meet with Langton at her home for a live sitting where he says he was able to experience her ‘formidable intellect and wisdom’ in person.

McDonald said he was overjoyed and emotional to receive the news that he had won this year’s ANZ People’s Choice award for his portrait, Professor Marcia Langton AO.

‘I am so thrilled that the public voted my work as their favourite. It’s a privilege to be able to share Marcia’s inspirational story with a wider audience through this painting. Receiving the award is a special honour to me, but equally, it’s as much a strong vote of respect and admiration for Marcia Langton and acknowledges the profound part she has played in the struggle for Indigenous recognition and reconciliation in this country for over 50 years,’ said McDonald.

‘Marcia is charismatic, curious, direct and one of our country’s deepest thinkers. She has a well of stories which she relates with razor-sharp detail and humour, and at the same time, she radiates kindness and warmth. I wanted to portray her as both a pivotal figure in Australian history and someone who has lived an incredible life.

‘I placed her just right of centre to suggest a sense of stepping away and handing the baton to a younger group of activists after a lifetime of tireless commitment. She gazes up and to the left to reflect that she has persistently followed her own path. I’m grateful to Marcia for agreeing to sit for me, this time spent together was the highlight of the whole process.’

Born in Sydney in 1961, McDonald is an award-winning artist and documentary filmmaker. He studied at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney and the Florence Academy in Italy. McDonald has been selected as an Archibald finalist in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019, 2020 and 2024. He was the winner of the 2020 Archibald Prize ANZ People’s Choice award for his portrait of Kurdish Iranian writer and filmmaker Behrouz Boochani. This work was recently gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and is the first work of McDonald’s to enter the Art Gallery’s collection.

The artist is also the subject of another portrait in this year’s Archibald Prize by artist and close friend Mostafa Azimitabar. Azimitabar and Farhad Bandesh were the subjects of an award-winning documentary titled Freedom is beautiful, directed and co-produced by McDonald, that premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 2023.

Professor Langton is a leading academic, writer and activist, and is a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara nations of Queensland. A trailblazer in the Aboriginal rights movement in Australia, Langton has dedicated her life to the advancement of Indigenous recognition and social justice. She was a crucial figure in developing the 2023 Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Art Gallery of New South Wales director Michael Brand said McDonald’s work was a clear favourite among visitors to the 2024 Archibald Prize.

‘The ANZ People’s Choice award is a much-loved part of the annual Archibald Prize exhibition and this year we received the third highest number of votes in the history of the award. It is always encouraging to see thousands of visitors engaging with the exhibition and voting for their favourite portrait.

‘Angus’ depiction of Marcia Langton is striking in its detail and perfectly captures her strength and determination, and the weight of responsibility she carries as an advocate for the rights of her community. We congratulate Angus on winning, for a second time, the ANZ People’s Choice award, and for his compelling portrayal of one of Australia’s most prominent Indigenous leaders.’

Archibald Prize 2024 ANZ People’s Choice award winner, Angus McDonald Professor Marcia Langton AO, oil on canvas, 154.5 x 271.5 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter.

Vale

Ray Lawler

Ray Lawler, author of the legendary Australian drama Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, has died in Melbourne at the age of 103. His family announced that Lawler died peacefully on the evening of Wednesday 24 July after a brief illness. The playwright had lived at his home in Elwood, Victoria since 1975.

Over a long career, Lawler was an actor, director and playwright. His most famous play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, was first performed at Melbourne University’s Union Theatre in 1955, followed by extensive tours across Australia before transferring to London’s West End in 1957 and Broadway in 1958. It was adapted to a film in 1959. The play is credited with changing the direction of Australian drama. It has been translated and performed in many countries around the world.

Lawler wrote two more plays featuring characters from The Doll: Kid Stakes (1975) and Other Times (1976). In 1978 the three plays were published by Currency Press as The Doll Trilogy. Lawler’s other plays include Hal’s Belles (1945), Cradle of Thunder (1952), The Piccadilly Bushman (1959), The Unshaven Cheek (1963), A Breach in the Wall (1967), The Man Who Shot the Albatross (1972), and Godsend (1982).

Lawler is survived by his wife, the former Brisbane actress Jacklyn Kelleher, and their three children, with three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Lawler was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1980 and an Officer of the Australian Order (AO) in 2023. The smaller theatre space, the Lawler, in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre is named after him.

CURRENCY PRESS

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Ray Lawler as Barney, June Jago as Olive, Roma Johnston as Pearl, Noel Ferrier as Roo, Fenella Maguire as Bubba and Carmel Dunn (seated) as Emma in the 1955 Union Theatre Company production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in Melbourne.

Margaret Anderson

Margaret Anderson is the General Manager at Old Treasury Building, Melbourne.

Greg T Ross: Hello and welcome to Margaret Anderson, Director of the Old Treasury Building Museum in, I think it’s 20 Spring Street, isn’t it, Margaret?

Margaret Anderson: It is. 20 Spring Street, East Melbourne, if you want to be absolutely correct.

GTR: The Last Post Magazine has been in partnership with the Old Treasury Building now for a number of years. And of course, Katie and you

and the team have been wonderful for the people of Melbourne and Australia with your exhibitions. You’ve got a whole lot on there at the moment. Tell us about a couple of those. I mean, we can go through them all, but what are the outstanding ones there for you, Margaret?

MA: Oh, thanks, Greg. Well, probably the exhibition that is of most interest to some of your viewers just at the moment is a show that we’ve had on for some years, but will be finishing

quite soon. And that’s an exhibition about the various things that women did contributing to the war effort during World War II. And we called it Women Work for Victory in World War II. It was an exhibition that we did actually during COVID.

But it was a great exhibition, and the reason why we decided to do that was because when we looked through the list of what was being done elsewhere, we realized that there was very little that was reflecting

on the role that women had during the war. And of course there were some very interesting innovations that happened for women in particular in the workforce and generally during World War II. So that’s what we-

GTR: It was an interesting time, Margaret because I guess in many ways, I think this is a social observation, but in many ways, the war actually brought forward a lot of independence for women. And I guess through working during the period of the Second World War, a lot of women weren’t terribly flushed with the idea of actually giving that independence back.

MA: No, they weren’t, but they were pretty much forced to. As you probably know, John Curtin struck a deal at the beginning of the war because they worked out very early that they needed women’s labor, particularly in the factories, munitions factories and various other places which had been almost exclusively staffed by men before the war. They were also called men’s jobs. Now you probably know that at that time, the workplace was pretty much divided into women’s jobs and men’s jobs, and women’s jobs attracted around about a bit over half the wages that men were paid. So there was, at this time, no minimum wage for women. There was for men, but not for women.

So Curtin struck a deal because a move to recruit women was opposed by both the trade union movement and employers. The trade union movement was afraid of competition from women workers who were paid less. And employers were afraid that if women were actually paid more during the war, they’d go on to want more after the war and that would flow on to, so-called women’s jobs. So they were really in accord. The unions and the employers were in accord.

So Curtin, very craftily struck a deal, which was that women would be recruited and paid more. He didn’t ever commit to equal pay, and it was never really achieved during the war. There were a couple of anomalies, but generally it wasn’t. But they would be employed for the duration of the war only, and that they would give up their jobs when the men came home. And that was exactly what happened.

And so, I mean, the interesting thing was that women did get opportunities, for those who wanted them, to work in areas like munitions, aircraft manufacture, all of these sorts of jobs that everybody thought women couldn’t do, and they were paid more than they had been. The rates varied between about 70% and 90%. Interestingly, the only people who were paid equally during the war were people like medical officers.

So doctors and some very small groups actually had equal pay during the war, but they were very much an anomaly. And of course, at the end of the war, what happened? I mean, of course all of those munitions industries

and things were scaled down anyhow, but the women who had been working in men’s jobs were just quietly told, “Well, that’s it. Thank you very much.” And that included women who’d been working for the first time as clerks in the public service because before that women were not employed as clerks. They were employed as typists or as stenographers, if you remember those, or the secretaries, those wonderful, wonderful beings who did everything. They were employed in those positions, and they were positions which were capped. And so the women could never be promoted out of them, or very rarely. So the women who’d been working as bank tellers, for example, were quietly told, “Well, sorry, that’s it. You can be secretaries in the bank, but you can’t be bank tellers anymore. You need to go home and have babies.” And there was a very concerted move in the late 1940s and 1950s to encourage women to go back into the home and to make their careers as mothers and homemakers. And by and large, that’s what most of them did.

GTR: I guess the seeds were planted for what actually became a movement through the ‘60s, I guess, where it flourished. And let’s be honest about this, equal pay, et cetera is still an issue for women all these years later and it’s a bit of a sad fact. And this exhibition you have on at the Old Treasury Building in Spring Street, Melbourne, well worth a visit.

Women Work for Victory in World War II, it gives some history and understanding to what was actually happening behind the scenes away from the front line back home, and with women engaged in a whole lot of great work and understandably reluctant to give that up when the war ended.

You’ve got some great exhibitions on there too, Margaret. What about A Nation Divided: the Great War and Conscription? What’s happening there?

MA: Ah, now, that’s an exhibition that we’ve had up for a very long time, and it too, sadly, will be coming out. It’s due to be replaced with another exhibition around about January. Now, what I should say, in case anybody thinks, oh no, we’re always using that, because it’s used a lot by schools as you can imagine, both of those exhibitions are, don’t despair because absolutely everything plus more information will stay on the website.

In the last few years, we’ve developed a practice that when we open an exhibition, we put not only the exhibition itself, the content up, but we add expanded material.

Because as you can probably imagine, Greg, when we research exhibitions, we can only put a tiny fraction in. And sometimes I think we’re historians, we get a bit carried away, there’s probably too many words anyway. So we put all of that content up and that will stay.

But the Nation Divided has been an interesting one, and particularly in the context of recent attempts to amend the Constitution, because essentially the story of that is that Billy Hughes wanted to introduce conscription in World War I and would’ve been able to do it as other nations did, just by legislation. He didn’t have to amend the Constitution to do it. There was a bit of a ban in terms of sending the armed services overseas to serve. They had to be volunteers.

Now, the reason Billy Hughes went to referenda was because he knew that by that stage, he didn’t have a majority in Parliament. His own party would oppose him. He was a Labour prime minister at the start of the war and he knew that his party would oppose him.

So he knew he couldn’t get it through by legislation, and he tried to force it through driving on what he rightly judged to be enthusiasm for the war.

Now, the interesting thing about that is that the Australian people did, as we all know, support the war, both wars, amazingly generously with their lives and with their labor. But there was a sense that people who were sent to fight and to die should do so voluntarily and not be forced. And in the end, that prevailed, as you probably know. So he had another go in 1917, by which time the voluntary numbers were falling off, not surprisingly, because the scale of the losses was just so horrendous. And people were sickened by what they were reading about not only Gallipoli, but the war on the Western Front, Palestine, all of those direct losses.

And so Hughes, by this time, no longer a Labour prime minister, but leading a sort of a coalition government had another crack at the referendum and lost again.

And that’s the interesting thing, isn’t it, that thereafter, the next time that the issue of conscription came up during Vietnam, there was no attempt at a referendum. It was simply no. It was simply put through as a ballot, as we all know, with hugely controversial consequences that time around too.

GTR: When you speak about Vietnam, of course, the governments had learned of the failure of Billy Hughes to get the referendum passed and weren’t going to go down that track again. And of course, what eventuated there, as we well know, was one of the greatest, I guess, protest movements seen in Australia up until that stage to end the war, and of course, end conscription, which was a very divisive part of Australia’s history.

And of course, these exhibitions, they’re an integral part, not only of Melbourne, Victoria, but of all Australia. And when we look at, I guess, Women Working for Victory, that happened all around Australia, and of course the Great War and A Nation Divided with conscription or the discussion of conscription, again, that’s an Australia-wide thing.

Practicing the art of relaxation

1. Find a quiet spot, get comfortable and close your eyes.

2. Begin deep breathing through the diaphragm.

3. Slowly.

4. Become aware or every inhale.

5. And exhale.

6. Soon, your breathing will slow.

7. And your heart rate too.

8. During this time, the sounds of birds singing can become colours and the smell of the air, sweet and the sensation of your skin, as if being massaged with freesia petals or having spent the afternoon laying in a field.

9. Repeat points 2, 3 and 4 and 5 until you perfect the art of emptying your head.

GREG T ROSS

Not Prone To Idle Chat

Fond of his own company, and not prone to idle chat, was Sidney Nolan.

A painter and poet, who wrote about women, A romantic charmer

With a rakish childhood was Sidney Nolan.

A runner for a bookie and a lark at Luna Park, was Sidney Nolan.

An exiled traveller artist who mixed myth with history And battled depression, was Sidney Nolan.

With a vagueness, yet deeper than Monet, proudly working-class, was Sidney Nolan, yet one who loved mixing with the gentry, was Sidney Nolan.

A man who worked to the music of Mozart

And a fancy for gas cylinders and polaroids and spray enamel

And with a Grandfather Who had chased the Kelly Gang, With a love for the bush, was Sidney Nolan.

A fan of painting with words and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and his friends, And a visitor to Heide.

A fertile, angry penguin, whose brother had died when he was young.

A boy who raced bikes and suffered bruises And not prone to idle chat, was Sidney Nolan.

GREG T ROSS

My dear friend, the great Australian painter John Olsen was, at 77, the oldest artist to win the Archibald Prize.

In 2019, over a long lunch at Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay facing the Sydney Harbour, I was with John and Barry Humphries when they yarned about what might happen to John’s 2005 Archibald Prize winning Self Portrait Janusfaced.

As Barry and I were then fifty years sober, it will come as no surprise that it was John who did all the drinking!

That afternoon, in his favourite eatery, John drank moderately. The Moderation, he was delighted to tell us, is the name of a pub in Reading, at which he once drank when he was in England.

John and Barry thought that after he died, it might be a good idea that his most famous painting should somehow be made available to the nation.

It is pleasing to report that, a little over a year after John’s death at age 95, his daughter Louise, who is a renowned designer and painter, and his son Tim Olsen, who runs a leading Sydney art gallery, have gifted Self portrait Janusfaced to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Tim & Lou’s decision was exquisitely timed.

Serendipitously, their offer occurred just after The great Archibald exhibition finished touring major art galleries throughout Australia. It had featured the cream of past Archibald winning pictures, including John’s remarkable self portrait.

John had a long history with the Archibald prize, having for many years served as a judge and a trustee.

Although he had previously won the Wynne prize for landscape twice and the Sulman prize once, the Archibald was his greatest artistic (but not personal) highlight. A deep understanding of the latter can be found in Tim Olsen’s revealing prizewinning memoir, Son of the Brush.

John Olsen’s artist statement about his self-portrait is found in one of my faultier poem, which he wrote shortly after he won the Archibald in 2005.

Janus-faced by John Olsen

“Sitting this afternoon in the studio, Summer’s gone.

Now’s the time of freckled leaves & longer shadows.

Men & women after sixty In slippered feet, Pause on the stairs, Janus faced.

Self delights in well worn brush

On an ancient palette.

Time trickles & avoids defeat. Janus faced.”

John explained that Janus, the Roman god of doorways, passages and bridges, is usually depicted with two heads facing in opposite directions. At Catalina, by then empty of other patrons, Barry Humphries quipped, “Roscoe, this was certainly true of the three of us – in our heyday.”

As John wrote wryly: “I think that this poem casts light in dark places. It informs the viewer. Janus had the ability to

John Olsen: A Gift to the Nation

BY PROFESSOR ROSS FITZGERALD AM

look backwards and forwards and when you get to my age you have a hell of a lot to think about!”

With what I think has more than an element of truth, after not winning the prize in 1989, when his self portrait Donde Voy was a clear favourite, John referred to the Archibald as ‘a chook raffle.’

But when John did win the prize, he was chuffed.

In one sense, it’s ironic that John ultimately won the Archibald. This is because, as a rebellious student at the National Art School in Sydney, in 1957 he led a group of budding artists protesting against the judges who were responsible for the conservative Sir William Dargie being awarded the Archibald for the eighth time in a row!

Thirty students stormed the Art Gallery of New South Wales holding placards and chanting Don’t Hang Dargie. Hang the Judges.

Although some protesters may not have been aware, this was an early fight for modernism – of which John soon became the leading exponent.

It is telling that Dargie won his last Archibald Prize for a traditional portrait of leading Australian industrialist and founder of BHP, Essington Lewis, who was hardly a rebel like John.

As Tim Olsen recently told me, for years his father enthusiastically sang How much is that Dargie in the Window? This aped an extremely popular song of the 1950s, How much is that Doggie in the Window?

It is so pleasing that Self portrait Janus-faced will be hung, for public view, in the permanent twentieth century collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

When so many lesser lights have been gonged, it is an utter travesty that John Olsen has not been awarded our highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

Surely this should happen posthumously, and soon?

Some critics say that an AC cannot be awarded posthumously. But this does not apply if someone has been nominated before they died, which is the case with John Olsen.

Ross Fitzgerald AM is Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University. His latest books are Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey and a boxed set of four Australian political/sexual satires, The Ascent of Everest, co-authored with Ian McFadyen of ‘Comedy Company’ fame.

All of these fictions feature Fitzgerald ‘s corpulent, teetotal life-long supporter of the Collingwood Magpies, Dr Professor Grafton Everest. In the latest Grafton Everest adventures ,Russia’s dictatorial president for life Vladimir Putrid and America’s President Ronald Thump are both assassinated.

GAVIN WANGANEEN ART

Gavin Wanganeen is an Australian Football League (AFL) legend, acclaimed contemporary Aboriginal artist, a businessman and an advocate for First Nations Peoples.

TLP Takes a look at the artist behind the footballer.

www.gavinwanganeenart.com.au

Born in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Gavin is a proud descendent of the Kokatha Mula people of the Western Desert in South Australia. The Kokatha people hold the Tjukupa (lore) and have a strong connection to country, the night sky and stories in the stars – a deep source of inspiration for Gavin’s paintings.

Growing up, Gavin spent time on South Australia’s west coast where his maternal great-grandfather, Dick Davey, was a respected leader of the people of Koonibba Mission and the community at large. Davey was one of the first Indigenous people to be “permitted” to purchase land, and was a talented footballer, playing for the Koonibba Football Club, today recognised as the country’s oldest surviving Aboriginal football club.

From a young age, Gavin embraced a love of colour and storytelling through art. Yet it wasn’t until his twenties, through a friendly competition with his Indigenous Port Adelaide Football Club teammates to produce an artwork from their respective regions, that Gavin made the life changing decision to start painting.

Gavin began exploring his ancestral links on canvas, recreating memories and capturing the beauty of the Australian outback. Today Gavin’s astonishing natural talent continues to blossom, attracting national attention and acclaim and firmly establishing him as a contemporary Aboriginal artist to watch.

“MY MOTHER WAS PART OF THE STOLEN GENERATION, TAKEN FROM HER PARENTS WHEN SHE WAS A YOUNG GIRL. TO LEARN ABOUT THAT, AND COME TO TERMS WITH IT, IS A COMPLEX AND POWERFUL PROCESS.

I BEGAN PAINTING TEN YEARS AGO AS A MEANS OF BRINGING ME BACK TO MY CULTURE. ON THE CANVAS, I AM CONNECTING WITH MY HERITAGE; THE HISTORY OF MY FAMILY, MY COUNTRY AND MY PEOPLE.

I REALLY ENJOY EXPERIMENTING WITH COLOUR AND DEVELOPING MY OWN UNIQUE STYLE.”

PODCASTS: www.thelastpostmagazine.com/tlp-interviews

Photo by Daniel Marsden, ABC Compass

Greg T Ross: You’re with Greg T. Ross and The Last Post magazine. Today it’s my great pleasure to have Australian painter and sculptor Lindy Lee as our guest. Lindy, how are you?

Lindy Lee: Greg, nice to be on your podcast and in the magazine. I’m fine and exhausted is how I am, because last week was kind of intense. This whole year has been intense.

GTR: Yes, indeed. And of course, when we say intensity in this area, I guess we’re also talking about your great exhibition on at the National Gallery of Australia called Collection running until June next year, which is 2025. How’s that all panning out for you?

LL: It’s really well. It’s not actually called Collection. It’s works from the collection, and the show is called Lindy Lee for some reason. It’s all panning out. That show is in conjunction with the major work that they’ve just acquired, the Ouroboros, which is the very big sculpture now that sits very happily outside the front of the National Gallery of Australia. So she’s happy.

GTR: Yeah. Well, it’s good to have a good place and very befitting too. Lindy, born in Brisbane in 1954. You’ve come a long way since then, obviously. I guess Brisbane back in the ‘50s, maybe not the best place for an artist to be born, but as it turns out, it was. What was life like for you in Queensland or in Brisbane in the ‘50s?

LL: Well, life was ... I actually remember great blocks of happiness, but also growing up in the ‘50s, there was the White Australia policy, and so there was kind of like ... I don’t know how to explain it, but while I had my good friends and everything, but there was this overriding or feeling of just not being accepted and not being welcomed as well. You kind of also had good friends who also, because it was government policy, there was effectively that gave people permission to bully people of difference. So I think being Chinese in those days, there was a lot of racism.

GTR: Yes, indeed. Indeed. I was aware of that being roughly the same age and growing up in South Australia at the time. We did have, for a time we were in Port Pirie and my father had made friends with the Chinese fisherman. We used to go down there and he didn’t speak English, but his son did. They were beautiful people, and I was aware of this. Obviously it must’ve been a difficult time, obviously, coming from that. How did your family arrive in Australia?

LL: Well, my grandfather came probably just before Federation. Federation’s in the early 1900s. I think my grandfather came in the late 1890s and then when it was ... My grandfather spent 50 years of his life in Australia, and in fact died in Australia. But when he decided that it was time for him to return to China, the situation was that informally, you can nominate somebody to replace you. So my

father decided that he would come to replace my grandfather in Australia. So that’s how it happened. But it was also the brink of ... well, it’s also the end. This is 1946, so the end of the Second World War and Japanese occupation in China, but it’s also the beginning of the Chinese Revolution in China. So my grandfather in fact couldn’t go back because it was just ... He just couldn’t. It was just too much into that situation. But the unfortunate thing was that my dad had to leave my mother and their two sons back in China because the Australian government wouldn’t allow them to come to Australia. They were separated then for about eight years.

GTR: And they eventually made their way to Australia?

LL: Yes. Dad found a very wonderful immigration official and was able eventually to get a visa for my mum and two brothers.

GTR: Incredible. We’re so happy that that happened, obviously.

LL: I’m happy.

GTR: That’s right. As part of what evolved for you and the family later on. When did you first feel the pull towards art as a child, I guess. But if you could just explain, was there an awareness on your behalf, or did it something that creeped up on you?

LL: Well, I think there was an awareness from about three years old that I wanted to do this thing called art, but what does a three-year-old know about art? It’s just this very compelling thing. I had to draw the world. I was one of those kids who just has drawing all the time. I remember being in Kangaroo Point and we were living in a Queenslander, and the sun was streaking in and I could see all the dust motes floating in the air. As a kid, that’s really magical. Like, “How does that happen? What’s that about?” And I wanted to draw it.

I realized, in fact, that’s what I am doing now in this work, in these big works about cosmos and the universe. But the journey through that though, which is different from the awareness that you are talking about of actually wanting to become an artist, probably happened in my twenties after I struggled a lot. Because we’re talking about ‘50s, ‘60s and now ‘70s, where women didn’t have ... There were no role models for me around at that time. In fact, strangely it was my struggle with white Australia, or those feelings of not being included, those feelings of not belonging,

But it added to the fuel, because an artist needs fuel to work with. It’s not just the capacity to paint a pretty landscape or a pretty bowl of flowers sort of thing. There’s something that drives the psyche of an artist, and usually it is some deep wound or pain that you have to address. My idea about being an artist is that you’re addressing it not just for yourself, you’re also addressing it for the world, because we all feel anxiety, this

experience of alienation and of grief, and of pain and of joy, and of all those other things. What a really good artist does is try to express that for humanity so that we can actually see what’s in our souls, if that makes sense.

GTR: Very much so, and very well said. A couple of points there too, Lindy, is that true enough, I guess, with the need to express through feelings of ... I mean, if you’re living a hunkydory life and everything seems to be fantastic, it’s very unlikely that you’ll feel inspired to create.

LL: Yeah. Or to resolve questions. That’s what I think creativity is. Sometimes there’s this irritant, and you have to be creative in order to solve it. You have to search in ways that are not immediately available. I always think that creativity comes from the connection between heart, mind, and body. It’s that triad of-

GTR: Brilliant, brilliant.

LL: ... and that they all have to work with each other. Because if I was only to make work out of my head, I’d be doing the same bloody thing over and over again because my head is always only just thinking in its own way. But the creativity comes from one’s engagement with the world that comes through your body and through your heart.

So it’s all three. To make better thoughts, bigger thoughts, make creative work, you need all those three in harmony, or at least working together.

GTR: Yeah, that’s true enough. I guess, is it actually talking to ourselves when we create?

LL: Yeah, I think really, really listening to the deepest parts of us. I often describe ... I actually think that inside every human being, there’s a tribe of people all wanting different things. One’s maturity comes with being able to listen to all these voices that are inside of you and being able to work with them all. And then working with, because I’m a great collaborator as well, I like working with other people, because I’ve realized that now I’m 70 and even just before then, that it’s actually fun to play with others, and it’s fun to be able to hand over your ideas. Because I’m not an engineer, for instance, but I make massively big things, so I have to be able to collaborate with an engineer, with sheet metalworkers, with foundry.

I love that. And we all have great conversations about what we’re doing together.

GTR: That’s a good point also, Lindy. You spoke of childhood and observing things, and I guess art is an observation, and correct me if I’m wrong, but the realization that there is art in almost everything.

LL: Yeah. Art can be involved in everything, and art is about our perception of the world and how we

engage with the world. So yeah, it can be about and of anything.

GTR: Yes. We sometimes lose that ability, I think, as adults to observe with wonder at the small things that you mentioned before, which are actually big things.

LL: Yeah.

GTR: I often, not often, but sometimes will attempt to renew that glee in observing small things. I know as a child, perhaps even seeing a leaf and a flower up close was a beautiful, wonderful thing. But of course we spend time on earth and these things become commonplace. I guess your ability to bring that to light in your work and sculpture with paintings is one of the brilliant things about your work. I mean, your work encourages meditation. How is that so?

LL: Well, yeah, it encourages ... Everything that you’ve just said so beautifully is also ... The thing is that we habitually walk around in a fog of thought, our preoccupations with the shopping list I have to create, the argument that I had with my brother, the this, the that. Usually we’re always walking around in this literal fog of thought, and that fog of thinking prevents us from actually experiencing the delight of that butterfly or that flower or that sunset. We’re too busy and preoccupied to even notice these things. What meditation does, I think, is just allow us a tool to let go of that habitual thinking and encounter life intimately, firsthand, and not just through thinking, but just to receive life. Just all that thing, the stuff I was saying about heart, mind, and body. Well, meditation is actually a way of bringing all of those parts of us together.

The thing is about meditation, it has to be in this present moment. If you’re working with your body, you have to work with the present moment because yesterday’s body was already gone. Tomorrow’s body is yet to appear. I mean, your mind can travel all sorts of places, and your heart can dwell on many things, but your body can only be experienced in this present moment. In meditation and in creative thinking, I believe anyway, you can only come through the harnessing of those three parts of us, and that has to be done in the present because of the simple fact that your body can only be experienced in the present, in present moment.

GTR: Well, very meditative thoughts actually. And your painting, there is a reference to ancient Chinese practice as influenced by the Zen Buddhists.

LL: Yeah.

GTR: Is that what helps you through life generally?

LL: For sure, in terms of ... Meditation’s not about getting your life perfect, but actually noticing ... Most of us have these habitual thoughts and they’re thoughts that we’re not good enough, all of that sort of thing. Another thing

that meditation does is actually allow you to see the patterns of thinking, which are really quite destructive in your life. It’s just a bunch of propaganda that’s already been put there, that you’ve accepted as true. I hope I’m making sense, but it’s just-

GTR: I can understand completely without being, obviously, from your background and everything else. We go back to that for just a moment, Lindy, with Australia and multiculturalism. I mean, there is a tendency. There seems to be a tendency of late, and when I say of late I imagine maybe since the introduction of the internet and social media, of an ugly side of the human nature. Is this something that disappoints you?

LL: Yeah, I think because ... I’ll just put it this way. If leaders and world leaders give permission ... Being human is complex and we often want to ... When things don’t work out for us, sometimes we have a tendency to lash out. And if particular leaders in the world are allowing people to just lash out their anger rather than addressing the cause of the anger and the disappointments in their lives, I think we’re in a bad place. I just think America, if I can be just quite frank here, America is in a terrible position at the moment because it’s just ... This is the place where freedoms and democracy is a contemporary modern, the modern world, the contemporary world. But America isn’t ... I don’t know. I don’t know about you, Greg, but I’m sort of holding my breath about what happens next week.

GTR: Indeed.

LL: Because it may or may not be good. I don’t know.

GTR: Yeah, I’ve tried to say to people that may not be aware. I said, “This is a very important moment.” Very important moment. And the encouragement of gang warfare and hoodlums under the guise of free speech and political ... I mean, we all believe in free speech obviously, but there is with it both a responsibility and awareness that the world would not be as it is if not for the fact that we’re all different and we are entitled to be different.

LL: Exactly. And in fact, this is really important. The thing is that thuggish and gang behavior is not only respectful of difference. The one thing, I gave a talk ... gosh, it was last week. I gave the annual lecture at the National Gallery of Australia, and it was a big deal. Anyway, I survived, which is great. But I ended up by saying, because all of my life it’s been about this feeling of not belonging, but ultimately as I put it, everything under the open sky, everybody belongs. That is our birthright. Belonging. We can’t fall out of cosmos or the sets of relationships that brought us all together. I usually describe cosmos as the length, breadth, and depth of everything that has ever happened, is happening, and will happen into the future. None of us fall outside that set

of relationships, and so we all belong. The other thing is that belonging is not about fitting in. People who go along with thuggish or gang behavior are trying to fit in. And it’s not an original thought, by the way, but it’s just that belonging actually means being allowed to be yourself, and having courage and the grace to accept ... to grow, and thoroughly, and step up to be what you are, and having the grace to allow the other to be what they are.

GTR: Yes, that’s so true.

LL: That’s the problem.

GTR: Yeah, so true. And I guess for me at least, and I guess for you and many others hopefully. We see the example of some sections of society, and we mentioned America so let’s go back there, in proclaiming about the freedom to be themselves and yet seemingly not respecting the freedom of others to be themselves.

LL: That’s exactly right. What you said before is that freedom is very important. It’s essential to our blossoming as human beings, but that is in relation to other people and our responsibility towards other people. That’s what I mean. We’re all in this together. So if you start, once these fractures and splinters and people taking up their self-righteous causes at the expense of other people, that’s not being responsible and it’s not actually being human, I think. It’s something else.

GTR: Actually, yeah, it’s true. I sometimes wonder if we are all from the same planet originally. When observing your work, one is left with a contemplation, and I suppose that’s the desire. I’m going to just mention a couple of your works here, Lindy, and probably get a response from you if I can. In a past exhibition, A Tree More Ancient Than The Forest It Stands In, what does that mean, and what does it represent?

LL: Yeah, what a great phrase. A tree more ancient than the forest that it stands in. How can a tree be more ancient than the actual situation, its context. It was given birth to by a forest, surely. But I think it’s just that we are connected to the beginnings of cosmos. I’ll put it again. From the very beginning, there’s this river and deep connection that connects all life that has happened from the very moment of the Big Bang or however it happened. So what I’m trying to say there is that we have this access to this ancientness and it’s inside of us, and there is a kind of ancient wisdom, which isn’t about any ideology or anything like that, but just this connection to this vastness that we all belong to.

That’s what I mean. It’s a Zen phrase, by the way. So being more ancient than the tree is just acknowledging that the beginnings of us go back a very long time, and we are caused. I have this other phrase that maybe explains it as well. It’s like, the tree more ancient than the forest is also the fact that we

are historical and unhistorical. And by that, I mean it takes the whole of cosmos, the whole of history, to make this moment, where one Greg and Mindy are speaking, for instance. It’s taken everything to come together to allow this moment. So all of history. And yet, you know what, Greg, you and I have never spoken before and this will never happen again.

GTR: That’s right.

LL: This moment, That’s what I love. That is a kind of reference to the tree more ancient. We are born-

GTR: I think I understand, yeah.

LL: Yeah. We’re born at a very deep time, and yet we are also unique. Greg is never going to happen again. Neither is Lindy.

GTR: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And I suppose everything we do is out there in the cosmos forever?

LL: Yeah. There’s this other thing that I love too, is that all our actions have a ripple effect into the world. We may not be able to see what it actually does, but it’s like a wind or a breeze. It’s action. You can’t see it, or you can see the evidence of it. You don’t see that-

GTR: Yes.

LL: So I just think that every life has value and meaning because everything we do has a ripple effect into the world, as the world ripples into us as well. It’s like we co-create the universe together, in a sense.

GTR: Yeah. Well said. Well said actually. It reminds me of a funny exchange I had with a friend once about this very thing, and he said that he didn’t believe in it. And I said, “Well, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not, it happens.”

LL: Yeah, there you go.

GTR: What about your past exhibition No Point in Time? Is that related to that?

LL: No Point in Time, it would be. When was that? Sorry, I’ve done so many shows, I can’t even remember.

GTR: No, that’s perfectly right. I don’t know, to be honest with you, and I don’t think it matters too much, but it is something that No Point in Time, it struck me as being very akin to the truth.

LL: Yeah. Time is a really important aspect of my work, but I don’t mean clock time. I mean, there are all sorts of times, and we need clock time so that we can make ... It makes society, allows society to flow, et cetera, et cetera. But what I’m talking about is deep lived time, and that actually has no beginning and no end. And so there is time is this ... It’s not even a continuum. It’s even bigger than that. But we are just ... I love the imagery of we are creatures of time. Time is part of the fabric of our being. And in fact,

time ... and impermanence, by the way, is another name for time, really. Because everything is impermanent. Everything changes.

GTR: When you create, do you come from your Chinese background, your Australian background, or neither? What is it?

LL: It’s neither. And it’s because all of that informs the work. So it’s both me trying to understand what my ancestry can mean. It is also me being an Australian. And an Australian, I think, we can really say we are not the monoculture that I grew up in, which was basically white and nothing else particularly allowed. Now we celebrate our diversity. Some of us don’t, but the reality is that we’ve accepted it, and the spirit of Australia is the way different cultures rub up against each other and create new things. We also, by the way, I just was reflecting last week, is that we used to live with this cultural cringe. Everything Australia was derivative from other cultures. But we’ve changed that to say no. It’s not derivative. What we’re doing is actually we are mixing things in a way which is unique to Australia. We are not derivative. We are making culture from the ways in which we all interact together. I think that’s a much better ... and it’s actually a much more mature Australia that we’re coming to.

GTR: I agree. I agree. There was a song when I was growing up called Melting Pot by Blue Mink.

LL: Yeah, I remember.

GTR: I guess that, for me, was an example of why I believe that multiculturalism is a good thing, of course. Because what I basically think, as you go through life, you pick up ... “Nothing is original,” as Paul McCartney once said. So you pick up little traits and little things from the better people that you meet on the journey, and you introduce those into your own life. I guess it’s the same with culture.

LL: It’s exactly that. Nothing is original. Well, in the sense that every single human being goes through pretty much the same dilemmas that we all go through from the beginning of time. So we’ve always had to deal with this stuff, but it’s just our willingness to do it, which becomes fresh with each generation.

GTR: Yes, so true. Lindy Lee, finally, we spoke earlier about the body. You spoke mainly about the body is always in movement ... sorry, the mind’s in movement, but the body is always in the moment. How important is it for you to be in the moment mentally, et cetera, when you’re creating?

LL: Okay. So getting back to your question of whether I’m Australian or Chinese, the thing is that if you let go completely into this moment, you do it without any preoccupations about ... When I’m creating, I can’t [inaudible 00:27:30]. It’s complicated too. Of course I have a bag of tools, of course

I have my history, of course I have all of these things. But in the moment of trying to make the ‘decision’, my heart and mind have to be absolutely clear and just receive what is occurring. So it’s not about being anything, but actually cultivating the capacity to receive what is happening within the studio, with this, with that. And then build on it. Not build on my preconceptions and my ... Therefore, my preconceptions have already dictated what it’s going to be, because I’ve already had that idea. That’s what a preconception is. To be truly creative, actually, is to acknowledge that you’ve got all this stuff, but to arrive at a point where you genuinely ... It’s a Zen thing. In Zen, there’s a beautiful expression, “Only don’t know.” Meaning, don’t put your preconceptions, all of the constructions that you’ve ever thought about the world, leave them aside and allow the world on what’s happening within this space, in this minute, to speak with you, and see what happens. And that’s the discipline.

GTR: That’s wonderful. I guess also, Lindy, it’s about finding that balance, that delicate balance of trust and whatever, I don’t know if we call it naivety, but trust, to remain open through your life. Because, of course, you can only accept things by being open.

LL: That’s right. In Buddhism, one of the great [inaudible 00:29:15]. Okay. One of my favorite vows in Zen Buddhism is, “Dharma gates are countless. I vow to open to them.” That just simply means ... A Dharma gate is just like in every single moment of your existence, you have a choice to be open or shut down to your life. I vow to be open to them, is that I vow to be open to every single moment of my existence. I love this bit. Even if you’re shutting down, even if it’s just too hard to bear, then you are okay. It’s like, “Okay, I can’t deal with this at the moment.” Or, “This is too painful.” But even acknowledging that is being open because you’re being true in this moment to exactly who and what you are. That is the way I try to live my life, and of course I fail all the time, and that’s okay.

GTR: But we do gain from that openness too. Thanks for your honesty. I guess there’s so much more to talk about. It’s an incredible thing. I’m stimulated by your work to the point where it encourages discussions on philosophy, so thank you very much, Lindy, for being part of this.

LL: A great pleasure, Greg. I just wish you luck with all these podcasts and stories.

GTR: Thank you so much. It’s a wonderful thing. We’ve been speaking with Lindy Lee, famous Australian painter and sculptor, whose exhibition is a collection of Lindy’s work. Lindy Lee at the National Gallery of Australia until June next year, 2025. Get along and see that. Thank you once again, Lindy.

LL: Pleasure, Greg.

Ethical Aboriginal art from some of Australia’s most remote communities.

Aboriginal Contemporary is a Sydney art gallery committed to the fair and ethical treatment of First Nations’ artists and their communities.

Owner, Nichola Dare, regularly travels to remote art centres in Australia’s central and western deserts, and Arnhem Land. Together with her understanding of indigenous culture and Country and exquisite eye for fine art, the trusted relationships she has built over 14 years enables her to source artworks not otherwise available to Australian buyers and collectors.

Aboriginal Contemporary has a year-long exhibition schedule, showcasing both established and emerging artists. Paintings by senior artists, whose work hangs in international galleries, can cost up to $20,000, but there are also smaller artworks that mean anyone can have authentic Aboriginal art in their home for just a few hundred.

Australia’s First Nations peoples are the world’s oldest continuously living culture and ethical practices and the fair treatment of artists are a cornerstone of the gallery’s business model. Aboriginal Contemporary is longstanding member of the Australian Government’s Indigenous Art Code.

THIS PAGE

ABOVE: Nichola Dare and Bugai Whyoulter, Kunawarritji, WA. RIGHT: 1 and 2 Artwork By Cynthia Burke, currently on exhibition at Aboriginal Contemporary. OPPOSITE PAGE

TOP: Nichola Dare - The Great Sandy Desert, WA. BOTTOM: Lake Dora, WA.

KAT RAE

Greg T. Ross: Welcome to The Last Post magazine and Radio Show, Kat.

Kat Rae: Hi, Greg. Thanks for having me.

GTR: It’s a pleasure. And geez, when I look at your work, and I feel inspired because of course we do have an edition coming out with the Art is Life theme and you’re a good part of that. You’re the winner of the 2024 Napier Waller Art Prize.

Now of course we’ll go into the meaning of all that, but I guess from your side, what did that mean for you?

KR: It meant enormous, a lot. It was very validating, first of all, as an emerging artist and someone who left the army after 20 years of service, to become an artist. To be validated by institutions and a judging panel of such high caliber was very reassuring that I’d made the right steps.

In addition to that, the work itself was enormously poignant with very important messages of which I wanted to have broadcast at a national level.

The Australian War Memorial is proud to announce that Kat Rae, who served in the Australian Army for 20 years before becoming a full-time artist in 2019, has won the 2024 Napier Waller Art Prize with a thought-provoking installation.

Her winning artwork, Deathmin, is comprised of stacked paper, vinyl, plastic, leather and metal representing the "stack of post-death admin" the artist inherited after her veteran husband Andrew suicided in 2017. Ms Rae took inspiration from her late husband’s experience with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and her own experiences with the Inspector General ADF and the Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide when creating the work.

2024 Napier Waller art prize launch event, 29 May 2024. AWM24.PR.058.

And to be able to contribute to a dialogue in Parliament House with War Memorial hierarchy, military hierarchy, and politicians, as well as the general public, felt really important to me.

GTR: Of course, the winning piece was your Deathmin. Now, I guess art cuts through on so many levels, and of course there’s so many levels to the story of the creation of Deathmin. Can you just describe for listeners what it’s actually about, what it looks like and the art of creating this?

KR: Well, first of all, I should probably give a little trigger warning up front that the work contains themes of suicide, domestic violence, and I guess weaponization of bureaucratic administration, of which I know a lot of veterans would feel pretty triggered about.

So yeah, the artwork itself is a stack of paperwork. At my height, I’m 5’3” and the weight of my late husband, so well over 100 kilos of paper. And

it’s the actual paperwork of which he petitioned to Department of Veterans Affairs for support for his broken back and his declining health. Then after he suicided, it’s the paper trail of after his death, which involved me with legacy, freedom of information, all of Andrew’s paperwork, and then trying to build a case which took over a year to claim more widow status.

It has coroner’s reports, it talks about police reports from the domestic violence that I experienced at the hands of Andrew before he died. It has the Inspector General ADF drafts and redrafts whilst they tried to look the other way and blamed his death on anything other than Defense. So yeah, it’s a massive stack of paperwork and I think anyone who’s a veteran would understand how difficult it is to keep applying thousands and thousands of pages to get the support you need.

It also talks about the cathceresque nature of institutions and how they ask

Kat Rae wins prestigious 2024 Napier Waller Art Prize.

Photograph taken by Marcus Fillinger, provided courtesy Australian War Memorial.

for your whole... well, they ask you to put your life on the line, but then when you need it, they don’t support you back.

GTR: Look, what an amazingly unique way of expressing your reaction to a situation that many hope not to go through. The essence of art, I guess, is to make us think, and everyone will have a different definition of their... Well, everyone’s reaction will be slightly different, but I think on this level, it’s such a unique expression. It comes through loud and clear. That’s one of the reasons that no doubt that you won.

I guess the Head of Art, Laura Webster, is it at AWM, was appreciative of your work. Look, Andrew’s suicide in 2017, Kat, life obviously changed from that moment on, but had it been changing before that? Had this been an evolution and an evolving of a situation that you saw coming or did it take you completely by surprise?

KR: Well, look, he had been injured on Special Forces selection course back in 2010, and then again in 2011. So he had life-changing injuries with a broken back after that, and he was in chronic pain. So look, that was pretty life altering and mood altering. And I guess he was on a decline after that, even though, I mean, he deployed after that, he still got promoted after that, and he did his best to rehabilitate himself.

I mean, I guess I could see that he needed support and he was trying to get it through DPA. I was trying to provide it the best I could as well. But yeah, I guess I kind of was surprised when he died. It’s in some ways shocked but not shocked. Shocked and horrified, but also in some ways, I’m not surprised. I’d always thought that I would be a young widow in the fact that he lived his life with so much risk taking. But I kind of expected by young widow, I thought maybe fifties or sixties, not in my thirties.

GTR: No, it certainly is a life-changing situation to lose a partner no matter what the circumstance and of course, things had probably got a little out of hand there. Anyhow, as far as your expression with art, were you driven during your years in the Army to express yourself with art or was this something that had evolved from childhood? When did it actually start happening for you with art?

KR: Yeah, I always would wanted to be an artist as a child. And I remember my mum asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I was in year 10 and I said, “I wanted to be an artist.” And pretty much without missing a beat, she said, “Why don’t you join the Army?” And I thought I’ll just appease her by applying, just because I also did Army Cadets and I grew up on a farm and I was the oldest of six children. So I already had

a fairly robust life experience, and I guess had leadership through just even being the oldest of siblings.

So yeah, I did get a scholarship to go to Australian Defense Force Academy. And at that time I thought, well, yeah, I guess a lot of my favorite Australian artists had done military time. I’m thinking about Arthur Boyd and Albert Tucker and McCubbin, like a lot of these guys had done their military time. And I thought, well, I guess part of being an artist is garnering an interesting life. I mean, I probably got a little bit too much bargain for.

But I remember early on at ADFA, we went to the Australian War Memorial. It was the first time I’d ever been there in Canberra, and I saw how much art was in the War memorial, that took me by surprise. And I thought, well, maybe I can be an artist because there’s war artists. I didn’t realize.

So then I realized that actually war artists are people who are commissioned by the Australian government to fly in, fly out and depict the war as an outsider. So I guess along my artist’s journey, I’ve realized that actually the experience of veterans and war widows, there’s a whole lineage of them from trench art who were actually making art that was from their lived experience. That was not to diminish anything of official war artist because of course those experiences are real as well. But I think being a veteran, it gives you a certain privileged experience of service, especially over the course of 20 years.

In addition to being a war widow, I felt like, well, actually I can contribute back to the National Archives here and make art that talks about lived experience. Yeah, I kind of consider myself an unofficial war artist now.

GTR: Yeah, yeah. Well said. I mean, a lot of people at the beginning before delving too deep into this, wouldn’t maybe not see the connection between art and war, but there is a big connection, and as you’ve just noted, some of the artists that have been part of a military service. So it’s becomes part of Australian history also. During your 20 years in the Army, Kat, tell us what you did actually just give us an outline of what your day-to-day routine was.

KR: Well, I guess in the Army it’s a whirlwind of experiences and postings and deployments and courses and moves throughout Australia. So yeah, I guess I went to ADFA as an army cadet and did an undergraduate humanities degree in, well, I did a double major in literature and I did politics and history.

I went to Duntroon and after that I graduated as a lieutenant and I posted to Hobart as the Adjutant, a

reserve unit down there. And then after that I posted to Darwin as a platoon commander. As an ops’ lieutenant actually, and then as a platoon commander to Kuwait. After that, I posted everywhere in between, from Darwin to Melbourne and Sydney, Canberra and doing a range of jobs from 4th-line logistics to... Sorry, I’ve got COVID, so I’ve got a bit of a cough.

GTR: Yeah, that’s fine.

KR: And then training institutions, representational work, ceremonial work. I deployed three times all up. Once as a lieutenant, once as a captain and once as a major. I was at Command and Staff College doing a master’s in military history and defense strategy, when Andrew died. After that, I was posted to the career agency for officers, as a career advisor.

Operated after that as a lieutenant colonel and did a posting at joint logistics command as the ops officer. At that point, I realized how difficult it was to be a solo parent of a very young child. Andrew and my daughter was at that stage about three or four. She was two when he died. And I also just felt completely burnt out by the experiences of it all.

GTR: Yes, it was 2019, wasn’t it, when you decided to leave the Army and become a full-time artist?

KR: Yeah. And then I just realized that I’d always really wanted to be an artist. And from my experience with Andrew, I realized you’re not guaranteed a long life. I was in my late thirties by that stage, and I felt like if I’m going to give this a go, I really need to move or else I won’t give it enough time in my life to really explore and give it a proper go.

So I decided to leave the Army and apply for art schools. And I got into RMIT, School of Art in Melbourne, and I’m just finishing my honors there now.

GTR: Well, congratulations on that too, Kat. And I guess with art, is it imagination that fuels creative skill or creative skill that fuels imagination? It’s such a wonderful beast. It would be hard to describe, but you would have thoughts going through your head daily about new artworks and creativity.

KR: Yeah, I do actually. I feel like I’ve got a lifetime of experiences of which I can make art about. I’m also really engaged thanks to the education that the military gave me into the political and cultural landscape of this nation. So I’m always interested in making art that’s relevant and tries to contribute to a national dialogue about the things that I really care about.

I guess most artists would appreciate just actually how difficult it is to be an artist because it takes so much time to be good at anything. And there’s so many mistakes, and in some ways

it’s not like the army, which is quite validating. It feels like every year going on another career course or another posting or promotion. When you’re an artist, there’s not so many validating elements because no one’s going to stick a badge on your chest or another pip on your shoulder. You’re just working alone a lot of the time, thinking deeply about things and making lots and lots of mistakes. So yeah, I hadn’t really experienced... I had thought about how difficult it would be, but at the same time, I think it has been really important to find studio spaces or new community and the sense of discipline of which you have in the army, but you can transfer into artist life and try and be... and mix with artists who also really understand the challenges involved with it all.

A bad day at art school was nothing like a bad day in the army and the fact that no one’s probably going to get killed or anything like that. But at the same time, there’s challenges to make it real and poignant and of making art of gravity. I mean, I live in Melbourne where there’s an artist in every corner. There’s job shortages all in Australia for skill shortages, but there’s no vacancies for artists. It’s probably there’s thousands more artists than there are jobs for it. So yeah, it’s got its challenges, that’s for sure.

GTR: Well, it’s interesting you say that too, Kat, because there is art in everyday life, and I guess it’s the artist’s blessing to be able to see that. And maybe some people need a reminder of this through the work of artists like yourself and writers and musicians, et cetera, that there is art in everyday life. You capture that well, I guess with your work Deathmin and the story behind that, you’ve captured that so well.I guess also, Kat, to be an artist, an underplaying of this is that you must have true belief in yourself and your ability to express yourself?

KR: Yeah, I mean, I feel like sometimes the greater the doubt, the better the faith. You know what I mean? That idea that, I think as an artist, you’re regularly questioning yourself. I mean, every now and again, I make something and go, “Bloody hell, genius.” But mostly I’m like, “Is this silly? Is this a real job?” So there’s definitely...

But I know there is art in everyday life, and I think there’s a certain... I think a lot of people... What I really like about the Napier Waller Art Prize that the War Memorial runs, but also the work that Australian National Veterans Art Museum ANVAM does is they show veterans and veterans families and the wider community I guess the cut through, the important cut through that art does give to people. The way that it does transcend language and life experience and words and connects people on a transcendational kind of way.

I mean, it’s really beautiful to see a connection of such disparate veterans, which can often be quite tribalistic and fractious in some ways, services,

years of service, officer, soldier there’s so many friction points in the veteran community, but art can surmount those things.

GTR: Yes, it does have a way of cutting through. And I guess that may be exemplified by dementia patients who may forget just about everything, but remember the words to songs, et cetera. So that’s a beautiful thing too. Now, writers have writer’s block. Do you ever have a painter’s block or an art block where you find it hard to...

KR: Yeah, I guess so. I often go to an exhibition if that’s the case and see what other artists are doing. I often journal or do some exercise, go for a walk, listen to a podcast, I go to an art opening and talk to different artists about what they’re doing. I read broadly.

I think sometimes when you just show up and try, that’s when the magic happens. And I guess for me, I’ve got a lifetime of experiences of which I can draw on. I don’t normally feel blocked in that respect. I guess for me also, I’m a solo parent to a now 9-year-old so my time is extremely limited. I’m so busy with raising her and trying to forge a new career that I’m on the clock as soon as I’ve dropped her off at school and I’ve got six hours to produce and make and think and also keep fit and run the household. Yeah, I kind of feel like sometimes having those severe time limits actually ensures that I don’t have time to sit blankly-

GTR: Yes, yes, I understand completely.

KR: ... at the paper. I don’t know what to do.

GTR: Yeah, no, I understand completely. It reminds me of, as we get closer to the closing dates of each edition of the magazine, somehow I seem to be doing more work and doing more good work, and that’s interesting.

So with life, I guess memory, all these contributions to art, experience, everyone’s going to have a different way of expressing themselves. And we’re so glad that you’ve left the Army and become a full-time artist because it’s a wonderful contribution to the history of Australia and to the history of art in this country. And I guess almost finally, Kat, how important is art? How important is it?

KR: Well, I think it’s essential to humanity. Artists hold up a mirror to humanity and ask for a better version of ourselves. You and I were talking about out how difficult it has been during the invasion on Gaza and the complete crimes against humanity that are happening there, and how important it is for artists if no one else would stand up and speak out. How important it is that artists ask for a better world and can try and traverse the barriers of language and beliefs and try and really agitate change.I mean, I’m not idealistic enough to

think that art will change everything, but I think I could definitely try and make a difference.

GTR: Actually, that’s very good point. Because if art is silenced, it will never be, but if it is attempted to be silenced, then we increase the risk of moving to a world examples given with 1984 and Brave New World as two books that come to mind. And I guess when we were younger, when I was younger, I did believe for a number of years that we could change the world. I know now, and I’ve known for a long time that that’s not going to happen. But in a small way still, perhaps.

KR: Yeah. I mean, and even if what we’re doing to humanity in our environment is on an irreversible descent downward, at least we’ve still got art, thank goodness at least.

GTR: And holds up a mirror that’s what allows us-

KR: Even as the Titanic was sinking, the band kept playing. So yes, thank goodness for art in real-

GTR: And it does hold up a mirror to ourselves. And I guess that’s one of the reasons why everyone will see art from a different perspective because it’s holding up a mirror to each of us, and each of us is different. So yeah, I understand completely on that. What are you doing now? Any great works?

KR: What am I doing now. Yeah, so I’m finishing writing my Honors Exegesis, which is like a small thesis, and I’m entering my work into art competitions. I’ve just finished a group exhibition with some friends, I did Honors with. Full circle, I guess, when I was at the Australian Defence Force Academy. And one of my teachers taught me war literature, Adrian Caesar. He’s now a published author, novelist, and poet. He’s writing a poetry book, which he’s asked me to illustrate. So it’s great to reconnect with someone who, I was an admiring student of him as a teacher back in 2000. Now, quarter of a century later, we’re collaborating together, which is really great.

GTR: That’s fantastic stuff. And poetry is a great way to express yourself too. And of course it’s greatly edited, which suits some of us because there’s not too much carry on. It’s always very much to the point, poetry, which is beautifully... Rather like painting, I suppose, because once you’ve done a painting, you can’t edit or expand on that. There it is. There it is.

Kat Rae, it’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. We could go on for hours. I know there are so many issues associated with art and the role of art in a society of turmoil and war that perhaps it invites another podcast of itself. But in the meantime, we do thank you very much, and may good things continue to happen to you in your role as an artist.

KR: Thank you, Greg. It’s been wonderful to talk to you.

The bus never comes

Philadelphia cheese on bagel, toddler vomit on marble floor, three palms thru the window like hairy insects on poles.

A winter breakfast at the Portofino Inn café.

Outside, L.A. dude feverishly smoking in car, listening to ‘Barrel of a Gun’ by Depeche Mode; blond woman with tattooed calf muscles descending stairs, rapidly moving lips – ‘You’re not going to suck on those, are you?’

He stubs out the butt, satisfied he got one in.

I wonder when he’ll light another c-stick, whether he’ll ever get out of jail.

My wife and I zip, button, brush, and pack. We walk to bus stop, daughter in stroller, where we shiver and wait in cold drizzle.

There is a clear, assignable cause why the bus is late.

I also know that if I take a twenty-metre walk to the 711 to buy an iced caramel donut, the bus will suddenly arrive –out of nowhere.

JEREMY ROBERTS

The Amazing Story behind Two Photographs that Changed the Course of World War Two

THE BUNA SHOTS

STEPHEN DANDO-COLLINS

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2024, ARDEN

Stephen Dando-Collins

‘With The Buna Shots, Stephen Dando Collins reminds us of his pedigree as the foremost reporter of wartime history. He takes us into the battles of the war in New Guinea and into the lives of those involved, most noticeably, photographers George Silk and George Strock. A brilliant book that left me wanting more from this writer of great note.’

GREG T ROSS

Greg T. Ross: Welcome to the Last Post Radio Show podcast series and as part of The Last Post magazine. You can listen to podcasts anywhere and at any time, making it easy to fit into your daily routine. And we hope to become part of your daily routine. And why not, when we have guests like Australian Author Stephen Dando-Collins? We’re here to talk about Stephen’s latest book, The Buna Shots: The Amazing Story Behind Two Photographs that Changed World War Two. Welcome, Stephen.

Stephen Dando-Collins: Thank you, Greg. Great to be with you.

GTR: Stephen, this is quite an amazing book with just universal praise. Buna, a village on the coastal plane of Northern Papua, was the main base for the Japanese advancing along the Kokoda Trail. As we’ve mentioned previously in conversations, my father actually fought at Buna. Tell us a little about the title, Stephen, in relation to the story in the book about the two photographers, George Silk and George Strock.

SDC: Yeah. As you mentioned, Greg, the book is centered on the Battle of Buna-Gona, which was DecemberJanuary 1942, ‘43. And as I’ve found over the years, it’s a battle that a lot of Australians know very little or nothing about. And yet, it’s been said that that battle had the highest casualty rate of any battle during World War II, in any theater of war. Because not only were there bullets and shells and bombs flying, but the number of people coming down with various illnesses from malaria to scrub typhus and so on was immense. And units that started out with several thousand men would have several dozen by the end of the campaign fit for duty.

And it’s a battle that I knew about from a book by Raymond Paul. He was a war correspondent working for the ABC during the campaign. And I was lucky enough to befriend his daughter, Ann Benton, who is an author, was an author. And she gave me a copy of his book about the campaign and it fascinated me. But it was quite a few years later that I started to delve into it, initially attracted by the photograph that’s on the cover of the book, The Buna Shots, of the so-called Blinded Digger being helped along a track near Buna by a Papuan carrier. And that was really my starting point.

But the amazing thing was, when I started to look into the story seriously, that was about 2011. My wife, Louise, and I were visiting the Australian War Memorial. At that time, I had a book out about my great uncles during World War I, Crack Hardy, a book that did quite well around Australia at the time. And we were there to find their names, or as many of their names as we could, on the wall and put a poppy up. And as we’re doing this, four gentlemen from Papua New Guinea in tribal attire came up. And they were obviously there to attend a ceremony of some kind, and they very kindly allowed us to take a photograph. And

we thought, “How amazing to run into these gentlemen on that day.”

Well, as it turned out, as I later realized, they were descendants of the so-called Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels that I write a book about in The Buna Shots. So, the shots that I’m talking about are photographs, and they are two photographs that are said to have changed the course of World War II. One was that one I’ve mentioned, the so-called Blind Soldier, and the other one was taken only kilometers away, and a few weeks later, at Buna Beach of three dead Americans. And the great irony as I discovered it, I stumbled on the fact that these two photographs were connected.

Now, one was taken by a chap called George Silk, a Kiwi working for the Australian Department of Information. His best friend was Damien Parer, who was very well-known as an Australian photographer from World War II. The other guy was another George, whose last name started with S and ended with K as well. His name was George Strock, and he was an American working for LIFE Magazine. And they actually became friends. And their destinies became quite intertwined the more I delved into the story, which, to my amazement, nobody else apparently had come across in all the years since World War II.

GTR: Well, it’s an honour too, Stephen, that you’ve gone and researched this and ended up writing such a magnificent book. Because obviously, we had become aware, my family, through dad’s service of Buna, and the Buna Beach shots were amazing there by Strock, and of course, the Blinded Digger shot by Silk. But these were quite interesting characters themselves, Stephen. What happened? Damien Parer, who you said was a friend of George Silk’s, he resigned after Silk’s photograph. What happened there from memory? Silk actually went into the prime minister’s office.

SDC: Silk started out, he was a young man of 23. In the first week of 1940, he turns up in the office in Canberra of Prime Minister Robert Menzies and says, “I’m here to discuss a matter of national importance with the prime minister.” And he’d just come across from Auckland, where he’d worked as a shop assistant in a camera shop. And he walked in and he said, “I want to see the prime minister.” And Norman Tritton, the prime minister’s private secretary, said, “Well, you’d have to tell me what about. I can’t just usher you in to see the PM.” And he said, “Well, I want to photograph the war.”

And he brought along a portfolio of photographs he’s taken in his spare time in New Zealand, sporting events. And so, Tritton said, “Ah, ah,” as he’s looking through the portfolio. “Leave them with me. The PM’s meeting with The War Cabinet this afternoon, and I’ll try to show them to him. Go away.” So, George Silk went away. He came back at three o’clock, as instructed,

and Tritton said, “Yes, the PM and The Boys,” as they called The War Cabinet, “PM and the boys were rather impressed. We want you on a train to Melbourne tonight.”

And Silk said, “Actually, I’m broke. I spent my last pennies getting here to Canberra.”

And he said, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about that, young man. We’ll take care of that.” So, he gets on a train to Melbourne and he’s there, met by Lynne Mapleston, who was putting together the Department of Information’s photographic unit. And he booked him into a hotel and then took him to a men’s outfit. He got him outfitted in an Australian Army officer’s uniform, which official war correspondents for Australia wore.

Then, put him on another train to Western Australia, and he arrives at Fremantle and boards the troopship Strathaird. And his bunkmate is none other than Damien Parer. He said, “We spoke excitedly for 20 hours nonstop, barely stopping for meals, about photography.” And they became the best of friends, and the pair of them covered the war in the Middle East, initially, together.

GTR: Yes, it’s such a story; two great photographers meeting and becoming friends like that. And boy, oh, boy, George Silk had a bit of spunk about him, didn’t he, going into the prime minister’s office?

SDC: Oh, well, it got better. He said he was actually, before the war, afraid of guns and terrified of war. So, at one point, his boss in the Middle East, in Cairo, was Frank Hurley, the famous World War I photographer, and they didn’t get on at all. Hurley had different ideas to Silk and Parer. They wanted to document the war, and they refrained from taking, wherever possible, unless ordered to, taking pictures of officers. They always wanted to take pictures of the men fighting, doing the hard work.

And so, at one point, Silk got fed up with being held back by Frank Hurley. So, he borrows, let us say, a utility truck and drives off to join the British Operation Crusader, which was sent to relieve Tobruk. Parer and Silk had both been in Tobruk at one point, photographing the so-called Rats of Tobruk. And in fact, most of the photographs, the still photographs that we know of the Australian Rats of Tobruk, were taken by Silk.

And so, he joined this operation and takes the photograph of the battle in the desert, in the western desert, and then becomes separated from the British troops and walks up behind a group of soldiers, who he thinks are Allies. They’re actually German troops in a hole in the ground with a machine gun. And thinking quickly, now he’s only armed with a camera, thinking quickly, he reaches down and picks up a rock, which is about the size of a grenade, and says, “Surrender, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come.” Well, there were 11 Germans in the trench.

They all throw down their guns and throw up their hands. He rushes in and picks up one of the guns and takes them prisoners, and then hands them over to Scottish troops who are pushing out of Tobruk.

But a little bit later, he becomes separated again from Allied troops, and he’s captured by the Germans. And he’s, I think, a prisoner for about 10 days of the Germans, but then they have to fall back. Now, from all the things we know about Silk, he was very persuasive. So, he must have persuaded the German officer in charge of him as a prisoner to let him go. And not only to let him to go, but to keep his cameras. They were German cameras. He had a Rolleiflex camera and a Contax camera. Expensive German cameras. But he was allowed to go free and he regained Allied lines. And then, after the new prime minister, Curtin, the Labor prime minister, defied Churchill and recalled most of the Australian troops to defend Australia, Silk and Parer were both recalled.

Parer was sent to New Guinea, first of all. And then, after he was pulled out, exhausted, he covered the Kokoda campaign, with the very famous images of that campaign, which became an Academy Award-winning film, documentary film. But then, Silk was sent in to take his place in Papua New Guinea.

GTR: Well, that’s incredible. That’s absolutely incredible. The story about George Silk picking up the rock the size of a grenade and doing that, that should be in a movie. I think that’s absolutely amazing.

And I think that’s right, of course, because the troops were brought back from the Middle East, the 2nd/10th Battalion my father was in, which he joined when they returned from the Middle East and went to Papua New Guinea, Kokoda. That’s an amazing story about Silk, and he certainly seemed to have a lot of persuasiveness about him.

The other chap, George Strock, and this is another thing that’s very similar with them, Stephen, by the sounds of it, George Strock actually, like Silk going to the prime minister, Strock, correct me if I’m wrong, he went to see Roosevelt at some stage.

SDC: Yes. His campaign, if you’ll call it, ended up with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now, Strock was a very different character from Silk. He liked to drink. And he was in Chicago when his boss at LIFE Magazine said, “Okay, you’ve been pushing to go to the Pacific. We’re sending you with the 32nd Division. Get to San Francisco. There’s a place for you in one of the troopships heading to Australia.”

So, he went on a train called the City of San Francisco. He spent the 35-hour trip in the bar car because George Strock loved to drink. So, the train was called the City of San Francisco, but it didn’t actually go to San Francisco. It only went to

CLOCKWISE, FROM ABOVE LEFT:

Photo of photographer George Silk in the Gona mud, Australian War Memorial acc. no. 013757.

Silk’s banned photo of Vickers gunners during the battle for Giropa Point, Australian War Memorial acc. no. 014037.

Australian PM John Curtin and America’s General MacArthur meet in Sydney, June 7, 1943, to discuss the Silk affair after Curtin had Silk fired. Australian War Memorial acc. no. 052513.

Silk’s banned photo of Bren gunners during the battle for Giropa Point, Australian War Memorial acc. no. 014001.

Oakland, California. But he was lucky enough that the chief barman in the bar car put him on a ferry to San Francisco from Oakland, around San Francisco Bay, and went with him.

Then, when he got to Pier 42, Strock was totally out cold, of course, by this stage. And he put him over his shoulder, carried him up like a plank and deposited him on a troopship. It was the wrong troopship. And once the convoy, I think it was seven troopships and three US Navy escorts, once it set sail, reported back to LIFE Magazine, “Your man, Strock, hasn’t turned up on his ship.” But then, a message comes a bit later, “Ah, we found him on another ship, so that’s all right.” So, that’s how Strock found his way to Australia and to the war.

GTR: The more you tell viewers or listeners and readers about these two men, Stephen, and your brilliant recounting of this piece of history, it becomes more evident it should be a movie, I’ll tell you what.

SDC: Absolutely. Absolutely.

GTR: How did these two amazing photos from Strock and Silk change the perception, the view of World War II, in the Pacific?

SDC: Well, we assume that the Silk photo of the Wounded Digger, his name was George Whittington, nicknamed “Dick” Whittington. And the carrier, he’s the Papuan carrier, his name was Raphael Oimbari, and they didn’t identify him until 1972. So, his photograph, we assume that it just appeared and it became famous, probably the most iconic World War II Australian photo. But the Department of Information banned it for being too graphic. And Silk was incensed.

And he’d taken a couple of other photographs. He’d photographed the 2nd/10th Battalion, as you mentioned. And he’d taken some photographs of the 2nd/12th in the latter stage of the Battle for Buna, which he considered the best photographs he’d ever taken, and he thought the best photographs of the war. He had no fear. He stood right beside a couple of Australian Bren gunners. And a second after he took one shot, the Bren gunner beside him fell down dead with a bullet in his head from a Japanese gun.

The other one was a Vickers gunners in the open, sitting behind their Vickers gun, firing at the trees, at the Japanese snipers. And the first gunner had been shot and killed, and his body was still there in the photograph. And both those photographs were banned by the Department of Information, and he was incensed.

So, he wined and dined a young lady from the Department of Information, their only female representative. She was in Port Moresby, “And she was a very attractive young lady,” he said. And for a long time, he never revealed this. He only revealed this after the war, and he never revealed her name. And I’m still on a search, on a quest,

to find out who she was, because she was a very plucky young lady. So, he whined and dined her at the Officers’ Club in Port Moresby, and got her to agree to help him.

So, what she did is she sent to the DOI, the Department of Information Laboratory in Sydney, asking for prints of his two favorite photos of the Bren gunners and the Vickers gunners. And as an afterthought, he said, “Oh, you might as well get me a shot of the Blinded Digger and the carrier.” And so, she got prints of all three, sent through an official order and requisition order, and the prints came back.

She smuggled them to Silk. He smuggled them to Bill Chickering, who was an American war correspondent, who took them to Brisbane, to MacArthur’s headquarters, and got them stamped, approved by the American censor. He brought them back, gave them to Silk. Silk gave them to George Strock, the American LIFE photographer. Strock had just taken his photograph with three dead American soldiers on Buna Beach, and he knew well that the Pentagon banned any shots of American dead. And even American wounded, they were very careful about not showing seriously wounded GIs or Marines or whatever.

And he was determined to get it published because, as he’d found, the American public was very apathetic about the war. They assumed that America, being such a great power, they’d win the war by Christmas and it’ll be over and we could forget all about it. But as Strock found, the Japanese were a very, very tough opposition. And so, he decided, after the Battle of Buna, he was going back to America to get this photograph published. So, he took Silk’s three first prints with him, smuggled them out of New Guinea to Australia and then back to America. And he went to LIFE Magazine with them.

He gave the three Silk shots to his boss at LIFE Magazine, and LIFE Magazine was the first publication in the world to publish the Blinded Digger shot, which got Silk fired and accused of treason for giving classified information to a foreign power. So, that’s when Damien Parer resigned from the DOI, Department of Information-

GTR: Yeah, that’s right.

SDC: ... and went to work for Paramount Newsrooms.

GTR: Yeah, that’s right, Stephen. And to appear in such a prestigious publication as LIFE, and then, of course, there were few people suggesting that Silk was a foreign agent or something like that, that was absolutely incredible. Two of the most graphic photos, and I say that knowingly because they stick in the memory. These are two photographs that when news came out about your book, and seeing these photographs,

I thought about time. Because they’re there for historical record, and an amazing thing.

When you spoke about Strock and Silk being different characters, I think we spoke Strock from Dyersville, was it in Iowa? And he was doing movie stuff in magazine. What was it, Modern Screen and LIFE Magazine?

SDC: Yeah. Modern Screen, yeah. So, he was a paparazzi before the war, paparazzi, and he adopted the paparazzi lifestyle, the movie-world lifestyle.

But when the war broke out, he was sent to London, first of all, and then to Vichy France to cover the war. But he really got a taste going, “Yeah, I want to cover combat.” And so, that’s how he had a very different background to Silk.

GTR: And Silk, of course, as we speak about this, George Silk, he won the US Magazine Photographer of the Year four times, was it, Stephen?

SDC: Yep. He became famous through his Blind Soldier shot, and he was saved by LIFE Magazine. Curtin had him fired and then refused to, when LIFE Magazine put their hand up and said, “Okay, we’ll hire him,” he refused to give him official war correspondent accreditation for months.

And then, when LIFE Magazine said, “Oh, okay, we’ll have to get somebody else to replace Strock in New Guinea, we won’t be able to send Silk there because his government won’t release him,” only then did John Curtin... He had a reputation for being a really good prime minister in many respects, but he and MacArthur dug their heels in and were determined not to allow Silk to shoot the war again.

So, only after LIFE apparently had dropped him, did Curtin give him approval to work for other people. And Silk was devastated. But then, LIFE Magazine, the executive editor cabled him, “Come to New York. We’re sending you to cover the war in Europe.” So, he covered the war in Europe and again, had an amazing life-and-death adventures during D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge. He was then sent to the Pacific and took the first picture of Nagasaki, after the A-bomb was taken.

So, LIFE Magazine valued him so much that they hired him and kept him on staff for the rest of the war. And he worked for LIFE until they closed down in 1972. But he was also hired by Sports Illustrated and all the major magazines.

So, as you say, he won Magazine Photographer of the Year four times and was highly venerated by the Americans. He ended up with an American accent. He married in 1947 and settled in the US. But he loved the Australian troops that he’d worked with during World War II so much so, even though he was a Kiwi, given the

slightest opportunity, he would break into Waltzing Matilda.

GTR: Isn’t that amazing? And tell me if I’m wrong here, but I think Silk’s life, just amazing. And was he in Hawaii doing a surfing story when life folded, or was that around that time?

SDC: He was in Europe, I think in Switzerland, in the Alps. And he gets a cable, “Sorry, the editors have decided to close down, the board’s decided to close down the magazine.” And he sent back a cable, “Your message garbled. Send half-a-million dollars in extra expenses.” So, he was a cheeky dip. So, George Strock continued to work, the American, continued to work for LIFE Magazine as well, but was never quite as famous as Silk. But you mentioned President Roosevelt earlier?

GTR: Yeah.

SDC: To get his photograph of the three dead Americans published, he and LIFE Magazine kept going to the Pentagon, and their representative in Washington DC went almost daily and knocking on doors to get approval to get this photograph published. And of course, the Pentagon being the Pentagon, “No, we’re not approving that.” And he went up the ranks. He started with a captain, then a major, then a lieutenant colonel, the colonel and the general, then an assistant secretary for war. And he was finally told, “You’re going to have to take this to The White House.”

So they take it to The White House. And fortunately, Steve Early, President Roosevelt’s press secretary, was himself a former journalist, was in sympathy with their belief that the American public had to be shocked into getting behind the war. In the arms factories, the absenteeism rate was 20, 25% or something of that nature. A lot of politicians were against being in the war, and they wanted to shock the American public into realizing, “Yeah, this is a tough struggle, and we’re not going to win it until the whole country gets behind it.”

So, Steve Early takes the photograph in to President Roosevelt, and Roosevelt totally agrees with them. Because the Congress was dominated by the Republicans, they fought him at every level throughout the war. And so, he approved this publication. So, seven months after Silk’s Blind Soldier photograph appeared in LIFE, LIFE published Strock’s three dead Americans, and it created quite a reaction around America. A lot of newspapers came out and said, “This is disgusting. We can’t show this.” But even newspapers that opposed Roosevelt, including The Washington Post, got behind it and said, “No, no, we’ve got to accept the realities of the war and get behind it.”

So, in 2014, TIME Magazine said that Strock’s shot of the three dead Americans was the photograph that won the war. I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but a lot of historians

have said that they really believe it shortened the war, and therefore saved a lot of lives. Because America really, after that, got behind the war.

GTR: Yeah. Yeah, I tend to agree from an observer’s point of view, that did seem to change the focus in America. And one can’t help but understand why when you see that graphic photo of the three dead Marines, I think it is on the beach. Incredible stuff. Incredible stuff.

It helps, I guess, the truth of battle, Stephen, is well-recorded in your book. And I guess that’s what the two Georges were about.

SDC: Yes. Yeah, they believed in truth in war. I put a quote in there from an American congressman, he was a Republican actually, who said, “The first casualty,” a famous quote, “in war is truth.” And in Australia, Prime Minister Curtin actually cracked down, and he issued an order which prevented the publication of the famous Blinded Digger photograph, which was used on posters for the Liberty Loan, which we have the war loans in Australia.

But he cracked down and prevented it being published again. And he even prevented photographs being published of ambulances or the outside of hospitals. So, he went quite the different direction from Roosevelt. He felt the Australian public couldn’t take bad news and couldn’t take the truth.

Whereas Roosevelt said, “No, no, it’s only with the truth that we can win the war.” Andrei Sokolov, the famous Soviet scientist, said that, “After the war that the greatest weapon in war is not the A-bomb, it’s truth.” And so, unfortunately, in Australia, we saw less and less truthful coverage of the war, where in America, they began to see the naked truth of war.

GTR: Yeah. Well-said, well-said, too, Stephen. I think it maybe exemplified with the Darwin bombing and the intrusion of Japanese mini-subs in Sydney Harbour. I don’t know if the whole truth was told of those incidents.

SDC: No, no. As you say, I gather that the Darwin story was pretty much suppressed. There were reasons to be careful about what was said. General MacArthur, after the Battle of the Coral Sea, one of his senior officers told a war correspondent that of course, they were rather pleased with themselves that they’d beaten back the Japanese Navy. But one of these officers said to the war correspondent, “It was the result of good intelligence.” And in fact, the Allies had broken the Japanese Naval code.

But MacArthur was furious because it didn’t take a genius on the Japanese side to work out, “Ah, I’ve said intelligence. We’d better look carefully at our own side, to see whether there’s a problem with our codes and so on.” And so, after that, MacArthur banned senior officers, or any officer,

Allied officer, from talking to the press without express permission from GHQ. So, there were reasons to be careful, but I think preventing photographs of ambulances, et cetera, being published was just going too far.

GTR: Yeah, indeed. Indeed, quite ridiculous when you think about it. Yeah. Okay. So, the two Georges were friends, you said? Did they ever meet in an LA bar, Stephen?

SDC: In my mind, I can see it happening. There’s no record of it, but I’m sure it did. In the movie version, as you say, this is ripe for movie material, we are talking to documentary makers at the moment, so hopefully it’ll progress to a movie one day. But in my movie version, we have the two Georges meeting in that LA bar, and who else should be there, but the DOI lady?

In the book, I call her Peggy, for want of another name, rather than just saying the anonymous lady. And it’s possible that one or more of your listeners have a grandmother or great-grandmother, who, after the war, someone might’ve been talking about the Blind Digger photograph, “Ah, if it weren’t for me, that would never have been published.”

So, I’m hopeful at some point in the promotion for this book, someone’s going to put up their hand and say, “That was my grandmother or greatgrandmother.” I’d love to identify her and give her the credit. Because if it’d been found out that she got those prints and smuggled them to Silk, she would’ve been fired, without doubt, and possibly prosecuted under the very tight regulations that existed-

GTR: My God.

SDC: ... on the circulation of photographs.

GTR: My God, she took such a risk.

SDC: And George Silk... She absolutely did. And George Silk, as I said earlier, only revealed her involvement quite a long while after the war, and never revealed her name. But I think she should be praised for her pluck.

GTR: Indeed, another part of history that tells its own story, and if we can help in any way in getting some information, and getting some news about that wonderful woman and her bravery in this instance.

So, Stephen Dando-Collins, thank you so much for speaking with the Last Post Radio Show podcast series about your amazing book, The Buna Shots: The Amazing Story Behind Two Photographs that Changed the Course of World War Two. A gripping narrative, as has been said, about the human spirit over seemingly unbeatable odds. So, thank you so very much, Stephen.

SDC: Greg, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

Defence Member and Family Support

Defence Member and Family Support (DMFS) are part of the Department of Defence and provide support to Defence members and their families throughout their military journey.

DMFS assists families with:

» 24/7 access to information and support

» Crisis support

» Accessing childcare

» Children’s education

» Connection to community groups

» Families with special needs

» Partner employment

» Member absence from home

» Posting and relocation

To access DMFS support services or products: 1800 624 608

MemberAndFamilyHelpline@defence.gov.au www.defence.gov.au/adf-members-families @DefenceMemberandFamilySupport @dmfs_ausdefence www.forcenet.gov.au

John Bryant, described by his Vietnam War commander as a fine soldier, gained recognition later in life for his extraordinary efforts in locating the remains of Vietnamese soldiers killed during the Battle of Fire Support Base Balmoral in May 1968.

Born in November 1946 in Mooroopna, a small Victorian town on the Goulburn River, John was the son of a World War II Kokoda Trail veteran and his Army Signals Corps wife. Raised in the country, he developed skills in hunting and shooting from an early age, which he credited as invaluable during his military service.

John was conscripted in 1967 but turned down officer training because he wanted to experience military life as a regular soldier. After completing training at Puckapunyal in Victoria and 10 weeks of infantry training at Singleton, NSW, he joined a rifle company.

Three weeks of jungle training at Canungra, Queensland, prepared him for his deployment to Vietnam.

On 30 November 1967, just two days after his 21st birthday, John married his girlfriend, Wendy. Less than a month later, he was deployed to South Vietnam with Delta Company, 3RAR, where he saw action in the Tet Offensive and numerous engagements against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces.

After a brief mid-tour leave in Australia, John returned to Vietnam, where he was helicoptered into Fire Support Base Balmoral on 25 May 1968. Armed with a newly purchased 35mm camera, John captured unique battle photographs, some of which are now displayed in museums, including the Australian War Memorial. The Battle of Balmoral claimed the lives of three Australian soldiers and up to 800 Vietnamese troops.

Following the battle, where John was recognised for his skill and bravery, he spent the rest of his tour patrolling, setting ambushes, and building bases before returning to Melbourne at the end of the year to resume his life with Wendy. He and Wendy produced four sons over the next decade.

From 2007, John made several visits to Vietnam, retracing the steps of his service from 40 years earlier. Over time, he became convinced that the remains of Vietnamese soldiers killed at Balmoral were being searched for in the wrong location. Through his photographs, memories, and aerial

John Bryant Vale

Family, friends, and the veteran community are mourning the sudden passing of Vietnam War veteran John Bryant, aged 77, in Victoria on Saturday, 12 October 2024.

imagery from the American Central Intelligence Agency, he convinced both Vietnamese authorities and the Australian Embassy of the correct site for recovery.

In April 2024, John witnessed the recovery of the remains of 20 soldiers, along with weapons and personal belongings. He had planned to return to Vietnam in early 2025 to continue the search and was working with the RSL to document the project. Tragically, John passed away following a medical procedure before these plans could be realised.

Condolences have poured in from the veteran community, friends, colleagues, and the Vietnamese government.

RSL Australia President Greg Melick expressed deep sympathy to John’s partner Nhu, his family and Delta Company comrades:

“John was instrumental in locating the remains of Vietnamese soldiers killed at Balmoral. His efforts earned him the respect of the Vietnamese government, military officials, and even his former adversaries. His work played a key role in improving relations between Australia and Vietnam, a contribution recognised by the Vietnamese government.”

John Bryant’s commander in Vietnam, retired Major General Peter Phillips, remembered him as a dedicated and loyal soldier.

“I recall him as one of the finest soldiers in D Company, 3RAR, during our time in Vietnam. He was a steadfast warrior and a loyal comrade ever since,” said Major General Phillips. “We owe him a debt of gratitude for his efforts in locating the remains of those who fell at Balmoral.”

Vietnam’s Ambassador to Australia, Hung Tam Pham, also expressed his sadness at John Bryant’s passing.

“I had the pleasure of meeting John twice and was looking forward to spending more time with him. He played a significant role in locating the remains of our fallen soldiers, and we deeply appreciate his contribution.”

A long-time active RSL member, John Bryant, will be deeply missed by all who knew him.

RSL AUSTRALIA

ARCHIBALD HOLMAN Tobacco

Images courtesy of the Goldfields War Museum Collection.

“Quiet night – slight rain – fine day – the sun only comes down to us in one or two shafts of light lasting about two hrs I’ve been chasing that bit of sun to dry my gear – bloody near impossible…”

It was in late 1944, as the Second World War was winding slowly to a close that Archibald Kenneth ‘Arch’ Holman, a member of the 28th Australian Infantry Battalion, arrived on the island of New Britain (now part of Papua New Guinea).

Initially sent to Jacquinot Bay, the 28th Battalion was committed to nearby Wide Bay in April 1945. While stationed at Wide Bay, Arch (a mechanic from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia) kept a diary recording his experiences. Military law officially forbade soldiers from keeping diaries as the consequences could be disastrous if the information fell into the hands of the enemy. However, Arch cleverly concealed his writings in a circular tobacco tin, the kind often carried by soldiers.

Writing in neat cursive (though lacking punctuation) on carefully rounded pieces of paper; in an honest, observational style, Arch faithfully pencilled down the day-to-day operations of the Allied forces at Wide Bay. (Note: excerpts reproduced in this article have been edited for readability).

Tropical conditions in New Guinea caused issues for the soldiers. Frequent, drenching rain made roads and tracks into a muddy quagmire, the troops sometimes had to wade through it up to their knees and Arch wondered if snowshoes would help them walk on top of the mud. When an officer, newly arrived from Darwin, insisted the men keep up with polishing their boots, Arch’s reply in his diary was “…can’t cut the mud off with [an] axe…”. He detested the mud and found the only decent solution was a regular, fully clothed, plunge into the sea.

Evening meals were fairly monotonous as they often consisted of the same ingredients: “…moon gone now, meat spuds onions butter again – letter from Kath…”. The men supplemented their diet with wild growing coconuts and bananas.

Messages from home were usually brought by a Walrus or Catalina amphibious aircraft landing in the bay. Arch’s family also sent parcels containing food such tinned fruit cake, dates and raisins, as well as books and the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper. The army’s own Guinea Gold paper was also welcomed as it kept the men connected with happenings in the war and the wider world.

Australian troops stationed on New Britain took an active part in patrolling the jungle to contain the numerically superior Japanese forces to the north-eastern portion of the island. Arch documented the regular patrols:

“Wednesday 18 - Fine day…1100 to 1500 out on patrol - sleeves down – beret, black off billy on face, grenade, ammo, atebrin, lotion, bandage, sulfamil tabs, knife - course 1500yds E-N-W- through Jap living area…”

Trying to get to sleep at night, or listening for enemy movement while on picquet duty, was made all the more difficult by the nightly orchestra:

“…birds here of a night make a hell of a noise – one sounds like the trans-train compressing, goes all night, others are like a street full of motor horns – others like fowls and the good old white cockie has his screech – black cockies put on a turn – pigeons coo, cassowary and pheasant make a deep drumming of night – cicada has his say then arty [artillery] and top off with barges and jeeps down below…”

In one amusing incident, Arch and his mates attempted to rid themselves of the noise around their campsite:

“…cicadas and frogs in grass at edge of tent, we throw things at ‘em but don’t shift ‘em so tonight Ron suggested spraying grass with distillate, which I did and moved ‘em and might move us by the smell”

A Salvation Army Officer was stationed with the troops at Wide Bay, his support greatly appreciated:

“Whole company unloading 300-ton Yankee job at wharf...Salvo brought morn. tea for all working there...chaps got loaf bread, 2 tins fruit, 1 milk, 2 strawberry jam and we [were] into it after a poor breakfast.”

Arch discovered a ‘beaut’ Japanese sword while out on patrol: ‘…carved handle, two handed, not a spot of rust…” and despite the other men telling him to keep it: “…I gave it to our Salvo as present as he has been good to us…”

The Salvo often hooked his gramophone to an amplifier, waking the men in the morning to the strains of Vera Lynn and The Blue Danube and sometime broadcasting the radio at important times:

“Just over the air via Salvo radio Japs willing to surrender if can keep Emperor, mild excitement rages thro camp…”

Although the war ended in August 1945, the 28th Battalion remained in New Britain for a further five months, processing Japanese prisoners of war.

Arch finally returned to Australia in January 1946 and was discharged from the army a few weeks later.

After the war, he was part of a successful a gold prospecting partnership in Kalgoorlie and was a loving step-father to two children. Arch passed away in January 1982.

Vella, Eddy, the Ross brothers... Guts, guts, guts

BY GREG T ROSS

These are the words that resonate still. At the ¾ time break during our school football match against Rose Park, August, 1969.

But lets retract, to two and a half years before I’d heard Adrian Burton impassionedly utter those words.

It was February, 1967. In a time where The Beatles were still 5 months away from releasing Sgt. Pepper. Harold Holt was still 10 months away from disappearing forever. In South Australia, where my mothers and my two brothers had relocated, again, Frank Walsh was still Premier.

Mum, Craig, David and I settled in the leafy Adelaide suburb of Hawthorn, an upper-middle-class suburb by definition. But that was not our story. Mum and Dad had separated, interstate and the four of us had returned to Adelaide basically because there was nowhere else to go. Mum had found two jobs to keep a roof over our heads and we still waited for weekly payments from our father.

The nearest school was the Mitcham Demonstration School, a primary school, 1.5 kilometres away, on Hillview Road in Kingswood. We enrolled there.

That same year, a young and charismatic teacher by the name of Adrian Burton, joined the staff at Mitcham, a school with a proud history and a picturesque oval, nestled in the foothills.

On that February morning, Mum walked Craig and I to our new school. We were introduced to the Principal and then, to our new teacher. Adrian Burton.

As in keeping with new beginnings, in that year, 1967, Adrian was also appointed as the schools new football coach.

Memories are vague and scratchy, of course. But I remember my brother and I making new friends easily at the new school. And I remember feeling enlivened and empowered by the youthful engagement of Adrian. School became something to look forward to. Adrain would involve students in decision making and include the new cultural norms to play games that encouraged thinking and laughter. Being in his class at school and having him as football coach gave me the strength to attend football training. But, in those early days, it was tough. Prior to the start of the ‘67 season, there was a squad to be selected. When the squad was named, I was not amongst the chosen.

Maybe now there’s a name for it. Maybe it’s a condition I had, that can be treated. But, defiantly, I stayed at training, acting like I hadn’t heard the exclusion of my name. I ran around with the senior players until one of them screamed at me, “Piss off Ross, you’re not in the team”.

I have no idea if Adrian witnessed this abasement. But, a couple of weeks later, I was named as an Emergency, in the team. I was not aware of the school ever having done that before. But, it happened and I was given an old jumper and told to turn up, to watch the real team, wearing their new jumpers that had also been issued in that very important year of 1967.

During the course of ‘67, I played maybe one or two games, without setting the world on fire. But it gave me the strength and determination to keep turning up for training.

1967 ended and 1968 arrived and Adrian was promoted to teaching Grade 6 and he again was my teacher. His philosophy of teamwork continued, in the classroom and as football coach.

I can’t remember if 1967 had been greatly successful for the school team, I think not. But 1968 was when it all started to fall into place. As if Adrians message was finally cutting through. He brought SANFL players to assist and guide us at training. He was young and good looking and led by example. We wanted to play for Mitcham. But we wanted to play for Adrian, too.

I managed maybe six or seven games that year and we were beginning to be a successful outfit. The icing on the cake was when I was selected to play in the Adelaide Primary Schools Lightening Carnival, to be held at Unley Oval. We made the final. During that game I laid a tackle and was given a free kick against. There was Adrian, on the boundary, telling me I’d done the right thing.

We won the 1968 Schoolboys Lightening Carnival.

At the end of 1968, during the summer holidays, we would go to Brownhill Creek on our pushbikes and, on the warmer days, pedal with friends to the Unley Swimming Pool. These were good times to be young, with the culture and the music of youth.

But all through those holidays I was eager only to get back to school. To see Adrian again and to rejoin the football team.

1969 was the year that delivered a lot of the promises I’d hoped for. We no longer had Adrian as a teacher but his mantra remained a strong part of our mindset. At training he would emphasis the importance of team, of working together and of communication. In that third year of Adrian’s tenure as coach, we went through the season undefeated. Again, I was selected to play in the Lightening Carnival. Again, we won. If my memory serves me right, it was the first time a school had won back-to-back.

Whatever the achievement, there are always hurdles to be jumped. For us, it was the chance to represent our state in the schoolboys championships to be played in Melbourne. But first, we had to beat a team that wore the same jumper as us. Rose Park. The advantage was that we were playing on our ground. That beautiful, expansive oval lined by gum trees, with the Adelaide Hills as a background. With all the school lining the boundary, cheering us on.

On that sunny Friday afternoon, nearly ready to turn 13 and full of youthful testosterone, with the smell of the freshly cut grass filling the nostrils, I eagerly joined my teammates, ready for battle. Urged by Adrian not to be overcome by the occasion but to play, as we always did, as a team. A couple of our better players were missing. One, training with the state team and the other, out injured. But our Captain, Roger Hunt, who had been drafted from a private school, spoke with us also and reminded us of our record. “We are better than them’, he said, “we just have to prove it”.

And so we did. Or at least, that’s the way it looked for most of the match. At ¾ time we were leading by 23 points. We gathered in the centre of the ground. You could feel the excitement. From the sidelines, the schools students were cheering us on. In the huddle, Adrian was pleased but also concerned that we may think that we already had it won. He was animated and, for the first time ( apart from when an opposing team the year before had tried to stooge the score - but still lost), red-faced. He emphahsised the importance of good defence. “Vella, Eddy, the Ross Brothers...guts, guts, guts!”, he exclaimed. And it was true. Michael, John, Craig and I had worked overtime in repelling Rose Park attacks.

In the last quarter, Rose Park kept on coming. Somehow, by the end of the game, scores were level. This was unfamiliar territory for us. Even more so when it was decided to play extra time.

Rose Park took the lead early in extra time but I remained confident that, as we’d done in the Lightening Carnival, we’d be able to claw our way back. And we did. With only a few minutes to go, scores were again level.

And then the bastards kicked a point.

When the final siren sounded, some of us cried. A lot of us had not experienced defeat before. We wanted a re-match. We wanted a game, against anyone. We wanted to keep playing together. It had brought us so much happiness and camaraderie.

And this is where the lesson ends, with the reminder from Adrain that we had achieved great things, as a team, by working as a team. That this was a reminder that life can contain detours and also, the unexpected. That, he said, if we carry that belief in ourselves through life, then life will reward us.

I and many others, were rewarded by knowing Adrian Burton. To have him as a teacher and coach was a blessing. I can’t speak for others but I feel that we just didn’t want to win for ourselves and the team, we wanted to win for Adrian.

Adrian and students kept in contact in the following years with school reunions. Adrian and I kept in contact over the years and shared happy moments. I thanked him and he thanked me. He told me he was impressed with me from the moment I refused to go home after not being selected in the squad.

In a phone conversation, two weeks before he died, I signed off with “Goodnight coach”.

Goodbye Adrain and thank you for the lessons.

The serendipitous nature of life can bring good things and, if we go back to 1967, walking into the grounds of Mitcham Demonstration School on that hot February morning, was a good thing.

Making an impact

It is unclear who first said, “if you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, go together”, but in the case of fundraising and philanthropy, these words could not be truer, especially in the case of giving circles.

Giving circles have grown in popularity in recent times and come in all shapes and sizes, from as little as two people to hundreds, giving $100 to thousands of dollars, with shared values who come together to pool their donations, time and their resources such as Impact100 South Australia, and in so doing amplify the impact of their giving.

Impact100 SA was started 10 years ago in Adelaide by a group of passionate philanthropists who had heard about the giving circle movement in the US, with the idea that they would get 100 people together who would each contribute a taxdeductible amount of $1000.

They then invited local not-for-profit organisations to apply and make a pitch for a high impact grant of $100,000, with each member being

able to vote on how they would like the pooled funds to be distributed.

The Chairperson of Impact100 SA, Kathryn House AM, says that this simple, but effective and participatory fundraising model enables philanthropy to be available to anyone – meaning you don’t need to be Gina Rinehart or Andrew Forrest to make an impactful donation.

Kathryn told us that in the 10 years that Impact100 SA has been in operation, membership has now grown to over 320 donors, who have contributed more than $2.47 million to 30 grassroots not-for-profit organisations.

She also said that raising funds is only one of the many benefits of this participatory philanthropy model because after being introduced to

the charities, many people become motivated to do more by volunteering their time to become board members, mentors, supporters of the individual charities, and by using their connections and networks to introduce them to other donors and supporters. The flow on effect is enormous with donors giving much more than just money.

Kathryn also said that there are educational and social benefits of being part of a giving circle like Impact100 SA as participants not only meet like-minded donors, but they are able to earn about important issues affecting their local community.

Kathryn has recently started Young Impact, a collective giving circle for school aged children to learn about participatory philanthropy in South Australia.

Impact 100 South Australia Grant Awards Night, October 2024.

The Last Post visits Western Australia

It was a return to sorts, I guess. For the second time in as many years, The Last Post travelled to WA for a feature story. And why not?

My father, who had started the original The Last Post in Sydney, moved to WA with the thought of retirement. But soon, during the hours of lawn-mowing and gardening that he had set up as a cash-earner, thoughts of reviving The Last Post became stronger.

And so, the original TLP resurfaced as a WA publication. My father had moved to Scarborough Beach in Perth to celebrate Australian summers as they should be. With warmth, heat, shorts and a surf beach that occupied the mindset and lifestyle of our WA brothers and sisters.

In 2022, the magazine finally returned to its shared birthplace of WA, alongside NSW and SA, to celebrate its birth. We went to Broome and the Peninsula.

GREG T ROSS

This year, we returned, again. This time to Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef.

The shadow of the original TLP loomed large as we engaged with other regional parts of this great state, to give witness to WA’s great military and maritime history, in the history of Australia.

The magazine’s tour of WA was an experience of perpetual summertime. To diving an swimming and late-night beers and pizzas in desert beer-gardens.

To a reminder of my family’s time in WA.

For this special feature, we have engaged with many regional centres of this great state. Each with a story and a reminder of the states connection to the spirit of the magazine and the Anzac spirit.

It is with deep pride that I acknowledge Geraldton’s enduring connection with Australia’s military history. Our association with the military dates back to 1629, when Private Wiebbe Hayes and his soldiers heroically opposed the mutineers of the Batavia. This spirit of bravery has been a hallmark of our community ever since.

From the 1850s, Pensioner Guards played a pivotal role in settling our district. This legacy continued into the late 19th century, with members of the Geraldton Rifle Volunteer Corps fighting in the Boer War. “Geraldtonians” have since participated valiantly in various military operations, from World War I and World War II to conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as numerous peacekeeping missions.

World War II marked a significant transformation for our city. The war effort commandeered sections of Geraldton and the surrounding countryside, with our small population accommodating a large contingent of military personnel. The tragic loss of HMAS Sydney II off Shark Bay in 1941 was a stark reminder of the war’s farreaching impact, dispelling many previous thoughts that it would not be affected by the war.

The threat of attack after Japan entered the war led to the temporary evacuation of many residents, who soon returned to fortify our city. Despite the hardships, the influx of servicemen and women brought new activities, industries and experiences that irrevocably changed Geraldton, shaping it into the resilient and vibrant community it is today.

Geraldton’s rich military history is a testament to the courage and resilience of our people. This legacy of service is a source of immense pride and a reminder of the sacrifices made by those who served. Their contributions have safeguarded our freedoms and shaped the character of our community.

Lest we forget,

CITY OF GREATER GERALDTON

MAYOR JERRY CLUNE

Photo by Travis Petford, Courtesy City of Greater Geraldton.

Merredin, a quaint town nestled in Western Australia’s wheatbelt, holds a surprising military history, The town’s commitment to honouring its fallen soldiers is evident in its annual observance of Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and the Battle Of Long Tan.

Nestled in the heart of Western Australia, the Merredin Military Museum offers a window into the nation’s rich military history. Established in 1994, the museum boasts a vast collection of vehicles, many of which are fully operational and regularly showcased at parades, Anzac Day commemorations, and rallies.

One of the museum’s crown jewels is “Huey,” a former RAAF and Army Aviation Iroquois UH-1H helicopter. This iconic aircraft holds a special place in Australian military history. It’s one of only two Iroquois helicopters on public display in Western Australia.

The Nungarin Heritage Machinery & Army Museum, the museum showcases a diverse collection of military memorabilia, including a rare Dingo Scout Car and General Grant Tank.

Originally part of the No. 5 Base Ordnance Depot (5BOD), the workshop was constructed in 1942-43. The massive building was considered the largest storage facility for Army Ordnance in Western Australia at the time.

The town of Merredin held a poignant Dawn Service this year, marking their first since the passing of Jim Willcox, the town’s last RSL president and a beloved Vietnam veteran.

Willcox, who died in February 2024 at 75, was remembered for his unwavering dedication to his country and community. A proud veteran of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Army Regiment, Willcox served nearly a year in Vietnam.

Willcox’s legacy extends beyond his service. He was instrumental in creating Merredin’s RSL reflection pool and actively participated in commemorative services for decades.

While the RSL posthumously awarded Willcox a Long Service Award for his dedication. His family received it at his funeral, a testament to the deep respect Merredin holds for this community hero.

The Memorial Reflection Pond commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, a pivotal clash that occurred on August 18, 1966, between Australian and Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, faced overwhelming odds against the Viet Cong 275 Regiment and elements of the D445 Local Forces Battalion.

The Battle of Long Tan remains a significant milestone in Australia’s military history, serving as a testament to the bravery and sacrifice of its soldiers.

For more information on the Merredin Military Museum, Nungarin Heritage Machinery & Army Museum, and other local attractions, visit the Central Wheatbelt Visitor Centre.

Discover Military History in the WA Wheatbelt

The Nungarin Heritage, Machinery & Army Museum is housed in an original Army Vehicle Workshop building constructed in Nungarin in 1942-43 as part of Australia’s defence during WWII. The huge building was part of No.5 Base Ordnance Depot (5BOD) which was considered to be the largest storage facility for Army Ordnance in Western Australia at that time.

Nungarin Heritage, Machinery & Army Museums 26 Second Ave, Nungarin 08 9046 5040

nungarinheritage@bigpond.com nungarinmuseum.com.au

Opening Hours: 9 – 4pm everyday (except Good Friday and Christmas Day)

45 Barrack Street MERREDIN 6415 (08) 9041 1666

visitor@merredin.wa.gov.au www.wheatbelttourism.com

OUR COLLECTION

Although the Museum has a large collection of Vehicles, we endeavor to tell the whole story of our defence forces.

You will also find on display everything from a toothbrush to a tank; artillery to postcards sent home from the Western Front during WWI. You will also see the personal kit carried by a soldier in the jungles of New Guinea.

M E R R E D I N M I L I T A R Y M U S E U M

This museum was set up in 1994, to allow three local collectors the chance to display their collections In the years since, the museum has grown to house an extensive collection including displays from WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam

Albany

The cool climate haven of Albany perches on a placid harbour edged by a National Park. A rugged coastline of sculpted rocks, peaceful sandy beaches and nature trails through fragrant bush awaits those with a sense of adventure, while fans of local wineries, small wine bars and historic buildings will enjoy slow walks around town.

It takes just over four-and-a-half hours to drive to Albany from Perth, or you can fly there directly in one hour. Coach lines also service Albany. If you want to walk to Albany from Perth, you can – a 1000 kilometre bush walking trail called the Bibbulmun Track links the capital with the coast. A similar trail, called the Munda Biddi, offers the same experience for mountain bikers. It’s the longest off-road cycling track of its kind in the world.

Standing on the edge of a 40-metre high cliff with frothing ocean below and wind rushing upwards makes for a great introduction to Albany’s wildly

westernaustralia.com

captivating coastline. The Gap, in Torndirrup National Park, bears a seethrough platform that juts 10 metres out from the rockface. A few steps away, the sculpted rock formation of Natural Bridge allows for calmer contemplation of nature’s powers. Take a moment to watch the horizon: between May and October, there’s a good chance you’ll see humpback whales breaching in the distance.

See them up close on a whale watching cruise, or keep an eye out as you drive around Vancouver Peninsula, to where secret beaches meet bush walking trails.

Back in town, a 35-metre ruby seadragon cloaks white grain silos – one of many giant silo art murals in Western Australia. It gazes over historic buildings that date back to the early settlers; Albany is where the first European settlers set foot in Western Australia. It also points to the National ANZAC Centre, atop Mount Clarence.

The museum offers a deeply moving journey through the experiences of Australians and New Zealanders in World War One. Windows offer views of the natural harbour from which 30,000 troops departed, many of them never to see Australian shores again.

Photo: Phil Hollett, philhollett.com.au.

IN 1914, MORE THAN 41,000 AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZEALANDERS DEPARTED ALBANY, BOUND FOR THE FIRST WORLD WAR. THIS IS THEIR STORY.

The National Anzac Centre is Australia’s foremost museum dedicated to honouring the ANZACs of the First World War.

Follow the real life experience of one of 32 ANZAC characters using multimedia, unique artefacts, rare images and film, and audio commentary.

67 Forts Road, Albany, Western Australia www.nationalanzaccentre.com.au

Opened on the 1st of November 2014 by the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand, The National Anzac Centre is an award-winning facility that uses multimedia, interactive technology and historical artefacts to create a deeply personal connection with the past, as well as pay tribute to those who served.

The interpretive content that forms part of the interactive experience was developed by the Western Australian Museum and the Australian War Memorial and is delivered via a series of interactive visual and audible displays. The experience delivered at the National Anzac Centre is known for commemorating the war through the stories of the Anzacs as opposed to telling its own story via pro-war or anti-war sentiments.

The symbolic location of the Centre, selected for its strong sense of place as it looks out across King George Sound, forms an important part of the interpretation. The dramatic architecture, featuring spectacular vistas of the Sound, purposefully enhances the narrative and creates a contemplative space. The building design lends itself to a telescopic view overlooking the location from where the convoys gathered and then left.

Operated by the City of Albany, the National Anzac Centre runs in conjunction with the heritage listed Princess Royal Fortress.

The $10.6 million construction and fit-out of the centre was fully funded by the Federal and Western Australian Governments however it receives no ongoing funding. All revenue from entry fees provides for the upkeep and operation of the centre, and other adjacent attractions within the Albany Heritage Park.

Exmouth

The Last Post’s visit to Exmouth, as part of the WA feature was a collection of amazing firsts.

The first time I had visited this amazing part of Australia with such an historically important story to share with readers. Apart from the beauty of the region, its role in Australia’s military history during WW2 and the Vietnam War. It was the first time I had swum (very briefly) with a Whale Shark, the first time I had seen the Ningaloo Reef.

Exmouth is located on the eastern coast of the North West Cape 1253 km north of Perth and 1372 km south-west of Broome.

You can go back to when the Dutch first landed in the area in 1618 and white settlement and when the Australian Captain Phillip Parker King later visited the area in 1818 and named the peninsula North West Cape. But, before that, and for a long time before that, the area was home to the Thalanyji Aboriginal people, whose land encompassed around 12,000 square kilometres. They traded in pearls and pearl shells and, after white settlement, Pearl Luggers visited from Broome.

As far as modern history goes, during WW2, the area became important when the US Navy established a submarine base, codenamed “Operation Potshot”. The large airport was built during this time.

Exmouth as we now know it, was built in 1964. The Harold E. Holt naval communications station was built at the same time, to provide support to the base and to house dependent families of U.S. Navy personnel. During this period, American money was used in the town and American cars were driven on the wrong side of the road. A baseball pitch was built, a ten-pin bowling alley constructed and the area became like a slice of the USA. The station was handed back to Australia in 1999 and the Americans went home. These days, the population of Exmouth

is mostly around 2000 although that fluctuates due to the weather and, during the height of tourist season it can reach 6000.

The communications station provides low frequency radio transmission to United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean. It is the most powerful transmission station in the Southern Hemisphere. The VLF antenna array covers one thousand acres – the largest in the world. There are 13 towers in total, ‘tower zero’ is 387m tall, it was the tallest man made structure in the southern hemisphere when constructed. The building around the towers is six stories tall, making it the tallest building in Exmouth.

I spoke earlier about “firsts” and the Ningaloo Reef. Exmouth is a popular access point for this beautiful, natural wonder. Here, within the reef and its surrounds, live some of the world’s most remarkable and complex oceanic creatures. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, strikingly beautiful. You can almost feel the timelessness of the area and then its entering your body and soul. There was mention of the Whale Sharks before but we saw also manta rays, humpback whales, sea-snakes and turtles. And, on the first day there, a flight, with Ningaloo Aviation, above the reef.

If you want to do a bit of everything then the remarkable Cape Range National Park deserves attention - and exploration. It runs down the western side of the Exmouth peninsula. You can bushwalk through eucalypt forests, climb rocky gorges, climb coastal dunes, dive into lagoons and swim over the reef.

We visited the Bullara Station on the Burkett Road. Bullara is an authentic

outback experience and gives you the chance to meet people from all over the world. It’s a beautiful landscape with stunning night skies. A chance too, to pay homage to the land and its history. Every Friday night is Burger Night and live music played on the back of a rusty old truck. An unforgettable experience.

62 km south of Exmouth, we visited Turquoise Bay with its clear waters and white sandy beaches. The snorkelling was fun, and we saw a few fish, although not the entire 475 species that live on the reef.

85 kilometres down Yardie Creek Road is Yardie Creek. We took a boat tour up the gorge and learned more about the indigenous culture, their use of natural plants for medicine and of bush tucker.

Awesome was the Shothole Canyon and we accessed this ancient area through the Shothole Canyon Road. It’s an unsealed road and I can’t still find words to express this place or the feeling of the warm, dusty, primitive surrounds. I do know that it made me feel very quite and respectful and aware of the strength of nature. I felt more calm than ever before.

The walls of the canyon are sheer and strong. The views back across the Indian Ocean, panoramic and totally unbelievable. I felt I could have stayed there forever. It’s a 5 kilometre walk to the Charles Knife Road and the lookout across the rugged, desert landscape. In summer, the temperature can reach the mid-40’s.

There’s also the Ningaloo Marine Park, the Safari Tours, the openness and friendliness of the locals, the icy cold beer, appreciated more in the heat of the dusty beer gardens, the animals. A week in Exmouth and surrounds is enough to wet the appetite and bring you back for more.

photo: Cape Range National Park, Exmouth. Tourism Western Australia.

Inset photos by Greg T Ross.

Brimming with adventure, the welcoming coastal town of Exmouth is your base to discover some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet. Jump into the ocean and swim with beautiful aquatic creatures, big and small. Or head to the surrounding coastline, as rugged as it is dramatic, for even more opportunities to get among nature.

A 13-hour drive or two-hour flight from Perth, Exmouth is the gateway to the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park, the world’s largest fringing reef. Glimpse kaleidoscopic fish darting between the coral from a glass-bottom boat, or snorkel in the crystal-clear shallows of Turquoise Bay as turtles and manta rays gracefully glide past.

A mecca for divers and snorkellers, Exmouth and its surroundings offer some of the most unforgettable encounters you’ll ever experience. Between March and August, swim with whale sharks, the gentle giants of the sea. Closer to shore, the spectacular Navy Pier is one of the world’s top land-based dive sites to immerse yourself in a dazzling array of marine life.

But the aquatic encounters don’t end there. From August to October, majestic humpback whales cruise the deep blue waters, while from November to March, nesting turtles make the beach their own.

Swap shimmering turquoise waters for the rust-red terrain of Cape Range National Park, just a short drive south of Exmouth. Lace up your hiking boots and explore ancient cliffs and canyons, keeping an eye out for local wildlife like emus, red kangaroos and spiny echidnas.

Back in Exmouth, indulge in some barefoot luxury and toast the day’s adventures with a chilled local white, craft beer or some of the region’s fabulously fresh produce. Then get ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Swimming Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus), Ningaloo Marine Park. Tourism Western Australia.

MEANDERING MONS

TRAVEL WITH MONIQUE MARCH

Travelling by trains, planes and automobiles and taking photos along the way. These two loves have co-existed extremely well since I first started my travels at 24. Travel ignites a flame within and I feel like someone has given me new eyes. However, I’d never travelled by cruise ship until last year.

A very good friend of 30 years asked if I’d like to go on a cruise with her. It was an adamant ‘no’ from me. My friend, Jose, replied “Please trust me on this, I’ll choose a very small cruise.” With much scepticism I relented.

In May last year we set off for Croatia for 7 days and I had the time of my life. Jose was right! At one stage I said with the utmost exuberance “Oh my god, what is there not to like, I’m here doing my favourite things; travelling, meeting new people and waking up and going to sleep with the sound and smell of the ocean.”

This year we decided to travel together again and I said “I loved that cruise so much last year, let’s go on another one.” We decided on a one week trip down the Danube River with bicycles on board.

After the most electric time in Munich, visiting friends, the excitement and chaos of World Football (soccer) as well as the colour of Pride, both of which we didn’t know were on at the time, we caught the train to Passau, where the cruise would begin. The calmness of Passau on the river was welcomed. Country hospitality abounded. We enjoyed peaceful walks around small, eclectic galleries, laneways and parks before boarding the ship of around 125 guests and close to the same amount of bicycles.

The next day we set off cycling from Engelhartszell and it felt great to be back in the saddle, so to speak, as I’m not much for just sitting around. ‘The Great Loop’ to Aschach was 43km of absolute beauty. The serene river hugging our side passing through the countryside and small villages.

When the day was over the karaoke party onboard began. We weren’t out of steam. I can’t sing a note, to save my life, but Jose certainly kept passengers entertained and the Director of Karaoke was a great entertainer himself as you’d expect.

The varied music onboard was fun as was the 1970’s dress up night and the food couldn’t be faulted. A smorgasbord of hot and cold food for a hardy breakfast to keep our stamina up on the bikes, a lunch pack you chose yourself for the cycle trips followed by a 3 course dinner on return that catered to all culinary tastes.

Cruising is an excellent way to see so much in a short amount of time. Sure you can see a lot on most cruises but with the added advantage of being able to cycle to the destination of the boat everyday it ensured even more new places to explore along the way. Needless to say also a great way for taking off a few of those extra calories obtained by eating so well. It’s also an easy way to travel and not have to think about a thing, bags are taken to rooms on arrival, rooms made up everyday, an expert guide instructing the cycle route the night before and the bikes set up and ready for take off at every stop.

Next stop was Bratislava, a superb old town. The architecture, coupled with wonderful sculptures and wine bars, cafes and restaurants equated to one of my fave places along the Danube.

Then how could anyone not love Budapest and Vienna. I’d longed to go to Budapest for decades and was finally there. Running around and seeing as much as possible in a day was too much of a tease though so I will definitely go back.

I visited Vienna some time ago but it was extra special this time as I was shown around by a friend, a resident, and as we all know there’s nothing quite like having a local as a tour guide. Vienna’s galleries are exhaustive so I will also return to that remarkable city to breathe in all the delights.

These are really special places in the world and to experience some of the magic of Vienna again as well as visit all the other destinations for the first time was really awe inspiring.

Our last cycle was from Wachau Valley to Melk which was quite different again as it was passing through vineyards, and of course for me, stopping for wine tasting. I managed to convince my newfound 6 English friends to do the same. Of course, the English don’t need their arms stretched too far back!

Cruising has now been added to my love list.

Rhinos on the Verandah

Reputations are not always based on reality. Something I found out 2 years ago on a Singapore Airlines flight to London on one of their famous Airbus A380’s. I discovered to my dismay that my knees hit the seat in front forcing me to sit at a slight angle for 13hours!

So, with this in the back of my mind, it was with some trepidation that we boarded SAA’s outdated A340 flying from Perth to Johannesburg. Adding to my concern was SAA’s somewhat lacklustre reputation.

Happily, my fears were unfounded! As a slightly older aircraft, there was legroom! The flight was as pleasant as long-haul flights can be – cabin crew were cheerful and helpful; food was good too.

Arriving in Jo’burg we discovered the cheerfulness wasn’t just isolated to the cabin crew but seemed to be an underlying national mood. South Africans now have a whole generation that has no knowledge of apartheid and whose sufferings during the bizarre lockdowns brought a sense of unity not known before. A power sharing government due to the ANC’s loss of 2/3 majority has added real optimism. The beloved Springboks 2023 rugby world cup win was a cherry on top of a happy pile!

We were there to celebrate too – my Mum, still living in South Africa, was turning 80. With an exchange rate of R12 to the Aussie dollar, the cheaper food and entertainment became almost laughably inexpensive.

4- and 5-star hotels on South Africa’s world class beaches were now very affordable as well as it’s world renowned game parks. Mum had wanted to go to a game park for many years, so we booked a few days in a park only two hours’ drive from her home. The staff took “Gogo” (Zulu for Granny) under their wing and fussed over her for the whole of our stay.

We’d booked a game drive for one of the beautiful dusty pink and orange evenings not knowing the route was rather rough. As resilient as Mum is, the bumping lurching game viewing truck took its toll on her so only halfway through the drive, when it passed close to the main hotel, Mum elected to be dropped off at her cabin. We finished the drive arriving back at reception amidst great excitement and to be told “Gogo was stuck in her cabin”. S we walked out into the gardens, we saw why Gogo was stuck in her cabin. A two tonne female rhino and her calf had wandered into the gardens and taken up residence on Mum’s cabin’s verandah. I could see Mum inside her cabin behind the glass doors frantically pointing to the rather obvious behemoth chomping steadily on the daisies and day lilies lining the edge of the verandah.

Rhinos are known for their cantankerous temperaments, but female rhinos and their calves are a dangerous pairing, so we could do nothing until they’d had their fill of daisies and wandered off. Eventually a flustered but delighted Mum was extracted from her cabin and taken to the bar for sherry to enjoy the glorious sunset and plains game animals we could see from the bar.

STAN WILSON

Port Stephens Koala Hospital expansion is complete

The $2M Port Stephens Koala Hospital expansion is now complete with the official opening held on 21 September 2024 with the Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for the Environment and Water in attendance. The expansion contains the first of its kind 128 Slice Fujiflim CT Scanner in Australia and is the only one of its type in the world being used in a wildlife facility. The expansion also includes a cutting-edge research laboratory, new operating theatre and clincial services areas.

The hospital expansion was undertaken to respond to an increase in demand for the care and rehabilitation and was driven by a commitment to address the evolving challenges faced by the local wild koala population as well as also providing new extended care opportunities to a diverse range of other native Australian wildlife.

The new expansion includes a first of its kind 128 Slice Fujiflim CT Scanner that beyond its immediate impact on diagnostic outcomes for injured wildlife, the CT Scanner will play a significant role in advancing research contributing valuable insights to the broader scientific community.

A world class cutting-edge research laboratory, aimed at conducting innovative research around koala reproductive technology, koala retrovirus testing and koala gut microbiome analysis is also included within the Hospital expansion. The vision of the Port Stephens Koala Hospital extends beyond treatment, as they aim to enhance their understanding and contribution towards advancements in koala health, breeding and genetics.

The $2M upgrade of Port Stephens Koala Hospital also includes a new enhanced large public Koala Viewing window allowing the opportunity to witness veterinary staff carry out examinations and administer treatment* to wild koala inpatients. Please note, Government regulations prohibts access inside the Koala Hospital. *Subject to clinic timings.

About Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary

The Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is a partnership between Port Stephens Council, the NSW Government and volunteer care group Port Stephens Koala Hospital. Its focus is on the conservation and protection of local koala populations.

A decade ago koala population numbers in Port Stephens were in the thousands, but today, they’ve dwindled to the hundreds. Ongoing financial support is vitally important to support population growth for the threatened species.

The Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary is open daily from 9am to 5pm (except Christmas Day).

For more information about the Port Stephens Koala Sanctuary visit: portstephenskoalasanctuary.com.au

Moira Partridge from Uluru – Kata Tjuta

The last of our travel adventures this year has been to the very heart and soul of this great Southern land of Australia.

Uluṟu. Sacred creation site of the Aṉangu Aboriginal people. Known in the past as Ayers Rock, this monolith of the red centre in the Kata Tjuṯa National park is home to the Northern Territory Aṉangu people. Two languages are spoken here, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, both dialects of the Western desert language.

The rock itself has always had great cultural and spiritual significance for the Aboriginal people and a sense of mystique and awe are visited upon all those who come here. The National park is run by the Aṉangu people in conjunction with the Federal government and it is uplifting to see the Sacred site so well respected now. This was not the case on my last visit in the late 80’s, as we all scrambled to climb to the top in our enthusiasm and ignorance.

People are encouraged to buy original art from the local ladies who sit on the ground and paint around Yulara. There are severe alcohol restrictions in place here and I was saddened when an elder offered me her creation dot painting (price $200) if I sneaked her a six pack of beer. Echoes of western exploitation and cultural degradation - a great shame.

Our first adventure was to the Field of Light art installation in the desert, followed by the majesty of sunrise over Uluṟu. It seemed wise to venture out way before sunrise, before the days got too scorching and to reverse this process in the afternoons.

The temperatures here have exceeded 38 degrees with very little cloud cover and it’s only Spring!

Kata Tjuṯa, once known as the Olgas was spectacular at sunrise and after bush breakfast we hiked to a gorge. Walking out here necessitates a fly net right over your head - the little beasties are savage and rush up your nose and into your mouth when you speak. ($7 very well spent!)

We met Bessie, an Aṉangu elder who was present as a 12 year old in media photos with Gough Whitlam when land was“returned” in 1985. She sat in the dirt telling stories of her people through an interpreter. I was amazed at how little was needed to survive and live in the desert and for the first time I truly grasped the symbiosis between animal, plant, earth and creation for these ancient people. And why what we know as passivity is really an acceptance of a deep connection to the land and its natural rhythm. Country is still strong with the Aṉangu. The irony of the cultural divide was not lost on me either, as Bessie smoked cigarettes, ate a pie (with sauce) and yet at one point during her presentation just rose and walked away without a word or backward glance. The desert people avoid eye contact, it is anathema to spirit so there is no connection through smiles or non-verbal cues and the older generation lack any desire to learn or speak English. I guess it’s no wonder they appear to lack respect for us, with our cameras and frivolous dress and idle chatter, our mobile phones and obsession with time concerns. The men are not visible during the day, they prefer to stay in camp and it’s almost always the women who paint.

I really like the lack of commercialism here, there are several co-joined resorts in Yulara, 3 eateries in the town square with 4 gift shops and a well utilised IGA, plus an information/bookings centre. Yulara Is kilometres away from Uluṟu and I find the regulation to be both obvious and tasteful. (With the exception of a noodle bar called “Ayers Wok.) Alcohol is only consumed in the resorts and take aways at the Outback pub only occur a couple of hours a day. (You need to produce a room key for service.) There is a vibrant little school and a medical centre outside Yulara and a police station.

A huge highlight for me was the camel tour. It was long and hot and wonderfula huge thrill to be aboard these monsters, over twelve feet off the ground, riding tracks in the desert around Uluṟu.

My camel host Jebah was a real sweetheart They all had distinct personalities and we felt a real connection by the time of our return to the farm (where they are loved and spoiled by staff who know them well.)

Staying in any accommodation here gives you licence to use facilities in other resorts, so pool hopping was great fun. It was like diving into melting ice and so very refreshing in the heat of the day.

We met people from all across the globe at Uluṟu, but the distinct “Australianness” of this desert land has left a lasting imprint on my mind and in my heart. Palya!

MOIRA PARTRIDGE

Kalgoorlie Soldier’s Memorial

This ANZAC Day, 2024 was the 100th Anniversary of the commemoration of ANZAC DAY at the Kalgoorlie Soldier’s Memorial on Forrest Street, Kalgoorlie.

The Italian Sculptor, Pietro Porcelli, completed the Memorial in 1923. The memorial features a bronze statue of a World War One soldier in an on-guard position standing on a column of Bullabulling granite. At the base of the column are four wings with a reclining lion on each. It was unveiled with great ceremony on 21 October 1923.

It was decided by the committee of the South African and Imperial War Veterans’ Association to conduct the 1924 ANZAC Day service at the memorial, starting at 11:00am. At the stroke of noon, a two-minute silence was observed.

This site, since then has been the place to observe ANZAC DAY and Remembrance Day in Kalgoorlie.

For the 100th Anniversary, a series of new plaques are being fixed to the memorial updating campaigns undertaken by Australians in the last few decades: Somalia, Rwanda, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the memorial will receive a general clean in readiness to commemorate the fallen and those that served.

This monument is a living memorial to the men and women of the Goldfields who have and continually serve in the Australian Defense Force.

ROYAL AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF AUSTRALIA

INCORPORATING IMPERIAL SERVICE CLUB

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

From our vintage 1920's single bedrooms to our newly refurbished rooms overlooking either Sydney Harbour or Botanical Gardens.

GLOBAL NETWORK

Rev up your global network with exclusive member access to over 200 reciprocal clubs worldwide, with a letter of introduction.

FULL BENEFITS TO BE EXPLORED

Experience premium wine dinners, exclusive events, complimentary NRMA Roadside Assist, and more!

BATTLEWALKS WITH MAT MCLACHLAN

Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours offers a range of tours to the battlefields of the Western Front, including a 4-day Explorer Tour that departs weekly from Paris. And, Mat McLachlan himself is leading a 9-day Western Front Signature Tour again in 2025 departing 30 August 2025 from Paris. Visit www.battlefields.com.au for more information.

Western Front Cemetery Reveals a Touching Story

Every time I visit a battlefield, I learn something new. Often I learn more about the history of a battle. Sometimes I learn more about the landscape, and how it can contribute to victory or defeat. But the most emotional experiences come from learning about the people who fought and died on the ground I am walking. I was recently in a remote corner of rural France, and an extraordinary coincidence revealed a moving story about Australian troops who had been here more than a century before me.

Jeancourt is a tiny village in the Aisne department of France. It’s not a place that many battlefield visitors come to, and I had only been there once before. I was here again because I was leading a tour, and one of the passengers had a relative who was buried in this cemetery. But it turned out that not one passenger on the tour, but two, had relatives who were buried in the cemetery. Incredibly, both men had served in the same battalion, and both had been killed on the same day. The passengers on the tour did not know each other, and yet it was highly likely that their soldier relatives did.

Unsurprisingly, it was an emotional moment for the entire group to stand beside these two graves, and to think about the young men who lay in them. In a quiet moment I stepped away and explored the whole cemetery. Like all military cemeteries, it told a story, but the one revealed here was fascinating, and brought several chapters of history, and the story of the Anzacs, together.

In 1914 German troops swept across this area and captured Jeancourt, and they established a field hospital here. Men who died while being treated in the hospital were buried in a field next to the local civilian cemetery. This was the basis of Jeancourt Cemetery, as reflected by a large plot of more

than 160 German graves. The village was captured by the British in 1917, and the cemetery was used by them to bury their own dead, before it fell to the Germans in early-1918. The final chapter of the story was when Australian troops recaptured the village for the last time in September 1918, and nearly 100 Australians now lie in the cemetery.

But as I wandered the rows, I noted an unusual group of British graves, all from the same day – April 11, 1917. This was the date of the First Battle of Bullecourt, a disaster that cost thousands of Australian lives. But there had been British troops fighting with us on that day, and the men who lay in this row in Jeancourt Cemetery had died of wounds while fighting alongside the Australians.

And so one small cemetery, in a tiny village in northern France, had told me several stories. About a great Australian victory in 1918, about our German enemies caring for their own troops in the early years of the war, and about a British sacrifice alongside the Anzacs in 1917. And it was all tied together through the story of two young Australians who had died together to liberate the village, and whose sacrifice had brought two Australian families together on a battlefield pilgrimage more than a century later. It’s a very special place – I can’t wait to go back..

– two traveller pairs on Mat McLachlan’s Western Front Signature Tour discover their Anzac relatives served in the same battallion, were killed on the same day and are buried alongside one another.

Jeancourt Cemetery.

Mat in trench on Western Front.

Jeancourt Cemetery

ANNABELLE BRAYLEY

PODCASTS: www.thelastpostmagazine.com/tlp-interviews

Annabelle Braley Annabelle Brayley is a bestselling author and former nurse living in south west Queensland. She has written six books and co-authored a seventh, retelling the stories of Australians who live and work in the outback. Her books include Nurses of the Outback, Outback Vets and Bush Doctors. In Our Vietnam Nurses, she is especially honoured to have shared the stories of some of the extraordinary Australians who nursed in Vietnam.

Greg T Ross: You’re with Greg Ross, and welcome to The Last Post magazine and radio show podcast series, and thanks for joining us. And today we have another wonderful guest with us, Annabelle Brayley, author. How are you, Annabelle?

Annabelle Brayley: I’m very well, thanks, Greg. And thank you for inviting me to have this conversation with Last Post. I’m delighted.

GTR: Oh, look, we are so pleased to have you on board again, Annabelle. And of course, you and I spoke back in 2016, I think it was, about your wonderful book, Our Vietnam Nurses. And we’re going to discuss a bit of that today, and work into also discussions of other things. But just a brief outline for listeners. Annabelle’s had such an amazing life too. You’ve lived on an isolated sheep and cattle station, so truly Outback, you’ve had some wonderful books out, Nurses of the Outback, Bush Nurses. How often do you write? You must be a prolific writer.

AB: Not as often as I’d like these days, Greg. I have been involved with some other things in recent years. I am trying to write again, now at the moment, in my spare time. But one of the things I’ve been involved with is around the Vietnam nurses who, a complete heart job for me, and an ongoing interest because I don’t think they’ve ever been acknowledged appropriately or well enough.

GTR: Well said. Well said. Coming from a personal angle, I’ve probably told you this a half a dozen times before, but my mother was a nurse and obviously I was witness to the life that they live and the work that they put in. And often, I don’t even like to say undervalued, because you wouldn’t like to think so. But certainly, you can always do with some insight into what actually nurses go through.

AB: I think that certainly nurses in general are undervalued. I think they’re usually the linchpins of their communities in many ways, and certainly provide the foundations of hospital and community care in a whole lot of other forums as well. So I think that we probably do take them for granted a little bit, but I think we’ve definitely taken nurses who’ve gone to war, not so much for granted, it’s more that we’ve just not known about them.

For many people, I know in the case of the Vietnam nurses, it was that as much as anything that inspired my interest in them in the beginning. Because somebody asked me... Actually when I was writing, I was interviewing for stories for Nurses of the Outback, someone in the Northern Territory asked me did I know anyone who nursed in Vietnam? And at the time, I said, “No.” And went back to being focused on what I was doing and didn’t think about it again until a year or so later when there was something on the wireless about Vietnam Veterans Day, or Long Tan

Day, whichever. And the conversation popped into my head and I thought, “Hm, there must’ve been nurses over there when you think about it.” So that’s really what started for me, a real heart journey.

I realized that there were a lot of nurses there, Army, RAAF and civilian surgical nurses, the latter of whom were completely neglected for way too long. And it’s just become a bit of an obsession too. I can’t share all their stories, but I hope in sharing the stories I have done, and now with this new Memorial that we’ve created up here, that we actually embrace the spirit of their stories.

GTR: Yes. We’ll talk about the Memorial in just a moment. I think one of the great things, and I suppose just back to the undervalued subject there, I guess was even in popular movies and popular television series, MASH comes to mind, where you really don’t get a look at what the nurses do. It’s very male-centered. And I think that’s been the story for a lot of movies and depictions of conflict and war. And your book certainly helps alleviate that. It’s a very personalized look at the nurses, your Our Vietnam Nurses book, Annabelle. I think you do 15 stories of Australian nurses?

AB: Mm-hmm.

GTR: 15 stories. These wonderful people came from all parts of Australia. Did you have a favorite?

AB: Sorry, I was just reflecting on that question about the number of stories. There are, I think from memory, 15 stories in the book, but there are actually more than one nurse in several of the stories.

GTR: That’s right.

AB: So it’s actually there were 20. I can’t remember the exact number, but twenty-something nurses involved all together in terms of having some of their or all of their stories told. And I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your question.

GTR: No, no, that’s fine. That’s fine. I was saying-

AB: Oh, do I have a favorite?

GTR: Yeah, there’s so many wonderful stories.

AB: Oh, golly. That’s like asking, “Which is your favorite child?”

My mother used to always say, “Whichever one’s in the room with me.” So I would say at any given time, whichever one I’m actually talking about, talking to, spending time with or reflecting upon or whatever, is my favorite in the moment. But there are some remarkable stories.

GTR: You’re right. That’s beaut.

AB: Rather than call them favorites, I suppose there are certainly stories and women in the book who I carry very much in my memory and heart, because I mean, meeting all of them was such a privilege. And I really genuinely feel honored to be the one who told their stories, who shared their stories, and not just because they hadn’t been told before in the way that I have.

And I know that there are some publications written by different nurses, certainly civilian and Army nurses, but I think the thing with the book that I put together was, it’s a collection of stories that embraces all of the nurses who went, from all of the disciplines.

So as I said, Army and civilian. And certainly the Army nurses were a bit obvious when I thought about it. I truly hadn’t thought about it at all in the beginning. But once I did, it made sense that there were Army nurses there. There were about 104 RAAF nurses based at Butterworth who flew medevacs in and out of Vietnam, some of them into Saigon, some into Vung Tau, some into Bien Hoa. 32 of those nurses were seconded, as you know from the book, were seconded across to USAF to the United States Air Force.

And they flew 60-day rotations from Clark Airfield down through Vietnam picking up American wounded. And when I heard about them, I was like, “Oh my God, how does anybody not know this? Now, the RAAF nurses weren’t recognized because they were told, “Well, you weren’t really there in the beginning,” which of course was nonsense because at least one of them actually lived in Vietnam. She

stayed overnight in Cam Ranh Bay, one that I know of, and I’m sure there were others.

So they were definitely on the ground in Vietnam. But the civilian nurses who worked in provincial hospitals, they were told, “Well, you weren’t military, so you don’t really deserve anything.” And that was changed in 2020, I’m really pleased to say. But that’s 50 years after the war. That’s a long, long time coming.

GTR: It’s a shocking delay.

AB: Yeah. And look, the nurses themselves would say, and the civilian and RAAF nurses included, that it shouldn’t be about that so much and what didn’t happen, and I agree with them in one way, because my intention always was to commemorate their service, to remark the contribution they made to the Vietnam War.

But I think it’s also important that people do understand that they were ignored for so long, so many of them, because we need to not do that again. We need to pay more attention. We never hear anything about the nurses and medical teams that go into Afghanistan or Timor. Well, occasionally Timor back in the day, but we just don’t hear about them. And yet, we’ve got medical teams doing all sorts of really vital, life-changing work all over the world, many of them through military roles.

GTR: Yeah. No, well said, Annabelle. And I think we move forward hopefully in many ways each day of our lives, and that’s institutions, etc, etc. But a recognition of nurses and medical staff would seem to me, at least, and I know many others, would seem paramount, because of course, the job that is done is life-saving and the experiences are just as anguish-filled, angst, etc., and potentially mentally challenging for the future. But how many nurses all up went over there, do you think?

AB: Well, I have said 353 to be honest, but I’m not sure about that now. It’s curious, because I’ve always understood that there were 204 civilian nurses who went to Vietnam. They went with civilian surgical teams, they went from hospitals like from the Royal Melbourne or from the Princess Alexandra in Brisbane, they went as hospital teams with doctors and radiographers, etc, and other staff. And some of them went for 3 months, some of them went for 6 months, some of them went for 12 months. Some of them did more than one tour, some of the nurses.

But I’ve always understood there were 200 and, I think it was four. Now, I’m actually, and I know we’re going to talk about the Memorial in a minute. But just prefacing that, I’m actually trying to find the names of all the nurses now, because my next project is actually building an honor board and I want to name them all.

GTR: Oh, wonderful.

AB: I’ve sourced a list that leads me to believe that there may not have been that many, but it’s really hard to verify. So I would be really interested, if anybody’s listening to this program of yours, to know some of the... If people hear this and they actually know someone who was a civilian nurse in Vietnam, or they know of people, if they could get that information to me via you or directly to me, I can give you my email address.

GTR: Yes, certainly, Annabelle, we’ll have that at the foot of this interview. So if anyone out there reading or listening and knows of civilian nurses that served in Vietnam, then certainly get in contact with Annabel through her email address, which Annabel just gave, and we’ll give towards the end of the program. But yeah, so an honor board, and that is a great thing to be doing.

AB: Well, it’s a follow-on from the Memorial. So the Memorial is something that came about, really, it was just an opportunity that arose. I live in the little community of Morven, which is in Southwest Queensland.

GTR: That’s right.

AB: Not to be mistaken for the Morven that’s in Victoria. So it’s in Southwest Queensland, near Charleville. And we have a vibrant little historical museum here. And just per chance, I haven’t actually been involved with it before this, but just by chance, early last year, a building became vacant, and at the time there was some discussion about what might happen with it.

And straight away I could see this photographic exhibition, permanent photographic exhibition.

So I took it to the Historical Museum Society, and they said, “Yes, what a great idea.” And that’s what we’ve done. So it was very much a community effort. We’ve been able to develop this exhibition, which as I said, is a permanent display. And the photographs, some of them were in the book, some of them were, I saw some from a handful from the Australian War Memorial. I was very fortunate to be able to source some of them from the estate of Denis Stanley Gibbon, who was the first correspondent embedded into the Australian Army in Vietnam. And he actually met his wife over there. Her photograph is also in the exhibition. But when I wrote the book, their son who owns the exhibition, Sean Gibbons, very generously enabled me to use some of the photographs in the book. So some of them are in this exhibition as well. And they’re beautiful, evocative photographs, all of them. There are 16 in the exhibition. I think, again, from memory, this is funny because for me, it’s always about the collection. It’s not about the number.

GTR: That’s exactly right. So the exhibition. Yeah, the exhibition. That’s in Morven also?

AB: Yes, it’s in Morven.

And it is just beautiful. And I think, I mean, I had this picture in my head of what it would look like, and it does look exactly like that, but I think you can never know when you’re focused on doing something, you can never really look at it quite as objectively as other people do.

So I’ve been really delighted with the response to the exhibition because it does move people and tells the stories of these beautiful women in a very, as I said evocative, just emotional kind of way. And it tells the story of all of them in Vietnam, the photographs are quite different, and I would love to see every Australian traipse through it and have a look.

But anyway, so as a result of that, we opened that in April this year, at the end of April on the 24th, the day before Anzac Day purposely the day before, because we wanted it to have its own day. And four of the nurses were able to come to the opening of exhibition. There were a couple of others who would like to have been here, but were unable to come in the last couple of weeks before. And the community just got on board. So we had about a hundred people at the opening. The community organized a dinner in the hall across the road. It was a real small country community event.

GTR: Funny, look, I’ll just tell you, Annabelle. Serendipitously, I came across the story when I was traveling, flying with Rex, and the Rex had a wonderful old institution of actually having airline magazines in the flight in a physical form. So I was having great fun going through that. And then I saw the story of Morven and the Memorial and the nurses, and I thought, “Wow.”

So I became dedicated after that to chasing it up and doing a story on it. So the end result is obviously you and I talking and then featuring in the magazine for this story too, which is absolutely wonderful.

But I have also worked in radio in Charleville, so I know exactly where you are, and I know where Morven is and drove through it many times. And it’s a unique part of Australia. And if you combine that with the uniqueness of obviously the Memorial with the exhibition, it becomes such a wonderful thing to do, to visit.

AB: I think so Greg. And we have a visitor’s book, of course, and the comments that have been made so far in the visitor’s book. I must say, since the end of April when this opened, we’ve had roadworks happening in the main street in Morven for most of that time. So it’s impressive that we’ve had as many visitors we have, quite frankly.

GTR: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great incentive to get there. Drop out to Morven and see the exhibition and Memorial. Some of the nurses, as you said, attended the opening. What was it like? Just give us a feeling of the whole experience. It must have been a great thing for you.

AB: It was, it was. But it was a wonderful thing for them. And I hope that a lot more of the nurses who are still alive are able to come to Morven at some stage and see the Memorial exhibition and because it’s a permanent exhibition and to see the next two stages.

Next stage is the honor board, as I said. And then I’ve got a third stage in my head, which when the time comes, I’m going to be looking for some really serious money for. So anybody who doesn’t know what to do with their money, please contact me.

GTR: No, that’s wonderful. Yep. We need to remind people that they probably already know that these things do cost money, but it’s a perpetual part of our history and will remain so.

AB: Yeah, it’s a very important part. And look, there are a couple of things at the opening. There is a YouTube clip, which is pretty easy to pick up online for anybody who’s interested. I would say just Google Vietnam Nurses Memorial Morven YouTube.

And it will probably come up, we are very fortunate here. We have a local cameraman, a very, very capable, clever cameraman who came from the coast but just likes the Outback. So now he lives in Charleville. It’s Pete Murray. So Pete came down and filmed the opening, and he put together this YouTube clip. It’s about two and a half minutes, and it’s just beautiful.

And to hear the nurses talking about... See, this is what happens. I get emotional about this stuff.

To hear them talking about how it felt for them to see the Memorial for the first time, and it just echoes with their feelings and emotions about it. It’s really beautiful.

GTR: Well, how wonderful. How wonderful.

AB: Yeah. I think for all of the nurses, to be honest. But I certainly for the ones that came to Morven, I think it was finally so many years later, a really public acknowledgement of the contribution they all made in Vietnam.

GTR: Yeah, yeah, well said. I think you would imagine that there should be something like this in every capital city.

AB: Well, to be fair, there are certainly mentions of the military nurses in the Australian War Memorial and definitely at the Vietnam Veterans Museum on Phillip Island. I actually knew that because I went there when the book came out, and I was aware of that. And they are very encouraging and supportive of the idea of what we’ve done. And also, I know that they have future plans to expand their museum, I believe. And they will certainly be developing the commemorative stuff that they have already had in their museum. They’ll be developing that further.

There is also at the Heidelberg Hospital, there are mosaics on the wall of Army and civilian nurses, interestingly. And there are mentions here and there around the country of them. The unique thing about this particular Memorial is that it’s the only one in the country that embraces all of the nurses and their collective stories. And I think that that is really important because this Memorial is dedicated solely to the Australian women who nursed in Vietnam.

GTR: It’s a marvelous thing. And anybody listening from wherever you are in Australia, travel to Morven in Queensland and see the Vietnam Nurses’ Memorial and Exhibition, and just indulge yourself in a bit of wonderful history of Australia’s service and the dedication of the nurses. What’s next, Annabelle?

Well, I have quite a lot on my plate at the moment. I am, as I said, trying to write. I’ve been trying to write a novel about the Vietnam nurses for five years, but I keep getting sidetracked and distracted by other things. So it will happen, I hope, eventually. And in terms of the nurses themselves, we looking to open the honor board next year. If we can get that done in time for Anzac Day. Or for the day before Anzac Day, will always be the 24th of April. We do have some nurses coming to Anzac Day next year because they really enjoyed Anzac Day this year here. And one of them, Annie Hall was guest speaker for our Anzac Day service. And the community just loved having them here.I bet.

AB: We did have a number of Vietnam vets who came to the Anzac Day this year, and we would welcome them anytime. It’s certainly the Anzac day, but we welcome them here anytime. And the Memorial, which is open every day of the year, except Christmas Day and probably Good Friday, it’s only open since then this year. So we haven’t actually had to think about that, but I would say they’re the only days they’re not open. It’s open from 10 A.M. till 4 P.M. every day, and everyone around town knows if Vietnam veterans come to town and they’re at their Memorial or they want to chat with me, just ask somebody local. And if I’m here, they’ll give me a call and I’ll come in and meet them, because I just love their stories. And I have such enormous respect and admiration for all of the veterans, but in particular these Australian women who went to Vietnam.

GTR: Yeah, well said Annabelle. And of course, the great thing about being an author is you are also a storyteller, and you’ve done a magnificent job with our Vietnam nurses. Annabelle Brayley, it’s been an utmost pleasure speaking with you and learning a bit more about the Vietnam Nurses Memorial in Morven and the exhibition, the photographic exhibition, and also about your life story and the nurses themselves.

annabellebrayley@gmail.com

Abigail Farrawell

Abigail Farrawell is the coordinator of the World War II Secret Base in Charleville.

Greg T Ross: Today, we’re blessed to have Abigail Farrawell, coordinator of the World War II Secret Base in Charleville. And Charleville, of course, Abigail, is the largest town in Southwest Queensland, around 10,000 people. Welcome to The Last Post magazine and Radio Show podcast, Abigail.

Abigail Farrawell: All right, thanks for having me. I’m excited to talk all things military history and what we’re doing out here in the Outback.

GTR: Yeah, well actually, it does say the World War II Secret Base and it was that much of a secret. I didn’t even know about it, and I didn’t even know about it during my time in Charleville. Can you tell us a little bit about this, Abigail, of great interest to us all? It’s, I guess, a strategic significance and what it actually meant for Australians during World War II.

AF: Yeah, so a lot of people just haven’t heard flat out about what Charleville was doing during World War II, but they actually had three and a half thousand US servicemen out here during that war period, particularly peak time of 1943.

Charleville is a pretty good spot to set up a top Secret Base. We are a little bit in the middle of nowhere, but it did mean it’d take an entire tank of fuel for those bombers to get here, so you could really monitor who was coming in and out. It was a pretty good spot to be.

GTR: Yeah, that’s of interest too, Abigail, because really, there’s nowhere to hide, is there? I mean, you would be aware of anything coming.

AF: Yeah, so we’ve got meatworks out here and they used to stop the train at that site there and assess everybody who was coming in on that train before they actually entered the town. So you could really monitor who was here because the US had this on a land lease, so they kind of basically owned the Charleville area throughout their time here and they were just operating a little bit of everything. If you were working within Australia and heard of the Charleville base, you knew it existed, but purely for just maintenance of planes, training of servicemen. They’d bring in the US bombers here before sending them out to where they had to go. But you didn’t know truly what was

happening under the surface that was so important and why they had to be so serious on keeping the secret out here.

GTR: That’s of interest too, and I was just thinking as a bit of a byline here. I do know I had to visit the Charleville Hospital during my time there when I got stung by a wasp, and it’s an impressive hospital. It’s a big hospital. Would that be connected to the fact that there was World War II activity in Charleville?

AF: So the hospital, it is really good quality for being out here. They were already doing upgrades to the hospital when the US came in. The military did help them build the second half of the hospital out here, but the hospital during that war period was mostly for tuberculosis patients because of the clearer air. So it actually set them up in tents all around so that way they could clear out their lungs. For all the major injuries for US servicemen, they’d actually fly them back into the coast.

GTR: Back to the World War II Secret Base there in Charleville, I guess one of the questions that arises, Abigail, is what type of activities and missions

were conducted from the Secret Base during the war?

AF: Yes, Charleville had a lot going on, a little bit of everything just because it was so central. So you’ve got different air forces coming through. The Fifth Air Force was the main group that was stationed here. They were doing a lot of their main operations, but it would swap around. We had a group of Bristol Beaufighters coming in through here, so that was very rare to see in what was American soil, those kind of British planes. And then we have more on the ground as well, my favorite, my personal favorite that I tell everybody I can is the Whannell drivers. There was 12 of them stationed in Charleville, so they were the ones that would actually drive them, drive the higher ups, the higher US servicemen all the way to Townsville or all the way through to Cairns or back to Brisbane and it was just the women driving them around because they were better on the cars. So they employed them to help out there.

But it was truly a mix like B-17s in and out the door getting serviced. 20th Pursuit Squadron dropped by and that brought in 20 Kittyhawks as they were travelling through to Darwin. We don’t talk about the two that crashed here, but the rest of them got to Darwin in one piece.

GTR: Yeah, yeah. There must’ve been so much activity there and I guess the question that arises from that too, Abigail, when you have a large influx

of people from somewhere else in a certain confined area, what about the social impact and I guess the cultural differences? How did that all pan out?

AF: Yeah, well, it’s huge just to bring a whole group of American servicemen, three and a half thousand of them, and then plunk them into Outback Queensland, there is a lot they need to adjust to, especially the language. That Aussie slang was very difficult for them. So they’d actually give the US servicemen booklets to teach them the Aussie slang that was out here so they could actually understand each other a little bit better.

GTR: Oh, is that right?

AF: Oh, for sure. But I mean, it’s one of the bigger things during that war history, the Americans coming in of how much of an impact they had on the town culture. There was so many people here that all these rural businesses had a massive boost, so they were earning a lot more because they were feeding these servicemen. Their services were providing to the war. So it was a whole lot busier in Charleville back in the ‘40s than what it is today. The census during the war, there was 5,000 people in town that was helping and benefiting off of them being out here.

And then now, we’re back down to 3,000. So it’s a very different time. But these Americans would bring things like stick chewing gum, which nobody out here has seen before. It was all just that pellet kind of gum that they

had. So there was a lot of sharing back and forth of all these little unique items that they’d brought out and just learning more about what was actually happening in the US. It was a lot of exposure to the people that are in the Outback and don’t really see too much of what’s happening over in the US. So it was pretty fun for everybody when they were here.

GTR: Yeah, I bet too, Abigail, I guess what maybe even music influenced too with the American music at that time quite big.

AF: Oh, on the base, they built their own dance hall. They were brought a little bit of the US to the Outback. They had their own dance hall. There was no band, so it was whoever could play would play, but they were doing jitterbug, jive, all the classics, and they were really having American food with hamburgers and things like that. It was popular enough in Charleville they actually had Gracie Fields out here and performing during her Australian tour.

So she performed at the Corones Pub, which is an iconic place in Charleville, that Corones Hotel. She performed there one night and not everybody could fit in the pub because it was the largest pub in Queensland, but still not everybody could fit. So they’re all dancing in the streets listening to her performance.

GTR: What a wonderful scene. What a wonderful scene to have Gracie Fields singing at the pub. That’s amazing.

AF: Yeah, in Charleville.

GTR: So I guess when we talk about Charleville and we talk about people, the education through history and the importance of knowing more about our involvement and obviously, interacting with the Americans during World War II, when people come up there, what can they expect to see when visiting the Center? You’ve got a couple of good things that are happening there regularly and what actually... just gives us a bit of a run-through, Abigail.

AF: So what we do at the World War II Secret Base is we try to make it as interactive and something different when you’re taking a look at that kind of military history out here. So we have our interactive exhibit, which we’ve just completed fully September last year and had our grand opening. So that’s why we’re still a bit of a secret. We’re only just getting started, but we have the interactive exhibit, which is selfguided. So you get to walk through and we’ve got kind of little mock-up buildings of what the tents were like. Like the USS, we were sleeping in six men in one tent. So we have a little mock-up of what that tent structure would’ve looked like, a little dining hall similar to what the mess hut would’ve been. So you get to actually walk through and kind of take a little bit of a step back into time as to what the base would’ve looked like.

You get to learn along the way. So we have a lot of different... there’s reading material, but we’ve also got digital as well. So you can go in and have a mess around with the screens and it’s a little bit for everybody for the interactive exhibit. Probably our most popular thing that we have that has been going for quite a while is our tag-along tour, which is where we’ve got one of our guides that will lead the way. And then either visitor, the guest will actually follow behind in your own vehicle, like an old military convoy.And we drive around to six of the original sites of the base that still have some of the structures left behind.

And go a bit more in depth as to how the base operated, what the Americans were doing. We do reveal the top secret at our final spot and just get people really interested and actually going around to those sites and teaching them as you go along. It’s pretty fun just to have a bit of an hour of driving around and learning a little bit about what’s going on out here.

GTR: Yeah, what a great way to do it too. What a great way to do it, Abigail. I mean, it’s be like going back in time, I guess, too and just actually feeling part of that whole experience.

AF: It’s always a bit of fun. We have somebody coming out here and we get to drive them through the Molger and step on those original sites and be like, “Yeah, this is how it was built. This is what it looked like. This is how many people are coming through.” It’s definitely something special about being there and seeing it that makes

it easier to understand. So it’s a really fun way for us to show what was going on.

GTR: Yeah, what a great educational tool. I do know there is a fascination with these bases. Those up in Da Nang in Vietnam, and you see the American base there that was used during World War, during the Vietnam War, and of course, over in Exmouth in WA, the history of that.

But Charleville’s got some really interesting things to show the public and I guess, do you have... I mean, there must be a lot of interest from an educational point of view. It’d be great for the kids.

AF: Yeah, that’s a huge thing. I’m pretty young myself, so for me, war history was a lot to learn very quickly and it’s, at first glance, it’s very complicated. So we’ve tried to break it down and make it just as easy as possible to understand. So if you knew nothing but walk through the doors, you can walk out knowing everything you need to know.

And it’s just easy to take in, especially with the kids. We have a few little areas throughout the base that it’s interactive, filling up and building your own little bomb and having our bombing simulator in there. Actually get to have that little hands-on and a bit of a muck around while they’re inside. So it just makes it more approachable for them and that’s something that we’re really happy to be doing out here is just a little bit for everybody from families to all of our older travelers that come through. We try to cater for everybody.

GTR: Yeah. And I guess also, what about yourself, Abigail? I mean, it must be a great learning thing for you too.

AF: Oh yeah. It’s been huge. I joke about it with my dad all the time because he’s an ex-serviceman and as a kid, I would be the one that’s crying, “And I don’t want to go into the war museum. That’s boring. I want to go to the zoo.” And now, it’s kind of being here and after learning about it, it’s been such a cool experience. I think there’s something really fun about being in that space. It’s kind of an area where people are more open to talk about their experiences. So I might just spend a day at the front desk and I’ll learn all these different stories from people that walk in. And that just adds more context to what I know.

When it comes to military history, you just never stop learning. There’s always something else going on and someone might mention something and then you spiral down and then maybe that’ll have a random link to Charleville, which will open us up to something else to learn about the base. So it’s been pretty cool. I do really enjoy those days where you get to have a chat with people coming through and learn more from them. And when we get to teach them something they don’t know, that’s always really fun.

GTR: Yeah, that sounds great too. I mean, it keeps the wartime legacy alive, I guess, for different generations and that’s an important thing. But from your point of view, I guess this is selfevident, I guess, the answer for this, but encouraging visitors to delve into Australia’s military past. How important is that?

AF: Oh, it’s huge. We don’t have those World War II veterans anymore, so they can’t share their stories anymore, not the majority of them are very open about sharing them to begin with. When you start looking to your own family history, they’re usually quite hesitant to share. So it’s so important that we have these spaces to keep those stories going.

And there is definitely... a lot of people don’t realize how important Australia was during the war and how much was actually going on and even after World War II, how much was going on, how much it impacted Australia as a whole. So to have these spaces to go in and learn about it, it’s just so important so you can keep it going.

And for me, the biggest impact is that I get to... when I drive to work, I’m driving on old World War II runways that used to have B-17s down them and Avros and I’m just driving to work. And it’s so cool to have that little extra context as to when you’re traveling around, especially because we have so many people that drive out here to visit that as they’re driving home, they’ll point out things like, “Oh, that was a part of the base or I wonder if this had something to do with the war history.” So I think that’s why they’re really cool. There’s definitely a power of place and being somewhere when you learn something. That’s why I just love what we’re doing at the base to make it so easy for people to come in and learn about it because sometimes, the classroom isn’t the best way to learn something, but going out and having something more interactive is a good starting point.

GTR: Yeah, yeah. Well said, Abigail. That’s right. It is better to get out there and amongst it to learn sometimes. And the idea of actually driving to work on old runways is that’s sort of mindboggling in itself. There’s a movie in this perhaps. That’s lovely.

AF: I’ll romanticize my drive to work and see if I can make a documentary out of my two-minute drive from home.

GTR: Fantastic. Well, I’d encourage anyone to get out to Charleville and have a look at the Secret World War II Bases. It’s a magnificent opportunity to learn more about our history in World War II and Australia’s role in, well, the Allied effort, I guess, too. And Abigail Farrawell, thank you so much. You’re the coordinator there. It sounds like you’ve got a great job and you’re doing a great job also. And we thank you very much for your time here on The Last Post Radio Show podcast.

AF: Thanks so much for having me and letting me talk about it all.

O u r n atu r al wo r l d ne e d s u s . Only together, through collaboration and action can we answer the call. For over 50 years and with projects in more than 40 countries the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) rescues individual animals, prevents animal cruelty and campaigns for the protection of wildlife and habitats.

Our work is only possible because of the generosity of our supporters, many of whom have chosen to leave a gift to IFAW in their Will. In fact, for every f fi ve animals IFAW has helped, o ne has been saved thanks to the generosity of gifts in Wills. And the impact of those gifts is never limited to just one individual animal.

Including IFAW in your Will is a powerful way to continue making an impact that helps people and animals thrive together. A gift in your Will extends your legacy as part of IFAW’s change-making boots on the ground around the world.

You can continue helping rescue and rehabilitate individual animals, like Sally the 2-year-old elephant calf who was entangled in a poacher’s snare when we rescued her and airlifted her to the IFAW-supported Wild

is Life-ZEN Elephant Nursery in Zimbabwe where she’s continuing her journey back to the wild.

You can be a lasting part of our fight against illegal wildlife trafficking, such as training and equipping wildlife rangers to intercept traffickers, investigate crime scenes and ensure proper care for living animals seized as part of prevention operations.

You can continue to play a vital role in our long-term landscape conservation efforts, like Room to Roam, our innovative approach to conservation in Africa that aims to ensure viable, stable, resilient elephant populations long into the future.

You’ll be part of saving the few remaining North Atlantic right whales, rehabilitating koalas burned by bushfires in Australia, rescuing animals caught up in natural disasters, fighting for legislation that better protects animals and much, much more.

G Gi fts i n W i l l s ma ke al l t hi s p o s s i b l e For more information, please contact Naomi Hepperlin on 02 9288 4988 or nhepperlin@ifaw.org

Download your free Will information guide here:

your gift could help koalas, elephants and their habitats to survive and thrive far into the future

©IFAW

©IFAW

www.magnt.net.au

The Cyclone Tracy Exhibition at MAGNT reopens to the public on

Saturday 7 December

2024 and will be a permanent exhibition at MAGNT.

Greg T Ross: Welcome to another episode of The Last Post Radio show podcast series. You’re with Greg T Ross. And in keeping with our promise to provide interesting guests, we have Jared Archibald. Jared is the Territory History Curator at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), and has been in the Northern Territory, I think with Darwin since 1979. So there’s not much he doesn’t know about Darwin. Hello there, Jared.

JA: G’day Greg. How are you mate?

GTR: I’m fine and it’s a pleasure having you on the radio show and a bit of a chat about what’s happening at MAGNT. You’ve got an interesting exhibition coming up 7th ofDecember. Tell us a bit about that.

JA: Okay, so MAGNT has had a Cyclone Tracy display since 1994, and it’s been well-loved and visited by hundreds of thousands of people. But for this upcoming 50th anniversary, we felt that it was time for a refresh of that exhibit and also to try and tell a whole lot more of the stories that happened.

One of the reasons we’ve done this is the way people remember and think about Cyclone Tracy has changed over time from the first decade, like the first 10 years, no one wanted to know about it. No one wanted to remember,

no one wanted to even commemorate. It was just, we don’t want to know. We want to move. On the 20th anniversary that began to change. People wanted to remember, but much more as a memorial type thing, rather than telling people actually what happened. So we are very cognizant of what the public want.

Now on the 50th, it’s changed completely. So many of the people that went through Cyclone Tracy have passed on. Those who are older and those that were much younger who went through it are now in their fifties and sixties. And they have this outlook that some of them actually want to celebrate, not celebrate Cyclone Tracy, but they want to celebrate that they survived. Darwin survived, and it’s become this beautiful, wonderful city of resilience and beauty despite what happened to it 50 years ago.

GTR: Yes, and I do recall when it happened, my brother and I were in Perth and we heard it over the radio. It remains an important part of Australia’s history, and I guess that’s the congratulations going to MAGNT for having this as an exhibition, which starts on the 7th of December and outlining a lot of the things that went on.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Jared, it wasn’t seen as a particularly

dangerous cyclone approaching. What happened there? There was some feeling from residents that nothing had happened or something?

JA: Yeah, it’s a little bit like that. It comes into complacency just with things that can happen and then things that just go wrong. So just a few weeks before there’d been Cyclone Selma, so it had been warned about. It was to approach Darwin. That was what the forecasts were, and people got ready for it and then it petered out. It actually turned around and went out to sea again. So Darwin didn’t get much in the way of damage as such. So when you’ve got this happening in December and then you’ve got Cyclone Tracy had been known about from about the 22nd of December. It wasn’t unknown. The people of Darwin knew about it. There’d been cyclone warnings, but it was cruising sort of southwest down the coast on the northern side of the Tiwi Islands, so a long way from Darwin.

And what normally happens is the cyclones in that area keep going southwest and they crash into the Kimberleys. That’s just normally how they work. But on Christmas Eve morning, which is about the worst morning it could have happened, that cyclone stopped going southwest, started going south, and then went right around the corner of Bathurst

Photo by Helen Orr.

Jared Archibald

Jared Archibald OAM is the Curator of Territory History at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

Island and started coming to the southeast directly towards Darwin.

So Christmas Eve is a day that people are doing other things. They’re not all listening to the radio, they’re not all doing the things that you would normally do on a normal weekday because there’s excitement for the next day and there’s lots of preparations to be made. So most people just went, “Oh yeah, it’ll do a Selma, we won’t worry about it. It won’t be a bad thing. “So there was some complacency there, and I don’t think it’s anyone’s, there’s no fault there as such. It’s just human nature.

And Cyclone Tracy became this awful, very powerful but very small cyclone that actually tracked right over the top of Darwin. If it had have tracked 50K to the west or the east, we would not have had anything like what happened to Darwin. But because of what it did, and it happened to, as it moved towards Darwin, it got more and more powerful. It was an extremely powerful cyclone, but a very small one. It was only around the gale force winds only around 50 kilometers in diameter, 50 to 75 kilometers. So as I say, if it had have moved slightly either way and just skirted down, there would not have been the damage. But everything went wrong in that day for Darwin, and it tracked directly over the top.

GTR: Jeez, when you put it like that Jared, you can see that it seemed to have Darwin in its bullseye, didn’t it?

JA: Look, it’s actually really interesting. We have had, and we will continue to have a tracking map. We can actually see it, you can watch it track down the coast and then come around the corner of Bathurst Island and then just basically with a little bit of an S bend come directly towards Darwin just like it was aiming for it. Now it is all random. That’s not how it works. It can’t do that, but it really does just head straight to Darwin and then go straight over the top. Another one of the reasons it was so bad... Oh, sorry, go on.

GTR: No, no, I was just going to say that would’ve been totally spooky because one of the reasons why it would be a great thing to come along to the exhibition. To actually see that would be spooky.

JA: And we actually have a... So on the radar plots that they were doing, it’s very different to now, which is where it’s all digitized, but they just had the cathode ray tube display for the radar and they would actually take Polaroid camera shots of that

every half hour to 45 minutes. And those exist. So we actually, as well as showing the track, show those photographs and you can see the thing develop from a small lower category one to a category two and get more and more powerful. The eye forms. You get the big trailing arms and it becomes this excellent example of a tropical cyclone.

And just as it’s coming over Darwin, it’s still building and it’s at its most powerful. So another reason it did so much damage over Darwin was it was a slow cyclone moving across land or water. They normally go around 12K an hour, 10 to 12K an hour. This one did 6K an hour. So it just spent more time destroying things as it moved, which also didn’t help Darwin.

GTR: Yeah, I was going to ask actually too, Jared, of course, we all remember, those that have been on the planet long enough, remember. But I guess the question from me personally is remembering the whole thing, how long did it hang around Darwin for? How long did it create this destruction and death?

JA: Cyclone is one of those things that build up, so it’s not sort of a turn-off, turn-on type situation. So as it moves towards you, you have those outer winds that are affecting you, and then they get stronger and stronger as the cyclone comes towards you. So the really bad time was from basically midnight, around midnight to around four to 5:00 AM. So it’s about five hours. That was different for different people depending on where they were located. And many people, the eye was tracked around 12 kilometers wide, and then when it made landfall, that shrank down to seven to nine kilometers wide, so much of Darwin actually had the eye pass over.

So in saying that, that means that they got the worst of the winds because the eye wall is where the most powerful winds are. And once again, this next reason for it being so bad from a destruction point of view, if you do receive the eye, you’ve had these winds build and build and build and build until they’re at their worst. And then you get into the eye where it’s basically still. There’s no clouds, there’s no rain, there’s no noise because those winds have stopped. You’re in the eye, you’re in the calm. But what’s coming from the other side is the other side of the eye wall coming towards you.

And many, many people talk about the sound of that eye wall coming towards them, and they talk about it being like a shrieking banshee,

about jet engines, about a hundred trucks, just something they can’t describe. And you go from that calm to basically instantaneous, the worst winds, the most powerful, but from the other direction because it’s a clockwise rotation. So everything that’s been weakened one way, so houses, trees, all those sorts of things have been weakened by the winds hitting them from one direction. All get hit from the other direction at full power instantaneous. And that’s when so much more damage was done because everything had been weakened one way and then it gets hit full on from the other direction.

GTR: Jeez, your description is so... I tell you what, it knocks your socks off when you think of the power of nature when you describe it like that too, Jared, and I’m almost there, you can almost feel that and that anticipation, waiting for the wall to approach and hearing that sound, it was incredible. So actually, I suppose you say between midnight and between five A.M. on Christmas Day?

JA: Around about, yes.

GTR: Yeah. So I guess we look at the destruction and the deaths. There was, I guess two sailors died, didn’t they? Petty officer Leslie Catton, I think and naval Seaman Ian Rennie. Were they actually on board the HMAS Arrow when the cyclone hit?

JA: Yes. So there were four patrol boats in Darwin Harbor at the time. They all went to special cyclone moorings that had been put in place, but by about midnight, one o’clock, all of them were basically that the seas were so bad that they were beginning to tear the anchor winches out of the bows. It was really, really bad. They would be impounded.

So all of them, either they broke away or left their moorings and tried to get out to sea because they were actually dragging the concrete clumps that were in the mud, so dragging it with the ships. So the cyclone moorings just weren’t good enough, not at all. Although they’d been designed to be that it’s just yet in that cyclone, they couldn’t do their job. So two ships managed to get out to sea with damage, but the Arrow didn’t.

So Captain Dagworthy with his 18 crew, they’re in the harbour, they had broken away from their mooring and he had decided... The ships, when you read the after incident reports, it’s unbelievable. They’re talking about ships rolling to 80 degrees one way then the other way, and dipping their navigation heights in the water. Even

just imagining what it’s like to be in a ship that’s rolling basically on its side and then rolling back the other way, and you are trying to also keep that ship into the wind. So they were having lots of problems mechanically just from the point of view. They had to keep those engines going, otherwise they’d be broadside to the ocean. And that’s when you die, you can capsize and all things go wrong.

But the water intakes for the cooling water at the bottom of the hull, the hulls, you know that the ship is healing so far over, they began sucking air. Most of the ships reported that, so the engines start overheating, so you can’t cook the engines then they’re dead anyway. And the other problem they were having was the oil pressure alarms and then shutoff systems were going off because the oil intakes for the engines were sucking air instead of oil. And so engineers were trying to manually flick those back so they could restart engines and keep those engines going. They knew if the engines stopped, they were then at the mercy of the sea.

So Captain Dagworthy had decided with his engines overheating that he was going to run his ship aground in Francis Bay. So that’s a bay with a creek in it. It has lots of mangroves either side. He just thought he’d run it aground in the mud in the mangroves and try and save his ship and crew. As he was attempting to do that, the ship was pushed into the corner of Stokes Hill wharf, the main wharf. And that was, once again, when you read about that, it was a shocking experience

for all because you’ve got massive seas pushing a large ship into a wharf that’s immovable. And so it’s actually smashing the ship, but the ship is actually smashing the wharf as well. So men were trying to, they all had their, yeah, when you read about it’s a shocking experience.

They all had their life preservers on and they were trying to, as the ship came up on the waves were then trying to jump onto the wharf. Some managed to do that, some didn’t. Some were swept into the sea and Catton and Rennie were killed and Captain Dagworthy, and he was the last off the ship. He actually, in the end, he couldn’t get up onto the wharf and he had a life preserver on, and he jumped into the sea and was swept through the wharf and was swept to the shore, but not just as an easy thing, but very battered, very scratched up from going through the pylons that are covered in oysters. So yeah, just a shocking, shocking thing. And then the ship sank. So yeah, it was the only Australian naval ship lost to a natural disaster.

GTR: Well, there should be a film about that. I plead my ignorance, maybe something has been done as a documentary or something, but I see this as being such a moment, Jared. That’s incredible, your description of that.

JA: So many people went through so many different things, but being on the harbour was probably, I think the worst place could be, not just for the patrol boats. There were a large number of

Crewing a vessel in Darwin’s harbour was one of the worst places to be when Cyclone Tracy hit. Over 50 vessels from trawlers to ferries endured the cyclone, with only five still operational come Christmas Day. Of the 66 deaths recorded, 21 occurred at sea.

During Cyclone Tracy’s approach, the Darwin harbourmaster ordered all ships to sea or to anchorages and moorings away from the wharves. Vessels at wharf berths unable to comply, doubled their mooring lines and waited.

During the hours that Tracy moved across the harbour, crews battled mountainous seas and howling winds. Many vessels dragged their anchors or were torn from their moorings and sunk or were run aground. By Christmas morning, there were 27 vessels sunk or wrecked, 19 aground and damaged, four afloat but badly damaged, and five damaged but operational.

Koji Yoshida and Donald Hoff were killed when the NR Kendall, a fishing trawler, ran aground below the cliffs at Larrakeyah.

Of the sunken vessels, some were not found immediately. It took three decades before the wrecks of the schooner Booya, the largest ship in the harbour that day, and the ferry Darwin Princess were discovered. They are now protected wreck sites. Three vessels have never been found.

Courtesy of Royal Australian Navy, 2024. National Archives of Australia, ID: 11486512. Cyclone Tracy Collection, MAGNT, 2024.138.001

This text has been extracted from the label text in the new Cyclone Tracy exhibition.

fishing trawlers. There were ferries, there were work boats, pilot boats, all sorts of things. There was a schooner called the Booya. It was lost for 29 years. It was 150 feet long. Gone, and no one knew where it was five people on board. And those remains were never found. The ship was found in 2003.

GTR: Only in 2003?

JA: The other live ship... Yeah, yeah. It took 30 years for that. Oh, sorry, 29 years. And then 30 years, the next year they found the Darwin Princess, which was a very large ferry that was nearby. So those are the two larger

ships that were sunk, but were lost and no remains have been found from them, although the police divers when they were found were able to recover off the Booya with personal effects, and they were able to, then the coroner then reopened the cases of the missing at sea. When you have no body and no wreck, the coroners, they can’t just say you’re dead because there’s no proof. But once a wreck was found, he was able to then change the verdict of missing at sea to death at sea for the five on the Booya and the one on the Darwin Princess.

GTR: Jeez, I tell you what, it’s an incredible thing when you look at it. I guess too, the cleanup. I mean, I guess Darwin would’ve been in shock for some time on Christmas Day, but how long did it take for the cleanup to be organized?

JA: It’s actually really interesting. So lots of different things happen. I think one of the things you can take away from any disaster, not just Darwin and Cyclone Tracy, but when any big major disaster happens, it brings out the best in some people, and it sometimes brings out the worst in others, but mostly people do things that they didn’t think they could. I’m just trying to... In a way that they become leaders, they assist, they go, “Look, I can help here. I can actually do something here that will make a difference.”

So one of the first things that I’ve found out a lot about was by the end of Christmas Day, basically the roads, most of the roads, and we’re talking about major roads right through the suburbs in Darwin City had been cleared. And that was with fellows who jumped on large front-end loaders and just basically ran around the entire town of the suburbs clearing tin and debris and everything just off the roads, because everyone talks about on that Christmas Day, once they’d come out of the wreckage and seen to their neighbors and that people are okay, they then wanted to go to family or friends in other suburbs all get to their workplace like the police or nurses or doctors to the hospital. But it took so long to be able to do that.

The two reasons, one, so much debris on the roads with lots of also nails sticking out. So lots of tire punctures and stuff, but also people report they couldn’t recognize where to go. It doesn’t sound like that’s right. But when you’ve lost all your street signs, you’ve lost all your vegetation, you’ve lost all the normal landmarks that you are used to, although the roads are still there. People say that it was very difficult, especially in suburbs to find out where they were because everything they were used to wasn’t the same. And many, many people talk about being able to see the ocean from inland suburbs, which you could never do. And now 50 years later, you definitely can’t do, you cannot see the ocean from many, many suburbs because of tropical vegetation in gardens. So that was sort of the very beginning, but-

GTR: The points of reference were gone Jared, the points of reference were gone through a lot of it.

JA: Yes, that’s it.

GTR: Jeez.

JA: Absolutely. And so there wasn’t much clean up on Christmas Day apart from people just trying to find, if they could, valuables. But people weren’t even worried about valuables. They were just looking for food and shelter. And many people congregated in each of the suburbs. There was a primary school, and those primary schools stood up very well. They were damaged, but they weren’t damaged to the same extent that people’s homes were.

And so they became these gathering centers. And people within those many survivors then started organizing people into, “Okay, I need you people to go and dig a latrine because there was no water, no power, no sewerage, there was nothing. So we needed a latrine dug here. We need new people to go into fridges. The fridges had all gone off, but the food was still okay, I need you to go get food and bring it here.”

People looking after cooking and doing that, they actually, and some people were far more in shock and weren’t able to help themselves, but others were able to then assist them. And there became these communities based in the schools and other government buildings. And that happened for the first few days. And then things started to get organized. People came out of their shock. And also the authorities started to being able to organize things on a larger scale,

GTR: Incredible stuff. And of course, I guess just harking back to the immediate aftermath of the Cyclone Tracy where you talk about the human condition. And for all of us, we sometimes wonder, don’t we Jared if we would be able to assume these positions of leadership or care or enact help in the way that some of these brilliant people do? And it’s almost superhuman, but of course it’s in us all, I guess. But it’s always an amazing thing to see.

JA: And I do need to state right now, all these things I’m saying, I’m saying not from experience. I did not go through Cyclone Tracy. I just want to make that clear for anyone that may be listening. But I have spoken over the past 45 years, I’ve spoken to lots and lots of people that haven’t done lots of research. So I am speaking on behalf of people, but not from experience.

But with that point you are making, yes. You see these people who are just ordinary people who then become leaders. They’re just natural leaders. They just haven’t been put in that position before. And so they’re the ones that are able to think things through, see the bigger picture and

go, “This is what we need. And I can now organize other people to assist to make those things happen.” And not everyone’s a leader, but there’s a lot of people who once they’re told what to do, would just go to and do it. And they’re just as important because you need the workers as well as the leaders. And so as these teams formed, it became people were helping each other. That was one of the big things from Cyclone Tracy.

GTR: Yeah, incredible. And as you said right at the beginning too, you see facets of human nature that are brilliant and facets that are not so likely to be the negative side. So yeah, incredible stuff. Major General Alan Stretton was appointed leader. You’ve got a bit on Alan at the exhibition too?

JA: Yeah, we have some. There’s so many stories and so many things that we need to talk about. He’s just one of those. But he is a pivotal figure. So he was the leader of the newly formed Australian Disasters Organization, and this was basically the baptism of fire. They had not had a major disaster. And then this one happened. So Major General Stretton was sent to Darwin. He got here very late Christmas Day, very late in the evening. And it’s actually interesting, I’m going to say as well as being pivotal, he’s also a figure that many love and many don’t like as much. And I’m just being careful there.

In some of his books, he tends to say things that get some people’s backs up. But just moving on from that, he had or from the government was given basically ultimate power and authority. So when decisions were made, he could actually then say, “Make this happen.” And it happened. And one of the biggest decisions that was made, and it was made as a committee, so there was a fellow called Dr. Charles Gird, he was the NT medical officer. And he said, and he’d been in other places in Africa and in the Pacific, where’d he’d been in disaster before, he said, “We have 45,000 people that have no power, sewage or shelter, and this is a recipe for disaster, for disease, for a lot of things going wrong.”

And he recommended reducing the population of Darwin down to around 10,000 from that 45,000. So around three quarters to leave. That was his recommendation. And Stretton said, “Make it happen, do it.” And he had the authority to make that happen and to have both the defense forces and civilian airlines assist in making that so, and had the backing of the government. The government said, “We’ll look after these people, we will give them emergency money.” One of the really interesting things with the evacuation is that it was not a forced evacuation. No one was forced to go. They were encouraged strongly, I’ve got to say that.

But they were all offered a return airfare as well. When the time was right, it wasn’t, “You’re out and you’re not coming back.” This is, “We need you out because we need to be able to focus on the cleanup and there’s

just no shelter for you. There’s no food. And it’ll be very difficult until the place is cleaned up and power’s back on and so forth.”

So they were at pains to say that it’s voluntary, but many, many people did just want to leave. Darwin was not their home. They were here for work and they wanted to go back home to their homes in the southern states. Many, many Darwin people were quite upset. They didn’t want to be taken away from Darwin. They didn’t want to leave, but just the conditions didn’t warrant being able to keep them here. So many did stay obviously around 10,000, and most of were men, but there were a lot of women and some kids stayed.

I’ve talked to a number of families where whole families did stay because their home was habitable and they had shelter and they were using their swimming pool water to flush toilets. And one of the young fellows I talked to, he is now an ex-politician, but he was seven years old. And he actually says that that time in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy... I’m going to get a little bit emotional. He said that it was one of the best times for him and his family because they came together and they played games around the table. They worked hard, they cleared up their home, he assisted his father in making things better, like doing repairs and things. He remembers it as it was a shocking time, but actual good time. Now, that isn’t the experience of everyone one, but-

GTR: I know I can understand, yeah, yeah.

JA: That’s what he remembers as a seven-year-old.

GTR: That’s interesting you say that too, Jared.

JA: Yeah, it is.

Ceremonial lifebuoy and crown finial

The HMAS Arrow is the only Royal Australian Navy ship ever lost to a natural disaster. After hours of battling huge waves and wind gusts that caused the ship to roll violently, the engines began overheating. Captain Dagworthy decided his only option was to run the ship aground on the mudflats at Frances Bay but, instead, it was driven underneath Stokes Hill Wharf where it sank. While some of the crew managed to get to relative safety on the wharf, others were swept into the sea. Petty Officer Leslie Catton and Able Seaman Ian Rennie were killed.

The wreck of HMAS Arrow was refloated by Clearance Diving Team 1 in January 1975 and was written off by the Navy. Some of the few remains include the ceremonial lifebuoy which was found within the wreck and later presented to Captain Dagworthy. The crown finial that adorns the bow jackstaff of Attack-class patrol boats was found on the beach near Stokes Hill Wharf two weeks after it sank.

Gift of Captain Robert G. Dagworthy AM RAN Rtd, 2018, Cyclone Tracy Collection, MAGNT, 2018.001.001. This text has been extracted from the label text in the new Cyclone Tracy exhibition.

GTR: Because of course, in times of tragedy and disaster, whether it be personal or on a grand scale like Cyclone Tracy hitting Darwin, there is moments of great intimacy and closeness.

JA: Yeah, yep, absolutely. But you have the other side too. It also, especially the evacuation, it tore families apart. And there was a lot of families that didn’t survive from the point of view of relationships didn’t survive because of the stresses from what they went through with them being torn apart, dads and that staying here and then mums and kids moving south, it was a really difficult time for all.

And some didn’t make it through, relationships they suffered, they suffered badly.

GTR: I tell you what, I can understand that too. Totally. And you’ve got a couple, one may want to stay, one may want to go, and that’s the end of that.

And then of course, that ricochets and that would’ve been seen on a big scale throughout the build of the other cleanup and whether to return to Darwin or not.

But look, a pivotal and historic moment in Australia’s history and Jared, you’ve been fantastic. Jared Archibald, territory and history curator at MAGNT Museum Art Gallery in Northern Territory with the exhibition on Cyclone Tracy starting on the 7th of December.

So get up there and have a look at it. We are coming up at some stage. I’ll tell you what, we’re going to have a look at this and your discussion’s been fantastic, Jared. So we thank you very much on behalf of The Last Post radio show.

JA: No problem. Thank you.

What I Wish I’d Known About Super Before Transitioning from the ADF

When I transitioned from the Australian Defence Force (ADF), I thought I was prepared for civilian life. But, like many veterans, I underestimated the importance of my superannuation—and it caught me off guard. If there’s one thing I hear repeatedly from veterans, it’s this: “I wish I’d known more about super before leaving the ADF.” This realization can come as a surprise, especially if you’re still early in your career, but understanding super now can make all the difference for your financial future.

Why Super Matters More Than You Think

Superannuation isn’t something to put off for later. Whether you’re leaving the ADF after a few years or a full career, the small decisions you make about your super now can have a massive impact on your retirement. Super plays a critical role in your financial well-being, and it’s not just for when you’re older—it’s something you’ll wish you had thought about sooner.

How Getting into Super Early Pays Off

My biggest advice for veterans is simple: don’t wait. The world of superannuation may seem complex, but starting early and seeking out the right resources makes it manageable—and incredibly rewarding. For instance, Vets Hub is a fantastic place to start if you’re thinking about your super and long-term financial security. Whether you’re currently serving, transitioning, or already a veteran, visiting Vets Hub can help make sense of it all.

Top 3 Super Tips for Veterans

Getting informed on super doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Here are three quick tips that can set you on the right path:

1. Start Early: Even small contributions now can make a huge difference over time.

2. Review Regularly: Major life events, like promotions or moving, are good opportunities to review your super.

3. Ask for Help: Resources like Vets Hub are there to guide you — don’t wait if you’re unsure about your options.

Start Early, Reap the Benefits Later

Why focus on super early in your career? Promotions, relocations, buying a home, or starting a family are all great times to revisit your super. Early education and regular check-ins with your super can make a huge difference, helping you avoid last-minute stress.

About the

Author:

David Wilton National Manager, Defence and Veterans Liaison

Myth

vs. Reality: Superannuation Edition

Let’s break down some common misconceptions about super:

• Myth: Super is only for retirement.

• Reality: Decisions you make about super now can impact your financial freedom long before retirement.

• Myth: You don’t need to think about super until later.

• Reality: Starting early allows compound growth to work in your favour, maximizing future benefits.

Vets Hub: Your Go-To

Resource

Vets Hub offers a wealth of resources to support ADF members and their families. With options like on-base education, individual consultations, group sessions, and online resources, Vets Hub is dedicated to helping you navigate your super with confidence. One veteran shared, “Vets Hub helped me understand my options in a way that no one else had.” This kind of support can make a huge difference for you and your family.

CSC: Your Retirement Partner

When you think about super, think of Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC) as your long-term partner. CSC isn’t just your pension administrator—they’re in it for the long haul, committed to guiding you through your financial journey every step of the way.

Get Started Today

If you’re thinking about your super and long-term financial well-being, don’t wait. Visit Vets Hub now and start exploring how you can make the most of your super. The earlier you start, the more options you’ll have for a secure, comfortable future.

David, a former member of the Australian Army, has firsthand experience of the challenges veterans face in navigating superannuation. As the creator of Vets Hub, he’s dedicated to improving financial well-being for ADF members, veterans, and families. Before joining CSC, David served in the Army for 26 years, including deployments to TimorLeste and Afghanistan. David and his wife Merja live on the Sunshine Coast in QLD, where they work to support the veteran community.

CSC.gov.au/vetshub

thumbsup.org.au

The Uncle Jimmy Thumbs up Good Tucker programs began in 2009 when Dr Jimmy Little AO traveled to Arnhem Land visiting the remote communities of Yirrkala, Milingimbi, Galiwinku, Raminginning and Gapuwiyak.

The concept was simple, to provide nutrition education to school children and talk to the community leaders and traditional owners about the importance of healthy eating and lifestyle. The goal was to change perceptions that eating healthy was expensive and to also slow sales of high sugar drinks and unhealthy foods. Healthier children would lead to healthier adults.

The key to making this pilot program work was to engage with Arnhem Land Aboriginal Progress Corporation (ALPA), the organisation who manage the local stores. They were on side immediately and now 15 years later there are nutritionists employed by ALPA and they subsidise the cost of fruit and vegetables and water, the main products that help to build a healthier population.

The trial program was evaluated by the CDC for Aboriginal Health (now the Lowitja Institute) and the positive result lead to Thumbs Up! being granted a significant sum from Medicines Australia, to set up the program in other communities across the top end. The other major retail group Outback Stores (OBS) came on board and over the next 10 years the program was rolled out into another 50 communities. Grants from the federal Department of Health also helped to keep the program going until covid brought it to a stop in 2020.

In 2018, Thumbs Up, Menzies Health and UniSA developed the Good Tucker App to help shoppers select the healthiest foods and drinks. The App reads bar codes and provides a simple graphic to show its healthiness.

A green thumb up for good, a yellow thumb sideways for sometimes foods and a red thumbs down for items to avoid. Nutritionists from ALPA and OBS also helped to design in store signage to point shoppers to healthy products.

To date the signage is installed in all ALPA and OBS stores (over 180 across the top end) and Thumbs Up! Is seeking funding to install signage in language in all independent food stores across remote Australia.

Jimmy passed away in 2012, but founding CEO Graham Bidstrup continues to run the organisation that Jimmy began all those years ago. Their mantra, “Good Tucker - Long Life” will continue to resonate in remote Australian Aboriginal communities for many years to come.

Mastery of disease through discovery

At WEHI, we believe that together, we can cure the most devasting diseases. By working collaboratively and with your support, we can solve health challenges faster than ever before.

WEHI is Australia’s leading medical research institute, with more than 100 years of world-changing medical discoveries. Millions of people live healthy lives today because of our discoveries. Our research teams are globally recognised and continue to take on the world’s major health challenges, finding solutions never thought possible.

For confidential enquiries about making a donation or leaving a gift in Will to WEHI, contact Christine Diamond in our Future Giving team 03 9345 2929 | diamond.ch@wehi.edu.au www.wehi.edu.au/wills

WEHI authors of the study, including [pictured L to R]: research assistant Melinda Iliopoulos, CAR T cell researcher Dr Ryan Cross, PhD student Leesa Lertsumitkul, laboratory head Professor Misty Jenkins AO, immunotherapy researcher Dr Alex Davenport and paediatric oncologist Dr Stacie Wang. Credit: WEHI

Two-in-one breakthrough: Cutting-edge immunotherapy could hold promise for incurable brain cancer

Researchers at WEHI have identified a promising new two-in-one treatment that not only targets and destroys an aggressive form of brain cancer, but also helps the immune system develop a lasting defence against it.

This dual-action approach uses a specific immunotherapy known as CAR T cell therapy to treat gliomas, an incurable brain cancer with few treatment options.

The pre-clinical findings have revealed the therapy’s ability to eliminate glioma cells and its potential to strengthen the immune system to prevent future tumour growth – two significant advances that could revolutionise the way these lethal cancers are treated in the future.

At a glance

• WEHI researchers have found a specific immunotherapy could hold promise for treating gliomas, an aggressive form of brain cancer with limited treatment options

• The new study shows that CAR T cell therapy not only kills glioma cancer cells, but can also provide lasting immunity and reduce the likelihood of tumour recurrence in preclinical models

• The findings could transform the way gliomas and other cancers are treated in the future

Overcoming barriers to save lives

In Australia, one person is diagnosed with brain cancer every 5 hours. There currently is no cure and current therapies for severe brain cancers like gliomas are largely ineffective, leaving patients with few options.

CAR T cell therapy is an innovative new approach that involves isolating a patient’s immune cells, engineering them to become “super killer cells” and then re-infusing them into the patient to fight their cancer.

While CAR T cell therapy has shown promise for brain cancer treatment, finding the right proteins to target on brain cancer cells has been a major hurdle.

The WEHI-led study has revealed a protein called EphA3, found on the surface of high-grade glioma cells, could be a key target for CAR T cell therapy.

Lead researcher and laboratory head at WEHI, Professor Misty Jenkins AO, says the potential impact of this discovery is profound on many levels.

“This new way to treat gliomas could offer a potential lifeline for patients,” Prof Jenkins, also head of the immunotherapy program at The Brain Cancer Centre, said.

“Our research has shown that EphA3-targeted CAR T cells can effectively seek out and eliminate glioma cells, both in lab tests and animal models.

“This therapy not only targeted and killed the cancer cells, but also triggered a long-lasting immune response, preventing future tumour growth.

“We never expected a two-in-one breakthrough that could offer such life-saving possibilities.

“This is a significant development because gliomas are incredibly challenging to treat, and current options are limited.

“Most importantly, this could mean longer survival times for patients and improved quality of life, giving hope to those affected by these aggressive cancers.”

Future of cancer medicine

Prof Jenkins said CAR T cell therapy was opening up new pathways for brain cancer treatment.

“CAR T cell therapy is clever because it uses a patient’s own immune cells and engineers them to recognise and kill the tumour, with no long-term side effects,” she said.

“The tricky nature of brain cancer means that traditional methods don’t work – chemotherapy is ineffective, and radiation kills cancerous and healthy brain tissue.

“This recent discovery is further evidence that immunotherapy is a powerful force that can help overcome many cancer challenges that were previously considered insurmountable.”

Powerful new tools for cancer treatment

The project team is hopeful that future clinical trials for EphA3-targeted CAR T cell therapy could lead to the development of a treatment that not only kills and halts cancer growth, but also provides lasting immunity.

As the research advances, there is hope that partnerships with biotech companies and investors will help bring this innovative therapy to patients as quickly as possible.

“The possibility of providing patients with a long-lasting immune response against their cancer is a game-changer, offering a significantly better outlook for patients and their families,” Prof Jenkins said.

“The potential to revolutionise brain cancer treatment – like what has been achieved for other cancers – makes this a truly exciting time in the field of cancer research.

“As we stand on the brink of transforming brain cancer treatment, we are not just aiming for better outcomes –we’re striving for a future where the words “brain cancer” no longer carry the same fear. The journey ahead promises breakthroughs that will redefine hope for patients around the world.”

The research has been supported by many collaborators, key partners and major funders, including the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), The Brain Cancer Centre, the Robert Connor Dawes Foundation, the Isabella and Marcus Foundation, the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), Cure Brain Cancer Foundation and the Zoe Stanley Research Program (Zoe’s Fight Foundation). The study, "EphA3-targeted chimeric antigen receptor T cells are effective in glioma and generate curative memory T cell responses", is published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (DOI: 10.1136/jitc-2024-009486).

Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells, genetically engineered leukocytes (white blood cells), in their fight against glioblastoma, a deadly type of glioma.

Credit: WEHI.

A Veteran’s Story

A Full Circle Journey for Paul and May

Q: How long did you serve Paul?

I served 16 years in the Australian Regular Army and was medically discharged in December 1997.

Q: How did you first get involved with Carry On and its Veteran Housing program?

In 2015, after returning to Melbourne with my wife May, we struggled financially due to my ongoing health issues. The situation became so desperate that we faced the possibility of homelessness. A rehabilitation consultant through DVA mentioned Carry On, and I reached out. Simon Bloomer at Carry On offered us a unit almost immediately. The relief was immense – our rent dropped from $1,700 to $550 a month, giving us the stability we needed.

Q: Can you describe transitioning from Carry On’s housing to purchasing your own property?

We lived in Carry On’s subsidised housing for six years. During that time, we saved money and enjoyed a supportive community. The affordable rent helped ease the financial pressure and allowed us to plan for the future. Carry On gave us the boost to get back on our feet and eventually buy our own home.

Q: What does owning your own home mean to you and your wife?

Owning our home is a dream come true. At first, I was reluctant to leave the security of veteran housing, but I realised it was time to move on and let someone else benefit from the support Carry On offers.

Q: How has your life changed since becoming a homeowner?

Home ownership has given us new responsibilities, but I often reflect on the kindness and support we received from Carry On. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Q: What message would you share with other veterans considering Carry On’s support?

When life feels overwhelming and you don’t know where to turn, don’t give up. Carry On was a turning point for us, and they can be for you too.

Aged Care Advocates want more people to know about them

Advocacy

gives older people a voice and practical support when it comes to aged care.

Having an advocate by your side can make dealing with the aged care system much easier for you or for your loved ones.

Few people are aware that aged care advocates are available around the country to help older people, and their families navigate the aged care system and get the most out of the aged care services that they are entitled to.

Aged care is not just nursing homes. It’s also the services that are provided to help you, or Mum or Dad, to stay independent at home, or to access temporary care while recovering from a health issue or when a primary carer is away. There are many aspects to Australia’s current aged care system, and an advocate can be your expert guide.

CEO of ADA Australia, Geoff Rowe, thinks that on a big picture level ageism is the root cause of many of

the issues people experience with aged care.

“How we value and think of older people trickles down across all the systems that support them. Hence in our current system older people’s needs and individual rights are often overlooked in favour of ‘the system’. That is, what is most convenient, or what costs less.

“But older people are not secondclass citizens. They have the same human rights as everyone. We need to look at older people not as a burden but as our elders who have built the country and given us what we have today. They should be able to expect to age well and with good quality care and support.”

It is hoped that the new Aged Care Act will bring a cultural shift in the way aged care services are delivered, shifting focus from the business of aged care to the people in aged care. The rights of older people

are enshrined in the Act through a Statement of Rights, which service providers will have a positive duty to uphold.

On a practical level, an advocate is someone who works alongside you to give you a voice and help you navigate and resolve a range of issues impacting your rights in aged care.

Whether it’s not knowing where to start, not getting the right support, not receiving the quality of care you would expect, difficulties dealing with your service provider, or more worryingly, being subject to abuse and neglect –having an advocate by your side can give you the guidance, confidence and support to speak up.

Importantly, advocacy is free, confidential and independent. An advocate works for you - they are on your side and are directed by you. They won’t do or say anything without your permission and they’re focus is solely on a positive outcome for you.

No issue is too big or too small when it comes to your life or the lives of your older loved ones. ADA Australia is the Queensland member of the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN). To contact ADA Australia, or an aged care advocacy service in your State or Territory, call the Aged Care Advocacy Line 1800 700 600. Available Monday to Friday 8am–8pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.

Your legacy. Their future.

Will you be the difference in an uncertain world?

Connection. Safety. Friendship. Family. When you include a gift in your Will for Australian Red Cross, you create endless opportunities to make a difference.

Just ask Elsie. At 95 years old, Elsie has been brightened by weekly visits from Fiona, a dedicated Red Cross volunteer. Their bond showcases the extraordinary power of human connection. Fiona’s visits not only keep Elsie engaged and connected to her community, but they also enrich Fiona’s own life in profound ways.

“Elsie always says, ‘You make me feel so happy. I love seeing you; it’s such a highlight,’” Fiona says. “I say it back to her because it’s the same for me. I think it’s given her more of a will to live. That sounds pretty deep, but I know how much she looks forward to seeing us; it’s giving her more purpose in life.”

In a world where people feel lonelier than ever before, a gift in your Will can help ensure thousands of older people don’t feel so alone. These days, Elsie knows she is loved and cared for, thanks to her friend Fiona.

Everybody deserves the warmth of kindness and friendship, and your Will can help us share that with people for generations to come.

Find out more about leaving a Gift in your Will.

Scan the QR code to receive a free Planning Checklist.

1 in 7 Australian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.

Support the National Breast Cancer Foundation and help save thousands of lives each year.

A charitable gift in your Will to fund innovative research can improve survival rates, transform detection, treatment and care.

With your support we can stop breast cancer taking the lives of those we love.

For information please contact our Gift in Wills Manager on 02 8098 4848 or bequests@nbcf.org.au

The National Breast Cancer Foundation

named the official charity partner of 2024 Sydney New Year’s Eve

Imagine being so passionate about a cause that you agree to have your picture blown up and projected on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for an estimated half a billion people to see, as part of Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

That is exactly what National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) Community Ambassador, Tarryn did last year and will be doing again this year to help raise awareness for breast cancer research.

On 25 November 2020, at the age of 33, Tarryn found a lump and was diagnosed with breast cancer. From this date she promised herself she would raise as much awareness as possible – and she’s certainly living up to that promise.

For the second year, NBCF is the official charity partner of 2024 Sydney New Year’s Eve. There will be a pink moment where Sydney Harbour will be lit up with pink fireworks and lights. Accompanying Tarryn’s photo, will be key breast cancer statistics and the NBCF logo.

Tarryn knows firsthand how difficult it can be managing breast cancer treatment over the holiday period.

“Due to needing surgery, I could not pick up my kids which was particularly difficult given it was such a special time of year and how young they were. I was grateful to get to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve with them – each year for New Year’s Eve we go water skiing at Lake Burrinjuck,” she explained.

NBCF is Australia’s leading not-for-profit organisation funding world-class breast cancer research towards their vision of Zero Deaths from breast cancer. Since their inception in 1994, NBCF has invested around over $200 million into more than 600 world-class research projects across Australia. In this time, the death rate from breast cancer in Australia has reduced by over 40%.

WARRIOR SOLDIER BRIGAND

Institutional Abuse within the Australian Defence Force

WARRIOR SOLDIER BRIGAND

Institutional Abuse within the Australian Defence Force

A forensic analysis of how institutionalised abuse in the Australian Defence Force has affected its personnel.

Questions of institutional abuse have been at the centre of numerous royal commissions, inquiries and reviews of the clergy, the police and defence forces over the past decade. This scrutiny has highlighted how those organisations foster forms of violence and violation.

One of their principal characteristics is that the culture of abuse and its perpetration is largely the work of men. In Warrior Soldier Brigand, Ben Wadham and James Connor argue that three pillars shape the patterns of abuse in the Australian Defence Force: martial masculinities, military exceptionalism and fraternity. Historically, the military has been an almost exclusively male domain, but since the Vietnam War it has become an all-volunteer force and more culturally diverse, a change that has proven to be profoundly challenging, and one the ADF has not always readily welcomed nor sufficiently addressed.

While the ADF may train and accommodate some of the best military personnel in the world, it has not resolved the use of that violent potential against its own. Exploring the fundamental paradox that underpins abuse in the military - an organisation of and for violence -Wadham and Connor report on the shifting landscape of the ADF since 1969, describing military institutional abuse across the decades and asking the question: to what extent can an authoritarian institution liberalise?

BEN WADHAM and JAMES CONNOR

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2024, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

About the Authors:

Ben Wadham is a professor in Sociology (Defence and Veteran Studies) at Flinders University in South Australia. He is a veteran of the Australian Army, having served in the Royal Australian Infantry Corps and the Royal Australian Corps of Military Police. Ben is the director of Open Door: Understanding and Supporting Service Personnel and their Families, a research initiative at Flinders University. Ben’s research is ethnographic, focusing on the cultural relations of the military organisation, specifically the Australian Defence Force, but also militaries across the Five Eye nations.

Please be advised that the contents of Warrior, Soldier, Brigand depict first person accounts of institutional abuse that readers may find distressing.

James Connor is an associate professor in the School of Business, UNSW Canberra, located at the Australian Defence Force Academy. James has spent two decades researching militaries and the conduct of men within them. His work started with questioning how loyalty fosters cohesion amongst soldiers, enabling them to fight, but also how that fraternal bonding can lead to malfeasance. This research has since expanded into military scandal, misconduct and the vexed question of gender.

Ben Wadham

James Connor

He had no symptoms’: How wearable tech can help older Indigenous people catch heart problems – and save lives

A new study shows the potential of smart watches and other devices for health monitoring of at-risk individuals in rural and remote communities.

Many people with atrial fibrillation don’t have any symptoms. But this heart condition – which involves an irregular and often rapid heartbeat – increases the risk of stroke and heart failure, especially if untreated.

Wearable devices such as smart watches are playing an increasing role in monitoring heart conditions like atrial fibrillation.

Our recently published study is the first to examine how older Indigenous people living remotely can use wearables to monitor their health.

Although it was only a small study – with 11 people over five days – in that time one woman was able to realise her husband could be at risk. And her knowledge ended up saving his life.

Using wearables for heart health

Research has rarely explored the potential of wearables in monitoring atrial fibrillation for Indigenous people. That’s despite them being affected at a higher rate and younger age than non-Indigenous Australians – and with worse outcomes.

Indigenous people are three times more likely to be diagnosed with atrial fibrillation after they have already had a stroke or heart attack, compared to non-Indigenous Australians. Using wearables is one way to detect and treat the condition before it escalates.

In previous research with Indigenous people in rural, remote and regional New South Wales, a majority (92%) of older women participants told us they wanted to try a wearable to track their health and fitness.

This aligned with other research showing Indigenous people can be enthusiastic adopters of new technology.

What we did

In our new study, we collaborated with an Aboriginalcontrolled health service in remote New South Wales. We worked side-by-side to co-design and evaluate a health program using wearable technology.

Evidence shows health programs for Indigenous people tailored to local culture, and designed in collaboration with community, are more effective.

Together we recruited 11 Indigenous people aged between 55 and 78 who had high blood pressure and were at risk of developing atrial fibrillation. Participants had at least one other risk factor:

• another chronic disease

• heart disease affecting the heart’s structure (for example, its walls or valves)

• previous stroke

• history of alcohol use disorder.

Those with diagnosed atrial fibrillation, or another irregular heartbeat condition, could not take part.

For five days, participants wore a chest patch that monitored their heartbeat and blood pressure. Nine people also wore a smart watch which recorded heart rate and fitness measures such as step count.In daily meetings at the clinic, the researcher downloaded and reviewed the data, and the participant discussed their experience. We asked participants about four issues: comfort, cultural safety, convenience and any concerns.

To collect data our study used traditional research methods (such as a survey), alongside yarning. This Indigenous conversational process encourages people to share stories, reinterpret questions and add information. Compared to the pre-determined structure of a survey, yarning prioritises what the participant finds most important.

What we found

Despite challenging conditions – including variable internet connection and temperatures above 36°C – participants were enthusiastic about the program. Their responses showed the watches and patches were a comfortable, convenient and culturally safe way to monitor heart health.

Many participants reported the program increased their confidence and knowledge about their health. The study

also suggested increased knowledge may have flow-on benefits for other community members.

Similar to our previous research, older women in particular spontaneously shared health information they acquired with family and community members. This underlines the influential role of mature Indigenous women in their communities.

The knowledge gained helped one participant, Aunty Mary, to recognise her husband Lindsay’s risk for atrial fibrillation.

She encouraged him to attend the clinic for testing where he was found to have the condition. Not long after, Lindsay underwent urgent quadruple bypass surgery that saved his life. Aunty Mary told us:

I was really amazed by how things happened and happened really fast for Lindsay. […] He had no symptoms, he had no pain. Nothing. No pain to say […] he was (at risk) for a heart attack.

Participants were also keen to see the program be offered to more and younger people in their community. Aunty Mary told us she’d been speaking to people about how important testing is:

It just takes 30 seconds, you put your fingers on this little machine. 30 seconds, it’ll save your life. I recommend it to my people.

For a future clinic-based program, participants suggested health education sessions in person or online, in small groups if not individually.

Although it wasn’t part of the study, we also found participants used the watches as motivation to be more active, for example, by monitoring step counts.

Concerns about the wearable program were minimal. Two participants indicated some concern about how tech companies handle privacy. One told us they trusted the universities to keep their data private but were less sure about the companies that made the wearables.

This has prompted us to create a phone application to extract data from the devices and a new research database to store the data. This database provides greater autonomy, allowing participants to decide whether or not they share data with researchers.

What’s next?

Several participants said they believed they hadn’t historically been prioritised for new health technologies because they lived remotely. But our research suggests older Indigenous people can be keen adopters of health technology, and want to share its benefits.

Our study is a first step in showing how this kind of program could work. But as it included only 11 people for five days, we are keen to investigate further. Participants expressed interest in a program that combines personalised health data from wearables with fitness.

Our new project will do this through online health education and using wearables to monitor heart activity, blood pressure and exercise (such as step count) over 28 days.

CONNIE HENSON (UNSW SYDNEY), KATRINA

WARD (UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE), KYLIE GWYNNE (MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY)

This article is republished from The Conversation under the Creative Commons licence. theconversation.com/he-had-no-symptoms-howwearable-tech-can-help-older-indigenous-peoplecatch-heart-problems-and-save-lives-236875

Aged care support service

Chat with us - free and confidential

Do you need advice about your governmentfunded aged care services, either in your own home or in residential care?

Our experienced aged care advocates can help you with the following, and other aged care issues:

Aged care provider services or fees.

Assistance with visits or services.

Supported decision-making.

How to speak up for better aged care

Concern that you may not be treated respectfully, fairly, or appropriately.

If you ticked any box above or you simply want advice regarding your government-funded aged care services:

–– INTERVIEW ––

Ken Piesse

Author, commentator and master storyteller Ken Piesse is Australian sports most published living author with a rare passion for cricket and football.

Ken has written, edited and published 85 books – 84 on sport – and edited more than 500 magazines on cricket and AFL football.

His lively, anecdote-driven delivery style makes him a favourite on the after-dinner speaking circuit. He works for P & O cruise lines as a guest speaker, among many outlets.

Here, Ken speaks with TLP Editor, Greg T Ross, about his latest book, Living The Dream

Greg T Ross: When you think of sport and sports coverage over the last 45, let’s say years, and Ken will correct me if I’m wrong, but the name Ken Piesse comes to mind. Ken’s spent a lifetime in AFL and cricket with a truckload of best-selling sports books, and some refer to Ken as sports royalty.

Good morning, Ken. And what do you reckon, are you sports royalty?

Ken Piesse: Thanks, Greg. Always nice to speak to you. It’s probably true that people who love cricket and footy and are our vintage growing up in the ‘70s, it’s probably true that they do have at least one Ken Piesse sports book, a cricket book or a footy book in their library. So I’ve been very lucky.

I suppose, I’ve been able to touch the nerve of people, from the point of view my books, they have some statistics in them, and I love stats, but they have the stories behind the stories. I love the anecdotes. And when I talk to the major players, whether it be Bobby Davis, the old Geelong football coach, through to the current cricketers and some of their stars, I always ask, I try and delve a little bit and ask them about some of their own favorite stories and I’ve been able to produce them now in so many books. I think this latest one, my memoir, Living The Dream, I think it’s book number 89 I’ve written, edited, or published. So maybe I hope to get another job, Greg. I have to try and find my correct vocation.

GTR: Well, it’s never too late to start they say, Ken. But Living The Dream is a magnificent book. I spent a couple of days reading it, and just an amazing publication for all you sports lovers for Christmas, I tell you what. You are royalty because I saw you in a post office one day a few years back, and I was almost going to go up and get your autograph. So there you go.

KP: That could be good.

GTR: Ken, from the early days when you’d catch a train, and we were living in Ormond at the time so this area is familiar, often with Dav Whatmore to training for the Prahran Cricket Club, I think you’re around 16 then. Were you determined then, Ken, at that early stage to have a life in and around sport?

KP: It was certainly what I was best at. I would’ve loved to have been able to mark high enough to play league footy, or to play with Dav Whatmore’s aplomb. We’re both the same age now, so late 60s, but we were at the same age. He would get the train from Highett going up to Toorak Station where Prahran practiced at Sam Loxton Oval now, in Orrong Road, and I was coming from Cheltenham Station. So I was still in 5th form, I think, at Beaumaris High at the time. So I would love to have been able to play his standard cricket. But there’s a reason why only 450 people have represented Australia test cricket, because they’re the absolute creme de la creme, and may it long continue.

I wasn’t good enough, but I still loved sport with a passion, and ever since I was a little boy keeping stats books and playing balloon football in the corridor pretending that I was playing in a big league game, listening to the night football from South Melbourne in the late ‘60s, it just struck a chord with me. And I was so lucky because my dad, he’d been in the war, he’d had a really tough time, but he loved sport. And we were best mates, not only father son, but we were best mates, so we’d go to the cricket at the MCG and we’d go to Glenferrie Oval to see Hawthorn play, the old sardine can. You drive past now, Greg, you couldn’t believe they’d possibly get 35,000 into that little old ground.

GTR: You’ve got some happy memories from there, I’ll tell you what, and I’ll talk to you about that in a minute. Yeah, but carry on. Yeah.

KP: Yeah, yeah. So it’s a real sardine can shape. But, yeah, it just grew from there. So I went to my local library at Parkdale, and they had 18 cricket books and I borrowed them all. And at school, at woodwork, I’ve still got the bookcase in front of me now that I made at school, I put all 18 into that bookcase and I pretended they were mine. So that was the start of my collection. I had to return the 18 books, mind you. But now I’ve got my own library, and as you’ve alluded to, I’ve written all these books on cricket and footy, and I’ve just been so lucky.

Every day is an adventure, Greg, when you’re working for yourself, when you’re writing for yourself. And I’ve been in

journalism, I’ve been at all the big papers, The Age, The Herald Sun, The Sporting Globe.

GTR: That’s right, yeah.

KP: But for the last 30 odd years I’ve worked for myself, and it’s just been a joy.

GTR: Yeah. Well said, Ken. And look, we all have memories as kids sitting around watching World of Sport and everything like that. And like you played in the front yard, there I was at Collingwood Guernsey, but don’t hold that against me. But anyhow. You actually, you spent winter Saturdays at the Beaumaris ground actually watching, and you’d watch all three levels of games there, I think. And you ended up playing for Beaumaris.

KP: Yeah, yeah, I did. I played a lot of games there. And we actually beat Ormond in a Grand Final in the under-17s. And a boy called Stephen Smith was playing for Ormond, your old stamping ground, Greg. And he went on to play 204 games of League Football. But it was funny, we were the opposing ruck men. They’d beaten us every game all year, three times during the year, including the second semi. But somehow we were able to win the Grand Final. And I rucked against Stephen that day. He got Best of Field. He was far ahead of me, such a good player. And our coach gave him an award for best player. He actually jumped on the award. He wanted the Premiership Cup. He didn’t want some little minor trophy for being best player in a Grand Final. So he went on to be the President of the Melbourne Cricket Club. He loves cricket and footy, same as I do, and same as we do, Greg. And I always remind him, “Gee, that trophy cabinet of yours, you’re minus a trophy, aren’t you, mate?” He’d say, “You bastard.” Just fun and banter amongst mates.

GTR: He needed you to remind him.

KP: But it’s one of the great things about Australians. We don’t treat ourselves too seriously. We don’t get ahead of selves. Those with ego can quickly get shot down no matter what club that we’re at, because that’s just the way it is. And I’ve always loved that aspect about sporting clubs.

You’re right, I played at Beaumaris Cricket and Footy. I was there during the week for cricket training, my first cricket training at Beaumaris for 40 years. And I spoke to the boys later and wished them all the best. They’re playing their first game this weekend.

So it’s just nice to be involved. And the kids look up to you and they’ve got no idea who you are, but if you tell them that you captained the First X1 aged 20, and you made all these runs and wickets, and played with X, Y and Z, they suddenly take notice. So it’s a real privilege to be able to go back to some of your home clubs and speak to some of your old teammates. And the young ones who are aged 18, 19, 20, and they’ve all got the stars in their

eyes, just like you and I used to as well, Greg.

GTR: Yeah, yeah. Well said again, Ken. And of course, the energy that you have displayed during your life is evident in your writing. And by that of course, just as an aside, we know the beauty of cricket and it is a wonderful game philosophically and sporting wise and in many ways. But the energy that you have and you’ve transferred, you transfer to all of your sporting books, but this one particularly, I found, Ken, Living The Dream, lets the reader into the real Ken Piesse and gives just... I mean, the idea that your parents, and I’ll talk about your parents in a minute, lovely people, but you were allowed to move your bed into the lounge room. What happened there?

KP: Yeah. So I was 10 years old and we had an old Healing stereogram, one of the first to come out, and you could get far-off radio stations. And this was the 1965 West Indian Tour by the Australians, Bobby Simpson’s Australians, and no transistor could reach that far. In the old days you had a transistor. Of course, there’s no internet, there’s none of the mod cons that we have now. The kids are so lucky in that area. And yeah, so Dad allowed me to listen. I can’t remember ever lasting through all three sessions to about 4 o’clock in the morning, but it was just fun to listen to the cricket from far away places, like Barbados and Jamaica.

Susan and I, my wife and I, we work on the cruise ships telling stories, but we also take overseas tours. We’ve been to England, the Windies, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, all over the place. In the West Indies in ‘99 we saw, and I was telling the Beaumaris boys during the week, we saw Brian Lara make 150 when the Windies chased down 311. And it was electric cricket, and it was just so great to be there.

And the great Shane Warne, the greatest cricketer of our generation, Greg, neither you or I saw Don Brahman play, but no doubt Warne is the best cricketer that’s been in the last 50 years.

Shane Warne was bowling to seven outfielders, boundary riders, seven, and he’s the greatest bowler of all time. But Lara was so much in control this day. He had a keeper and a slip and maybe a fella on the offside and a fella on the leg side close in, but the rest of them were all out on the boundary because Lara was that much in control. And so to be there live and to talk to the locals, I talked to Everton Weekes, who’s one of the West Indian batsmen up in the broadcast box.

And he was such a humble man, a superstar of a cricketer, but so humble. So when you do get to places live, you run into people you’ve got no idea about. In Antigua we saw the great Viv Richards just walking amongst, at the back of the stands,

amongst all the tradespeople and families selling Flying Fish and selling soft drink through to hard rum all at the same stand. He knew everybody’s name, they knew him, he was the hero. It was just so lovely to see. So when you do witness that sort of thing it’s easy to be able to write well in a conversational way, because you’ve been there and you’ve just seen with your own eyes.

GTR: Well, you to me, are a bit of a legend, because of course, being a journalist myself also, but being a sports lover too, so if you want some info, go to Ken Piesse because you’re going to find it. And it’s just as an aside, it’s interesting Ken, because I remember being in London in ‘84. I was at a pub, the Prince of Teck, in Earls Court, and who should walk in, but Robert Flower, the Footscray bloke that had his birthday just the other day, Glenn Denning and a couple of other. I remember speaking to Robert Flower and I said, “Look, what made you such a great player.” And he sort of laughed. Terry Daniher was there too. And Robert Flower, God bless him, said, “Nah, I never considered myself to be that great, Greg.” He said it was all due to training.

KP: Yeah, isn’t it amazing? And so with Robert Flower, for example, his first game, Carl Ditterich was his teacher at school, I think. It might’ve been Murrumbidgee High. And Robert has walked into the rooms, he had glasses on, and he was a teenager, 17 years old, still at school, and the doorman wouldn’t let him in. “No one’s coming in.” “No, no, I’m playing.” “No, you’re not, mate. No, you’re not.” So they called him Tulip, and he had no muscles or anything. He was just a big geeky, gawky kid with big glasses on. And finally Carl saw him waiting, “It’s all right, mate, he’s playing today.” And the doorman almost fell over.

So these are the stories that you just get to know and you love. And as you said, Robert was one of the great great footballers of them all, and so loved, like in that ‘87. I’m a Hawthorn Baroondara, Greg. I’m like you with Collingwood. But in the ‘87 final series there Hawthorn came from nowhere and they beat Melbourne. They had no right to defeat them. And Michael, there’s a famous picture of Michael Tuck wishing Rob all the best, but that was his last game. And he might’ve been able to get through and play in a Grand Final, even half fit, and he deserved to. But this is the thing about footy and cricket, the young people listening, you might have a chance of playing at a Grand Final, but if you do, grab it, because you don’t know when you are going to ever do that again.

And Trevor Barker died young, at 39. 30 years this year.

And he was one of the best mates from Cheltenham. And Trevor Barker was a high-flyer. He was as big as Patrick Cripps is now in League Football, and yet he played 200 games at St. Kilda and did not play an even one final. Bobby Skilton, the triple

Brownlow medalist said, “You know, Ken, “I would’ve swapped all three Brownlows just for the opportunity to play on Grand Final day.”

So everyone has a story to tell. And just by, I did an interview years ago with an old test cricketer, a one test wonder, George Thoms, out at Footscray. He was an opening batsman. And he said to me, “Gee, you are a really good listener, aren’t you?” I said, “George, I’m really enjoying it. Keep talking, keep talking.”

GTR: Yeah, fantastic.

KP: Yeah, yeah. So cricket and footy, I’ve always loved it and always will. And if you’ve played, I don’t care if you’ve played for the Ormond 5th Eleven or the Geraldary 5ths, I want to know your story. Like, how did you go and what were you, a batsman or a bowler? And I’ll listen, it’s in my DNA, in my makeup, to love it so much and listen to others telling their stories.

GTR: Yeah. And I take that too, because when reading your book, Living The Dream, that comes across because the detail is so immaculate and entertaining. And you’re right, you just listen to people, these sports people, and you get some amazing stories from them, and stuff that perhaps you wouldn’t be able to get out of them if you weren’t such a good listener.

But your parents, Ken, amazing people. Your mother played, she was a bit of a good golfer.

KP: Yeah, Mum could play. And even when I was 17, 18, hitting the ball almost twice as far as she was, she was still beating me in match play because she would just hit it straight down the middle the whole time. She was along and back, and bless her, I saw her yesterday, she’s 100 not out, would you believe, Greg?

GTR: Congratulations.

KP: Yeah. And my daughter is due to have what will be our second grandchild next March, just about when Mum would be 101. So I give Mum little targets. I said, “Can you hang on for this book, Mum?” So she did. And I said, “Can you hang on for Beck’s new baby about the time your next birthday?” And she said, “I’m not sure about that, Ken.”

But it’s an amazing age. But she loved cricket and footy too. She didn’t know a heap about it. They were building their first house, Mum and Dad, at Beaumaris, and for some reason, I don’t know if you had radio, certainly didn’t have tranny’s, I don’t think then. But Dad asked Mum for the cricket score and so she went back inside for the cricket score, and she said, “I’m not sure. I didn’t hear the score, but someone’s just been caught in Bitzer’s leg trap.” She said. And Dad said to her, he was hilarious, and my Dad, “Oh yes, Patty, and what is Bitzer’s leg trap?” And she said, “I’ve got no idea. No idea.”

GTR: Absolutely marvellous too, Ken. And your father, he was a great mate of yours. He died at 61.

KP: Yeah. Yeah, he was a commando. He’d been beaten up in the war badly. But they were in Timor and Taraka in New Guinea in the war. Singapore had fallen. Darwin was being bombed every second, if not every day. And the Japanese were heading south and they were coming hard at Australia. And my dad and 200 of his commando mates, they were an independent squadron, they held the ground, and they were conducting guerrilla type hit-and-run missions. And so successful were they against the Japanese, so brave were they, that the Japanese thought they were 2,000 Australians on that island, not just 200. But they befriended the locals, the Kreados, everybody had a Kreado, a right-hand man, a second pair of eyes. And the stories dad told, I was able, of all those books I’ve written, only one has been not on Cricket or footy, and it was on the commandos.

My dad wasn’t there to be able to see it or contribute, but all his mates were. And so it was the story, a moving story, a newsy story through all their eyes. And I was so pleased to be able to do it. Just one example. They trained out of Wilson’s Promontory, and one of the guys, Curly, was struggling and they’re about to say, “No, you can’t come with us. You’re going to be a liability.” And the seniors, including my dad, said to the commissioning officer, he said, “Curly is really good with signaling. You just never know. We might need him. He’s the best we’ve got.” And in Timor there was a case there where they were just about to be jumped, and Curly was somehow able to get a message through to them, otherwise they would’ve been sitting ducks. They would’ve all perished.

And just by that loyalty that they showed to him, and then his expertise of under fire being able to get a message to the group, that saved them. And so they were thick as thieves. So after the war, one of them fell on hard times and so they came and painted his house. They gave him money. They gave him his furniture. I remember as kids, we took his kids, Des Fankhouse’s kids, away on holidays with us. And this created a terrific bond. And they created an independent painting company, and so six times a year, on weekends, six weekends a year, they would paint each other’s houses. And this went right up into the late ‘50s, ‘60s, into the early 70s. And so they were not only young men during the war, but they aged gracefully together, and they were the greatest of mates.

And so for me, as a young sports lover, to see the example of team ethics and how they loved each other, you couldn’t help but be affected. And so every sporting club I’ve gone to, I talk to people and I’m mates with people. They call me Master. Master Piesse, everywhere I go. So on Sunday, at the Kingston Saints Cricket Club, my old cricket club, we’re doing

a launch of Living The Dream. And we’ve got a sell out there, there’s something like 110 going. It’s just really, really lovely, really remarkable.

GTR: Isn’t that wonderful?

KP: So again, every day is an adventure, and you’re grateful for your past experiences.

GTR: Yeah. And you’re lucky too, Ken, because of course with parents like that, that’s a godsend. My father too fought in Papua New Guinea during the Second World War so I understand all about that. But what a memory and how lucky.

In Living The Dream you tell some funny stories, I tell you. What about, can you tell listeners and readers about Dermie? When, who was it?

Alan Jeans said to the runner, “Tell that poonce, if he doesn’t get a kick...” What happened there?

KP: Yeah. Yabby would get worked up and especially against games, this is Hawthorn V St. Kilda, his old club. He coached them, of course, for the 66 flag. Dermie was his X-Factor player, his firebrand, the one that you needed to stay out on the ground, not be injured, not be suspended in particular. And this particular day Dermie could not get near the ball, which was unlike him because he was a champion of the game. And Alan Jeans, he fumbled, this was in the third quarter, St. Kilda are hard at Hawthorn, and he said to George Stone, the runner, “Go and tell that blonde poonce, go and tell him unless he gets a kick, he’s coming straight off.”

And so George Stone zeroed in on Dermie at center forward and ran straight towards him. And Dermie said, “If you keep on coming, I know I’m not going to kick. Don’t you stop and talk to me, George, I’m going to fucken kill you.” And so George Stone, steadily veered wide of him, went over to the other blonde poonce, Russell Morris, on the Far Hawthorn bank, delivered a message to him, came back to the bench, and Alan Jean still animated, said, “What did the kid say? What did Dermie say?” “Not a word. Not a word.”

GTR: That’s a classic. I really took to that. And of course, Brereton, legend. And as I said to many people, I have a friend a couple of years older than us, and I said, “You’re lucky because no other club has been so successful since 1961 as Hawthorn.” So it’s a beautiful period to be alive in for the Hawthorn Football Club.

And while we’re with Hawthorn too, Ken, we might as well mention Kennedy, John Kennedy and the raincoat. What about when Hudson, apparently he wanted to take Hudson off and the runner reminded the coach of something. What happened there?

KP: Yeah, yeah. Hudo was amazing player, like my mate, Allen, and I, and he’ll be listening, Allen Cowan, he

and I used to get into the rooms aged 12 and 13, and you’d have Don Scott warming up like it was the stall gift. Those days you didn’t get out onto the football ground to warm up. And Scotty would just be having his shorts on, his boots, and he’d be sprinting up and down on the spot, sweating. And the way he warmed up was the way that he took on the first bounce. Amazing.

Hudo, Peter Hudson, would be up the back, just jogging ever so slowly on the spot, waving and smiling to all his mates, nodding to us young kids. He was our hero. He’d get out on the ground, he lives down at Blair Gowrie. I was telling him about this incident and some of his warm-up routines. He said, “Well, it’s no use wasting any energy out there.”

So Hudo was one who could kick goals from nowhere. And unlike some of the stars, like Lockett, you would know exactly how many goals Lockett had kicked. He was so unobtrusive, Peter Hudson, that he could kick five or six and nobody would know. He hated chasing his fullback. One of his few deterrents as a footballer was he wouldn’t chase. And so Bob Murray took two bounces. Again, Hawthorn St Kilda would’ve been Jeans versus Kennedy. And John Kennedy said to his runner, “Normy, go and tell Peter that unless he chases, he’s coming straight off the ground.” And Jack McLeod, as you alluded to, Chairman of Selectors, said, “John, John, Peter’s kicked six and we’re only 10 minutes into the second quarter.” “Has he? Oh. Normy, go and tell Peter do exactly what he’s doing. He’s killing it.” Yeah, so that was the great John Kennedy.

GTR: Ah, goodness gracious me. A great story, one of the many in Living The Dream. And what about another great story for readers and listeners too, Ken, to get them to buy this beautiful book before Chrissy. What about Bill Lawry declaring, I think after a duck, where was he playing at Albert Grant? He said, “You bastards are going to pay for that.” And then he got fined.

KP: Oh, yeah. John Grant lives up the road, again down the peninsula from me. And Lawry got a rare duck. And Lawry was amazing. The only other one that was so obsessed about making runs I’ve ever known was Stephen Waugh, didn’t matter. And he hit me for 32 runs in one over in England in a social game once, 6-4, 6-4, 6-6, it was like a tennis match. Bill Lawry, this day playing against Essendon, [inaudible 00:24:39] fielded all day, he got out in the last over, and they gave him a send-off. And Bill Lawry was the Australian Open at the time, and talk about unimpressed. He hated making ducks and especially getting out to John Grant. And he bypassed the after match, just went via the Essendon rooms. They’re all having a laugh about it. And then he said, “You buggers, you are going to pay for that.”

And at the end of the very same year in the district final, Essendon batted first,

scored 9 for 514 declared, an unheard of score in a district final. And games had to be played to a finish, you had to get a first innings result. And the game went into a 5th day because Bill Lawry basically batted two days. He scored 283, not out, and they passed them five wickets down, 5 for 515. So it’s one of the great district finals of all time, the best of the 20th century.

And Bill Lawry did it against Essendon. And afterwards, he was just so pleased to remind Essendon and Johnny Grant, how weeks earlier they fired him up, and he’d got the last laugh, and he had in a big way.

GTR: Oh, that’s a beautiful story too, Bill Lawry, I can just imagine that too. And that was at a beautiful ground too, the Albert ground, I believe so.

KP: Yeah, it was. Yeah.

GTR: And look, just another story regarding a man. Well, you know him obviously, but I did meet The Whale a couple of times because when working at Prahran, we’d go to South Melbourne for lunch often at his pub there. But what happened in Adelaide? He was given something to improve his performance.

KP: Yeah. This performance enhancing drug. So quickly, it’s the Australian Championship Final. This is either ‘73 or ‘74, Richmond or over there, the week after the Grand Final. Of course, no national football in these days so this was the championship of Australia. And Graham Corns was telling me how Glenelg were five goals up at halftime. They were cock-a-hoop. Tommy Hafey, coach of Richmond, he was so filthy because South Australian side staying in the game with the Victorian side, it was unheard of. And they’re 5 goals up, Glenelg. The Whale, Tommy, he loved The Whale and The Whale loved Tommy. But this day, Whale hadn’t got near the ball. And instead of joining Tommy in the halftime rooms and to being harangued by Tommy and being told how he was just a big useless peep, and he should come off the ground right now, he went straight into the medical room, “Doc, Doc, you got to give me something. Tommy’s going to hate me forever. He’s not going to talk to me, Doc. Doc, I don’t care if it’s illegal. You’ve got to give me something. You’ve got to lift me up. Lift me up.”

And so just as they’re running out the Doc calls Whale over, had a glass of water in one hand and three red tablets in the other. “Whale, whatever you do, don’t crunch these. Take them straight down with the water. You’ll be right.” The Whale had these, and out he floated. He was on an immediate high. He took marks, he kicked a goal. He got every knockout he came for. Richmond came from behind and won by a couple of goals, and The Whale had played the greatest hour of his life. Instead of joining the Richmond players in the rooms immediately afterwards he went straight into the medical room and he gave the

Doc the biggest beer hug he can. And Doc said, “Don’t tell anybody, Whale.” “I won’t. I just want to thank you very much. Unbelievable, Doc. Unbelievable.” Of course the doc didn’t share with Whale, those three little red tablets, red Smarties, red Smarties.

GTR: You could go on. There’s so many great examples. The Whale, he was a comical figure in some ways because he just loved having a joke, I think. But what a fantastic story.

And finally, Ken, as we speak about your magnificent book, Living The Dream, I think what we’ve had in the past is a lot of stories that go into stories about sports players and artists and everything, but you’ve actually personalized it, which is a great thing. So just finally, for readers and listeners, Ken, what was life like living in the 60s there? What was life like for you?

KP: Well, it was so, like on Saturdays, you lived to head Beaumaris. Mum knew where I was from 9:00 till 5:00 on a Saturday because I watched the Under-13s, I watched the Under-17s, and then I’d watch the Seniors. And there was one moment there, and I’ve got to finish too, Greg, I know. There was one moment there, the Seniors in ‘65 went through undefeated. And one game, they’re playing Sandown, but they were playing like show ponies this day. And the coach, unimpressed, they were two goals down at the last break, and he tore a jumper off one of the players, literally off. He’d been in the war, he was vitriolic. He said, “This is what you’re playing for, this.” He said, “Not for yourselves. Play as a team and we’ll win.” And they kicked six of the last seven or eight goals, and they got home just, and they kept their undefeated record going.

But that was one of the team things I really learned, and that playing in cricket teams and playing particularly in footy teams, it was all about team, and so I’ve carried that into everything that I’ve done. And while I wasn’t good enough to play League footy or test cricket, as we alluded to earlier, just being able to have involvement with the players and to have known what they’ve done and to almost be as good as them, but to write about them, that’s been the joy of my life.

GTR: Well, Ken Piesse, thank you very much. And we’re sort of glad that you didn’t make it as an A grader because you wouldn’t have had time to write these magnificent books. Australia thanks you. And if you could just finish for readers and listeners with the famous Mark Twain quote about finding a job?

KP: Yeah. “You’ll never have to work a day in your life if you find what you like doing.” It’s really nice, isn’t it?

GTR: Isn’t that magnificent? Ken Piesse, Living The Dream. Thank you so much for your time.

KP: No worries. Good on you. Thanks very much again. Cheers.

SACA New South Australian Playing Kit Unveiled

Earlier this year, The South Australian Cricket Association announced from the 2024/25 cricket season onwards the state representative teams will return to their historical name of ‘South Australia’. Subsequently, we are excited to release the new South Australia cricket teams’ playing kits featuring the new name and playing logo.

For the first time since the 1995/96 season, the SA domestic uniforms feature the traditional state colours of red, blue and gold.

Featuring First Nations artwork designed by local artist Steven Warrior, the diagonal element on the front of the new WNCL and One Day Cup playing kit represents the shape of the South Australian coastline.

The three main First Nations designs that feature on the SA playing kits are:

Footprints

The footprints represent the SACA RAP journey for both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community. This extends not only to the SACA organisation but all South Australians that play cricket. The lines and circles underneath the footprints (in blue) represent the significant milestones we will make towards reconciliation.

Dark Red Background Lines

Represents the traditional lands of the language groups in South Australia.

Meeting Places

Three circle meeting places in the middle represents the head offices of SACA. The hands represent the employees of SACA and their commitment to reconciliation and the game which is presented by three cricket balls for men, women and junior cricket.

A circle that represents SACA’s meeting places will also feature on the SA Men’s Sheffield Shield shirts.

South Australian batter Thomas Kelly reflected on wearing the new kit for the first time.

“As a proud South Aussie, I’m loving the chance to wear the state colours, Kelly said.

“It’s exciting to wear a uniform that reflects the South Australian coastline and allows us to reconnect with our Club’s history. The First Nations designs that continue to feature on the kit is a reminder of our unique culture and I know both SA Men and Women’s players will take pride in wearing these new kits.”

In addition to the new WNCL and One Day Cup kits, the traditional Sheffield Shield cricket whites have also been refreshed and feature the new playing logo.

The SA Men will wear their new kit for the first time in the opening match of the One Day Cup on Tuesday, September 24 against WA at Cricket Central, followed by the SA Women who will wear theirs for the first time in their opening WNCL match on Friday, September 27 against ACT at Karen Rolton Oval.

The SA Men will debut their new Sheffield Shield kit for the opening match on Monday, October 7 against NSW at Cricket Central.

VICTORIA VETERANS CRICKET

It’s a game where everyone gets a hit, batters must retire at 40 and bouncers are a no-no. But concessions to age are few in the Veterans Cricket Victoria competition.

Sure, the seniors who pad up every Sunday aren’t the young men they once were. But they more than make up for it with enthusiasm and love of the sport.

“The competition started with four teams playing in Victoria,” said Greg Sebire, president of Bayside Veterans club in Brighton.

“Now there’s over 60 active clubs with probably more than 1200 guys over 60 - and growing.”

The competition fields teams graded 40-, 50-, 60- and 70-plus. There isn’t an over-80s comp at the moment. “But given good health, we expect to see one in five years,” Greg said. Greg, said “Cricket is great for seniors because it keeps them “off the couch, away from the TV and active”.

As a teen, he played cricket with Essendon and then 100 games with St. Bernard’s in the Melbourne sub-district competition, but ceased regular cricket in his thirties.

He returned to the sport 7 years ago and has represented the state.

He said a big selling point is that team members only compete against players 10 years younger or less.

“It’s a really good thing if you’ve played and find as I did that I was no longer competitive playing against 20-year-olds - or that I had little in common with them.”

The regular 40-over-a-side competition starts in October and runs until March. Matches are played on Sundays, usually from 11am-5pm. At Bayside and most other clubs there’s always a barbecue afterwards.

“It fills a whole Sunday if that’s what you want,” Greg said. “A lot of wives come along and watch and participate afterwards. It’s a great social outlet for those who still enjoy their cricket .”

Players have varying levels of ability, up to one long-retired Test player. But Greg, an executive at Veterans Cricket Victoria, said that shouldn’t dampen enthusiasm if you’re a late starter.

“We welcome all levels. At our club we’ve got two or three blokes who had never played cricket before, but the alternative to them was to play for the local bowls club.

“So they’re playing cricket instead. They get a bat and a bowl and they get the camaraderie and the socialising. We ensure that each team must use seven bowlers so everyone gets to compete.”

“There are no other restrictions except your own physical limitations, which means you can’t run that fast,” Greg said.

Greg joked he had rarely seen batsmen run three in a match even though run-outs are contingent on fielders not fumbling the ball.

“And you can’t really rely on fieldsmen to take catches. If they do the celebrations are lengthy.”

While the men might lack the athletic ability of their salad days, club matches are mostly light-hearted.

On the other hand, it’s highly competitive at state level.

“We have a number of different carnivals this year and due to expansion we have moved to age groups split by 5 years rather than each decade.

This gives a larger number of players the opportunity to represent their state.”

The best players compete for Australia. A team recently returned from England after the “Grey Ashes”.

But for many, the highlight is a week-long end-of-season carnival in Echuca bringing together teams from all over the state and beyond.

“Next March we have hundreds of players and supporters again converging on Echuca and surrounding areas.

Campaspe Shire is strongly supportive of our carnival as last year they estimated it brought $1.4M dollars to the local economy”

He sees a great future for veterans cricket. “The word has spread and we’re wanting to continue to grow the sport and get more guys who might feel that now their career is over, here’s a second chance at playing cricket.”