LETTERS not racing, but behind the scenes. Mum was passionate about mapping. She thrived on it, making many maps in SA, to the extent that the SA calendar is dominated by events on her maps. Certainly her maps provide an amazing legacy to her contribution to the sport. Mum and Dad were mad keen birdwatchers; on every map she ever made, she included a bird native to the area – woe be the cartographer who did not draw the bird correctly! Mum and Dad volunteered many weekends at the Birds of Australia “Gluepot Station” in northern SA. Mum made a map for them and Dad helped coordinate a mallee fowl count. Thank you to all those who generously donated money towards Gluepot in memory of Mum and Dad in lieu of flowers. A new accommodation shelter will be named after them. When Mum and Dad moved from SA to Victoria in 2003, their main criteria for a place to live was it had to be good for orienteering, cycling and bird watching. Dad would often ride out to events to meet up with Mum. At one event, Mum caught sight of a “hot” guy on a bike. She was amazed that he rode right up to her and shocked when he turned out to be Dad! Mum and Dad were so much in love after 36 years of marriage. Although they were too young to die, they died instantly, together, doing what they loved – travelling about the countryside on yet another Orienteering adventure. They are buried back in SA, in a small cemetery next to a conservation park. As their coffins were being lowered, two sulphur-crested cockatoos flew over, screeching raucously – Mum and Dad laughing no doubt! Once again, thank you to our Orienteering family for your friendship. Hopefully we will see you at the SA Champs, being held near Burra on Mum’s last map, “Twigham”. Mum claimed that the terrain was better than anything she had mapped before so it should be great orienteering. Love Miriam, Heather and our families (Miriam Whittington)
THE FIRST EVENT
Your magazine Congratulations Ian Baker on a job well done! UNDER your editorship The Australian Orienteer has gained the reputation as one of the best orienteering magazines in the orienteering world, and one of which all Australian orienteers must feel proud. I am very much aware how over recent years Ian fought doggedly for the magazine and succeeded in persuading the Council of Orienteering Australia to maintain it as a publication to which all Australian orienteers subscribe. It would not be the fine magazine it is now if that battle had not been won! Thank you Ian for making our magazine such a professional publication, and (in your words) always such “a good read”. John Brammall (Tas) John Brammall is recently retired President of Orienteering Australia. See page 40.
Great event – poor turn-out SPORTIDENT is certainly making for economical coursesetting and use of terrain. At the end of July I went to the Victorian State Series event at Whroo. My 4,500 metre course with 11 controls was all within an area of 1,350 by 900 metres, just 1.2 square km. Turnout was very low for a good event. Reasons have to be the long drive two hours from Melbourne and the fact that there was another long journey to Bendigo only two weeks before. The remedy is in event scheduling. Keep distant events well separated on the calendar and make the trip worthwhile by scheduling double-headers with quality events on both Saturday and Sunday. Otherwise members will vote with their wallets and just say it's not worthwhile. Ian Baker (Vic)
Orienteering in 1954 - South Australia Jeffa Lyon (SA)
I
N 1921 Lembed Jarver was born in Tallinn, capital of Estonia, an only child. At school everyone took part in Orienteering - that meant being one of a team of six (five had to finish), to locate two controls using a map and return to base. In 1936 the other students said that Lembed could run like Jesse Owens, famous for winning three Gold Medals at the Berlin Olympics. This talent led Lembed to university studies in Sports Science. Then came World War II. When Russia annexed Estonia, Lembed avoided conscription in the Soviet Army by hiding in the forests and swamps. When the Germans advanced and took Estonia in 1941, he joined an Estonian unit in the German Air Force. But in 1944 the Russians came again so Lembed had to get out. He went west across some islands towards Sweden. With the Russians on his heels he was lucky that a German minesweeper picked him up from the last bit of that island coast. The fate of anyone caught was to be shot. The minesweeper took him to Schleswig in northern Germany where he worked as a waiter till the war ended. With Russia in control of Estonia he could not return; his father had been shot and his mother sent to Siberia. So he went to the Displaced Persons' Camp in Augsburg where he stayed for four years waiting to be processed. While there he met and married another Estonian in the camp and also found his erstwhile Professor of Sports Science who gave him written evidence of his studies, invaluable later when he was able to use his training. After that four-year wait, Lembed and his wife Aita were allocated berths on the "Oxfordshire" to go to Australia. They were each given $US5 spending money but no papers so they were never allowed ashore during the journey because they were stateless persons. Their accommodation in this ex-hospital ship was in separate dormitories. That segregation continued when ‘Jess’, as Lembed had become from that 1936 likening of himself to Jesse Owens - was sent to work "making nuts" while his wife was given a job elsewhere. He worked as a builder's labourer while waiting for a job more suitable to a trained athletics coach. In 1952 the National Fitness Council advertised for a training officer. Jess got the job. He set up boys and girls mixed clubs to whom he taught running, tumbling, vaulting etc. He also coached individuals from the Harriers or the Sth. Australia Western Districts Athletics Clubs. Jess decided that these groups could do the same as he had done at school, orienteering, as a different form of running training. So, in 1954 the first Orienteering event in SA, and indeed the whole of Australia, took place. This beginning led to the formation of the Sth. Australian Orienteering Club in 1956. But by then Jess was moving on to establishing "sweat tracks", to an involvement in setting up the Heysen Trail and the Youth Hostels Association and to journalism. Now, at 82, Jess still translates sports science articles from Russian or German. Records were carefully kept of those early years of Orienteering, even through the lull in activities from 1961 to 1974. The when, where, and how of those early orienteering days will be recorded in the archival history on which OASA, and particularly John Williams, is working. 1969 is generally regarded as the year of the event from which Orienteering, as we know it today, developed. Instigator was Tom Andrews, now principal of Silva Compasses in Australia. Tom originates from Lithuania and also spent time as a child in a displaced persons camp in Germany before being resettled with his family in Tasmania. Ed.
SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 7
