Seniors Happy Life, Pilot Issue, 2022

SENIORS HAPPY LIFE is designed to be “100% Enjoyment ” for our readers and, over time, I’m certain many of you will appreciate the thinking behind it and come to love it and look forward to it each month. That’s the plan and the hope. Our fi rst regularly monthly issue of Seniors HappyLife will come out in February 2023.

Let me now start by telling you how it came about.

It is said experience is the best teacher, and in my case that certainly rings true. My world changed forever in early 2020 when my beautiful wife of 52 years, Jackie, was diagnosed with a nasty and fatal brain disease and given as little as four months to live. She survived two years and during the time up until her death in February 2022, I cared for her in our home. It was that experience and what I have faced since that has really opened my eyes to the plight of people of my vintage, let’s be kind and I’ll call us “mature”. What’s that saying? – “You’re only as old as you feel.”

Since Jackie died, I’ve been adjusting to life alone, and it appears that when this happens, one tends to gravitate towards people in similar circumstances. I’m not one to sit on my hands so I gave a good deal of thought as to how I wanted to set my life up from here on. Part of that process has been keeping myself busy developing strategies to help me, while learning to adjust to my new circumstances. Nothing new or clever there, and I’m certain that many reading this have gone through similar processes.

It’s what I’ve discovered along the way that’s been interesting, that experience I mentioned of now actually being there and doing that, as they say. I now see ‘life’ for people, say 70-plus, very differently to the way I did just a couple of years back. I now have a much greater appreciation for what “older people” face when they are approaching the twilight of their lives. That awakening, if I can call it that, has prompted me to make it my mission, for whatever time I may have left, to try and improve the quality of life of as many people as I can, and that includes not just older people but anyone who could do with a little more help, or the support of neighbourly love in their life.

This new SeniorsHappyLife (SHL) publication has been created to help in that area. I have a background in publishing, and I still have friends in the industry, so we’ve pooled our resources, knowledge and experience to create SeniorsHappyLife

Time will tell as to whether it achieves the lofty goals we have set ourselves. While on that, we’re very interested to receive any feedback you’d like to provide after you’ve had a chance to read through our fi rst issue. To do that, write to SeniorsHappyLife at 5 Kamdell Place, Orange NSW 2800, or email contact@seniorshappylife.com.au. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Our cover

YOU would have noticed the rather different cover design we have on this issue of SeniorsHappyLife. It’s a drawing by Mike Badman, a friend of ours who is also a former Disney animator. Mike will provide a drawing along these lines for each issue, one with a nostalgic theme that our readers will readily resonate with. Mike was inspired by a well-known artist

who used to provide paintings for the covers of the Saturday Evening Post in the USA around a century ago. His name was Norman Rockwell and his covers were extremely popular.

What’s inside

E

ACH month SeniorsHappyLife will bring you a variety of interesting reading, all designed to keep you entertained, for a while at least. You’ll fi nd people stories, puzzles, thought-provoking pieces, short stories, encouragement, spectacular photos, jokes, lots of nostalgia and much more. Our aim is to provide you with 100 per cent entertainment each issue and for that reason, you’ll be hard-pressed to fi nd any business advertising among our pages. We won’t say you’ll never see any advertising but it is our intention to have little or no advertising each issue, and if we do run any advertising, it will be because we think the content could be of interest to many of our readers.

A plug between friends

NOW, here’s a plug for a product that those who do the cooking in the home will be interested in. I’m one of those people who doesn’t get sucked into products too easily or quickly, but when I do fi nd a good product, I’m happy to tell the world.

At one time bread-makers were all the rage, today it’s Air Fryers and I must admit, having been enthusiastically urged by both my sister and many lady friends to get one, I succumbed and forked out $89 for a 5-litre one at K Mart. I resisted the bread-maker craze for years and, you guessed it, five minutes after I fi nally gave in, they went out of fashion and now you rarely hear about them. I don’t think the same will happen with air fryers, my experience so far has been excellent and consistent with what others are telling me. You can buy one for as little as $59 at K Mart, so at that price, there’s not much to lose. Happy to recommend them.

That leads me to mention my fascination with the number of choices we have today among various products. Examples are the myriad of milk and bread types, the variety

Painting by Norman Rockwell: One of the Saturday Evening Post covers in the USA from 1924

of baked bean flavours, also toothpastes and the zillion varieties of pet foods. One really has to wonder why we need so many choices. It does, however, remind me of one of my public speaking topics from days gone by. I used to do a bit of public speaking and one of my most popular talks was on the varieties of toilet papers that were available at that time. Back then it was extraordinary just how many packet sizes, paper varieties, paper plys, sheet numbers, patterns and designs, brands, slogans and more were available. In a future issue of SeniorsHappyLife, I might see if I can fi nd one of my talks and reproduce it for you. I had my audience in stitches every time I gave that talk. For an extra bit of toilet paper fun, in this

use of SeniorsHappyLife you’ll fi nd a list of several slogans that toilet paper companies have used to encourage us to buy their brands – some are quite funny.

And finally...

IF it’s not already your practice to do so, let me encourage you to take time each week to catch up with a friend or two, preferably face to face, but certainly by phone at least. Just a call to say hello, how are you going, or maybe getting together over coffee or a meal, people contact can make such a difference for anyone looking to improve the quality of their life. Until next time everyone, go well!

Old 75

HIGHLIGHTS

IN THIS ISSUE

A life well lived .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..4

Reflections on our world .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..8

Olympics glory .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10

How we get our kicks! .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .14

An idea worth thinking about..... .. .. .. .16

A Short Story .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .21

Food For Thought .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 24

Rippa recipes! .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 25

That was then.... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 26

Spectacular Photographs .. .. .. .. .. .. 30

Laugh out loud .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 40

Published by

Seniors Happy Life Pty Ltd (ABN 28 661 869 629)

Phone 0412 501 706 Email contact@seniorshappylife.com.au Post

5 Kamdell Place, Orange NSW 2800

General disclaimer: The publisher accepts no responsibility for letters, notices and other material contributed for publication. The submitter accepts full responsibility for material, warrants that it is accurate, and indemnifies the publisher against any claim or action that may arise from its publication. All advertisers, including those placing display, classified or advertorial material, warrant that such material is true and accurate and meets all applicable laws and indemnifies the publisher against all liabilities that may arise from the publication of such material. Whilst every care is taken in preparing this publication, we cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. Opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. The editor, Bob Holland, accepts responsibility for any election comment. Articles contain information of a general nature – readers should always seek professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances.

Complaints: Seniors Happy Life has a policy of correcting mistakes promptly. If you have a complaint about published material, contact us in writing. If the matter remains unresolved, you may wish to contact the Australian Press Council.

© Copyright 2022 Seniors Happy Life Pty Ltd. Copyright in all material – including photographs and advertisements – is held by Seniors Happy Life Pty Ltd or its providers and must not be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the Publisher. Printed for the publisher by News Ltd, 26-52 Hume Highway, Chullora, 2190.

contributions

welcome!

Graham and Pam McLennan, standing at back middle, laying the foundation stone for Christian Radio in Lenakel, Tanna Island, Vanuatu.

Dr. Graham McLennan

By BOB HOLLAND

GRAHAM McLENNAN has packed more into his 77 years than twenty normal people might collectively do over the same period. I’ve known Graham for several years and have always considered his achievements as amazing, but after digging deeper, I then considered them more like extra-ordinary, now having dug even deeper to write this story, I must say Graham McLennan’s life can only be described as extra-ordinary on steroids! His story and achievements are an exceptional example of a life well lived and I write this as a tribute to him and his wife, and as encouragement for others who still have things in life that they want to achieve, I suspect Graham still hasn’t fi nished yet either.

When I asked Graham what he considered was his most satisfying achievement during his life, he said there were two, becoming a Christian and marrying his wife Pam. That was very nice to hear but given the myriad of things Graham has done during his life, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting him to say.

The variety of things Graham and Pam have done during their life together is quite extra-ordinary and to do them justice would require a book, let me therefore just pull out a few things that will give you a feel for this remarkable couple’s life together. Although my story focusses a lot on Graham,

everything he has ever done, Pam has been right there with him.

Graham has a Scottish heritage and was born July 16, 1945, he grew up on a farm at Eumungerie, near Dubbo, in the Central West of New South Wales and for a little bit of trivia, the family’s phone number back then was Eumungerie One! After his early schooling, he started studying dentistry at Sydney University in 1963 when he was just 17. His study was disrupted during his second year when he was called up for service in the Vietnam War, this prompted him to join the Sydney University Regiment to fi nd out what army life was all about.

In 1966, he became a Christian and that decision has shaped his life ever since. That was also the year that he met and fell in love with his wife of 53 years, Pam. A chain of events forced them to be rather hurriedly married in Tavua, Fiji on January 20th, 1969 followed by a two-day honeymoon before returning to Australia. In Graham’s own words – “Well we had a honeymoon

of a couple of days in Fiji, returned to Australia where we met Pam’s family at Mascot airport, were offered another wedding at St Andrew’s Cathedral for the third time by Cannon Jim Glennon, so my mates could attend, graduated in dentistry, Pam and my parents as guests, a couple of days later went into the Army Barracks, caught a bus loaded with very insecure recruits (there was a war on) to Puckapunyal Recruit Training Centre near Seymour in Victoria. So, I had my honeymoon with four hundred recruits, and I saw Pam once in three months.” Such was life for the newly married McLennans at that time.

Graham’s Graduation in Dentistry at Sydney University occurred in January 1969, a few days after the couple’s marriage in Fiji and a few days before going into recruit training, National Service for two years, and the Vietnam War fighting the battle against tooth decay.

Army life was never dull as this extract from Graham’s memoires suggests – “After two months doing such things as medical chopper evacuations, having dummy hand grenades thrown at us in trenches, forced route marches, we became Second Lieutenants, transferred to various postings such as Singleton for a couple more months and made temporary Captains, upsetting Duntroon graduates no end as this usually took them at least six years.”

After his war service, in August 1971, dentist Graham was asked to do a locum in Or-

“ Earlier that year we felt we should give everything we possessed away, even our wedding presents...

ange. He accepted and arrived in their “hot” Chevvy pillarless Impala and caravan with less than $5.00 in hand. Graham recalls – “Earlier that year we felt we should give everything we possessed away, even our wedding presents, when reading in the Bible about Jesus challenging the rich young ruler about his possessions”.

During this time, the couple felt strongly that they should purchase a large house, to enable them to host people as part of their growing interest in Christian work. Pam found a house with nine bedrooms and three bathrooms, they moved in with no hot water or heating, other than five wood-heated fi replaces, and it’s still their home today after 51 years. Countless people over the years have experienced the warmth and hospitality of the McLennan’s home and because of its character, many locals consider it iconic.

During the 1960s, life for the McLennans was probably nothing out of the ordinary, but that was all about to change, and how. Sometime after Graham became a Christian, he read two books that impacted on him. One was by Norman Grubb about C.T. Studd, a cricketer and pioneer whose name is on the famous Ashes Urn, and who also founded the missionary organisation WEC, a book that talked about commitment, dedication and consecration. After reading these books Graham felt he should do the same.

From that decision, and driven by their faith, Graham and Pam involved themselves in a whole range of major activities and projects over the following years, some they initiated, others they played valuable support roles. The list is quite extensive so let me just give you a brief snapshot of some of them, I’m sure you’ll get the idea.

1966 – Became a Christian

1969 – Married Pam, Completed University, National Service

1971 – Orange NSW becomes home

1971 – Started Dentistry Practice in Orange NSW

1973 – Began a 2 Year P/T Orthodontal Course at Sydney Dental Hospital

1980 – Political Involvement begins

1981 – Commenced Orange Christian School

1986 – Began National Alliance of Christian Leaders

1986 – Commenced Christian History Research Institute

1988 – National Gathering Executive

1994 – Published Southland of the Holy

Spirit for the Bicentenary of Christian Schooling

1994 – Commenced Radio Rhema (Christian Radio Network FM 103.5) in Orange

1998 – Helped commence Vision Christian Media (VCM)

2002 – Helped commence Laef FM Vanuatu 2002

2002 – Commenced Vanuatu Dental Outreaches

2006 – Helped commence Message of Hope Christian Radio in Nepal 2010 – Launched Canberra Declaration 2011 – Inaugural National Day of Prayer and Fasting 2011 – Atomic Biology Institute ABI 2012 – Organised Billy Graham Outreach in Central West of New South Wales 2013 – Begin National Christian Heritage Sunday

2015 – Helped CSU Dental School outreaches to Cambodia

2016 – Helped commence United Christian Broadcasters (UCB Asia/Pacific)

2017 – Retired after 48 years as a registered dentist.

During their careers, the couple also assisted or attended many projects or events here and abroad, to either help and support, or simply just to learn from or be inspired by others. Former US President George Bush, Mother Theresa and astronaut John Glenn, among people they learned from. Their service and travels took them to many places around the Globe including European countries such as Switzerland, Germany, France, Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon and Israel, North and South America including Canada, the USA, Mexico, Argentina, the Pacific Islands such as Fiji, PNG, Vanuatu, NZ, as well as Asian countries such as China, Malaya, Singapore, Nepal and Thailand.

Many social issues at the time saw Graham take a keen interest and active role in politics between 1980 and 1998. He stood for various positions including twice for the Senate, and nearly got elected to the Upper House along with Fred Nile when they stood as a team in 1981.

Somewhere during all this, Graham has also written several books – Understand-

ing Our Christian Heritage Vol 1 1987, Understanding Our Christian Heritage Vol 2 1989, Southland of the Holy Spirit a Christian History of Australia with Elizabeth Kotlowski in 1994 plus chapters in several other books.

I think by now it’s obvious that describing Graham McLennan’s life as extra-ordinary on steroids is no under-statement. However, just like those telemarketing ads on television keep saying “but there’s more!”, in Graham’s story there is. One of his greatest legacies, one that will be with us for a very long time, is his Christian History Research (CHR) website.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the McLennans, and that their story has inspired you in some way, but to complete my story, I’m now going to hand over to Graham and let him tell you in his own words about his remarkable CHR website.

Over to you Graham...

In 1974 Pam and I visited the United States to train for a drug rehabilitation ministry called Teen Challenge, after that we lived in Switzerland and studied under Dr Francis Schaeffer, a renowned Christian philosopher.

In 1980 we again lived in the USA and attended a Youth with a Mission (YWAM) outreach for several months, along with a fellow who was an Abraham Lincoln looka-like and who shared many of Lincoln’s speeches. We also helped with an outreach in Washington DC, “The Washington for Jesus” rally where several hundred thousand people gathered. We had just attended the Foundation for American Education in San Francisco and learnt about America’s Christian origins and of course, later heard Abraham Lincoln’s famous speeches, including at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial delivered by our YWAM friend.

We were asked about our own (Australia’s) pioneering heroes and could think of only one, Ned Kelly! They asked what he did? Well of course, what else could we say but “he held up banks and killed policemen!”

When we returned home to Australia, we started to ponder about our own Christian

The team of students from Charles Sturt University during dental training at an orphanage in Cambodia during 2015.

Graham with long-time friend and NSW Parliamentarian Fred Nile.

“ Many social issues at the time saw Graham take a keen interest and active role in politics...

Graham and Pam then, in 1974; and Graham and Pam now, in 2022.

heritage. Pam had three pregnancies, each failing at six months as the child died in the womb. During this time of grief, Pam started to read the fi rst two volumes of Professor Manning Clark’s “A History of Australia”. She discovered that many of Australia’s early pioneers, including navigators, explorers, statesmen and women were people of faith. We then went to the biographies of many of these people and discovered each had a deep genuine faith that in some cases was outstanding. This led us to decide to compile these into two volumes of “Understanding Our Christian Heritage”. It was the 1980’s at this time and this ultimately led us to a woman, Elizabeth Kotlowski who stayed with us in the early 90’s and during that time published over three thousand copies of “Southland of the Holy Spirit. A Christian History of Australia”. At the time, I was involved in the Bicentenary to commemorate the opening of the First Church and Christian Schooling in Australia in 1793.

By this time we had accumulated over six hundred books on our Christian Heritage, and with the internet beginning we commenced the Christian History Research

Website http://www.chr.org.au/

The site featured many online books on our Christian history in Australia and the South Pacific, video clips, audios and interactives as well as articles on Law, Government, Revivals, Indigenous, Individuals, Events, Institutions and Documents.

We had also begun talks with overheads in the late 1980’s. then moved to a power point presentation. The initial books on Understanding Our Christian Heritage were mainly typed by our former neighbours, twins Sarah and Emily Lynar, both now doctors, and their dad Anton graciously commenced scanning books for the website.

Today, the CHR website receives well over 750,000 requests a year, many from schools, home schoolers, particularly during the Covid pandemic as some of the articles are suitable for the National Curriculum. Even university students use it, especially One Blood in the Book page www.chr.org.au/

page1.php

For those interested, segments recommended are Our Australian Christian Heritage 97 Slide Presentation – detailing individuals, institutions, documents and events, and Southland of the Holy Spirit as well as such books as Ten Decades, published by the London Missionary Society with their history in the Pacific from 1795 and shows rays of the Gospel reaching out from Australia and New Zealand. You can read this and other books on the site in the books section.

You can also fi nd out more about Australia’s Priceless Heritage of Freedom and the Hand of God in our development at https://www.chr.org.au/ schools-content/1.-Hand-of-God/

Through the CHR site you will be able to explore the lives of many people from Australia’s history. You will also be able to ex-

Left: Graham speaking at the Senate Campaign Launch in 1984. Below: Graham interviewing Sir Peter Kenilorea, former Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, at the Orange 103.5 FM Christian Radio studio.

Far

Left:

Above:

Bi-centenary

plore some of the key events that have shaped this nation.

Emerging from the many sections of this site is also a unique picture that clearly shows the influence God had in the European discovery and foundation of Australia.

National Christian Heritage Sunday

AMATTER of further interest could be another website we have established that features information about National Christian Heritage Sunday, which celebrates the Gospel of Jesus Christ arriving on Australia’s shores. Australia’s fi rst minister, Rev. Richard Johnson, arrived with the fi rst fleet on the January 20th, 1788. Then, on February 3rd, 1788, Rev. Johnson held the fi rst Christian service in Australia. This event is now celebrated on the fi rst Sunday in February each year.

Find out more at www.nchs.net.au.

Part of Graham’s extensive library of over 6000 books. Editor’s note: Apologies for the lower picture quality on the photos above and right, but we thought they were important for you to see them.

left: Graham with some of the children in the Province Svay Ring near the Vietnam border.

Graham and Pam treating the local chief on Tongoa Island Vanuatu.

Celebrating the

of Christian Education at Sydney Opera House in 1993.

The National Gathering outside Parliament House in 1988 where 40,000 people turned up to open the new Parliament House in prayer.

The 2015 team helping treat adult land mine victims in Cambodia.

Some of the team who started Nepal’s first Christian radio program, on Radio Nepal.

If only we could...

By BOB HOLLAND

MY, hasn’t our world changed rapidly over recent years? Who would have thought that topics like climate change, a global pandemic, war, gender choice and personal freedom, just to name a few, would dominate world-wide discussions in 2022, and especially in countries like Australia?

Many of us in our senior years are scratching our heads in wonderment as we watch things evolve in these and other areas that affect our lives, and for many of us “oldies,” it feels like new and somewhat scary territory.

Speaking for myself, I’m 74 and I was brought up to follow certain principles for living, so throughout my life I’ve tried to live like most, that is to try and be a good person, a good citizen, respect others and always do the right thing. I have no doubt that many others experienced a similar upbringing.

I think it’s fair to say that the origins for most of the principles I refer to can be traced back to the Bible, and whether people had religious leanings or not, the Biblical model for how to live has served humanity extremely well for all of time. Even in these modern times, the Bible model still has things to say that can be applied to the issues that we’re now confronted with.

On that, a former senior politician and Christian said in a news interview recently, words to the effect that life lived according to the Bible works, it always has, so why would we want to change from it?

I’m a Christian too, have been for over 50 years, and I share the view that the Bible model is relevant for all time. Like so many others I talk to, Christians and non-Christians alike, I wonder where this new thinking is all heading and what God might be thinking as he watches on. It’s for this reason I thought it could be interesting, and thought-provoking, to imagine what an interview with God might sound like, “If only we could ask Him about some of these issues.” What would He say, I wonder?

Come with me as I ponder this notion and try to imagine what God might say to me if I were able to ask Him his thoughts on current issues. Of course, I expect His answers would be based mainly on what he says in His Bible.

Question: Why God, do we fi nd ourselves in the position we are now in.

God: This question gets right to the heart of the matter. Put simply, when I sent my son Jesus into the world, I gave people

the opportunity to choose between making Him the king of their lives and living according to my rules, or to reject Jesus and do things their way. Most, as we know, choose to reject Jesus, and prefer to take their chances and do things their way. What the world is experiencing now, and has all through history, is simply the consequences of more people doing things their way, rather than my way.

People often challenge me over the terrible things that happen to them and around them, but let’s be clear, I have always given people the freedom to choose their own personal course. Humanity is simply reaping what it has sown, and always has done, the result of choosing to do things their way. What you’re seeing across the world

now is just more of the same, the results or consequences of most people wanting to take matters into their own hands, and in so doing, constantly moving further away from the design for living I set out in my Bible.

Question: What are the areas of life where you see us straying from your design for living?

God: There’s so much I could say here but let me get to the heart of the matter.

The two greatest commands I gave humanity for living were one, to love me and two, to love your neighbour as yourself, neighbour meaning each and every other person.

All the problems humanity has ever faced and is facing now, can be traced

ask God?

back to a failure by most people in both these areas. My design calls for people to give unconditional love and service to others, this means putting other’s needs ahead of their own. In return I have promised to look after my own, those who put their faith and trust in Jesus. Those who have chosen to run their own lives their way, have turned this around and choose to look after themselves fi rst, and others how and when it suits them. The evidence of this is widespread and excessive greed, lavish self-indulgence, the pursuit of power, class distinction, wars, poverty and so many other injustices.

Thankfully, not everyone has ignored my design and many millions across the world love and serve their neighbours in the manner I have commanded. Many of the problems humanity is now experiencing or fearing would dissipate if more people lived according to these two great commands. Get these two basics right, and life for everyone would start to improve.

Question: What would you say to those who are agonising over how climate change or the Covid pandemic could impact on their future?

God: I am all powerful, I created the

Universe, not just the planet. I have the power and authority to do anything I choose to, including control the weather, just ask Noah. Despite what humanity might think, I am in control and I know what I am doing. Further, I have already said that I will look after those who commit to Jesus’ kingship and live my way, so nothing will change that. There is currently widespread fear and worry right across the World over a number of issues, including so named climate change and the Covid pandemic, and to those experiencing such feelings I would say this. Fear and worry are also covered in my Bible. Let me remind you what I say in the Book of Matthew chapter 6, verse 34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

It’s also worth reminding people that following my design for living is very much based on having faith and putting your trust in Jesus to be your King, so if you’re prepared to accept that and want things everywhere to be better, I would urge you to reacquaint yourself with the principles and rules for living as set out in my Bible, I am after all God, and I don’t make

mistakes.

Question: Humans are pretty smart and resourceful, you gave us brains and many people have achieved incredible and positive things throughout our history. Other things have however, caused serious problems, especially when humans have delved in certain areas of your creation. Do you have any advice here?

God: Yes, humanity has done remarkably well on so many fronts, this is good and pleasing to me. The only thing I would say is this. Be especially careful when you attempt to tamper with nature. I designed nature not to be tampered with, to do so, is inviting trouble.

Question: For those genuinely seeking peace and contentment at this stage of their life, what would you say to them?

God: Most people would have heard the expression “Make Peace with God.” Those who have taken that step are the best ones to ask, they are living examples of what it means to live with Jesus as their King, and not as King or Queen of their own life. Speak to enough of these people and you’ll soon understand why billions across the world proudly call themselves Christians, enough maybe to want to join them.

Two decades on, Sydney is OLYMPICS GLORY

By DAVID DIXON

EVEN for those of us of mature years; it’s hard sometimes to remember, that things weren’t always as they are now.

Sydney’s Olympics, held 22 years ago, were one of those key events, when our country seemed to change forever.

It all started with our winning of the event in 1993, over the overwhelming favourites, China, as Juan Antonio Samaranch from the International Olympic Committee announced in his halting English, “and the winner is, Sidini”.

NSW Premier John Fahey, a former rugby league player with the then Canterbury-Bankstown Berries (now “The Bulldogs”), showed a lack of diplomatic decorum, by leaping high in the air with joy and hugging Australia Olympic officials as a wild party erupted at Circular Quay.

Then the old Aussie knockers arose, loudly and publicly doubting whether a congested city split down the middle by a harbour with only average infrastructure and poor stadiums, would be able to host the event.

However, with a new government under Bob Carr, we got building at the old Homebush Bay industrial area, (once the site of an ancient abattoir) creating a sports precinct of tracks, stadiums, pools, velodromes, hotels, and restaurants, that is still in use today.

But it was in the opening ceremony that we really showed what we had, Samaranch later calling it: “the most beautiful ceremony the world had ever seen.”

It involved amazing Dreamtime stories, the dancing clothes-lines, the choreographed lawn-mowers, Sydney Nolan’s Ned Kelly come to life, corrugated iron ballet, and aerial trapeze artists seeming to fly on

utes 13.67

invisible wires struck across the stadium

Then the torch relay coming into the stadium carried by Olympic legend Herb Elliott, running slower than he did in Rome in 1960.

Then, in a fitting tribute to the centenary of women's participation in the Olympics, he passed the torch to the relay of final torchbearers, a group that included a teary Raelene Boyle, pushing Betty Cuthbert now in a wheelchair, swimmer Shane Gould, Debbie Flintoff-King and then, finally, Cathy Freeman lighting the flame.

Then the competition, Ian Thorpe winning the individual medal in the 400m freestyle before the Australian 4x100-metre freestyle relay team "smashed the Americans like guitars" to use the boast of US swimmer Gary Hall Junior thrown back in his face by the Australian team.

Finally the night that Australia all waited up for, Cathy Freeman winning the women’s 400m race wearing that alien-looking one-piece outfit with the hood. Her reaction, overwhelming relief, rather than joy, as she slowly walked around the stadium and took in the cheers of the 100,000 crowd and millions on television.

Cycling, equestrian, wom-

en’s hockey, and archery, we eventually won 14 gold, 25 silver, and 17 bronze, just pipped by China for third place in the overall medal tally behind Russia and the United States.

But like all modern Olympics, Sydney had its share of scandals and controversy.

Most worryingly, persistent rumours about US sprinter, Marion Jones, whose husband had been dropped from the US team just before the games for being a drug cheat, a fact which did not stop her winning five medals in Sydney including three sprint golds and for which she was the

Australia's Ian Thorpe (right) celebrates with teammates Ashley Callus, Chris Fydler and Michael Klim after winning gold and setting a new world record in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay event at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games on September 16, 2000. The new record time was three min-

seconds. PHOTO: REUTERS

Australia's Cathy Freeman carries both the Aboriginal and the Australian flags during a victory lap after winning the women's 400m final on September 25, 2000. PHOTO: REUTERS

still “The best games ever” “The best

world record holder in the women's 100m.

In a sorry aftermath to the Games, fully seven years’ later, Jones admitted to being part of the BALCO drug cheating scandal. Stripped of her medals, she actually went to jail for six-months for her brazen betrayal of the Olympic spirit.

Or what about the heartbreak of Australian walker Jane Saville, disqualified while leading the 20km walk event, only 200m from the fi nish line by an obscure Italian official?

For its part, Sydney put-on beautiful spring weather for almost all of the event at the purpose-built Homebush Bay facilities.

Our Olympics, were also the last reasonably-safe and security-free events of the period, before the horrors of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States the next year changed the face of world sport, forever.

In contrast, the American Winter Games at Salt Lake City in 2002, just months after the World Trade Centre, were a grim marathon of overt, wounded nationalism and joyless competition.

Thousands came here, and Sydney’s tourism numbers have continued to rise every year; that is, up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in 2020.

For many though, the absolute highlight of the Sydney Games, was the closing ceremony, with its nod to the

ancient Hellenic origins of the Olympic movement, which four years later were held in Athens.

Jimmy Barnes singing “Working Class Man”; Vanessa Amorosi’s “Absolutely Everybody”; John Paul Young performing “Love is in the Air”, while little Nicki Webster (where is she now?) sang “Under the Southern Skies”.

Also there was Kylie Minogue, Slim Dusty performing “Waltzing Matilda”, and even those shameless poseurs, Midnight Oil, couldn’t spoil the fun, singing one of their tuneless stadium anthems while wearing political slogans on their black tops, embarrassing Australia to the world while shamelessly breaching the Olympics disavowal of politics in all its forms.

Ending fi nally with the fi reworks display, running all the way from Homebush 15km to the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the world’s elite athletes dancing together in joy; and watched by a worldwide audience in the billions, it was a three-week celebration of sports, culture, and international friendship.

This was the moment from when we, as a nation, burst onto the world stage. Previously, we had been known as more an international curiosity – brave soldiers, strange native animals, an outlandish diction, and seasons reversed from the rest of the world.

After the Olympics, we were seen as what we actually are, an advanced middle-ranking western country, an open multicultur-

al society that honoured its past, and was confident in a brilliant future.

I recall after watching the stunning closing ceremony and still flush with the success of the Games, a phone call with my Irish-born mother.

Family members had rung-up excitedly from the other side of the world, to congratulate her on their success, amazed that little old Australia could put on such a spectacularly-successful event.

“They could not believe it... they always thought that Australia was a little backwards, not much of a country, on the other side of the world,” she said.

Samaranch, considered the most successful and the longest serving of the Olympics’ chiefs, agreed, calling Sydney: “The best games ever”.

Four years later, sprawling and ramshackle Athens, could not quite top the Sydney event, China put on a giant show of national pride in 2008, and London had a wonderful event in 2012 where they fi nally fulfi lled their sporting potential, but none had the same sense of fun and celebration that typified the Sydney Games.

Even now, 22-years later as the Olympic ideals seem so dimmed by drug bans of whole nations (Russia), diminishing interest, and now cluttered with games like golf, tennis, rugby sevens, breakdancing, and skateboarding – it’s an event that all Australians, can still look back on, with a sense of pride and satisfaction.

Above: Fireworks light up Sydney's Harbour Bridge during the closing ceremony of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney, on October 1, 2000. Right: Australia's Phillip Dutton, Andrew Hoy, Matt Ryan and Stuart Tinney raise their hats to the crowd after they won the gold medal in the team three-day equestrian event at the Olympic Games in Sydney on September 19, 2000. PHOTOS: REUTERS

Blasts from the past

ADVERTISING has been part of our lives for as long as we can remember and over time, the way products and services have been advertised has changed dramatically. Outrageous claims that com-

taining and clever ads and we still hear the occasional outrageous claim in an ad from time to time. One that comes to mind was the television ad for Mortein Fly Spray several years back that claimed the spray had

Hope this selection of old print ads brings

HOW WE GET OUR KICKS!

Enjoyment and entertainment have always been among the priorities for most people and in that, there are many ways we go about getting our kicks, take David Hughes and Megan Hodsdon. This couple get their kicks in a most unusual way. Their interest is Costume Play (Cosplay) and at the time of writing the couple were having an absolute ball pursuing this particular pastime. Their story appeared in regional newspaper a few years ago and it was fascinating to say the least. Although a little dated, we felt SHL readers would still find their story entertaining and possibly inspiring. We hope you enjoy it.

Costume Play –sounds like real fun!

“IUSUALLY explain it to people by saying we still play,” says Megan Hodsdon, a local music teacher who is sitting across from me dressed in large, elaborate hoop skirt, scarlet corset and Victorian Ladies hat — her dream outfit she tells me.

Her husband, David, sits beside her in full highland dress, including a tartan bonnet and kilt he made himself out of a world map fabric.

“They tell grownups you’ve got to stop playing but no, you don’t. So, we are still spending every weekend playing.”

Megan and David are among the growing number of Australian’s who have taken up cosplaying. A portmanteau of ‘costume play,’ cosplay largely grew out of science fiction and comic book convention, where attendees had long enjoyed dressing up as their favourite characters. Once a niche activity, today you’ll fi nd more and more people donning elaborate outfits at festivals and an increasing number of cosplay events and competitions, some quite lucrative.

Megan says her interest probably goes back to when she and David fi rst met each other as young university students.

“We met through Scottish country dancing,” says Megan. “I went to university with the attitude that I’m going to try everything. I took up canoe polo and I took up dancing.”

“And I got to third year in University and realised I was paying $500 a year for clubs and societies and decided that, as I had a Scottish heritage, then I should investigate the Scottish country dancing,” says David, who has since gone on to also explore Highland Dancing, Irish Step Dancing and Ceili dancing.

“I think that was obviously the start of dressing up and going out and doing things,” says Megan.

But although the historic costuming associated with Scottish Country dancing piqued their interest, it wasn’t until five years ago that they began to regularly cosplay at events.

“My fi rst serious event was Iron Fest in Lithgow (NSW),” says Megan. “We didn’t dress up the fi rst time we went there. My

brother had given us tickets for Christmas one year and we went and just went Wow! There’s everything here, every group you can imagine! We straight away went right, let’s start, let’s put costumes together. It has really gone from that event.”

These days, Megan says they have to start planning their calendar early in the year as there are events on nearly every weekend they’d like to attend.

“You work out how many you can actually get to and the costumes you need,” she says. “We go to at least 20 a year; at least every second weekend we’re away somewhere.”

Lithgow’s Iron Fest is a regular on the calendar for Megan and David, as are some of the large living history gatherings like the St Ives (Sydney) Medieval Faire and Winterfest.

“We have medieval costumes,” says Megan. “David has a Knight’s Hospitaller

costume which is the black with the cross and everything. The historical groups are interesting as some of them are down to getting it exactly right and some of them are just fun. We tend to go with the ones that are just fun.”

“We’ve been to Goulburn, they have a Steampunk Festival there, we had the Charleston Challenge in the Blue Mountains and I’m going to the Jane Austen Festival in Canberra in April,” says David.

“The Earthly Delights dance group down there, they do historic dances from 1400 up until about 1850 and they actually dress up in all the costumes for that. They are very serious, and a lot of the people there actually make their own costumes, they are absolutely amazing.”

“Every girl reads Jane Austen books, well here is a chance to go and dress up and pretend to be Elizabeth Bennett,” adds Megan.

Such a wide variety of events of course demands a wide variety of outfits.

“Over summer, I packed 16 boxes in my wardrobe of different costumes for different events,” says Megan, who’s entire family have caught the cosplay bug.

“My brother is very into the furries — furries wear animal costumes typically — he has a couple of different furry costumes and my son is getting into that. And my parents have really gotten into dressing up, so mum has a corset and a big dress and has just had a hat made — she’ll be at Iron Fest with us this year. Wearing costumes is for any age!”

“It is remembering what you were, what you were excited about when you were 15 and going back to being excited by those things again,” says David.

“Absolutely yeah, I think there is that push back to enjoying your adulthood too though. You don’t have to take everything too seriously, you can get out and just have fun.”

How do you get your kicks?

If you do something quirky like David and Megan, why not drop us a line?

contact@seniorshappylife.com.au

David Hughes and Megan Hodsdon

Hay-bale art comps helping cheer our rural communities

HAY-BALE art competitions have become increasingly popular in our country areas; allowing farm folk to really show off their creative capabilities.

As well as lifting local spirits in rural areas of Australia where mental health is a long-running issue, they also encourage visitors to visit beautiful country locales.

Local councils often run the events with categories including hay-bale art challenges, farm-art challenges, scarecrow challenges, and people’s choice awards.

This selection of photos was taken around Blayney in Central Western NSW during one of their annual competitions.

New Friends Network (NFN)

By BOB HOLLAND

The Underlying Issue

MOST people understand the principle behind the Biblical command “To love your neighbour as yourself,” but few practice it to the extent the spirit of the command was intended.

‘Love’ in this context is not the romantic love that most of us think of when we speak of love, it’s more about the way we treat and care for others generally. It means that on balance, we are to put the needs of others ahead of our own, and to practice this as a natural way of life. Despite what that old bank advertisement would have us believe, “You’re NOT the most important person in the world.”

This idea of a New Friends Network sets out to help address this underlying issue in our society, but in just one area of life, an area where if more of the ‘love’ the Bible talks about was applied, the flow on effect and benefits could be immeasurable. Literally, millions of lives could be changed for the better.

The Opportunity

EVERYBODY needs to feel loved, but not everybody does, especially those who are nearing the latter stage of their life.

People in this group include those who live alone, who have lost their partner, who live in retirement villages or aged care facilities, or for one reason or another, fi nd themselves isolated from the company of other people on a regular basis.

Imagine how different the lives of these people would be if suddenly one or more “new friends” came into their life. The key word being ‘friends,’ genuine friends, not just people.

Many in the situations mentioned have people in their lives in the way of service providers, care givers etc., but these are not true friends in the sense of the word. In fact, in some cases, service providers, care givers etc. are instructed by their employers not to form strong friendships with their clients, patients etc.

People and families all over the world currently sponsor children through organisations like World Vision, Compassion etc., simply to provide them with a better life and more opportunities than they might otherwise have. People who do this, do it out of ‘neighbourly love,’ and it’s not uncommon to hear how strong friendships, even visits to them, have often been the result.

What if we applied that same ‘heart’ to those in our own backyard, to those who would benefit greatly from experiencing a little genuine neighbourly love? What if we could improve the quality of life of our older people, but unlike the child sponsorship programs, we could do it, not by donating money, but simply by having a right heart and donating a bit of time and effort occasionally.

The Solution

ASIMPLE and straight-forward ongoing campaign that highlights the issue and then encourages people to participate. The campaign to be not unlike other community programs such as “Do the Right Thing,” “Stop, Revive, Survive,” “Give Blood,” “RUOK,” etc.

Such an initiative has the potential to not only improve the quality of life of older people significantly but the flow on social benefits could be life changing for millions of people and have a positive impact on day to

A handout leaflet be produced to explain the program, and what is involved to show your willingness to participate as either a giver or receiver in the initial process, givers being those willing to make the fi rst approach, receivers being those willing to be approached.

In Practice: There’s no formal organisation, the concept is simply about encouraging a new lifestyle practice, in the same way “Do the Right Thing” encourages us not to litter.

Put very simply, NFN encourages community members to seek ways to make contact with people who are known or thought to be in this group, and then let nature take its course.

Participants (Givers) to be encouraged to connect with a number of people (Receivers) at least once, and then to follow up with any they feel they want to, e.g., where a connection is made.

If numerous people across the Nation connect, and the result is they make just one new friend, the impact on the lives of all parties will be significant and ongoing.

Society will be far better for it.

How each friendship develops or what the parties do within that friendship is up to the participants, there are no limits, as with any friendship, nature will take its course.

Ways to connect:

About the New Friends Network and how it works

The General Aims:

To improve the overall quality of life of older people by connecting them with others, and helping those who need it, to ‘never feel alone.’

To encourage participants to seek opportunities to form friendships among those they meet, for their mutual benefit.

To see many of these develop into lasting and meaningful friendships.

To reduce the impacts of loneliness, isolation, and other emotional issues among people who fi nd themselves having to cope with these social problems.

To see the network supported by individuals, churches and communities across the Nation.

First priorities:

Awareness is the name of the game and ideally, governments at all levels would quickly acknowledge the problem, then embrace the concept to help publicise both the issue and the solution. Without substantial government support, getting the word out and generating participation will take much longer, and the overall impact would be greatly reduced.

Media be approached to include advertising for the NFN in their Community Service programs, at no cost.

There’s no one size fits all method for connecting with people – especially strangers. Think about what you’re most comfortable doing.

It’s simply a case of being creative.

Some simple examples could be –Just knocking on the doors of anyone you identify as a possible participant. This could be in a suburban area or a retirement village.

Arranging to randomly visit suitable residents in an aged care facility.

Churches or community groups could consider adding an NFN component to their programs.

A fi rst step could be to simply distribute some of the NFN leaflets to people or places of interest. If you do this, make sure you add a contact name and number for people to respond if they want to.

Take action now:

If after reading this, you feel the idea has merit, take the next step, and tell someone how you feel. Tell your friends, your Church, your Council or your local Members. Encourage each of them to actually ‘test’ the idea among their friends, colleagues, associates etc., and then to take further action according to the responses they get.

Seniors Happy Life would also like to hear your thoughts or ideas on this. Send feedback, comments, suggestions etc. to –

Mail: Seniors Happy Life, 5 Kamdell Place, Orange NSW 2800

Email: contact@seniorshappylife.com.au

Where’d I leave the secateurs?

By BOB HOLLAND

GETTING old brings with it some new and interesting challenges, challenges that will make you either laugh or think you’re losing it. My experience suggests I should laugh when I do those seemingly silly things that I never once did.

How often do you hear an older person say they walked into their pantry or a particular room in their house only to say to themselves “Why did I come in here?” or done other funny things. I’m still pretty with it but recently I was looking for my glasses only to realise I was wearing them! Like I said, and unless there’s a more important reason you don’t know about, better to just laugh and move on.

That leads me to tell you about a funny experience I had in early September, I hope you get a laugh out of it.

It was the fi rst sunny day of spring and I decided to weed the garden beds out the front of our home. I grabbed the things I needed out of the garage, garden gloves, a bucket for the weeds, secateurs and a weeding fork. We also have a green bin for green waste, but it was out the front of the house ready to be emptied, reason being I had mowed the lawns a couple of days earlier.

I took my time with the weeding and had several breaks along the way, when I took a break I left my tools where I was working.

Fast forward to 3 o’clock and after fi nishing, I picked up all my tools to put them back into the garage. It was then that I realised the secateurs weren’t there. No dramas I thought, I must have left them on the lawn somewhere. A quick search

didn’t fi nd them, then I realised at one point that when I moved from one garden bed to another, I had put the weeding fork and secateurs in the empty bucket to move. It then crossed my mind that I had taken the weeding fork out to keep weeding but had left the secateurs in the bucket. I must have emptied the secateurs into the green waste bin with the weeds I had since put in the bucket. Simple! The green waste bin was fairly full, but I managed to rummage through it well enough, but alas no secateurs. Where could they be?

I’m very good at fi nding lost items, I don’t panic, I think clearly and over the years I have found most things that I or my wife have mislaid. One exception to that was a lost black bra several years ago. I used all my Sherlock Holmes powers of investigation and virtually spent hours over several days turning the house upside down but couldn’t fi nd it anywhere. It was almost two years later when my wife pulled some rarely used sheets out of the linen press that the black bra fell out of them. Meanwhile, back to the secateurs.

By this time, thinking of silly options started to kick in, I was wondering if someone may have simply taken them as they lay unattended on the lawn, or maybe a neighbour’s dog or one of the many magpies in our area might have taken them. Good sense kicked in quickly and I discounted all those wild options, but still, where could they be?

I then spent almost an hour checking all the garden beds again, running my hands under and around bushes, through leaves and so on. I then tipped the green waste bin out and went through it with a fi ne-

tooth comb, but still no secateurs. It was getting crazy but, fact was they weren’t to be found. Losing a pair of secateurs is not a big deal but the challenge of solving the mystery is what had me in, and not being able to solve it was a dint to my pride. But like they say, it is was it is and I had to finally accept that, and I did, sort of.

Having given up, I decided to go for my regular afternoon walk, where I met up with my friend Graham, also out for a walk. I had a great time telling Graham of my experience and then laughing about it.

While watching tele later that night, my mind returned to the puzzle and then something dawned on me.

Remember I said the green waste bin was out the front of the house ready to be emptied?

It was emptied around noon and up until that time, I had been tipping the weeds from the bucket into it. After it was emptied, I brought it closer to where I was working and continued to tip the weeds from the bucket into it.

Mystery solved! Obviously, I HAD left the secateurs in the bucket, then put more weeds on top of them and then tipped them into the green waste bin BEFORE it was emptied. That was the one little happening that I had completely overlooked in my search.

My secateurs are now in green heaven, retired and resting peacefully with other lost garden tools, possibly relatives, but none-the-less, all having fallen victim to early retirement in a similar way.

Like all of them I suspect, I slept well that night, knowing my excellent record for fi nding lost items was still intact.

That’s not me with my secateurs –this bloke is much better looking!

MAGNIFICENT WHEELS

Some people are blessed with incredible talent or ability, others with sheer passion for a cause, and occasionally we come across people who combine both. Here’s a few restored cars we’ve gathered for you to enjoy and reminisce over, many have been faithfully restored by people with that combined talent and passion we mentioned. We present them for your reading pleasure and to bring back a few memories, maybe.

1937 Cadillac Sedan, 60 Series: wheels to get your head spinning

OUTRIGHT winner at one of Australia’s best antique motor shows a few years back was this 1937 Cadillac Sedan, 60 Series, owned by Owen and Anne Magill. For the motoring enthusiast in all of us, the Cadillac Series 36-60 was Cadillac’s entry-level product in the luxury vehicle market when it appeared in 1936, competing with the entry-level Packard Six. Each model year added the year prefi x to the series (37-60 and 38-60) in the number hierarchy used at the time. It was replaced by the Series 39-61 in 1939, but a model that was derived from it, the Sixty Special or 60S, continued off and on through 1993.

The Series 60 was the brainchild of new Cadillac manager, Nicholas Dreystadt. Debuting in 1936, it fi lled a gaping price gap between the updated appearance of the successful Lasalles of which the Series 60 was the upgraded version with the “Cadillac” name, and the Series 36-70 Cadillac models. Initially it rode on a 121.0 in (3,073 mm) wheelbase and shared the B body with cars from Lasalle, Buick, and Oldsmobile. This went up to 124.0 in (3,150 mm) in 1937–1938.

Golden age of Detroit –Cadillac LaSalles

CADILLAC LaSalles were a classic concept car built during Detroit’s golden age in the mid-1950s.

They were the classic so-called “yank tank” with these cars from the Cadillac La Salle Club of Sydney.

LaSalle was an American brand of luxury automobiles manufactured and marketed, as a separate brand, by General Motors' Cadillac division from 1927 through 1940.

Alfred P Sloan, GM's Chairman of the Board, developed the concept for four new GM

marques – LaSalle, Marquette, Viking and Pontiac –paired with already established brands to fi ll price gaps he perceived in the General Motors product portfolio.

Sloan created LaSalle as a companion marque for Cadil-

lac. LaSalle automobiles were manufactured by Cadillac, but were priced lower than Cadillac-branded automobiles, were shorter, and were marketed as the second-most prestigious marque in the General Motors portfolio.

LaSalles were titled as LaSalles, and not as Cadillacs. Like Cadillac – named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac – the LaSalle brand name was based on that of another French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.

1972 Mini Clubman

FOR anyone lucky enough to have driven a Mini Minor in its prime, there’s no vehicle on the road that so-recalled the unique pleasure of a street-legal go-kart.

Leanne Cheney’s love affair with this cute little 1972 Mini Clubman, began when she was 17-yearsold when her dad brought it for her as her fi rst car from Oliver Motors in western NSW for $2000, the little gem being only five-years-old at the time.

The Mini was an unique British “people’s car” equivalent to the German “Volkswagen” Beetle of the 1940s. Built by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors from 1959 through to 2000, the original Mini is considered an icon of 1960s British popular culture with Paul McCartney from The Beatles famously owning one, with a record player embedded in the dashboard.

Its space-saving transverse engine and front-wheel drive layout – allowing 80 per cent of the area of the car’s floorplan, to be used for passengers and luggage – influenced a generation of car makers. In 1999, the Mini was voted the second-most influential car of the 20th century, behind the Ford Model T, and ahead of the Citroën DS and Volkswagen Beetle. The Mini Cooper and Cooper S sports models, were successful as both race and rally cars, winning the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, 1965, and 1967 and even triumphant at the Bathurst 1000 racing against giant Australian iron muscle cars, winning the event outright in 1966.

Aussie iron: The VU SS 2002 Holden Commodore Ute

THERE’S no better classic piece of good old-fashioned Aussie Iron than a Holden Ute. The ute, short for “utility”, is almost our sole contribution – along with the baby safety capsule – to world motoring.

Ford Australia was the fi rst company to produce an Australian Coupe ute, which was released in 1934.

This was the result of a 1932 letter from the unnamed wife of a farmer in Australia asking for “a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays”.

In response, Ford designer Lew Bandt designed a two-door body with a tray at the rear for the American Ford Model A chassis, and the model was named "coupe utility". When the Australian version was displayed in the US, Henry Ford nicknamed it the

A convertible version, known as the roadster utility was produced in limited numbers by Ford in the 1930s.

In 1951, Holden released a "utility" model, which was based on the 48–215 sedan.

With both Ford and Holden now producing utes, this start-

ed the long-standing tradition of Australian-designed two-door vehicles with a tray at the back, based on a passenger-car sedan chassis.

“Kangaroo Chaser”.

Australia’s postal service took its beginnings in a regulation issued on July 6, 1803, fi xing the charges to be made by boatmen plying for hire between Sydney and Parramatta. This chargelist covered passengers and goods, including “Letters, exclusive of Government service,

At the same time, the boatmen were put under a bond of £50 each, with two sureties of £25 each. However, there was no post office in Australia, and the safe custody of mail depended on the honesty of those who carried it. Many frauds and thefts took place. The wide inconvenience caused thereby was remedied by a General Order issued on April 25, 1809, by Lieut-Governor William Paterson.

This order appointed Isaac Nichols as Ausrst postmaster. He or his nominee was to board incoming ships, collect all letters and parcels addressed to the Colony, and take them ce in Nichols’ house in Lower George Street. A list of the mail so received was to be published in the “Sydney Gazette”, and addressees were to take delivery themselves.

As payment for his service, Nichols received a shilling per letter, two shillings and sixpence for a parcel up to 20 lb. in weight, and five shillings for any parcel over that weight.

On June 23, 1810, Governor Macquarie extended the service to all letters received within the Colony. He reduced the overseas postage to eightpence and fi xed a price of fourpence each for colonial letters.

Nichols held his position as our fi rst postmaster for ten years until his death in 1819. He was succeeded by George Panton, a wharfi nger, whose post office alternated between a shed on the King’s Wharf and another shed behind a wall in Bent Street.

In January, 1829, this post office was moved to the old Police Quarters in George Street. Part of the General Post Office occupied the site

(when this historical article was written).

A year earlier, postmasters had been appointed at Bathurst, Campbelltown, Liverpool, Newcastle, Penrith and Windsor. In 1830, the mails went as far as Port Macquarie, Goulburn and Wellington, either by mail contractors or, until 1834, by the Police.

In 1838, a fortnightly overland service to Melbourne was established, and, in 1847 it was extended to Adelaide.

New South Wales was the fi rst country in the world to adopt a system of prepaying letters by postage stamps. The stamps were embossed on sheets of paper known as letter covers, and were fi rst issued in 1838. They saved the letter-carrier the task of collecting postage, and were a great success.

Adhesive stamps were fi rst issued in Australia on January 1, 1850.

Since the days when Isaac Nichols was our fi rst postmaster, Australia’s postal business has increased enormously. Last year alone, 1,014,000,000 postage stamps were printed in Australia, and more than 24,000,000 items of postal stationery (postcards, letter cards, wrappers, aerogrammes and stamp booklets) were issued.

Australia’s Postal Department now operates more than 10,000 post offices and handles over 1,500,000,000 letters and parcels yearly.

SENIORSHAVING FUN!

In future issues of Seniors Happy Life, we’d love to include a variety of photos sent in by our readers. Photos of you having FUN If you’re part of a group, a club, a facility etc. that runs fun events doing with our readers. Seeing your event in Seniors Happy Life might inspire and give others ideas for their future entertainment.

Life’s troubleshooting guide

We all know the old saying, “When in doubt, read the instruction book!”

If you’re one of those people who’s trying to make sense out of much of today’s modern thinking, maybe – the Bible, some might say “Life’s TroubleShooting Guide” can help shed some light on such things for you.

Here’s a passage from the Bible (The Message version) that has something to say to those of us who are struggling with too many negative thoughts.

Philippians

Chapter 4: verses 5-9.

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the centre of your life.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most

excellent harmonies.

HISTORICAL

The following comes from a publication that was produced by Tucker & Company, a firm that was started in Sydney by an Englishman, William Tucker, back in 1838. It features interesting information on over 100 Historical Firsts. Keep in mind this was written during the 1800s, which gives a fascinating insight into some of the facts of life in Australia in that bygone time.

Issac Nichols’ house in George Street, Sydney which served as the first Post Office.

The Last Vintage

A SHORT STORY

by GREG MCFARLAND

THE winemaker began the day as usual by eating breakfast alone.

It was early winter, still too dark to see or eat by, so he had turned the kitchen lights on.

The harsh fluorescent whiteness accentuated the cracks in a leathery face that had spent a lifetime outdoors.

The hands that cut up the bacon and eggs were similarly weathered: swollen and knotted from hard physical labour.

When he had fi nished his meal, the winemaker moved to the sink to wash the breakfast things up.

Although there was no-one else still living in the house, and thus no other eyes to look at his housekeeping, he nonetheless wanted things to be tidy.

He wiped down the kitchen table, no tablecloth on it, just plain wood dulled and scratched from decades of use.

There was a little collection of salt-and-pepper shakers and sauce bottles in the middle of the table. He pushed them neatly together, then tucked the sealed letter between them.

Then he left the house for the next part of his daily pattern.

It was starting to come light now, enough for him to begin his walk around the vineyard, a journey he had done since he fi rst could walk, which made it about 70 years now.

The vineyard was a living breathing thing, and he had been brought up to be-

lieve – and he believed it absolutely – that it thrived from constant attention and care. He went slowly through the vines, checking the dryness of a particular vine that he was worried about here, noticing the rabbits had nibbled overnight on another vine over there. But overall, the vineyard was in stunning condition, just as it had been yesterday. The season’s grapes had long been picked and were in fermentation, but golden-red foliage remained as a glorious crown on the gnarled vines reaching down into the soil.

Any little jobs were always attended to immediately, and so the winemaker got his pruning shears from the shed and pared back the fi rst vine. Although it would have looked healthy to any casual observer, he knew exactly where it was going dead inside and where the fresh growth would come from, and he knew all this from touch.

He had what the old European families called the gift of the hands, what the Australians referred to as a green thumb.

He neatly pruned the vine, and re-tied it on the support wire, all with gentleness.

Then he found some mesh and patched up the small hole in the fence where he suspected the hungry bunnies were wriggling through in the dark hours.

By the time he had fi nished all this, it was fully daylight and he could see it was going to be a beautiful day and he was pleased, because it was the right accompaniment for what was to come next – and this new task was no regular job but a once-in-a-year duty that never failed to fi ll him with joy.

He pulled open the big sliding doors of the barrel shed to let the light in, and the sunshine revealed giant oak casks from wall

to wall and from end to end of the shed –two dozen or more.

The various previous vintages were generally to be found towards the sides and the rear, but today the winemaker only had eyes for four casks sitting patiently in the centre, the latest vintage. Each cask held a thousand litres of wine.

The winemaker approached the fi rst of the four casks and ran his hand over the wood. Along with the gift for plants, he had the double gift of sensing the condition of wine through his hands. He could feel the wine through the oak.

The rough old hands stroked the cask, and he knew, he just knew today was the day – he had been sensing its arrival for the past week.

At this annual moment, the years always fell away for the winemaker and inside he felt the hot blood of a young man again.

First, he dragged a small brazier into the open air just beyond the shed entrance, and fi lled it with wood scraps and got it alight. Then he went to the shed wall and brought down a blackened tool that looked exactly like what it was – a branding iron. He rested the iron in the brazier to heat up.

He could wait no longer.

The winemaker put a ladder to the fi rst cask, and climbed up with a hammer and a long glass tube.

He knocked loose the bung at the top and put the tube down into the cask. When he withdrew it, the slender vessel was full of rich darkness.

He stepped down carefully, took the tube out into the daylight and poured some wine into a glass.

First, there was the colour to check.

He held the glass up, looked at it from different angles, swirled the liquid around.

The colour was good.

The aroma came next – wafting the glass under his battered old nose once, twice, three times.

Good again – but aroma alone did not make or break a wine. That only ever came in the last step.

Before he took a sip, he paused for a moment to reflect on the hard year he had had, the year the family did not even know about, the very real chance he may not have made it to this day, this moment in personal history.

But he had made it, somehow.

He took a loving sip, the fi rst taste of the new vintage.

Then another.

And another.

Letting the liquid gold roll around his tongue, trying to stay calm, not letting the emotion over-ride his true knowledge. But he knew he wasn’t fooling himself. The wine was superb.

Perfect.

Maybe better than perfect, if that was even possible.

The thrill was so great that for a moment he felt faint. He pulled a chair out from the shed, put it squarely in the warm sunshine, sat down, picked up his glass again.

He checked the brazier. The iron was still heating up.

Plenty of time. There was no rush now.

It was always like this for him, on these special days. There was the excitement at fi rst, then after the result was known, and if it was a good result, there would follow a long glow of satisfaction that would burn in him all day.

He sipped his wine, and thought for a moment about his wife. Maybe he would go over to the nursing home later on and tell her the good news.

Or maybe tomorrow – what was the difference?

He knew she would never know what he was talking about, not any more.

The doctors had told him that all the research was showing that farm chemicals were linked to dementia, and the winemaker had felt guilty about that, because if it was true, he had most likely been the one who had unwittingly caused his wife’s demise through all the years he had sprayed in the vineyard, which nestled closely around the house.

Doctors!

What did they really know anyway?

Hadn’t they always said that red wine was good for the heart, and he had been drinking red wine for many decades, starting as a kid at the family dining table. And yet here he was with the heart trouble.

He shook his head, to shake the bad thoughts away.

This was not a day for sorrow.

He checked the iron again. It was glowing orange at the branding end. He pulled it out of the brazier and took it inside and pressed it fi rmly against the butt of the fi rst cask. There was a sizzle of smoke and when he pulled the brand away, the family name was there, proudly and permanently.

It was time for the second cask, but fi rst he put the iron back into the fi re before he moved the ladder and took the next sample.

As with the fi rst glass, he took the second glass outside to repeat the process of colour, aroma and taste.

It was as excellent as the fi rst cask, and he

He sat down in the chair again, to savour the second glass. He looked again at the lovely sky.

Maybe he would go to see the wife after all. His daughter would come and meet him there.

He had time for thinking, and he thought now about his daughter. She would be happy about the vintage. She was like him, she had the gift of the hands and, growing up on the farm, he had sometimes pondered if she should be the one to be the future of the vineyard.

He had secretly considered it – but never said anything to her.

Things had changed nowadays, of course, and today women were everywhere in the wine industry. Even his neighbours, the Finnegans, had a grand-daughter studying at the wine college in Adelaide.

But back when the winemaker’s own daughter had come of age, years ago, female winemakers were still unheard of, not just in this district but anywhere.

And so, he had said nothing, given her no sign.

She had misread his silence as a lack of interest or trust in her, an unspoken message about the future of the family vineyard.

The daughter had quietly married, moved into town, had three children (who were teenagers now). But the winemaker knew she still had the gift – her yard in town was a veritable botanic garden.

The winemaker was feeling a little sad again, but he was full of the joy of the vintage. It was a crazy mix of emotions.

He branded the second cask and got the sample from the third.

As he brought the next glass outside, and settled himself into the chair once again, he decided he would leave the nursing home visit until tomorrow. He would make

the arrangements with the daughter tonight, when she rang him as she did every evening. And he would tell her about the vintage, and no doubt she would pass the news on to his son.

His son!

Alexander.

The cause of most of his problems. Or maybe it was the other way around.

The winemaker sipped this third glass very slowly while he thought.

He did not know why they had not got on, but in the beginning things had been fi

Alexander, like his father, had grown up in the vineyard and had had expectations of taking it over, which would have been the natural outcome for the son of any wine family in the valley.

He had fi straight to the university, from where he emerged with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science.

And then Alexander had come home, and then the trouble started.

When father and son began working together as adult men for the fi disagreed more than they agreed.

Alexander had big ambitions for the vineyard, and he had all the book learning. But he didn’t have the hands.

His father had the gift, but none of the education.

And so, they clashed.

The son wanted to expand production, get rid of the oak casks and put in stainless steel tanks. It was the modern way.

Look, he showed his father, the big local Italian family, the Borgato clan, had gone to stainless steel years ago and they were doing better than ever. Business was booming over there.

But the winemaker would not budge.

Alexander wanted to buy in grapes, to top up the vineyard crop and get bigger sales at the wine merchants. It was the latest thing to do in the industry, it was called “blending”. Grapes brought in from the general region could be put into the vintage under the winemaker’s label as if it had come from the same exact place.

The son insisted the practice was legal and was part of living in the “real world”.

The winemaker thought the practice was dishonest.

For nearly a century, the only grape that had gone in a Mannlicher bottle had been a Mannlicher grape from a Mannlicher vine.

But the ultimate confrontation came over irrigation – or rather the lack of it.

The vineyard had never been watered, not even with a sprinkler in summer.

The vines grew from what moisture was in the ground, and the crop was determined by rainfall.

The winemaker felt this was the right way, nature’s way, God’s way even.

Alexander felt this was too old-fashioned. He wanted to bring in pipes, sprayers and water pumps, soak the vines at the crucial times and have fat grapes virtually bursting off every vine at harvest.

The winemaker was adamant that his son didn’t understand the priorities.

Sometimes the best vintages came in the hardest years and from the smallest crops.

grapes were tiny but had intense flavour.

The winemaker had had two gold-medal vintages in his time, the 1987 shiraz and the 2003 merlot, the ones the wine experts always mentioned in their books and articles, and these two beauties had both come in drought years.

So, Alexander’s wishes had all foundered on the rock of his father’s rigid opinion, and in frustration he left the farm, went to Canberra and became a public servant.

The father and son spoke only occasionally nowadays, and met even more rarely.

Thinking about his son was making the winemaker melancholy. He needed to get up and get moving.

It was time, anyway, to do the fi nal sample.

He branded the third cask and climbed the ladder up the side of the fourth to get the tube of wine. As he went up the rungs, he unexpectedly felt dizzy and had to hang onto the cask and steady himself with his strong hands for a few seconds.

Then he was all right again. He put it down to the wine tasting.

He took the fi nal glass out into the daylight as before, dropped the iron back into the brazier.

As he settled in the chair, a strange sensation came over him. He felt the hairs on his neck rise and a shiver ran up from the base of his spine, as if someone had walked on his grave.

The feeling went as quickly as it had arrived.

The winemaker wondered for a moment if this was the heart trouble coming.

The doctors had told him he might have three months or even a few years – it was impossible to predict.

He couldn’t spend every day worrying

When the time came, and if the worst happened, they would fi nd the envelope on the kitchen table. The letter held the will, and the arrangements for the mother, and copies of the wine contracts, and the details of the bank accounts – all the information the son and daughter would need to know.

But the winemaker could not believe it could happen right now – not on this day, sitting in the sun, enjoying the fruits of his labours and knowing he had once again created a truly memorable wine.

The pain that came suddenly in his back felt as hard as if he had been struck with a sledge-hammer.

He was stunned.

This was it, his body was telling him, beyond any doubt.

And he had not yet fi nished the annual ritual.

He struggled out of the chair and it was an effort to do it. His chest was heavy and he could hardly breathe.

He bent over to get the branding iron out of the brazier, and then he began shuffling towards the wine casks.

A stabbing pain went through his left arm and he dropped the wine glass. The precious liquid spilled on the dirt.

But he still held the iron in his right hand, holding it out in front of him like a sword, and he kept moving closer to the fourth wine cask.

The day was going black. No longer able to see, he stumbled forward until he bumped into the cask. He pushed the branding iron into the wood, leaning forward to use the weight of his body behind it.

And the last thing the winemaker would know on this Earth, as he died alone –but yet fulfi lled – was a sharp whiff of burnt oak.

Is it time for an Old Nerds Network

By BOB HOLLAND

THERE were plenty of great one-liners in the popular 2002 movie Apollo 13, but one I particularly liked, and have since implanted into my DNA was this one “Work the problem gentlemen!” That ‘problem’ in the movie was not having enough air to enable the Apollo 13 astronauts to get back to Earth. They did however work the problem and miraculously, using the most unlikely bits and pieces including some simple tubing and duck-tape, did manage to get the crew back safely. It truly was inspiring stuff and showed what can be achieved when we actually take the time to work the problem. How often have we seen and heard how problems are to be solved and thought to ourselves, there must be a better way! First thoughts, or early thoughts, aren’t necessarily the best thoughts, are they?

It’s with that background that I want to raise a problem that many mature aged people struggle with, and then fl helping to deal with it.

The problem is older people having to do business using technology. I think I can hear thousands reading this saying “Hear, hear!”

Personally, I fi nd having to do business with vital organisations like Centrelink, extremely frustrating. I’m in my 70’s, some would say quite smart, and certainly have all my faculties, but every time I have to do something on my phone or computer with Centrelink and other services I can’t do without, I shudder. I can only imagine the level of stress that other people, like my late Mother, who would struggle with even simple tasks, or not have the necessary level of ability to negotiate such technology, it must be terribly traumatic for them. If they’re like me, I wonder how much time is wasted trying to get the various tasks done, or how often, a friend or family member has to come to their rescue, to help them. It really is a problem, and it’s not getting any easier as we get older.

I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate any further on the ‘problem’.

So, what can be done about it, what if we did seriously work the problem?

One thought I had is a volunteer network of retired people right across Australia, who all have good skills with technology. I call it the Old Nerds Network.

Of course, it would take a good deal of time and effort by either the Federal Government or another organisation, perhaps a service club like Rotary or Lions, to take up the challenge and nut out the details, but in principle I see a National telephone service that older people can ring to get help with their computer or technology issues. This help could be provided free over the phone, but the service could also offer someone to come to your home, if appropriate. There could be a number of free services available as well as others where a moderate fee for service applies. It would no doubt be a big operation and involve a lot of people and organisation but given the number of older people across Australia who struggle with technology, any amount of infrastructure and the number of personnel needed would seem justified. I imagine the structure of my Old Nerds Network would operate like Life-

line, the Ambulance Service or the 13 Cure Afterhours Home Visiting Doctor Service, with 13 phone number as the fi rst point of call and then be re-directed to a telephone advisor or to someone who arranges a home visit.

Given the way that doing any sort of business now involves computers or devices, and the hourly costs charged by computer fi rms, it only seems logical that more and more older people will be found stressing over having to negotiate life through technology and genuinely looking for affordable help to cope.

My scenario may not be the answer, but the problem is real, and it is widespread. It would be wonderful if sooner rather than later, we heard that our Federal Government or some other organisation, possibly with Government support and funding, was taking up the issue, working the problem appropriately, and then ultimately came up with a very practical solution.

The saying goes you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, when it comes to the ever-changing world of technology, there’s a lot of truth in that.

“ Old Nerds Network would operate like Lifeline, the Ambulance Service

RIPPA RECIPES!

If you like trying new recipes, here’s a few you might like to try. Each has been a real crowd pleaser when served up to guests over many years. If you have a Rippa Recipe that you’d like to share with our readers, send it to us, along with a comment on why you think it’s so good. Send recipes to: Seniors Happy Life, 5 Kamdell Place, Orange NSW 2800, or email contact@seniorshappylife.com.au

Mild Thai Green Curry

This is just a simple, easy to make recipe for those who enjoy Asian food. Serves 3 – 4 people.

Ingredients:

AYAM Green Curry Paste (1/4 – 1/3 jar)

1 AYAM Coconut Cream (400ml)

1 ½ – 2 Chicken Breast sliced or diced

1 Onion (small sliced)

1 Capsicum or Carrot (thin sliced)

Garlic (2 cloves)

Beans (handful) or frozen peas

Coconut Oil (1 tablespoon)

Fish Sauce (1 tablespoon)

Lime juice (2 tablespoons) fresh is best Natural Honey (1 tablespoon)

Fresh Coriander (optional).

Method:

Deep Pan – always put the oil, onion and garlic in pan first and cook 2 minutes.

Add Green Curry Paste and cook for 1 minute.

Add Chicken, Capsicum, Fish Sauce, Coconut Cream, Honey and Lime. Cook on medium heat until chicken is cooked.

Last add Beans/Peas just before you take off the heat.

Sprinkle with Fresh Coriander. Serve with Rice.

Caramel Pie

This is a delicious Caramel Pie to die for.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of Nice biscuit crumbs

120g butter melted 3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup custard powder

1 cup of cream

1 cup of milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup of Fairy margarine.

Method:

Biscuit Base: Combine biscuit crumbs and butter, then press into base of lightly greased pie dish. (Usually makes more crumbs than you need) Chill.

Filling: Mix well – brown sugar, custard powder, cream milk, vanilla and melted Fairy together.

Microwave for 3 minutes on high then a further 3 minutes on medium high.

Pour over biscuit crumbs. Cover with Glad Wrap. Chill till completely cold. Remove Glad Wrap, top with whipped cream and sprinkle with grated chocolate. (crumbled Flake chocolate works well)

Tasty Mince

This is a very tasty mince that makes a mouth-watering filling for pies or big spuds.

Ingredients:

800 gms high grade mince

1 large onion chopped finely 4 tablespoons of Brown Sugar

1 heaped teaspoon of bottled garlic ¼ teaspoon of dried Oregano, and Paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup liquid beef stock

¼ cup Soy sauce

2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce

1 ½ tablespoons of tomato paste

2 tablespoons Gravox in 1 ¼ cups of water

Grated cheese (small finger food pies only).

Method:

Cook the onions till transparent, then add the beef mince and brown well, breaking mince up until it is fine.

Add the brown sugar and let it caramelise through the mince for a few minutes.

Add Oregano and Paprika, salt and pepper. Add tomato paste, mix in well.

Add Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, then add beef stock.

Boil, then let cook slowly for 10 minutes. Add Gravox mix to mince, bring to boil

then leave to simmer for ½ an hour with lid on. Stir occasionally.

Mince is now ready. You can make a large meat pie or small meat pies. It is also great in a spud, cooked in it’s jacket, broken open, topped with mince, sour cream and grated cheese on top.

Small mince pies

Use ready made shortcrust pastry, cut into circles to fit a jam tarts tray. Spoon in mince then top with some grated cheese, cook in a fan-forced over for 15 – 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

Large meat pie

Cover base of pie dish with shortcrust pastry, then pierce the base of the pastry with a fork about six times. Add some Glad bake paper over the base and put some uncooked rice on top, then place in the oven for 10 minutes at 200 degrees. This is called dry baking. Remove rice and Glad bake paper after 10 minutes baking and add your mince. You can top your pie with mashed potato for a Shepard’s Pie, or puff pastry for a normal pie. Cut a cross section in the middle of the puff pastry, this will allow steam to escape. Brush the top with milk and place back in the oven, reduce heat to 180 degrees and cook for 25 – 30 minutes or until golden brown.

“The 1960s”

THE older we get, the more memories we accumulate – some good, some not so good but on balance, that was life as we lived it and if we were smart, we rejoiced in the good times, learnt from the bad times and tried to gain wisdom from our experiences, especially like not making the same mistakes over and over again. History certainly teaches us things doesn’t it.

This segment in Seniors Happy Life will bring back some of those memories from our past for you to ponder and enjoy, or just to reflect on while you remember where you were and what you were doing during that time. Let’s start by looking back at just some of the things that kept us amused during the 1960s.

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia website describes the 1960s this way –

The 1960s was one of the most tumultuous and divisive decades in world history, including in Australia. It saw the birth of the civil rights movement, greater moves towards equality for women in the workplace and the beginnings of legal recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

A US President visited these shores for the fi rst time and an Australian prime minister disappeared. Humankind walked on the moon and Beatlemania swept the nation. We converted to decimal currency and created a TV show about a kangaroo that was seen around the world.

Television

IT wasn’t just “Skippy” that made television so popular. Television in the 60s saw us glued to our black and white sets watching popular programs like Bandstand with Brian Henderson (before he became a legendary newsreader), Homicide starring Leonard Teale and Co., the hilarious Mavis Brampton Show with Gordon Chater among others, and In Melbourne Tonight with the King at that time Graham Kennedy. Bob and Dolly Dyer hosted the extremely popular Pick a Box and on August 19, 1961, Four Corners premiered on the ABC. One does wonder how the irreverent segments on comedy shows of that era would be received today???

TV Gold Logie winners in the 1960s included Graham Kennedy, Bob Dyer, Brian Henderson and Gordon Chater, along with Tommy Hanlon (It Could be You), Lorrae Desmond (The Lorrae Desmond Show), Bobby Limb (Sound of Music), Jimmy Hannan (Saturday Date).

In 1963, the ABC launched its fi rst regional station.

The phenomenon known as Beatlemania hit Sydney in 1964 with John, Paul George and Ringo causing virtual riots among Beatles fans.

Decimal currency commenced in Australia during February 1966. Goodbye to pennies, tuppence, thrupence, ten bob, a quid,

a fiver, tenner etc., hello ‘centsible’ money in dollars and cents.

US President Lyndon B. Johnson was the fi rst President to visit Australia. His threeday five-city visit to Australia was intended as a show of gratitude to the Australian Nation for its then strong support for the Vietnam War.

1n December 1967 former Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria.

In July 1969, we were captivated as we watched the Apollo 11 moon landing and some still wonder if it was real?

Melbourne Cup winners during the 60s were – Hi Jinx (1960), Lord Fury (1961), Even Stevens (1962), Gatum Gatum (1963), Polo Prince (1964), Light Fingers (1965), Galilee (1966), Red Handed (1967), Red Handed (1968 and 1969). Light Fingers win in 1965 was the fi rst of 12 Melbourne Cup winners to be trained by the legendary horse trainer Bart Cummings, who ultimately became known as the “Cups King”.

The Tasman Bridge under construction in 1962 in Hobart, Tasmania.

PHOTO: ALAMY THAT WAS THEN...

TV legends Graham Kennedy and Bert Newton, two of the biggest stars of Aussie TV in the 1960s. PHOTO: AAP/NINE NETWORK

POPULAR fashions during the 60s, particularly the late 60s, included Ponchos, moccasins, love beads, peace signs, medallion necklaces, chain belts, polka dot-printed fabrics, and long, puffed “bubble” sleeves. Both men and women wore frayed bell-bottomed jeans, tie-dyed shirts, Jesus sandals, and headbands.

7. Save The Last Dance For Me by The Drifters

8. Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport by Rolf Harris 9. What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For by Emile Ford and the Checkmates

10. My Old Man’s A Dustman by Lonnie Donegan

11. North to Alaska by Johnny Horton

12. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool by Connie Francis

13. She’s My Baby by Johnny O’Keefe

14. Swingin’ School by Bobby Rydell

15. Peter Gunn by Duane Eddy

16. Walk Don’t Run by The Ventures

17. Beatnik Fly by Johnny and the Hurricanes 18. I Found A New Love by Lonnie Lee 19. Running Bear by Johnny Preston 20. Little Boy Lost by Johnny Ashcroft 21. Come On And Take My Hand by Johnny O’Keefe 22. Stuck On You by Elvis Presley 23. What In The World’s Come Over You by Jack Scott

24. Please Don’t Tease by Cliff Richard and the Shadows 25. Cathy’s Clown by The Everly Brothers

How we remember the 60s...

matinees at the fl icks with milk shakes at the cafe.

In mid-summer I moved to my aunt’s house at Palm Beach. Her house was on Pittwater and my bedroom was off the front verandah. I could wake up in the morning and 20 yards later I was in the water. Then after breakfast we would all hop into the V8 Customline and go to the surf beach. What was not to like?

This from a lady with a BA in Queensland –I can only speak for myself and say it was great. Jobs were easy to come by, cost of living was low. There was an air of possibilities and Melbourne was a really diverse city with a tolerance toward gay people that I did not experience elsewhere.

A former system specialist said this –Not bad as a teenager here in Sydney (Coogee). The Music was varied, evolving and mostly great. The cost of living was OK and us kids on Sydney’s beaches were totally free to do what we wanted (within reason). Most households bought all the latest tech on time payment with someone coming weekly to get your instalment (door to door salesmen were still in vogue).

Music

THE 1960s saw a shift from the initial boom period for rock and roll music that dominated the 50s. Jazz, pop and folk music all gathered devoted listeners through the 60s while rock and roll continued to evolve with hard rock, rebellious rock and soft rock all part of the mix.

Here is an example of what we were listening to in 1960, this is a list of the most popular 25 singles in Australia that year:

1. It’s Now Or Never by Elvis Presley

2. Boom Boom Baby by Crash Craddock

3. He’ll Have To Go by Jim Reeves

4. Are You Lonesome Tonight by Elvis Presley

5. Clap Your Hands by The Beau Marks

6. Just A Closer Walk With Thee by Jimmy Rodgers

Here’s how a former long haul truck driver candidly described the 60sSixties in Australia had the best Top 40 radio shows and Disc Jockeys like John Laws, Ward Pally Austin, Bob Rogers, plus Bandstand and 6 O’clock Rock on tv. Westerns on TV. Great cars like Mustang, Chev Impala, Lotus Cortina, Morris Cooper S 1275, and great racing cars plus the Tasman International series. In those days you could buy new cars from dealerships owned by famous racing drivers, like Bob Jane. Sixties was a Golden Era that has never been repeated and never will be I’m sure.

This one from a former Air Force AdministratorI grew up in rural New England with sun, tractors, water skis and horses. Saturday

The state government introduced the “Clean Air Act” banning coal fi red open fi replaces and incinerators, which put my dad out of work (my dad had a business delivering coal) but he quickly got a job in a factory, and kids plus adults ceased to die from respiratory diseases caused by the smog in winter.

Australia in those days was really safe. When I was 13yo, I had a job after school, working as a delivery boy for a pharmacy. One of my regular tasks was riding my bicycle from Randwick to the Drugs Houses of Australia dispensary at Maroubra Junction to pick up the DDs (Dangerous Drugs, eg: LSD, morphine etc.) for delivery to a private hospital in Clovelly. These days they send an armoured car with armed guards.

The most popular car in Australia throughout the 1960s was the EH Holden.

PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

— Mae West

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” — Babe Ruth “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as you can.”

— Hillary Clinton (inspired by John Wesley quote)

“Don’t settle for what life gives you; make life better and build something.”

“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.”

— George Clooney

“Life imposes

— Ashton Kutcher

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”

— Helen Keller

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” —

“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or the life of another.” —

“The healthiest response to life is joy.”

— Deepak Chopra

“Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.”

— Lillian Dickson

“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless, unencumbered acts of kindness and of love.”

— Wordsworth

“Life is ten per cent what happens to you and ninety per cent how you respond to it.”

Charles Swindoll

“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe

“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best Buddha

“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon

Benjamin Franklin

Kevin Kruse

Garden

By DULCIE MCLEAN

It seems satisfying to my soul

When into my garden I leisurely stroll, To see the progress that has been made Since last I was there, digging with spade. I was weeding then, getting all in trim.

Working so hard ‘til the light grew dim, Trimming the bushes and mowing the lawn, My body aching, tired and worn.

I wondered then, “Why do I do it?”

Surely it is easier just to sit Book in hand and pleasantly reading?

Where am I at? Where is it leading?”

And here is the answer that I found -

I need to have beauty all around.

In need to see colour, sweeping drape

Of a willowy branch or a rocky shape. I need a green lawn to romp on and play

With children or dog on bright, sunny day. I need to pick flowers and arrange where I may Drink in their beauty all through the day. To see that small bud, now in full bloom, To pause and to sniff its gentle perfume. My garden is worth all the effort and test. My soul is replete, relaxed and at rest.

ing all the maps in the world.

When fate shuts the door, come in through a window.

No failure is ever fi nal – nor is any success.

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have time to worry about failure.

Dreams come true for those who work while they dream.

No one is guaranteed happiness. Life just gives us time and space. It’s up to us to fi ll it with joy and meaning.

Do for others with no desire of returned favours. We all should

we become.

To change everything, simple change your attitude.

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

Carrying a grudge is like a run in a stocking – it can only get worse. Forgiveness is the answer.

When you remember how hard it is to change yourself, you begin to understand what little chance we have of changing others.

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers, why not

gather your own bouquet.

A friend is a person who knows all about you but likes you anyway.

Friends are like a beautiful garden. They require regular care.

The people on our planet are not standing in a line single fi le.

Look closely. Everyone is really standing in a circle, holding hands.

Whatever you give to the person standing next to you, it eventually comes back to you.

Today, give to a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine they see all day.

Mae West

George Clooney

Celine Dion

Helen Keller

For those who love trivia in all its forms, we found these 10 weird words which you’re sure to remember and use very soon.

Biblioklept: One who steals books

Acnestis: “The part of the back (or backbone) between the shoulder blades and the loins which an animal cannot reach to scratch” (Oxford English Dictionary)

Meldrop: “A drop of mu-

cus at the nose, whether produced by cold or otherwise” (English Dialect Dictionary)

Octothorpe: The symbol # Nauseant: An agent that induces nausea

Obelus: The symbol ÷

Amatorculist: “A little insignificant lover; a pretender to affection” (Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755)

Peristeronic: Of or relating to pigeons

Pot-valor: Boldness or courage resulting from alcoholic drink

Agelast: A person who never laughs

Funny Dunny Business

Soft as your heart Earth first Earth friendly products Earth wipe Eco soft

Essential recycled toilet paper

A new world is rising. Let’s discover it

First you love...then you live Connect with the safety Perfect tissue for perfect home

Urban living, urban tissue Experience the comfort little more

Thumbs up/ Thumbs down

OUR Thumbs Up section is for readers to acknowledge those who do good deeds or provide great examples or service to others. It’s also a means for readers to encourage others in positive ways and to bring out the best in people.

Our Thumbs down section is for readers to encourage others to correct bad habits, bad practices or bad attitudes but only in a general sense. Because there is always two sides to any story, names will not be mentioned in any Thumbs down contributions.

The spirit of our Thumbs section is that we use it to help us keep joy in our lives, while all becoming better and happier people.

Send your Thumbs to: contact@happyseniorslife.com.au

Thumbs up to drivers who blink off on roundabouts, it helps keep our roads safer.

Thumbs up to the person who found my shopping bag that I lost on the way home. As I was walking home from the shops the next day, I found my shopping bag hanging on the Velodrome door with all it’s contents still inside. Thank you!

Thumbs up to the lovely man who left $50 with the lady on the main check-out at Coles to pay towards the groceries I bought that day...I was even given the change. This was so unexpected but so wonderful to receive, and it makes me teary thinking about your generosity every time I think about it.

It’s amazing what lengths companies will go to in an effort to get us to buy their products. Here’s a collection of slogans that toilet paper manufacturers have used over the years, some of them are pretty basic while others are quite clever, even humorous, Enjoy!

Feel the softness

Add value to your washroom

Increase your hygiene care

Make a smart choice

Representing your house

Choose the best products for yourself

Select only high-quality products

Made according to your comfort

Super soft quality

The comfortable lifestyle

Be smart be fast

Experience the softness a little more

Make the right decision

Your new partner

The organic tissue for you

The secret of a comfortable life

Choose the softest lifestyle

Cheaper in price, not in quality

Feel the difference in daily

life

Made for your soft skin

Feel the real softness Best product, best price

Take it, love it

All about comfortability Made for your ease Feel beyond imagination Comfort with hygiene Making your life more comfortable Soft like never before Take care of your body Choose the best product for your room

Matching your lifestyle Get ready for more hygiene Little things in best quality

Get ready for more quantity

Perfect tissue for perfect people

Because you deserve the real softness

The ideal tissue for your house

The key to hygiene

Taking care of your soft skin

Soft paper, soft skin

Make a soft choice

The path to a hygienic lifestyle

Give your skin the softest feel

Safe for your baby

Say hi to Good Hygiene

The ideal tissue for your hygiene

A softest lifestyle so desirable

An artistic paper for every day Represent your home Ways of our comfortness Discover the joys of Supersoft

Intimate with the hygiene Discover the difference of quality

Feel beyond expectation

Your piece of safety Home is your heart Safe your space

Better to buy

The right decision for your family

Respect your living

See life from a different perspective

Extend your hygiene

Come home the safety A different attitude to daily life

Get ready for more

A piece of heaven

Decide where you belong Choose your own things Feel you today

Fresh, clean, best Best to buy for your toilet

We settle your sanity Feel good everyday Making your life more hygiene

Thumbs up to the two paramedics who attended me recently. Without their professional care, I would not be here. They saved my life.

Thumbs up to the honest-to-a-fault Coles shopper, who recently returned to the store to re-imburse them for the shopping bag that he had forgotten to pay for with his groceries. When I say “shopping bag,” I mean an empty 15 cents recyclable bag, not one that contained any items. That’s honesty!

Thumbs up to the two lovely ladies who stopped and helped my Mum after she had a fall in the street recently. It is so lovely to know that there are still amazing and caring people in our community.

Thumbs down to those uncaring drivers who park in disabled parking spaces, who are not eligible.

Thumbs up to the lady in front of me at the supermarket checkout recently. Jokingly I said to her “You can pay for mine too if you like” We laughed it off but as the lady’s items had fi nished being scanned, the operator moved the divider and started scanning my groceries with hers. The lady had instructed the checkout operator to do so, so she could pay up to $20 or thereabouts of mine. I told her she didn’t have to do that, and her response was “That’s OK...that’s my good deed for the day.” Thank you, lovely lady, it was much appreciated.

Thumbs down to those people who speak very loudly and use profanity when simply having a conversation in populated areas. Please be more considerate of others, especially those with young children.

A “Biblioklept” is someone who steals books

SPECTACULAR PHOTOGRAPHS

SENIORS HAPPY LIFE is privileged to have award-winning photographer Alf Manciagli among our friends and supporters. Alf is all but retired now, but his photography work has not only taken him all around the world, in 2019 he was also honoured with an OAM for Services to Photography.

Alf’s work speaks for itself and we are delighted to be able to bring you some of his spectacular photographs in this our Pilot issue. In future issues of Seniors HappyLife, we’ll feature more of Alf’s spectacular photographs and also tell you more about him in one of our upcoming ‘A Life Well Lived’ segments.

▲ Buddhist

This Temple was built in the early 12th century, originally as a Hindu temple, and spread over 400 acres making it the largest in the World. It is one of biggest attractions in the Cambodia.

▲

The Duomo in Venice’s St Mark square. This was the residence of il Doge and from here he ruled over all the Mediterranean for 1000 years when Venice was a Republic. ➦

A Tourist boat navigates the spectacular Milford Sound in the southern Island of New Zealand, taking in the incredible sights including birds, seals and water falls.

Monks relaxing outside Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia.

Beautiful Earnslaw Park during Autumn in Queenstown New Zealand.

Children in Sapa, North Vietnam. Like children all over the World, just having fun, and despite being poor they are very happy and polite.

Clockwise from top left:

This is a Temple altar in Vietnam where people pray every day. Visitors are also welcome.

This reflection photograph features one of the canals in Venice Italy. The city is built on more than 100 small islands in shallow lagoons and there are more than 400 bridges linking the canals.

A group of young village children doing the work of adults in North Vietnam. Not an uncommon sight.

Varanasi Chats on the banks of the Ganges River, where people come to cremate their relatives. This City is one of the most sacred In India.

▲ Clementine Museum in the Vatican, built in 1505 by Donato Bramante.

It’s the most famous double Helix staircase in the World.

■ A Vietnamese lady making a garment to sell in the open markets in Sapa, North Vietnam.

...in bigger print so they’re easy on the eyes

For a bit more time-consuming fun, here’s another fun challenge for you.

Somewhere in the pages of this issue of Seniors Happy Life we’ve hidden a picture of a sewing needle, do you think you can spot it? It’s just for fun at this stage, so there are no prizes if you do find it, just the wonderful feeling that comes with success. Our Find the Needle challenge could also provide a little entertainment for when you have friends around.

The needle you’re looking for looks like this: and it could be anywhere, and in either a vertical or horizontal position. We’ve been pretty sneaky hiding it so it shouldn’t be easy to find. Happy hunting!

Introducing...

BUSHY TALES is an Australian comic strip by award winning cartoonist Ian Jones.

The strip features Doug the Wombat and his iconic, bushy-tailed friends from the Aussie bush.

It is a beautifully crafted strip with great art, adorable characters, good humour, educational potential, environmental sensitivity and much warmth and whimsy.

BUSHY TALES combines loveable and iconic characters with beautiful artwork and great warmth and humour!

We hope you enjoy it!

By KEITH RAWSTHORNE

ICAME home today, after a business trip interstate, to fi nd things on the domestic front in a real mess.

Unknown to me, my dear wife had contracted a serious wog and taken to her bed; she had been off colour for a couple of days, and the house showed it. Worse still we were expecting visitors at the weekend. The mother-in-law from Hell.

She reckoned she’d be right by then, but could I get her a cuppa, and tidy up the house a bit.

Well, of course, forget about the need for a long relaxing sit down, with the boots off and a cool refreshing beer in the hand.

What’s a bit of housework; just where to start was a major consideration, and where was everything. The sink looked a good place to start – just pack it all into the dishwasher – Bob’s your uncle. But the thing was already full, so unpack it. No good, the thing was packed full but hadn’t been switched on, and no soap. After turning out the pantry, I fi nd the soap in the cupboard under the sink, press all the right buttons and she’s away — but the sink is still full of things needing to be washed. No problem, the floors look in need of

attention, fluff on the carpet and smears on the tiles, so I fi nd the Hoover (actually, it’s a Meile) and go to work. It’s hard work, but I persevere and must admit it does improve the look of things, specially as I go to the extra effort of moving furniture round in quest of the perfect result. Fluff has left hair on the lounge, so back to the vacuum cleaner with the special tool, and some Duck for the toilets.

Then into the laundry for the steam mop to clean the tiles, but as I open the cupboard, I notice a bundle of washing that is crying

Find 6 Differences: Building on horizon to the right of the Opera House missing. Next building to the right on horizon now has a twin.

Name of ferry has changed. Part of bridge missing on far left side. Smaller boat to the right of ferry gone. Pilon at the end of the Harbour bridge has an extra spire on top.

Find the Words solution 908: A vast land.

Mean Mini 233: Ante, emit, Thor, roam, mete.

Tripletts 002: Consider, insignia, forensic, utensils.

Find the Needle: Page 38, right hand side, approx twothirds of the way down the

page, on the line between two of the cartoons.

Tiny Cross 0001-E5 Across: 1 Came, 5 Used, 6 Ring, 7 Ease. Down: 1 Cure, 2 Asia, 3 Men’s, 4 Edge.

30-second Challenge 307 Beginner 19, Intermediate 40, Advanced 28.

out for attention – easy peasy, into the machine, add Omo and press the button, now back to the mop. There is a big area of tiles in our house, so I put in the extra effort to get them really glowing, again shifting the dining room furniture and ornaments.

Time is moving on and the washing is ready to hang out, and when that’s done the dishwasher was also ready, so I unpack it, and pack everything away to where I think things should be, and then put the dirty items from the sink into the washer and set it going again.

My back is really aching, but that must be from my week’s hard work. A bit of housework wouldn’t hurt me in my gymnastic fitness.

I feel I’m getting on top of all this housework when I notice some house dust on the coffee table, so it’s fi nd the dusting rag and go to work – all over the place.

Finally, with a huge sigh, I feel the job is done; all done and dusted.

Now is the time to make and take another cuppa to my ailing wife, who is most grateful and says to not go to any trouble over the cleaning up as she has arranged for the Quick Clean team to come at eight tomorrow morning to do a thorough clean of the house before the guests arrive.

Time for a few old-fashioned laughs

No offence to blondes

‘A blonde and a redhead have a ranch. They have just lost their bull. The women need to buy another, but only have $500. The redhead tells the blonde, “I will go to the market and see if I can find one for under that amount. If I can, I will send you a telegram.” She goes to the market and finds one for $499. Having only one dollar left, she goes to the telegraph office and finds out that it costs one dollar per word. She is stumped on how to tell the blonde to bring the truck and trailer. Finally, she tells the telegraph operator to send the word “comfortable.”

Sceptical, the operator asks, “How will she know to come with the trailer from just that word?” The redhead replies, “She’s a blonde so she reads slow: ‘Come for ta bull.’”

Clever kid

In a Catholic school cafeteria, a nun places a note in front of a pile of apples, “Only take one. God is watching.” Further down the line is a pile of cookies. A little boy makes his own note, “Take all you want. God is watching the apples.”

Jesus is watching

Late one night a burglar broke into a house and while he was sneaking around he heard a voice say, “Jesus is watching you.” He looked around and saw nothing. He kept on creeping and again heard, “Jesus is watching you.” In a dark corner, he saw a cage with a parrot inside. The burglar asked the parrot, “Was it you who said Jesus is watching me” The parrot replied, “Yes.” Relieved, the burglar asked, “What is your name?” The parrot said, “Clarence.” The burglar said, “That’s a stupid name for a parrot. What idiot named you Clarence?” The parrot answered, “The same idiot that named the rottweiler Jesus.”

How embarrassing!

During lunch at work, I ate 3 plates of beans (which I know I shouldn’t).

When I got home, my husband seemed excited to see me and exclaimed delightedly, “Darling I have a surprise for dinner tonight.” He then blindfolded me and led me to my chair at the dinner table. I took a seat and just as he was about to remove my blindfold, the telephone rang. He made me promise

not to touch the blindfold until he returned and went to answer the call. The beans I had consumed were still affecting me and the pressure was becoming unbearable, so while my husband was out of the room I seized the opportunity, shifted my weight to one leg and let one go. It was not only loud, but it smelled like a fertilizer truck running over a skunk in front of a garbage dump! I took my napkin from my lap and fanned the air around me vigorously. Then, shifting to the other leg, I ripped off three more.

The stink was worse than cooked cabbage. Keeping my ears carefully tuned to the conversation in the other room, I went on releasing atomic bombs like this for another few minutes. The pleasure was indescribable! Eventually the telephone farewells signalled the end of my freedom, so I quickly fanned the air a few more times with my napkin, placed it on my lap and fold-

ed my hands back on it feeling very relieved and pleased with myself. My face must have been the picture of innocence when my husband returned, apologizing for taking so long. He asked me if I had peaked through the blindfold, and I assured him I had not. At this point, he removed the blindfold, and twelve dinner guests seated around the table, with their hands to their noses, chorused, “Happy Birthday!”

Short quips

• What do kids play when their mum is using the phone? Bored games.

• What do you call an ant who fights crime? A vigilANTe!

• Why are snails slow? Because they’re carrying a house on their back.

• What does a cloud wear under his raincoat? Thunderwear.

storm cloud