 
SHORT STORIES

Published by Les Shipp in 2015 on Smashwords. Copyright © held by Les Shipp. Publishing and printing rights held by Les Shipp. The author takes no responsibility for how the reader might apply the ideas contained in this book.

It remains the copyright property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoy this book please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy.

Acknowledgements.

Many thanks to my mentor Pat Ritter for his help and encouragement in putting these stories together. I would also like to thank my friend Noela Flack for all the time she spent correcting my many mistakes and to my wife Alice who has been most patient during the hours I have spent writing.

The strange titles in some of the stories came about from the Pomona writers group where we were given a title and had to come up with a story, so come and havachat and see what we can make of these tales, some written on a fact basis but mostly fiction.

Thanks to my wife Alice Shipp for the use of her painting to copy for my book cover.

WHO WAS PAUL BURSER.

Paul Burser had worked in a government department for ten years. He had started off as an office boy when he was twenty years of age. He loved his job and put a lot of effort into becoming a top accountant. So it was a bitter disappointment to him when he was told his services were no longer required. It seemed to him that he had been coming to work and sitting at his desk forever. Now he would be finishing up at the end of the month.

How could he tell his wife Mavis when he got home? They had been going through a rough patch anyway and this was not going to be good news. He stopped off at the pub on the way home to give himself a boost for what was to come. He stayed at the pub longer than he intended and by the time he reached home he had the wobbly boot on.

Mavis had been waiting all day for him to come home so she could tell him her good news. She had been promoted at work and her new job required her to relocate to another state. She was not impressed when he staggered through the front door announcing that he would soon be unemployed and laughing hysterically about it. That was the last straw for Mavis who told him he was now on his own. She packed her bags and left to stay with her mother while she was waiting for her transfer to Melbourne.

Paul was in a right mess and didn't know what to do next. He knew by her unreasonable attitude that she wouldn't be coming back. He didn't go to work the next day, instead he spent the day at the pub trying to console himself and this behaviour went on for the rest of the week. One evening as he drunkenly peered into his beer looking for an answer, an old school mate named Jake came in. Noticing what a bad way Paul was in and having been through a divorce himself, he said to Paul," You've got to pull yourself together mate". Paul wasn't easily consoled and he felt he had worked all his life as an accountant in an office and now in his present state he was unemployable. This was true as far as Jake could see but there were other alternatives. After Jake's divorce he had left his city job behind and had gone out west working as a fencing contractor. Since the change he had always had work and could do with an extra hand.

Paul was too far gone to care and was still in a drunken daze when Jake loaded him and his gear up into his utility and headed off into the wide open spaces. When Paul woke up the next morning, bleary eyed all he could see was open space. Never having been out of the city before it was a shock to his system. He had no other option but to stick with the help Jake had offered him.After some months he discovered he really liked working outdoors and with the heavy physical work he had changed from an anaemic looking office worker to a strapping healthy man. He liked the change in himself and decided this was going to be his life from now on.

The pair of them worked well together and always had lots of work coming their way. The next contract they had was on a property owned by an attractive young widow named Amanda. Paul liked the look of her and jumped at the chance when she told him she was having difficulties with her books. He offered to call in after work to help her sort them out. Even after the books were in good order he would he would call into the homestead for a coffee and a chat. When their contract was finished on the property, Paul was loath to move on and was over the moon when Amanda asked him if he would like to stay on and manage the property for her. When he told Jake about staying on, Jake said, "Good on you mate but what about Mavis", Paul replied, "Mavis who"?

SUPPOSITORY OF KNOWLEDGE.

I am aware of where my suppository of knowledge didn't come from and that was from attending school. Right from day one, aged six years when I enrolled myself in school I was told what a stupid child I was because I didn't know what my mother's maiden name was. To me it had always been Mum. From that day on my relationship with school and in particular the teachers never improved and although my body was forced to attend for a few years my mind never did. It was a relief for me when we moved to an extremely remote and isolated farm in the Blue Mountains and school was right off the agenda.

I always accepted the fact that I was not very bright until my early forties. I was accepted on an experimental basis, because of my extreme lack of formal education, into a graduate diploma course at Hawkesbury College. One of the requirements for entering the course was you had to have a degree. I was told when I signed up there would be very little chance of graduating and to treat it as an exercise. I had some very good friends also doing the course and with their encouragement I put my heart into it, studying and writing well into the night.

It was an external course with a fortnight residential here and there at the college and several weekends, plus attending a study group once a week in my home town. The course unlocked knowledge that I never knew I had, and I can't tell you how proud I was as I marched up to receive my diploma. I was told my final submission was amongst the best. The college gave me a boost to my aspirations of doing a social science degree at the University of New England and recommended that I be given two units head start for my work completed at the college.

This gave me heart that perhaps I wasn't as stupid as I always thought I was and this led me to wonder where this knowledge came from. It certainly didn't come from the same place Abbott said Rudd kept his. Looking back over the years I realise that although my formal education was dismal, I had gained in other ways. Even as a small child I had always been curious and a prodigious reader. Reading everything that came my way. I loved to read and through the years I must have stored up a lot of knowledge I didn't know I had. It just took the pressure of the diploma to let it all out.

I have never at any stage thought of myself as clever and never will but knowing that I am not stupid either gives me confidence to know if I set my mind to something, it might take me awhile to get there, but mostly I will succeed.

I would have read thousands of books over the years and thank them for making me think. My love of reading also helped me with my studies as it was always a pleasure to read and research the subjects. Mathematics was always my weak point and when I was faced with enquiring into social science with a make or break exam coming up I nearly freaked out as I thought it was beyond my capabilities. The Professor luckily had faith in me and pushed hard until light bulbs started to come on and I worked really hard to understand it all. I only just passed the exam but 60% of the students either failed or dropped out. Looking back I don't know how I did it and if asked to do it now it would be a complete mystery to me.I still have a suppository of knowledge floating around in my head and surprisingly now and then it will come to the surface. The moments of being on the surface is getting less and less but never mind, it's there and it has given me a very rich life.

THE LIGHT WAS FADING IN PARADISE.

Joe was the CEO of a large manufacturing company in London. On his way up the corporate ladder his job had taken him all around the world. He and his partner had an upmarket unit in London and these days his job kept him full time in the city. He thought his life was good with an attractive intelligent partner, a great unit close to Central Park and the company he worked for supplied him with a luxury car.

To keep up with the pace of his position he found himself working longer and harder, with very little time left over to be with his partner or anybody else for that matter. He was so engrossed in his work he didn't notice that his personal life was falling apart. Coming home one evening he found a note his partner had left for him. She had had enough and decided she would move on and find a better life with someone who at least knew she was there. It was over between them and Joe was devastated, he had been too busy to see this coming. Feeling shattered he needed some changes in his life so he applied for a position with his company that had an office in Sydney Australia. The company didn't want to lose him so a month later he was off to Sydney.

When he started his new position in Sydney he thought everything would turn out ok but it turned out to be much the same. He had just swapped cities. He did his best to make it work but the nightmare of what happened in London kept coming back. He found it even harder to have a personal life after the shock rejection he experienced in London. He stuck it out for some time but in the end he knew it couldn't go on. He was in his forties and much too young to retire so he arranged to have time off while he recuperated. He had visited northern Queensland some time before and thought it would be a good place to find peace.

He found a farm on a small island just off the mainland. It was ideal for him as it had a cottage and everything he needed for a quiet life in it. He fell in love with the place as soon as he arrived there and felt it was his piece of paradise. He was the only inhabitant on the island so wasn't going to be bothered with neighbours. He bought a motor boat to travel to the mainland for supplies and a canoe that he planned to paddle around the island in.

There was a mountain on the island that he loved to climb and look out on the beautiful scenery at sunset. He had his music with him that he enjoyed as he sat around a campfire at night with a glass of wine. The paddling kept him very fit and he had taken up painting which he found he not only enjoyed but was very good at. What a life he had, not missing his highflying life one bit. This was going to be it for him, he didn't need anything or anyone to make his life more complete.

After many happy years on the island he found he was becoming tired very quickly and was subject to bad headaches. Sometime later he thought he had better have a check-up with the doctor on the mainland. Not good news the doctor said after many tests. "You have an inoperable brain tumour. " Joe asked what the prognoses was. The doctor advised he would have to leave the island and be close to care as he didn't have long before he went blind and wouldn't be able to look after himself for the few months he had left.

Joe went back to his island and thought what the rest of his life would be like. After a sumptuous seafood meal and a couple of glasses of his best wine he launched his canoe. As the light faded on his paradise, he quietly paddled out into the moonlight night. His canoe washed up on a beach some days later.

WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN.

Bill had inherited a vast cattle property in the Northern Territory from his father. Up until his father's death he had worked beside him, and knew what was ahead. During his school days he had attended a boy's boarding school in Adelaide so he knew there was another life outside the property but he loved Bonny Downs as much as his father had. There were many ups and downs on the land and when things were getting very tough his father always said, " Don't worry son, the wheel will turn for the better, all you've got to do is wait till your boat comes in." In his twenties Bill never forgot his father's saying after he was killed in a horse accident. Alone on Bonny Downs, Bill had many moments of shear loneliness. He only had the company of itinerate stockmen who came to work for him but they never stayed long because of the isolation. The nearest neighbour was two hundred miles away so he only met up with them if there was a race meeting at Birdsville. That was a journey and a half for him to get there.

His mother had left when he was only eight years old so he didn't have a female figure to guide him. His only memory of his mother was of a beautiful lady with a soft caring voice. His father had explained to him when he grew older that the isolation and loneliness had driven her away.

After many hard years of drought, the weather took a turn for the better and Bill enjoyed several productive years that brought him in enough capital to buy and learn to fly his own small plane. This changed his life completely. He was no longer so isolated and he could pop over to Birdsville and down to Alice Springs, no bother at all. Most of the surrounding properties had airstrips on them so he was able to drop in on neighbours, who always made him welcome, as was the way of the outback people. Not only was he able to visit people but he was also able to run his property more efficiently.

Now in his thirties he found he was still lonely in spite of his new found wings. He thought he should do something about providing Bonny Downs with the next generation. He thought the best way to meet a suitable lady was to go on an overseas tour, that's what everyone else did. He had a wonderful tour and enjoyed every minute of it. He was a good looking young man and had no trouble attracting the ladies, some of which became a little serious. He was a practical man and when he weighed up the possibilities he couldn't see any of the ladies in their six inch heels and tight skirts enjoying life with him back home. He put the whole exercise down to a great holiday and that was all it was. Back home, life for Bill went on as usual and he had put the idea of a Mrs Bill on hold for now. One of his neighbours had a governess to tutor their children and Bill had met her briefly a few times but hadn't really spoken to her as her job was away with the children. Sally, the governess was at the end of her employment as the children were off to boarding school soon. The neighbours were very fond of Sally and were sorry to see her go so they planned a big party in her honour and Bill was one of the guests.

When he arrived at the party, Sally was dressed in her best and looked a picture. Bill wondered why he hadn't noticed her before. He found he was really able to talk with her and they hit it off so well Bill decided here was the girl for him, under his nose all the time. He knew if he didn't want to lose her he would have to get a move on. Sally wasn't due to leave for a couple of weeks and Bill was a visitor for most of the time. He eventually plucked up enough courage to invite her to fly with him over to Bonny Downs. She was enthralled with the property, so much so Bill took the bit between his teeth and there and then asked her to marry him.

As they flew off on their honeymoon two weeks later, Bill thought to himself, now I know what it's like to have your boat come in.

NEW OLOGY.

There are lots of ology's, take your pick. There's anthropologies, palaeontology, biology and many more. To come up with a new one the world is your oyster. It covers almost anything you can think of, that's if my google is correct.

The new one I am inventing for myself is walk ology. A study of why, how and when people walk. Do they do it for something to do because it is expected of them, or just being alive, our bodies force it upon us and we walk involuntary, not thinking about what we are doing? Not unlike breathing.

Toddlers seem to have an obsession about walking and they go to no end of trouble to accomplish this feat. Parents are in awe as they watch this small person struggle to become upright and put one foot in front of the other. Then the parents start to worry about how they are going to keep track on the now walking child. It was reasonably safe before it was up and going and now there is no end of trouble they can get into.

Soon it becomes an advantage that the child can now walk by themselves, and don't have to be carried everywhere. You can now take them hiking over hills and bush tracks. Hiking goes along with walking, it just takes a little more effort.

If the exercise of walking goes well and they enjoy it, then it becomes more important in their lives and they do more and more of it. When you are young, walking becomes a compulsion for many and they tend to set off on long walking treks that really test their stamina. It is interesting how quickly their young bodies recover from these arduous long walks with just the help of a short rest.

Of course walking is an important aspect of getting from a to b in a spot you can't drive to. We are told that walking is very important to our health when we start to age, which is strange because you would think the legs could do with a rest after carrying you around for so long.

If we abuse the instruments we use for walking then we could be in trouble and they won't work so well in the future. Sports people are inclined to put their walking apparatus through extraordinary feats they weren't really designed to do. Dancers to often take walking to extraordinary lengths and pay the price later on.

Most people who have lost their ability to walk would give anything to be up and going again. Walk ology becomes an important subject in old age and we have come up with many inventions to keep us on the move as well as medications. Some battle with walking frames while others manage with a walking stick. I'm sure most would like to throw these objects to hell and get on with the job of walking.

So I'm very pleased with my new ology called walk ology and plan to study it to the end.

GRETNA GREEN.

Lord Fitzgibbon of Fitzgibbon Manor was a wealthy aristocrat with large estates and shares in lucrative mines and cotton mills. He was master of all he surveyed and his opinion was the only one that counted.

He only had one child, a complete disappointment as she was a girl and he wanted a son to carry on the name. His daughter, Bethany aged sixteen, neither liked or disliked her father. He was always remote from her, ignoring her most of the time. She was a beautiful girl and he thought the only way to redeem the sad situation was to marry her off to a substantial man he could mould to his ways.

Bethany had already made her debut out into society and had been introduced to countless suitors of her father's choosing. Few of them were young men, many of them more her father's age. She decided she would rather die than be shackled to any of the suitors that had been presented. She was a romantic girl and believed that when she married it would be to a dashing young man who would sweep her off her feet. That's what made it so right when she met Jeremey Woldercot when he was delivering stores to the Manor from his father's grocery store. Jeremey was twenty-one years old, six foot tall, curly black hair, athletic build and smouldering dark eyes. It was love at first sight for Bethany and with her feminine wiles, conspired to get his attention.

She really didn't need to try as Jeremey was smitten with her the first time he saw her. He didn't think he had a chance with this aristocratic young lady but nature being what it is he had to try. It was difficult for both of them. If Bethany's father had any idea of his daughters thoughts she would have been sent up to London to stay with his spinster sister. Jeremey decided to throw caution to the wind and make this beautiful girl his. He knew it wasn't going to be easy as their time together was very limited and Lord Fitzgibbon would never even vaguely consider him wooing his daughter. As their love grew they knew they would have to be very careful. They found the only way they could be together was for Bethany to go for a stroll in the garden in the evening. This cemented their love but put them in greater danger. Jeremey discussed his dilemma with his father but his advice was, "Forget it son, it's not going to happen, look for someone from your own class."

It came to a head when Lord Fitzgibbon got wind of the romance and informed Bethany that within the next two months she would marry Lord Bartholomew's forty year old son. They knew they would have to do something quickly. Bethany trusted her maid who had been her nanny when she was a child and she was also a romantic and agreed to help her escape. With Nanny as chaperone they were allowed to leave the Manor.

Jeremey was waiting for them with a carriage and they set off in hast for Gretna Green. When Lord Fitzgibbon discovered the dastardly deed was afoot he was enraged and threatened to kill the young scoundrel when he caught up with him. He set off in hot pursuit immediately but the young lovers had too good a start and reached their destination. Not very romantic but they didn't care, they were married in the blacksmiths shop by one of the anvil priests. Bethany's nanny was one of the witnesses. It was in 1754 and England had just passed a law forbidding a couple under twenty-one to marry without their parents' consent but in Scotland this law didn't apply and virtually anyone could be a celebrant.

Jeremey knew his new wife would be a widow if they didn't escape, so the three of them hired a boat to take them to the main harbour at the mouth of the Esk River. It was a great relief when they were able to procure a passage on a sailing ship for the three of them leaving almost straight away for France.

NEW AGENDA.

It's a good thing that a new agenda 21 is being thought of because the old one died before it was born. The 21 refers to the 21st century but the rest of the idea has faded into oblivion. Some Americans believe it to be a document on sustainable development cited by U N C E D held in Reo de Janeiro in 1992 and again in Johannesburg in 2002.

There never will be a centralised control over the world in this century and perhaps not ever. It would indeed be great if there was a centralised control over climate change but imagine the Asians falling into line with that one. They are all laughing their heads off as countries like Australia bend over backwards to have climate control, sending companies broke with heavy taxes to force them to produce less pollution.

The Asians say well done as they go full steam ahead with their industrial plans now they have wider markets. What does it matter if some of their people die of smog related illnesses, there are plenty more to take their place. The big chiefs are ok, they can buy up all the land they want in the clear air of Australia. The Australians are too dumb to see the big picture so the Asians must make hay while the sun shines and entrench themselves in clean air before they get caught out.

Agenda 21 is for the world to be governed by one government. Not so say some investigators looking into this matter. They came up with a scenario of how America would end up. They say a generation ago there was a place called America, and now after a worldwide implication of a U N led programme called agender 21 it is now simply known as the republic. There is no president, no congress, no supreme court and no freedom. There is only the authority. The authorities are governed by the world government.

What a frightening thought and at this stage I stopped researching the matter and thought back to what my agenda was.

I lived in an ideal time in the scheme of things. If there was pollution we never saw it and for the climate change, some summers were unbearably hot and others were not so bad. Remembering that most people didn't have air conditioning. One winter we would be unbelievably cold and the next one not. We had many droughts but knew they would eventually pass, the same with floods, it was just a cycle of life.

Like Dorothea McKella wrote= "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rain". It was how it was for me, nothing much has changed except in industrial countries, the smog has thickened up considerably and they have no intentions of doing anything about it.

If agenda 21 does rear its ugly head, it will take a while to get going. I will feel sad for the ones having to deal with it, but for myself I should be long gone.

THE CHORTLING CARDSHARP FROM SMOG MOTEL.

Billy grew up in a motel run by his mother in a seedy smoggy part of town. He often worked on the desk while his mother was busy elsewhere. He was able to make lots of contacts this way as often as not they only hired the room for an hour or two at a time.

His main activity was joining in a card game in a pool hall down by the docks. Because it was an industrial area with lots of smoke coming from the factories and fog drifting in from the river there was always a heavy smog presence about. Billy was well known at the pool hall for his card playing skills, that's how he made his living. The locals knew not to go up against him.

Further up the river was another pool hall that ran card games and their main man there was Jake. He had a great opinion of himself and he had seen Billy play. His opinion of himself was so high he reckoned he could do Billy like a dog's dinner.

He threw out a challenge to Billy and his mates and a game was set up in Billy's pool hall. Many seedy characters turned up to watch the game and a few of the gamer ones sat in to try their luck. As the also rans lost their money and dropped out, it only left Billy and Jake, neither prepared to give way.

Billy felt he knew Jake's game well enough to be confident of beating him so he used his usual tactics of letting Jake win to give him confidence to bet big. Billy was right, Jake upped the stakes to his limit. With the last massive bet Jake laid out his winning hand with a flourish, with a take that look on his face. Billy however had a hand that just beat Jake's, and with a chortle he laid his hand down.

This enraged Jake, it was more the chortle than being beaten that did it and he went for Billy intending to give him a thrashing and get his money back. Billy hadn't been brought up in this rat infested, smog laden area without learning how to defend himself. As Jake was all over him he drew his knife and stabbed him. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Billy knew this wasn't going to look good to the cops and Jake had a lot of seedy mates who were bound to want revenge for his death. Billy's grandfather had once told him that discretion is the best part of valour so he slipped quickly and quietly out of the pool hall and into the smog filled night with his wad of cash.

He went quickly back to the motel to collect some gear, like his passport and his mother could hear him chortling away to himself as he disappeared into the smog filled night never to be seen again.

RUNAWAY LOVERS.

Mavis and John were teenagers when they met and fell in love. Being only sixteen and seventeen. Their parents and just about everyone else thought they were much too young to getting serious, after all they were still at school and both doing well and looked like going on to university after they finished school. They were determined to be together no matter what and were not interested in what the consequences might be.

Their parents tried everything to persuade them of their folly, even banning them from seeing each other through the week but this did little to dampen their desire to be together. They had no money and were both intelligent enough to realise that for the time being they would have to make the best of it. That didn't stop them from dreaming of the day when all this would change.

Mavis's parents thought John wasn't up to scratch were Mavis was concerned when they went off to university. Mavis was sent to study medicine in Sydney and John was sent to study engineering in Brisbane. This was devastating for both of them and they let their parents know of their displeasure but it didn't change anything.

When they came home on holidays from their studies it was a great joy for them to be together even for a short while, but the parents didn't make it easy for them. The parents fussed and tried to get them interested in other young people but this wasn't on their agenda.

The parents didn't know that John had made many forays down to Sydney to meet up with Mavis during their years of study and they were more in love than ever. John had been working in between his studies and had built up a good sized nest egg for when he and Mavis could be together.

Nothing had changed as far as the parents were concerned, even in their early twenties they still considered them too young to be together. When Mavis graduated her parents gave her a graduation present of a six months tour of Europe. Mavis was extremely upset about this latest turn of events and as soon as she could she went to John to tell him about her parent's latest manoeuvre to keep them apart. John had had enough of parents by this time and was prepared to put a stop to their scheming.

He had become a strong minded young man after all the years of study and he knew exactly what to do. He said to Mavis not to give up her trip and he would work something out. As she sadly boarded the plane to Europe and found her seat her sadness turned to joy when she found that John was sitting in the seat next to her. He had decided there was only one option and that was for the lovers to run away and be damned to anyone who tried to stop them.

BATHTUBS.

My memory of bathtubs goes back a long way. From one year old to five years we lived in a large tin shed my father built on his twenty acre property at Castle Hill. It was a very substantial shed destined to become a packing shed later on. The rooms were divided off with tar paper and hessian. On the veranda of the shed was an enclosed room with a galvanised tin bathtub. I don't remember ever using this facility.

My father then built a regular house on the property and it had a very upmarket bathtub in it, all shiny and new. I don't remember using this grand facility but I guess I must have been privileged on occasions.

At age ten years we moved to a larger property out in the country near Penrith. There again Dad built a house with a shiny new bathtub. There wasn't any town water out there so we had to economise on water. To have hot water you had to heat up the water in a copper and then carry the heated water into the bathtub. At this stage I found the bathtub to be rather a bore and avoided it as much as possible. I was required to get cleaned up at the end of the day and this was accomplished by the use of a tin dish in which you washed your face and hands with sunlight soap and dried them on a cloth towel. Then you dealt with your feet in a dish with carbolic soap. These parts were dried with a towel made out of sugar bags.

When I was ten or eleven years old we moved to a very remote farm in the Blue Mountains. Here again was the tin bathtub but it had a very modern heater for the water called a chip heater. For me during those years my bath arrangements was a cake of soap and down to the river for a swim and a wash, this was my life.

At sixteen years of age I went to work on a large sheep property at Coonamble and my accommodation was in the shearer's quarters. In the bathroom there you had two choices, one of which was a shower and to use it you had to lug heated water in from the copper out in the back yard and put the end of the shower hose in the bucket. The water was drawn up by a pump which required the user to manually operate. If you stopped operating the pump handle then no water came forth. The other apparatus was an object called a chair bath. To use this you carried in the required amount of water, then you sat into it with your legs out one end and the other end had a high back which allowed which allowed you to lay back and enjoy the experience. One of the difficulties was when you sat into the tub you displaced most of the water and you were left with very little to work with. It did have a little soap holder on the side. If you think this was easy, try and sit down backwards into a tub of water that is on ground level.

Years later, moving with my new wife straight out from Ireland to a cattle property where she was confronted with a chip heater over the bathtub. She was terrified of it as it made a fierce noise if you fed it too much fuel at once.

Later when we had our own home, I made sure there was a shower as well as a bathtub. I have avoided the bathtub since preferring to use the shower but not long ago I decided to have a bath as I had stiches and wasn't to get them wet. My wife warned that I might have trouble getting out of the bathtub, but I said," Don't be silly, how hard could it be to get out of." To my dismay, when I tried to get out, the slippery demon became quite evil, especially as I was hampered with my injuries. My only escape was to slide over the side and on to the floor in an undignified manner. I promised myself never to make use of another bathtub.

WHEN BOY MEETS GIRL.

Christopher Reece was an only child who never knew his father as his parents had divorced when he was quite small. His mother was a doctor and she reverted to her maiden name after her ex-husband dropped completely out of her life. She also changed Christopher's name by deed pole to her maiden name of Reece. Her ex-husband's name was Gerard Barkley. Christopher had the best of educations and this bright lad did well at school. Well enough to win him a bursary into Oxford University where he studied literature and publishing.

When he graduated from Oxford he had everything going for him. He was tall, handsome, and very bright and he had a pleasant disposition. He went straight from university to work in a prestigious publishing firm where he quickly climbed up the ranks. He loved his job and gave it his all, working long hours. He had his own office and staff and lived in a bachelor flat in East London. He didn't have time to think about dating as his work demanded all of his time.

Out in Melbourne Australia a young strikingly beautiful girl was just completing her degree in literature, and was planning a career in publishing. She hadn't had an easy life as Christopher had. Her father had been killed in a car accident when she was quite small and her mother wasn't able to cope. So Janice was brought up by nuns in an orphanage. She worked very hard at her school work and made the nuns very proud of her achievement's, and even prouder when she graduated from university with honours. She worked for a while in a publishing house in Melbourne but she felt she needed more of a challenge. The firm was sorry to lose her and wrote her a glowing reference. She applied to several publishing firms in London, and was overjoyed when she received an offer to be an assistant to one of their junior partners in their leading publishing company.

Arriving in London was very exciting for her and she was eager to start her new job. On Monday morning as Christopher arrived at his office he met his new assistant and was immediately overcome by the beauty of the girl. His heart beat faster, and he became almost speechless. Janice was a practical girl and put his strange behaviour down to the fact that she was a stranger. Down the track she hoped they could work well together.

After the initial shock wore off Christopher they formed a great working relationship. They became a formidable team at work and after a few months Christopher had to admit to himself that his thoughts were never far away from Janice. He finally came to the conclusion that he had completely lost his heart to her. With fear of rejection he timidly asked her out on a date, and was immensely thrilled when she accepted. As their love for each other blossomed they went on many joyful picnics, and to the theatre. They became so close they decided to move in together, and planned a wedding in the near future. Life was full of joy for them as they set up house.

Janice sent back to Melbourne for the relevant papers for their upcoming marriage. The papers duly arrived and as Janice was busy with dress fittings, Christopher decided to sort out from the papers what was needed for the wedding certificate. When he came to her birth certificate a dread went through him. Her father and his father had the same name. Looking further he found a photograph of the man who was her father. Exactly the same as the one he had kept of his father. There could be no doubt that they were brother and sister. Christopher was devastated as he realised that their dream of a life together could never be. He felt he couldn't give this terrible news to Janice. He knew he could no longer live with her but he was just as sure he couldn't live without her.

Christopher quickly wrote a note to Janice saying he had been called up to Oxford to sort out a problem. As he drove up to his old university his mind was in turmoil. Where to go from here. There just wasn't any light at the end of the tunnel. As he swallowed the tablets and a good shot of whisky he drifted off into a troubled sleep never to wake.

Boy meets girl doesn't always have a happy ending.

ANTIQUE VASE.

A vase stood on Aunty Dolly's sideboard for many years. It had seen so much of their life just sitting there. It had been placed there when Aunt Dolly had married and moved into the lovely old home.

It shared Aunt Dolly's joy when each of the two children were born, and all the excitement as they grew into young adults. Of course there was the odd dreaded times when the children became too boisterous and the sideboard received a bump and the vase's position was in great danger. Several times it was knocked over but being made to last it survived. The children of course never gave it a second glance as it was always just there. The fact that Aunt Dolly really loved that vase, and the story behind it was lost on all but Aunt Dolly. Even Uncle Frank never paid much attention to it, he neither liked nor disliked it, it was something that came with Aunt Dolly when they were first married. The vase was never a topic of conversation in the household but Uncle Frank was amused at the way Aunt Dolly lovingly polished and cared for it.

The children grew up with lots of drama, made it through their school years and on to their own lives. Aunt Dolly was pleased for them but missed having them around. They of course didn't miss their old home as they were far too busy getting on with their own lives. When they did visit they brought their boisterous children with them and they didn't give the vase a glance as it was always there. Aunt Dolly was aware of the vase during their visit as her precious possession was once more under threat. However the tough vase survived their rough handling.

As the years passed Uncle Frank died and left Aunt Dolly by herself in the rambling old house. The consolation for Aunt Dolly was that she had a lot of beautiful memories to look back on, and of course there was her precious vase that held its own set of memories known only to her.

Eventually Aunt Dolly became very old and frail, but still wanted to live on in her old home where she had spent the greater part of her life. Her children were much too busy to look after her so they offered me the job of being her career. Being unemployed and in my forties and single, I thought why not. I was very fond of my Aunt Dolly and she had always been kind to me. Caring for an elderly lady suited me fine as romance and a potential partner had eluded me.

Aunt Dolly loved to chat about the events in her life and being a romantic at heart I loved to hear about them. She had a wonderful full life and was ready to embark on her final journey when the time came. She had one big worry, because she felt that the children wouldn't want her precious vase and it would probably end up in a junk shop. She called me to her one evening and asked me if I would take the vase and cherish it as she had done. I was surprised by this request as I looked upon the vast as a beautiful valuable object. She was very sure that this was what she wanted for her precious vase and had even put the gift to me in her will.

She took me by the hand and told me she wanted me to know the history of the vase. Aunt Dolly told me that as a young girl of sixteen she was very wilful, and had met a young handsome Captain who was attached to the Indian army. They had fallen madly in love and because of her age, marriage wasn't possible so they decided to elope and return to India where his regiment was. They were a beautiful couple and fitted into life in India very happily. Life was a wonderful dream for them and they were inseparable. One day as they strolled through the bazar, Dolly spied this beautiful antique vase and it really looked special to her. Her Captain thought, what a fine anniversary present it would make and he quietly purchased it and had it sent to their quarters. Dolly was overjoyed when he presented it to her, as it represented his love for her as much as a beautiful vase.

Shortly after this her Captain was sent on a dangerous mission in which he was killed. Dolly was inconsolable and felt this is where her life ended. She wasn't able to stay in India and consequently was sent home to her family in England. The family were not all that thrilled about her return as her elopement was a serious cause of embarrassment to them. They accepted her back on the proviso that this part of her life was never to be mentioned again. All she had left of that wonderful chapter of her life was her antique vase her Captain had given her. She did get on with her life and eventually married Uncle Frank, but the powerful loss inside her along with the antique vase stayed with her.

No one else knew the story about the vase so this is why she wanted me to have it and keep her great love safe for her. Time has passed now and that antique vase is sitting on my sideboard as I dream about Aunt Dolly's memories, what a wonderful powerful love she had had.

A ROUGH DIAMOND.

I have met many rough diamonds in my life, maybe I can count myself as one of them. With a lot of polish most show a brighter side. One of the most notable rough diamonds I have come across was when I moved from Western New Wales to Tamworth. We had bought twenty-six acres just onside the town and I lived on the bare block in a 9+6 foot lean to tent by myself for six months while working as a fettler on the railway line.

My fellow fettlers, who were themselves rough diamonds, often verbally speculated on what I might get up to on my time off living by myself on the block. It suited their purposes one day when we were waiting at Kootingal railway station for a train to go through. I was in the waiting room looking at the posters when the mob outside became animated. They shouted, "Les here's your chance." Going out onto the platform and looking down the line where they were pointing, I saw in the distance a shapely lady in a very short tennis dress and she had a mop of blond hair. She was too far away to see her features but from the distance she looked ok. The men teased, "You've got it made now mate." As the blond lady walked towards the group on the station, her features became visible, her long blond hair became a mat of long blond hair and by her face you could see she had been around the block a few times.

She was on her way to visit one of her men friends who owned the local garage. He was in his thirties, single, and his mum was in charge of his office, mainly to protect her son from marauding females. Only Blondie could have loved him because, day or night he would be covered in oil and grease. According to local gossip he did manage to escape his mum's eagle eye on occasions and get together with Blondie. She was a woman in her late fifties perhaps and a well-known identity in the village. In the pub one night she was boasting about the power of her garage boyfriend. She stated he was the only man who had hurt her while making love. One of the characters in the pub piped up and said, "What did he do, did he tread on your toe love?"

She was often in trouble with the law and the police knew her well. The senior constables knew she wasn't easily put in her place so if any arrests had to be done they would send their junior constables to do the job. As the junior constables dragged her off to the lockup she would shout, "I know what you're after when you get me into the cell." Causing much embarrassment to the young officer. On one occasion the police chased her down the street, and as Blondie wasn't easily beaten, she clambered up a tree and as the young officer reached the base of the tree calling for her to come down, she pulled down her nickers and peed on him.

Blondie had a unique way of advertising. She had an old Holden car and on the back window she placed a large naked doll with her legs in the air. This outfit she used to park at the isolated truck stops. According to local gossip she did a good trade with the truckies.

It turned out that Blondie and her husband lived in a derelict house in the scrub a few miles past our block. Our children knew her as she would pass our block on her way to work. Our youngest son came rushing home one day with some news. "You know Blondie."" Yes."" Well she wears a flower in her hair sometimes."" So". "Do you know what that means?"" No". "It means she is ready to mate". Education for the young ones.

Blondie's husband was another rough diamond. He was missing one eye and one leg. One day Alice received a phone call at her work from our eldest daughter saying there was a drunk man lying on the kitchen floor wanting bex powders and he had only grown one leg and one eye. He was duly removed by one of the men from her office who was working in that area. He had one trick that he caught me with. I was driving down the road one day when I spotted a man lying in the gutter. I pulled up and rushed around the front of the car to see if I could help him. By the time I got around to where he was he had gone, but not only gone, he was sitting up in the passenger's seat of the car demanding to be taken into town. As he stank to high heaven and I was going that way I drove as fast as I could into town to unload this rough diamond.

Blondie had a beautiful daughter who was long gone from the family. She shall remain nameless but at the time she was on top of the hit parade, a very famous singer. She had become a polished diamond where poor Blondie never did. Blondie died as she lived and not a soul turned up to see her off. I hope she is at peace and now she has the polish she never had on this earth. A rough diamond who had never had a chance to be anything else.

A LONG TIME AGO IN A FAR OFF PLACE.

Way back in 1958 I had just returned from traveling around Europe, the British Isles and Ireland for nine months. I thought it was prudent to get a job before I completely ran out of money. My bank balance was getting to a worrying level.

I arrived in London late in the week and was lucky enough to find a suitable flat, cheap in Earls Court which I was to share with five other young men. It was more of a large bedroom than a flat. It was on the third floor and the kitchen was on the first floor. The bathroom was a communal affair and down the hall from my room. The building was owned by the Down Under Club and all the residents were from Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. All the dweller would have been in their twenties or thirties so it was a fun place to be.

Having fronted up at the government employment office on the Friday I was told they didn't have any rural work on their books but if I could start on the following Monday there was a job for me at Harrods department store. Any paying job would have done and I wasn't aware of the enormous prestige Harrods of Knightsbridge had but I was soon to find out.

Arriving at Harrods on the Monday morning I was directed to the workmen's entrance. None of the employees were allowed to enter by the front door. I was to work in the grocery department and most of my time was taken up parcelling up orders to be delivered. It was common for the Lord and Ladies house keeper to phone the orders through, not like shopping as I knew it. A number of the grocery items were exotic and expensive, like sugared ants or glassayed grasshoppers to name a few. It was pleasant working there as my English co-workers were very friendly. I often wondered how they managed on their wage when they had families to keep. I found it hard enough to manage with just me to worry about. London was an expensive place to live and I think perhaps many of the English workers didn't live in live in the city but commuted by train from outlying areas.

Another Australian came to work there and we became good friends. He had a Vespa Scooter and we used to dart through the London traffic with me perched on the back. We used to entertain the staff during the lunch break. Keven would tell jokes and I would sing folk songs.

I worked there for two months until Christmas time when I returned to Ireland to be married. My life for the two months in London was very full. There would be a party just about every night or at least a trip down to the local pub for a drink or two.

To marry in Ireland, especially into a prominent catholic family, I had to become a catholic, so each week I was instructed by a young priest so could become baptised into the Catholic Church. The priest said in the short time I had it wouldn't be possible to become a catholic. I wrote to Alice's mother to tell her of my dilemma. With the next visit to the young priest, he was very distant with me. He was a bit miffed that the Irish Bishop had phoned him and told him that I would become a catholic before Christmas, and so I did in theory. When I was baptised one of the girls from my building came along as my Godmother.

Out of the blue I received an invitation to a twenty-first birthday party up in Cambridge. It was from one of the siblings I had met in Dublin when I first went over there. It was to be a black tie affair and as I had not taken my dinner suit to England with me I thought I would give it a miss. My flatmates said why not and they would lend me a dinner suit, so off I went to Cambridge dressed like a man about town. To my surprise I was met at the station by a chauffeur driven Bentley and whisked off to the party. When we arrived at the party I was surprised again as the resident was more of a Castle than a Mansion.

At dinner in the massive dining hall I was seated next to the birthday girl. I was anxious during dinner not to make any faux pars as the food was rather exotic. I managed ok but nearly came undone when one of the servings arrived which appeared to be a very small whole chicken. I was trying to cut around the bones until I discovered it didn't have any.

The siblings said their father had plantations out in the Caribbean and they were going to sail the family yacht out there and would I like to join them. I thanked them but declined as I was returning home very soon. The party went all night with several dance bands and didn't stop until breakfast was served next morning. All the London travellers were then driven back to the train.

When I told my flatmates I was off to Ireland for Christmas and getting married early January. They said you must be mad leaving all this. All this wasn't as exciting as my life was going to be from now on.

As I work in my garden fifty-six years later I wonder, was that exciting life really mine all those years ago.

THE SPARE ROOM.

Most of the rooms in the big old house were occupied but there was one room that was spare. It wasn't any different from the other rooms in the house except no one ever went into it. If an extra person came to stay they doubled up in one of the other rooms with another member of the family. The spare room was never mentioned by the family and the younger members just knew it as a room that was never used. It would have been handy to have the use of the spare room at times but there was such a mystery about it that no one dared to bring the subject up, even though they were not aware of any reason not to, it just was.

The old granny who lived in the house knew why the room was never used, although some of the details had become a little foggy with the passing of time. Granny used to sit in her rocking chair out on the veranda rocking back and forth with past memories drifting through her mind from time to time. The rest of the family, although they loved her, never really had time to sit and chat with her.

The eldest daughter Bonny became engaged to a young man from the village and they were to have an engagement party at the house. The young man from the village was called Bob and the family invited him to stay with them the night of the party and share a room with one of the brothers. Bob was delighted with the invitation as it made him feel part of the family. He was curious the next day about having to share a room when there was a perfectly good spare room available. He asked Bonny about the spare room but she didn't know why it was never used or even entered into.

She had never really thought about it but decided she would investigate the room. The room was so taboo she didn't like to bring the subject up with her parents. So one evening when everyone had gone to bed she sneaked along the corridor to the spare room. It wasn't locked so she quietly opened the door and went in. To her amazement the room was set up like someone used the room and kept it spotless, even down to fresh flowers in a vase on the sideboard. This gave Bonny very strange feeling, as she felt she was not alone in the room. She felt she must be hallucinating when she saw a young woman sitting at the dressing table brushing her hair. Soon the figure faded away, this was too much for Bonny and she fled the room in fright.

Bonny couldn't sleep much for the rest of the night, going over her experience. Who could she ask about what she had seen in the spare room? The next day she felt washed out and decided to take the day off from work and try and make sense of what had happened.

There was a spare chair alongside of Granny's rocking chair in case someone did come along for a chat. Bonny sat in this chair wondering if Granny would know the answer to her dilemma. Granny was just sitting there with her memories floating past. Bonny didn't want to disturb her but had to have some answers. Eventually she plucked up enough courage to bring up the subject of the story behind the spare room. After sifting through her many memories, with tears in her eyes Granny said yes it was upon her wishes that the room was never used. She kept it as a shrine for her youngest sister Gladis. Gladis had been a very beautiful girl and had been very much in love with a young man from the village. They were soon to be married. Tragically the night before the wedding, the young man was killed in a horse accident. Gladis was so distraught that when the doctor gave her some sleeping pills to help her through the ordeal she had taken the lot at once. Granny had found her the next day looking like she had just gone to sleep in that room.

It was after this that Granny had set up the room as a shrine and kept it that way all these years. Yes she felt that Gladis was still in the room waiting for Granny so they could make their journey together. Granny said if Gladis had appeared to Bonny she must feel very close to her and she would put it in her will that Bonny was to have the room after she had gone. Bonny felt privileged knowing the story of the spare room but was anxious for her young man because of what had happened to Gladis.

Granny passed away not long after and Bonny and Bob moved into the spare room on their wedding night.

ROOM 13.

The old dilapidated house was so large all the bedrooms were numbered from one to twenty but room thirteen had a keep away from me look about it In fact it had a sinister look because of the number thirteen superstitions which didn't invite anyone to go in. Why would they anyway with all those other rooms to choose from. Not that anyone bothered. The inhabitants of the house were as equally old and dilapidated as the house itself. Three sisters, all a little crazy, lived there with their also weird brother Arnold. There were no other relatives and they never had any visitors, not even tradesmen.

The four siblings were quite young when their parents were killed in a car accident. The father was a very successful business man and had acquired a large fortune. He had trained his son well to follow in his footsteps. When the parents were alive the house was kept spick and span and lots of parties were held there. The three sisters were quite attractive and each had suitors. Because of their wealth the three girls were always well chaperoned but even so life was good for them.

After the parents died the young son who was in his early twenties, took his role of man of the house very seriously. He had been made executor of the estate and had taken charge of all the finances and running of the business and running of the house. The girls did not have much worldly experience so they were happy to allow their brother Arnold to organise everything for them.

Arnold viewed every young man who called on the girls with great suspicion and warned the girls that they were probably after their money. With this attitude the callers became less and less and eventually stopped altogether. The girls were sad about this but as Arnold kept saying, the young men were only visiting because of the money. The girls accepted this as Arnold was always right and they settled down to a comfortable life working on their various crafts. Arnold himself was very aware of all the dangers that were about with all those gold diggers around so he kept the ladies at a safe distance.

Arnold always paid for everything the girls needed but not always with good grace. He often quoted that he did not have a money tree and the money barrel was not a bottomless pit. All the household needs were ordered my Arnold and delivered to the front door.

As the years passed the girls found they had no real need to leave the house and it was much safer to stay at home where they would not have to deal with anyone after their money. Arnold did not go out unless it was to deal with a business matter. He thought it was a waste of precious money to spend it on the house as what they needed was already there. Also to have repairs done would need strange men to enter the house and that would not be good for the sisters.

The girls always worried about if there would be enough money to keep them, not knowing by this time Arnold had several millions at his disposal. Arnold's only worry was how to prevent money grabbers from getting hold of his money.

As he aged and became more eccentric he worried about the banks and were they really looking after his money. Were they doing a good enough job keeping his money safe while it multiplied?

Finally the inevitable happened and the three sisters passed away. Arnold was not particularly upset about their passing as he had his money to keep him company. In the end of course even Arnold had to go.

The state took over the property and Arnold's precious money as no will had been made. As they went through the old house to assess its worth they came to room thirteen. It no longer looked as sinister as Arnold had portrayed it. As the assessors went into the room they found many boxes filled with Arnold's precious money, and most surprising of all they found his parents will that he had kept hidden from his sisters all these years. The will read that all money and property was to be divided equally among the four siblings. Arnold had given his sisters a life of misery all for his own gain. In the end his own life sounded very miserable as well.

GREAT OZZY OUTBACK.

The great ozzy outback is a source of romantic ideas and visions to many overseas visitors and indeed to a lot of coastal dwellers of Eastern Australia. Many romantic films have portrayed the outback with great drama and excitement. Films such as Jedda, Australia and The Rabbit Proof fence to name a few.

It has drawn a number of fine artists and photographers to its stark beauty and it has produced a number of indigenous artists who have great feeling for the land of their ancestors. The ones born to the arid starkness see it as a living thing and feel very much at home there. If they were transported to the city they would be as lost as most of the coastal dwellers would be alone out in the country.

In the early days of white settlement, many people from the British Isles and Ireland were drawn to the outback. Not initially by the charm and beauty but by the vast area of land that was not always arid. In the wet season great areas of land would be covered with flood water, resulting in thousands of miles of lush vegetation once the water had receded. That's what drew the early pioneers to this land and as a bonus the land was very cheap.

The dry arid land was also transformed into a wonderland of native blooms to gladden the hearts of people who lived there and visitors alike. Creatures who had protected themselves from the harsh conditions under rocks and in burrows would be out and about catching up on food they had missed out on during the long dry spell.

Writers have captured the essence of the outback in books, such as Mary Durack in her book, Kings in Grass Castle's. She wrote about the history of her grandfather who migrated from Ireland in 1853 and was drawn to the vastness and opportunities of the outback. He certainly made the best of what he discovered as he settled in and became a very wealthy man. In 1888 he wrote, "Kings in grass castles you call us, then we are kings in grass castles that may be blown away on a puff of wind." He had no illusions of the nature of the outback and how quickly it could turn on you. A luxurious pasture one day and a dry and desolate burnt land the next. He went on to produce four sons and formed a mighty family dynasty.

Another author who portrayed the outback was Jeannie Gunn. A city girl who married a station manager and set out to settle what they called the Never Never. A very brave and resourceful woman who was able to adapt to the harsh conditions, making devoted friends amongst the white and indigenous stockmen. Not many city born people could do this.

The outback is a strikingly beautiful place when you really look at it but can be very unforgiving if you take it too cheaply and make an error of judgement. It would not think twice in killing you if you became lost in these oven hot plains or waterless deserts.

Many people over the years who have found themselves living out there but not suitable to do so have become very depressed with the isolation and harsh conditions. Leading to mental illness and at times suicide. It does not have to be right out in the outback for this to happen, some of western Queensland and western New South Wales will have the same effect.

Notwithstanding all the pitfalls of the great ozzy outback, as a visitor the magnificent landscapes will take your breath away if the heat does not get you first.

WHATS NEXT.

I have often asked myself this question when everything seems to be heading down hill. It all becomes too much and you think it can't get any worse, but in the back of your mind you are thinking, what next. Of course it doesn't always have to be a bad thing. When everything is going so right and you don't want to miss out on anything, you look at what's next with expectations and hope to be ready for the next great event to come.

Having had a year of wondering, what next a few years ago, I came to the stage of not wondering what the future held. The year started off beautifully with a healthy happy baby boy who was our third child. He was such a good baby and I loved taking care of him, even taking a couple of weeks holidays off to look after him.

Then when he was a month old Alice rose early one morning to make his bottle. When she picked him up he was quite dead. I will never forget her cry of anguish as she held him to her. Then we had the eighty mile drive to the nearest hospital, with Alice clutching him to her hoping all the way that he could be saved. This was not to be as he had died of s. i. d. s. This death was not generally known about at this time, and one neighbour asked if he had smothered in his cot.

Some months later I collapsed while mustering a mob of sheep in 110% of heat. Off to hospital I went where the doctor diagnosed mental and physical exhaustion. I was under heavy sedation for a week to force me to rest.

Alice owned and operated a school bus run which was a great money spinner, and on odd occasions I would run the bus for her. I felt this was ok as I did a lot of unpaid work on the station. My boss didn't think along these lines however and put an ultimatum to me. Give up the bus or get the sack. There was no contest as the bus brought in more rewards than my twelve hour a day job did, so we started packing. We had everything packed and ready to leave at the end of the week when some work was done on the fuel stove. The worker must have damaged the asbestos flu in the ceiling. Alice had shut the stove down when she left to take the children to school and I was working at the woolshed. A neighbour passing through alerted me to a fire at the house but by the time I arrived there the house was well alight in the roof. Not a thing could be saved and we spent the night sleeping in the shearer's quarters with mice running over us during the night.

What's next you ask? Well we eventually moved to another property in the area. My working ability was well known in the district so it wasn't hard for me to get another job. Some months into my new job a mighty flood came and destroyed what we had gained. The water level over the land lasted for many months, so you couldn't work on the land and the bus couldn't run.

I moved my family into a rented cottage in the village when the water went down enough to do so. There wasn't any work to be had and the bus was off the road for months. In the village there were twenty able bodied men without work so it was a bonus when the railway asked for paid volunteers to help replace the rail line. To my surprise, two property owners and I were the only volunteers. The work was twelve hours a day, seven days a week and most of the work was in water. To me the pay was huge, better than I was getting on the station as a overseer come manager. The crew, apart from us three were aboriginal. When the floods eventually went down, the two landowners left to attend to their farms, but I had had enough of station work and decided to stay on. Eventually I transferred to a position at Tamworth where we decided we wanted to live. I stayed on the job as a fettler for four years. During that time I did a two year correspondence course in plate laying with the railway. I finished it in six months. This put me on the level of an inspector which didn't go down well with my fellow fettlers as they were mainly illiterate.

After four years as a fettler I landed a job in Tamworth as a farm manager at an AI cattle centre. My whats next had taken a brighter turn.

OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE.

This is a tough story to tell as I personally have never had a true out of body experience and to write about it would be either fantasy or hearsay. In a way I have come close to it a few times in my life. The first one was when I was fourteen years old. I had just read the life story of Adam Lyndsay Gordon, the writer. Evidently he was he was a very fine horseman and slightly mad. One of his tricks was to dare other horsemen to keep up with him in a game of follow the leader. He was such a daring rider that no one was able to keep up with him until one day a great rider took up the challenge.

Gordon did everything he could to shake off the challenger but to no avail. He had kept one trick up his sleeve to beat his opponent. There was a wooden fence along the top of a cliff which had a drop on the other side of several hundred feet. On the other side of the fence was a narrow ledge about five foot wide. Legend has it that Gordon jumped this fence and his brilliant brave horse was able to corkscrew his body in mid-air and land on the ledge. His challenger declined to follow.

At fourteen years old this more than impressed me and while out on my horse one day I came across a situation that presented what I thought was an equally challenging feat. There wasn't any fence but there was a cliff and to get down the face of the cliff you had to jump your horse from one ledge to another. My horse had a lot of courage and made the leap. Unfortunately he lost his footing on landing and we both went over the edge. There was about twenty feet of steep slope before the shear drop. We tumbled over and over down the slope until we landed at the base of a tree just on the edge of the shear drop. I was pinned under my horse as he struggled to get to his feet and my last memory of this event was seeing a rather large hoof heading straight for my face.

I was in and out of consciousness for about a week. Where we lived was too isolated to think about a doctor or a hospital. The only thing I can remember as I lay on my bed on the open veranda was coming out of the fog for a short while and seeing one of our neighbours staring down at me. His comment was, "I always knew he would come to a sticky end one day." I was in so much pain the only thought I had was, "Up yours too".

The next strange experience I had was in my early twenties when one day I was out on the station where I worked and I was cutting noxious weeds. My mind certainly wasn't on the job as I tossed around in my mind the journey to Europe I was about to embark on. I was anxious as I had never really travelled and I became increasingly doubtful of my plans. At that moment I will swear to this day that I heard a strong calm voice say to me, "If you don't do this you will regret it for ever more". There was no other person within miles of me but I knew I had a message from somewhere.

My next experience was in my forties I had major heart surgery. I was never out of my body but I was given pethidine for pain and as I lay there unable to move, gargoyles were leering down at me from the ceiling. I would have liked to have left my body behind at this stage.

My last experience was in hospital after a very nasty accident off a horse with many broken bones. I was in my seventies by this time so I didn't think I was fanciful. In the early hours of the morning I was in a lot of pain when my brother came to stand at the foot of my bed. I said to him," Thank goodness you have come, take me with you". He clearly replied, "No mate you're going to be ok, it's not your time yet." My brother had died a few years earlier.

ABSENT FRIENDS.

We often speak about our friends in a light kind of way but how many true friends do we have. When we see a film star throwing a party for 2000 of their closest friends it is a farce.

I have hundreds of acquaintances but my friends I treasure because they are few and far between. Some friends are there for the moment and they fade as time passes, and there are the ones that are with you for the long haul. These are the ones you treasure and although they may be far away you know they are thinking of you from time to time. A letter or an email might arrive.

The most enduring friendship I have made was with an Irish girl I met and married 1958. The friendship has seen us through many a rough patch over the last 56 years and I am sure it will still be there in the end.

In the 37 years we ran an equestrian centre in Tamworth we met a lot of people and the friendships we formed with some of them have lasted a long time. We had one rider who rode with us for ten years. Every Sunday morning she would turn up for her ride or a lesson that went from ten am till noon. She always turned up at nine am in case she could give us a hand and it didn't matter what the weather was like, even down to torrential rain or snow, she always turned up. She wasn't a child, being in her late thirties when she started with us but she had more enthusiasm than most children. Eventually she became so proficient that we would load up an extra horse on dressage competition days and she would compete along with us. We had many functions at the centre and she would organize a lot of the practical bits for the event. We had many happy times with her and at times with her family. The name we gave her was zoom zoom as she always did things at high speed.

She was devastated when we told her we were selling the property and moving on but being able to buy the favourite horse she was fond of helped the parting. We receive a letter or email from her every important date like birthdays, Christmas and even our wedding anniversary.

Recently she and her family were in Brisbane to visit her sister and as a treat her grown up son drove his parents the two hours north to visit us. When she arrived she burst into tears and cried, "I thought I would never see you again". Being an absent friend hadn't hurt this friendship.

We have several absent friends and from time to time we hear from them. In these letters it often ends with, "When are you coming home". I'm sure if we went back there it would be like we had never left.

It is hard to make new friends as you get older so look after the ones you have even if they are absent friends.

BAD HAIR DAY, WHY OH WHY.

Why oh why do people follow fashion when it just does not suit them. One in question is the hipster jeans. It looks ok on a tall slim young girl even if it does leave a bare patch between jeans and their top, resulting most likely in a chill in the kidneys. On anyone else other than the slim and trim one wonders if they have a mirror at home or if they do are they able to see themselves. The jeans sitting half way down their bum allows great roles of fat to bulge over the top of the jeans at the back and a well-endowed belly hanging over the front. With most of the fatties you can see the beginning of a crack or a garment called a thong. Not a pretty sight.

On the young men the crutch of the jeans is placed half way between their crutch and their knees giving them the appearance from behind that someone has given them a mighty kick up the rear-end causing them considerable damage. It also gives them a slovenly look and I ask myself why oh why they do it.

The other fashion that is followed religiously by a great number of men is the wind in the hair look, even those who seem to be well past it. They go to no end of trouble with moose and other methods to make their hair look really messy. It is a thought though, it appears to eliminate the worry of a bad hair day for the followers. It would also take away the worry of wind in their hair or when they take their bike helmets off, is their hair ok. Although it could be a problem if the helmet flattens it. No end of worry about their hair. It looks strange to see a well-dressed man with his hair in every which way.

Ladies also try to get in on the act of a bad hair day but unfortunately on them it really does look like a bad hair day. One that has gone very wrong.

Another why oh why fashion which eliminates the bad hair day is the bald look. If they want to look ten years older that's ok but if I had lots if hair I would not go down that path.

A fashion amongst ladies which seems to be getting more prevalent is the red ink treatment which gives them a look as if they have tipped a bottle of red ink over their hair giving them rather a garish look.To me it gives them a very harsh appearance and better suited to the wicked witch of the west.

However who am I to have an opinion on such matters for I am no fashion guru, but like the person in the art gallery said as they view the paintings," I do not know much about art but I know what I like."

WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG.?

Joe had arranged to meet his girlfriend at her home by mid-afternoon the next day. They planned to have a special dinner at an upmarket restaurant that evening before catching a train to Sydney where they had booked a two weeks cruise around the south pacific islands. Shirl had gone to a lot of trouble making sure there were no hiccups to spoil their plans.

Shirl lived in a town that was a five hour drive from where Joe lived, but he figured if he left early the drive would be a breeze, and he would arrive in good time, relaxed and ready for the adventure.

Joe was so excited the next morning as he set off early as decided. He was so excited in fact he was several kilometres down the road when he realised he had left in such a rush he had forgotten to put his luggage in the car. There was nothing for it but to dash back home to collect his gear. His mother was up by the time he arrived back home, and she wasn't in a good mood. He had forgotten to put the garbage out last night. Could be worse he thought as he wheeled the bin out to the front gate. Cranky old bugger he thought.

At the next town he thought he had better get a fill up of petrol. As he got out of his car at the petrol station he noticed his back tyre was nearly flat. He quickly went to work changing the tyre, and all went well until he retrieved the spare out of the boot. Damn damn damn he muttered to himself as he was confronted with the flat spare tyre. After considerable effort and a lot of frustration he managed to get himself out of the jam he was in. He was in such a rush to continue on his way he had forgotten to fill up with fuel, which resulted in him running out eight kilometres out of town. He rang the R.A. C. Q. for help and it took them ages to bring him enough fuel to get him to the next petrol station.

At last having filled up with fuel he was on his way again. He thought to himself," I'll have to put my foot down now or I will be late. As he sped down the highway at a cracking pace the inevitable happened. A police car was on his tail indicating for him to pull over. The sergeant wasn't all that impressed by his reason for speeding, and proceeded to give his car a thorough check over, and a long lecture about the foolishness of speeding. Do it again the sergeant warned and you will most likely lose your licence. Finally he was on his way again minus demerit points and a hefty fine.

He was making good time after that but keeping an eye on the speedo, until he rounded a bend in the road, and there to his amazement was a road block. Some fool had been speeding and had crashed. The road wouldn't be open for an hour. This was almost too much for Joe, but he kept his cool and sat it out.

Finally on his way again he reached the town where Shirl lived. With a sinking feeling he remembered Shirl had moved house since he was last there, and he would have to find her new address. He drove round for half an hour before locating her new home, and it was with relief when he drove up to her front gate.

As he walked to her front door several hours late and frayed around the edges, he thought to himself, Shirl will soon cheer me up. When Shirl opened the door her countenance wasn't one to cheer anybody up." What took you so long she demanded?"

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE.

Alf worked in a factory on a production line. His wages paid the bills but wasn't in the least exciting. His only excitement was down to the pub on a Friday night with his mates for a few beers.

This Friday night he had more than a few beers and he had wobbly legs as he made his way back to his flat where he lived by himself. He collapsed into bed once he reached home and fell into a deep sleep.

The next thing he knew he had bought a plane ticket to New York and was on his way. He had never been past Brisbane and knew he was in for an exciting time with lots of new experiences and he planned to make the most of them.

In New York he met up with an Italian named Mario in a café while having a cup of coffee. He was very impressed with Mario Fontele's name so when he was asked what his name was he said Alfredo Buchely. Close enough to Alf Bucknel. He told Mario his parents had migrated from Calabria when he was a baby. They got on very well and Mario offered Alf a job as a courier. He told Alf there wasn't much to it, just delivering parcels around the city. Alf thought, how much easier could it get.

He was very successful with his deliveries and Mario was pleased with him and said he would probably have more interesting jobs for him later on. Alf wondered about some of the people he delivered his parcels to as some of them looked a bit shady, but then he felt that was none of his business.

He didn't put much thought into it until a dodgy character caught him by the scruff of the neck and warned him to keep off his patch. Alf reported the matter to Mario who said not to worry about it as he would sort the man out. A couple of days later Alf was looking through a local paper and there was a picture of the shady character having just been pulled out of the river dead. Alf in his naivety thought, well I won't have any more trouble with that goon.

After a while Alf had an uneasy feeling that he was being watched and at times followed. He discussed this with Mario and Mario said he had better take a rest from being a courier and he had another job for him as a barman in his night club. Apart from serving drinks he had the responsibility of unobtrusively handing out small packages to selected clients. Alf thought this was a bit different but it was his job and as usual he minded his own business.

It was not all work and no play however as he started dating a dancer from the club and they moved in together. All was well until she started talking about rings and marriage. This scared the hell out of Alf as she had two burly brothers who would not be amused if he let her down. Perhaps he would have to make a run for it at some stage.

It never reached this dilemma however because one evening as he was working at the bar two official looking men came up to him and said they wanted to ask him a few questions. They were from the F.B.I. and wanted to know what his immigration status was, and what exactly was his connections with Mario Fontele, and what did he know about the man who was pulled dead from the river. Alf was too frightened to give a plausible answer so the agents said you had better come with us. He was unceremoniously carted off to the lockup and there he was roughly shoved in a cell. He tripped as he entered the cell and landed on the floor rather hard, knocking himself out.

As he came too and looked around he found he was on his bedroom floor in Brisbane. He must have been having a nightmare and fallen out of bed. On the Monday morning he gladly went off to work vowing he would never walk on the wild side again.

A GRAVE MATTER.

All the boys knew that Jake had taken the money that was stolen from the bank job. He had gone into hiding soon after the job and try as they might they could not locate him. They even put up a reward for anyone who could find him and they weren't going to mess around when they did catch up with him. He had very much done the wrong thing by the code of the gang and he was going to pay for it when they caught up with him.

Jake Mulligan was no fool and knew he would have to watch his back for a long time. Leaving the country until things cooled down was his best option and this is what he did. He had some mates in the Bahamas so this is where he went to lose himself. He had smuggled his stolen money out of the country and he now had it safely with him. He would need some of it to fund the lifestyle he was planning on.

He was able to set himself up as a respectable business man and with the backing of his loot he became very successful. Eventually he bought several hotels with honest money he had earned from his business. Life for him was looking good, so good in fact he decided it would be safe enough to settle down with a wife and start a family. He had his appearance changed with plastic surgery and had acquired a new identity when he left his old life.

He was however ever mindful that the boys would not forgive him for taking the stolen millions from the bank job and would be forever wanting to retrieve it and give him his just deserts. Keeping his stolen fortune became an obsession for him, and the plan he devised to hide it had to be foolproof. Even if the boys did catch up with him they wouldn't get the cash.

As the years rolled on the gang thought Jake must have died as all there searching so far was in vain, but they still had him on their hit list.

Although Jake was obsessed with keeping his loot safe, he didn't want it to go to waste when he passed on. He now had two fine sons and wanted them to access the money when he died. He had to hatch a plan that only they would be able decipher the cryptic message he would leave behind for them to be able to find the money.

His two boys as they grew up often wondered why Jake took them so frequently to one spot and talked to them about finances. He talked to them about how they should keep an eye on family business and the need to have funds available in case of hard times. The boys thought he might be losing it as he became old and more frequent with their visits to the one spot and talking about hiding finances.

The light bulb went off in their heads when the old man died and in his will he mentioned his old mate Jake Mulligan who had died some years before. The boys were to take good care of Jake's tombstone and make sure the foundations under the headstone was inspected for subsidence. The sons knew about there being a fortune hidden somewhere and their father's odd behaviour and their visits to the one spot. It dawned on them that this was indeed a grave matter.

MAN HUNT.

The American, whose name was Mark, had gone to Alaska to explore avenues for a new tourist trade he had a vision of creating. The night before he was due to fly out with a guide to explore the region he met his guide at the pub. He wondered how he would get on with his guide as he was a silent unfriendly type of enquete who without saying anything made him feel that he was being looked upon as an inferior being. The enquete had his own agenda. He needed the fee he was to get from the guiding to help his people but he did not want tourist destroying his wilderness.

The next day they boarded the light cessna with a pilot that gave Mark further reason for concern as the pilot seemed to be a bit of a muddler. Before they reached the outpost they were heading for, the plane ran into difficulties and crashed. The pilot was killed and Mark suffered a wound to his leg. Neither he nor his guide had any idea where they were and the plane did not have any maps or a compass. As it was getting dark they decided to bury the pilot under a pile of rocks. They then emptied all the fuel they could from the plane into bottles they found under the seats. They used some of the fuel to heat up food they found on the plane. During the night as they huddled under the wing of the plane they heard a terrible noise. As they crept out to investigate they saw a huge bear dragging off the body of the pilot. They realised then that they were not safe to stick around the crash site. As they set out at first light they realised they were not alone. The bear having eaten the pilot was not about to let two further meals get away and they could hear him grunting and crashing through the undergrowth. He could smell the infection that had set up in Mark's wounded leg. As Mark dressed his wound and threw away the soiled dressing, the bear would find it and it would give him further incentive to track down his prey. The enquete remained aloof from his traveling companion but as they needed each other for survival they built up a tolerable working relationship.

As they struggled through the ice and snow for several days with the fear of the bear always on their mind survival was their foremost thought. At night their only safety was the caves they found and were able with the fuel they carried, light a fire at the entrance. They could hear the bear shuffling about just outside the fire light.

When they reached a valley with no defined track out Mark was completely exhausted and in a lot of pain from his wound. The enquete decided to settle him up against a large rock while he went off to check out what path to take. Mark had a very unsettled feeling as he could hear the bear very close and by this time the bear would be hungry again. He decided his only line of defence was to climb to the top of the rock, taking with him their last bottle of fuel. It was a wise move as no sooner had he reached the top when the bear came lumbering out of the undergrowth, heading straight for him. As the bear circled the rock to find a way up to his prize, Mark just had enough energy to light the remaining fuel and hurl it down over the bear, which exploded on impact. With dreadful screams and roars the bear was mortally wounded. The bear's man hunt was over and all they had to do now was to find their way out of the wilderness.

The enquete did find a track out of the valley and on the other side was a river with boats coming to look for them.

TALKING TO STRANGERS.

It is often the case that you feel free to talk to strangers more so than you do with someone close to you. If they are good listeners you can really give them an ear full without the burden of dealing with what you have talked about later. I read once that there are no strangers just friends you haven't met yet. This is the most wonderful attitude as it seems to be right most of the time. If I hadn't talked to a stranger years ago I might still be single. In a youth hostel in Salzburg Austria where I was staying, a young American girl had attached herself to me believing I was wealthy having travelled so far. She was very overpowering and that was one stranger I regretted talking to. Come evening, having listened to her prattle on all afternoon I announced I was off to a wine cellar down the road that had good music. Unfortunately she thought that was a great idea. As we were leaving the hostel there were two strangers coming in. Two Irish girls that looked good company so I invited them to join us. Safety in numbers. Off the four of us trouped to the wine cellar. The two Irish girls turned out to be top horse riders and were on their way back to Ireland after their visit to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. That was my destination after I left Salzburg. We had a wonderful conversation about travel and horses. So much so the American girl got into a huff and I never saw her again. The two Irish girls and I had a wonderful evening listening to the music enjoying ourselves so much we didn't notice how late it was. We were late getting back to the hostel and had to pay a fine to get in. Gallantly I paid up for the three of us.

The next morning after exchanging addresses and a picnic breakfast out in the park we went our separate ways. They had invited me to look them up when I reached Ireland and ride one of their horses in a hunt. This I did four months later. Both the girls' families were farmers in the country. I stayed with each family for a week and had some terrifying experiences jumping over rock walls that you couldn't see over. I couldn't let Australia down so jump them I did. I survived the experience and headed back to Dublin where one of the girls worked as a nurse in Saint Vincent's hospital. By the end of the month we were engaged and I caught a boat back to England and a job at Harrods of Knightsbridge. Two months later we were married and fifty-six years later I am still talking to that stranger.

IF MUSIC IS THE FOOD FOR LOVE, PLAY ON.

My hope is that I shall live and love music forever even though I might not be able to hear it. The past music that has entered my mind I will fight to keep. It has carried me through many a dark day and lifted me out of any negative thoughts I had. I had a whole opera company going as I ploughed the fields for hours on end and the noise of the tractor provided the orchestra. There was no one to hear me so I was free to give myself up to the music and sing to my heart's content.

After leaving my rural work on station properties behind and moving to Tamworth, a large country town, I quickly became involved with the amateur musical society which was a very active group. At the time my work was not very exciting but with music I was able to transport myself into a different world.

If I had thought too much about it I would have been very uncertain but I found once up on stage in front of a thousand people or more, when the music started, it would change this uninteresting person into whoever the music wanted him to be. Having the privilege of being part of seventeen musicals and many concerts, it is something I will hold dear forever.

Now I have an extensive collection of cd's, and it gives me great joy to have them playing in the background as I attend to my other loves, the garden, painting and writing. Music affects so many people, Africans beat themselves into a frenzy with drums and there are many more tribal ways of expressing their stories and culture.

Recently there were two concerts in Holland with the conductor Andre Rieu. He is a master of putting love into music and bringing classical music to the masses. During his concerts, when particularly beautiful pieces were being played, the audience was seen with tears of joy running down their faces. The audience were as one with the music. I feel that the feeling of peace and happiness will stay with them for a long time to come.

We are not the only ones affected by music. We found playing music in our horse stables helped to keep the horses in a calm frame of mind and when you rode them in a classical dressage test to music their performance was much superior to non-musical tests. Like us not all horses respond to music but it is a joy when they do. I am sure that not only do they perform better but we ride with much more skill also.

So if music is the food of love, let it play on.

ONE FINE DAY

Angus McPherson came into the world on a cold sleety day in January and his birthplace was a dingy dark slum dwelling in Glasgow. His Ma and Pa were illiterate and were happy with their lot as they didn't know any difference.

So Angus was off to a shaky start, But Ma did her best with him and against all odds he survived that bitter winter, unlike several of the neighbouring infants who didn't make it.

As Angus grew into a stringy but tough lad the family's income didn't improve. Ma and Pa barely had enough for a pint down at the local on a Friday night. Angus had a lot of freedom to rome the grimy streets of Glasgow, and he became very nimble at picking pockets, and snitching something to eat whenever he got the chance.

Because of his success he was greatly admired by the other urchins in the area. He was very generous with his peers and was often able to give them handouts. As he grew into a strapping youth his admirers were many and they formed a support group, around him, so he was able to become a master of his trade. This was his life and he intended to make the most of it.

Unfortunately for Angus a new and much more efficient police sergeant took over his patch, and was soon on Angus's case. He might have survived in his trade if he hadn't gone one step too far. He broke into the town mayor's home and relieved the lady of the house of all her jewels. This was too much for Sargent McBride and he doubled his efforts to rid the area of this thief. It was just bad luck that Sargent McBride was in the backroom of the pawnbrokers when Angus came in to sell his prize. He wasn't quick enough to escape and the Sargent quickly had him in handcuffs.

He went before the magistrate who wasn't very lenient with roughnecks and he possibly would have gone to the gallows if it hadn't been for his youth. So he was sentenced to transportation to Australia and soon found himself on the high seas. His survival in the Glasgow slums helped him to live through the hell that was in the hold of that convict ship. During that miserable journey he did wonder what life in this new land would be for him, and he decided if he could live through these dark miserable months in the hold of the ship he would do his best to succeed in his new life.

When the ship docked in Sydney harbour the convicts were let out of the ship's hold and onto the dock. As Angus gazed in wonder at the brilliant sunshine and the clear air he thought to himself, I'm alright, this certainly is a fine day. Angus felt the warmth of the sun on his face and body and for the first time in his life he was warm.

THE SEA.

Having lived most of my young life by a fresh water river and learning to swim in water that had boundaries, I never really trusted the sea with its great expanse. The few times I played in the surf was great fun, but I always kept an eye on the safety of the beach. On one occasion while out fishing with my brother in a small boat, as it bobbed up and down and up and down I felt so sick I contemplated jumping overboard and swimming back to shore. The only thing that stopped me was, would the sharks get me before I made it. My brother thought it was hilarious that I fed burly over the edge as he chomped on a packed lunch.

I used to feel queasy going from Circular Key to Manly on the ferry, so it must have been total disregard to my wellbeing when I boarded the ship Fairsea on a six week's journey to England.

Back in 1958 only the very rich were able to travel by plane, so a boat it was for me. To my relief sailing from Sydney to Auckland was smooth and I felt great. Half way between Auckland and Tahiti we ran into a tropical storm. The ship bucked and plunged as I headed for the bathroom. Strangely that was the only time I felt seasick in the six weeks journey.

As we approached Tahiti the sun was just rising behind the island. It was a magical sight with all the brilliant colour spreading out from behind the island. This beautiful sight was only possible by coming in from the sea. I thank the sea gods for giving me such a wondrous experience.

It was a long haul from Tahiti to Panama, and it gave me a chance to observe the moods of the sea, and the creatures that lived in it, and almost getting on first name basis with the sail fish that seemed to follow the ship. Standing on the bow of the ship at night as it cut its way through the sea was a treat I enjoyed.

Panama Canal was an experience. Man had tamed and organised the sea for his own use. Quite a feat really, and not often achieved. From Panama to Curacao in the West Indies was beautiful but uneventful. The sea being calm and not at all resentful of what man had done to it in the Canal.

Two days from Curacao the ship broke down and for the next two days it wallowed at the sea's will as they worked to fix the engine.

That was the end of my exciting sea voyage as I was confined to the ship's hospital for the remaining two weeks of my journey. I was very ill but not from seasickness. The drunk ship's doctor and a fat Italian nurse who spoke no English were more tormentors than carers. They didn't know what was wrong with me but they were cunning enough to unload all the passengers off the ship in Southampton before they reported my illness to the authorities.

I spent the next six weeks in the Southampton hospital recovering from hepatitis. So ends my story of an epic sea voyage.

FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD.

Jamie grew up in a poor farming family who had plenty to eat and clothes to wear but not much else. The house was furnished with homemade furniture, mainly made out of packing cases and a coolgardie safe instead of a refrigerator. It was a happy enough life and Jamie grew up self-reliant and ready for life. At fourteen he left home because there wasn't enough income from the farm to support another adult.

From the labour exchange he was sent to a station hands job on a large cattle station in Western Queensland. He was happy about this as he was well suited for the position and felt it would be a great adventure for him.

When he reached the station he found that it was well run and very prosperous. He was very impressed when he met the owner who seemed to be a down to earth, no nonsense kind of man who would expect him to do a hard day's work but would be fair. The overseer, an older man, was also down to earth and hard working. He would be Jamie's immediate boss. The day's work started at daybreak and often went to sundown, which was fine with Jamie as it had been the same as his life on the farm at home.

Jamie thrived on his life and over time grew into a fine young man who had the respect of his co-workers and his overseer. He never had much to do with the main homestead and didn't know anything about how they lived. He was happy living in the men's quarters with the company of the others and three square meals a day and good pay.

As he rode past the homestead one day he saw a beautiful young girl who took his breath away. That night back at the men's quarters he asked the overseer about her. The overseer said yes it was the owner's daughter who had been away at boarding school and was now at university. Seeing the look on Jamie's face the overseer added, just forget you saw her, she is well beyond your league. But Jamie couldn't get her out of his mind and over time he felt a burning desire to meet her. This didn't happen for some time until the young lady graduated from university and came home to stay full time. Her mother had died and her father needed someone to run the homestead. Even then the meeting didn't happen until there was a raging bush fire on the property. The men along with the owner fought the fire day and night and that's when Jamie finally met the young lady. She brought tea and food to the men fighting the fires and Jamie learned that her name was Jane. She wasn't at all what he expected, not standoffish in the least. They had several chances for long chats and Jamie became more and more besotted with her. There was one big problem with their budding friendship. She was the daughter of a rich man who lived in a completely different world to him. Although he had saved up quite a bit of money, he was still the hired hand. He was very aware of this and was quite shy about his position, but he couldn't get her out of his mind. He knew he would either have to leave his job or do something about his dilemma. Eventually he plucked up enough courage to tell Jane how he felt and was overwhelmed by her response. She looked upon him as someone she would love to be with.

He decided the matter had to be resolved right now, so one evening he fronted up at the homestead dressed in his best. He wasn't very sure about the reception he would get, so with heart pounding he knocked on the door. Jane answered the door and told him she had spoken to her father about him but wasn't sure how he felt about welcoming him as a son-in-law. He thought I might be a fool rushing in where angels fear to tread but it's something I must do.

Jane's father had his eye on Jamie's work for some time and had him in mind for a future overseer, but this was something else.

The father adored his daughter and wanted her happiness above all else. He was impressed with the forthright way Jamie had come to ask for Jane's hand. It was a great relief to Jane and Jamie when he agreed to allow them to court if they didn't rush into anything. All's well that ends well, fool's rush in, que sera sera. They lived happily ever after.

A SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE.

Everyone knows this doesn't work, but does it really need to. They say no man is an island unto himself, but this is not necessarily so either. Some can sail through life completely self-contained, and if they do not fit into that round hole that's considered normal, they are unique, and with their uniqueness are able to live a sound and productive life. It is not what the general run of people who work towards acceptance would like, or at times, feel comfortable with in others.

Having grown up isolated from other children, except for brief amounts of time, I never gave being a square peg much thought. I was happy with my own company mainly because there wasn't much choice, and I did have my horses and dog to keep me company. They never considered me square or indeed round, it was just me. My siblings were much older than me so they didn't give a fig if I was square or round. Looking back I don't think they really knew if I was there or not. Strange kid but then strange kids have to grow up.

In the early fifties out in Western New South Wales there was a mighty shearer's strike that turned nasty. On the property I worked on the sheep were badly in need of shearing but no shearers would touch them. In desperation the two sons of the owner and myself hopped in and shore them ourselves. This enraged the unionist and I was told to just wait until we get you in the pub. I found this a joke as I had never set foot in a pub in my life. What I saw of the six o'clock swill that was a go at the time, I thought I probably never would.

The fact that I was never a serious drinker often put me in the square peg category, especially when I went to work for a large company that mainly employed men. The majority of which would go straight from work to the pub, and stay there until they arrived home just before their dinners were spoilt. I on the other hand was off to Teck, rehearsing a musical or giving my time to charity. This was not fitting into that round hole, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

LUCILLE.

Ruby worked in a diner on the outskirts of a small town just out of Sacramento. She was well liked and worked hard at her job. The hours were long but the wages allowed her to live in comfort in her one bedroom flat. She was very satisfied with her life as her parents had been slaves on a farm but were now free. Their lives had been much harder than her life now and although no longer slaves, their lives hadn't improved much. Ruby was an African- American but her colouring indicated that a white ancestor was in the mix.

Sanchez was an immigrant from Mexico and worked as a fettler on the railroad nearby and lived in a fettlers hut out along the railway line. He also worked long hours and wanted to better himself, but for the time being he wasn't making much headway. He sometimes ate at the diner as the meals were good and not expensive. He was very shy when he was served by Ruby as he thought she was very beautiful with her fuzzy black hair and beautiful smile. It took some time before he got to know her enough to speak to her and as he became more comfortable with her he found she had a wonderful disposition. He desperately wanted to take the friendship further but he felt he had nothing to offer her. Ruby on the other hand thought he was very handsome and strong with his Spanish good looks.

It was inevitable that the barrier would soon be broken down and as Sanchez was eating at the diner more often, they spent what little spare time they had together. Sanchez eventually plucked up enough courage to ask Ruby to move in with him. They were very happy together in Sanchez's hut by the railway line. Later on they were blessed with a beautiful baby daughter.

They poured all the love and devotion they had for one another into the raising of their precious little girl. They named her Lucille and she did grow into a very beautiful girl. As she grew up they poured their efforts into giving her a better life than what they had. They made sure she attended school and often struggled paying fees for the schools extra activities. Dancing was one of these activities and as Lucille excelled in this, they gave her all the help they could.

As she grew into a beautiful teenager she won a bursary to a ballet school. Ruby and Sanchez were overjoyed with this event and it helped them out with their finances. Lucille had several years training in classical dance as she grew into a young woman. She entered dance completions and did well but the one she was best at was jazz ballet.

When Lucille left school she felt she wanted more in her life than living in a shack down by the railroad, and decided to get a job and make her own way in life. She auditioned for a part as a dancer in a musical that was coming up in the city. Not only did she get the part but was lead dancer in the show. As her skin was a light coffee colour she was accepted as a Latino. Not that this worried Lucille but it did make it easier for her as her career went from strength to strength. Now being comfortably off, she moved her parents from their fettlers hut down by the railroad to a very nice little house on the edge of town. There they lived in great pride watching their precious Lucille dance her way to fame and fortune.

HIT AND RUN.

Johnathon was a quite gentle little boy, and when he started school where his father was headmaster he was immediately an easy target for a big bully boy named Bruce the Brute. Bruce was from a family whose philosophy was to trample on anyone weaker than you. It made them feel powerful and important. In reality the father was a good for nothing drunk who used to beat his wife and son up on a regular basis. So Bruce was brought up to intimidate anyone he could. Little Johnathon was an easy child for Bruce to intimidate and harass, because he was miserable with his life at school and was ashamed about being such a weakling. He especially didn't want his father to know how pathetic he was in not being able to defend himself.

Almost daily Bruce would ruff him up and take his lunch money. He would even intimidate him outside school hours. Johnathon avoided playing in the park or attending sporting venues in case he came across Bruce. This didn't make for a happy little boy and his parents could tell he was unhappy and tried to find the reason. Johnathon being afraid of more reprisals from his tormentor kept it all to himself.

This situation went on for some time and it wasn't until Johnathon's dad was sent out to a remote Aboriginal settlement north of Alice Springs that he had a break from his tormentor. The family all moved to the settlement and Johnathon was the only white child there. He was such a quiet kind little boy that the aboriginal children accepted him and immediately gathered him into their culture. The parents could see he was starting to bloom with such a lot of friends and were only too happy to let him participate in their activities. He learned to hunt and fish for food and went on long treks out into the desert with the children. He learned another big lesson and that was you didn't bully others to get what you wanted.

The boys at the settlement were all keen on the sport of boxing and taught Johnathon the art of being successful in the ring. As his confidence increased he became a proficient boxer and with all the activity he was engaged in his body became lean and strong. Life was good at the settlement for him and he wondered why he had been so afraid of a certain bully. His character strengthened along with his body and by the time his father's term of teaching ran out on the settlement he was quite a different boy.

His father was to return to his old school when his contract ran out so the whole family moved back to their o0ld home. Johnathon had put Bruce out of his mind by this time but this was not the case with Bruce. On spying his old victim Bruce was overjoyed to have this little woos back for him to torment. Bruce made sure he had quite an audience when he set out to prove his dominance in the playground. He approached Johnathon with a smirk on his face ready to give this weakling a real ruff up. Johnathon tried to ignore him at first but Bruce was not to be put off. As Bruce stood over Johnathon full of bluster, shouting obscenities at him, the crowd had gathered around to watch their Bruce destroy the kid. Johnathon by this time realised there wasn't going to be a happy ending so with his newfound skills he let fly with a mighty clout to Bruce's nose. With blood running from his nose Bruce couldn't believe what had happened but with the look on Johnathon's face he could see it wasn't going to get any better for him so with a mighty bellow he fled the scene with all his ex-mates laughing at him.

This was definitely a case of hit and run. Johnathon hit and Bruce did the running.

MAGIC MOMENTS.

It is hoped that everyone has their own magic moments in their life and it would be sad for anyone who didn't. There has been many magic moments in my life and some more profound than the ones I'm going to write about.

I have loved to sing for most of my life but up until I moved to some acres outside Tamworth I had only sung at private parties. Arriving in Tamworth by myself I decided to fill my empty evenings by joining the very active musical society. Too shy to audition for a part in the upcoming Oklahoma. I was given a place as a cowboy in the chorus as a singer and dancer. This for me was a great success and gave me confidence to take part in the next musical which was Carmen. This stretched my vocal chords beyond what I thought was possible even though I only had a part as a soldier in the chorus.

My next part I did audition for and it was for an English lord in Anna and the King of Siam. It was a minor principal part but it was a magical moment to be able to transport myself from being a very ordinary person to being a toff up on the stage dancing with Anna. It became a gift to be able to escape the ordinary to be whatever I needed to be up on stage. It was no longer the farm worker or the railway fettler but someone lost in his part up on stage being whatever was required of him.

In the musical My Fair Lady, I had to change roles three times going from Professor Higgins butler, to a cockney, to being one of the gentry in a ball scene. The biggest challenge for this musical was from the makeup ladies who had difficulties changing my appearance for the different roles, so I was forced to shave off my beard which was a thick bushy affair at the time.

One of my more memorable roles was in Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum. There I played the part of Erroneous, a befuddled old man who was searching for his daughter and the only way to find her was to tramp around the Seven Hills of Rome seven times. As I staggered across the stage seven times the audience would give a loud cheer. I must have played the part well as the musical society in Armidale asked me to play that part in their production. I had to decline as I was already in rehearsal learning to tap-dance for our next musical. Everyone agreed that I was type cast for the role as a befuddled old man.

The society put on Fiddler on the Roof and I really wanted a lead role in this production. For many nights before the auditions I would play a tape of the musical as I drifted off to sleep and by the time of the auditions I knew word for word every single part. However singers from far and wide auditioned for the main parts and I was relegated to being one of the Jewish puppers, Usal the hat maker. The other part I had was as one of the Cossack dancers which just about wrecked me by the end of the show.

I had the joy of being in seventeen musicals altogether as well as several concerts and plays. One of the concerts was a big one put on for the centenary of the local council. We were given a standing ovation at the end of the show which was indeed a magical moment.

RITE OF PASSAGE.

My name is William Khan and I was borne in India twenty-four years ago. This is the story of my fight to win my rite of passage. My father owned a tea exporting company in India and my mother was his Indian housekeeper. They were not married of course as back then such an event would not have been acceptable, but we all did live as a discreet family in private. I was told that my father owned a large family estate in England and that his wife lived there and had no intentions of ever coming to India. It was too barbaric and hot for her to contemplate. Father would visit England occasionally to take care of his affairs there, but he preferred his life in India. He and his English wife never had any children and I suppose that is why he was so caring of me.

To me they were mother and father without any complications, except we were never seen out in public together. I had a devoted nurse who looked after me when I was a baby and she stayed with us through my childhood years. Father made sure I received the best education possible and enlisted me into several sports where I excelled. Most of the English boys my age were sent back to boarding school in England and I was glad this wasn't for me. I didn't feel I was missing out on anything because my all round education was full on. One of my great delights was playing polo and my fellow team mates accepted me into their world without question. I had my father's deep blue eyes and my skin was a light coffee colour from my mother.

I was always popular with the girls I met at parties or sporting events so I grew up with confidence in myself that there wasn't anything I couldn't achieve. I was tutored in social graces by my parents and learned to play snooker and bridge, as well I was taught to appreciate fine food, music and art. We always had our meals in a formal dining room and when I became old enough I was allowed to join the guests for dinner.

I was a keen student and loved learning and with that combination I always did well with my grades. On completion of my school years I sat an exam which I passed with flying colours and this gave me a place at Cambridge University where I intended to study business and finance. My years at the university were filled with hard work and lots of fun times in between. Because of my father's influence in my education, I naturally spoke with an English accent which allowed me to fit right in. Through my years at the university I was accepted as one of them. I had several girlfriends but none of them serious because I wanted to establish myself in life before I settled down. While at university I was able to attend operas, ballet, art galleries and major sporting events. My father had given me a generous allowance to support me while I studied so I was able to enjoy the best things in life. Many of my fellow students came from aristocratic families and I often spent weekends on their estates. I completed my degree with honours and returned to my family in India.

Back home I joined my father's company and worked closely with him. We became not only father and son but very good friends and he tutored me in the business. I enjoyed the challenge I had set myself to get to the top. There was no doubt that he accepted me as his son, but there was the complication of his wife in England who lived on the estate but didn't have any children. As father grew older it bothered him more that he didn't have a legal heir to take his place. After much consultation he decided the best option to secure my future was to adopt me, which he did. My mother never made any demands on him but was delighted with the adoption. Now with a legal son by his side we went from strength to strength.

Father was getting old and slowing up but he encouraged me to press on with my ambitions. He liked to talk to me about my future and told me with training I could fit in anywhere. He said for himself, even though he had the family estate in England he was much happier in India but when he passed on I would have a choice. I told him that knowing I had these wonderful choices my place was here with the business.

After a very busy day at the office, father didn't look well so I took him home and called a doctor. It was the old man's time the doctor said and a few days later he passed away. Before he died he said to me, William it's your rite of passage that you will be the responsible owner of a fine business, look after it well and have a happy life.

MY LIFE AS A --------- whatever it's not.

I was always a big strong boy even as a toddler which made me a leader in my pre-school class. This continued into my school years and I naturally became the captain of my football club and captain of the cricket team. I knew I was destined for greatness and expected everything I wanted to come my way. Being very smart I always achieved straight a's or a+. Arriving home with my report card it was always ho hum I've done it again.

In high school I became a prefect and the leader of the debating team. Playing rugby each weekend made me very fit and to push my boundaries even further I joined the boxing team and won all the matches I entered. I always had a flock of young ladies chasing after me and at times I let them catch me. In my last year of school I was the dux and had no trouble entering university to study criminal law. I played rugby for the university team and bulked up so much I looked more like a professional footballer than a law student. I sailed through university and received my degree with honours.

Needing a break from studies I decided to skipper a yacht in a round the world race. Of course we won the event and I was free to start my working life. I was offered a position in a prominent law firm and after studying all the other offers I decided to join them.

After the first year I thought I was ready for a change and a challenge. The firm didn't want to lose me and offered a promotion that would lead to a junior partnership a little down the track. Being good with figures I had gathered an impressive portfolio of shares and not being satisfied with the idea of junior or down the track I resigned from the firm and started my own business. Most of my clients were criminals but what the heck they paid the best.

At the age of thirty I thought it was time to settle down so I married the daughter of one of my rich clients. The father made me his business manager as well as his lawyer. He liked to have me around when he was negotiating difficult deals. During these events my experience in the boxing ring came in handy.

With all my brilliance I was in a spot I could never get out of and didn't really want to. Is this where all the clever dicks end up?

LIFE IS JUST A FOOTNOTE TO REALITY.

If it is true that Plato, together with his mentor Socrates and his pupil Aristotle, introduced the world to the way of thinking we call philosophy which comes from Greek meaning love of wisdom then we should get on with it and put our thinking gear into gear?

Philosophy is difficult to define precisely as it tends to drift off into unreality at times. Some of the great men in this field tended to get stuck on their view of wisdom and being very clever men were able to convince everyone else that the path of thought that they were going down was the right one. This is not to say that they were wrong as they were deep thinkers and thought beyond the conciseness of others and no doubt had solid arguments for their view.

I covered at some length psychology, sociology and adult education in the quest for a graduate diploma. In psychology the subjects covered were aspects of human development such as childhood, adolescents, middle age changes and the old age process. In sociology subjects covered were, group behaviour from both theoretical and practical viewpoints, also family and social groupings. In adult education, particularly important was the manner in which adults learn.

The reason for including this is to emphasise the importance of keeping a strong grip on reality no matter where your mind takes you. The course was designed to expand your mind to whatever level you were capable of.

Some of the exercises were confronting, such as the day at a mental hospital where we were instructed to chat to the patients and staff. My worry on that day was that I found it hard to tell the difference between the staff and the patience and the awful thought that many of the patients were more with it than I was.

We were encouraged to write down where our mind bending journey had taken us. Here is some of what I expressed on that journey.

There is a long twisting road ahead of me that leads to nowhere.

I'm not sure about it leading to nowhere but when I look out ahead of me where the road ends, all I can see is a void.There is a dark oppressive cloud hanging over the void.

I am moving down the road fairly quickly. I'm not sure by what means, but whatever it is that propels me, I am not able to stop.

On either side of the road there are high banks with roads leading into the mountains. The road is well lit but the mountain tracks are dark.

As I pass down the road I see suggestions of other roads leading off into the mountains. These roads are not very clear. I would like to see where they lead to but I am moving too fast towards the depressive void to stop and investigate.

I don't have to make any effort while being carried down the road. I feel perhaps the mountain roads would take a lot of effort and courage.

There are no living beings around me that I might look to for support. The road is so barren I feel as though I am in a vacuum.

I don't think I really lost track of reality during this course but I know it would be easy to do if you didn't focus on where you were going and where you wanted to end up.

Life is just a footnote to reality, if it is hang on to it and don't let your mind wonder too far off the track.

BLACK AND WHITE.

Never did like this colour scheme, preferring to be like the lady on television and ask," Does it come in any other colours". Being black and white in thought has never suited me I guess, as from a very young age life hasn't been that simple. Some problems need a black and white answer and I have often admired people who have such a clarity of knowing they are right and others just don't get the picture. I probably fit into the others picture as I tend to look for the shades of grey or other colours. This is why I had to work so hard with mathematics as this presents problems that only have answers in black and white.

There are times when thinking in black and white is detrimental and I found that out when I was working as a volunteer telephone councillor and councillor trainer for seventeen years. There were so many problems that didn't have a straight forward answer and as a councillor you had to avoid giving one. In your own mind or your own life the answer might have been black and white but it wasn't your problem and your job was to help your client find a way they could deal with it themselves.

I have just bought a laptop and it doesn't want to be co-operative. I have used a computer with windows seven for some time but this devil of a machine is windows eight. Oh to be a black and white thinker for once. It has frustrated me every inch of the way. Being slightly computer challenged I took my computer into the computer doctor in Gympie to set it up for me with a wireless connection. It was there for four days and when I eventually arrived home with it I thought great, now I will be able to write my stories to my heart's content and have them all neatly printed out for my next writing day. I was very excited about it, so you can imagine my disappointment when very little worked. Either the pc doctor didn't do a very good job or I am more stupid than I thought I was. It's a bit like when a friend gives you a recipe of her favourite dish and she has left out one of the most important ingredients.

However I won't give up and sometime in the future I will come to terms with the problem I have with this pigheaded machine. I have started a computer course at the U 3 A in Tewantin and so far so good on their machine with its window seven. My computer had better watch its step because a black and white thinker is on his way.

DRIVING A HARD BARGAIN.

This is what gives some people an adrenalin rush as they pit their wits against another. It's not something I enjoy and have often paid a lot more money for an item than I would have liked just to avoid the contest. Would I bargain now? As I grow older and much surer of myself, plus have less income, of course I would. I remember embarrassing my wife the first time I fronted up at the ticket office at the picture show, and announced that I was now a pensioner and would there be a concession. I have become quite good at it since. A dollar here and a dollar there is always helpful. In the last two houses we bought, I have bargained and had ten thousand off each one. But I can't crow about this as I was bargained out of nineteen thousand in the last house we sold. You can't win them all but I think I really had a win there in the long run as we gained a much happier place to live.

If I need a job to be done I investigate the possibilities on offer and people who would be suitable to do the job. I always look for the best and most efficient way of the job being done, plus the calibre of the workers. Then I look at the pricing. After this I get a quote and maybe more than one. If I am satisfied with the results I receive, I inform the company to go ahead watching all the time to make sure what I have expected is indeed done. So far I haven't been let down using this method, and it saves me the angst of bargaining. As you can tell by what I have just said, I would be a most unsuitable person to be driving a hard bargain, and it would cause me undue stress that I can well do without.

I did drive a hard bargain back in 1989 but it was with myself. I had undergone major open heart surgery where they removed part of the muscle from inside my heart. I was very disappointed when in the recovery ward I watched the patients who had bypass surgery and they were up and going almost straight away. This didn't happen to me and I asked the surgeon about my results. He said my recovery would take time as the heart had to repair itself. I was in a lot of pain and had trouble breathing.

Back at home I felt like death warmed up and on my next visit to the doctor he told me that I would have to accept that I was now an invalid and would probably be like this for the remainder of my life. This made me very angry. I felt I should have had a better deal after going through so much pain. I wasn't ready to accept his verdict as I would rather be dead than a helpless invalid. I started on a walking programme which was pathetic to start with but I gained momentum. I felt my heart was fighting my efforts and in a burst of anger one day I drove a hard bargain with it. Within myself I bargained with my heart. My bargain was, I will look after you if you just behave yourself and let me get on with life. The hard bargain still stands twenty-five years later and the operation was only supposed to last ten years at most.

It might have been my one effort at bargaining but I came out the winner.

NINETIES.

William grew into a strong healthy young man who was always on the go. He was one of the better oarsman at the rowing club and an A grade tennis player. He rowed and played tennis competitively. He was also a bridge player and in the evenings he played violin in the local orchestra.

At university he completed his medical degree and went on to become a surgeon at a leading hospital. After he had received his degree he married the love of his life, an attractive young woman who was as athletic as he. She graduated as a doctor shortly after he did. They had a wonderful life together without a care in the world. In between their work commitments they fitted in as much of their favourite sports as they could. The arrival of a son and then a daughter slowed their activities down a little for a while but as the children grew they were soon introduced to their parent's favourite sports.

William and his wife Jenny loved their life and their two bright children. The whole family were always up for a new challenge. Jenny and the children adored William as he was such an outgoing person full of fun. As busy as he was with his practice he always had time to listen to any worries Jenny might have had with her patients and helping the children through the rigors of university. He was also a member of the Rotary club and often helped out with their activities.

When the children grew up and went on to set up their own lives, William and Jenny slowed down a little but not much. They kept up their sports although a little slower than before. They were highly respected members of the community and gave their time freely to those in need. The children often came to them for advice when a dilemma occurred and they were happy to help them out.

In their sixties Jenny decided to retire from her practice and concentrate on her community involvements. William felt he still had a lot to give as a surgeon and decided he wasn't ready to retire yet. He worked on through his sixties and on into his seventies. It was then he noticed the odd moment of forgetfulness but as it didn't affect his work he put it down to overload. As he approached his eighties he came to the decision that as he had slowed down it was time to call it quits. He was then popular as a consultant until in his eighties he found he was forgetting little things like dates and information that Jenny had given him. This bothered him as his brain had always been so sharp. When he reached his nineties his memory deteriorated to the point he gave up all outside activities.

Jenny noticed that he often just sat out on the balcony looking out into space. She decided it was time to consult a doctor to find the reason for the worrying change in him. Yes it was Alzheimer's and very advanced. Jenny and the children were devastated when he reached the stage of not knowing who they were. They poured the years of love and attention he had given them back to him and made sure he had every care.

For William the beginning of his condition was horrible for him as although he didn't know what was wrong he was aware that something bad was happening. He spent the last days of his nineties he had left in memories of long ago and with the love and care of his family he was able to slip away peacefully at the end.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS.

I would like to tell you about some strange bedfellows that came into my life in the animal world. The first one was in the form of a tiny silky terrier dog that came into our lives as a very small bundle of fluff. She was so small the only place for her to be safe was at the end of our bed. The cat we had at the time terrorised her. Wendy as she was called came to regard herself, not as a dog but one of the family. She never grew very big but as she matured she became a force to be reckoned with in regard to the cat and anyone who invaded her human's space. We were unable to leave her behind when we went out because she would create havoc so she went with us everywhere, even sitting on top of the pram when we journeyed into the city.

On one trip she was in residence on the end of our bed in a motel, and in the morning there was a knock on the door. It was our breakfast arriving and the lady didn't wait for an answer but came straight in. I flew out from under the covers and landed on Wendy to prevent the attack. I often wondered afterwards what the lady thought I was up to as I lay half naked across the bed with a loud noise coming from under the blanket. She didn't wait around to find out. Wendy was with us for thirteen years so there is a lot more to tell.

The next strange bedfellow came in the form of a turkey gobbler. We had purchased a trio of turkeys but unfortunately a fox ate the two hens. The gobbler on his own went strange and eventually took up residence in the hen house where he proceeded to sit on the eggs to hatch them. This wasn't on as far as the hens were concerned so gobbler went in the pot.

Around the same time we had a pet pig. She didn't know she was a pig and decided to set up home with one of the horses in the stable. The pair of them were comfortable with each other's company and when the horse was taken out into the dressage arena for training, the pig would follow on and do the dressage test with her best friend.

One of our friends bred miniature schnauzers and she asked if I would like one of her pups as a gift. I thought this was extremely generous as they were worth six hundred dollars. Soon after Artichoke, son of Oberjean and Sweet Pea was delivered to us. He had one deformed ear, hence the gift. Just before this event our daughter had a huge bull mastiff female dog. As she was in the police force the dog gave her security guarding her house. Such a big dog on a town block wasn't such a good idea as Ruby, the bull mastiff became over protective and a danger to all that entered. As was the case with many of our children's dogs, Ruby came to live with us.

With all the space in the world to run around in, Ruby became a much loved dog even though we always shut her in a pen whenever outsiders were coming just in case. When tiny Arti arrived, Ruby became very animated and I thought she wanted to kill him. A ninety kilogram and one less than one kilogram wasn't a good mix I thought. How wrong I was. When Ruby was finally able to get past our guard she gathered up Arti to her and claimed him as her own. Ruby was a great mother and trained her baby well, even down to taking him out into the paddock to do his business. In the first few days I expected the pup to be fretful for his real mother but no he had Ruby to cuddle up to.

One day Arti managed to get himself on top of a large rock in the garden but couldn't get down. He sat there howling until I rescued him. As I put him down on the ground, Ruby came up to him and with her massive paw gave him such a whack. Arti's bath time was a worry for Ruby as she could tell he didn't like the water. As soon as the ordeal was over Ruby would gather him up and across the paddock they would go. It looked comical, this huge mum setting off with her baby that you could hardly see. Arti loved to come with me in the farm truck when I went out with the chain saw to get firewood. Ruby wasn't keen on the noise of the chainsaw but she would wander out several times to check on her baby.

When Arti was three years old we came home from town one day and found Ruby dead in her favourite resting spot. Not only were we upset but Arti howled for days. I think they were indeed strange bedfellows.

THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING.

Once there was a man destined to become king but he had a major problem. He couldn't get his mind off what an American divorcee had to offer. He wasn't able to come to terms with what he was born to do and what he felt compelled to do for himself. Without much thought of the consequences of his position and that of his younger brother, he abdicated and was exiled along with his divorcee out of his homeland.

The younger brother who was shy and stuttered badly and untrained for the position of king didn't want the job. Unlike his older brother he did have an important trait and that was a great sense of duty. After a struggle within himself he became a much loved king and he and his wife had two daughters. The eldest grew up knowing what her duties and responsibilities were. Her mother was a strong ambitious woman and made sure her daughter was ready when the time came.

The king died at a young age, just after his eldest daughter was married and she had the crown thrust upon her much too soon but with the training and sense of duty she had, she was able to take over the rains. She did a splendid job along with producing four children.

Her eldest child, although brought up to be king one day didn't appear to be committed, or in many people's mind, suitable. He had a bit of the uncle in him and became infatuated with a woman who was married. "That's not on" said the establishment, you must marry a younger woman with child bearing potential and from a suitable family. It's not a sure thing that the chosen family were all that suitable but he did marry a girl barely out of her childhood. There was no drama in his life about taking over the role of king because his mother lived on and on and no intentions of handing over the job. Perhaps she feared what a disaster he would be. The prince and his wife had two sons, the eldest being coached in the job that one day might be his. Tragically as the prince was mooning after his married love, his young wife decided to make her own life more interesting and had several liaisons, one of which led to her untimely death.

The prince's real love then unmarried her husband and after a time married her prince. By this time the prince and his now wife were past middle age and he still planned on becoming king one day. "Not on", Said his mother who steadfastly held on to the crown although she was defiantly in the old age bracket. The prince and his second wife after some time did become accepted to a degree by the people but it was more like an affection you feel for the Muppets or the Flintstones than a royal.

In the meantime the prince's eldest son grew into a fine, intelligent and sensitive young man who met a beautiful intelligent young girl from a common background at university. They dated on and off for several years and eventually married. The world could see this latest prince would be the right man for the job but would he be given a chance over his father if the job came up?

You could almost hear the queen thinking to herself, I must hang on until my son is too old to want to be king. I could then hand the rains over to my grandson who is perfect for the job.

The young prince has thrown an extra possibility in the ring by producing a son of his own. Now there are three future kings, which one will it be?

A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER.

This subject covers a host of possibilities, defining beauty being one of them. What beauty is to me might not be to another, but that's beside the point so I will stick to my view of beauty.

For my fourth birthday, and I can still remember it quite clearly, my family placed into my arms a beautiful fluffy long haired retriever pup. I was smitten with this beautiful creature and she gave me great joy for many years. I have had many dogs since but she was the one who gave me the love of these beautiful creatures.

In my wanderings around the world as a young man I came across many breathtakingly beautiful places and buildings. In quiet moments I am able to transport myself back to those scenes and enjoy them all over again. In this sense their beauty has been with me forever. The South Seas islands, the magical mountains of the European Alps, the magnificent fiords of Norway and many very old beautiful buildings whose age defies belief. In one awesomely huge cathedral in Luxembourg, the beauty of the internal building was designed to create a feeling of peace and devotion. There is also the same beauty in some of Australia's remote and wild landscapes in which you can lose yourself in their tranquillity.

In some humans who have external beauty it might not match up with what is inside them. If you look at the beauty within and are wise enough to see it there will be a joyful experience. There is an inner beauty in most people if you really look for it. In some, external beauty is a curse and not a blessing. It can lead them down the wrong path and for an externally beautiful person, especially for men, more is expected of them in many ways. So if you find the inner beauty, that person will remain beautiful to you forever, no matter if they become fat and bald.

Beauty is also in the eye of the beholder where art is involved. A beautiful painting or a piece of fine sculpture can give you joy for many years, and often becomes more precious to you as the years pass.

I can't name just one of these beautiful things that gives me joy forever, but I do name all of them. For they have given me beautiful memories to keep forever.

ONE DAMN TRHING AFTER ANOTHER.

The day started off well enough. I trained my dressage horse for an hour in the arena and then I decided to train my wife's horse for an hour. She wasn't able to ride at the time because she was recovering from a heart attack. As it was November the day had become very hot and both horse and rider were very sweaty. I decided to ride a dressage test that was way beyond any I had competed in. I had put my own saddle on him and I thought afterwards perhaps it wasn't a good idea as he had his own special saddle that my wife rode in.

I was on the last round of the arena to complete the test without a single mistake when all hell broke loose. The horse although very highly strung had never bucked before but for whatever reason he went completely berserk. The test asked for four flying changes across the arena and on the last change he decided to give me flying changes one after another and the last one comprised a mighty leap into the air and then into a violent buck. I had a brief moment when I thought to myself, "You're not going to dump me you bastard". As the bucks became more frantic I lost my grip on the rains. I had a double show bridle on him which has two sets of rains and two bits in his mouth. One set of rains for general guidance and the other to put him in a better frame. The second rain you had to treat very gently as it was severe if used badly. It was just one damn thing after another as I finally regained one set of rains and looked up to see we were heading straight for the fence. I gave the rain one mighty jerk to get his head up from between his front legs and unfortunately it was the delicate rain I had in my hands. The result was he gave one mighty plunge in the air, summersaulted and came down on top of me. I remember thinking, "I'm in trouble here" before I blacked out.

My wife was watching from the other end of the arena and the sight of me being squashed under a very large horse, caused her heart to go into spasms, but she got to me as soon as she could. I was just coming to when she reached me. She asked if she should get the ambulance. In my semi-conscious state I said," Of course not". That was before I realised I was unable to get up off the ground. Somehow she managed to get me out of the arena and into the car and off to hospital.

We were not very familiar with the hospital layout and my wife unloaded me at the front door. I managed to stagger in through the front door where I collapsed in a heap. A nurse rushed over with a wheel chair and I was carted off to emergency. In emergency a nurse asked, "What was a man of seventy-two doing riding such a horse in the first place". I was too busted up to care what she thought as I went into shock. Eventually an Asian doctor arrived on the scene and asked me what had happened, I told him I had an accident on a horse. His English wasn't all that good and I thought, one damn thing after another when he looked at me and asked," Horse, what is horse". I knew then it wasn't going to turn out well.

Where am I?

I have often thought where I am and why am I here? But after giving it some thought I usually come up with a reason.

In my forties I embarked on a graduate diploma course which had been designed to help agricultural officers to understand and get their message across to farmers who were perhaps resistant to change. One of the requirements of the course was to be in touch with your inner self at all times. One of the exercises was that we had to spend several hours talking to patients and staff at a mental hospital. I did wonder during the course of the day if I should be in the hospital and them coming to talk to me, especially as I found it hard in my mind to separate the patients from the staff. I had to keep a close check on "where am I?"

One of the exercises we had was to write about where we felt we were at right now. In my writing I saw myself as a small sailing boat sailing around a small island looking for a safe harbour to take refuge in as there was a wild storm coming in from the vast ocean. The island only appeared to have sandy beaches and no harbour. If the boat landed on one of the sandy beaches it would be safe but stuck fast for evermore. The little boat wasn't sure if it could make it out to sea through the wild storm. The little boat never did find the safe harbour as there wasn't any and the end of the story was left in limbo. My tutors seemed to know what I was on about, I'm not sure I did.

My next experience in this similar vein was when I did a palliative care course. We had to write our own obituary, take ourselves through our own death and funeral. I guess it is somewhere a normal person would not want to be at but I found it very intriguing and made me very aware of where I was at. Not that I was ready to visit that spot right now but it gave me insight into where I would be at when the time came.

Do I ask where I am now? I feel you never really know but I do know that wherever it is I am at peace there.

SOLO CROSSING.

Some solo crossings become famous as the journeys that are undertaken are at times a hazard, but solo crossings are an everyday event throughout most people's lives.

One crossing we all have to do is from childhood to adult. Mostly there is someone around to help you in this event, but in the end it is you who has to make the journey.

There is even a boot camp programme to help young people through this stage. It helps them to know themselves, what life is all about and where they want to end up.

Several crossings will have to be made throughout a life, like crossing from a carefree young adult to becoming a parent. Then on to your offspring setting off on their own leaving you to deal with a new stage of your life, like the empty nest syndrome. This could be a sad time or a joyous time depending how you look at it.

Then there is a big crossing to deal with, and that is going from perhaps a vitally important job to being retired. Unless you have prepared yourself for this event, it could be a traumatic journey. That's not the end of the journeys we have to make. The next crossing is from busy retiree, always on the go to one whose body is falling apart, and that is difficult to deal with. Not all people get to this stage, the lucky ones are able to live their lives to the fullest right to the end. For some people this stage is an enormous struggle, especially if they haven't had time to prepare or haven't bothered to prepare for it. The next solo crossing is one we all make eventually, and that is going from a living breathing person to one who has made their very last journey and no longer have to worry about crossings , solo or otherwise.

ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Joe had started a new job and he was both excited and apprehensive as it was, he hoped, the beginning of a new life for him. Up until now he only had jobs that were going nowhere for him. This one however had loads of potential for future advancement that would drive him on to greater efforts.

The beginning of the job didn't get off to a great start. He missed his bus and was late for work on his first day. Not only was he late but he found his immediate boss was a bad tempered old grouch and nothing he could do would please him. Being the new boy in the office he was given all the menial tasks that the old grouch could think up. Like making the coffee, emptying the rubbish bins and other similar tasks.

He had visions when he started the job that he would be sent as a cub reporter with an experienced journalist. He held on to that dream but it didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon. He knew for his dream to happen he would have to not lose hope and work hard at whatever task he was given. That way someone higher up just might notice him and give him a chance.

The odd sports report was given to him after he had worked there for some time but the old grouch made sure his work never came too much. He had defiantly got off on the wrong foot with this man who was work weary after so many years on the job and had many younger men pass him by for promotions. Joe did his best to win the old man over but to no avail. He was almost to the point of giving up when the old grouch became very ill and had to go on leave.

The office was in confusion at the loss of their leader as he had been such a dominant force. They were all concerned about what would happen to them now. However after some considerations by the chiefs, a new younger more progressive editor was given the position the old grouch held.

A week after the new editor started in the office, Joe received a message that he wanted to see him in his office. Joe thought, this is it, I'm gone but no, the new editor said to Joe, after he had introduced himself, that he had received Joe's previous work and felt it was high time Joe did a bit of real work out in the field and come back with some real stories.

Joe thought he was in heaven and all's well that ends well he thought to himself.

QUE SERA SERA.

"Que sera sera whatever will be will be the future is not ours to see que sera sera." Perhaps not, but you don't have to go along with it completely. We were given the ability to think ahead for the best pathway to follow. It might not always work out the way we wanted it to, but then it is wise to have a plan b and c just in case. A doctor once said to me that life was like a journey on a train. You could only get off when the train reached your destination. He was quite shocked when I said that was not right, as having been given the power of decisions for myself, I would be able to get off that miserable train whenever I knew within myself that the time had come.

One of the exciting thing about life is we can't really bank on what's ahead and it could be a very exciting beautiful life. If it turns out to be a miserable painful life then we have to look at our options, either accept what is on offer or work like hell to change it.

Having gone into deep depression after major heart surgery that hadn't gone so well, I must admit that I was wallowing in self-pity and I didn't feel so good. A friend gave me a book to read. It was about an Irish boy growing up in a very poor family and he was spastic. The only movement he had in his entire body was he could move his left foot. That was the name of his book, My Left Foot. He had a lot of brothers who carted him around town in a handmade billycart. They all loved him, but thought he didn't have the ability to learn anything as he could not speak. Until one day as a teenager he lay on the stone floor of the kitchen. To the families amazement he got hold of a piece of chalk with his left foot and scrawled on the floor, mum I love you. The almost vegetable went on to be an artist and an author. Having gone to Lauds for a cure, he didn't find one but he did see that there were a lot of others worse off than himself. This gave him the spur on to make the best of what he had.

Having read his book I felt really ashamed of my self-pity. How dare I feel miserable about my lot? Straight away I set myself up with a walking programme and after twelve months I had walked myself back to health. Since then I have never let "What will be", rule my thoughts. It is more where do we go from here. Be the master of your future as much as life allows you to be.

TOUR DE FRANCE 1903.

What a brilliant idea to stage such a race, even if it was basically just to boost the sales of a sporting paper. Two sporting papers were at war with one another over advertising and this event was going to make or break one of them. The two papers were Le'Auto and Le Velor. Le'Auto being the instigator of the very first Tour de France came up trumps and put their competitor out of business.

All that was of no concern to me, I just wanted and needed the twenty thousand franks in the first place prize money. Cycling was my life and it was hard to make a living out of it. I had won many lesser events and I had entered into this race as the favourite, hoping not to let myself and my fans down.

The race was over semi flat country, but each stage was long, four hundred kilometres at least. We were allowed between one and three days' rest between stages and you needed it as some of the stages lasted for seventeen hours. All the stages except the first one started before dawn, more like the night before. We rode as individuals, not in teams so you were on your own. In other races I had competed in I had been allowed a pacer, a rider who rode with you over sections to help you to keep your pace up if you were on your own, but in this race it was banned. You were allowed to ride in just some of the stages if you wanted to and if you were a front runner at the end of that stage you were paid five franks but you wouldn't be classified for the final. I, Maurice Garvin, completed all six stages otherwise I wouldn't be able to claim the twenty thousand franks.

Sixty riders entered the first stage, twenty-one were sponsored by bicycle manufactures and thirty-nine entered without support, the rest had private backers. The race was a hard slog and you had to be fit to even think of entering, the cold dark nights were the worst and at times riding through the rain added to the misery. If it hadn't been for the twenty-thousand franks at the end it would have been hard to keep the pace up. I won the race, two hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-four seconds ahead of my nearest rival, making it the biggest winning margin in history.

I went on to win the Tour de France in 1904 but there was a lot of controversy hanging over the entire riders. It was suggested that there might have been some cheating going on, like getting a lift on a train during the night. Who would do such a thing? Not me that's for sure or perhaps we will think about that one. However the organizers took it seriously and for the Tour de France 1905 several riders were banned including me.

Pity I wasn't born a hundred years later, Lance and I would have made a great team.

THAT WAS NO LADY.

She was born into a Noble high ranking aristocratic family in Austria. The youngest and only remaining member of her family put her in dire peril when Austria was taken over by the Nazi. The fact that she had Jewish ancestry didn't help.

With what she could gather together of her fortune in a hurry she fled the country knowing her name was on the list to be interned. She wasn't interested as to where her destination was to be, she just wanted to be safe.

Although she had lived the life of wealth and privilege she had also been protected from the outside world. She ended up arriving in Australia and being clever enough not to announce her wealth in fear of it being taken from her she was sent to a far western property in New South Wales as a lady's maid.

She struggled in this position because of her lack of English and not being used to being told what to do. On the property also worked a rabbit trapper who took a fancy to this foreign lady. He was a good looking young man and soon caught her attention. He offered to teach her English and she was thrilled with this and used to sneak down to his quarters in the evening for her lessons.

She wasn't to know that the English he was teaching her was only fit for out by the rabbit traps which left her with a vocabulary of foul language which she proudly displayed. When it was discovered where the foul language came from they were promptly dismissed. They went off together and lived in a tent while he pursued his line of work as a rabbit trapper. They did so well out of this they were eventually able to buy a house in town. Here is where a tragedy occurred, while working on the roof of the house he fell and was impaled on a steel fence.

With the insurance payout she was able to buy a substantial property where she raised cattle and horses. She never married again but she used to take handsome young men on tours of Europe and make gentlemen of them.

She had a great knowledge of the finer art of horse riding and was much sought after as a teacher during pony camp times. Her knowledge was so great that the knobs had to hold their tongues when the foul language came out of her during a lesson.

We met up with her during her later life because of our involvement with the horse world and if you could get past the language she was a very interesting person. She had a lonely old age and we befriended her, taking her to the pictures now and then.

Rich she may have been, a princess she may have been but she was certainly no lady.

**POSSESSION** IS NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW.

We were given a horse that our farrier owned. He said it was ours to keep as he and his wife were not able to handle it and it was no use to them. When it arrived at our home we could see it was indeed a beautiful animal and it was registered with the stock horse society. It was a large powerful chestnut horse with attractive white markings.

Its beauty was purely visual we found as we took over the handling of the animal. It wasn't all that easy to get along with. When you touched the horse it would squeal and strike out at you or if you were down the other end it would land you with a swift kick. There was no trouble riding it as it came with a chronic lameness and wasn't able to be ridden. The farrier said it was only a stone bruise and would soon get better. The lameness lasted for many months and several visits from the vet. With gentle handling over the many months we were able to win the horses trust and he found he didn't need to be so aggressive with us. We thought perhaps the farrier tried to beat this spirited highly intelligent horse into submission and he fought back.

While inspecting his lame leg one day I discovered a pussy sore at the top of his hoof. I bathed it in a bucket of antiseptic and found it had a piece of wood in it. The wood must have entered at the bottom of his hoof and worked its way up. It must have been very sore and painful for him but he allowed me to remove the stake resulting in a lame free horse.

Back in good health, Alice was able to train him in dressage and went on to win many championships and also to compete in cross country events over huge jumps. Our youngest daughter Rebecca also competed on him. He had become a lovely horse to ride and Rebecca was able to ride him bareback with just a halter on. Handy Bill as he was called became part of the family.

Alice and Rebecca met up with the farrier at a horse sale one day and Rebecca proudly told him how quiet Handy Bill had become. We had a phone call from him soon after saying that seeing that the horse was now so quiet he would like him back so his wife could compete on him. Alice was devastated as she had won the high point score on him for the whole of northern New South Wales with the stock horse society and had many trophies.

Unfortunately although we had the care and expense of the horse for many years through droughts and vet bills and turning him into a manageable horse he was still registered with the stock horse society in the farrier's name. Legally he would be ours especially as we had possession of him but we didn't want to fight about it.

The day he was to come and pick him up we flew out to England so we had turned him out with the other horses, no doubt he would have had an interesting few hours catching him.

On our return from England the farrier rang to say his wife had won the events she rode in but since then the horse had returned to his unmanageable self and he would like us to have him back. We didn't want the trauma the second time so we said no. Handy Bill was never heard of on the show scene again so we hope he was turned out to live a life of peace in a paddock somewhere.

Possession might be nine tenths of the law but sometimes you have to think about it.

THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

Ahmed lived in a mountain village in northern Afghanistan, an impoverished area with not much future for the inhabitants, especially the young ones. The Taliban had decimated many of the male population and Ahmed being on the verge of manhood feared for his future. He did his best to keep a low profile but he knew sooner or later he would have the option of either fighting with the Taliban or being put to death. He didn't like either of these options so he decided to leave his village and head up into the mountains and join the freedom fighters.

Ahmed spent one bitterly cold winter with the freedom fighters and didn't think he could survive another winter with them. Because he wasn't from their tribe they treated him badly so he decided to join the band of refugees trying to flee the country. The little band of refugees struggled over the foreboding mountain to freedom but this wasn't the end of their trail, they were placed in a refugee camp that gave them very little hope for the future so Armed decided to flee the camp and make his way with other escapees to Indonesia. Once there he handed over all his possessions to a sea captain who promised to deliver him to Australia.

The voyage in the dilapidated old boat was a nightmare with very little food or water. During the journey he often thought to himself this is it I'm not going to make it only to find himself in yet another refugee camp on an island off the coast of Australia.

After many months there he was one of the lucky ones who was granted asylum in Australia because of his young age and what he had been through. He was sent to a migrant facility in Victoria which was much better than what he had to endure up until now but wasn't freedom as he had imagined it. Although he was well fed and housed he was only free to do what he was told to do. Just as well he was in such a facility because he couldn't speak English and knew nothing of the outside world. English classes were conducted there which he knew would be important to him so he worked really hard to master the language.

A kindly church group came often to help out with the refugees and one couple were taken with the hard working Ahmed who they felt had such an intelligent look on his troubled face. They discussed among themselves how they might help this young man who had been through so much. Finally they decided to investigate if they might adopt him or at least have him come and live with them.

With great joy they found they were able to adopt him and went off to ask Armed if this is what he would like to do. He agreed to go with them but didn't know how well he would fit in, not ever really being part of a family.

He fitted in so well everyone thought of him as their son and in no time at all he was able to get his life together. He did so well he was soon off to university to study political science. He now had time to reflect how wonderful his new life was and if he kept working hard the world would be his oyster.

THE DAWN OF INSANITY.

Looking back Billy really couldn't remember when everything started to become a little bit disjointed but he knew it had and he disparately wanted to get back to what his life was before when he knew who and where he was.

He knew he was only a child when it all started so it was a long way back. Could he find his way through all the blackness and despair? It would be a long hard journey and he didn't know if he could make it on his own. The feeling he had now was that he had dived much too deep into a cold dark river and he was frantically trying to swim back to the surface which he could see but seemed an impossibly long way off.

On the surface he appeared to be a normal young man who was a bit intense and not very outgoing but he managed his job efficiently. At work with other people around him to distract him he managed reasonably well but it was at home by himself that the dark cloud descended upon him. He did his best to ward off these dark thoughts and feelings. Studying at night school to better himself helped but it wasn't enough.

There were days when he would have to ring in sick and these were his worst times. On these occasions he would take himself off to bed and wallow in his misery. He felt he was the only one who felt like this and was too afraid and embarrassed to ask anyone for help. He was an orphan so he didn't have parents or brothers and sisters to look out for him.

When he turned thirty he thought it was all getting too much for him and he longed for romance in his life but that wasn't going to happen in his present state of mind. He gathered up a collection of sleeping pills in case it all got too much for him and in deep depression he felt now was the right time.

At the office there was a young girl who had secretly become very fond of him, but of this he knew nothing. The day he decided to take his fatal step, the girl had become worried about him because he was away from the office longer than usual so she felt she should check on him. She found him unconscious but was able to get him off to hospital in time.

As Billy regained consciousness, he wasn't sure of where he was, perhaps this is what afterlife looked like. Soon a doctor came around to see how he was getting on. Doctor Ben new Billy as he had treated him for depression in the past but he had never been able to get past the wall Billy had put up. Doctor Ben knew that now was the time to push really hard to find the reason for his dark moments. Billy knew it was now or never to escape his tormented mind and Doctor Ben seemed the right man to help him.

Billy found he was able to talk to Doctor Ben and once he started, all the darkness and hurts came pouring out and he felt a great sense of relief. The doctor was able to understand where Billy was at in his mind and was able to start him on a programme of medication and therapy. The dawn of insanity had started for him when he was abandoned as a small child and the doctor was able to work with him through all those dark days.

While he worked through his recovery, the young girl Belinda from his office came to visit him often and he soon found he really had a lot to live for. This was his dawn of sanity.

WHEN THESE OLD CLOTHES WERE NEW.

I could wax lyrical on this subject as my cupboard is full of old clothes, as a matter of fact you would be hard put to find anything new there. There is one item that I remember from when it was new and that is my dinner suit that I purchased thirty years ago.

I remember feeling very smart in it as I entered the ballroom with my wife equally smartly dressed to attend a black tie affair. It was the norm to attend such functions well presented at that time, especially as you would be the odd man out if you didn't. Through the years this suit was to be my attire at many functions of importance. It only let me down once and that was when we were attending an evening that was full of politicians and dignitary's to accept our "runner up" prize for the best tourist business in northern New South Wales. The zipper of my fly decided to malfunction and couldn't be persuaded to do up. I spent the evening walking around with my programme held strategically in front of me. The walk up to the stage to accept our award was the most difficult part.

This suit was worn to many weddings and at my eldest son's wedding his father-in-law had difficulty with his suit that he had hired and as it was the same as mine I was able to help him adjust his waist line being so familiar with my own suit.

In later years most of the functions became less formal and the suit wasn't brought out so often. It then became my stage attire when I was required to appear as a toff. Most of the others required to appear in a dinner suit used the ones from the musical society's wardrobe and they inevitably looked baggy, not at all like my well-fitting suit. When we attended the opening night function of a show we were expected to be as smartly dressed as we could be and my faithful dinner suit came in handy.

We belonged to the Westpac helicopter rescue service and when they held a dinner to raise money, I worked as a waiter and of course I wore my dinner suit pants as part of my uniform. My last memory of actually wearing it was when we attended my wife's niece's wedding in Ireland. It was a very formal affair and the guests were seated separately from their partners during the reception. It was in a huge marque and the tables were very large round ones. So large you were not able to talk to the people on the other side of the table. The meal way a buffet and during the evening I found I had a loud mouth man on one side of me and a very boring spinster on the other. Becoming very bored I stripped off my dinner jacket and spent the rest of the evening helping the over worked waiters. The hostess didn't notice that I had changed from a guest to a waiter and I had a reasonably pleasant time for the rest of the evening.

I wouldn't have worn my dinner suit in the last ten years and I feel mildly proud that it would still fit me, I hope.

SUPERIOR BEING.

Oscar lived in a beautiful house right alongside a children's park. He had a very privileged life with all his wants being taken care of with fine dining every night and he could come and go as he pleased. He had absolutely everything he could possibly want except a reason for being. He was very handsome and was often admired for his looks by people who came to his house but he knew this was his due.

It was the long boring days that bothered him as all his family went out for the day and he was left to amuse himself. If the days were fine and sunny he would take himself off to the park and find a warm spot to settle down in to watch the children happily playing. He loved to watch the children as they played and would imagine being part of this family or that one. They all looked exciting to him but none of them really took much notice of him except to comment now and then on his handsomeness.

One day ran into another with very little change, until a family arrived in the park. To him they looked different to most of the other families. The mother and father were older than usual and they seemed anxious as their little boy played. He heard the parents call the little boy Joshua and Joshua did seem to have difficulties with the equipment. Oscar could see that Joshua was special little boy and needed extra care.

As the family left the park heading for home, Oscar felt a great need to be with them and help take care of the little boy. Oscar silently followed the family home. Once there he made himself known to the family and Joshua immediately felt a strong bond to this handsome cat. He begged his parents to let him keep his new found friend and they agreed to do so until his owners came to claim him.

Oscar and Joshua formed a very strong bond, so much so the parents hoped the owner would not turn up as indeed they didn't. The parents noticed how much better Joshua was managing now he had the company of the cat who obviously loved the little boy. They would play together during the day and curl up together at night. Oscar had found his heaven and Joshua had found his soul mate.

Next door to them lived an aggressive dog called Rex who would often growl at Oscar through the fence. Oscar would show distain of him with a flick of his handsome tail. Then came the day Joshua was riding his bicycle out on their driveway, really enjoying himself with Oscar keeping watch from the front porch. Without any warning Rex decided to teach that spoilt brat of a kid a lesson and attacked him, biting him savagely and pulling him off his bike.

At the first cry of distress Oscar launched himself at Rex like a furry ball of fire. His onslaught knocked Rex away from Joshua but he wasn't done with him yet. In a fury he sent the cowardly dog racing for the cover of his own home.

Oscar was a hero and the parents looked upon him with very special love and put him in the category of a superior being and Oscar knew now he had a reason for being.

TOO MEAN TO DIE.

Joe was brought up in the school of hard knocks but through great effort and hard work he managed to acquire a vast track of grazing land in the Northern Territory by the time he was thirty years old. He named his property Hardwood Downs and he made it his life.

Hardwood Downs had a substantial homestead on it and with all the required outbuildings, so he was well set up. He was a self-sufficient man who was happy with his own company and never needed others around him. Being a practical man he came to the conclusion that life would be much easier if he had a housekeeper and the only way that would be possible would be if he found himself a wife. He didn't think much further than she would be an asset taking care of his home base.

To make this come about he decided to go to Brisbane for a holiday and see what was on offer. Here he got lucky on a day out at the horse races where he met an attractive bubbly young girl who had a practical side to her. After weighing up the fore's and against he decided she would fit the bill quite nicely so he set out to woo her. Betty was taken in by his good looks, and the fact that he was the owner of a very large property.

They got on so well that at the end of Joe's four weeks holiday, he proposed to her and she said yes. As soon as they were married he didn't want to waste any more time in Brisbane so they flew straight back to Hardwood Downs.

This was all very exciting for Betty, taking over her role as a wife of a substantial land owner and she was reasonable happy for the first few years. As the years rolled by and the arrival of three sons she could feel a discontent in Joe's attitude towards her. He was taken up with his work and hardly paid any attention to her and she came to realise that she was indeed a housekeeper much more than a wife.

This ate into her thoughts until eventually she had had enough. While Joe was away with his cattle she packed her bags and with the three boys headed back to Brisbane. Joe was disappointed but that was life. He did the right thing by the boys and paid their expenses but not a penny more than he had to.

Over the years the boys grew up and Joe had reached old age, becoming a recluse and something of a miser. He had by now vast wealth and made it his life's work to guard it. The boys could have done with some help from Joe but he had become too mean to even think of sharing his wealth with them.

The boys kept hoping the mean old bugger would die as he was now in his nineties, but no Joe kept on keeping on. The boys reached the conclusion that the miserable old devil was just too mean to die.

YOU SHOULD SEE THE OTHER GUY.

Not always being sensible about my well-being I decided to join the cast of the musical, The Man from La Mancher, while still recovering from my open heart surgery. I knew it was risky but I was sick of not being able to be involved in my old life. The fantasy world surrounding the script and the weird characters it had in it had me intrigued enough to give it a go.

I was very careful of my person during the weeks of rehearsals and it all went well. There was a fight scene half way through the musical that I was concerned about but there was no way around it so I decided I would proceed with caution. The fight scene involved several muleteers fighting over the honour of one of the girls who had just been raped.

The musical being pure fantasy involved three men with a long ladder being held horizontally, a man at each end and one in the middle. The one in the middle was the one who needed sorting out. The men at the each end of the ladder were trying to do the middle man harm but he being a cad amongst other things was very keen on self-preservation. The evil doer in the middle of the ladder caused it to spin with the two men on either end being spun around at high speed. I waited for the right moment to let the ladder go, but hung on for a bit too long and the centrifugal force eventually lifted me off my feet and I was spun out through the side curtains, hitting my head and knocking myself out.

With much fuss and attention I recovered in time to go out for the next scene, but I did end up with quite a bruise on my head. I was careful of that ladder from then on. I think perhaps I was relieved when the two weeks of performance was over. I made sure that any future musicals I was in didn't have a fight scene in it or more specifically a ladder.

When I returned to work afterwards my bruise was very noticeable and caused a lot of comment of how I came to get it. I never discussed my stage activities at work so I wasn't about to tell them what really happened or they might have reckoned I was even more stupid than they thought. Working with men who went from work to the pub and then home every day meant they wouldn't have understood why I did what I did. It would have made no sense to them.

When their curiosity got the best of them and they asked me outright what had happened, I simply said I had got into a fight and if they thought my bruise was bad, they should see the other guy.

DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH.

Kev knew he and his party had made some big mistakes. The main one being all the back stabbing that had gone on for some time and the fact that no one liked each other very much unless it was to further their cause. The people he most cared about was his constituents that had voted for him and he wasn't too sure about some of them at times. Loyalty wasn't something you could rely on in his game, it only lasted as long as it suited the players on the team. He had regarded Julia as a mate, although he knew better, until she drove the knife in. All those smarmy characters surrounding him, not a true supporter in any of them when it came down to it. Well Kev had been knocked down before and survived and came back full of fight.

This time might be different as the blow he had taken might be fatal, but not in Kev's mind for he was a born fighter. He planned to drift around in the wings out of sight until he saw a bit of back-stabbing he could do for himself. The two contenders for his position were already shaping up for a fight. Perhaps one or both would get the chop as he had done. You never knew with the party, they were more unpredictable than the voters. Perhaps he could put in a quiet word to help them on their way. No better not, better to keep his head down for the time being, never know what you might learn down here.

Just look at that Tony Priest, or is it Abbott. As smug as you like just because his party won the election. Better enjoy it Tony, I saw that little blond lady who is always at your side, sharpening knifes in her office recently. There are bound to be several others who don't agree with your policies especially about turning the boats around. Even Mr. Bang Bang doesn't like your idea. What will the voters think when your grand plans for a surplus goes down the drain as well as all the millions you plan to give away to all the wealthy people, who don't need it, for having children. He should meet me down at the Polly's bar one night and I could bring him up to scratch on what is real and what he is up against.

He thinks he is on top of everything and will have a clear run from now on. Don't make me laugh.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

A name might not seem important to some but when you look at two men going for an important position, without seeing them would the man named Billy Jones or Reginald Farnsworth stick in your mind. It might depend on the interviewer's name, if it was Burt Brown he might lean towards Billy, or if it was Bartholomew Pennyweather he might lean towards Reginald.

It doesn't make the person but it does help to get them noticed. As a small boy I had a vivid imagination. I had in my very simple mind that I must have been stolen at birth or somehow ended up in the wrong family. Rationally I knew this was not the case as I looked just like the others, but I liked to dream of a more glamorous life, being transported around in a horse drawn carriage, and being referred to as the young master, like in the books I read. In fact my transport was a bicycle and lucky to have that.

I figured when I grew up I was surely going to be knighted and what I would do then. Sir Les didn't sound at all right. A little more hard thinking and I came up with Sir Leslie which did have a better ring to it. A little time later I read in a magazine about a man called Sir Les Patterson. This threw me into confusion as that definitely didn't sound right, and if he was going to be knighted with a name like that, I lost all interest in the matter.

Eventually I admitted to myself that I was just an ordinary kid, from an ordinary family with a very ordinary name, but what the heck it was easy to spell and for others to remember.

THE SOUND OF A DISTANT TRAIN.

Georgio's young life was in an orphanage in northern Italy. The orphanage was in a beautiful valley but Georgio's life was far from beautiful. His mother had left him there when he was four years old, promising to come back for him. Every day when he woke up he would think "Is today the day when mother will come back for me?" but she never did. He was told that his mother lived in Rome which was a long way away. The orphanage was poor and the children were often hungry and cold. They were short of staff and what staff there was were far too busy to be bothered with the needs of individual children. Georgio felt very alone and frightened and the only thing that gave him comfort was that eventually his mother would come back for him.

When Georgio turned twelve years of age he was sent out to a farm where he was to live and work. This happened to all the children in the orphanage when they reached the working age. Life on the farm for Georgio was brutal as all the farmer was concerned about was to get as much work out of this scrawny child as he could. After all he was feeding him and giving him a place to sleep. Georgio often cried himself to sleep at night after a hard day's work, from exhaustion and loneliness. His sleeping quarters didn't give him much comfort as his bedding was a pallet of straw in the loft above the stables with only just sacks to cover him and keep out the cold.

As time went on he lost hope that his mother would ever come for him but he never lost his memory of her and his longing to be with her. Because of the long cold nights he often lay awake thinking of a better life and wouldn't it be wonderful if his mother was in that life. With the cold still air at night in the valley he could hear the distant train as it trundled its way to somewhere and it somehow gave him comfort that there was another life out there if only he could be part of it.

The work on the farm seemed endless as there were no breaks for him, no weekends just every day the same. The food the farmer fed him wasn't substantial or nearly enough for the amount of work he had to do and he was a growing child. He worked out that the only person who was going to look after him was himself which he did to the best of his ability. He managed to steal eggs from the hen house and fruit from the orchard which he stored away in the loft to be eaten at night when there was no one around.

He now had two things that gave him comfort, the food that he had stolen, and he had pleasure consuming it while he listened to the sound of the distant train which seemed to be saying," Come with me come with me". By the time he was fourteen years of age he had grown into a strapping young man and was no longer willing to accept the life that had been dealt to him. One night after a particularly harrowing day he knew the time had come. He really didn't have any possessions except a few baggy clothes so he simply walked away from the farm and went in search of the train he knew would come for him. As the sound of the distant train grew closer he hurried to the village where he knew it would stop.

Before he clambered into an empty cattle wagon he learned that the train was destined for Rome. He felt sure that once there he would be able to find his mother and they would have a great life together.

MY FATHER WAS IN THE NAVY.

I was always very proud of my father who was a captain of a large war ship. Not that I knew him very well as he was always out to sea. At school I would skite about him to the other children and all the great things he did.

So the other children had fathers that came to their sporting events and attended their birthday parties, but they all had mundane jobs like bank managers and store owners. Mine was much too important to attend such events and I revelled in his ability to be master of such an important ship.

I didn't like to admit it but it was a little lonely for me and I would often be found down by the navel docks hoping to catch a glimpse of him but I never did. I thought surely he must come home on leave at some time so I could get to know him better. All I knew of him now was what my mother had told me. As she tucked me into bed at night she would tell me stories of his daring and how brave he was. I would urge her to tell me more and more, I couldn't get enough of it. I conjured up such a vision of him looking more like a god than a man. Seven feet tall and with such a presence about him everyone would stand back in awe as he passed.

So I spent my childhood loving a man I really didn't know but as I told myself you can't have everything. After all the navy couldn't do without him and that was more important than attending sporting events and birthday parties. Some of the children would question me about him and why he was never home. I didn't have a real answer to this but his job was so important and he was the only one who could do it and couldn't be spared for leave.

My mother tried to make up for his absence by attending all the important events in my life but it wasn't quite the same. She even enrolled me as a navel cadet when I became old enough. She was a great pal to me as well as a great mum and I loved her dearly as she did me.

As I grew into manhood all I wanted to do was join the navy so I applied for a position as a seaman and this was granted. However it came with a request for my birth certificate. I thought this would be great as they would now know my father was a navel captain. I told them about him but they couldn't find any record of his service. Further to my dismay, looking at my birth certificate it stated that my father was unknown.

I confronted my mother about this irregularity and she was devastated that I had to find out in this manner. Yes my father was in the navy, he was an ordinary seaman who had come in on an American warship. She had only known him for a few days before his ship left port and she never heard from him again. She had fallen in love with him in those few days and was devastated when he disappeared from her life. I was the result of that short union and rather than me live with that knowledge she produced a mythical father for me.

I accepted what was and loved my mother all the more for going to such an extent to protect me, and I felt sorry for the father that could have been.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS.

I was always quire adamant and frequently announced from a very young age that I would never live in a town or city. It wasn't something I could ever imagine doing. I was born to be in the great outdoors.

Growing up on a very isolated mountain farm, it was a shock to my system when I was packed off to Sydney to become an apprentice carpenter aged fifteen. In my first job I lasted five months and then I was given my marching orders. I was then sent to a window manufacturer to be apprenticed there and after five months that also came to an end. All the time I was pining for the mountains and the great outdoors.

Back home on the farm I wasn't very popular as I had failed. My next move was off to a stock and station agent to find a job in the country. This was for me as I was sent off to Coonamble as a station hand out in central western New South Wales on a sheep and cattle property. I was not quite sixteen but relished the idea of it all. I loved it as I was now out in the wide open spaces which supported my conviction that I never wanted to live in a town or city.

After seven years on the land at Coonamble and a six months stint in the national service I decided to explore the world. What a change that was for me wandering around Europe for a year and working in London at Harrods department store for two months. After that adventure I escaped back to my beloved open spaces in western New South Wales bringing with me my Irish girl who would become my lifelong partner.

Eventually settled on a three hundred acre farm of our own in beautiful Moonbi Ranges. This was contentment as I loved my life in the solitude of the mountains where there wasn't another house in sight. No sound of traffic or other people's dogs barking it was just so peaceful.

After thirty-seven years of this kind of life it all came to an end when I had a big accident off a horse and my wife had a heart attack. It wasn't practical for us to live there anymore. As much as I hated it we were talked into moving to Cairns to be close to family. Our house there was on a seven-hundred square meter block and our neighbour's house was only ten feet away from ours. It was a very crowded suburb and I hated it.

After three and a half years we had enough of the city living and sold the house and moved to Pomona. A village, sure but the house we bought is on a reasonably large block and we look out on a vast forest across the road and a large park behind us with just one neighbour who we never see.

As we gaze out on the wide open spaces around us we can say to ourselves those famous last words and really imagine it to be true that we would never live in town.

THE CARE OF BARKING BUTTERFLIES.

I've never seen or heard a butterfly barking so I guess the title refers to tree bark that the butterflies might land on. Even this is a bit strange to me as mostly they land on bright flowers.

Then there is the Canadian butterflies who travel thousands of miles to Mexico to breed and when they reach their destination they cluster in a mass which completely covers the trees. This is a source of wonder to me because if I had flapped my tiny wings for all that way I wouldn't be much good for any activities once I reached my destination.

It is unexplainable how they find their way in mass over so many miles but they have been doing it since time began. They would have to contend with strong winds and rain along the way as well as predators. The journey from Canada to Mexico is made each year as they holiday in the warmth of Mexico. All the cleared land in Canada has diminished their numbers but they are still an awesome sight when they congregate.

They are not a very big butterfly but they are a beautiful orange colour with black markings on their wings and when they land the whole tree looks like it has turned into a moving mass of colour. What happens to them after their holiday I'm not sure, perhaps it is only their offspring that returns to Canada. If that is the case then that in itself is a source of wonder, how do they know the way? And what inspires them to make such a hazardous journey? There must be something really important to them which inspires them to make the journey.

Another mystery to me is what inspires someone to spend years of their life studying these insects and traveling thousands of miles to do so. For me I would admire them and let them get on with their life without any interference from me, barking or not they can do very well without me.

I HAVN'T HAD AS MUCH FUN SINCE

What a fun day it was, Tamworth's bi-centenary celebrations. It started off with a huge cavalcade of floats through the main street of the city. It would have taken the parade a couple of hours to pass through the centre of town. There were floats from all walks of life and the one I was attached to was from the Tamworth musical society. The society's float was a semi-trailer and it had some of the members singing and dancing on top with a contingent following behind on foot doing their own thing. I was part of the foot contingent and I was dressed as an American Indian, head feathers and all, doing war dance along the way. My display down the main street didn't go down well on the home front but it was a lot of fun.

The day didn't end there as the musical society put on a massive concert that evening in the town hall with many individual acts, like the barbershop quartet, which I was part of. The concert was made up of popular songs, folk songs and songs from musicals. There was standing room only in the town hall and we had many ovations. I put my heart into it and had a great fun time.

We had a repeat performance of the concert the next night in the large Workers Club auditorium. One of the singers was a nun who wasn't sure about entering a club so I had to escort her past those dreadful one arm bandits and the bars. The audience was mainly made up of dignitaries from the Tamworth council and those from surrounding councils and across to the coast. It was a resounding success, partly perhaps as it was a dinner affair with lots of drink taken and we had more standing ovations.

That wasn't the end of the show as one of the councillors was from Port Macquarie on the coast and he requested we take the performance to his town the next weekend which we did to more success. We had a lot of fun but I was glad of a rest when it was all over. It was as much fun as I had ever had at one time.

NATURAL SELECTION.

It is what has made us what we are and all the creatures and plants on the planet are derived from. It is a very clever way of the survival of the species.

Charles Darwin who was way ahead of his time, studied species throughout the world and came up with ideas that landed him in hot water a lot of the time. It was easier for the learned men to stick with the idea that we were all created in seven days and it was sacrilegious to question that.

He not only had his view of the natural selection but he also had proof that he had collected throughout his travels. It took him many years to be believed and some of the important men of the time were intent on destroying his findings.

You can see for yourself a new evolution starting. It is my view that perhaps in another century or two, if we don't kill ourselves off first, we will all look alike, no black or white, slanty eyes or otherwise. With natural selection it won't matter if we don't marry someone from our own breed. Look at Tiger Woods and his Swedish blond ex-wife, and that was a dramatic step out from the norm. Even the Chinese and the Japanese, who are very race conscious are stepping out from the barriers.

When you see a white aboriginal firmly claiming to be one of their black brothers, the natural selection here has got out of hand for them. I think it won't be until we are all one that we might have a chance for peace.

We blame human intervention on a lot of disasters but they were happening long before we evolved, like the dinosaurs and woolly mammoths. I know humans killed and ate woolly mammoths but there wouldn't have been enough humans around at the time to upset the natural selection of them. The world had changed and their time had come, just as it is for creatures of later years. I know and agree that we should help endangered species, but is it out of our hands.

The human species is about the only one that has multiplied at an alarming rate but the learned men are doing their best to halt all this by instigating wars.

I have noticed during my long life that some people are getting bigger and taller. Is this part of the natural selection plan or is it that they are better fed?

NEW YEARS SOLUTION.

Betty and Bill had been engaged for five years and Betty was wondering if in the New Year Bill would make some sort of a move as she was getting tired of waiting.

She knew there would be compromises to be made as she lived in Sydney and Bill lived in Melbourne. They both had good jobs in their respective cities and it was going to be a challenge to see who was going to give up what they had and move to the other city.

Betty had a thriving fashion business in Sydney and Bill had a successful import-export business in Melbourne. They visited each other as often as their busy lives allowed but both thought their business was more important than the others, so that was the reason for their long engagement. They really wanted to be together so they tried to work out a solution to their dilemma.

Betty put a manager on for a trial period and moved down to Melbourne to see how it would work out. She was anxious and fretful all the time she was down there and could see it wasn't going to work, especially as the manager she put on wasn't as efficient as she herself was.

In the meantime Bill had met up with an old friend from university who was looking for a manager's job. Bill decided to give him a go and employed him to manage his firm but unlike Betty he stayed with him for several months to help him settle in. He was now free to move up to Sydney to be with Betty and with all the modern communications it worked out very well. Bill liked working in Betty's fashion business and they decided to call their new line, New Year's solution.

I hope my new year's solution works out as well as theirs as I find I no longer have enough control over my hands to write long hand and this is my first attempt to write a story straight into the computer. I am thankful I finished my autobiography before this happened.

LIGHTNING NEVER STRIKES TWICE.

Lightning is something that has always fascinated me. Out on the western plains of New South Wales the storms were spectacular and very frequent during the summer months. There is really no reason why lightning doesn't strike twice except when it does strike it usually destroys whatever it has hit so therefore it hasn't anything to come back for.

The house I lived in was the only object above ground in that great open plain so it was often targeted by lightning. I was standing gazing out of an open window watching the lightning dance around one day and I had a knife in my hand. There was a high wire fence just out from the house and as I watched, the lightning struck the fence and danced along it. Even though I was used to these displays, I did get a shock and the knife I held in my hand was never to be seen again even though I searched high and low for it.

The storms out there could be violent at times. I was chafing hay in the haystack one day and didn't notice an angry blue-green cloud rolling across the plain. By the time I did notice it there was a boiling mass of wind and lightning barrelling down on me. It was too late for me to make a run for it so I huddled down behind a stack of hay bales. When it hit it was like a bomb going off and I virtually hung on to the ground. When it was over there was just me and a few bales of hay left, the hay shed itself had completely disappeared. I was lucky that day, I was too insignificant for the storm to bother about.

Some years later, also on the open plains, a drover passed by our house and called in for a chat. I envied his free lifestyle even though he would be sleeping under the stars. It had been a nice day but towards evening a wild electrical storm blew up and scared the drover's cattle who dispersed. The drover rode into the night trying to gather them together. He didn't notice that a large tree had been struck by lightning and had fallen across the power lines. He rode straight into the fallen wires in the dark. His horse was killed instantly and he was badly burnt. Some months later he died from his injuries so I guess you could say that lightning does strike twice even though it might be in a different way.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS.

This is the title of a song from a musical that I was privileged to see some years ago. In this production the story was acted out by a young man who had Down syndrome and it was so beautifully done I doubt if there was a dry eye in the audience by the end of it. He seemed to depict all the sorrow and loss that the song was about. It is doubtful if an able bodied person could have presented the song with such feeling and sadness.

The song was about a flighty actress and a man who really loved her. She wasn't prepared to settle down with this one man who in her mind was going to hang about and be there for her when she was ready. She left it a bit too late, for when she decided to settle down with him he had fallen in love with someone else and rejected her.

She never imagined this would happen to her as she was very beautiful and a great actress. In her misery she wailed, "Send in the clowns", knowing all along that she was the clown who had got her just deserts.

Leaving this sad story behind, it is great to have clowns who can step in and brighten our day even if we ourselves are the clowns. Life taken too seriously really needs a clown or two to brighten our day. Our son Roy was a typical clown when he was growing up, which was a big advantage to us when we were conducting horse riding lessons to timid children. We would say, "Roy look after Johnny," and he would go into his clown act pretending that he needed Johnny's help to stop him falling off and Johnny would be so taken up with Roy's antics he would forget about his fear and the pair would ride off and have great fun.

To laugh at one's self in adversity is often a great help as we are able to recover much quicker or accept what life presence. I was given a role in a musical, something funny happened on the way to the forum. I was pleased until I read the script. My part was that of a befuddled old man called Erroneous who had lost his daughter in Rome and the only way to find her was to travel seven times around the Seven Hills of Rome. It was said that the part really suited me so I played it to the full and the seven times I staggered across the stage on my way over the hills, it was greeted with loud cheers from the audience. I was so successful at being befuddled I was asked to play the same role in the Armidale production. It pays to send in the clowns.

A LIFE WELL LIVED AND MUCH MORE TO COME-TIMELESS.

Having grown up on an isolated farm in the Blue Mountains I always had a curiosity about the big wide world. At sixteen years of age I started work on a sheep station in Western New South Wales where I worked for the next seven years. It was a lonely life but I made the best of it playing sport at the weekend and going to dances when I could get a lift. No young man at this time had his own transport. I was an avid reader of the magazine, the National Geographic which fuelled my curiosity about the big world out there. After the seven years on the station I decided that dreaming about the big world wasn't going to get me anywhere so by the age of twenty-three and having saved the princely sum of eleven hundred pounds I booked a return ticket to England. What an experience that was for a farm boy on the six weeks trip from Sydney to Southampton and then the twelve months traveling around Europe. In the twelve months I visited twenty-two countries, staying at youth hostels. In Salzburg Austria I met an Irish girl in June and by October we were engaged. For the last two months of my stay I worked at Harrods department store in London and in early January my Irish girl and I were married and on a ship heading for Australia.

Back in Australia I quickly started work at Coles until I secured a position on a cattle stud in central New South Wales. On that property I don't know how my new wife from Ireland managed with the temperature at 110f and not a tree in sight and a new baby to contend with. My employment improved over time until I became the manager of an eleven-thousand acre property and my wife started up a school bus run. It wasn't all plane sailing as we lost an infant son and a house fire took everything we owned and then a mighty flood came and I had had enough of rural work. It was a new direction for me as the whole world seemed to be covered with water. The railway line had been washed away and they were calling for paid volunteer fettlers to repair the line. I was to be a railway fettler for the next four years and in the meantime being transferred to Tamworth.

In Tamworth we bought a three-hundred acre property where we started up an equestrian centre which we operated very successfully for the next thirty-seven years. We had a great life during this time with my wife winning championships with her horses all over New South Wales. Our four children blossomed here also getting on with their respective lives and I secured a job with Telecom which I held for twenty-one years.

With my wife busy with her competitions, I entered the world of musicals and over the years I performed in seventeen musicals as well as plays and concerts. We both joined an art course at Tafe and have been painting ever since. I volunteered for eight hours a week for seventeen years as a telephone councillor and fifteen of those years as a councillor trainer as well. This prompted me to learn more so I enrolled in a graduate diploma course in management and human relations externally and in 1980 I received my diploma.

When I retired from Telecom aged sixty-two I joined my wife in competing in dressage events in which I competed in for the next ten years. Eventually we decided it was time to really retire so we sold the equestrian centre and ended up in a delightful village called Pomona where we bought a house in town. We became very involved in an art group where we continued to paint and to my delight I found a writer's group in the community centre which I attend each week. It is a very inspiring group and through their encouragement I have had my autobiography published in March 2014.

I am happy that our life has been well lived and now in our autumn years with the wonderful people around us I am sure there will be many more exciting times to come.

HEAVY DUTY.

I started my life in Japan, one of several thousand to come into the world that year. It was impossible to be an individual but as time passed I knew I was destined to live in a heavy duty world and much was expected of me. I hoped that I would be able to live up to others expectations.

As I matured I was sent off to do a very important job in the outback of Australia. It was sad leaving Japan but exciting at the same time. I didn't know what to expect when I arrived but what I saw was daunting. The countryside looked very challenging with rocky outcrops of ironstone ridges everywhere and the heat was intense. My job was to be on an isolated cattle station in the middle of nowhere and I was transported there in a four wheeled drive over sharp mountain ranges and deep rocky fords through fast flowing rivers.

Arriving at the vast cattle property it was an oasis around the homestead, which was built on the banks of a billabong with lots of trees to shield it from the harsh countryside. It was a hive of activity with stockmen going here and there in a very purposeful way. There were many vehicles in the large shed and even a helicopter. There were many horses grazing in a paddock close by and an occasional stockman would ride past on his way to check on some stock. My boss seemed to be a very efficient man and I could see by the way the property was being run he had everything under control.

My job would take me over much of the property and I really enjoyed it. My fellow workers and I always did our best to be efficient and our boss often praised us for a job well done and we never let him down. During the mustering season we were kept busy helping with the muster and keeping the camps well stocked with provisions. After the mustering was completed we went with our boss to Darwin to see the livestock sent off overseas in a boat. Our boss liked to have a bit of a break then with a holiday by the sea and we had a wonderful time frolicking up and down the beach with him. Then there was the arduous journey back to the station where we had to complete our jobs before the wet season set in. Once the wet season had set in it was a miserable place to be with water everywhere and continuously getting bogged. The humidity during this time caused all sorts of problems and the isolation had a big effect on some of the workers. The station cook, to escape his miseries took to the grog and was off his head for several days, and the gardener went walkabout and wasn't seen again until the next dry season, even the boss who was usually cheery became grumpy.

I worked on this station for many years and my boss often said what a sterling job I did and he wouldn't have been able to manage without me. Looking back I was proud of the job I had done and I am sure the country of my birth would also have been proud of me. Everything comes to an end eventually and my end came when I hit a sharp rock while chasing cattle and I was completely wrecked. I thought I would be dumped as no longer being useful, but no the boss said to one of his men," Take that heavy duty Japanese tyre to the garden and we will have it as a surround for that rose bush I bought in Darwin."

THEY JUST DON'T MAKE MEN OF THAT CALIBRE ANYMORE.

It is a changing world and it has been changing over a long period of time. The equality of the sexes have played a great part in these changes along with our world where there is less time to follow the old rules of man that used to apply. Back in time boys were taught right from the start what the rules were. The men grew big and strong and protected and respected the women as they were regarded as the weaker sex and needed to be looked after. They weren't expected to go out to work, just be sweet and gentle and take care of the man's castle while he did all the important things like running the country and being the bread winner.

In those wonderful days men doffed their hats when meeting a women and made sure they had a seat to sit on and generally looked after them. They always opened the door of the car or the building and ushered the women through. Taken out to dinner the women were never expected to contribute to the cost of the evening that would be unheard of. In return the women held their men in very high esteem and wouldn't even consider that their men folk should help in the household duties and heaven preserve from the man ever entering the kitchen. Women never had to worry about money, men took care of all that as women weren't expected to be capable of doing so.

What changed the way it had worked for hundreds of years? To start with the women became dissatisfied with just being ornaments and not having any say, especially in regards to their status in the scheme of things. Their moment came during the war years when the men went off to fight and the input from the women was really needed. The First World War gave them a start and they found how different life could be but it was the Second World War that finally gave them their freedom. They really did a great job of replacing the missing men with girls joining the land army, tilling the soil and growing crops just as efficiently as their men folk had done. They became factory workers and kept up the supply of ammunition for the war effort. Once they had the vote there wasn't anything they couldn't achieve.

The result of this was that men no longer had the defined role that they once had. Women then shouted for equality and in their eagerness to achieve this they didn't mind trampling their men into submission and some men became aware of their female side and took on the role of house husbands. (not all women, just the more vocal ones). Now that equality is more or less a done deal many women are wondering what happened to their gentlemen of years ago who used to treat them with such respect and had such wonderful manners. Well to put it bluntly there isn't time for all that nonsense and if men do revert back to their old world manners and give their seat in the bus to a woman she will probably sit without even a nod of thanks. This is generalising and certainly doesn't include everyone.

We are now in a position to walk together with equal respect for one another and that is how it should be from now on as we can never go back to how it was.

HOW CAN I LIVE WITHOUT GOOGLE?

Having spent the greater part of my life without google I know I can do without it, but now that I live in a more enlightened world do I want to? In days gone by I would spend hours trawling through dictionaries and thesaurus's trying to find an answer to my problem which would often elude me especially as I was a hopeless speller to start with.

Without google I would have to rely on my own ideas which often weren't forthcoming. It is hard to leap off a platform into creativity if you don't know which is up or down. When writing my story I had to rely on my own thoughts as google didn't have any ideas on inputs except to help me with my spelling which in itself was a great help.

If google was taken away from me now I know I could manage better than I did before I became a google user. It's not a drug and I could well do without it but it does help when our illustrious leader from the writers group comes up with a subject or a word for us to write about and I have no idea what it means. With google I can find the most way out subjects and write about them when I have no idea what I am talking about. Google to the rescue.

Blessed are the days when I could pick up a book and read it without analysing any hidden agenda or have any idea how I would go about doing so. I look back on those days with pleasure and when I again learn to live without google I will return to my old habits or has google wrecked my thoughts process? I hope not.

When you think about it and how easy it is to draw on the knowledge that google has to offer, I think I will stick with it for the time being. Long live google.

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of credulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. In short, the period was so much like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities on being received, for good or fore evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only".

This is the first paragraph of Dickens novel, the tale of Two Cities, all written in the one sentence. If this didn't mess up my struggling brain, what was to follow didn't make it any easier to comprehend. Not the kind of book I would settle down with in the evening for a relaxed read. A bit like looking at a painting by Picasso struggling to make it into something beautiful when I know in my heart that a four year old child would be expected to come up with something like that.

There has been three of Dickens novels in my library for a long time but I have never read any of them. Imagine my surprise when I found that I am not likely to ever read them if they are all written in the same vein. I feel I have better things to do with my time than sort out his dilemma on where he is coming from or going to. Perhaps it is a shortcoming in my underdeveloped, uneducated brain. But even if this is the case I am happier where I am at right now than where he was when he wrote this novel.

The opening statement I can understand but after that I get lost in the jumble of his thoughts. Is he trying to confuse his readers or is he trying to stretch his reader's minds to take in all his goblygook? He is known to be one of the all-time greats in classical writing but please preserve me from having to deal with such intellect as his. At this stage of life I don't need my brain stretched to that extent.

MY ONE REGRET.

Is it strange that I could consider it a regret that I spent all those years as a stockman out on those western properties, even though I became the manager of an eleven thousand acre station? Looking back at all those unpaid hours given to the rich owners. I now know that the rewards never did add up to all those extra hours.

When I returned to work on those large properties after my year traveling around Europe it was a bad move as I then had the ability to do better in a more settled area. With a baby on the way and no house I felt at the time that I didn't have an option but to return to the land where a house would be provided. My regret is that I didn't rent a house and stay put as I had a reasonable well paid job, but with my country background I didn't think about the possibility of renting as I knew nothing about it and it never entered my mind. It was a safe move to return to the land as a house would go with the job and I was good at what I did without having to think too much about it. There was no challenge except the extreme physical effort needed for the job and I didn't have to worry about my shortcomings in the education department. Even though my peers were college trained I never had any trouble holding my own with them because of my travels and extensive reading. Sometimes weeks would go by without being in contact with anyone other than family and at that time there was no television, but thanks for the books I had, they kept me content. I became a very heavy smoker, two packets a day, and I would become uptight if I was running low on them.

It wasn't until I had had enough of living out west, and changing circumstances, we moved to a more civilised area that my life changed and I realised I could do a lot better for myself and family and there was only one person who could bring this about and that was me. Having set myself a task of study and gaining a graduate diploma my regret was that I had missed out on all those years and should have done it sooner. Having achieved what I had previously thought impossible my life spiralled upwards from that time onwards. I had also given the cigarettes away which would have enhanced my well-being.

Should I regret all those years working in isolation on properties, I don't know, perhaps that is what made me what I am? I certainly don't regret what my life has been since and my advice to anyone who wanted it would be, if you are not happy with where you are at, then change it to a degree you can manage, no matter what it takes.

A CONTENTED MAN CAN BE HAPPY WITH WHAT APPEARS TO BE USELESS.

The business was thriving and all was going well, I had a brand new Pajero station wagon and a brand new Nissan four-wheel drive utility that had everything that opened and shut on it including aircon, an inbuilt phone, long range fuel tanks and power drive. These two vehicles were part of the business and were leased.

All went well until our son, who was a partner in the business decided he wanted to sell up. On our part this was easy enough except for the two vehicles which would have been too big an expense for the business to cover. I had the choice of buying one out and sending the other back to the lessors. I chose to keep the Pajero and send the utility back.

This decision had one problem, I really needed a work vehicle for jobs around the property. A friend who was a second hand car dealer said he could get me a utility that was a going concern for a reasonable price. I needed it badly so I said yes, but when I collected it I found it was a dirty smelly Toyota tabletop utility that ran on diesel and a good part of the paintwork had faded away and had been replaced by a rust colour.

It was a great joke among friends and customers and it became formally known as the embarrassing truck. It was fun to drive especially on the main road where you would have to stop every now and then to pick up pieces that had dropped off, like an exhaust pipe or some unnamed item from its undercarriage. Where it really came into its own was on the steep rocky mountain tracks on the property. It would get me up those steep rocky tracks with a full load of firewood on board and if it slipped and went sideways into a tree it didn't matter as dents and scratches were not a problem, you wouldn't even notice them.

I became very fond of the embarrassing truck as she never really let me down. I enjoyed driving around the property as there were few places I couldn't go with her and my little dog enjoyed coming with me. I should say he mostly enjoyed riding in the truck until one day I left him in the truck while I cut down a tree. To show me he was displeased he ripped up the driver's seat, giving the truck another beauty spot.

The embarrassing truck had its moment of glory when we were asked to conduct a wedding on the property. We had a horse drawn carriage that the bride arrived in followed by the embarrassing truck with the bridesmaids standing up in the back. It was very impressive.

Looking at the truck most would say it was a useless item but I knew its value and was happy and contented with it. It ended its life when my son drove it from Tamworth in New South Wales to Cairns in northern Queensland and sold it to a young man who dismantled it and reconstructed it so it had another life.

THE BLIND BEGGER GIRL.

Violet lived with her mother in a very rundown slum area. Her father who was a violent drunk had deserted them some time before which was an improvement in their lives as they no longer had to contend with being beaten up every time he came home drunk. When Violet was six years old their poverty became desperate. Her mother used to take in other peoples washing but there was never much money in it as most of the people were in the same circumstances as they were. Life was hard as there were no social services or handouts of any kind and in winter their flat was freezing cold.

Violet and her mother knew there wasn't anything else but for Violet to go out on the street and beg. Violet had been blind from birth and couldn't visualise the abject poverty around her, even in the street where her mother led her to where she would be in the best place to beg. It wasn't too bad if she could find a nice warm sunny spot out of the bitter wind. The takings weren't great but if she showed up every day then that was a help to put food on the table. These were desperate times but Violet had her mother's temperament and never let life beat her down.

Where Violet did her begging was on a road that led to a much more affluent area and at times some of the moneyed people would pass by her and that was always a bonus for her. To keep her spirits up during the long hours she spent on the street she used to sing softly to herself. As she sang so often her voice became strong and clear and she knew a lot of songs to sing that she had heard on other people's radios. Violet found that her singing brought many more people to her than her blindness did which for once made her feel worthwhile.

There was a music festival coming to uptown which Violet knew about but didn't give much thought to, after all she didn't think she was very good. However a husband and wife who were organizers of the festival happened to pass her by one day and heard her singing. What a magnificent voice they thought, so they approached her and asked if she would enter in the festival. She was overcome by the suggestion and replied that she wouldn't even be able to find her way there. The couple realised how insensitive they had been in suggesting that she could leave her comfort zone just like that. So they asked if they could meet with her mother, so Violet took them home to meet her.

The mother was astounded as she didn't know about Violet singing in the street and as nothing good had happened in their life up until now she was at a loss to know what to do. The couple were very kind and assured the mother that Violet would be well taken care of during the festival and if the mother was willing they would come and escort Violet and herself to the festival where she would be able to watch Violet perform.

The couple had entered Violet in a competition where she could win a recording contract and a sum of money to help her on her way. Violet wasn't overcome by the amount of people in the audience because she couldn't see them so she sang her heart out and wowed the audience as well as the judges. The lives of mother and daughter changed from that day on and Violet relished the idea that she was no longer a blind beggar but a singer who gave joy and hope to thousands.

THE CABBY WHO KNEW THE WAY.

Mahood had only been in the country for six months and was on a temporary working visa. He really enjoyed living in Australia and hoped he would be able to get a permanent visa later on. How lucky am I he thought as he took up his position as a taxi driver in Sydney. It was very confusing at first as he struggled to understand the language and memorising the streets but he was an intelligent young man and he was soon able to find his way around. He felt very privileged driving around in his flash taxi picking up all these people with enough money to be able to afford riding in an air conditioned taxi. Back in his home country the best they would be able to afford was a ride in a rickshaw.

The fares he picked up took him from the airport to so many places around the city and sometimes to the outskirts of the city. He had basic English when he first arrived in Sydney and being a go ahead young man he enrolled in an English study course at night. His busy life kept him from being too lonely and he took his work seriously. Living in his one room flat that had a cooktop, refrigerator, a bed and not much else, he took care of himself and was happy everything had turned out so well.

He would often view his passengers and wonder what kind of life they lived. He was not envious of them, just curious as he had not seen such wealth before. He knew from dropping off his passengers at huge mansions they must be indeed very wealthy. He couldn't comprehend such wealth for himself and didn't entertain the idea as he was happy the way that he was. His little flat suited his needs perfectly so it was never an issue. As his English improved he started chatting to his customers and was astounded to learn that they didn't consider themselves at all wealthy and to them their houses were very ordinary basic houses. It took him a while to get his head around that because in his country for people to live in houses like that they would indeed be very wealthy.

He noticed from time to time he would pick up the same customers so he became familiar with their destinations. One young lady that he considered very beautiful he would pick up from the University and deliver to a block of flats in the suburbs. At first he was very shy with her but after some time they chatted easily. She was a student at the University studying to become a welfare officer working with refugees. This intrigued him and he set about getting to know her better. It was a big leap for him when he asked her if she would have dinner with him after his shift was over. He was overjoyed when she agreed to his invitation. He was nervous as the time drew near as he wasn't used to entertaining young ladies. The one thing that gave him confidence was that he knew the way to her flat and to the restaurant they were going to.

They had such a wonderful evening and really got on fine together. That was the first of many outings they had together. The young lady encouraged him to apply for permanent residency. He was so full of confidence when he marched into the immigration office to apply for his permanent residency they were not able to turn him down. This cabby just knew the way.

THE PERFECT TENNANT.

If you have a house or a property that you have put a lot of your love and hard work into my advice is not to rent it out. It will break your heart to see what uncaring tenants will do to it. Sell it if you can no longer live there, this at least will give you closure.

Our first property was twenty-six acres eleven kilometres out of Tamworth. It was indeed a haven for us especially when we built a five bedroom brick and tile house. We ran an equestrian centre from this property for some years and we were very happy there. Eventually our business grew too big to conduct on twenty-six acres so we bought three hundred acres twenty seven kilometres north of Tamworth.

Then came the dilemma of what to do with our beloved first property. It was the first home we had ever owned and we loved it. We didn't want to sell it so the obvious thing to do was to rent it out. Never having to deal with tenants and real estate agents, we were in for quite an education. Having engaged an agent he quickly found us a tenant who he said was the manager of a large bus building company in Tamworth. A first class tenant he said and we settled on the beginning of his lease. The tenant requested to move in a week earlier than agreed. I allowed this but told the agent I would need to have access to the property for that week to remove some items I needed.

When we arrived at the property there were signs all over the place stating no admittance. Ignoring the signs we entered the garden area which was very difficult as the tenant had collected a mass of what appeared to be stuff he had collected from the dump. All the bits and pieces almost covered the whole of the two acre garden. A couple of weeks later we had a call from the agent saying the electric stove had blown up and we needed to replace it. The tenants who were Hungarian must have cooked one too many hungarian goulashes. Shortly after we had another call from the agent saying that the light above the bed in the main bedroom had broken and needed replacing. What they were up to in the bed is anybody's guess.

In the lease it was stated that there was only to be no more than two horses on the property and they were to be kept out of the garden. It just so happened that we were on an inspection of the property with the agent when six horses came thundering up the driveway and into the garden. We were not pleased and the agent said he would sort it out. Seeing what the horses had done to the garden, Alice wasn't waiting around for anybody else to sort it out and went in for the kill herself. Also on the lease it was stated that only a minimal amount of paintings or pictures were to be hung on the walls. They must have liked the look of themselves as all the available space on the walls were covered in framed photographs of themselves.

The tenants had signed up for a two year lease but at the end of the first year he had been sacked and wanted out. The agent was very sympathetic towards the tenant and said due to extenuating circumstances we should release him from his obligation. I was glad to see the last of him. On inspecting the property before he left I found amongst his gear several items that belonged to me that he had collected up out of the shed I had kept out of the lease. The tenant wasn't about so I collected up the items and took them home. There was a very fine large old milk barrel that I had made into a mail box and welded to an iron pole. The tenant had an oxy welder with him so as he left so did the mail box.

The other four tenants that followed him were stories unto themselves so watch out for the next episode.

LIFE IS A JIG SAW.

Life is a jig saw and that is how it is meant to be. Think how boring it would be if the whole picture was laid out before you and you didn't have to trouble yourself to put the pieces of your life together. It would be a lot easier of course but then you wouldn't have the joy of wondering what came next or what went where. Things just happen, like today I had nearly finished writing my story for next Tuesday, that's when I go to my writers club, when my computer went blink and my story went off into cyber space never to be seen again.

As a small child I was sure someone had stolen several pieces of my puzzle as very little came together for me. It bothered me a lot back then as I struggled to fit all the pieces together and in my mind I felt this might never happen as I was convinced someone had removed pieces that were vital to the big picture. I felt I would have to hang in there until I grew up and then all would be well. A strange child, perhaps I was because I worried about where I fitted into the scheme of things and as a small child I shouldn't have bothered my head about such matters.

Some of the pieces had started to come together when a big wind blew up and scattered all the pieces into a jumble. Puberty had arrived with a new puzzle to sort out and this wasn't going to be easy. It was all beyond me so I put the puzzle into the too hard basket and hoped it would sort itself out at some stage. This was a very difficult period and lasted a long time but eventually I made it through with just a few battle scares to show for it.

In adult life the jig saw was just as difficult but there wasn't time to worry about it. You knew the pieces of the puzzle needed sorting out but there wasn't time to dwell on it so you just ploughed through the tribulations of everyday life and got on with it. Sometimes the pieces would almost come together but then some major event would come along and you would have to start all over again.

Then the ultimate happens, you are now referred to as a senior citizen and you supposedly have time to sort out your jig saw. Suddenly the jig saw is no longer important, you have sorted out all the important bits and have no further worry about what goes where. If life is a jig saw you have reached the ultimate stage of putting the last pieces together and it doesn't matter one bit.

