How I love reading of the old days in the Tamborine Bulletin! Not only does it inform me; it sometimes takes me back to my childhood at Buccan and my school days at Logan Village. This time, I was transported to the one-teacher school where headmaster Mr Alec Brown reigned supreme. I was terrified of him, although I am sure he was just a kindly old chap who did his best for us.

ENAMELLED PLAQUE

TRUE STORY

It was during the Great Depression, when money was in short supply, that the collector would visit weekly to pick up a small amount of cash toward the sum that was owed. The two young boys who were sitting at the top of the outside stairs glimpsed the gas man approaching. They informed their mother who was nearby on the verandah. Knowing she did not possess even the trivial necessary amount, she flung herself onto one of the handy beds, and in a panic-stricken voice beseeched her sons, ‘Quick! Cover me with the rug! And tell the man I am not at home!’

LIVING WITH A DISABILITY

MY TAP-DANCING DAYS

The Hollywood Theatre once stood proudly on the corner of Logan and Chatsworth Roads in Greenslopes. Every Saturday morning in 1938 I would take my sixpence (five cents) to attend the tap-dancing class that was held at the back of the stage. I was ten.

If I am engrossed in reading something (perhaps The Bulletin?) he will let me know he is there. Oh yes! He is impatient for me to notice him, for he wants to be fed. Not later, but now. This instant.

I know he is not popular with bird lovers. They say he frightens off the small native birds like Blue Wrens (which I love) and others. But this Mickey seems harmless to me, with his jaunty, cheerful manner.

What a difference a few decades make! When I was a growing girl in the city, our doctor lived a few streets away. He practiced from home, and would make a lot of house calls; needs must, because in those days just prior to WWII, there would be only one car to a household, if that, and the bread-winner would probably need it daily. A big, sick child could not be lumped in the mother’s arms to a doctor’s surgery streets away.

Snippet for Andrew at The Scenic News

One thing always leads to another.
One of the many interviews that I have done has lead to a learned fellow coming up to do a podcast about ageing, with me, the nonagenarian, doing the talking! He thought it was very good, and a week or so later I received a request from him...would I consider being interviewed by a well-known woman in New York who was putting a book together on aged women achievers.

TONSILLECTOMY

My little grand-daughter had a tonsillectomy last week. She has recovered well. It reminded me of my own experience when I was five.
After contracting the dreaded diphtheria when I was three (read about it in my book ‘ Gardening in Your Nineties’), I suffered from frequent bouts of tonsillitis. Our nearest doctor at Beenleigh advised my parents that I should have my enlarged tonsils removed.
Times were tough in 1933, and my father asked what the cost would be.

TO END...OR NOT TO END...

I cannot quite understand it. Here is this woman, 86 years old, very capable, well educated and articulate, good company and in good health, but who is flying to Switzerland next week to have herself euthanised. No, I don ‘t quite get it.

Now, I know she says she has been quite worn down by her bully of a husband, and that talk of a divorce brought on this decision. He is going to drive her to the airport next week. It has been suggested that he is so glad to be rid of her that he is making sure she catches the plane.