Friedrich Gerstäcker’s take on Tanunda

Posted on 10 October 2016 by admin

Friedrich Gerstäcker, the German explorer who travelled up the Murray in a makeshift canoe in the 1850s, is a fascinating character. Celebrated as a travel writer in his home country in the 1800s, he fell out of favour and his work is little known in Australia. Historian Peter Monteath has released a translation that is of significant historical importance – but is also a wonderful read to boot. You can find out more and purchase the book here.

Here we have Gerstäcker’s thoughts on arriving in Tanunda, where a religious war of sorts had split the town …

Tanunda – named after the Indian locality – is a little town of several hundred inhabitants, its buildings perhaps slightly English in taste, but its population entirely German aside from a couple of possible exceptions. It as a very strange feeling for me to find myself suddenly – in a foreign land and continent and even in an English colony – surrounded by nothing but Germans, and in fact a purely German way of life and doings. On occasion, especially when I saw little groups of people standing here and there in the street and heard everyone speaking German, I had to stop and think whether I really was in Australia. But that is exactly how it was, and in the end I even got used to it – I think I would even have got used to it if they had spoken Chinese, since being thrown so quickly from one language into another as I have been incessantly over the last few years makes one rather indifferent to such things.

Tanunda is remarkable not only for its Germanness but also for its religious factions, and I was particularly intent on finding out more about them. The most important congregation among them is that of the Kavelites or Old Lutherans, who have however recently suffered a quite significant dent in their unity because of a few simple arithmetical errors. Previously the congregations of Tanunda, Hahndorf, Langmeil and Lightspass – all German localities – belonged together to one church. Then – and I do not know even myself whether it was in spring this year (1851) or autumn last year – Pastor Kavel had the fateful idea of prophesying in advance the end of the world, precisely to the day and hour, and he was thoughtless enough not to postpone the date for something like a thousand years, but to cut very close to the bone. The result was the same as befell the famous Preacher Miller in the Yankee states: the good Lord did not deign to do him the favour of lifting the world off its hinges at the prescribed hour; everything continued in its pre-ordained path, except for the Kavelite church.

It is said that at the prophesied hour the whole congregation headed out to a small creek about two miles from Tanunda and half a mile from Langmeil to await the Messiah. But what happened instead was a violent storm that drenched them thoroughly, and that night they slept in their beds again instead of in Paradise.

That made a bad impression on the congregation. The people had absolutely counted on their own destruction, and now they found themselves all hale and hearty – apart from an occasional cold perhaps – and as remote as ever from eternal bliss. The unfulfilled prophecy shattered their faith in the prophet himself, and a portion of the Kavelite congregation seceded from Kavel. So Langmeil chose Pastor Meier, a former missionary to the Australian Indians, as their pastor, and only Hahndorf and Tanunda, and perhaps Lightspass too, maintained the true faith, since the Meierite congregation was strongly sceptical of the imminent end of the world. Pastor Kavel, however, undeterred, postponed it to the transition from 1899–1900.

Pastor Kavel, described in Friedrich Gerstäcker's Australia

Pastor Kavel, image from Wikipedia

What people in Tanunda – that is in the unbelieving part of Tanunda’s population, since Tanunda is divided into the Saints and the Children of the World – have to say about the congregation and its beliefs borders on the fabulous, and one must indeed exercise caution in believing their reports, for I almost fear that the Children of the World have exaggerated a thing or two. But of course nothing is impossible in religious mania. In any case, I wished to gather as much information as possible in that short time, and so I visited Pastor Kavel, and was very amiably received by him. I had arrived in Tanunda at a very interesting time, since Pastor Kavel had just been married to his housekeeper several days previously, and the rather unique situation had arisen that although Pastor Meier in Langmeil and another pastor, Mr Mücke, who had established a liberal congregation in Tanunda (to which I shall return later), were both ordained by the government, Pastor Kavel did not consider either of these gentlemen worthy of performing his marriage ceremony and therefore travelled to Adelaide with his bride in order to be married by the civil registrar. The congregation in its turn was not satisfied with this, neither with the civil marriage – although he subsequently on his return to Tanunda had the marriage blessed by one of the elders – nor with the marriage itself, whereby the people felt that he should have avoided ‘appearances’ in such a matter. But in the case of marriage, if one wished first of all to ask permission of the entire congregation, nothing much at all would come about in the end – at least, not in such a way that both parties would be comfortable, and this is something that each man can best judge for himself.

The next day was a Sunday, and of course it was taken for granted that I would attend the Kavelite congregation, after which I was invited to dine with the Pastor. The service was of course the Old Lutheran one, but with an enormous number of hymnbook verses and Bible texts. The singing was never-ending, and although I do not wish to present my opinion as infallible, I really do not believe that our Lord God can be so intent on having half the hymnbook sung to Him every Sunday. That day I had to sing 32 hymnbook verses. And the texts? I am firmly convinced that the people who wrote those hymns – for they can hardly be called poetry – surely had the best of intentions and expressed their most intimate feelings therein, but it nevertheless remains difficult to sing or say, for example, ‘all-beneficent‘ in two syllables.

Pastor Kavel preached well and fluently. By ‘well’ I of course do not mean to say that I was in agreement with the intention of the sermon, but he spoke as though with innermost conviction, and I would like to believe that to his credit. Moreover he spoke in such a way that I can well understand that he could thereby win over the class of people with whom he was dealing. Otherwise his sermon was an extract of the greatest intolerance that any faith is capable of producing. It was only for his chosen few that the kingdom of heaven will be open, and one sentence in his sermon I will never forget: ‘Those who really act according to God’s word but do not have the true faith will, regardless of their good and otherwise God-pleasing deeds, be irredeemably damned and go to the Devil. In fact, God will hate such people all the more, precisely because of their good deeds, as He sees such deeds as a kind of hypocrisy, since they do not hold the true faith.’ And that is supposed to be a God of love.

Read more on Friedrich Gerstäcker’s adventures here.

Jetties in the Eyre Peninsula

Posted on 7 October 2016 by admin

The wild weather last week was nothing more for many of us than an excuse to play cards by candlelight for a few hours. For some people, especially on the Eyre Peninsula, the storms were much more destructive. After seeing pictures of the battered Port Germein jetty on the news, we’ve been thinking about Jill Roe’s memories of the area from Our Fathers Cleared the Bush …

Jetties have played an important role in the history of Eyre Peninsula. Between the 1860s and the 1920s, some 39 jetties were built along the Peninsula’s estimated 3200 kilometres of coastline, from as far west as Fowlers Bay to Port Pirie on the eastern side of Spencer Gulf and on nearby islands. This may not sound a lot, but, as will be evident from a glance at a map of the peninsula, by the early 20th century the region was well served by coastal shipping – mainly ketches and schooners – and it should be remembered that some stretches of the coastline, especially the majestic limestone cliff faces of the west coast but also some of the sandy eastern bays, were not suited to jetty building, or necessitated the building of very long jetties, as at Port Germein – until recently the longest jetty in South Australia. A telling instance of how tricky the approaches could be is the early pastoral port of Elliston, halfway up the west coast, where it was sometimes impossible for ships carrying essential supplies to enter Waterloo Bay, with its narrow entrance and uncertain tides. The misery that attended the turning back of ships is only too easily imagined.

Many older residents of Eyre Peninsula can recall when the arrival of ‘the boat’ was a main event of the week. At Tumby Bay, where I watched it most frequently, you had to be there at the right moment to see it come in. This meant on a Tuesday at about 2 pm, and thus for me in the early 1950s, during school holidays. There I’d be on the beach, with the small east-coast township at my back, squinting towards Port Lincoln, past the estuary of a mangrove-fringed creek and a then uninhabited rocky headland, hoping to see the Adelaide Steamship Company’s MV Morialta appear on the horizon and watch it berth at the town’s main jetty. There was something exciting about the way it suddenly bore down on you, and the Scottish-built ship had a certain style, due in part to a painted funnel.

There were always people on the jetty to welcome the Morialta, in addition to the wharfies busy loading and unloading cargo. Indeed, on most days you would find people scattered along the jetty, fishing, chatting, and otherwise relaxing. For them, as for many people living on Eyre Peninsula, jetties had become an integral part of life by the 1950s. The regular arrival of shipping at the small ports along the coast provided a focal point for town and country folk alike.

There were two jetties at Tumby Bay at that time. The older, shorter one, which was finally demolished in the 1990s, dated back to the 1870s, when it was built to serve various mining ventures in the hills to the west of the town, and it was still being used a century later for recreation and shade on hot days. It even had a diving board. The main jetty, a longer and stronger construct a few hundred metres to the south, dates from the early 1900s and thankfully still survives. Only just, however. In 1972 the body responsible for the state’s jetties decided that Tumby’s days as a port were over and, with costly maintenance needed on one section of the jetty, prepared to demolish it. When work was about to begin, appalled residents formed a picket line at the town end of the jetty, and the demolition was called off. Since then, with extra funding from local sources, the jetty has been strengthened and is as popular as ever. It features in all the town’s advertising, and is part of its not inconsiderable tourist appeal.

It is no wonder jetties were popular. They enlivened many small coastal settlements and, with many parts of the wheat-growing areas far from the coast, were a godsend to farmers. Prior to the building of jetties, farmers had had to get their grain harvest to the beaches by horse and cart, load it onto small boats and row the boats out to deeper water to be re-loaded onto the waiting ketches – when they turned up, that is. Even after the coming of rail, it was still cheaper in some places to use what was called the ‘mosquito fleet’ in the 1930s. (As a student at the University of Adelaide in the mid-1930s, the historian Russel Ward once worked on ‘the mosquito fleet’ during the long vacation.) With the jetties in place, produce could be brought to storage sheds at the base of the jetty, sent on trolleys up the jetties and loaded straight into holds.

By now, however, the future of these historic constructs is far from secure because, as the story of the Tumby jetty may suggest, they are costly to maintain. In an attractive publication entitled Jetties of South Australia: Past and present published in 2005, compiler Neville Collins warns that, while major bulk-handling ports such as Port Lincoln and Thevenard are flourishing, as maybe some recreational sites are also, the smaller jetties are under threat. Indeed, some have already gone, such as the jetty at the historic port of Lipson near Tumby, which was demolished as early as 1935. Collins does not spell it out, but it seems clear from his outline that the economic underpinning is slipping away and that there will need to be strong community support and a profitable tourist industry to sustain them.

It must have been some subliminal awareness of this situation that caused me to decide, on a journey back to the Peninsula in January 2007 as a preliminary to this project, that I would walk the surviving jetties. And, with a couple of regrettable omissions – of the tiny village of Haslam on Anxious Bay, south of Ceduna, of which I was unaware at the time, and Port Neill, north of Tumby Bay, where I missed the turnoff – I more or less did just that: from Fowlers Bay, baking in the hot sun way out west, to as far as the fish nets piled up on the Cowell jetty at Franklin Harbour, halfway up Spencer Gulf. Admittedly I was not brave enough to walk the entire length of the narrow jetty at Elliston on a chilly Sunday morning by myself, and it seemed enough at the time to find that the now somewhat shortened jetty at the lovely but solitary Louth Bay was still there, but overall it was an enriching experience, and one to be recommended to visitors.

Perhaps it was on one of the jetties fronting Spencer Gulf that I was reminded of the once-ubiquitous advertising slogan, accompanied by the ringing of ships’ bells, ‘It’s time YOU went on the Gulf Trip’. Introduced before World War I by one of the three shipping companies then competing for the coastal trade, the Gulf Trip became a standby of the Adelaide Steamship Company, which had gained a monopoly on the coastal trade by 1915, and proved popular in the interwar years. There were two main variants on offer: a short trip from Port Adelaide to Port Lincoln with a brief stay there (three to four days), and a longer trip from Port Adelaide to Port Augusta with calls at Port Lincoln, Cowell, Whyalla, Port Pirie and the old copper port of Wallaroo (six days). Travel up the west coast was never such an enticing prospect, with long stretches of towering cliffs and some dangerous bays along the way. The most worrisome was surely Elliston, where bad weather and rough seas meant shipwrecks sometimes occurred. Safer harbours further west, at Ceduna in Denial Bay for instance, made things easier, but these remote and not especially productive parts had their own problems. There was even an occasional mishap in the normally placid waters off Tumby Bay, and the waters near ‘the Althorpes’ between Kangaroo Island and the western tip of Yorke Peninsula had a reputation for roughness.

It may sound as if the maritime history of Eyre Peninsula is an uncertain story, for all its variety and interest. It was undoubtedly rough-and-ready at times, and it is true that its most colourful aspect – the great grain races that saw mighty sailing ships arrive in Spencer Gulf from Europe until as late as 1949 – was already becoming a thing of the past by the onset of World War II. But local and coastal shipping still seemed sound after the war, with several larger passenger/cargo ships in operation in the 1950s. MV Moonta, built in Denmark in 1931, lasted until 1955, when its cargo side became unprofitable and it was sold off; it had offered six-day trips from Port Adelaide to Port Augusta and back which took in Kangaroo Island. It ended up being used as a casino on a beach on the South Coast of France. The Morialta, purpose-built pre-war but not brought into service until after World War II, lasted only a year longer, until 1956; a comfortable ship, it was advertising cruises to the smaller ports of the lower Gulf, from Adelaide to Cowell and back via Tumby Bay, Port Neill and Arno Bay in 1950. Three years later, in 1960, the queen of them all, the MV Minnipa – another Danish-built ship which began its 33-year service to Eyre Peninsula in 1927 – was finally withdrawn from service, due to a decline in patronage. With that, the coastal shipping that dated back to 1839 seemed to come to an end.

Read more from Our Fathers Cleared the Bush by purchasing the book here.

Olive and Asparagus Frittata

Posted on 4 October 2016 by admin

Spring is announced by the new season’s asparagus bursting from the ground, freshly pickled olives and the traditional symbol of new life – eggs! Which also means: olive and asparagus frittata!

Celebrate with this easy, flexible recipe from Russell Jeavons’s Your Brick Oven. Great for an appetiser.

Olive and Asparagus Frittata

(makes enough for eight as an appetiser)
1 large onion
olive oil
1 bunch of asparagus
1 cup new season’s black olives
10 eggs
salt and pepper
fresh herbs, oregano, parsley,
chervil, chives

Slice the onion and cook it with 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a small pot until it is sweet and creamy, but not brown. Trim the asparagus and toss into boiling water for one minute then remove to cold water to cool. Cut the blanched asparagus length ways into quarters. Split the olives in halves and remove the pips.

Combine the eggs with a fork and season with salt and pepper. Mix in the freshly chopped herbs, sweetened onion, asparagus and olives.

Pour the egg mixture into a non-rusting pan lined with silicon paper small enough to make the frittata at least 5 centimetres deep. Cook in a slow oven until it is set. Beware of too much heat, as the eggs will overcook and dry out.

Egg dishes test the steady hand of a good cook – be kind to them. The finished frittata should be fresh and juicy.

Allow to cool and set. Refrigerate if it is to be eaten later. Frittata can be served as a meal or cut into small squares for appetisers.

Olive and asparagus frittata can be cooked in a moderate brick oven

The brick oven in action at Russell’s

101 Nights: The story behind a war classic

Posted on 30 September 2016 by admin

Music writer, bookseller and history buff Robert Brokenmouth paints a picture of the man and the circumstance behind the classic war novel, 101 Nights by Ray Ollis.

The night [was] whirling about them, tossing them easily on its powerful way… Their throttles were open now, straining against the storm. Hyde checked his petrol, checked his watch, and cast a troubled glance over his shoulder looking for the dawn. If this weather strengthened, the day might find them still over Europe. (101 Nights)

101 Nights is, as far as I can tell, the first book, fiction or otherwise, to accurately address most of the issues connected with the bombing of Germany during WWII, issues which became more distorted for decades after the end of the war. 101 Nights tells the story of Ray Ollis’s squadron, 101, and its operations over the skies of Occupied Europe, by night and by day.

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An ode to Myponga Beach

Posted on 16 September 2016 by admin

In our September newsletter, we ran a giveaway for Ivor Hele and asked entrants to tell us about their favourite holiday destination. We just had to share this amazing response sprinkled with historic family photos from our prize winner, Meg.

A place where I have spent many wonderful holidays is Myponga Beach on the Fleurieu Peninsula. It’s a beautiful blend of rural ‘Southern Mount Lofty’ landscapes along with a crescent bay which can be so calm and benign at times, yet thrilling in its energy when the winds and tides change. As a child I walked to the nearby farm to buy milk, cream and eggs. We were “in another world” yet able to look across the sea to the twinkling lights of Aldinga – now much more extended – and the peaks of Mount Lofty. How privileged we were!

There is a long family history from my great grandparents’ time down there; many photographs; and it is the place where I first gained a childhood awareness of the aboriginal culture – artefacts having been found in the sandhills which were once a burial ground.

Historic Myponga Beach. Photo supplied by Meg.

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New poem from Geoff Goodfellow

Posted on 12 September 2016 by admin

One of the coolest things about the Wakefield community is that we get to see the latest that our bright and busy authors are producing – and then we can share it with you! This time we have new work from Geoff Goodfellow, who is in fine form this early (drizzly) spring, with a new poem musing on fashion trends in his beloved Semaphore.

Just a little something to get you through your Monday. Enjoy!

For more of Geoff Goodfellow’s musings on the wonder of Semaphore, you can purchase his selected poems here.

An extract from ‘Here Where We Live’ by Cassie Flanagan Willanski

Posted on 5 August 2016 by Michael Bollen

Cassie Flanagan Willanski’s debut collection Here Where We Live is one of our must-reads for the year.

Winner of the Unpublished Manuscript Award back in 2014, it received high praise from the judges for its ‘subtle, assured writing that deftly weaves dialogue and description and expertly uses imagery to plumb the depths of its protagonists’ emotions’. Brian Castro said ‘I was moved and I was haunted’, and we agree.

We’d like to share one of our favourite extracts from the book with you today. It’s a short story called ‘Karko’. We hope you enjoy it!

Karko

Oliver’s mum had a stupid boss. The night before the class excursion to the Tjilbruke Trail, the boss mixed up the rosters and called Oliver’s mum back in for the night shift. She’d been working all day and was watching telly to relax. Oliver had to get out of bed and go and stay over at Aunty Peta’s house again.

Aunty Peta was pretty good if you needed to stay somewhere else away from home all the time. She was probably Oliver’s favourite aunt. She tucked him into bed, even though he was eight years old. Aunty Peta straightened back up with an effort, because she was about to have a baby, and it was hard for her to bend. She set her alarm so Oliver wouldn’t miss the bus.

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Catherine Truman’s SALA Opening Address

Posted on 2 August 2016 by admin

One of the biggest pleasures of the SALA festival is hearing the keynote address from the featured artist.

Last year it was Giles Bettison on the importance of art. This year, Catherine Truman spoke to a packed house about the joys of ‘tadpoling’, and how important a sense of adventure and a strong work ethic are as an artist – or, indeed, a scientist.

Catherine’s very kindly shared her speech with us here. We agree with her – viva SALA! And, may we add, viva Catherine Truman!

Tadpoling at the Bench

Firstly, I to would like to acknowledge that we meet on Kaurna land and pay respect to their spiritual relationship with this country past, present and future.

Thanks everyone for being here tonight, especially my dear friends, family and colleagues who’ve travelled from far away places to share in the celebrations.

It is such an honour to address you tonight as the featured SALA artist for 2016 but this wonderful achievement has only been possible through the support, love and inspiration from a lot of other people and so firstly a few personal thank yous.

And then I’d like to tell you a little story – a story about tadpoling. In fact I’ve titled my address to you tonight Tadpoling at the Bench.

Catherine Truman addresses the crowds at SALA opening night

Thanks to the SALA committee and to Penny and Kate for their incredible commitment to this ever-growing phenomenon that is SALA and a nod to Paul Greenaway, the instigator, for his vision. To Arts South Australia and Wakefield Press for their support of the SALA publication especially Michael Bollen, Margot Lloyd and Clinton Ellicott. To Melinda Rackham for her intelligent, insightful, writing and to both Melinda and André Lawrence, our mentee on the project, for their commitment to getting it thoroughly right. And to Rachel Harris, our designer, for the magic she wove to bring together Melinda’s fine words and the many, many luscious images by Grant Hancock into such a magnificent book. We are all really proud of it. I hope you all enjoy it.

I never dreamed that having a book written about you would be quite so intense, quite so wonderful. We had to proof it a few weeks ago, and I must admit I felt very emotional holding the pages in my hands for the first time. I became so absorbed, I forgot I was meant to be proofing and by the end I was so excited I really wanted to rush back to the studio and make some more work. So that’s a good sign eh?

A special thanks to my Gray Street family, Jess Dare and the gang for keeping me afloat through thick and thin and to my lifelong partner Sue Lorraine for her patience, sage advice and rock solid love.

And to the people at the coalface of Arts South Australia and the Australia Council, for your professional support and for believing in my practice.

The Art Gallery of South Australia has held such an important place in my growth as an artist. I do feel that it is embedded in my DNA. It is deeply satisfying to present such a large body of work in this gallery. It’s a great honour. Thanks Nick Mitzevich and Lisa Slade for their chutzpah and commitment to showing live and kicking practising South Australian Artists and Rebecca Evans the curator of European and Australian decorative arts. My exhibition was her first major project in her new position at the Art Gallery of South Australia and she hit the ground running with grace and elegance and it has been a pleasure to work with her. Thanks to all of the install and registry staff too, especially Jess and the crew who had to document well over 300 objects for the show!

So you can see I haven’t sustained my long career without the support of many others and I thank them from my heart.

Now to my tadpoling story and I promise it’s short and sweet.

I want to tell you about an image that’s in the book being launched tonight.

When I was seven my dad took a picture of me tadpoling in National Park. In this picture – a 35 mm Kodak slide, the kind with the cardboard mount – I seem completely unaware of either the camera or my dad for that matter. There I am standing in the creek, brown Bermuda shorts, scrawny little legs covered in mud with a blue plastic strainer in my hand, bent over, absolutely focussed on the water, poised, ready to pounce on some poor unsuspecting taddy. Mum’s shade-house was forever croaking as I was growing up. Every time I look at that photo I relive those moments of complete bliss, of absorption, and curiosity, the thrill of discovery and the deep pleasure of pursuit. And I’m really pleased that forty-three years later this picture appears in the beginning pages of the book because it still resonates on many levels.

When I create work I touch base with tadpoling. Hunting and gathering is integral with my daily practice of making art. It’s full of challenging and difficult and delicious experiences of absolute absorption, deep focus and pursuit. Connecting with the wider world – observing, listening, learning, staying open, interacting, engaging and exchanging – is critical to being an artist. It provides context and meaning. I actively seek out contact with others, mostly scientists because they like to go tadpoling too, and I like to think the world is a better place because of the creative exchanges we have. I’ve been artist in residence in the School of Medicine and the biomedical laboratories of Flinders University for several years now and learnt firsthand that there are rich parallels between art and science. Full-time practise in either field is mostly a day-to-day slog and some days, there is nothing tangible to show for it. But we both agree, it’s the slog that’s compelling and fruitful and wonderful. Now I can better understand and embrace the chaos and rhythms embedded in my day-to-day creative processes. This time next year the JamFactory will be presenting a solo exhibition of my art/science project works.

The wonderful South Australian painter Deidre But-Husaim put up a post on Facebook recently, a quote by Chuck Close. He said:

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.

I couldn’t have said it any better. And I learnt that through tadpoling at the bench and working with scientists.

This is wise advice, but it seems that the nitty gritty part of creative practise is not always understood by the consumers of art or the powers that be – those powers that have just been narrowly re-elected for example. Enough said. It is usually romanticised and separated from real life. So it is vital we put voice to the day-to-day creative processes of full-time practice and take advantage of SALA to give us that important voice

In rounding this up, when I think about my dad sneaking up on me to take that photo of me blissfully tadpoling in that muddy creek in National park, I feel incredibly moved that he recognised the substance of the moment and that he cared enough to record it for posterity.

I hope you all get to do a little tadpoling yourselves this SALA.

Please visit my show upstairs and Melinda and I are now going to be happily signing books in the foyer, please come up and say hello!

Thank you and viva SALA!

Catherine Truman: Touching distance

Deb Kandelaars launching Coast to Coast

Posted on 28 July 2016 by admin

Coast to Coast is the true story of one family’s incredible undertaking: to walk across India in order to help children living in the poorest parts of the world. We’re all in awe of the Petruccos for their generosity, tenacity and good humour. In her speech at the launch, Deb Kandelaars explained her own history with this incredible family …

We first met the Petruccos on the South Coast about 10 years’ ago now. It turned out that both our families had made a sea change from the city at around the same time and our kids were at the same school. We immediately became good friends. The Petruccos are a very warm and welcoming family. Our kids played together, and for Bec and I, our husbands were often away with work so we were great company for each other. Wednesday taco night became an institution.

Our friendship was cemented on one of these evenings when a horrible thing happened: a very pregnant Bec slipped and slid face-first down our long staircase, landing chin first at the bottom. She was taken by ambulance to South Coast Hospital and then by chopper to Flinders. It was a very dramatic and worrying night. Nick was on his way home from interstate, and the kids stayed at our place watching ‘The Simpsons’. I also remember uncharacteristically letting them have Coke at McDonalds at 10 o’clock at night. I think we were all a bit traumatised! Thankfully all was okay with Bec…and Bec and baby Gus both survived to tell the tale, but that terribly stressful night has become the stuff of legends – a kind of marker in our friendship.

We all eventually left the South Coast – Nick and Bec and family to Melbourne, Malaysia, Adelaide and Melbourne again…and us back to Adelaide. It was during a family trip to visit the Petruccos in Melbourne a few years’ ago that Nick brought up the idea of walking across India and raising money for Childfund. My first response was ‘Bloody hell, really?’ It was no surprise to me that Nick and Bec were looking to raise money for children in India. They’d previously spent time there, and had supported an orphanage for some time. Both of them had travelled and worked in India and they had a heartfelt connection with the place and the people. But to pack up the kids and actually walk across India – it rattled my neat city sensibility of life being predictable and in its place. That night we chatted about the plan and made a few jokes about Nick dressing in Gandhi-like white flowing apparel and walking with a large stick across India.

But when Nick has a dream – Nick really has a dream! And his patient, enthusiastic and seemingly tireless partner, Bec, was by his side. Before long they were organising a fundraising day in Melbourne and they pulled together an amazing range of inspirational speakers who donated their time… and they managed to sell hundreds of tickets, raising thousands of dollars for their cause. It really was a wonderful, inspiring day, and they were a little closer to realising Nick’s dream.

A few years’ ago, Nick and Bec set off with their family on a trip up the east coast of Australia. It was precious time out for all of them from work and school, and a chance to travel together. They bought a camper trailer and lived the dream for a few months. Just before they set off on their India trek, the beloved camper trailer was sold to help finance the journey.

So they set off to India with their kids… and their wonderfully supportive extended family and friends joined them along the way. I should mention that at this point in time, I was at home in Adelaide, in the comfort of our home…but to be fair, I did support them by posting ‘go team’ ‘yay, good on you’ ‘keep going’ messages.

As they travelled, Nick made regular blog posts about their journey – and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t always joyful. Like any good journey story, it contained magnificent highs and desperate lows, overcoming adversity and, finally, after a long and arduous journey, reaching their goal. The success of any one walking day was subject to the weather, extreme heat, rain, energy levels, and just generally trying to look after everyone’s needs. Sometimes they walked along incredibly busy roads with little room to spare; other times they were in peaceful rural settings stopping at a roadside coffee tent, and mingling with the locals.

I remember one of Nick’s stories about a particularly horrendous case of food poisoning where he was hallucinating and the hotel room was spinning. I think at this point, Nick was wondering what on earth he’d gotten them all into. Yet at other times, they found themselves surrounded by a throng of happy Indian children, as they handed over supplies and bikes for their school.

When the journey was over and Nick had turned his blogs into a manuscript, he asked me to read it for him. From the outset, I was right there on that journey with them in India. The locations are fascinating; the people are heart-warming. Within the walking group, there was a real sense of team work, unity and love. If the kids got tired, they could jump in the support car; if there was a medical dilemma, Bec (aka Nurse Ratchett) came to the rescue; Nick’s mum Jen was very supportive with the children and general morale; and Nick’s stepdad Nick (yes, you’re right, there are way too many Nicks in that sentence!) helped bolster the team’s spirits when they needed a lift. Nick’s sister, Kate, and her children, flew in to do part of the walk, and the cousins had a great time together on their family adventure. As I said, there were highs and there were lows – but all in all they achieved what they’d set out to do – to walk across India and raise money for children in need.

So congratulations to all of you who made the walk, and played your part in this special story. And particular congratulations to Nick for documenting it and bringing the story to life. I know this is something you’ve wanted to do for a long time and I’m really proud of you. And a special mention to Bec because she’s played an integral role in this journey and this book; and she is always there in the wings, ever-enthusiastic, loving, organised and supportive.

I urge you to buy a copy of Coast to Coast, not only because funds raised from the sale of the book will go to children in need; but also because it’s a wonderful story. Whether you take the journey via your armchair or perhaps it inspires you to do more, it’s a great read about an ordinary family doing something quite extraordinary.

Stephen Orr speaks to the Friends of the Barr Smith Library

Posted on 5 July 2016 by admin

In 2016 the Friends of the Barr Smith Library have teamed up with Wakefield Press to present a series of talks by Wakefield Press authors. On 21 April, renowned novelist Stephen Orr entertained the masses (despite attesting that he prefers to ‘terrify’) with an overview of his writing career, beginning with this fitting reflection on the Barr Smith itself.

You can listen to Stephen’s speech in its entirety here thanks to Radio Adelaide.

I first came to the Barr Smith twenty years ago. Sat in a corner, somewhere. Admired the spray-on concrete ceiling, the flickering lights, the books about mycology. Eventually, I sharpened my pencil and began. What might’ve been a career; although it’s mostly felt like a hobby; what might’ve been the Great Australian novel; although the remaindered fragments of the 2000 Vogel-runner-up, Attempts to Draw Jesus, are scattered far and wide. The pages yellow; the glue fails; the spine cracks. You find a copy (inscribed) at the Port Dock market. $3.00, or negotiable.

Point being. I was off and running. On a career that’s had more downs than ups, lows than highs, disappointments than vindications. Henry Lawson went through something similar. His advice to Australian writers was to ‘study elementary anatomy, especially as it applies to the cranium, and then shoot yourself carefully with the aid of a looking glass.’ Ninety years later, George Johnston felt the same way. Living on the Greek island of Hydra in 1958, he explained his and Charmaine Clift’s combined income of 125 pounds ‘comes from five books in circulation or accepted, two foreign translations, one sale of foreign serial rights, an earlier novel and certain magazine extracts. For this, and all the work it represents, the return…I’m sure you’ll agree is hardly worth while.’

Hardly worth while. But, he explained, ‘I have all sorts of writing plans and shall probably go on producing a novel a year for many years to come.’ This, as all writers know, is the curse of perpetual frustration. He explained it away by saying, ‘I have, you see, enough confidence in myself at least…’

Back to the Barr Smith; two levels below here. The terrazzo dunnies with their outstanding graffiti. Phil Grummet, a character in my second published book, Hill of Grace, studies pharmacology at Adelaide University, but he has a bent for other things (if you know what I mean). This includes perfecting his poetic gifts on the dunny walls (a sort of budget Mastersingers of Nuremburg). Someone drills holes in the walls. Just enough to cop an eyeful. But Phil writes messages like, Not Recommended for Children, or, Insert Here. He adds the predictable: Arts Degrees, please take a single sheet, above the bog paper, and tries some Eliot on the back of the door. We shall never cease from exploring. And he doesn’t. Ending up at Mt Crawford vomiting mushrooms he mistakes for the magic variety.

The Barr Smith has changed. I spent hours watching flies trying to escape from cobwebs, the spider emerging, the worst of natural selection as my fiction went unwritten. I wrote my first five books here. Longhand. Clearing my throat when people talked, and the librarians didn’t spring to life, jumping on the miscreants like an elite SS troop. Eventually I’d give up and move, throwing a angry glance, not that anyone cared. Silence, I think, is the most valuable thing of all. Up there with love, wisdom, an unexpected sunburst.

The Barr Smith rendered by Simon Fieldhouse.

I loved the Barr Smith’s retro fifties feel, although it wasn’t actually retro. The desks, the chairs, the Khrushchev-era windows. The idea that a million people had written a million books about a million topics and, if I had the time, I could explore them all. That’s always what’s excited me. The potential to know. I could never understand sport. That only ever had the potential to kick a bit further, run a bit faster. So what? So I’d sit there for an hour after I’d finished writing. Looking through maths texts, wondering why I was looking through maths texts. Reading a history of sans serif types, or the Hitler Youth. The same thing I did as a kid, at school. The grass was always green, the sandwiches stale and sweaty. But if you were early enough, and got a copy of Asterix, your lunch would be bearable.

That’s why libraries matters. Why the Barr Smith matters. All of this knowledge is held in trust. For our great great grandkids. God knows they’ll have Weatherill’s plutonium to deal with, so we should leave them something they actually want. I hope the books remain. The heavy, smelly paper types. I hope someone doesn’t come in, digitise them, and then arrange a book burning on the Barr Smith lawns. Or maybe others have that in mind? The Advertiser. Winston Smith snipping away at the truth, producing a world view pleasing to the North Terrace mob. Bill and Ben, flower pot men. Praising ham strings and high octane stupidity in equal measure.

So, now you’re saying. My, he’s a bit angry, isn’t he? To which I reply: Moi? Problem being, speaking writers, it seems, are meant to entertain audiences these days. I prefer to terrify. And at this, Patrick White was the best. If I can share a selected quote: ‘The Bicentennial circus tends to hide from us the fact that we are no longer a democracy. We are a country run by and for millionaires and by a prime minister who toadies to them.’ Or: ‘In a society where there has been such a serious lapse in integrity, our politicians’ attitude to uranium isn’t surprising.’ Wonder what he’d make of Kimba, glowing with golden wheat, sheep, and other things?

Stephen Orr reading his latest novel, The Hands, as part of the upcoming Goulburn Biggest Read.

Listen to the rest of Stephen’s speech here thanks to Radio Adelaide.