Interlude: What is this thing called Ethics?

Ethics are a branch of philosophy that the modern self governing citizen takes for granted. We believe that as self regulating individuals who make well informed rational decisions about the conduct of their lives and the subsequent interaction with other citizens, then they being socially constructed in the same post enlightenment values of community would behave as rational human beings. Essentially Ethical behaviour is something we take for granted.

Ethics endows the individual citizen with a set of tools for critical thinking in relation to their behaviour and to enable them to make reasoned well informed choices in how we deal with others and conduct our behaviour in society.   But it appears that there is something at work in the post GFC society that makes Ethics takes a back seat when it comes to human behaviour.

REAL ESTATE.

Yes profit is what it is all about, now don’t think I am being naive here, but in the ACT there are two distinct type of people. Home Owners and Renters, which is the bottom line you either own the house you live in or you are at the tender mercy of the market.  I rent a house in the ACT, when we signed the contract to rent we asked the Realtor if this was a long term rental. We were assured that it was a ‘family investment’ and they were here for the long haul, this was in February as the toxic fallout from the GFC was still highly contagious.  And now well now there is money to be made.

Economically it appears that the worst of the GFC has passed. The property market in the ACT has picked up, money is to be made and LO we find that the Owner desires to sell. Yes I know it’s their property but where I ask is the Ethics in this, or is it simply Profit over People again! Shouldn’t they have been honest in their intent when we went to sign the lease?

THAT THEY WERE JUST WATING FOR THE DUST TO SETTLE AND THE MARKET TO PICK UP BEFORE THEY UNLOADED THEIR

I have to ask do the words honesty and integrity exist in the Property market? After all when you buy a house your buying into the great Australian Dream, but we have seen that change in past ten years so that a house is not a home but an asset, a line of credit. Paul Keating said once ‘God help you if you’re a renter.’

Worse the Realtor,( think spiv in a cheap suit), has inspected the house and seen how our family has turned a house into a home. Well he couldn’t believe his luck, we have made this empty house into a home and now he wants to exploit us for his and the owners financial gain. Lets be honest here, at a 5% fee he stands to make at least $30K for his work. I don’t know how much they paid for the house but he was foaming at the mouth over auctions and possible 600K for the place. Honestly the  ACT is most schizophrenic housing market in Australia; it does not follow the rules that exist in other cities in the Nation.

What is galling here is they now want to exploit what we have done with this empty house and use it to their financial advantage. They want to display the house with photos on the web, have hordes tramp though it to see what it can BECOME. They want to have an onsite auction with more people traipsing though the house and take advantage of what how our environment that we live in creatively expresses our lives and provides a base for us to live in society.

Yes they want to exploit what we have done for their financial gain and what do we get, well maybe an investor might buy the property, maybe not but I have to ask where are the ETHICS at work in this? No where as far as I can see all I can see is exploitation with profit as the goal and damn the consequences.

When I brought this fact up the Spiv just said ‘why haven’t you bought?’ Bottom line its all about money.

So I ask you do Ethics still exist in this post GFC world or am I being somewhat naïve? Would you rent a house to a family in the full knowledge that you intended to sell it as soon as the market picks up? So what if there are casualties in this.

Money speaks and after all we can just move, never mind that it is going to cost us for removals, reconnecting utilities. Never mind the sleepless nights and disruption to our lives but then someone is making money and obviously that is important.

I have been a homeowner and I know how the game is played.

You may think this is just sour grapes a whinge a moan but as I said earlier in the ACT there are two types of people Homeowners and Renters. In world whose principal God is Mammon Ethics just don’t exist.

Becoming: if not, what then?

To Begin at the Beginning is always the best place to start but in terms of philosophy where do we begin? With the statement of an idea which has not previously been thought. Some original utterance or speech act which contains within it the fabric of a Meme? Maybe the production of a concept?

Firstly does one have to define what is the object of the inquiry? And then once we have defined the object of the inquiry do we then continue with to formulate a definitive definition of the object or concept under inquiry? Or do we speculate upon the properties that constitute the object break it down into constitute parts? But then that is just like taking a clock apart and putting it back together isn’t it. I know that all the constituent parts of the clock once reassembled will still tell the time but can I do that conceptually with what ever the object of my philosophical inquiry is?

Or do we abandon the above altogether and say that philosophy is simply a tool to be applied to a pre-existing situation or object to wish we which to know more? Which brings me back to the clock and the time and then I would have to ask what is the point of that for I already know that a clock tells time.

For if its all just a process of inquiry and speculation, then I am I simply adopting a set of specifics which I  adpot for a specific time as opposed to giving birth to a concept which I need to defend. I adopt and defend a specific conceptual position which may in my opinion provide an answer to a specific  line of inquiry which can only be engaged in via the discursive process or is it  like discourse analysis? I produce a text and then the reader interprets the text to the best of their ability?

Or do we sit and ruminate upon possibility, probability and an eventuality that in all likelihood  is pure mental gymnastics?

Or is the function of philosophy to provide guidance and allow a conceptual framework to emerge. And if the concept does have a life then the attributes of the concept can be established, verified and certified and said to produce a specific truth effect. As an example can I say that the planet is dying due to the rapacious greed of the dominant species or by even saying this am I being a hypocrite?

For in publishing these words am I being just another individual consumer who is using both the promise of capitalism and its curse to express my self? After all what is the point of having Cyberspace if within a hundred years or less there is no Cyberspace?

And where then would my audience but or “is it a tale of sound a fury signifying nothing?

Should one seek to express in the simplest possible language complex ideas?  Where is this going does it have a purpose? I would say in effect yes, but before one can engage in an inquiry then one has to establish the ground rules, one needs a map to drive by a road to travel, after all isn’t any intellectual endeavour a journey into the unknown?  So is a philosopher a cartographer of the Soul or the Mind of man? Or neither?

So then what words does one use? Propostion? Concept? Meme? Psychology? Analysis? Metaphysics? Becoming? Ethics? Behaviour? Truth? (Of what for that matter) Time and Space? As opposed to Space and Time?  Being in space, which occupies time and moves through space interacting with others in what could be a life of poverty or privilege? But then it could be both at once or neither.

Or is it that we engage in a process of continual signification where each utterance leads to the next forming endless chains that commence at birth and cease at death? No the Idea and its appropriation, application and discursive function continues after death. For that what are ideas? They circulate are consumed and applied to produce results which constitutes both knowledge but discourse.

Do memes become? Do memes engage in becomeing? Are memes parts of a specific Milieu? Social, cultural, psychological? Does the meme contain a truth effect that can be individually verified? How for that matter? Both through the discursive process and also through its application as a tool to build more modes and nodes of knowledge, after all I am not using an arboreal schematic here but a Rhizome.  And lets also ditch the concept of binary thought here and say ‘thinking And.’

A Meme, is capable of independent life, which is achieved through the discursive process and then what does it do next? Patiently wait to be picked up in a bar one night or a café or say in the bowels of cyberspace?  Or can we think of an meme in the Platonic manner? And if  memes are ideas do  they have form? And if so  then how do we access them? Through the rumination of the mind? After all what is an idea? A series of propositions, which constitute a concept that leads to speculation, a pronouncement an acknowledged truth effect? Or does the concept interact with other concepts, which are attached to other concepts, which eventually form an ideology? A philosophy?

Does philosophy and psychology intersect and if so where in this instance should I turn? One has to being somewhere and in beginning how does one constitute a Becoming?  Becoming what then? Becoming Blog? Becoming meme?  A waste of my time and yours but I know that by sitting here I am not just exercising my intellect for no apparent reason.

Do ideas become or is just the human who becomes and becomes what? A better citizen? A happier consumer, an individual who is well educated and is seeking a way to express a particular aspect of their Self? And then can I use the word SELF in this manner?  What then would constitute Self? Ego? I? The interaction of these concepts to constitute what we know as mind or the interiority of the subject? Well then Becoming Subject? But Subject to what?

Or is there an antidote to all of this, which leads elsewhere where philosophy is both a practical tool for analysis and offers substance to life? Where speculation leads to application and seeks results.

For that matte who am I, considering that I is just a conceptual framework, a signifier in a discursive chain that has no relevance to lived life? I am not I, for although I is an utterance made by the action of my brain directing my hands upon the keyboard I am not the utteracne? Or has Barthes said it all before? Or is I a philosophical position or proposition which encapsulates a specific position in relation to the human condition, for that matter am I only the subject making the utterance? But behind the words is a mind at work. A life lived, breif but passionate intensity of human wants and nedds of flesh and an inquiring mind for that matter.

Or should I just turn back to fiction? To have actors walk upon the stage of the page and let them settle it for me? But then that gives me a bit of distance doesn’t it.For then I could say well it wasn’t my idea the character wanted to do this. But then where does the character that speaks find their voice? Form the depth of ones unconscious? Formed  an idea that one wakes up with one morning a like the lines of song which continues to go around in my mind until I deal with it by purging it from my consciousness. Clearly fiction could be said to be an act of becoming a creative expression of an interior state of being.  Can I say that the actions that I engage in constitute the genesis of Becoming? Or do I have to consciously break, rend the fabric of my past and my future for the present is elusive and as soon as I type the word it is past.And will this Becoming alter the course of my  life, and to what end or manner.  And would this altering this othering, then constitute a Becoming? A conscious intent to Become other than what one already is?  Isnt that what chnange and growth is? A Becoming?

But then before one can become shouldn’t one ask what one means by the act of Becoming?

FIRE

I was commissioned in July 1994 to write the liner notes for the Mark Simmonds Freebopers Fire CD. Mark read what I had written and it inspired him to write the liner notes himself. I still got paid for my labours but it has remained unpublished since then, so here is it is the CD can be purchased on line at http://www.birdland.com.au/catalogue/category634/p38349 and for those who wish to read more abut Mark Simmonds and his prodigious talent I recommend John Shand Jazz The Australian Accent p 80-92 Mark Simmonds:Volcano. UNSW PRESS publishes the book.

Listen.

Music transcends the barriers of the spoken word, therefore this rumination elucidates upon the creative conception and presentation of the music contained on this CD.

This entails intertwining two disparate elements into a holistic commentary that explains the rudiments of the music.

In this discourse it is the musical traditions of Bebop and the spiritual aspects of Zen.

Bebop was innovative in its approach to jazz in that it sought to free up the rhythm section through the application of harmonic ideas to the prevailing musical attitudes of the day.

Zen is the doctrine of the artless art, which to the western mind represents a logical contradiction, a paradox, for as soon as I say that this it is it, it is not it.  Zen is a state of spiritual consciousness that transcends normal human ego-mind consciousness.

Via the creative process the artist reveals this spiritual dimension of his work, which reaches beyond the confines of intellect to provide an insight into the mystery of Self, which is expressed within the framework of the music.

The practice and constant repetition of particular rhythmical and harmonic structures allows the music to be absorbed into the artistic subconscious, wherein the phraseology achieves distance between the ego and the physical world.

This immersion creates an unconscious signal to be recalled whilst playing and allows the musician to be self sufficient yet part of a group dynamic in the presentation of the music.

Art is a process of creative self realisation via   the medium of its chosen expression, as we live in an age of global homogenisation this combines and reflects the elements of the traditional building blocks upon which the art is founded and contemporary influences.

This music seeks to utilise create within an aesthetic framework and concepts known as insight rearrangement to generate arrangements that contain the rhythmic and harmonic language of Bebop.

The introduction of these ideas allows the composer to remain within the contextual framework of the tradition but musically advances the ideological basis and affective insight of the music of which he is a proponent.

This approach to the resolution of the composition by encapsulating the traditional framework demonstrates the complexity of the music, which is created by the simplicity of the initial compositional idea.

It is within this structural organisation of the music that the artist attempts to answer the particular questions which form the foundation of the musical content, this combined with the contextual language and intuitive expressionist rhythms seeks to resolve the conflict inherent in the composition of the music.

This   presentation of the intuitive creative process illuminates the compositional landscape of the individual and articulates the conflict of the subjective and objective elements, which collide in the process of creative generation, and represents the culmination of the intellectual-emotional-feeling and experiential process for an artist.

The music contains both the question and answer within the framework of its presentation, this establishes in a live situation a joint nexus or participation mystique between the artist’s music and the audience. This moment of becoming is created by the tension and conflict of duality being resolved in an epiphany of musicological transcendence.

This consummation of   the combined knowledge and competence of the individual musicians of the Freebopers propels the music to the zenith of its artistic expression.

And that is what you will hear on this CD.

What is this thing called Blog?

A blog is an expression of an ideas? A forum for theory? A place of debate? A useful tool for self analysis?  A soap box? All and none of the above? Somewhere to sit and type and hope that the mind is cognitive enough to ensure that reason walks with the text?  Well philosophically speaking it could be all of the above and none. The time has to come to decide where to go next with this what function does this serve me in a expressing who I am to both myself and a larger audience, who may or may not decide to engage in discussion with me or am I living in some delusional paradise where I think that the life of the individual, albeit a privileged individual citizen who has access to the technology and the time to sit and write this for a real or imagined audience.  And if there is an audience what would they want from this? Should I treat this as a form of biography and state that at this particular place and time the citizen who wrote these words existed? But to what end? I could easily pull forth more material from my personal archives of both published and unpublished material to entertain both myself and the imagined audience who have visited this site and  statistically speaking I know that you are out there. So then what to make of this? I have for over twenty years kept diaries some times I read them other times well they are a work in progress but what intrinsic value do they have? If no conversation arises from this activity what then is the purpose of this? To entertain? To stimulate to provoke a response? Well then? Or is this my own litter corner in cyberspace where I can pull forth a Soap Box and ruminate on the pros and cons of life lived and observed. After all who will watch the watchers, I know a bit cliche isn’t it. But then it could be the start of something a bit more dynamic it could be a space to express ideas with this imagined audience or a platform for self delusion on a grand scale. I could say that I was thrilled but also relieved that the Wallabies beat England on the weekend in the Rugby International. Although there were moments of pure physical poetry there was also moments where I found myself swearing at the interpretations of the referee. But Australia won and I believe they also won in the cricket, which is about as interesting as watching someone knitting to my taste but that’s just me. You could say why take an interest in sport well, to be honest I still enjoy the tribalism of it all, the sheer physical poetry of bodies in motion of movement, colour and spectacle welded together to both provide a product, for lets face it that is what sport is another entertainment product in a crowded marketplace all vying for attention of time poor consumers.   Or Gladiatorial combat rivalries which span both nations and class. A physical combat between elite athletes who engage in sporting combat not just for the pay check that they get but for the adulation of an adoring public, of pride in being part of select club who can call themselves Wallabies? Analysis is what we make of it. Anyway it was great that Australia beat the Poms.

So you have sport media social relations class warfare the physical poetry of the body but what of philosophy? How does Bergson Deleuze fit in here? As for psychology I favour a post Jungian interpretation. No disrespect to Freud but really is all just Desire? And you would think that after a hundred years that the Freudian intelligentsia  would  acknowledge that the unconscious is not just the realm of the repressed or to quote a line from the film Forbidden Planet, ‘monsters from the Id!’ No.

So then there you have it in a nutshell, what is it to be then do I sit here and just type and hope for coherence and consistency and the articulation of a diverse eclectic ideology which comprises the tool box I carry in life or just reedit the past? Or is it a case of self publish and be dammed?

Parragliders at Lake George

Saturday morning 7th November 8.20am

Tears Of A Clown: A short story

This story was originally written in 1989. I must admit that I have never lived in a boarding house in Sydney but in 1980-81 I lived in a boarding house in St Kilda that resembled Bedlam. This story was eventually published in ANU Writers Block Issue #3 in 2006. It belongs to a larger group of stories entitled Prisoner of an Urbane Consciousness.

The first time I saw Emile he was sitting on the steps of the boarding house on Woomera Avenue, framed by the late afternoon sun. I’d just come back from the City library loaded with books. Emile fixed his gaze upon with me as I sauntered down the street. After living around the Cross for years you perfect that transparency of expression that enables you to ignore anything within your field of vision, but not Emile. He focused his bloodshot orbs on mine and attempted contact when I reached the steps. He smiled at me with yellow teeth.

“Hungry are we?” he inquired, pointing at my books.

I ignored him and continued on my way in the front door.

“Well then why not carry them in your head?”

Emile laughed and I stopped, catching his literary allusion. I declined to comment and went up the three flights of stairs to my ‘self contained one bedroom flat’. It was the terrace house’s old attic, revamped in the seventies with a kitchenette and bathroom; sufficient for my present state of mind. Its most endearing characteristic was the bathroom; if you saw the state of my fellow cohabitants in this outpost of the lost you would know why. Not even urban gentrification could redeem the place for the funk of despair clung to it like old paint. Simply put it was a shit hole; it stank of stale cigarette smoke and cheap mince. The tenants were all mad by degrees and you had to put the lights on at midday in summer; but it was home.

All told, there were a dozen of us who lived over three floors. Dorothy Brown, ‘just call me Dot, love’, with her dozen cats on the ground floor, across the hall from Emile. An aging alcoholic couple, Bert and Cathy, who lived out the back; they both had the pallor of dead fish when you saw them in daylight. Then there were the mandatory transitory junkies, and other assorted inmates of the place I dubbed ‘Bedlam’, all of whom had been made redundant by life. Take the woman in 2C, Beryl. She had been fired from her public service job just a few short years from retirement and would corner any inhabitant of the house at any opportunity and extol the virtues of working for the public service. Most days she would go to the Kings Cross library and attempt to tidy the place up or perform some unwanted task till the staff threw her out and then would just wander the streets till dark.  The junkies were Kafka’s cockroaches personified in the way they scuttled about intent on their mission of salvation; mind you I did put another lock on my door for security. Even now, with Woomera Avenue long behind me, I have this mental image of Kings Cross as a free-range zoo, where the distinction between the keepers and the exhibits is blurred at the edges.

Every night at 11pm, with boring regularity, the alcoholic couple would explode with language to make a trooper blush. Sadly, it was the same script every night, which they continued to recite whilst walking the two blocks to the pub to get more grog. The argument would reach fever pitch, with associated screams and breakages, til Emile would scream, “shut the fuck up you stupid bastards or I’ll send you off to hell to meet your maker”. This, backed up by the slamming of his door, would ensure that quiet would descend upon the building.

Often on returning from my nightly forays to the Goldfish Bowl, where I was drinking myself into exile, I would spy Dot Brown feeding the stray and feral cats of the district. Come nightfall Dot would sail forth on her mission of mercy. Mind you, considering the size of some of the beasts that lived in the neighbourhood, I think that they could fend for themselves quite adequately.  Still, Dot was part of a dying culture of amelioration that would have done St Francis proud.

It was a Sunday morning, a month after I had moved in, that the quiet was broken by Dot shrieking and cursing dementedly like a banshee. I stumbled down the stairs to find out what the story was. Lucky for me I hadn’t had breakfast. Some mad bastard had disembowelled, dismembered and generally played the type of surgical games that Jack the Ripper was famous for with a couple of her cats. The psycho then dumped his handiwork in a box outside her door. I looked on contemplating if it was time to move, Bondi Beach looked better by the minute. I didn’t need this picturesque display of human nature with my hangover first thing in the morning. I gagged at the sight and concluded that breakfast was off the menu.  As I headed back up the stairs for some coffee and a cigarette; and to see if there was anything left in that bottle of Bundaberg Rum, Emile emerged from his room and yelled, “shut the fuck up, you fucking mad bitch, some people are trying to sleep”. He turned to me on the stairs and smiled, “Good morning Herr Professor”. Without even breaking stride I snarled at him, “fuck off stupid”, and continued back up the stairs.

In the following weeks the corpses of numerous dead felines appeared on the streets around Woomera Avenue. One morning, while off to the Tropicana for the daily caffeine and social fix prior to work, I came across the Garbos commenting on this phenomenon.

“Christ, not another one. This is the sixth this morning”,

“Yeah there’s some real mad bastards round here”.

“No mistake about that one mate”.

The individual responsible had now achieved notoriety in the tabloid press. Max Webber was the journalist responsible for the, ‘CAT THE RIPPER–POLICE POWERLESS’, headline. Max was having a field day writing up this crap. His story stated how some ‘twisted psycho’ was murdering cats in Kings Cross. It stated that, ‘the body count was climbing daily’; that ‘there was no apparent motive’, explanation or clues to the identity of this vile serial killer. The police were advising people to keep their precious pets indoors until the culprit was apprehended.

One morning as I was leaving Bedlam, Dot Brown cornered me pointing to a headline saying, “they should hang the bastard when they find him”. All Dot had for companionship were her cats. I never once saw her exchange more than a few words with another inmate in the time I lived there though I imagined her been one of those tragic people who tell the bank teller their life story whenever they make a withdrawal from their pension account.

As suddenly as the killings started, they stopped. One last, ‘RIPPER MYSTERY’, headline and it was all over. The last article speculated that the serial killer could be a conservationist dealing with the problem of feral cats in a hands-on manner or just another lost soul gone off their medication. Max Webber, who was writing this crap, was a friend of mine and over a beer that night we discussed it.

“Seriously, do you think we’ll ever understand what’s motivating the twisted mind of the perpetrator? Like, who cares? Do you?” he asked.

“No. Another beer Max?”

“Yeah, thanks mate. As I said, let’s face it, who cares about a mob of dead cats? Now if the bastard upped the ante and started in on the locals, that would be news”.

On a hot humid night, when I had already changed my shirt twice and all I cared about was a cold beer and a breeze, I headed up the hill towards the pub in search of liquid relief. I passed the Green Park on Liverpool St and thought bugger it, the beer’s cold and so what if the clientele look as if they crawled out of a mausoleum. In those days the Green Park Hotel was no inner city designer bar replete with flowers and a cappuccino machine, it was just an old pub that time and property prices had chosen to ignore. Its clientele was made up of a collection of quaint old codgers from the local boarding houses, sundry alcoholics, shift workers and the odd buck’s night on its way to the Cross. I was in no mood for social banter, the clatter of pokies or loud muzak. I entered pleased to notice that the air conditioning was on full blast and aside from myself there were only a few other punters in the joint. I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a beer, then, in that moment of rapture when I should have ascended to heaven on cold amber liquid, I saw over the top of my schooner glass, Emile, smiling broadly into my face.

“Good evening Herr Professor”, he said.

“What the fuck do you want shit head? Christ almighty! I come in here for a few cold beers and some solitude not snappy dialogue with Bozo the clown so fuck off shit head.”

Emile stood there, didn’t blink, just stood there and smiled at me. Looking at him you could tell he was the kind of person who was abused by all and sundry on a daily basis. He seemed oblivious to what I had just said and I wondered whether he was just thick or I was losing my touch with the finer points of the English language.

“I am sorry if I was interrupting your solitude, you see I had just finished reading your book and wanted to discuss it with you”.

I had, over the time of my incarceration at Woomera Avenue, considered him to be nothing more than another miscreant, just another old drunk one step away from liver failure. But then my ex-wife (no I am not going to name her and yes this was the bitch that took everything and the reason for my exile) was always telling me I was a poor judge of character; take her for instance. Emile stood there smiling and tilting into the breeze. Seeing as I hadn’t told him to piss off, he took this as a cue to continue.

“You see, I too am fascinated by the problem of good and evil. The murderer in your book displayed a total lack of compunction and culpability. I found it interesting the way you showed his total avoidance of the moral and ethical issues in his actions. I just wanted to ask why your character avoided any revelry in the power he had obtained by killing”.

I signalled the barman for a couple more beers. I thought what the fuck, for all I knew Emile could come out with a story I could use at a later date. After all, I had kept telling myself that was why I was living at Woomera Avenue: for ‘literary research’ purposes.

“That was the whole point. It was a study in ‘the banality of evil’, to quote Arendt; a counter point to what I see as the glamorisation of the serial killer. The public is being presented with this scum as if they are the noble savage let loose amongst the lambs, and we the public told to be just obsequiously aware of them and tremble at their approach. In the novel Frank had no desire for power or financial gain it was just to see if he could do it and get a away with it.”

Emile gave this a moment’s thought. “So basically he led a shallow existence and he killed for the thrill of it”.

“If you want to put it that way yes, that was the point of it. But, as for the thrill of it, no, that wasn’t the motive. If anything, Frank killed to alleviate his boredom; nothing more”.

I could tell by the look on his face that he was ingesting my comments and formulating a reply but what came next shocked me, yet in hindsight I guess that was his intent, the fucker.

“When I first killed a man I achieved intense personal satisfaction. Having the power to smite my enemies made me feel virtuous; I was contributing to the destruction of an evil empire and the liberation of my country. There was one of those Fascist swine in particular whose death made me feel immensely satisfied. You could not comprehend the joy I felt watching his blood drain away”.

I realised that I had to choose between walking out or sitting and listening to this sad excuse for a human being open up and tell me another tired old war story. It took a moment to decide. What the fuck, it’s not like I had to be anywhere in particular.

“Try me. I’m all ears.”

“It is difficult to speak of the past. The horror of those years is like a Sisyphean rock which rolls on relentlessly in my mind so that there can be no alleviation of my suffering.”

I was surprised at Emile demonstrating a cultured background. Well, he was European. He was contemplatively twirling his empty glass so I decided to up the ante and signalled the barman to order beers with a couple of double whiskeys on the side. Emile smiled and knocked the whisky back in one tilt. Me, I was cautious; I took mine in two.

“Thankyou professor, you’re a true gentleman and scholar”, he said whilst bowing.

“Before the war began in Poland I was a clown with one of the oldest circuses on the continent. When the storm broke I was called up to serve my country. The Germans crushed our nation with callous efficiency. I was placed in a POW camp to begin with. Then it became known that I had Jewish ancestors so I found myself in the netherworld of the Warsaw Ghetto. Everything you have heard and more is true of that place. You would think that Dante was correct in his description of hell when it came to the Ghetto, for you know that a master race needs the blood of slaves to reinforce its power. Time passed and conditions worsened; starvation and disease were rife. I went over the wall one night to contact the Polish resistance to seek food and medicine. I was not prepared to die in that place and I was moved to help by witnessing the suffering of starving children.  The so called Polish resistance refused to help us but one, with the correct financial incentive, put us in contact with a German butcher Hans Richter who for considerable recompense would sell us food and other items. What did it matter to him that we were Jews; all he cared for was our money. Our business arrangements continued for some time. Then the rumours of the death camps began to circulate and we realised that it was time to leave that place but not with out paying one last visit to our friend Richter”

Even though it was cool in the pub he stopped to mop the sweat off his brow.

“Excuse me it is still painful to discuss this time of my life.”

“Ok, I get the message”. I flagged the barman down and ordered a couple more beers.

“Thank you Professor. Richter was surprised to see me; ‘come in come in’, he smiled in anticipation of our money that would soon be his. Unknown to him, murder lurked venomously in my breast. As we entered his domain I noticed on the chopping block a large box and ignoring his entreaties I looked in and saw it was full of dead cats. If this was his idea of a joke I was not amused. I turned drawing the pistol I had and struck him full in the face. I swore at him, telling him that hell was about to embrace him for his filthy ways. I had cocked the pistol and held it against his whimpering face, ready to dispatch him to hell, when one of my companions, Leon, smiled and said even a pig like Richter deserved to die with a full stomach. His eyes lit up in horror for he understood what Leon meant. The sight of him begging, pleading for his life, only further stoked the fires of our rage as he degraded himself in a vain bid for mercy.  We set him to work skinning and filleting one of the cats.”

Emile’s face twisted into a smiling grimace; I began to feel nauseous. I held the bar in an effort to stay afloat. Emile noticing my distress ordered two double brandies.

“Professor, don’t tell me you haven’t the stomach for my tale. Here, for medicinal purposes.” We both knocked the brandies back and Emile continued.

“When he had finished we fried up his handiwork with some onions and carrots. All the while he pleaded and begged for mercy but I whipped the pistol across his face and he shut up. I put the plate in front of him and he whimpered and after another blow began to eat. On the first mouthful he gagged and tried to spit it out. Leon held his mouth and he swallowed. We roared with laughter at his misfortune. Then as he took another mouthful I smiled and he realised what was about to happen. He struggled and tried to scream as I slit his throat from ear to ear.”

Yes, I am a poor judge of character, I thought as I fought back the nausea that was gripping me. As for Emile he was away with it now, his eye burning bright with the flames of Richter’s Gotterdammerung.

“Oh yes, we dispatched Herr Richter to hell, then it occurred me that we had denied his SS masters their breakfast. Well we couldn’t let those troops starve could we? We dealt with his corpse with the same savage efficiency that these Nazi’s had dealt with my country. We toiled through the night to turn him into sausages for the morning’s breakfast,” Emile began laughing dementedly.

Me? I bolted to the toilet with his mad laughter trailing behind me and puked my guts out.

“Jesus mate what’d you have for lunch?” the bloke standing next to me at the urinal asked.

I stood there letting the shakes subside and regaining my composure, then I walked over to the sink and cleaned myself up. When I returned to the bar Emile was gone. So much for a quiet night on the piss, I thought, tossing back a couple of rums to calm down. That’s it, I told myself, tomorrow morning, get the paper and find somewhere else to live. Maybe a nice quiet middle class neighbourhood where you’re not constantly confronted by the walking wounded of this world. I had realised that the lunatics had taken over the asylum and I for one didn’t want to be an inmate any more.

I stepped out into the night and staggered off down the hill for home. When I arrived at the house I was greeted by the vista of flashing lights and police tape holding back the curious. I ducked under the tape and was stopped by a young constable.

“No way, mate. No one gets in here.”

“Look I live here”, I said whilst thrusting a letter with the buildings address on it into his face.

“Sarg, this bloke lives here. Got proof of it”.

The Sergeant looked at the building then back at me with contempt. Oh yeah everybody’s a critic, I thought.

“OK. Let him through”.

I walked in past a couple of D’s taking statements from the residents then I saw Dot Brown sitting on the bottom step muttering and wringing her hands.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I asked, forgoing any subtlety.

“Hey watch your mouth there’s ladies present”, one of the D’s quipped getting a laugh out of his colleagues. “And you are?”

I told him my name and that I had been in the Green Park with Emile all night. At the mention of Emile’s name his gaze fixed on me.

“Stay here, I have a few questions I want to ask you”. Then, turning to another D, “Johno get this bloke’s statement will yar”.

The door to Emile’s room opened and there, flat on his back in a pool of blood, with a carving knife sticking out of his chest, was Emile. I felt like puking again.

Dot started yelling at all and sundry as she spied Emile’s body. “Killer, he killed my babies the bastard. He killed them. All of them, the mongrel bastard killer.”

The D’s grabbed her and tried to bundle her out the door but she kept yelling and resisting their efforts to take her away. I understood what she meant and started to laugh; I couldn’t help myself. I clutched the railing and kept laughing at the absurdity of it.

One of the D’s turned on me. “What’s so funny prick? I don’t see the joke here”.

I straightened up and, with a flourish that would have made Holmes and Watson proud and  pointed to Emile, “Gentlemen, there lies Cat the Ripper”.

The Anatomy of Silence A short story

This story was originally published in 2002 at http://www.aftermathww1.com/ollevou.asp

Cold stone embodies the final resting place for thousands of men who perished in the Great War of 1914-18, it was called the ‘the War to End All Wars’ due to the magnitude of its horror. In Australia one in three families were directly touched by the tragic enormity of empires end. When the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month arrives the nation pauses for a minutes silence as a mark of respect, for those lost in the War.

A spectre haunted my Grandmother, symbolised in that minute of lamentation, and tormented her long after the Great War receded into the back catalogue of the nations history. Like a fog settled on a bleak day this phantom permeated the lives of my mother and her sisters and tormented their lives with its presence.

As November 11 approached my Mother furiously fielded the phone, calling for emotional reinforcement, her weekly calls to her sisters increased to hourly dispatches from the front line reporting the enemies advance, till with parade ground efficiency the dreaded day dawned. Like a funeral cortege they’d accompany my Grandmother to Martin Place for the wreath laying ceremony and the minutes silence.

This ritual continued unabated down the years til death eventually released my Grandmother from that enigmatic spectre of the Great War.

At my Grandmothers wake I was introduced to a Mr James Maurice, a barrister who represented the family in legal affairs, he stated that he ‘wished to see me at my earliest convenience’.

Mr Maurice’s office had none of the old world charms that I expected from this octogenarian it was brash, better living by design. He saw me assessing the office.

‘These are my grandsons chambers I use them now and then for special matters. I retired from practice years ago. Your Grandfather consigned to my care some of his personal papers that I was to pass to you upon he death. She believed that they would be of professional interest to you and offer something of an explanation. There is a proviso to the affect that you will inform your mother and her sisters of the contents contained herein. Your Grandfather could never fully explain this matter to his daughters.’

That night I sat down with the box and plunged into the mystery within. There was a manila envelope with my Grandfather’s strong flowing script addressed to me with the instructions to be opened last. The box contained a number of envelopes containing photographs and newspaper clippings. There were two thick medical case files. One of the files dated from nineteen seventeen and was from the Beechworth Asylum the patients name was Florence O’Hara. The other file came from Bellbirds a private North Shore Psychiatric Hospital where Grandfather was head of clinical staff. The contents dated from the 1940’s and contained periodic entries up to the 1970’s.

One of the envelope’s contained a series of black and white studio portraits. The first had Florence with three young men, the two in uniform stood stern in their masculinity. The look of great adventure shone from their faces, most of them thought the war would be over by Christmas. Cursive script flowed across the back of the image. Florence, William, Robert and Tommy O’Hara. Grandma had brothers? This was a revelation. In the second Florence sits with another soldier holding hands smiling straight at the camera. On the back was written ‘To my beloved Florence your true heart of hearts Phillip Flanders.’

The third had all five photographed together. Young Tommy’s pride in his brothers still radiated from the image after seventy years. They were stamped Robertson’s on the Hill Photographic Studio, Fitzmaurice St, Wagga Wagga and were dated 1915.

The second envelope contained a series of articles from various newspapers along with a letter and two typewritten carbons.

A black edged clipping, obviously a casualty list, published in August listed William and Robert O’Hara killed in action at France on 20th July 1916.

An undated clipping from the Melbourne Age cited that following the Easter Uprising in Ireland the actions of Cardinal Dr Mannix, in advocating the Catholics of Australia to vote No in the conscription referendum, could only serve to unleash sectarian violence and destabilise the war effort.

A Daily Advertiser dated September 12th 1916 it font page headline proclaims Mannix’s Marxists Arrested. The reporter cited that a group of anti conscription Bolshevik agitators had been arrested following a riot outside the Wagga Wagga Council Chambers yesterday. The women were advocating the case for the No Vote in the October conscription referendum. Council workers advised them to disperse and stop their unpatriotic antics. The women declined, a Miss O’Hara attacked a council worker who attempted to confiscate their placards. The journalist expressed his personal view that Miss O’Hara, whose family had paid a high price for the freedom of the Empire, was a Fenian traitor. The Judge fined the women two pounds each for affray and further gave Miss O’Hara a six month good behaviour bond for the assault on the council worker.

There was a letter from a Sargent Williamson 5th Division AIF sometime late in 1916 forwarded to her by the Red Cross.

Dear Miss O’Hara

I spent a lot of time with your brothers after they landed at Gallipoli, they were good blokes. You could rely on them to get the job done. I don’t think anything they told us prepared us for what we have seen in France. I was with your brothers on the night of the 19th of July when we attacked the German trenches at Fromelles. We were ordered over the top at six pm and had to advance over four hundred yards to the objective. We got there with many of our mates strewn behind us wounded and dying. We took a German trench and dug in, they tried most of the night to repel us. They came at us for hours. Your brothers fought bravely. Your family should take great pride in them. At dawn a German bombing party inflicted great damage upon us. The officer in charge realised our position was hopeless and ordered the men to retreat. We jumped the parapet and ran like the Devil himself was after us. Bob went down some yards from our lines and Billy ran to his aid. A German machine gunner opened up on them I heard screams for a while then nothing. They never had a chance being stuck in no mans land. A couple of days later we were able to bring their bodies in and bury them. They were brave lads; always good for a laugh they will be sorely missed by their mates.

I hope this information provides solace in your loss.

Yours sincerely

Sergeant Robert Williamson

Fromelles, it was the first major battle the AIF fought in France, in one night the AIF lost over five thousand men. It was another one of those tactical blood baths that the English High Command regularly conducted throughout the war.

The typewriter carbons were reports from Sgt Sullivan of Wagga Wagga Police, the arresting officer at the anti conscription demonstration. The first described the activities of Florence O’Hara. In 1917 Florence decided she wanted the remains of her brothers returned to Australia for burial. After numerous letters to the local Federal and State members and the Department of the Army Sgt Sullivan was dispatched to advise her that her actions were detrimental to the war effort and should cease forthwith.

The second carbon was two pages long it was an arresting officers report.

On the morning of 20th July 1917 it reads I was called out to the Wagga Wagga Cemetery. Persons unknown had dug two graves next to the O’Hara family plot. A Mr Morrison a Cemetery attendant discovered them. I then proceeded with Constable Hall to the O’Hara residence. When we arrived I noticed the curtains were drawn in the traditional gesture of a house in morning. Florence O’Hara who was dressed in mourning black greeted me. I thought this strange as her brothers had died over a year ago and I had seen her in public since. I informed Miss O’Hara of what was found this morning at the Cemetery. Miss O’Hara began to behave in an agitated manner and told me to be on my way as this matter was of no concern to the Police. I asked to come in and speak with her. Tommy O’Hara came to the door and began to be abusive to my self and Constable Hall. Tommy O’Hara made profane and disparaging comments on our enlistment eligibility. Tommy O’Hara then pushed me away from the front door. I informed him he was under arrest for assaulting a Police officer. Miss O’Hara became more agitated and abusive to me disparaging my past employment with the RUC. Constable Hall and I forced entrance to the premises.

Upon entering the premises Constable Hall and I saw two coffins laid out with candles burning at their head and foot in the parlour. The coffins were laden with floral wreaths. Upon closer inspection the coffins I observed they contained Army Uniforms and photos of the deceased O’Hara brothers. Miss O’Hara became hysterical and began to scream at Constable Hall and myself ordering us to leave. I sought to restrain her. Tommy O’Hara attacked Constable Hall with a shovel and knocked him unconscious. I drew my service revolver in self defence as I felt that my life was in peril. I told Tommy O’Hara to drop the shovel. Tommy O’Hara swung at me with the shovel landing a blow that sent me to the floor. I fired my service revolver fatally wounding Tommy O’Hara in the chest. I subdued and handcuffed Miss O’Hara. I then sought assistance from neighbours. Miss O’Hara was admitted to the Base Hospital and confined under section 21 of the Mental Health Act. The Resident Doctor then assessed her and advised that she was suffering from a condition known as ‘Dementia praecox’ A special sitting of the local Magistrates Court will be held at the Base Hospital to rule upon what will be done with Miss O’Hara.

I placed the report down and felt a slow burning anger that was quickly turning to rage at the stupidity of the authorities. I thought of how my Grandmother was confined like a criminal. Anger griped my heart, no lets face it this was more of a primal rage. I walked down to Campbell Parade and then along the coast path to Bronte and back to North Bondi letting the sea assuage my anger. After rounding the heads at Tamarama for the second time I felt calm enough to return home.

The Beechworth file contained Florence’s admission details; she was presented in a mute catatonic state and remained that way for the next two years. They hit her with a cocktail of drugs that pushed her deeper into a state of mute despair.

On November 11th 1918 the Armistice was declared and the War was over. Beechworth held celebrations long into the night as the populace rejoiced in the end of hostilities. The next afternoon a telegram arrived at the Asylum with the news that Patrick Flanders had died of wounds in an English hospital. The notes state that it was decided to withhold the news from her till she showed signs of improvement. Three months later they told her and she plunged deeper into gloom. Florence stayed in this limbo of the lost unresponsive to any treatment until January 1921.

A new Psychiatric Registrar arrives a Doctor Leopold Groddeck, Florence’s future husband. In 1969 Leopold was offered a Knighthood, for recognition of the work he had done with returned Veterans. Leopold turned the Knighthood down due to his wife’s Fenian ancestry and his own republican ideology.

Dr Groddeck took her off the drugs and left her alone for three months. He then stated intensive psychoanalytic sessions that occurred twice a week for a year. Florence responded to this new treatment and the end of 1922 she was released back into the community.

I put the file down and picked up the Bellbird file. It appeared that she had relapses into an acute depressive state requiring hospitalisation during the forties, fifties and sixties. I have memories of my Grandmother disappearing during my childhood and the anxiety it produced in my mother. No particular regime of drugs or electroshock was prescribed. Grandfather was a firm believer in the talking cure and its healing affects.

I opened the envelop with Leopold’s letter addressed to me.

Dear Mathew

In August 1922 I read in the Daily Sentinel that a Cenotaph had been erected to the Great War Dead of Wagga Wagga and it was to be unveiled in September of that year. I arranged to take Florence to the unveiling. It was an overcast day and the gloom of day matched the sombre mood of the crowd. As the officials concluded their speeches I observed many persons sobbing silently. It was then that a great wave of human emotion burst forth in a single cry of loss and grief. The crowd pressed forward past the wreaths and the official podium to the Cenotaph. Men and women wept openly as they sought out the names of their beloved inscribed on the Cenotaph. Women kissed their hands and ran them over their names. Some embraced the monument weeping. I realised how deep the wounds of the Great War still were in these rural communities. I realised that I had born witness to a communal catharsis, a poignant step on the road to healing. The Great War had not only sacrificed their men to a rapacious Mars it had robed these people of the rituals of death. You must understand that Death was not the depersonalised event it is in today’s society. Death was celebrated in the home, where the final passage to grave began. For the Great War dead there were no wake’s to tell tales or celebrate the life of family members and say farewell. The absence of the body precluded any of the traditional funerary rites of passage to occur. Death had become depersonalised and the living were left bereft unable to fully articulate their grief. In these communities War monuments became the surrogate body and took on sacredness as a symbolic expression of loss and provided a locus for the individual to grieve. Florence, I realised had decided to deal with her grief in a manner which was designed to compensate for the absence of the bodies of her brothers. She thought a symbolic funeral would provide closure for her and her brother. The ancient Greeks told their warriors ‘come home with your shield or on it’ Florence and Tommy needed to perform the rituals that they were born into in order to grieve and assist them during their period of mourning. Unfortunately Florence’s plan went awry with tragic consequences. The authorities saw only the actions of a mad woman and confined her for offending the moral order of society.

I put the letter down. I was tired after this night of emotional and historical conflict. With the dawn unfolding on the horizon I experienced an intense feeling of compassion for my Grandmother. I looked out the window and watched the sun illuminate Bondi Beach.

The Anatomy of Water

A selection from an unpublished novel. 20^th April 1920 was first published in fourW fifteen published by in 2004 by Wagga Wagga Writers Writers.

You shall not hear their mirth.

You shall not come to think them well content

By any  jest of mine.

These men are worth

Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.

from Apologia Pro Poemate Meo by  2nd Lieutenant Wilfred Owen MC 1917

19^th April 1920 4 pm

Paddy sat at the kitchen table counting the money from the flour jar; he wanted to get his medals back this week. Anzac Day was only a few days away and he could see there wasn’t enough here to repay Wilfred, he was forty pounds short. Forty pounds. Christ, what am I going to do, rob a bank? Lighting a cigarette, he spied Doris gold wedding ring amidst the silver and crumpled notes. He picked it up; it was eighteen carat gold, weighs a bit too. I could pawn it; it was worth a few quid. His need was mirrored in the lustre of the gold. Yes.  It would fetch a few quid indeed, what’d I pay for it, no, can’t remember bought it too long ago. Doris.  No, no I couldn’t do it, its bad enough dealing with Wilfred but hocking it to that bastard Lorenzo, no, a mans still got some dignity left.  Yes, but where, he laughed. No, Lorenzo would only buy it he wouldn’t loan money on it, not to me at any rate. No can’t do it. No, not an option. Fuck. Maybe Doris would understand. No not Doris. Paddy placed temptation back in the flour jar out of his sight.  He drew deep on his cigarette and counted the money again. Not enough, is there anything left in the house to sell, what about the china? No that’s gone the cutlery? Solid silver it is, belonged to Doris’s mum. Standing he goes to a box on the kitchen cupboard, empty, fuck it, that’s right I sold it last November to Lorenzo, mongrel short changed me, gave me twenty quid then put it in the window for seventy. What about a quick flutter at the two up school?  No, knowing my luck I’d loose the bloody house. Christ, what have I done run over a Chinaman. Think man think.

Paddy lit another cigarette off the previous one. Could do with something to drink. Money it’s the root of all evil especially when you don’t have it. Christ what am I going to do. Maybe I could appeal to Wilfred’s sense of camaraderie, his esprit de corps, his humanity, his charity? No, not Wilfred, he isn’t like that, with him its simply business. Mind you I did spend most of that forty quid in his pub. Fuck I need my medals how I can show my bloody face at the reunion without them and me a VC winner. Shit.

Paddy stood up paced around the kitchen opening doors on the cupboards looking for drink. Finding one he prised the top off and poured a couple of fingers into a tin mug. Yes drink always stimulates the mind, think damn you think, there has to be away to get that money. Think. Paddy finished his cigarette lit another poured another. He walked round and round the kitchen wearing the linoleum away. What about a loan, rob Peter to pay Paul, yes I’ve still got friends who’d help me out, who then, there must be somebody who owes me one, who though, most of the people I know avoid me like the plague, bastards, oh well there’s always the lads they understand what its like, yeah but would they have the brass to spare, fat chance. Think son think.

Another drink another cigarette, Paddy walks around the kitchen. Then, the clock chimes. He faces the clock listens as it chimes off the hour. Eureka. That’s it I can sell the bloody clock. The cedar framed Grandfather clock stands at attention in the parlour resigned to its fate. Yes, that’s what I can do, I don’t need to touch up me so called friends I can sell the bloody grandfather clock, Solomon said he’d buy it the last time he was here, Christ it must be over seventy years old, never did like it, too bloody noisy if you ask me, it must weigh a ton, I’m going to need some help to haul it away. Solomon would take that off what he’d pay me, shit. Who’s got a truck that would be willing to help? Who? Who?  He walks around the kitchen as the clock ticks out its demise, then. Mick. Mick O’Day yes, good old Mick he won’t let me down. Pours another drink to celebrate down the hatch it goes. Wait a second, wait a second Mick could loan me the money fuck the clock, he’s flush, works hard enough he does, yes if any one would lend me the money it’d be Mick. Fuck hauling the bloody clock away. Mick O’Day, yes he’ll help me out he always said if I need a hand he’d be there. Paddy pours a drink to celebrate.  Christ you’re a clever bastard Paddy old son, from what I hear he’s brought himself a new house on Mill Hill Road. Well that’s it then I’ll go and see Mick, he’ll lend me the money he knows I’m good for it. Good old Mick. Paddy drains the cup now what time is it, five pm he should be home now, might even get a feed as well. Yes that’s the go Mick O bloody Day why didn’t I think of this before. Running his hand over his face he encounters three days growth. This won’t do, best clean up a bit before I go.

Paddy stokes the fire in the stove and then adds some wood and waits for the water to boil. He takes the cutthroat out and gives it a working over on the strap to get its edge sharp. A memory of the war intrudes. Ypres just before they went back into the line. Tom Moore, the butcher from Mittagong sharpening his bayonet on a whetstone he carried with him the steel glinting razor sharp and pitiless cold. ‘Christ Tom you could shave a pig with that it’s so sharp.’ Tom laughed and then in battle wielded his bayonet like a man possessed. God those were evil bloody days weren’t they, the Great War, the war to end all wars they call it now, bullshit if you ask me.

With the basin full of steaming water Paddy lathers his face and glides the razor down his left cheek with unsteady hands. Hold it don’t shake, not now man you’ll cut yourself to ribbons if you not careful. Then blood and a stream of profanities as it mingles with shaving lather and runs down his neck from his ear lobe where he’s nicked it. Steady on, there should be a septic pencil here. No, fuck it. He runs into the kitchen grabs some salt and put it on his ear wincing at the pain. More salt. More. The blood and salt form a thick crust on his ear, fuck this for a joke.

A cautious fifteen minutes later he rinses his face aside from his ear he hasn’t cut himself again. Finished. Then a narcissistic reflection, not bad if I do say so myself, I can see why Doris married me.

Then. Paddy falls into the surface of the mirror. Falling, falling like Lucifer flaming into the light. Falling the abyss opens within him, falling, then standing arms clutching the bench for support the mirror lies shattered. Hands clutch the bench for support. Falling, the winds scream like shells whistling past him, falling into the darkness. Falling, if the truth were known he’s been plummeting headlong into the abyss since he arrived back at Woolloomooloo wharf that autumn day in 1919.

Paddy looks his left eye stares at him form the broken mirror. When the fuck did that happen, he picks up the tin bowl from the wooden bench and walks over the linoleum worn thin by Doris’s worry while he was in France. Paddy throws the water on the back garden. Coming in the door glass crunches in his wake. He stares at the shattered mirror.  Charming. Pull your self-together man; smile your going to get your medals back. He goes into the kitchen pours another brandy. Now, clean shirt and pants can’t go looking like a beggar can we.

When he exits the house he sees Mrs Ferguson on her porch across the road, he waves in greeting she turns away, feeling stung he replies with an oath and sets off at a brisk pace to Bondi Junction. Finally after a long a and laborious walk Paddy turns into Mill Hill Road to be confronted by Mick O’Day playing cricket in the street with his children. A ball comes his way and he fields it to one of the eager boys.

‘Well I’ll be Paddy, Paddy Flannan, Christ man what brings you here I haven’t seen you for months.’

‘Yeah well I’ve been busy working.’

‘Yeah I can see that, you look as thin as one of Bob Smiths greyhounds.’

They shake hands and stand in the street Patricia O’Day comes to the fence smiles.   ‘Paddy dear lord look at you. As thin a bean you are, well don’t stand there like a couple of Anglicans come in, come in.’

Paddy enters the house leaving a miasma of scotch in his wake. Patricia casts a look at Mick who shrugs to deflect her. In the kitchen the hostess takes command ‘Sit down; sit down have you had dinner yet. No? Well then we’ve just had ours there’s cold meat and veg left over I’ll get you a plate.’

‘Patricia the man’s not a child you don’t have to mother him.’ Mick goes to the ice chest pulls out a bottle of beer. ‘Just to wash the food down.’ He replies to his wife’s dark gaze.  Patricia places a healthy plate of food in front of Paddy who tucks in; she is overcome by how emaciated he looks. As Paddy eats Mick sits backlights a cigarette.  ‘You remember that Owen Sweeny?’

‘Owen Sweeny, pack of thieves that mob. Owen the eldest right looked like a bull dog and twice as mean.’

‘Yes that’s the one well he’s doing time for armed robbery, the fool walks into the bank at Double Bay and pulls a gun just as the local Police Sargent has come in to bank his pay.’

Paddy laughs ‘They were a pack of idiots that family, the eldest one Finn got nabbed for break and enter and the judge gave him a choice either go to France or its four years in the big house, not much of a choice is it. Well first night in the line, he gets his head blown clean off, well at least it was quick end.’

Mick reaches across the gulf of their friendship. ‘I don’t know how you did it Paddy taking the Kings shilling I never could go a fight for the English.’

‘Well I won’t hold that against you Mick. But to be honest I’ll be fucked if I can remember now why I did, not for my health that’s for certain.’ Paddy drains the glass wipes his face. Mick stares at him remorse inscribed upon his face, it’s too much I don’t need his pity thinks Paddy. ‘Haven’t you got anything stronger than beer Mick, a wee dram of whisky for a friend?’ The empty glass stands between them.

‘Only for saints days my son, so when did you start drinking.’

‘You want the exact date?  Let’s say it’s something the Army taught me.’

Paddy resumes eating Mick pours him a beer. Paddy furtively glances around the kitchen, which radiates domestic pride. Clean polished surfaces, a woman’s touch, a family home. Then he sees it, atop the kitchen cupboard, the statue of Jesus his hand held out in benediction. Fucking Jesus what’s that bastard ever done for me? He looks at Mick puts his knife and fork down finishes the beer, he looks away he can’t keep eye contact with him. Shit, he knows I want to put the bite on him. Children’s laughter drifts through the house. Paddy reaches over lights a cigarette shifts uneasily in his seat.  Well may as come straight to the point.

‘Look Mick I’m in a bit of a bind hit a right rough patch and I was wondering if you could help me out.’

‘What you need a job?’

‘A job, well, work would help in the long term but right now I.’

Mick cuts him short. ‘How much?’

‘That’s what I like about you Mick straight to the point no beating around the bush’, Paddy takes a swing of his beer then.  ‘I need forty quid.’

‘Forty quid. Jesus Mary and Joseph, what am I a Bank? Shit! I don’t have that kind of money laying around the house and even if I did.’ He empties his glass goes to the ice box and opens another long neck looks at it, thinks where’s the whisky. ‘For Gods sake man why?’

‘Its to get me medals back, I had to pawn them. I was broke, I wasn’t working, shit you know how it goes.’

‘No I don’t. What have you gotten yourself into Paddy?”

‘Deep shit, deep shit Mick. I need me medals back for Anzac Day I have to go to this battalion reunion.  I can’t show up without them. What would the boys think?’

‘Christ Paddy forty quid what’d you do with it,’ Mick looks at Paddy sighs, ‘let me guess.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all.’

‘Don’t bullshit me Mick I know what are saying I’m a drunk; a piss artist is that it?

‘Well if you put it like that yes. When was the last time you took a good look in the mirror?  You look like death on a bad day.’

‘Well then I take No’s your answer.’

‘Did I say that?’

‘No.’

‘Give a man time to think. I don’t keep that much cash in the house, Christ.’ Mick reaches over lights a cigarette coughs.

‘They’ll kill ya you know, a friend told me that once.’

Mick stifles a laugh. ‘Your asking a lot Paddy, you know that, a hell of a lot.’

‘Look I’m pressed for time, Mick. I need the money now, I know it’s a big ask, but there’s no one else I can ask.’

Mick looks up at Paddy, this man is his friend he knows what’s brought him to this but compassion doesn’t imply approval. ‘What else can you do, for starters you can get off the piss and dry out, you look a bloody reck.’

Paddy jumps up flushed with anger; he knows that Mick won’t give him the money. Paddy feels betrayed abandoned. The statue of Jesus smiles at him. Fuck you sunshine. ‘I came here for a loan not to be fucking preached too. I don’t need your advice just your fucking money and if it ain’t forthcoming then fuck you Mick.’

Paddy overturns his chair and storms out. Mick sits amid the wake of Paddy’s outburst that has silenced the whole house. Paddy walks away angrily cursing all and sundry.

Then footsteps running to catch up with him. ‘Paddy wait.’

He ignores her keeps walking, man’s got some pride left. Patricia catches his arm he turns and she thrusts a couple of pound notes into his hand along with some silver.  ‘I know it’s not what you need.’ She smiles which collapses under her sorrow.  ‘Doris was my friend, I don’t think she’d want to see you like this, don’t lose your life in a bottle.’ Paddy stands there the money in his hand. She tries to embrace him but he’s too cold for her touch to melt. Distraught at the plight of her old friend she runs back to the house crying.

Paddy looks at the money in his hand then walks away. Fuck what is it with these people make a man feel like shit just over the loan of a few lousy quid. Well that’s it then. I’m fucked, can’t rely on me so called friends for help. Well I guess I’ll have to beg, charming that is, maybe I can appeal to Wilfred’s sense of human decency, yeah that’d be right, Wilfred human? Not a chance, to him its business. He walks with his despondency for company. Finally he reaches home, the kitchen is cold the fire in the stove gone out, he flicks on the electric light, nothing, shit haven’t paid the bill have I. Paddy stumbles around with the aid of a match. Christ a sniper would have picked me off by now. He   finds the kerosene lamp lights it then scours the cupboards till at he finds a bottle of rum and drinks until he passes out.

20^th April 5.50 am

The Prince Albert Hotel was doing a roaring trade now the war was over. The proprietor Wilfred Robinson lost a brother, Lawrence at on the Menin Road in September 1917.   This family sacrifice conferred legitimacy upon Wilfred amongst the diggers. ‘One of us that Wilfred is.’ ‘Top bloke,’ they’d say after a few schooners. Mind you they’d call him a cunt as soon as his back was turned. Wilfred tolerated behaviour which would have had a man thrown out of any decent hotel in Sydney. ‘It’s just the lads having a bit of fun.’ Fun indeed, he’d called the Police on numerous occasions this past year to adjudicate between brawling diggers. Wilfred wished they would all piss off and drink elsewhere, pack of bludgers the lot of em, scared respectable clients off they did. If you hadn’t served you didn’t drink at the Prince Albert.  But then it was common knowledge amongst the cities inebriants that no self respecting drunkard would set foot in the place.

Wilfred Robinson was also a Shylock, the bank of last resort.  Cash strapped diggers pledged their medals as surety against default on over priced loans. Wilfred was on a winner for everybody paid up, it was only a question of when and how much he would make on the deal. Most of the debtors were clientele who pissed the money straight back over the bar and into his pocket.

In a display case mounted behind the bar the medals were displayed. At present Paddy’s Victoria Cross was keeping two Military Medals a Distinguished Service Cross and a half dozen sets of campaign medals company. Wilfred kept them on display to serve as a talking point for his customers who joked about the owner’s present financial circumstances.  Mind you, the sight of Paddy’s Victoria Cross sent a chill through the patrons for here was the supreme symbol of courage under fire in hock for the price of a few beers.

Wilfred pulled a pony to check that the cellarman had cleaned the pipes last night, as he drank he considered other problems that beset a businessman. The local cops always with their paws out wanting free drinks in the ladies lounge after closing time or a donation of dozen long necks for some cause or another, as if he had any choice in the matter, yeah fat chance of that one. Six am, another day begins. Opening the doors he found Dan sitting on the steps. ‘Good morning me old china how are ya.’

Dan says nothing walks silently to the bar and sits down.

‘Well what’s it to be then sunshine.’

‘Port wine and brandy I feel a bit crook in the guts.’

Behind the mask of congeniality Wilfred loathed Dan, he was quiet to begin with, and then once he’s worked up a head of steam he’d fly right off the handle lecturing all and sundry about the Somme and evils of July 1916. Dan had served with distinction as part of the 1^st Leeds Pals Brigade; his Military Medal was currently in hock to Wilfred.

‘I tell you at the end of that bloody day I didn’t have a pal left, that’s why I couldn’t stay in England after it was over, too bloody tragic, that butcher Field Marshal Haig didn’t have a brain in his arse that man.’ On and on it went till he was told to shut up, knocked flat or thrown out of the pub.

Dan removed a tea towel from his jacket and tied it to his right wrist then placed it over his neck. Once the drink was in his right hand he griped the tea towel with his left and levered the glass up to his mouth, even then the drink sloped over his shirt.

Wilfred looked at Dan with a mixture of distaste and pity, it’s a pity he isn’t dead he chuckled to himself. He heard rumours that Dan would take to the Metho when he was broke. Christ there has to be a better life than this thought Wilfred maybe a nice quiet country pub would be the go, local race days a few chooks out the back. Wilfred placed the drink before Dan.

‘It’s me nerves Wilfred they never recovered, they kept the guns firing for a week and that that morning, oh Jesus, blood everywhere oceans of it, Christ I can still hear them screaming, keeps me awake at night it does.’

‘What ever you say, cheers.’

Time ticks by a few punters come and go Dan sits shaking, smoking, and drinking.  At 8AM Paddy strides in. He looks like a newly minted penny; truth is he feels the rats gnawing his flesh.

‘Well what have we here then?’ Inquired Wilfred putting down his form guide. ‘Morning Paddy.’

‘Morning Wilfred, starting a bit early today aren’t we Dan.’

‘Bit crook last night Paddy me nerves acting up again. This is just to calm me down, you know how it is son, you were there.’

‘Too true Dan, too true.’

‘Now Paddy what can I do you for.’

‘I’ve come for me medals Wilfred.’

‘Right then let me see.’ He walked out to the office next to the bar and came back with a small notebook and did some calculations while Paddy stood there smoking furiously.

‘Well that’s fifty quid you owe me.’

‘Fifty! As far as I know it’s only twenty five.’

Enraged Wilfred stands his ground behind the bar.  ‘Its fifty pounds you hear me, look it’s written down, signed by you and me see.’ He thrust the book under Paddy’s nose.

‘No I don’t doubt you Wilfred, its just I don’t have it all, maybe if I gave you what I had for the VC and then fixed you up for the rest as soon as I start work.’

‘You a job don’t make me laugh.’

‘Why you, who do you think your talking too I.’

It was all bluff and both of them knew it. ‘Hey it was a joke, no hard feelings.’ He thrust a big meaty paw at Paddy who shook it. Wilfred knew he had to stay in Paddy’s good books for the other diggers looked up to him and it would be bad business if he rubbed him up the wrong way. Wilfred smiled not out of kindness but pure opportunism, he smelt money, and the question was how long would it take to part it from Paddy. ‘Look son here have one on the house, see no hard feelings.’ He poured two fingers and sat it down in front of Paddy. Dan looked longingly at the bottle, Wilfred smiled sourly as he poured him half a nip, Dan frowned but kept silent.

‘Look if I change the rules for you every bastard will think I’ve gone soft. I can’t let that happen.  I’ve a business to run don’t I.’

‘Come on Wilfred give me a break I need those medals; you know I’ll pay you. Have I ever short changed you before?’

‘Well no, but you haven’t owed me this much before Paddy, how much have you got.’

‘Twelve and six.’

‘Not even half.’

‘You know I’m good for it, come on do me a favour just this once Wilfred just the V C you still have my campaign medals.’

Wilfred watched Paddy he hadn’t picked up the drink, he knew if he could get him started, he would still owe him fifty quid and he’d get that twelve pounds he had.

Dan drank his whisky, ‘Arr that’s better,’ he said as he removed the tea towel and put it in his jacket pocket.

‘You’re a mad bastard Dan.’ Wilfred laughed at him. ‘What don’t tell me it’s too early for you Paddy.’

The whisky sat untouched on the bar in front of Paddy all he had to do was pick it up; he could feel the rats gnawing his flesh. Christ, it would take the edge off things and calm me down thought Paddy.

‘Come on son down the hatch do you the world of good it will.’

Paddy stood there time stretched out within and before him. Oh what the hell why not. He knocked it back and felt the fire burn. ‘Ok Wilfred I understand business is business, but here take this fiver as down payment.’

Wilfred brushed the money away. ‘Now Paddy you know the rules full payment of debts at the time of redemption, where do you think you are the lay by counter at Gowings?’

Paddy placed the money on the bar he knew what Wilfred was up to, thing was, could he beat him at his own game. He won’t give me the medals but maybe I can put one over the bastard anyway. Worth a try what have I got to lose, well twelve quid to be exact.

‘Another whisky Paddy.’

‘Your shout?’

Wilfred smiled and poured a full nip for Paddy and himself and a half for Dan who wisely held his tongue not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.

‘You know how it is old son if I do this for you well, everybody will think I’m a mug, that I’ve gone soft.’

‘No we can’t have that can we, your health Wilfred.’ Bastard just wants to fleece me thought Paddy.

‘And yours Paddy.’ They thew the drinks back and slammed the glasses on the bar. ‘I’d like to help but me hands are tied Paddy you know how it is.’ Wilfred being a drinker himself knew the formula, one becomes two and the two become many. Wilfred put the bottle back behind the bar, this was a business deal, it was no more pals talking and sharing a bottle. The twelve pounds that Paddy had on him Wilfred wanted and he was determined to get it.

‘Look Wilfred Anzac day is upon us and I can’t march without me medals can I, I mean I’m one of two VC winners in the battalion, what would people think.’

‘Who cares what people think its what you know that counts Paddy and you know I’d like to help old son but me hands are tied, I’ve got a business to run, I’m not a charity’ he reached behind him produced the bottle time to pay up son, ‘another whisky Paddy?’

Paddy stared at Wilfred. Money that’s all it is with you isn’t it money, milk a man till he’s dry then you’d shake him to see if their’s anymore, reputation as hard man my arse, stick a man with bayonet till he’s dead at your feet then do it to another that’s hard you limp wrested mongrel, Christ you bastard, you rotten mongrel bastard, fuck paying you anything I’ll get me medals before Anzac day you can count on that, not now but just you wait sunshine.

Wilfred waited for a reply as eternity stoped and stated again and still Paddy was silent. Dan had seen the look on Paddy’s face before it was the thousand yard stare that soldiers had inscribed upon them when they came out of the line. Dan shuddered at the memory.  Then Paddy smiled at Wilfred.

‘Another whisky? By all means and pour one for your self and Dan here.’ Paddy counted the silver out form the money on the bar and placed it in Wilfred’s eager hand that quickly squirreled it in the cash register.

Paddy raised his glass and smiled. ‘To your health gents.’

They knocked the whisky back. Paddy took out his smokes lit one and then calmly gathered up the money he had placed on the bar and pocketed it. ‘Well then if I can’t change your mind I must be off, I can’t stand around here all day.’

Wilfred’s face dropped as Paddy headed for the exit. ‘Hey wait up a minute, maybe we could come to some arrangement’

‘No. No. You’ve got your reputation as a hard man to preserve Wilfred. Well good day to you all.’

Paddy left and the rats had stoped gnawing his flesh. In the Prince Alfred Wilfred stood there, stunned at the turn of events. Dan stated to laugh, Wilfred swung round and knocked him off his stool. ‘Go on piss off you little bastard.’ Dan pulled himself up and walked out laughing leaving Wilfred half cut and fuming behind the bar.

REQUIEM: Signs, not things are all we see.

September 1939. Beyond the horizon a slow red could of dust materializes and begins to grow. A cacophony of boisterous sound shifts passim within the red cloud. The sharp crack of stock whips intertwines with lowing cattle and the shouting of men as they urge the beasts on through on through the red dust. This mob of men, horses, dogs and beasts has been up in the gulf country for six months. The mob moves with a life of its own through the red dust as they stride home to Roma.

The world of men has turned since they’ve been fattening the mob for slaughter in the gulf country. Mars has led the world to the brink of war. The red cloud advances and amongst this mob of beasts and men are ‘Les’ Charles Lester John Ollevou and his brother ‘Rudy’ Rudolph St Hilarie Ollevou, brothers. The pair have lived a hard life, placed in an orphanage as children then farmed out to relatives across Queensland and NSW. Mars has decreed that more hardship will come. The men sit high within the red dust cracking whips and urging the beasts forward, as the camp dogs dart in and around the mob of cattle, barking and nipping at fetlocks to move them along. The red dust envelops the cacophony of man and beast.

As the red could advances to Roma, my Mother Bridget Hilda Judge, ‘Ettie’, and her family sit in the parlour of their home in Edmund Street, Charring Cross in Sydney. The family of thirteen crowds around the radiogram to listen as the Prime Minister, known as Pig Iron Bob declares, ‘It is my melancholy duty to inform the Australian people the nation is once again at war with Germany.’

In Roma the red cloud lingers at the edge of town with its echo of man and beast. When the cattle are penned in the sale yards and the men have washed the red dust from their skins and had a beer or two, the talk turns to Europe and the War. War, the great adventurer is knocking at their door. It doesn’t take the brothers long to decide that as soon as their paid there off to Brisbane to enlist. My father’s uncle, who says he knows a thing or two about war attempts to bribe my father into with the promise of leaving the family station to him once he goes West, but on the condition that he gives up this foolish notion about enlisting, ‘why your not even twenty one yet.’   No! No discussion. No reflection and no wavering. Les has made up his mind. The brothers have been together since their Mother dumped them in an orphanage when they were aged four and six and nothing is about to separate them now. ‘You stupid bastards do you have any idea what your getting into, its not a day at the races its War, WAR,’ he shouts and across the night sky the laugher of Mars is heard at the folly of men.

Mars lovingly embraces the world with his mantle of misery and in six long years of attrition and sorrow fifty five million lives will be forfeited to appease his desire.

The next morning amid curt farewells Les and Rudy bade farewell and begun the ride from Roma to Brisbane to enlist. It took them a few days of sleeping rough under starlit skies warmed by campfires; I have to wonder did they discuss what they were letting themselves in for? Rudy enlisted in the Second AIF as QX 9084. My father having no birth certificate, or means of identification was declined admission to the army, which always stuck me as odd seeing that the enlisting Sergeants would normally tell them to ‘come back tomorrow when your twenty one.’  Seeing as this advice was not forthcoming the brothers sold their horses and saddles and put the lives of stockman drover behind them for neither would return to that way of life after the war. As for their Uncle he died when they were in Libya and disappeared from the family narrative. With the money they brought a 1937 Indian Chief motorcycle on which the two of them rode down to Sydney. My father told me it took them a week to arrive in Balmain.

What words passed between the estranged sons and their Mother I have no idea. My Father never once spoke of his Mother in my presence either as a child or an adult, I have no memories or stories to tell of her, only a photo of a photo of her and that is all I posses of my Grandmother.

On the 5^th of January 1940 my father enlisted at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, and became NX 21546. In February 1941 Les and Rudy embarked for the War in the Middle East from the finger wharf at Woolloomooloo.

As a child I was never told of the boredom, mundane routine and sheer unmitigated horror that makes up a soldiers life. My Father never spoke of how high explosive rendered the human body into monstrous sculptures or how the desert sands soaked up the blood of men, or the mud and malaria of the Pacific jungles. The tales my Father told were of a variation of boys own adventure stories. At a two up school in Cairo my Father claimed to have thrown five straight heads, ‘no mean feat let me tell you.’ I was particularly taken by the story of  ‘Horrie the Wog Dog.’ Horrie was an Egyptian Terrier adopted by soldiers from the 2/1^st Machine Gun Battalion. Horrie’s hearing saved the lives of many men from German air attacks and Horrie served with distinction in Libya and was wounded in the evacuation of Crete. When these troops came back from the Middle East they smuggled Horrie into Australia in 1942. The authorities found out about Horrie in 1945 when a book recounting his adventures was due to be published, and the Government flying in the face of public opinion declared the Horrie a threat to the health of Australian animals. Horrie was taken out and shot in March 1945 or at least that is what the public and the authorities knew. It was not until 2008 that the truth was revealed Horrie’s owner Jim Moody swapped dogs with a stray from the local pound who was put down in Horrie’s place. “After all we had been through do you think that I would let them kill my mate?”

1941 on a troop train outside of Damascus a young Arab body comes running up to their troop train and yelled ‘Hey dig, dig, you buy whisky, Johnnie Walker good one mate’  ‘Hey Mustafa give us a look, come on give it up son’.  My Father inspected the bottle and saw the seal was intact. ‘How much?’ ‘For you dig two pounds.’ ‘Two quid! Back it up sunshine.’ The haggling continued till the price was agreed upon and money exchanged hands. My Father cracked the bottle and took a swig, ‘What the fuck, its full of cold tea.’ ‘Well at least its not camels piss.’ Upon closer inspection a small hole was found in the base of the bottle caused by a hot poker and the contents drained. From then on every bottle they bought was scrupulously examined.

One of my Fathers mementos from the war that fascinated me as a child was a Sam Browne belt where he’d sewn the cap badges of various regiments and nationalities. One badge in particular was of a Palestine Police officer obtained after a brawl erupted in a Jerusalem club between Australian and British troops. The Palestine Police arrived to quell the affray and in my Father’s words ‘ this mongrel pommy copper belted me with his night stick so I knocked him flat and stole his hat, mind you some smart bastard made off with the till while the fight was on.’ The Palestine Policeman’s badge still sits on the Sam Browne belt. When my Father died my I took a Royal Core of Engineers badge emblazoned with Hermes also known as Mercury the messenger of the gods as a memento of the time he spent in the Old Testament landscape.

Upon their return to Australia the brothers were stationed in Queensland, which had been over run by Yanks,  ‘over here, over paid and over sexed’. Pineapples the diggers called them, ‘Green on the outside, yellow on the inside.’ The Americans were better attired, had money and manners to match and hence the attention of the women. My Mother told me one night she was at the State Theatre in Sydney watching Bambi, in the movie Bambi cries out ‘mother, mother, where’s my mother?’ To which a booming digger cried out. ‘She gone out with a bloody Yank love,’ whereupon the whole theatre erupted with laughter.

In Queensland resentment between the Diggers and the Yanks simmered till it erupted on 26^th November 1942 in ‘The Battle of Brisbane.’ My Father and fellow soldiers were stoped on the King Georges Bridge at a sand bagged machine gun emplacement. When questioned as to their movements the officer in charge replied that ‘we’re were off to join the fun.’ They were subsequently separated from an assortment of brass knuckle dusters, coshes, and small arms and admonished by the senior officer at the checkpoint. The riots caused by the death of an Australian killed by an American MP, lasted for three nights and entered Australian folklore

In 1945 at the end of hostilities my Father and Uncle were offered roles in the Australian occupation force garrisoned at Hiroshima but in his words, ‘I’d had a gutful of army life.’  My Father marched in the Victory parade in Sydney before being demobbed and then tossed his medals in a draw, where they stayed out of sight and out of mind. At first it was good to be back home but he found that he couldn’t settle down. So he headed south and worked on the Kiewa dam project in Victoria. After that he went to Albury and then the Snowy River project. He had a locomotive engine drivers ticket and enjoyed the company of men who didn’t mind a beer or two.

At a dance in Sydney in 1953 he met my mother and told her she would marry him. My Mother laughed him off but there must have been something for in 1955 they were married.

One night a year after they were married my Mother awoke to find my Father strangling her, he was dreaming of an incident involving hand-to-hand combat with a Japanese soldier at Tarakan in 1945. She frantically beat him away, and he broke down as he told her ‘This Nip bastard leap out of a bush and knocked me flat, I tired to bayonet him but couldn’t get the blade into the mongrel, I didn’t have one in the chamber and he just kept coming back at me every time I knocked him down, in the end I had to strangle the life out of the bastard, it was him or me.’ Japanese soldiers held fast to the cult of Bushido and refused to surrender in the face of defeat. In 1956 ensconced in the safety of their marriage my Father spoke for the first time to her of the horrors he had witnessed in the War. It was a common story of death and bloodshed, retold in many Australian households during the 1950’s.

The War was black and white photos and films; even now I mentally picture the years of the Second World War in stark black and white.I have a picture taken by a street photographer of my Mother with a group of friends in Hyde Park when Peace was declared in August 1945. Their smiles still radiate ecstasy and bliss sixty years after the War’s end.

I remember one night while watching  “Combat” staring Vic Morrow, my Father began abusing the TV ‘bloody Americans, they think they won the war single handed.’ ‘LES not in front of the children’, my Mother admonished him from dining room table from her nightly round of solitaire and Pall Mall cigarettes.

As a child I grew up in the omnipotent shadow of the War. That was the way it was for my generation of boys for Australia were the victors. I had a wooden fort made by my Father based upon the design of the fort in the film ‘Beau Guest.’  With my Australian toy soldiers, in their khaki of the western desert, I would constantly destroy the Africa Core of Field Marshall Rommel on the lounge room floor. In these battles a Sherman tank that played ‘the Halls of Montezuma’ aided my diggers. I possessed an arsenal of toy guns, a Thompson machine gun, and a Colt 45 pistol amongst others. In the back lane behind our flat I would wage War wearing my jungle greens and slouch hat, made by my mother with my brother and other neighbourhood children from which we emerged victorious against the Nazi or Nip hordes.

Occasionally I would take out my Fathers service medals and ask about them, there are six, the Africa Star, Pacific Star, 1939/45 Star, Defence Medal, War Medal, Australian Service Medal, all inscribed with his name and service number. Then they would vanish to the back of the draw till the next time inquisitive young hands sought them out.

After an afternoon in the pub he once told my brother and I how in New Guinea he looked after and cared for the needs of the native bearers, ‘you’d see that they received their rations and see the medics if required.’ They were paid a bounty of two shillings for the left ear of a Japanese soldier. ‘One morning, one of the blokes came in and gave me this bag, it must have had five quid in it, so I took it up to our CO a right snob and green he was.’ ‘What do you want Private.’ ‘Five quid for the bearers sir.’ ‘Five pounds?’ ‘Well he took one look in the bag saw all the ears turned green and threw up.’  ‘LES not in front of the children.’ Mum admonished him for assailing our tender ears with such horror.

Anzac Day was just a day off to my Father. Once I sat on the front steps of the flat we lived in on Bondi Rd watching the local RSL members march up to the shrine. ‘Dad why don’t you march.’ ‘Bloody waste of time if you ask me.’

I was too young to know of my Father’s drunken rages and how our Mother nearly left him, but then where could a woman go with two young children in 1963? Her Mother advised her to stay, ‘It’ll get better dear, give him time.’ Time? The War had been over for twenty years. The drink was a crutch for a generation of Australian males, when it all became too much, the men would retreat to the pub with their mates, then roll home pissed.

One night in 1982 I was at home with my Father watching  ‘The World at War’ it was about the battles of the Western Desert, my Father became pale and began to shake I asked him what was wrong then muttered ‘Jesus wept, Jesus wept what can you say. Jesus wept.’ I went and comforted my Father as he had done for me as a child; he told me that if it happens again neither my brother nor I would go. ‘Fuck it, let some rich bastard’s son go and do it.’

My upbringing had forged me to accept that as a son of a 2^nd AIF veteran and as a member of the working class I would go and do my duty for my country in its hour of need. That was a given, a tact understanding between the sons of the diggers and the State that when the next War came it would be their offspring’s turn to have the great adventure.

I remember fetching something from him from his bedroom cupboard and out tumbled dozens of unopened packets of Valium that had been prescribed for war neurosis. They would be eventually flushed down the toilet unopened.

In 1987 my Father died of heart attack at home in bed. When the Undertaker came to our home to make the funeral arrangements, he took out his cigarettes offered me one and duly noted that my father was Second AIF a ‘Digger.’

‘Well he got in early and gave it a go.’ He informed my Mother they would place the Australian flag on his coffin as a mark of respect. My Mother was duly placed on a War Widows pension by the Department of Repatriation and Veteran’s Affairs, who forty-two years after the cessation of hostilities recognised that my Father had succumbed to war wound, this was during the Hawke Labor years, when the country still honoured the debt to its citizens who served.

After his cremation my Mother and I found a niche in the commemorative wall at Botany Cemetery for his ashes. His ashes are interned facing Bunnerong Power Station where he worked as a rigger for twenty-seven years. His plaque bears the rising sun badge of the AIF and is inscribed “always in our hearts.”  When it was installed we visited the Cemetery and as the  sun shone on the wall at smoko  my Mother  kissed it, ‘He would have liked that.’

NX21546 in Syria

Its Saturday and the temperature is 16c headed to a max of 24c. The sky is blue and the Obliques Strategies say that ‘Do the words need changing?’  Oblique Strategy = Brian Eno = chance intervention = non liner thinking or as Deleuze would state thinking ‘And’ as opposed to thinking ‘either or.’ A way past the conundrums of binary thought. Consider knowledge instead of a tree what about a river?   Well the lawn has to be mowed but seeing as I will not be back here again today I give you and I for that matter the following poem by William Bultler Yeates

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The Great War the war to end all wars is a particular interest of mine. The impact it had on Australian society was profound and enduring. More on this at a later date now to mow the grass.