Francis the R4 Fancier

Pope Francis has been given a Renault R4 by an Italian priest.

Apparently, Francis used one of these things when he lived in Argentina. They're quite popular there.The R4 itself is much-maligned.

Despite their resemblance to a tin can on wheels, they are a robust and versatile vehicle. Back in the day, I had a fondness for Renaults, having owned  three R12s, and an R16 over the years.

The R16 never ran, being a failed restoration project, but that's another story. The R12s were great.

I drove a mate's R16 on a journey from Darwin to Brisbane, and they're a very impressive piece of kit. The only contemporary vehicle that covered long distances over poor roads better was the Peugeot 404. I owned two of those.

Back to the R4, one of which I drove in the seventies. Once you got used to the gearchange which resembled a pump handle protruding from the dashboard, it was a surprisingly comfortable drive.

If Francis fancies R4s, he's likely to be a breath of fresh air in the papacy.

Deja Vu

As pointed out in my last post, I've seen fifteen federal elections - enough of them to notice a clear pattern.

As of yesterday, the Coalition's back in power after a six year hiatus. During this six years the country changed for the better.

Every school I work in is accessible to kids in wheelchairs thanks to the BER.

There will be a National Disability Insurance Scheme. 

Real school reform is ahead - a legacy of the Gonski Report.

We saw six years of growth despite the worst global financial disaster since the Great Depression, and dodged a recession.

The policies listed above are now bi-partisan, but none would have become reality without Labor being in power. The Coalition has simply been left with no choice but to embrace them.

The only black mark on the outgoing government's record is their signing up for the bi-partisan brutality on asylum seekers.

I was around when McMahon, Fraser and Howard were defeated.  I also saw the demise of Whitlam, Keating and now Rudd.

I observed a fundamental difference between progressive and conservative government which becomes stark when viewed at the end of a period in power.

Apart from the end of the Coalition government in 1972, during which term I was dragged into the army without the privilege of having a say in it, nothing around me really changed during any conservative administration.. This conscription aberration marks the only exception.

On the other hand, when Labor lost power, invariably there was something positive left to show for their period of government.

In Whitlam's case, it was human rights and disability legislation; after Hawke/Keating, an industrial accord, Medicare and superannuation reform, and after Gillard/Rudd, the BER, schools reform (Gonski) and the NDIS.

After McMahon, Fraser and Howard departed government, nothing that fundamentally improved the lives of ordinary Australians, especially those suffering some form of disadvantage, was palpable. There was, of course, the GST - a tax, after all - introduced by the Howard government.

I guess it's a product of the culture of conservative government. By their very nature, conservatives are concerned with the preservation of the status quo. Unfortunately, this is usually to serve vested interest, because vested interest has the money (and therefore the power) to buy votes.

If you doubt that, check the Palmer phenomenon. It's frighteningly similar what happens routinely on the other side of the Pacific..

The other positive note about this election is that the change of government occurred without strife or bloodshed. This should never be taken for granted.

The worse it gets is childish vandalism as observed in my last post.

I'm going to enjoy the spectacle of Metronome Tone trying to keep his promises. Given the likely weirdness in the new Senate, that will be fascinating.

 It's always possible, of course, that the Coalition will pull a Noddy Newman and break all their commitments. Look out for a commission of audit.

Watch this space.




Sent from my iPad

War Stories

The Labor candidate in Maranoa had all his signs systematically destroyed - fair comment on the mentality of his rivals.

Apparently there's some kind of election happening today.

At last count,  I've voted in 15 federal polls, and approximately the same number of state elections.

That makes me a veteran voter, and entitles me to tell a few war stories about elections in general, and voting in particular.

As a kid growing up in the Queensland bush, I was very familiar with polling day. This was on account of my father being the chief polling clerk at both state and federal elections.

As the local schoolie, dad was always employed on voting day by the Electoral Commission, and being the Principal (or Head Teacher as it was called back in the day), he was in charge.

From memory, it was a pretty long day, because I recall seeing very little of him once voting commenced.

He was always up at the school before I got out of bed,  and didn't get home until all votes were counted, usually in the early hours of the morning.

One year,  the election was held in December, close to Christmas. I don't recall whether it was state or federal. A middle aged woman turned up to vote, and dad asked her for her name.

Now this lady had been born on Christmas Day, and her parents, exhibiting a perverse sense of humor, had christened her "Mary Christmas". Her surname was Maher, which title she duly offered when dad asked her.

When he requested her christian names, unsurprisingly she said "Mary Christmas".

My dad,  being the consummate gentleman he was,  replied "and a happy new year to you and your family, but I do have to have your name before I can give you a ballot paper".

Those were the days.......

I occasionally got a job as a polling clerk, once I started teaching. On one notable occasion (1972), I was a polling clerk at the Repatriation Hospital at Greenslopes.

This was also the first time I got to vote in a federal election, because at the time of the 1969 poll I was at Canungra JTC and the army refused to allow me off base to get to the polling booth at Canungra State School.

I remember feeling very peeved about this at the time. I was, after all, being conscripted to fight for my democracy, but was denied the opportunity to participate in the process. The irony in this was completely lost on the battalion clerk who said "Don't worry, you won't get fined".

But back to 1972 and Greenslopes.

I had a few different jobs on the day. One of them was to take a mobile booth (perched precariously on a hospital meal trolley) around the wards, so the diggers who were bedridden could cast a vote.

There were two of us on the booth, and we went into a ward where there were a number of WW2 veterans, one of whom recovering from a stroke which had taken his speech away.

We had to work out how he wanted to vote, and his wife had come along to mark his ballot. We had two scrutineers with us, one from each major party, to ensure fair play. He had developed a method of communication, whereby one eye blink meant "yes" and two meant "no".

As I had learned by this time (after teaching non-verbal kids with cerebral palsy for a year) you can go a long way with "yes" and "no".

Anyway, he made it abundantly clear by judicious eye blinking that he wanted to vote Labor. His wife was horrified, saying that they had been married over forty years, and he had never voted Labor in his life.

That's what he'd given her to believe for all those years. She was very surprised. I remember wondering whether there were any other secrets and deceptions in the relationship.

Just before the polls closed, another old digger staggered into the room where the fixed ballot boxes where, and demanded a vote. I say "staggered", because this bloke had been on some sort of day release from the hospital, and had spent the bulk of the day on the turps.

To say he was intoxicated was an understatement, but he was entitled to vote, so we gave him a ballot. He wobbled over to a booth, and voted. It was a good thing that those portable cardboard booths weren't around in 1972, as he used the wooden (and substantial) booth to keep himself upright.

Unfortunately, he felt the call of nature just as he finished marking his ballot, and instead of putting it in the ballot box, he blundered out the door in the direction of the toilet.

The chief clerk summoned me (possibly because I was the youngest and most biddable person available) and told me to follow him and retrieve his ballot paper. I did as I was told, but not with any level of enthusiasm.

When I went into the toilet, he was nowhere to be seen, but snoring noises were coming from one of the cubicles. This cubicle was locked from the inside, but there was a gap under the door. Reluctantly, I got down and looked under the door. He was passed out on the toilet, but mercifully, the ballot paper was on the cubicle floor. I reached my arm under the door and retrieved it.

Incredibly, it was a valid vote. I went back to the polling room, and in the presence of the chief clerk, dropped it in the ballot box.

I didn't get a bonus, nor did any of my fellow workers shout me a beer. Ungrateful sods they were......

An Australian Classic

This week I'm working north west of Charleville (as far up the Matilda Highway as Tambo).

Part of the job required the trialling of some bulky orthopaedic kit for a couple of kids, and that meant a large vehicle. Traveling with therapists and all their kit was another issue.


The combination of kit, and two extra people and their luggage, meant that the Nissan Dualis assigned was simply not big enough.


For the first time ever, I complained to She Who Must Be Obeyed (the fleet manager) and she swapped the Nissan for a larger vehicle.


The larger vehicle turned out to be a Ford Territory diesel AWD.

This thing is brand new, and its acquisition makes a departure from usual practice, as the fleet is mostly comprised of imports, mostly Hyundais and Toyotas. This particular vehicle is a replacement for a Hyundai Santa Fe diesel.


I've driven plenty of these Santa Fes over vast distances, and have found them comfortable, safe and reliable. They are however, no match for the big Henry when it comes to refinement and drivability.


The Territory has a 2.7 litre V6, which originates from the Land Rover/Jaguar factories, although in the Territory it has one blower, and in the Jaguar, two.


It pulls like a train, but is much smoother, and the kick in the back when you accelerate past a road train is less obvious than in the Korean equivalent.


The Territory gets up and boogies, however, but does so with refinement rather than brute force.

It also drives well, with a more responsive and precise steering feel.


I found it very comfortable, and the seats both front and back deliver pain-free traveling even after all-day journeys.


These things do not have a cast iron reliability record, with recalls for suspension problems, but many Ford dealers will throw in a five year warranty (to match the Koreans) for not much money.


It's a great shame that Fords won't be manufactured locally any more in about eighteen months. To my way of thinking, they're a great local product, which has not been marketed properly.


For this particular task (long distance travel with a load on board in the Australian bush) I can't think of a more suitable vehicle.

Update - Fuel Consumption averaged 8.3 lit/100km. Not bad for three up plus a heap of gear.

A Daughter's Gift

My eldest daughter gave me this book today as a Father's Day gift.

It contains many amazing photos taken during the campaign in France during WW2, and of course, many poems written by those serving.

The combination of the words and pictures is, to say the least, evocative.

This, by Wilfred Owen, should be compulsory reading by anyone who has the power to send young men (and women) to war - -

 Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Never again.....

Leyburn Revisited

This one made the most noise.

 Every year I travel to Leyburn for the sprint meeting.

The Railton Rolls

I wouldn't miss it for quids, because it provides a unique mix of machinery, atmosphere and enthusiasm that suits an ancient petrol head like me.

This was the prettiest.

Where else can you wander through lines of cars queued up waiting to be flagged off one at a time, and chat with the drivers as you do so?

There's some strange machinery going round - Sunbeam Rapier

Where else do you see machinery as diverse as Le Mans homologated sports cars, warmed up sedans which are driven to the meet, and a single-seater Rolls Royce Merlin powered concoction that must weigh four tonnes knocked together from bits and pieces in a cow-cocky's shed?

1964 Prince Skyline. In the day these things went like sh** off a shovel.

I also was keen to try my new camera. It has a sports setting that stops moving objects pretty well, so long as you pan to keep the subject in shot.

The sports setting works in that the background is blurred - the subject sharp (Datsun 180B).

Anyway, these shots are the result.

This one gets the rusty prize - Toyota Crown.

If you hold the shutter down on this setting, the camera keeps shooting individual frames separated by fractions of a second. Very clever.

Another noisy one - just crossing the line.

Nostalgia Trip

Last week I found myself working in the same western school where I started teaching as a new grad in 1968.

One of the staff is working on the school archive, and when I asked her if there were pics of my year, she turned this up.

To be precise, I wasn't there from the beginning of the year. I was initially appointed to a year three class of 23 in Inglewood, but lasted only three weeks in this cushy posting. The school lost numbers, so in his wisdom, the Regional Director transferred me to take a class of 43 year fives in this school on a weekend's notice.

I never did find out what happened to my predecessor. Perhaps three weeks was all it took to discover that 43 kids are too many.

I was young, keen and thought I was God's gift to the teaching profession, so I stuck it out. In fact, it was one of the most pleasant years I spent in the game, spoiled only by the Damocles sword of conscription which, at the time, was hanging over my head.

My marble had been drawn in my second year at Teachers' College, but the National Service Act allowed me to complete my course and teach for a year before I was enlisted.

They were wonderful kids, and they taught me much more than I ever taught them. I have forgotten all their names, but not their faces or their character.

At about this time in the school year, I was given a day's leave to drive to Warwick for my National Service medical. To be honest, I didn't believe that I'd pass, because I'd had polio when I was two, and one of my legs was slightly shorter than the other.

I was passed A1.

The memory of the good times I spent in this school with these kids was one of the things that sustained me in the following two years, especially during my time in Vietnam.

Teaching remains a noble profession, but it is not as easy now as it was back in 1968 - even with a class of 43.