IT SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN COLD FOREVER

OK This picture is not taken in Sydney,
but it accurately portrays how I feel! 

This appallingly cold weather is not part of MY social compact with the Commonwealth of Australia! It is a brilliant sunny day here in Sydney, but it is as if someone left the Cold Room Door open! A miserable 14 Degrees Celsius is the result of a chill wind oddly blowing from the North East here at Pymble - from the sea, would you believe? Now, I can live with the occasional errant cold day, but this type of thing has gone on now through this present Winter (OK) , through last Autumn (Hmmmm) , through last supposed to be Summer and right back through the preceding year even back in Brisbane!!!


What is this? No - it is NOT Global Warming and I'm sorry to tell you it is not even Climate Change ( the euphemism adopted when it became obvious that Global Warming was a heap of rubbish!) it is just crummy weather.


But I can remember.....Summer days...drifting away ...( oh! that's from Grease!) But, yes I can remember warm Sunshine ... on my shoulders makes me happy ( darn John Denver!) ....scented breezes ..and swaying palms ( oh Heck "Rose, Rose I love you! - Frankie Laine!) How come all the songs celebrate Summer and now we don't get any. 

Sydney Summer  Opera House and Opera Bar

But they were great times, bouncing along in a mini-Moke on Magnetic Island , or the same vehicle called a Fiji Go-Go in those blessed islands. Or riding on the Manly Ferry South Steyne crowded with beach goers, eating Smiths Crisps and gawking at the warships at Garden Island Dockyard. Or sitting  on the back verandah at Berala with the family, sweltering in the early evening , and waiting for my brother to return in his 1938 second hand Vauxhall Tourer with some Ice Blocks to cool us down!And more recently with the whole family sauntering around Cairns eating a cooling ice cream in brilliant hot sunshine.Or Christmas Day in about 2005/6 with everyone at our home for Christmas Lunch and a temperature of 41 degrees Celsius! Who could forget it!

Beautiful Daughter contemplating warmer days

So, yes I can remember warm and wonderful Springs and Summers and even Autumns, shorts and T Shirts and sandals ! Oh Man! Why do I torture myself : the reality is T shirt,Jumper 1, Jumper 2, Vest and to go outside Jacket over all!


No Australia! I did not sign up for this! 


Nor did I sign up for that Fat Cat Global Warming Czar who is paid $180,000 P.A. to work three days a week to do nothing but prattle about his pet ideas - yes, you are right - the same guy who three years ago said the drought was permanent and it would never rain again - just before the floods! What a load of garbage!




Here endeth the rant! I just want the heat turned back on !

*QUEENSLAND - NOT JUST A PLACE, BUT AN IDEA, AN IDEAL

MAP OF QUEENSLAND

WELCOME to Queensland Australia! The distinctive shape of the Queensland coastline makes it easily recognisable , even if you live in the heart of the Russian republic. Queensland used to be the poorest of Australian States, but in recent decades it has shaken off that unhappy status to become, together with Western Australia, the envy of all Australian States. And even then Queensland has particular features which assure it premier status!

The great key to the success of Queensland and Western Australia is natural resources : coal, copper , gas,iron ore, alumina. But Queensland adds to its natural resources extraordinary tourist attractions along its sub-tropical to tropical coastline! And it has plentiful ( occasionally excessive) rainfall!It has the distinction of being the great preference of Australian interstate migration and the retirement destination of choice.

My wife and I have lived 20 of the last 25 years living in Queensland. With different members of my family , the whole family or alone, I have visited all of the coastal centres past Cairns up to Cooktown, across to Normanton and Weipa down to Mt. Isa and down to Goondiwindi east of Cunnamulla and up through the centre to Roma,Emerald, Barcaldine, Longreach and Cloncurry and across to Charters Towers. It is a State of remarkable diversity geographically from tropical jungles, to rolling plains and desert, to lush highlands.

Most of the Provincial cities have populations in the range of 30,000 to 70,000 people and their wide spread and relative independence, gives the State a diverse economy, which on occasion has isolated those Provincial parts from national trends. The heart of the State's population is concentrated upon the Brisbane /Gold Coast(to the South) and Sunshine Coast( to the North) .

In the post WW II decades the State has enjoyed massive economic growth with remarkable financial discipline under 23 years of unbroken conservative Government and after several following periods of Labor Government had progressively stumbled into a strongly adverse debt situation. Earlier this year in an electoral landslide, conservative Liberal National Party Government was restored in an unprecedented landslide.And the new broom is sweeping clean whilst pushing greater development.

But Queensland is more than a geographic location, an aggregation of industries and concentration of populations. 

In the minds of its people and even of other Australians, Queensland is "different". Up to the early 1960s this "difference" was an object of ridicule in the Southern States. The smirk has long since been wiped off those Southern faces - it is now replaced by looks of envy! But for Queenslanders it has always been a source of pride, and, in the sporting world in interstate competition , the cry of "QUEENSLANDER!"is an inspiring, awesome war cry! There are no cries of "New South Welshman!"(for obvious reasons) or even "Victorian"or other - No, Queensland is different! It is an abstract ideal, a mental concept that embodies ideas of personal satisfaction, progress, quiet self-confidence and faith in the future. Yes, and all with good reason. Queensland is DIFFERENT! 

WELCOME TO QUEENSLAND!

THE VERY BEST OF HANDS

SUNNY SYDNEY FROM THE AIR LOOKING
SOUTH TO BOTANY BAY

This is where I grew up, in the Western Suburbs off in the top Right Hand Corner of the above picture. But this story starts with that clear blue Aussie sky! And the relentless Sun which beams its UV Rays down on this big, bold and brassy town. I lived here from my birth in 1940 until 1982 when we moved to Brisbane after my appointment as Queensland Manager of the Banque Nationale de Paris ( formerly the Comptoir Nationale de' Escompte de Paris and now BNP Paribas).

Through all those years, I had been fairly careful to avoid sunburn apart from one or two occasional accidental incidents each decade or so. My German - Celtic - Anglo constitution left me with a complexion prone to sun damage. When I was about 6/7 yrs old, the local Doctor who later proved himself of no use whatsoever in relation to my poor Mum's health, had issued the warning that I was to be kept out of the Sun, wear a hat and cover my face and nose with white zinc ointment!

Now, if you know ANYTHING about young boys, they do not usually like to "stand out"by looking different. So the very thought of wearing the sticky muck of Zinc Ointment on my nose and cheeks, was anathema to me . If it was put on I wiped it off, and I would not volunteer to put it on. AND I have NEVER been a hat person!!! ( Though I own both a bash hat - for lawn -mowing : now History, and a Beret : French style awaiting a suitable occasion!). But, by and large I did , generally keep out of the Sun although...... Well, for many years I suffered no apparent ill effects from this life of daring!

Then,about a year after my wife and I were married, and after the birth of our first child - our "little ray of Sunshine"our daughter Marianne was born, a persistent tiny sore on the upper part of my nose near the left eye was diagnosed as a skin Cancer of the least dangerous kind - a B.C.C. Arrangements were made for it to be excised  and the Specialist Surgeon Dr. John Harvey Drew did a marvellous job under local anaesthetic at a Private Hospital at Eastwood where we then lived. Through the whole operation which involved a graft, executed with brilliant precision going just to the corner of the eye without pulling the lids or causing any distortion, was carried out while the doctor and I discussed the disaster that was the Whitlam Labor Government - fortunately we were both of the same opinion.

Well, the years went by and there were no more problems . The good times rolled - a second daughter, Justine was born in 1973. But in 1974 we lost a child through miscarriage - The disaster of that loss has been highlighted by how much better such losses are handled to-day. But 1975 restored our good fortune  and  our son Matthew was born. 

SUNNY BRISBANE - URBS BEATA

In 1982 we made the move to Brisbane in Queensland . Ah! Brisbane! Urbs Beata! The Blessed City 600 miles ( 1,000 Kms ) North of Sydney,in Sunny Queensland! "Beautiful one day! Perfect the next!" Life was good a lovely and loving wife, three wonderful children a fine corporate house and car and many other benefits and so many good and truly lasting friends. And the Sunshine!

After a few years I had on different occasions a number of spots removed, but none were actually cancerous.After 5/6 years we were transferred back to Sydney when I was promoted to Deputy and then Manager of the State of New South Wales . But the Bank was transforming itself into a pure Merchant Bank and I did not have that experience - I could see the writing on the wall . We had to spend about six months in Canberra sorting out a major problem there and seizing a multiple attraction opportunity back in Brisbane, I resigned.

I took up the position of Canonical Financial Administrator of the Archdiocese of Brisbane.We were back in the Sunshine State!

We were to be there on this occasion for 25 years before returning to Sydney last year.

I kept up a steady series of at least biennial visits to the Specialist who regularly checked me out for skin cancers. In 2008 he determined that a difficultly placed skin cancer on my right shin should be excised and grafted over , and at the same time he excised another on my nose (LH side) and covered by a "flap"- i.e. drawing the skin across it. The ankle operation was very delicate to ensure that the graft would take. It worked with a week's immobilisation which unfortunately resulted in DVTs which fragmented and caused the collapse of my right lung , which later came good with medication . It also resulted in months on Warfarin that pestilential medication that requires such close monitoring! But all came good and the nose operation also worked well.

The FIELD OF ACTION

We finally returned to Sydney in 2011 (ages 71 and 70yrs) to be closer to the majority of our family and oldest friends. Here I resumed consultations with doctors and a recurrence of the nose problem and another slowly developing area on my left temple led to the present phase of corrective surgery. 

At Royal North Shore Hospital 10 days ago a superb team of MOHS Surgery experts excised the left temple BCC ( as the Biopsy proved it to be) and under local anaesthetic ( involving needles in the temple - sounds like an Asian Novel!) did what they term a "flap". This involved a long incision down the side of my face immediately next the left ear ,down to the jaw and drawing the skin over the excision wound - all without distorting the noble visage! Neat! And the scar which will be very fine will tend to be less noticeable because of its location.

Part II - the Nose - is a different exercise - Biopsy showed mercifully that this was also a BCC, but - and we are talking fractions of millimetres here, it is rather deeper than can be covered by a graft. So.... in mid September its back to the ugly chocolate brick pile of Royal North Shore Hospital where my nose will become a two act show : Early A.M. Mohs surgery to excise the BCC, then straight away up to the Plastic Surgery Operating Theatre for another more ambitious and complex "flap". As the impressive, gentlemanly, and considerate young (35?)Surgeon explained it to me, this will involve a general anaesthetic and some borrowing of living skin from my forehead to temporarily place it on my nose for 3 weeks, then a return to put it back where it belongs !! Amazing stuff. Not convenient of course - my head will be heavily bandaged for the 3 weeks and less so for a further few weeks after the restoration . But I can handle that as long as I have the promised eye holes and I can get my headphones to my ears. During this period of "wrappedture"I hope to listen to the three volume Shelby Foote  history "The Civil War" and the Herman Wouk Novel "War and Remembrance"which has been recommended and given to me as an audiobook.

It would be helpful if I can move around readily - but that will depend on the quality of vision through the eye holes!! Wouldn't do to stumble!

My greatest regret is the burden it will place on my dear wife Robyn - living with a bandage headed old guy for around 5 weeks. But I recollect we went through something similar - though more brief- years ago with the roles reversed! 

So there you have it - the long term results of occasional unprotected exposure to the Sun!!  The real "white man's burden!"to use that vicious old British phrase! 

Happily for our grandchildren - as for our children before them - hats and Sunscreen are now just part of life. Yet when I was young, I remember reflecting that it was only silly older generations that wore hats - we were free of all that fashion! We do live and learn!

I hope to prepare a "Bank"of Posts I can put up during that period with the minimum of keystrokes!


The Surgeon assures me of the "best cosmetic result!"So,just like a Hollywood Star! Without the secluded Desert Retreat to hide away until presentable! As long as the result bears a reasonable likeness to my ordinary visage! Brings to mind the story of a painter who presented a portrait of Pope Leo XIII (POPE 1878 - 1903) to the Holy Father - it was awful! When the Holy Father later received one of the Cardinals whose attention was taken by the thing, Pope Leo quoted Our Lord : "Noli Timere, Ego Sum" ( Do not fear , it is I !)

MIRACLE OF DEVELOPMENT

SUDDENLY A FOUNTAIN OF PRECISE SPEECH

Our youngest Grandson whose third birthday we celebrated on 1st June, 2012 - see the Post "The Miracle of Life and Love"on that day - has, in the space of one week, dropped a tendency to stutter , common to most children learning to speak. Of course we have seen the phenomenon before with our other Granchildren and our own children! 


But I doubt it has ever been so abrupt a transition and, marvel to behold.. resulted in an immediate flood of rapid , precise , very determined and often unusual words! Sample , to his older brother : "And where is MY vehicle??"( looking for his ride-on car). And his ability to muster up derision  in simple sentences like "Noooo Grandad, NOT like that!"is awesome.


It is a great joy to see once again the flowering of God's plan for each of us in such a fine little boy, already full of great charm and affection! Some other benefits must have come with the latest speech module, because he subsequently fell off his "vehicle"in a manner which a week or so would have resulted in dissolving into tears and running to Mummy/Daddy - but no,he just got up and hopped back on! Maturity! Bring it on! 

GENERATIONS

Great Grandfather Conrad BECKMANN
FAMED GERMAN PAINTER OF THE LATE 1800s

To-day is the 166 th anniversary of the birth in 1846 in Hannover Germany of my Mother's Grandfather - my Great Grandfather - Conrad Beckmann.

The Generations tumble on, and he is now the Great Great Grandfather of our three children : Marianne, Justine and Matthew., and the Great Great Great Grandfather of our Grandchildren : Stephen,Josephine,Gabrielle and Anastasia DIXON, and Emily, Christopher and Daniel Whiting.

Great Grandad you really started something! Thank God that you did , for you would be really proud to see how the shoot of the tree via your youngest son Wilhelm Toby Leonhardt Edward Beckmann flourished through his eldest child Elsie Georgina Beckmann ,not to mention other branches.

Congratulations on your Birthday and on the fact that your paintings are still coming to light via the Internet as late as a few days ago. Here is your Blog to prove it, and to tell all of your amazing story!http://conradbeckmann.blogspot.com.au/

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE AND LOVE

To-day we mark the 3rd Birthday of our Grandson Daniel.

Three years ago he was born 2 months premature on 1st June. He was so tiny , that he fitted comfortably in my not overly large hand! he lived in the ICU in his own acrylic protective enclosure to the enless fascination of his elder sister and brother.Although all the Doctors ( including his Father) were consistent in their predictions of his sound prospects, most of us had to keep unspoken our anxiety at the sight of God's tiny handiwork. But top quality medical care, endless maternal and paternal love and oceans of prayer saw him through.

Once a handful!

To-day, the "handful"of 3 years ago is a solid, healthy lad , sharp as a tack and marvellously subtle in expression, both facial and spoken.He is a very happy , intelligent, sensitive and loving and loveable joy to his parents, siblings and grandparents. Thank God for our not so little treasure!

ALL THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE AND 10,000,000 PEOPLE

ELSIE GEORGINA BECKMANN victim of anti-German prejudice Born 28th May, 1905

All the Crowned Heads of Europe were still in place as they had been for centuries, with only occasional disturbances, Hansom Cabs still clip-clopped about the streets of Sydney, and 10,000,000 people lived and loved who never guessed that the War to End All Wars, the Great War would ,within a few years , propel them violently into eternity,that  Sunday, 28th May , 1905 when my dear Mum was born. That was 107 years ago.

AT AGE  24 YRS

She grew to be a beautiful young lady, saw the tough lives of her parents, the effects of WW I and anti-German prejudice. She married had two sons saw the effects of WW II , experienced the post War recovery, and suffered a great amount of illness exacerbated by bad medical treatment. She went to her reward at age 66, comforted and prepared by the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. 

By returning to the Faith of her distant ancestors, she had rejoined the Vine from which they had been torn by Law and persecution during the Protestant Deformation in England and Germany hundreds of years before. Thank God she did.

You saw only one ( baby Marianne) of your three Grandchildren and none of your seven Great Grandchildren - but not one of us would be here without you and your attraction to Jack Dixon's "kind eyes"!

I love you always dear Mum and pray for the repose of your soul still, for time means nothing in Eternity.

1960 -1961 A GLIMPSE OF HISTORY

EVERY JOB HAS ITS PROBLEMS PRESIDENT KENNEDY PONDERS THE OPTIONS
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS OCTOBER, 1961 - OR SO IT SEEMED AT THE TIME< BUT SUBSEQUENT REPORTS SAID THE THE PHOTO WAS NOT TAKEN AT THE TIME OF THE CRISIS BUT USED BY THE MEDIA AT THE TIME FOR ITS SYMBOLIC VALUE

After about two years in the Stock and Share Department of the Commonwealth Bank, I became the subject of one of those Staff Department letters which began "It has been decided to move Mr Anthony Dixon to ( in this case) Summer Hill Branch". And that was that!

My familiarity with Summer Hill was limited to flying past it on non-stop electric trains rushing into the City or from the City to their first stop at Strathfield before heading on to Lidcombe. A few times I had driven alongside the railway past Summer Hill, but it was not a place to stop - for me, anyway. Until now.

So I started working in this quiet little backwater of a branch. As I said of Stock and Share Department, computerisation lay well in the future. At Summer Hill we had hand posted Savings Bank ledgers and simple Machine posted Trading Bank ledgers.Almost everything about the Branch would within ten years be regarded as archaic. But, for now things went on as they had always done - in the case of the hand posted Savings Bank ledgers - since about 1901 when the Bank was founded.

 The essential elements were a set of about twenty square pidgeon hole files., an appropriate number of small rectangular two post binders for the ledger sheets, a stand-up desk and there you were - in business. The virtuoso of the hand -posting was the Branch Accountant a very short man named Mr Wilson. The poor fellow had had a nervous breakdown at some stage and it had heavily marked his personality. Every day with rigid regularity he went home to have lunch with his wife.One skill had come through totally unimpaired - his virtuosity at the Hand Posted Ledgers. It was something ( however petty) to see . Standing at the Stand up Desk, topped with the pidgeon holes. he would take up a batch of deposit slips , read the account number on the top one, his hand would shoot to the appropriate Binder, fly through to the correct account, post the transaction , note the new balance on the deposit slip, initial it and re-insert the Binder in a flash. "There, that's how its done. Now get on with it!"

The Trading Bank ledgers were posted on a simple accounting machine - no Comptometers yet and there was still a handwritten control ledger.

The work was shared by two other young people a good looking curly-haired happy go-lucky young Catholic guy Mick ? and a short rather sullen girl whose Christian names were "Melodie Charlotte Ivy Aloma Phyllis... whatever". I could never forget that assemblage of Christian names!

The Manager of the Branch was a retired Second World War Brigadier who had accepted the Japanese surrender at Rabaul . He was always impeccably dressed in his suit and vest and had a moustache . His desk , like his entire office was a testament to inactivity. He read the Sydney Morning Herald from front to back each morning then came out and stared at the street for about fifteen minutes and would give a damning review of any workmen in the street: "Look at these lazy wretches Mr Wilson - four of them standing about with only one shovel ! One shovel - Four men! Outrageous! Mr. Wilson ,do you hear? " "Yes Sir, of course! Outrageous!" Smirks from the staff and scarcely suppressed laughter from the younger ones.

And that was it really, until one day during the Cuban Missile Crisis the newspapers were brought into the Branch reporting the confrontation between the United States Navy quarantine blockade and a fleet of Russian ships bringing missiles to arm the Cuban bases they had built on the United States doorstep. But Mr Kruschev had badly misjudged the younger President Kennedy. The U.S. Navy stood firm it was Mr Krushchev's ships that had to first stop, and then head home. The world stood back from the nuclear brink. At the same time, my future wife Robyn and best friend Penny, still , together with her husband Keith our oldest friends, was travelling round Ireland and being advised "you had better get back home, it looks like there is going to be a war"!

*PRESCRIPTION DRUGS AND NANNY ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

MORE DEATHS THAN ILLEGAL DRUGS OR ALCOHOL

Asleep at the wheel?

 Governments have tremendous responsibilities. But we need to judge them with particular care in those areas in which they are intensely and pervasively active in regulation.One of the areas of the most intrusive regulation by the Australian Federal Government is the area of Health , and within that area the matter of Prescription Drugs is regulated very 

heavily and aggressively.So we would expect to see gleaming efficiency and progressive outcomes from this vast bureaucratic apparatus.

But reports on radio to-day relate to a study by the Victorian Coroner,

show that in 2010 there were 338 Victorian deaths from drug toxicity. 261 of these deaths involved the use of Prescription drugs, and of these 165 were principally those used as tranquilizers to suppress anxiety and insomnia. Only 151 of the deaths involved illegal drugs.

The problem with the Prescription drugs resulted primarily from Prescription Shopping, where multiple filling of the same prescription is obtained by visiting a number of Pharmacists to obtain quickly, more than has been prescribed.

In fact we understand from a Pharmacist, that the Federal Drugs authorities do not consider a person to be Prescription Shopping until he/she has visited 8 Pharmacists!!!!

There are now calls by the Victorian Coroner and others for the institution of a National Prescription Database operating on a real-time basis linking Doctors and Pharmacists so that offenders can be instantly protected from themselves. Too late....but better late than never!

It is incredible that in this modern Nanny State society, Nanny  - who sticks her bib in all over the place, and watches us everywhere, has not got her priorities right in such a fundamental area. Asleep at the wheel Nanny! Or too busy fighting factional foes! 

YOUR MOTHER NEVER KNEW

ARMENTIERES - THE BATTLEFIELD _ GERMAN BUNDESARCHIV PHOTOGRAPH


On this cold but brilliantly sunny Aussie morning
I recall that other 14th May, ........94 years ago,
and on the other side of the world:

IT WAS A TUESDAY, WASN’T IT BILLY?

- TUESDAY, 14TH MAY, 1918

Private James William“BILLY”Wilson   Service No. 5659

17TH Battalion, Australian Imperial Force

KILLED IN ACTION Near / Armentieres FRANCE In the course of repelling the German Forces, whose attempt to reach the Sea had already failed.

Did you know it was Tuesday, or in that Hell around Armentieres, blasted to Kingdom Come for miles and miles, did you really care what day it was?

THE ICONIC AUSTRALIAN SLOUCH HAT

They didn’t tell your Mum how you died, blown to pieces by a German shell blast.But your Superior Officer took the trouble to tell my Grandma and Grandad – your Sister Louisa (“doll’s eyes” you called her) and her German-born husband Ted. Louisa was distraught at losing her only brother whom she loved so much. In due course, the Army provided your Mother with a Certificate of Burial for which Ted made an ornate carved wooden frame with all the flags of the Allies around its edges. (I guess he inherited that skill from his Grandfather Carl Dopmeyer whose sculpture and wood carving gained him fame in Germany in the second half of the 1800s.

We don’t seem to have a photo of you Billy, which is strange for your time. But we know a lot  about you:

You enlisted on 16th November 1915. You were said to be 27 years old and 3 months, of dark complexion weighing 119 lbs. and 5 Feet 3 ½ “in height. So you were a little bloke by Aussie standards but true to your English born parents’ physique. You had no distinguishing marks on your body. You were a Laborer.

But what’s this? You were Discharged just over a month later on 22nd December 1915. Because you had insufficient teeth to masticate!

17th Battalion A.I.F. (AUSTRALIAN  IMPERIAL FORCE) COLOUR PATCH

But you can’t keep a good bloke down, and on 24th February 1916(only two months later) you enlist again! 

By now you have a “Fresh” complexion, Brown eyes, Brown Hair, your height is the same but at 27 years and 6 months you weigh in at 116lbs And you have acquired a scar at your Right eye, on your Right thigh and inside your Right knee. Did this happen during your initial enlistment? An accident? All the injury was on your right side and the inclusion of a scar behind your right knee doesn’t sound like a fight!

Whatever the case, the lack of teeth, (stated to have occurred over the 10 preceding years due to cavities)– perhaps you had obtained dentures (?)- did not stop you from being accepted again.

You appear to have been buried initially at Fouilloy and later exhumed and re-interred at the great Australian War Cemetery at Villers- Bretonneux.

"

The sun shining down on these green fields of France

The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance

   The trenches have vanished long under the plow

    
    No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now

    
    But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land

    The countless white crosses in the mute witness stand
    
     To man's blind indifference to his fellow man

      And a whole generation were butchered and damned

      Did they beat the drums slowly?

      Did they play the fife lowly?

      Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?

      Did the band play the last post and chorus?

      Did the pipes play the "Flowers of the Forest"?

     (The Green Fields of France - Eric Bogle)

The Australian War Memorial at Villers Bretonneux

On 4 th February 1919 your Mother received from the Army your personal effects – you know how pitifully few and pathetic they were. You had made your Mother your Next of Kin because your Father had died previously.

 

CONCLUSION

I’m sorry Billy, that I haven’t yet got more information about you and the War you fought, but I am on the job and will set the record straight as best I can.I do now have your official Army records in facsimile. I am still striving to locate a photograph!

You and your comrades, who already went through Hell on earth in France, are in my daily prayers for the repose of your Souls. And we who live our lives today are forever grateful to you.

 

 

 

 

A BOUQUET OF MOTHERS

My Dad's Mum - Eleanor Margaret "Mag"Dixon - taken 1911

My dear wife Robyn,with our  three children : Marianne, Justine and Matthew at Mount Wilson - Autumn  1980 (?)

My dear Mum Elsie Georgina Beckmann (R) and her Mum Louisa Beckmann (Standing) with Grandad Edward Beckmann and sisters Charlotte (L) and Ernestine "Kate" (centre) in 1910 - 1911

Our daughter Justine with 2 mths premature son Daniel (born 1st June, 2009) now a charmer & picture of robust  good health



Here I am surrounded by a pictorial  bouquet of Mothers !( I think "bouquet"is a suitable collective noun for a group of Mothers!) Each one of them I have had the privilege and joy to share my life with, and each one has been a remarkable example of love and kindness in action, even in the gravest difficulty. The pictures are in no particular order. Obviously the first Mother I knew was my very own dear Mum,who led a life of self- sacrifice , love and loyalty in the most adverse circumstances.Her love was generous and kind, never in the least demanding. She was the ideal example of her Father's philosophy that love and respect go hand in hand :: if you have not got love you will show no respect, if you show no respect, you have no love.Grandad hit the nail on the head, and my dear Mum had absorbed the lesson and lived it out.


 Next I got to know my Grandma Dixon who lived on the next block one street behind us. Hers was also a tough life coping with a difficult husband and who gave herself to helping many human strays in the family orbit. She was very loving in her treatment of me and in early primary school days I used to walk home via Grandma's place, where she would always be seated on the verandah - waiting for me with a One Shilling piece( with its Merino Sheep Head image on it) clutched in her hand which she gave to me for treats. I can still recall its warmth from her hand, to-day


My Mum's Mother, Grandma Beckmann, was a very special lady too. She was more self - confident and outgoing within the family group than my Mum or Grandma Dixon and her love was open-hearted and generous, her hugs big and strong. She was totally devoted to her husband "Ted"Edward Beckmann and in the family circle she would refer to him as "Daddy"( they had 9 children!). When I knew him his health was failing, and though she would firmly proclaim that "Daddy and I are going to live on into the (Biblical) Millenium ", looking back I can see her anxiety that he was slipping away. She was a wonderful example of love and affection and that ,constant and reliable.She had had a tough life with never a lot of money around , and when some windfall occurred an adverse development would sweep it away. She suffered a lot for marrying a  "German"especially in World War  as did the older girls, reproached for being "Germans".I recall her unconditional love of me ,and those strong, generous hugs to-day.


Then we come to the full colour Mums. My dear wife Robyn and those three beautiful children, what fun we had that day in the bracing air and rich autumn tones of Mount Wilson! What fun we have had over all the years - and how much of that is due to Robyn , loving loyal, devoted wife and Mother. I guess we have had more good times than all the predecessor Mothers and their families combined and yet we have had a ton of tough times, but Robyn has been a constant source of love and loyalty through thick and thin, and even thinner!


The latest Mother in the family blood line is our dear daughter Justine, Mother to Emily, Christopher and Daniel. Words nearly fail me ( nearly! I always have a few left!) As parents we could not be prouder of this thoroughly modern Mother. She is an exemplary model of love and devotion in effective action , handling even the strain of tiny Daniel's birth when this tiny literal handful of life seemed to us too fragile , she brought him to the fullness of healthy life with dedication and love, without skipping a beat in the care of Emily and Christopher and husband Paul.And like her paternal Grandmother she is a stalwart strength for her parents.


So Mothers of mine, I salute you and honour you , but most of all, I love you unfailingly.

TWENTY YEARS HAVE PASSED

JOHN JOSEPH DIXON (L of Photo) around 1911
WITH HIS MOTHER, ALBERT (R)
AND BABY BROTHER BILL WHOM DAD GREATLY ADMIRED

To-day , Friday 11th May, 2012 is the Twentieth Anniversary of my Father's death just three weeks short of his 85th Birthday. He survived the death of my Mother by almost 21 years .

Sent to work at age 11 years in a metal foundry, he had a pretty tough life.

HERE, IN 1927 DAD LOOKS LIKE THE TYPICAL YOUNG BANKER OR CIVIL SERVANT
WHICH HE WAS NOT, HE ALWAYS WORKED IN BLUE COLLAR OCCUPATIONS

His life experience together with his local social network, made him a lifelong Labor Party voter. He persevered in this even after he said he was convinced that the Labor Party was riddled with Communists whom he despised - he just could not bring himself to desert the "working class party". And in fact he did see the world and the nation in those Victorian era Class terms.

My Dad was born a Catholic and educated in a Convent School, but for long periods did not practise his religion. Yet when his "kind eyes"won the heart of Miss Elsie Georgina Beckmann a petite and beautiful,modest girl from a devout Evangelical Protestant family , he required that they be properly married in the Catholic Church. Miss Beckmann was instructed in the Faith and duly became a Catholic, and they were married in 1927.

To-day's cynicism might suggest that he was being hypocritical. But in those days people were honest about doing wrong  - he knew it was wrong not to practise his religion, but he also knew that there are absolutes of such importance that you don't abuse them : he would not betray his Religion, even if he did not practise it - that Truth was bound to him for life.

When I was born, Dad was 32 years old ,he was never unkind to me, but not outgoing or physically demonstrative of his love. ( The Poet James Macauley writes powerfully of his own Father's inability to physically express any affection.) He worked on the construction of the great Garden Island Graving Dock, for the Navy. This was a protected employment category, which stopped him being sent on labour battalions to Darwin when he received the call-up. He could not be in the regular forces because of faulty eyesight resulting from an accident at the Foundry when he was about 13 yrs old.

As I grew up, all my interests were largely alien to my Dad except Politics, and even then we were on opposite sides of the fence!Only after many years did  I hear that Dad was very proud of my progress in Banking  and in other areas and used to regale his regular drinking mates at the hotel in Lidcombe with my latest efforts. We almost never got to talk at any length on  any subject , conversation being limited to brief exchanges of statements never pressed too far lest the heavy crunch of disagreement should wreck things.

In my twenties and thirties , I could perceive all my Father's faults with clinical efficiency, whilst making every allowance for any tendency  to deficiency on my own part. As the years went by my Dad evolved, particularly after he came to see the devastating effect on my Mum's fragile mental health following a Hysterectomy. He came to see in time how cruel was the effect of stubborn,sullen silences - sometimes lasting 3 days - over some exaggerated "offence", on someone so vulnerable. He was transformed.

He also returned to the practise of the Faith which was very pleasing to see and took great delight in his three grandchildren, Marianne, Justine and Matthew and never ceased urging me to look after my wife!

But still he could not freely and easily communicate either emotions or ideas.Whether or not this disability stemmed from the treatment he received from his brutish and drunkard Father, I cannot say for sure, but if I were a betting man......

Dad's later years were plagued by troubles with his heart - suffering from an "enlarged heart"which caused recurring build-ups of fluid around the heart, these required repeated hospitalisation to relieve them but there could be no cure.

In fact he had just successfully completed one such routine and was about to be released when he suffered a heart attack and died. The Catholic Chaplain to the Auburn Hospital where Dad died was quickly on the spot to minister to  his poor body and pray for his soul. His name was Father Stephen Swift and I was most impressed by the card he left endorsed with all that needed to be done to ensure a proper Catholic burial - for he knew nothing of the family.

We were living in Brisbane at the time and I received a call from my Brother Pat telling me of Dad's death and saying that the Hospital  wanted to perform an autopsy. I was on the first plane down next morning and went straight to see the Doctor in Charge -  a young Asian gent. He was prompt to offer condolences and almost as prompt to proffer a form authorising an autopsy for signature. When I objected that they clearly knew the cause of death, and that  this was unnecessary, the form quickly disappeared into the pocket of his white coat. I informed him that after the long periods of my Dad's health problems, I did not want his body used for training purposes. This is a matter which I believe the Hospital handled very badly to say the least.

So John Joseph "Jack"Dixon I love you dearly and hope we have the opportunity to understand each other far better in Paradise.My prayers for the repose of your soul and of Mum's are daily made.

COMING TO A CHURCH NEAR YOU??

COMING TO A CHURCH NEAR YOU ??

MY PARISH CHURCH SACRED HEART PYMBLE N.S.W.

To-day's  portable and powerful electronics are transforming many aspects of our lives, but as yet, their impact on our religious life is probably confined to the private sphere. Yet such is their marvellous capacity that the day is dawning when they arrive in the church itself.


Restraint .... no, please...restraint! I can hear the "But, But, Buts" from here!


It is already happening in some ways :


During my return to visit to Brisbane ( "Urbs Beata") at Christmas, I paid a visit to the Blessed Sacrament at St Stephen's Cathedral and , having concluded that pleasure and privilege, I noted as I left, an old bloke ( about my age - but they're still "old blokes") sitting calmly before the Tabernacle reading from his KINDLE E-Reader.He had its protective case open of course and on the left side of the cover was a large picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour . So it is highly unlikely his reading was other than devotional!


Consider the possibilities ...


In my case alone, through very generous gifts from family members over a couple of years, I have the use of an iPad2, a KINDLE E-Reader and a HTC WILDFIRE S Smartphone, each of which I use to access religious material both devotional/informative and prayerful.Each has its own particular benefits and uses as you will see:


HTC WILDFIRE S  an ANDROID DEVICE

HTC WILDFIRE S

I have loaded onto this smartphone an App. called "LAUDATE" which features : Daily Readings, Liturgy of the Hours, Roman Missal Changes, Bookmarks, Rosary and Chaplet, Stations of the Cross, Prayers, Latin Prayers, My Prayers, Catechism, Catholic Media and New American Bible (the version used in the current American Lectionary. )
I have also loaded this onto the iPad2. It costs NOTHING AT ALL.


Because I carry the phone with me, and it is of course palm -sized it is very  useful for reading from LAUDATE on a train,or bus, or whilst waiting anywhere. And as you can see, there is ample material for reflection or prayer - among my favourites are the Latin Sequences which never cease to move me. 


I could , with great advantage use it before Mass or during a visit to  the Blessed Sacrament. But I don't for fear of giving scandal to those about me, or causing them unwarranted distraction.


Yet I can think of plenty of arguments which could be used to say that I should, or that others should. But for every such argument I believe there is one countervailing argument of overwhelming weight, and that is that it would be a major mistake for the Church  to become simply another Private Place for Electronic experience. 


Surely in the Church, and thus in the Presence of Our Divine Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we need to defend the sense of REALITY. We are there, individually and together in the Presence of Christ in Whom we are one. It seems to me that using an electronic device tends totake us away from where we are psychologically, and would work to destroy the sense of our unity certainly in the case of Holy Mass or Benediction.


For private devotion in fact, say a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or BEFORE Mass or AFTER Mass , or making the Stations of the Cross individually, might be another thing entirely, though there remains the possibility of giving scandal or causing distraction. Even though the person being "scandalised"or "distracted"might be quite unreasonable in the circumstances, I still think it would not be desirable to be the cause of such a problem at all.The Phone seems particularly vulnerable to such problems.

iPAD2

The iPad2 is something else again .I have also loaded onto it the App. "i MISSAL"Which cost me from memory abou US $ 5.50 ( about half the cost of a magazine.) It contains the Missal - New Translation but using the American Lectionary Readings, My Daily Bread - daily Scripture Readings, Prayers -  a large collection of Catholic Prayers, and CATHOLIC NEWS.


Now, I find the Missal very handy for reviewing the Readings before or after Mass each day. Yes, for U.S.5-50 you have a complete DAILY MISSAL . To buy one currently costs around  AUD 145 and , when the New Lectionary becomes available - I have seen suggestions that it might be quite soon - your purchase will be obsolete. The New Lectionary will be based upon  an amended version of the English Standard Version as we reported some months back. So the trivial cost and the use of the New American Bible make it highly suitable for PERSONAL PRIVATE USE but not at all for use in church. In any case the large format and bright screen make the i Pad2 quite unsuitable for use in church unless you are alone or the church is nearly empty.

KINDLE E READER

THE KINDLE e READER. These are marvellous devices which can be loaded with access to up to 3,000  books  - thousands of which are available free or at token cost , say U.S. 0-99 - these are mainly reference and classic works including many in spirituality and Church History and Saints biographies for example. There is no Missal to my knowledge. The use of a Kindle in Church would cause infinitely less distraction because of its silver gray non reflecting screen and print.It would be useless in Mass or Benediction , so that area of objection would not arise. But in the case of private devotions BEFORE or AFTER Mass I can't see a problem and the same applies during a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Of course , one might end up giving cause of upset to some irascible technophobic troglodyte , but there are some extreme cases we cannot build our lives around or we would all be living like lunatics.


So, there is my attempt to survey the field. But don't be surprised at what might pop-up near you in church, have an opinion and be prepared to discuss it charitably and with a generous respect for others ( with the possible exception of irascible technophobic troglodytes!).


I would really appreciate any comments you might have in this post.


N.B. This does not relate to the possibility of a Priest using an iPad as an Altar Missal and I don't want to open that possibility for discussion - even though I would be opposed - because it would be a matter for Church Discipline.