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.