"HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES"

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY STEAM LOCOMOTIVE 2816

AND IF THAT DOES NOT FIT YOUR IDEA OF HANDSOME
YOU ARE WRONG!

To-day , courtesy of my Wife, a childhood regular event came forcefully back into my mind. I must have been about 6 yrs old - just after the War (WW II), and, for some months in the late afternoon, I used to sit on the floor in our old fashioned eat-in Kitchen , right up against the black wooden cabinet of the upright Wireless  (Radio for you moderns!)And, with its numerically calibrated semi-circular dial softly glowing from the warm yellow light of its globe, I was entirely captivated by the broadcast of the serial play "Canadian Pacific" which came through the fancy cloth covering the speakers behind a simple wooden grill .

I was completely hooked on the heroic stories of the construction of the Canadian trans-continental railway, and its leading man the American born William Cornelius Van Horn. It was a tale of struggles against seemingly insuperable odds, and of ultimate costly victory.Just how great, how costly in terms of human lives - I had either forgotten or never fully appreciated.

Then, last week a Quilting friend of my wife Robyn , gave her a flyer advertising the I Max documentary "Rocky Mountains Express". Robyn brought it home and it was quickly agreed that we would see it on Saturday 20th August. This was a great and noble sacrifice for Robyn whose Steam Locomotive tolerance is......... not impressive(!).

We had to completely re-jig our Saturday because to-day is our fortnightly Supermarket shopping day. So we went into the City early in the morning  and sought to have our usual Coffee at "Pain Quotidien" in the Westfield Centre - only to find it has closed and will be replaced by a menswear store. Well, that is what happens when one's visits to the City are at many months intervals!  We finally found another old haunt the Coffee Shop on the basement Level of David Jones Department store . DJ's was originally founded in 1838, but lately has itself become a victim of change - it has been takenover by South African Woolworths (no connection to our WOOLWORTHS) and to add insult to injury , it is moving its Head Office to.......Melbourne (Aaaaaarrrrrgggggh!) and there is rumour of the Women's Store building being sold. (The only thing constant is change.) 

We then walked down to the I Max Theatre which is  in the Darling Harbour precinct and took a look at the new International Convention Centre and adjoining  new lofty International Hotel

View of the new International Convention Centre with the
adjoining International Hotel looming in the background.

We were still a tad early so we wandered around to kill time checking out the Darling Harbour Shopping Mall - a tourist trap writ large to see how it has fared with all the construction going on in its "backyard' - not so well it would seem , but I suppose they are hanging on until the new "neighbours" become operational and the glory days return (hopefully).

At last it was showtime and we trekked into the  I Max Theatre which we had only visited once before. The interior is quite striking as th picture shows:

Said to be the largest I Max Screen in the World - easy to say when you are at the "end of the Earth"!

From the very beginning the 45 minutes long film was enthralling. It features the very highest production values, extraordinary special photography and the scenery through which it passes is grandeur itself. After unusual scenes of close-ups on the locomotive in action, whether looking onto the huge 75 Inch 

Driving Wheels and the massive Connecting and Piston Rods moving slowly and then at speed which were awesome on the great I Max Screen. The film then covered the extraordinary history of the Canadian Pacific , its great leader the American born Cornelius Van Horn, the search for an acceptable route through the various massive mountain  ranges, the mistakes made, the tragic accidents, the routine deaths of the construction workers. The lengths to which they went in securing an acceptable route were astounding. But finally it was complete and then they faced the problem of operating it through the Canadian Winters. Easier said than done. In one of the previously unused Passes the line now used, they found that Winter snowfalls reached 60 feet!

The whole of this story is told with great authority and attention to detail and recognition for all those involved in its construction including the many Chinese labourers. The film also makes it clear how the Railway ensured the viability of Canada as a Nation and how the construction of its own tourist Hotel at Banff and Lake Louise for example made the Railway itself viable. It is an epic tale well told. And the magnificent hero of the telling is the great steam locomotive - now 80 years old- with which we thunder through long and dark tunnels, climb steep grades , fly across prairies and wend our way through improbable passes.

Did you not get the idea? It is a great movie awesome in many ways -including the awe -inspiring Canadian Rockies and the gorgeous turquoise waters of Lake Louise. Go - see it whenever it is showing and take your sons and grandsons with you!

MY FATHER CRYING : WHAT COULD IT MEAN?

Sixty Eight years ago to-day, my paternal Grandma died - at age Sixty - six years.Here is a Post from 2011 which covers what for Eight Years old me , was a sadly memorable event.

 My Dad John Joseph Dixon 

                                                      at about the age I was that 

                                                                      morning.........

                                                     

His Mother Eleanor Margaret Dixon
  taken the same day as Dad above.

Friday , 20th August, 1948:  I was asleep in my bed, just clear of the inward opening door of my bedroom at the front right hand side (facing), of our two bedroom timber cottage in Second Avenue Berala NSW. I was woken when the door opened hastily.

There stood my 41 years old Dad .A tumble of thoughts into my gathering consciousness : Dad doesn't wake me in the morning ( Shift work meant he was either at work, or not long in from work and sleeping at this hour),  why was his hat crammed on his head in the house? and....... what! My Dad was crying..... what could this mean?  "You'd better get up quick Anth, Ma has died",and he sobbed even more. 

Turmoil. Mum was already up at Grandma's which was in Third avenue just behind us and a tad higher on the gentle hill. Up I got, dressed quickly, no breakfast and round we went. The 1900 vintage cream painted timber house, had originally been much smaller, but had been added onto. Up the front steps into the hall and I was taken down to Mum who was busy holding the family together, consoling this one, calming that one, and meanwhile getting them fed. My maiden Aunt Nell who was a very good hearted soul, but at that stage of her life very tense, afflicted with a bad stutter, suggested while Dad was there, that I should be taken into Grandma's room to see her body. You can perhaps imagine my horror - at eight years of age - at the suggestion. I had no experience of death and I had no desire to see the Grandma I loved so devotedly , and who loved me , in death. I would NOT go in.

 Dad was too absorbed in grief to intervene, but mercifully Mum came across, asked what the fuss was, saw my reaction and put an end to that idea. I can't remember the rest of the day.

The funeral was some days later from our Church-School - St. Peter Chanel's on the hill at Berala. My mind boggled at all the relatives and friends and fellow Parishioners - the Dixons were not the greatest Church goers( masterly understatement - I'm getting better at it!) , but in earlier times the wooden Church as well as the Convent, had been in Fourth Avenue behind Grandma's place  and there weren't many houses in those earlier days ,so " Mag. Dixon" was well known to the Nuns and to many Parishioners. That old wooden Church had been hauled up the hill to the new Parish location sometime in the 20's or 30's,and was now the Parish Hall.

Grandma was 66 years old.

Dad's Father, Thomas James Dixon died on the 2nd August, 1950. I had rarely seen him. He had left the family home many years before, had a major problem with drink, and was not a very endearing person (actually, I'm getting better at it!) He was 66 years old also - I had never realised the coincidence of their ages at death until a minute ago ,when I came to write this !

Deaths in August were to become more common in the family for some reason as you will see if you bear with me.And, as it happened, when my dear Mum died in August, 1971 she was also 66 years old.


Requiescant in Pace.

IT'S BEST TO BE HONEST AND "ALONG TIME BETWEEN DRINKS"

Ready for a new start  16th August, 2016

It's best to be honest  , so I am setting out below my Post from late 2014 showing my plan to educate myself about Africa - country by country . The plan had been to write about one Country per week and, by and large, it went fairly well until I "got" to Kenya! There the project seemed to run aground in about August, 2015 - just a week or so short of one year ago. To be honest I can't think why precisely - but initially it may have had something to do with not wanting to offend the views of a particular person. From there it descended to a surrender to laxity - wanting to avoid the discipline of completing my one a week country deadline. Whatever may be the case I am back at it. Kenya will have to get the treatment - my best effort right or wrong.

Of course I haven't be inactive in the interim and I have commenced another interesting series of  African studies - interesting to me at any rate - starting with http://butnought.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/mutual-understanding-tale-of-two.html and followed by:

http://butnought.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/mutual-understanding-tale-of-two_8.html and

http://butnought.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/mutual-understanding-tale-of-two_28.html

That series is yet to be concluded.

But now I intend to get back on track with my country by country trek around Africa. Let me see : Pith Helmet, Khaki clothing, Map, Compass, Mobile Phone, and hopelessly lost look and off I go .....But first, please read how I started on the project and why:  

  Me about fouryears ago before the Doctors got me.

Yes, it has been"a long time between drinks", as the saying goes. But all the medical cares of the fading year 2014 are now well behind me, and we are settling well into our fine new home. I even have a moderate sized and well-equipped "study" . So, time to get back to writing. 

To create a discipline around which other writing can re- develop, I have decided that for the New Year I will begin a systematic effort to correct a sizeable deficiency in my knowledge. Like most Australians, I have a very poor grasp on the geography of Africa. In fact, I have found that even beyond that, I have not even had a true idea of the size of Africa compared to Australia.

I want to correct that and, if you wish , you can come along with me through 2015 as I fill in the massive blank spaces in my knowledge of "Mother Africa" as the song calls her.

It has been my pleasure and privilege to actually get to know some African people, in real life and via Facebook during the last several years, and it has opened my eyes to many shortcomings in my world view, and in most Australians' relative ignorance of the giant across the Indian Ocean. 

I am looking forward keenly to learning so much from the rich history, reality, and activity of that energetic continent and her marvellous and varied people, and to correct even my stupid ideas about where various countries are on that Continent.

I would like you to come along with me, and perhaps - especially any African readers - to comment and correct any errors you believe I am  making.

My Africa

Here I am, closing in rapidly on 75 yrs of age. When I was a child, Africa was the "dark continent" of fabled literature, gradually emerging into the false light of Hollywood movies.

Here in Australia, we did not even have the steady flow of news and concerns the British had for their interests in Africa. After all, to them, we Australians were just another lot of convenient Colonials like the African settlers and their native populations. Nor did we have the continual flow of Colonial Administrators  going out and coming "home" with their tales of the lives they had led and the "knowledge" they had acquired ( or perhaps the prejudices they had formed and fed.) No, for us Africa was largely the impression we got from our Mercator Projection maps, literature and , as I say, increasingly from the false light of Hollywood movies.

So what was that all like? Well take a look at Mercator's projection of the world and it is obvious : particularly in the flattened out sphere projections our school maps provided, Australia was very nearly as big as Africa, but the truth is that Africa is about 2.5 times the size of Australia. 

Literature had tended to present Africa as an unending source of mystery and danger to the white man who carried the " burden" of opening up these strange lands to civilisation. The influence of novels , which exploded into popularity in the 1800s and early 1900s was tremendous . The works of H.Rider Haggard , Joseph Conrad and others set the tone. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was particularly influential. At the same time the the tale of the finding of Doctor Livingstone  caused a sensation and every child knew the reporter's greeting "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" . The quest for the discovery of the source of the Nile - finally resolved by John Hanning Speke in 1858,  contributed to a romantic air surrounding the Continent of Africa. 

This romantic legend tended also to flourish as a result, of the very real commercial activities of the British Cecil Rhodes who was not only a mining entrepreneur , but an enthusiastic British Imperialist whose dream was to build a Cape to Cairo Railway to advance and cement British dominance over the African Continent.

Had we, children of my era, been taught about Africa in a systematic way, this Nineteenth Century preoccupation would have been more strongly founded in earlier history as we were taught it. But no, to us, Egypt was Egypt and not so much thought of as part of Africa (even the Romans were ahead of us there - Scipio Africanus for example - and of course, we were not taught why Africa (Egypt) was so important to the Romans ( grain supplies). We were not even taught systematically the importance of the early Church in North Africa with 160 Dioceses  (including Saint Augustine's Hippo)  Suffice it to say  that Mohammed wrote the Koran in A.D.625 and by A.D. 700 Catholicism in North Africa was wiped out in military slaughter.

Nor were we systematically educated about  missionary activity deeper into Africa or about slavery out of Africa and its extermination. The result was that we were left to absorb the Hollywood, therefore American, idea of slavery. That is that it was a racial, black phenomenon period. Of course that suited American political ideas as they had developed by the time of my childhood, but it did not have so much relationship to the whole history of slavery, which has more often been national based (as opposed to race) or later religion based with Christians being made slaves of Mohammedans.

So, I suppose I am saying that it is little wonder that my ideas of Africa, from my childhood became inadequately formed.

Actual contact with African people, strangely enough came to me at about 4 years of age. My Mum and my Aunt Nell were taking me to Manly Beach and we went part of the way by tram. Sitting opposite us were three American Servicemen all in uniform then proudly worn in war time , and all of them black. They very kindly and politely offered to hand me down from the height of the tram while they also helped the ladies. Well! What a surprising bit of courtesy in a time when Aussie men were painfully awkward about any display of gentility. 

                            Me to-day after the Doctors have done their best.

  I hope by now you can get some idea of the reasoning behind my enthusiasm for this project, and I hope that it will prove interesting to you also. For example it might provoke in some of my African  readers  thoughts about their actual first encounter with a white man, and how it went?

I shall give myself a short break before embarking on the project from the first week in 2015 , at the rate of one country per week, save for the tiniest , which I might deal with in the same week as a larger neighbor.  I plan to start in the North East of Africa and progress across the continent in broad bands coming back to the East each time I hit the the West Coast. Accordingly, my first country will be Egypt! A baptism of fire!