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It is not Multiple Sclerosis, although it has symptoms of MS. Is is not Meniere's, although it has symptoms of Meniere's. It is not Parkinsonsm although it has symptoms of Parkinsons. It is most definitely Peripheral Neuropathy, of both the motor and sensory variety.

In the fall that I took on October 7th I lost consciousness. This does not happen when an MS sufferer falls nor when a Meniere's attack occurs. I did have vertigo and I did spend the evening dry retching. I spent the next two days at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) having both cardiac and neurologic assessments. The raised troponin levels (CPK) were symptomatic of an impending heart attack. But they are also raised when a seisure has occurred. All the muscles at the base of the buttock and down the back of both legs were frozen and took about 24 hours to relax back to normal. Prior to the fall I had the whirling and the flashing in the top RH quadrant which are indicative of vertigo which is a massive aspect of Meniere's.

I returned to work for another 8 days and then the second episode occurred. My son, who was with me organised the ambulance and I was in RPA for four days. I underwent two cardiac procedures: an Angiogram and an Electro-psysiology Study (EPS). The EPS found a wayward electrical beat in my heart and cauterized it. Not too unusual, occurring in about 10% of the population. Extraneous to the other symptoms. The Angiogram indicated that I had a strong heart with minimal heart disease. All this was good. But why was my blood pressure measured in the ambulance at 60/40 and why did it consistently read low during the hospital stay? And if my BP was low, why was I taking 20mg of Coversyl each morning!



Yesterday, I saw the cardiologist again. He is convinced it is not cardiac. But he is leading the holistic team that is nibbling around the symptoms and the test results to try to make sense of the data. With the balance, the gait and the vision problems, he has now suggested an opthalmologist join the team. I have diplopia in the left eye extensively and a little in the right. He could not see nystagmus but the week prior both the neurologists could see this in both eyes.

The extensive testing from the Brain and Mind Institute (BMI) that I underwent during 2008 is available to this new team. This includes many nerve induction tests, a complete body x-ray (13 in all) and a number of MRIs of the head and chest.

I have difficulty determining if the information coming from my eyes to my brain is correct and have to think through crossing the road. It is a bit like a mirage down the other end of the street. I have trouble determining depth when I take a step and am hesitant to put my foot down too firmly. Know when you step off only to realise that there was no further step to negotiate. Imagine that with every other step you take. My balance on the LHS is wonky and I diverge to that side and sometimes have difficulty bringing myself upright again. My friends have convinced my to purchase a walking stick to have with me in my backpack - for rough ground. I now always accept the proffered arm.

The rules are: reduce stress; no driving; stairs with balaustrades only; more sleep; better nutrition; reduce alcohol; wear a hat and reduce heat; and, the hardest one, don't live by myself.

I am staying with my daughter for three weeks. Although I only moved into a new cottage two months ago, I am breaking the lease and moving to another place which is 5 minutes drive from Kirsten and has no internal stairs. It is also on a bus line (the 389) and about 100m from my father's nursing home. Living with Kirsten I am developing better patterns of sleeping, eating and drinking that I will be able to take to the new place with me. Kirsten has both the car and the car keys (for a while I had known that when I stopped the car and opened the door to get out, the bitumen was still moving).

Tomorrow, Friday 6th November, I retire from my job at the university after two weeks sick leave. The job was an experiment which to me did not work. The reports and systems that I created were not used by any of the academics they were created for. I was doing work that was not appreciated and there was never enough of it. This is immensely stressful. Both my children suggested that I stop even though my retirement age (as calculated by the government) was 64. One of my tasks this week is to set up a flexi-pension from my superannuation fund.

I will post this and reread it as the day progresses, adding anything that I think rounds the story out.

How do I feel? Nervous. Apprehensive. Pleased. Positive, perhaps.

My daughter sent me an article called "Diversify Yourself" by Peter Bregman.

Arthur's Circus

A "circus" is a circular arena surrounded by tiers of seats in which public entertainments are held. In ancient Rome a circus was a large, usually oblong or oval, roofless enclosure, surrounded by tiers of seats rising one above another, usually for chariot races. Rome has the Circus Maximus. London has Piccadilly Circus.


So here we have Arthur's Circus. Yes, it is the same Arthur who established the penal settlement that bears his name. The same Arthur who tried to erect a warming wall around the Botanical Gardens. Sir George Arthur, Governor of Van Dieman's Land from 1824 to 1836.


This area in the suburb of Battery Point was purchased by Arthur in 1829 from the Reverend Robert Knopwood.


When Arthur sold the land almost 20 years later, the auction advertisement described "delectable building sites in a neighbourhood that will inevitably become The Resort of the Beau Monde".

Politicians haven't changed much, have they?

The future of the Harold Park site

What are the most important issues that Council should be considering when planning for the renewal of the site?
It is essential that there is no corruption. That the decision is made transparently. The pressure from the Paceway to be compensated for $760m is laughable. They themselves agree that within 5 years they will have no patronage from the public. The area is a valueable geographic area that traces old creeks from Grosse Farm on Petersham Hill down to its entry in the harbour. This should be paramount in the redesign.

How can the Harold Park Site be used, and how can its renewal positively contribute to life in the local area and wider Sydney?
Revert the land as much as possible back to its original shape. Reforest and regrass. The land should be turned over mostly to passive recreation use: no ovals, no apartment blocks, no shopping centres, no parking lots. There could be an amphitheatre serviced by the trams and ferries for the performance of music and drama. There should be an extension of the lite rail over to White Bay and along Wigram Road to Booth Street then Johnson Street. This should be combined with public ferry routes to Glebe Point and The Crescent. The tram sheds should be restored as a historical museum to the working class of early Sydney (1788 - 1939). This should be done by the people from the Loftus Tramway Museum. There should be no apartments built because this would only be afforded by the well-heeled and that is not the heritage of the area.

The Sustainable Sydney 2030 Strategy and the State Government's Draft Subregional Strategies set out some objectives in relation to housing, transport, the environment, community and culture. How do you think the renewal of Harold Park can contribute to these objectives and to Sydney becoming more "Green, Global and Connected"?

Waterfront housing only brings out the greed in us, so it is to be avoided at all costs. Extending the lite rail and the ferries is a green alternative to the car.
Reverting the land to its original shape and reafforesting it is environmentally friendly in the long term. The local community retains a valueable greensward and passive recreation area that slopes down to the harbour. The amphitheatre and the Working Man's Museum pay deference to the culture of the area.

I'm just a kid again

As I was trimming his hair, he tried to explain how he could not remember how to recharge his shaver and had not shaved all week ... later, as we shuffled down to the car, he could still join in with some of the words:

When the red, red, robin Comes bob, bob, bobbin' Along, along, There'll be no more sobbin' When he starts throbbin' His old sweet song. Wake up, wake up you sleepy head, Get up, get up, get out of bed, Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red, Live, love, laugh and be happy. I'm just a kid again, doin' what I did again, Singing a song, When the red, red, robin Comes bob, bob, bobbin' along. I commend to you my Hands post tomorrow ... his energy waxes and wanes ...

Monotone cf colour

I am trying to work out which images work in B&W and which are better left in colour.

It seems to me that B&W requires strong lines and the fewer details the better. Like, I don't think this one works. The colour - minimal though it be - adds to the image. Whereas the previous post works well.

I would value your opinion.

Get to the point

the beauty and the power

on the make

steady

hare and tortoise

Great white waying

My head is spinning from the sheer variety:

Saturday Ann and I were in the matinee audience in the Drama Theatre of the Opera House immersed in a performance of Shakespeare's "Pericles" which was a joint performance by Bell Shakespeare and Taikoz.

Sunday Christine and I were in the Opera Auditorium of the Opera House for the Final Audition of the Young Artist Program of Opera Australia where eight young vocalists performed two arias a-piece for the chance to join the ranks of Opera Australia in 2010.

Last night, my daughter Kirsten and I attended the first performance of a dramaturg at Belvoir St Theatre by the Sydney Street Choir which was a joyous regailing of their individual journeys mirroring the Greek myth of Orpheus & Eurydice.

Defending the colony (1)

This drawing jumps ahead a bit and shows Dawes Point and its battery in 1825. However, it also shows the height of the ridge and the slope to the waters' edge.

Consider the southern approach to the harbour bridge akin to a long, red, fake nail that has been slipped over a finger. I am interested in the finger underneath: what was it like before being graced with the nail; and, how the nail has changed the finger since.

Left: the slope down to The Rocks showing all that is left of the original promontory. Right: The slope down to Millers Point and Dawes Point. You can see the plateau that is now occupied by the Sydney Observatory.

The finger consists of a ridge running out along a promontory and gently sloping down to the water on both sides and around the finger tip. The ridge itself used to be York Street which extended well nigh to the finger pad but which during the late 1920s was dramatically redecorated and aligned to form the southern abuttment of the Harbour Bridge and to be renamed as the Bradfield Highway.

Imagine yourself standing at the point where York St morphs into this highway (facing north): face toward the bridge. To the right of you - to the East - the land gently slopes down from the ridge to the edge of Sydney Cove. This slope is now the inner city suburb known as The Rocks. To the left of you - to the West - the land plateaus for maybe 200 metres before gently sloping down to the edge of Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour. This slope is now the inner city suburb of Millers Point. At the front of the finger - underneath the fake nail to extend the metaphor - the land dramatically slopes down to the harbour waters. This land is known as Dawes Point. It is not a suburb. No-one lives in Dawes Point.

The middle photo was taken in April 1925 and looks down what is left of York St North. The photo on the left, was taken under the bridge showing well-nigh that same view today. Both these photos are facing north. The photo on the right is facing south and shooting along the Mlllers Point side of the bridge approaches. Now see those terraces there that appear to be white? Look in the 1925 photo on the LHS. The same row of terraces.

Governor Arthur Philip granted Lieutenant William Dawes' request to locate an observatory on this high point. Dawes named the northern most extent of the ridge Point Maskelyne after his benefactor, the Astronomer Royal. A roughly housed observatory was constructed but did not long survive the return to England of Dawes - in 1792 - and Philip in December 1791. Dawes' observatory is not the Observatory that we have today.

This high ridge was an ideal vantage point from which to defend the early colony and that is pretty much the role it played from 1792 until about 1920.

The Dawes point hypothesis ...

This is not a definitive answer: I have unearthed no official documentation.


This structure was part of the rebuilding of Millers Point after much of the suburb was razed as a response to the bubonic plague just prior to WW1. The plague was used as an excuse by the state government of the day to take control of the area and develop the maritime infrastructure that is so essential for an island continent. Hickson Road was carved through the suburb and ended at the edge of the harbour beneath the Dawes Point Battery which stood on the high part of Dawes Point facing to the east and was an essential part of the defence of the colony.


This entire wharf area was restricted, with the hoi-poloi kept out

From 1910 to 2005 the general public was kept out of Walsh Bay for their own safety and the security of goods being discharged.

When the old Sydney Harbour Trust took charge in about 1913, they sliced through the area and carved out Hickson Road which, effectively, separated the residential area of Millers Point from the maritime area of Walsh Bay.


As I said in my post on Sydney Eye

Hickson Road - named after Robert Hickson, an Irishman who was the first president of the Sydney Harbour Trust - was carved from the steep slope that ran down to Walsh Bay. Henry Walsh - after whom the wharf area was named and who migrated to Australia from Ireland in 1877 - was the Chief Publc Works Engineer between 1901 and 1919 instigating improvements to the ports of Sydney and Newcastle.

Now look at these diagrams:


See in the RHS photo how Hickson Road snakes through and does a big curve to the right at Pier 1. This is the location of the towerette. It is in line with the curve of the sandstone escarpment. Now look at the sandstone blocks embedded in the bitumen: they run from the towerette in the direction of the escarpment which has been "lined" with a very similar sandstone block. The LHS image shows just how intrusive Hickson Road was: how much land was resumed. The sandstone footings noticed by Sally - and totally overlooked by muggins here - are in line from the tower to the sandstone reinforced escarpment.

Looking at these three historic photographs:

There is a timber structure in three (small) sections that is very close to where the towerette now stands. This timber structure (to my eyes) is very similar to a structure on the Opera House walk which now sells coffee but whose original purpose was a tram control point going toward Fort Macquarie. These photos were taken as they were excavating for the southern abutment, the first in April and the other two in May of 1925. The more fascinating photo is the one in the middle which faces west. Look immediately beyond the diggings, yet before Pier 1: there is a small building with pointed eaves. This is what reminds me of a tram control point. Check them out in that old photo that you published of Railway Sq. Sally. Now look immediately in FRONT of this TCP ... dah-dah!! Note that the SHB did not disturb the railings.

I put these things together: people were supposed to be kept out; and, the escarpment ended in an entry point which was overseen by this towerette and (possibly) another towerette on the landward side - now lost to history, like so much else. My best guess: this was constructed immediately prior to WW1 and was part of a control gate, either to control trams or to keep people away from the wharf area, in which case I would expect a similar structure on the Barangaroo side. Now to find out where the trams ran in Millers Point. I think it is now time to contact someone in the council or the SHFA to see if they have anything to help us.

The Dawes Point puzzle ...

Sally has a post with a puzzle today: HB and sandstone and I simply cannot resist an historical treasure-hunt. So I have beavered away this evening chasing down clues ...
Here is Sally's photo on the left with the little structure in question. On the right is a photo I took going out to Cockatoo Island during the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend. Sal took her's on the Saturday and I mine on the Monday. But I digress ...

This image is captioned "HMAS Canberra sailing into Sydney Harbour in 1930" ... look down there to the left of the pylon - near the bow of that tug boat ... could it be ... So it could be that it was in situ prior to the bridge going up. But surely they would not leave it there during construction with all the mess flying around it stood a good chance of being damaged. But as I look more closely, the closest shore is the northern abutments of the bridge. HMAS Canberra is going INTO the harbour. And over there is the southern shore. Looking carefully I can just make out the smoke stack which is just to the east of the southern approaches of the Bradfield Highway. So there is a similar little structure on the northern shore in 1930. This doesn't make sense - yet!

So what was on the southern point (Dawes Point) immediately prior to them demolishing the whole lot for the southern approaches? In 1789 Lt Dawes created a rough observatory with scientific instruments lent to him by Maskelyne. Dawes named the area Point Maskelyne after the Astronomer Royal, but our forebears were not much into boot-licking either and just called it Dawes' Point. The Dawes Point Battery site was further down toward the water than Dawes' own observatory. Dawes himself had nothing to do with the Battery. More on the history of this in the next post.

The railings are interesting. There are similar railings on the other side of Sydney Cove around the Opera House Walk. However, there is a blacksmith working out in the Everleigh Carriageworks Precinct who has a massive reputation:

Guido Gouverneur's work appears all over Sydney. The New Zealand-born master blacksmith's most recent big-scale commission, which occupied him from April to December last year (2007), was the restoration of the balustrade at Dawes Point, running from Horseferry Steps to Pier 1. "It was a huge undertaking for us, restoring it properly and getting the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority to recognise that it should be done properly," says Gouverneur.The balustrade had been spot-repaired over years but this was a much larger project: the posts were lifted from their sandstone base and corroded elements were replaced - in some sections, old bars from Parramatta Jail replaced damaged posts.

You can see the railing all along the walk in Sally's photo and again her that I photographed last year:

The above book should give me more information:The Fragile Forts: The Fixed Defences of Sydney Harbour 1788 - 1963 i have borrowed it from Fisher Library at the University and will use it to inform the next post.

There are steps down in this area variously known as Ives Steps and Horseferry Steps. Need to track down the derivation of Horseferry Steps. The ferry from Milson's Point (prior to the SHB) did not stop here but went directly to the Quay.

On the left here is the southern approaches to the bridge dated 1925. On the right is the tram and ferry terminal over at Milson's Point dated about 1920.

Keeping tally on the waters of Purgatory

The house Laurie built 1950-1951, corner Sherbrook Road and Pulbrook Parade, Hornsby

"My life hasn't been a total waste, you know: I've built a few houses in my time. Wanna see the one in Sherbrooke Road today?"

Dying is a long and winding road.

Norm Ingram was the bloke who helped me build the sunroom on the back of Hunter Street, then I asked him to help me build on the block of land I bought down the bottom of Sherbrook Road. We only worked Saturdays on it: sunrise to sunset though, and I picked him up in the Bedford and delivered him home after. He lived on Pennant Hills Road just down from Pearce's Corner. Took us over a year but Norm agreed to be paid only after I sold it which was not easy being not long after the War and I'd only take cash. I got finance from Ray Aspinall who managed the Bank of New South Wales on the corner of Florence and George, just near the station.

Letter written by Laurie to his mother, Sylvia Irene Veronica Cole, October 1956 when he was building a house on the farm with my older brother, Barry, as his only companion. All six pages form this one letter.

Timber was hard to come by after the war: nothing second-hand, mind you. Not DAR but I insisted on newly milled. Had contact with this bloke with a lumber yard on the highway down in Roseville. Huh, I remember one darned day, when I loaded the truck up with 40 foot planks. They were so long, I couldn't just dangle 'em over the tray: the coppers would've bin onta me like the proverbial off a shovel. So, I had to reload them so they sat up over the cabin AND dangled off the back. That was tough work. Well, I was on me way back up the highway and I was over the rail bridge past the pub on the left and part-way up Pymble hill ... yeah yeah ... Jools see where that car is parked ... 'bout there ... when the bloody load shifted and the clatter was enough to get all the drinkers out from behind the bar to gawp at me. Bludgers ... they were muttering and frothing ... but a couple took pity on me and gave me a hand.

Not long after that, I was slaving away one day when the bloke who owned the block next door came and asked me if I wanted to buy it from him. I only ever did cash in those days: so I haggled with him a spell and ended up buying for 100 quid. I sold it about a year later for 200 quid. Didn't tell the Deputy Commissioner, though.

I didn't make much dough from Sherbrook road but gee, I got good experience from it.

What other houses have you built?

Well, the one on the farm, right? And the one in Denman: in Turtle Street ... ... ...

Left: Farm house built by Laurie during 1956 Right: House built in Denman by Laurie during 1962

And didn't you build one down in the Riverina?

Yeah, yeah the one for the Chaunceys: they came from out Myambat way. Geez, they were a funny pair. Never seen a father'n'son fight so much. They would go at it hammer'n'tongs: really belting into each other. Yeah ... I built one for them, too.

Never made much money outa building things ... ... ...


The letter bears witness to this: 300 pound - after costs - for slaving his heart out every Saturday for over a year.

Collecting: Family letters (3)

Written by my grandmother - Sylvia Irene Veronica - to her younger sister - Vera - on the death of Vera's infant son, Laurie Boots. Both Sylvia and Vera married men named Willl. Written in November 1922 when Sylvia was nearly 27 (with a 3 year old son, Gordon and a 1 year old son, also named Laurie) and Vera 25. Grandma was living out in Wetherill Park with just a horse (Dick) and sulky to get around. To come in to Drummoyne where her parents lived took most of the day.

The extreme religiosity of this letter takes me back: Sylvia was not a church-going woman in all the time that I knew her (1948 to 1984). She was obviously distraught about the death so early of her sister's son. In 1956 she lost her own 30 year old youngest son; and, in 1972 she lost her only daughter at the age of 43. This is but a photocopy, but it is interesting to compare the handwriting of Sylvia aged 15 in the previous Collecting post and this but a short 12 years later.

Taken in 1926 at Wetherill Park, Sylvia aged 31 jiggles her third son, Athol Reginald who was to die on a curb in London in 1956. Excerpts from Athol's diary (14 Dec 1949 to 17 March 1951)will take us on an altogether different journey. If Sylvia was 27 when this letter was written, and 31 when holding Athol, then her husband, Will (William George) aged from 44 to 48 over the same period. She was a workaholic; he a lazybones.

On beauty

Beauty has little to do with physical perfection. Beauty inhabits age; it inhabits decay. A rotting fence post, consumed by lichens, fungi and termites has beauty. A sheet of iron, distorted by weather, ill-used by man and pocked with rust has beauty. A bloom past its best, meltingly brown with weathered decay, epitomises beauty.
Human beauty must house life experience to flourish. This life experience is fueled by intellect, ethics, courage and loss. And each comes in differing quantities: painting beauty a myriad styles. Age alone is not sufficient. Not all aged people are beautiful; nor all young people merely pretty. As Maria twirled into the fabric before the mirror, she felt pretty. Many forms of narcissim are mere prettiness. In the 50s Tony Curtis was pretty, but as he aged his internal emptiness disolved this prettiness into grotesque ugliness. Vanessa Redgrave's intellect and commitment transformed her youthful prettiness into the most becoming of beauty.

Beauty is not the result of makeup, airbrushing or cutting and stretching. Crows feet and creases have an inherent beauty that botox can erase but cannot replicate. Beauty resides within the listener moreso than the speaker. Beauty radiates from quiet meditation rather than the garrulous spotlight. Assuaging an inner emptiness with alcohol, nicotine and amphetamines ravages all prettiness, converting it into a walking grotesqerie.


Beauty grows as a life is lived naturally: without bitterness, with sincerity, without jealousy, with intellect, ethically, courageously and in response to love. Beauty has everything to do with acceptance: of self, of others and of time.

Collecting: Family letters (2)

The handwriting is very carefully formed, the manner deferential and self-effacing and the range of interests constrained and homely. We move on nearly fifteen years from the first "letter" announcing the birth of my grandmother, this next offering was written by her: Sylvia Irene Veronica Cole. This gem of a collectable was written in 1910 when SIVC was a whisker past 14 years of age; written from Tamworth, a small country town in the northern tablelands of NSW; written to HER grandparents. The watercolour gives me a thrill each time I study it. My older brother, who saw it for the first time this past weekend, was mesmerised.

Sylvia's mother was Sarah-Annie and HER mother married three times (Evans, Finch, Faull) all of whom were road-workers and Australian. Ma Cole was not highly educated and I surmise that her own mother was even less so. My guess is that in this letter, Sylvia is writing to her paternal Grandmother, Hannah Wilkins Cole, who remained in England and to whom her husband Steven, returned after a brief sojourn in the Antipodes.

A wee slip of a girl who was to bear four children to a man 17 years her senior; to lose the two younger children whilst continuing to live to 88 years of age. A grandmother who told me about her astonishment on her wedding night; who poo-pooed her garulous older spinster sister's pontifications about married life: "what would she know!" I adored her.

SIVC in 1916, aged 21; and, in 1942 aged 47, with two sons serving in the AIF in New Guinea.

Collecting: Family letters (1)

All the collectable documents I have are from the paternal line.

Taken in the late-1880s, the first photograph shows Great-grandfather, Charles Wilkins Cole - seated with the beard - with his first two sons at his knee. My Great-aunt Olive was born in 1889 and she is not present. This was taken at Jamieson in Victoria and I have the original. In the back row, the older gentleman is Steven Cole who is Charles Wilkins' father. He migrated to Australia from England on 19th January 1860 aged 25 for the princely sum of 32 pounds.


This note passes for a birth registration/notice. It is written by Charles Wilkins Cole and announces the birth of my grandmother. Gilgunnia is a very small town in the centre of the state of New South Wales. Once again, I have the original.


This final photograph - I don't have the original - shows Charles Wilkins Cole (Pa) and his family in 1924. He died in 1934 aged not quite 80. His wife - Sarah Annie (Ma) is still seated next to him - and they are surrounded by their seven surviving children, two having died not long after birth. Overlooking the young girl in the background, my grandmother is standing second from the right.

Tough love

Parenthood is one of the toughest career moves one can make - courageous even, Minister.

I imagine that the term originated in the Americas somewhere: I have no intention of researching it. I simply do not want to know any more: tough love is letting your children fend for themselves until they see the light and come around to doing things (living their life) your way. What sort of love is that? You withhold affection, discussion, consultation to show you love them. You insist that it is your way or the highway to show you love them. Huh? This is not tough love; this is self obsession.

I get given this advice frequently: don't help him move - he lost his licence and must learn the consequences of his actions. Don't subsidise his rent - he can still afford to go to raves. Don't take him trolley shopping - he still smokes and drinks, and the choice is his. He needs to get a decent job with a future rather than rattling around hotels as a barman until the early hours. There is a lot of talk here and not much listening.

I go back to when my children were growing up. I guess they were always different from each other in their reactions and personality - but not their character. Personality is nature; character is nurture. One is a rule follower; one is a rule bender. Breaker even. One is a pillar of the community; one is a rebel, moreso than that. One takes after her father; the other takes after his mother.


My daughter is in a stable relationship (married even), has three degrees and works in the management of one of our top law firms. She owns her own apartment in a swish suburb. She has a cat and tries to grow herbs and fails miserably. She is taking evening classes to realise her desire to write: last week I was asked to look at a draft of a children's story.

My son goes through relationships quickly: there have been two of substance. He is currently in his third attempt at a degree. Having excelled at Maths, Physics and Chemistry at High School he is currently enrolled in Psychology and Religion. It is this latter that he actually enjoys. That is what he is looking for: things he enjoys. He shares a two storey terrace in Glebe. He has a cat. On Saturday I was asked for assistance with a photographic issue which resulted in me lending him my camera. He was down near the Fish Markets under the old tram viaducts with a bunch of friends doing a clothing shoot. I could hear the doof doof doof as I pulled into the cul-de-sac.

As I drove back up Ross Street, I wondered what on earth I had done - and WHY?? I was sick to the stomach. He is forever losing things: he places little value on possessions. He is very aboriginal in that sense. He shares everything. It is like when he told me a couple of weeks ago that he had been fired and accused of stealing all in the same conversation. I did not ask whether it was true. I knew it wasn't true. I had no need to ask. We sat on the floor of the stairwell in the student union. He talked and I listened. So on Saturday. He had a problem; I had a means to solve that problem.

I did not notice the text come in whilst I was at Shirley's for dinner on Saturday evening. I did not notice it until Sunday morning. It had been sent at 9:19 Saturday night: "Your camera is home and we're just getting the photos off :) Thanks".

I forgot to add, that as I handed it to him under the viaduct, I looked him in the eyes and asked: "Al, do you value your balls?"

On being mentored

Living in a country town of 800 people limits not only your options, but also your horizons: you watch your feet rather than the road ahead. In a village this size, where turnover is low, new blood mixes slowly.

Luckily for this little blow-in, the headmaster of the public school was also a stranger. A staunch Roman Catholic with 13 children, I went to his house each Saturday afternoon where he would chat to me about the book I had just finished, suggest others and leave me to choose from his extensive home library. He introduced me to both Hemingway and Steinbeck. In 1962 - the year I was 14 - I must have had a busy Saturday, as the mornings were spent learning to type on the kitchen table of the wife of the Anglican Rector. As I typed she would sit opposite and shell peas or read me poetry. To this day, I have to look for keys along the top row because she gave birth before we reached it!

My third mentor during my teenage years was in 1967, where in a desperate need to belong, I took instruction in Catholicism. By then I had moved to a large industrial town and was boarding with a family while my university life crashed down around my ears. Once again my Saturday afternoon was devoted to chatting to someone whom I trusted and looked up to: Hemingway gave way to the theological thoughts of Schillebeckx. In August that year I entered a mental hospital. From there on out, I have been my own mentor.

A mentor is not someone who gives advice: rather a mentor should open up options. A mentor is a facilitator not a teacher. People are quick to give advice but expect the listener to take that advice. Rarely is advice given to open up options, rather it is given to narrow them.

When I was about 14, I confided to my mother that I wanted to be a doctor. She became angry with me and said that was a stupid thing to say because girls could only become nurses. When I finished High School, I won two scholarships: one gave me enough to live on but tied me to being a teacher. The other placed no restrictions but gave less money and I would have to both work and rely on my folks. I asked my father for advice; he declined, saying that his own father had always made his decisions for him and he did not want to do that for me. In 1966 it still grated that, in 1939, his own father would not sign the papers for him to enter the Navy, aged 18. I was told to go to my room and think it through. I went to Teachers' College.

What would it have been good to have a mentor to chat with about?

If you change jobs or towns or states you don't have to change friends. You take the old friends with you and make new friends.

It is okay to like activities that others consider geeky. Different friends fill different needs. Go to films with one. Go to musicals with another. Go on tram walks with complete strangers.

Always be open to influence and be prepared to change. No matter how old you are, change is normal. Don't lock your head and your heart away in the past.

Parents are just people struggling along as best they can.

Don't volunteer too quickly.

Individual talent is not a burden that the world has a responsibility to recognise; it is a treasure that the individual could just privately nurture, if that is their choice.

This piece was written at the behest of Altadena Hiker who is used to my sombre style. If I may, I will decline to tag others in my stead.