Notice anything?

 

 

No overweight people! This photo was taken in my (c)old hometown twenty-five years after the war. The years of starvation were over but it was still some time before the Golden Arches became omnipresent, and people still ate when they were hungry and not just out of boredom.

The building in the background housed the indoor pool. As pre-teen "Volksschüler" in the 1950s our teachers would take us there to teach us the art of survival in an alien element, commonly known as 'swimming', which culminated in a certificate from the Deutschen Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft (DLRG) to say that we had managed to cross the length of the pool without filling our lungs completely with chlorinated water. This entitled us to wear this "Freischwimmer" badge on our swimtrunks.

 

 

Those were the days of what I hereby claim to be the German invention of the extra-short "Dreiecksbadehose", popularised by an Australian prime minister as 'budgie smugglers' but satirised well before then by the American author P.J. O'Rourke with these words: "The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German." As I grew older and began to hitchhike all over Europe and North Africa, I was always able to spot a German from miles away, long before I could even hear him, by his small "Badehose".

 

 

Not that all of us poor and underprivileged "Volksschüler" had the means to buy this then 'de rigueur' swimwear; some of us had a loose-fitting version stitched together by our mothers from leftover material, with one really poor one even showing up in - blessedly clean - underpants.

To get into the indoor pool, we received a metal token and a coloured elastic band. The metal token went into a meter which made the hot water flow and, after just a short few minutes, made it stop again, which wasn't surprising as few of us had the luxury of a bathroom at home and would've happily spent hours under those hot showers.

The coloured elastic had to be worn on the wrist to indicate when we entered the pool. A large "clock" hung over the pool which, instead of numerals, was divided into various colour zones, and as soon as the large hand ever so slowly entered "our" colour zone, we had to leave the pool and return to the change-room. All very orderly and very "German".

I've forgotten if there was the chance of a second shower on the way out. What I haven't forgotten is the day my mother stitched that highly coveted "Freischwimmer" badge onto my swim shorts which were short but never as short as the extra-short "Dreiecksbadehose" which to this day I have spurned to wear despite having voted Liberals all my life.

 

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After Hillside, it's been all downhill

 

A sketch of the Hillside Hostel by Walter Dubrow, c.1957

 

When I first came to Canberra, I moved into a place called Hillside Hostel because it sat on a hill, but not just any hill – it was on Capital Hill, which is where the New Parliament House now stands. The wide expanse of Capital Hill had been significant for Hillside because local residents had complained about the proposed construction of a men's hostel in their suburb. Capital Hill was a compromise; it kept the men away from the general populace, from the housewives across the city. It kept them safe.

Aside from its conspicuous location, Hillside was so notorious because it had the worst living conditions. The rooms were spartan apart from the dust and cobwebs. They smelt of linseed oil from the bulky brown linoleum tiles curling up on the floor. Dirty yellow newspaper sheets were laid out under the lino covering the pine floorboards. The mattresses were horse hair and riddled with fleas. The walls were one hundred percent pure unadulterated asbestos. Roofs were galvanised, with pools of water that collected in the corridors.

There was never any hot water, which meant that showers were taken cold. In the middle of a Canberra winter, this was especially bracing. The men were given one towel per week – holey, stained, malodorous – along with slivers of soap. The shower blocks had no tiles, doors, curtains or dividers.

In the mess, a bottle of black sauce half full of sediment sat in the middle of each table alongside two empty sauce bottles filled with salt and sugar. On Saturday mornings, the scrambled eggs – made from dried egg powder – tasted of fish fried in the same aluminium pan the night before. The porridge was sugary sweet and attracted swarms of blowflies.

The occupants were a chaos of cultures: Poles, Maltese, Yugoslavs, Balts, Greeks. When it came to the Italians and Germans, the memories of the war were still fresh in people's minds. I heard of a few Germans who were told to leave their worksites in the middle of the day simply because the foreman didn't approve of them.

I left Hillside Hostel after a few months when I joined the ANZ Bank who moved me into Barton House in nearby Brisbane Avenue, where most of their single men were billetted. Hillside Hostel finally closed in 1968.

It took another twelve years before work began on building the new Parliament House where the hostel once stood. While Hillside Hostel had seen the odd scuffle or bare-knuckle fistfight, it was nothing compared to the bloodsport that now takes place inside the new Parliament House.

All this came back to me when I diescovered this Court Notice hidden away in the backpages of the Canberra Times of Wednesday, 11 June 1952:

 

 

Rudolf "Rudi" Klug had arrived in Melbourne as a "Jennings German" aboard the NAPOLI in 1951, and had like me lived in Hillside Hostel.

 

From October 1961 to February 1952, 150 "Jennings Germans" came to Australia; 12 on the SKAUBRYN, 36 on the NAPOLI, 42 on the CASTEL BIANCO, 53 on the NELLY, and 7 on the ANNA SALEN. For the full German Jennings story, click here

 

He had married, had become an Australian, and had divorced again ...

 

Sydney Airport Arrival Card from October 1969
returning on LUFTHANSA flight LH692 from Frankfurt via Bangkok

 

... and, despite his "criminal record", had become the owner of the multi-million-dollar businesses Canberra Roof Trusses (CRT), CFM Kitchens, and Canberra Fascia Boards by the time I met him sometime in the late 1980s after he had called me to computerise the accounting functions of all his businesses which saved him lots of money and made me quite a bit, too.

His business lives on as CRT Building Products but, judging by his date of birth, I doubt he's still "riding after dark a motor cycle that did not have a rear light showing". Having had you as a client, it's been good knowing you, Rudi, and I trust you enjoy the rest after a long and successful life.

 

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In memory of Joan and Ron Hogan

 

This is NOT the guest cottage; this is my personal retreat 'Bonniedoon'

 

Our guest cottage, in which the original owners of "Riverbend" are said to have lived while they built the 'Big House', has always been empty, and so we were happy to hand it over to anyone who wanted to spend a relaxing week by the river - free of charge, of course.

During my time with the Australian National University, I took scores of foreign students down to "Riverbend" for a bit of a taste of Australian beaches and the countryside, by which they could kindly remember their time in Australia after they had returned to their home countries.

At one time, I even handed the key to the cottage to a barman at the Austrian Club who wanted to give his son a holiday of canoeing and swimming in the Clyde River but lacked the money to do so. They spent an enjoyable week at "Riverbend", at the end of which they left the key under the mat and a message scribbled hastily on the bottom of a pizza box, "Thanks, Peter!" From memory, it was a "Hawaiian Supreme".

 

Signed 'Joan Hogan, 2006'

 

Not everyone was as thoughtless as that, and we still fondly remember Joan and Ron Hogan who were good friends from our time with the Eurobodalla Country Music and Social Club. They spent a week - or was it two? - in our guest cottage sometime in 2006. A few weeks after they had left, a big parcel arrived. In it was the above watercolour of Riverbend's jetty, painted by Joan Hogan during their stay with us.

The painting now has pride of place in "Bonniedoon", and every time I open my eyes after a refreshing afternoon nap, I look at it again. Joan and Ron are both dead now but their memory lives on at "Riverbend".

 

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"Here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La"

 

 

Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common that they had believed they had."

So begins the Prologue to James Hilton's Lost Horizon which is perhaps best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.

I first read the book after I had come down from Burma to Singapore in 1975 and stayed in the newly-opened Shangri-La Hotel on Orchard Road. There, on the bedside table in my deluxe room in the Garden Wing, was a complimentary copy with the hotel's inscription "Inspired by the legendary land featured in James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, the name Shangri-La encapsulates the serenity and service for which our hotels and resorts are renowned worldwide" on its cover.

 

"This captivating story you are about to read was written in 1933 by an English novelist who wrote of an idyllic settlement high in the mountains of Tibet. Today, even amongst those who have never heard of Lost Horizon, the words 'Shangri-La' stand as a synonym for paradise. In 1971, a deluxe hotel was founded in the thriving city of Singapore in Southeast Asia. In choosing the name Shangri-La, there was a desire to set a standard, to create an identity that would eventually produce a group of hotels unique in the world. As the group expanded, it has sought to retain all the ideals of its mythical namesake. Serenity, harmony and natural beauty, all characteristics of the Shangri-La group. This enchanting book will give you a glimpse of this world. A world once imagined, a dream that has become a reality. We hope you enjoy it."

 

"Lost Horizon" had been published in 1933, a year in which the world needed romance and adventure more than ever. As the dark clouds of another war gathered on the horizon, and as unemployment and near-starvation added to the gloom, Hilton's novel offered readers a welcome means of escape - escape into a sanctuary hidden from the cruel world. Shangri-La is not a retreat from the future men cannot endure; it is a shelter against conditions that already existed in 1932.

If Shangri-La is a utopia, it is smaller than most in both size and idealistic vision. Except for semi-immortality, it offers nothing that the world does not already possess. Happy natives provided food and clothing. The valley had its own gold mine, and the High Lama imported only carefully selected luxuries deemed truly beneficial to health and happiness. The monks had discovered the key to longevity, and devoted their extra years to the appreciation of life and the pursuit of wisdom. Rejecting the virtues of hard work and ambition, they adopted a philosophy of moderation in all things, "avoiding excess of all kinds - even excess of virtue itself".

Shangri-La is modelled on the classical Greek view of moderation, including moderation to immortality. Hilton realised that absolute immortality was unlikely to be believed by his readers. Instead, he wins them over with a more plausible dream: a long life, enhanced by good health, spent in quiet contentment. Conway, the main protagonist in the book, realises that, for all its allure, Shangri-La is a prison and he must choose between a long life as its supreme ruler and freedom at the risk of death.

Conway's dilemma is our dilemma because we all have the need for such a place, even if only in our imagination.

Here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La!

 

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P.S. I even have some of my shirts still wrapped up in Shangri-La laundry bags, and never worn since. How's that for a souvenir from long ago?

 

P.P.S. The long-forgotten Lux Radio Theatre broadcast "Lost Horizon" and other radio-plays. It's what you get when you wash with Lux toilet soap ☺

 

A change of pace on a quiet Sunday afternoon

 

Click on Watch on YouTube to watch the full-length movie
Apologies for the Spanish subtitles; it's the only copy available on YouTube

 

No other novel in the canon of Hermann Hesse's fiction matches the immense appeal pf "Siddhartha". Inspired by Hesse's profound regard for Indian philosophy and written in prose of almost biblical simplicity, it chronicles the quest of the Brahmin Siddhartha for the conquest of suffering and fear.

His tortuous road leads him through the temptations of luxury and wealth, the delights of sensual love, and the sinister threat of death-dealing snakes, towards fulfilment of his destiny as a ferryman guided by the all-knowing voice of the running river ...

 

 

To read the book, click here; or listen to the audio book here.

 

 

It's low tide in the river, and I'm in need of some refreshments as well.

 

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