All Quiet On The Western Front

 

 

This story is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." [click here]

So begins Erich Maria Remarque's book "All Quiet On The Western Front", the most famous anti-war novel ever written. Remarque wrote his novel hoping it would be the last word on war; for anyone who has never seen a war movie, maybe this should be their first. It is more grisly, more disturbing, and more sadistic than any Hollywood horror movie in 2023.

It ought to put you in the right frame eleven minutes past the eleventh hours on this eleventh day of the eleventh month when the fighting on the Western Front officially ceased 108 years ago. Lest we forget!

 

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"It's your turn to shout!"

 

Nino Culotta tasting his first Australian beer

 

There was never an excuse not to return a shout other than saying that you had run out of money, but even that didn't work in Papua New Guinea where every bartender kept an ample supply of blank cheque forms behind the bar.

You just told him which bank you were with and he would give you one of their cheque forms which you filled out and signed with a drunken florish. By month-end you would receive your bank statement which showed a succession of five and ten dollar debits (remember that in those days a WHOLE CARTON of beer was around seven dollars!) which left you with just enough money for the groceries, if you were lucky.

Woe betide you if you had written a cheque for an amount in excess of whatever was left in your account. In the absence of prior arrangements with the bank, such as an overdraft facility, that cheque was "bounced".

Before going to New Guinea, it was my job as ledger examiner with the ANZ Bank to spot such "dishonoured cheques" and decide what to do with them. It was the bank's duty not to embarrass its customers and so a cheque was first examined for 'technical irregularities' for which it could be "dishonoured" before a lack of funds was finally admitted.

If there was a difference between the amounts written in words and figures, it was returned with the answer "Amounts Differ". If it had not been endorsed by the stated payee, it was likely to be sent back with "Endorsement Required". If the cheque was signed, perhaps in an alcoholic stupor, in an illegible hand, the bank would refuse to accept it with the words "Signature unlike specimen held". A cheque dated twelve months ahead of time was always marked as a "Post-Dated Cheque"; likewise, a cheque dated more than twelve months past was refused as "Stale Cheque". Those who knew that they had insufficient funds left in their account, often abused this by 'accidentally' in- or decreasing the cheque's date by one year, from (say) 2026 to 2027 or 2026 to 2025.

Only when all those irregularities had been exhausted, would the bank concede that a cheque had been issued with insufficient funds in the account. The answer could be a mild "Present Again" if the bank was expecting to receive a deposit soon and was happy to allow the unauthorised overdraft for the time it took for the cheque to be represented, or it was "bounced" with a loud thud by immediately returning it with the words "Refer to Drawer" or "Insufficient Funds".

Then there were those rare occasions when a customer would 'fly a kite' between two bank accounts, each at a different branch or even a different bank from the other. He would then draw a cheque on the first bank account which he would deposit into the second account, while at the same time drawing a cheque on the second account which he would deposit into the first account. In this manner, he constantly maintained an artificially increased balance of "uncleared funds" as cheques still had to be physically presented at each bank, which could take days.

Such 'kite-flying' resulted in certain patterns which had to be spotted before any cheques could be dishonoured because of "Uncleared Funds", after which the customer was called in and given a stiff reprimand. If he continued the practice, he would be ask to take his business elsewhere.

(Never mind that to this day when all transactions are electronically and instantly processed, it still takes three working days from the time you deposit a cheque until the proceeds are available as cleared funds in your account, while the account of the person who drew the cheque is immediately debited. This "float" earns the banks millions of dollars.)

And all this, balancing the books - still done manually in those day - and returning dishonoured cheques to the presenting bank, had to be done before the close of business each day. It was a race against time five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, on a paltry salary of $200 a month.

 

 

Luckily, I left the ANZ Bank fifty-six years ago or I would be out of job now because from 30 June 2028 no cheques of any kind will be issued, and any cheques after that date will no longer be accepted, and no payment will be made. Finally, I have an excuse not to return a shout!

 

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An irrelephant elephant

 

 

We've just come back from a walk across the bridge to the village to see how the other half lives. First they welcome you in a lingo that even the Abos no longer speak - walawaani njindiwan - and now they display an elephant and a tiger. What next? A polar bear?

 

'Habitat loss' I understand, but what do they mean by 'fragmentation'?

 

And who's that elephant in the room park? It's totally irrelephant!

 

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"Dun Roamin'"

 

 

I had planned to be in bed by ten o'clock last night to listen to the ABC's Late Night Live, but instead I stayed on in the warm library reading "D.H. Lawrence at Thirroul" by Joseph Davis until well past Late Night Live and I am now feeling more dead than alive.

The book is about D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda living at Thirroul, some 200 kilometres north of here, during the winter of 1922. There they rented "Wyewurk", a holiday bungalow which overlooked the sea, although Lawrence wasn't simply on holidays: he was there to write his great Australian novel, "Kangaroo", in less than six weeks. The book tells the story of how "Kangaroo" was written, of the historic house "Wyewurk" and of the township of Thirroul, which was then a mining town and a key to understanding an important creative period in Lawrence's life.

 

Read it online at www.archive.org

 

It's been a while since I read my battered old copy, but I still remember its first chapter heading "Torestin" which left me wondering, as it did Richard Lovat Somers, the novel's semi-autobiographical protagonist (based on D.H. Lawrence himself), as to its meaning. It then dawned on me - and him - that it meant "To rest in" and harks back to a time when Australians gave their houses quirky, humorous, or often literal names.

 

"Wyewurk" today, front ↑ and back ↓ - click here and here.

Why work indeed when the fortunate occupant of 'Wyewurk' can tumble out of bed on its sheltered verandah, run down the path to the beachside, and in thirty seconds revel in the tunbling froth of the breakers?

 

The house at 3 Craig Street in Thirroul where Lawrence stayed, had originally been given the name "Idle Here". This was later changed to "Wyewurk" (Why work), probably inspired by its now sadly demolished neighbour "Wyewurrie" (Why worry). And think of the other Australian house names of that era: the quite common "Emoh Ruo", which was simply "Our Home" spelled backwards, or "Dun Roamin", a classic pun expressing that the owners are "done roamin'" and have settled down, and the modest house named "Thislldome" (or This'll do me) was quite enough for the owners, while "Linga Longa" needed no explanation.

 

 

Remembering those humorous house names takes me back to a better, a gentler time in Australia, as does watching the movie that was made of D.H. Lawrence's novel. It's a wonderfully relaxing start to another wonderfully relaxing day at "Riverbend" which was already known by that name when I bought it. If not, I would've named it "Dun Roamin'".

 

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Herberge zur Heimat

 

Ecke Broitzemer Straße/Juliusstraße

 

A nice person in my hometown Braunschweig, to whom I described my walk to work during the three years I was articled to an insurance company - the longest, incidentally, I have ever worked for one employer in one place - sent me the above photo of the location of a refuge for old men which I used to pass every day.

The building, a "Herberge zur Heimat" or hostel for journeymen, which when I walked past had already degenerated into a doss house for the destitute, was demolished in 1971. All that's left is a fence around what is now a small park wedged in between two busy roads where at one time lived men who perhaps through no fault of their own had fallen on hard times and who had to live out their lives depending on charity.

 

 

Those were lean years with so many to be pitied all around us, that those of us who at least had a roof over our heads and just enough to eat, could barely spare the "Mitleid" or feeling of pity for those less fortunate. And yet, as I would walk past there each morning and see some lodger leaning out of a window on the ground floor of that doss house, I felt I had to acknowledge his humanity with a short wave.

I was far too young then to know what it must be like to be old and forgotten and dependent on charity - perhaps I may even have felt arrogant enough to think that this could never happen to me and, thankfully, it never did but I am no longer arrogant to think that hard work alone saved me - and I certainly was in no position to help them.

That building is now a park and the men I once waved to are long dead, but misery and misfortune are still around us, however invisible it may seem at times. Whenever I see any of it, I allow myself to be moved by it and give them a wave and, if asked, a crisp banknote because none of us will ever know if not one day, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

 

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