"Lawrence of Arabia" is dead

 

Irish actor Peter O'Toole, the star of the 1962 Oscar-winning epic Lawrence of Arabia, has died aged 81.

I must've watched this movie more than a dozen times since my own time in Saudi Arabia. And, for old times' sake, I might watch it again tonight.

By the way, the only female in the film was Gladys the camel - but, of course, you already knew that!

 

My personalised parking space

 

I've just returned from a spot of shopping in Batemans Bay which turns into bedlam every time we celebrate the birth of a certain child born in Bethlehem.

However, I was happy to see that the Village Shopping Centre had reserved a special parking space for me.

 

Breakfast at Betty's

 

Betty Heycox is Nelligen's self-appointed local historian who has collected an amazing amount of memorabilia ever since she first arrived here as a newly-wed in 1948.

Ships were still berthing at Nelligen wharf to take on timber cargoes at that time but that trade, too, had stopped by 1952. She still remembers buying kerosene tins full of fresh bream and flathead for two shillings (20 cents) from Clyde River fisherman Arthur Tieman, who fished the river until well into his eighties.

At the end of each morning's walk through the village, we pop in at Betty's for a cuppa and a piece of toast. This morning there was no toast, no cuppa, and no Betty! After some nail-biting moments we discovered that she was having hers done at a neighbour's house.

 

A walk on the wild side

 

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Crossing the bridge to the village early this morning, we saw this strange-looking figure sitting on the bench by the river. Walking up to Benny's Store, we saw an even stranger-looking figure sitting on the steps of the store.

 

 

The first one turned out to be a couple of weeks early; the second, Tom "Tugboat", was late for his breakfast as he'd run out of milk.

Unlike the first one who looks like he'll hang around Nelligen for the next couple of weeks, "Tugboat" will spend Christmas in his modern en-suite cabin aboard the 54,000-GRT bulk carrier RTM Wakmatha (meaning 'Stormbird' after a local Aboriginal man who had assisted geologist Harry Evans in the discovery of the Weipa bauxite deposit) which shuffles at around 14 knots (26 km/h) up and down the east coast, carrying bauxite from Weipa to Gladstone, and which at this very moment is located here.

Yours truly, who's just a shadow of his former self, took the photos, typed this blog, and, on account of it being a very hot day, is now taking a nap. SOFA, so good!

 

Today 42 years ago

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On the 9th of December 1971 I appeared before Reserve Magistrate David Bruce Moorhouse at Arawa on the island of Bougainville in the then Territory of Papua New Guinea, to swear allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, and to observe faithfully the laws of Australia and fulfil my duties as an Australian citizen.

And today, forty-two years later, after having paid many hundreds of thousands of dollars in income tax to the Australian Government, having incurred no more than a few speeding fines and parking infringement notices against my name, and never having asked for a single cent in Government assistance and even now in retirement living off my own investments and savings, I like to think that I have kept my end of the bargain and that the Australian Government got themselves a good deal in 1965 when they paid my fare out to this wonderful country.

I am proud to call myself an Australian and to call Australia my home, and to do so not through some accident of birth but because of my own deliberate decision and years of hard work!

 

P.S. An old friend, who came out as a Ten-Pound-Pom, tells me that all he received from the Australian Department of Immigration to say that he had become an Australian in 1974 was an 'Evidentary Certificate' on a cheap letterhead, sans seal and Queen's picture. You get what you pay for, Frank! Or not, as when my red-neck neighbours yell "Flying the Australian flag doesn't make you an Australian!" as I hoist the flag while they hoist their own petard.