We didn’t have any black kids in Rosewood State School. Our school photos until Yr 7 were all white. Black and white, but the kids were all white. Nobody, until Yr7, had even seen a black person apart from Australian Aborigines. Our parents, except for those who went overseas for World War 2, had never seen a black person, apart from Australian Aborigines. Kenny Kendricks claimed he’d seen all sorts of things, including black kids, but nobody believed Kenny. Then, in 1967 Peter ‘Batti’ Bartholemew arrived at Rosewood State School.

Peter was Ceylonese. He was immediately named ‘ Batti’ after the only other dark skinned person we knew about – a Fijian rugby league player who played for South Brisbane named Sia’afa Battibasaga. Ceylonese, Fijian – it made no difference to the Rosewood lads. Batti was the most exotic and exciting person we had ever met.

He could speak three or four languages – not ‘useful’ ones like French or German, rather Tamil, Hindi and another dialect plus English of course. He had actually been to other countries apart from Ceylon and Australia. He said his father was a type of doctor, but not of medicine. We found this hard to believe until Steve Clark, our go to guy of all things Anglican, informed us that the new priest was black, and called Reverend Dr Matthew Bartholemew, and was from Ceylon.

Batti soon became one of us in a Rosewood kind of way. His footy was crap, but he could bowl a leggie when Summer came round. He was always too well behaved, but after all he was the son of a priest. He even made it on to Rosewood’s ‘It’s Academic’ team – a quiz show for Year 8 students as our expert speller. (He did attempt a few spellings without success, but it was his answer to the question ‘What animal would you find in an apiary?’, that is most memorable – ‘Apes’ was his confident answer. Our teacher on the bus home said at least he wasn’t asked what you would find in a seminary.)

Batti was, I think, part of the inspiration for a much younger Cunnington-Smythe to begin exploring Her Majesty’s empire. He made me realise there were more exotic places than Southport.  I began to understand that there was a world out there that would require travel further than the rail motor would take us.  And there were more Battis worth meeting and talking to – even if they were crap at footy and knew absolutely nothing about bees.

Better let you go Scotty

Farley etc.

 

  
We are currently in Germany with the Webers and haven’t had much spare time – hence no blog ’til now. They are immaculate hosts – in a very Germanic way each day is planned with a whole range of sights, activities, and beautiful meals. This means that there is very little time to ……. 

(Sorry, have to go.  We are leaving very soon for a walk to some waterfall)

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

   
    
  

  
Yesterday we went to Kutna Hora, a place that is either sixty minutes or two and three quarter hours from Prague. Kutna Hora was once a particularly wealthy city that made its money from the silver mines in the district – the name translates as Silver Town. For some time it competed with Prague politically and economically – but then the silver ran out. To get there we took the express train to Kolin (I quite like towns that just have a boy’s name – a town called Trevor would be even better) then a small rail motor to Kutna Hora.

Most visitors go there for two things – the UNESCO listed city centre, or to see what Margie’s people did in the Sedlec Chapel when they had between 40,000 and 70,000 skeletons to play with.

When someone in Rosewood died we either buried them or cremated them, put up a plaque and that was it. The leftovers were left alone. When Myrl was asked if she wanted my father’s ashes sprinkled around the farm she rejected that immediately because she ‘couldn’t stand the thought of getting Ted all over her washing on a windy day.’ As far as I know even the Catholic parishioners in Rosewood left their forebear’s bits in the ground – I sure Brad Robinson would have told me if Father Brown was a bone arranger. Not in Kutna Hora – not on your Nellie.

The cemetery was always popular as a burial site as the first priest in the 11th Century had returned from Golgotha with some soil that he sprinkled about. The various plagues and the Hussite wars added more raw materials. Then in the 19th Century someone from the ruling House of Schwarzenberg had an absolute cracker of an idea – why don’t we dig up all those bones and do something with them? 

Their go-to-guy for this commission was a woodcutter called František Rint – and what Frank lacked in taste he made up for with ardour. Frank made candelabras and hat racks out of bones. He fashioned the Schwartzenberg coat of arms out of bones. He put bones around mirrors, around doors, in the ceiling, the walls, and floors. He made bible verses out of small bones and four model churches out of hundreds of thousands of longer bones. And when he finished he signed his name – in bones. Frank made the set designers for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ look like restrained minimalists. It is all supposed to demonstrate the ephemeral nature of human being’s earthly existence. It also shows what happens when no-one in the Scwarzenberg family says to their obsessive-compulsive woodcutter turned ossuary attendant – ‘That’s quite enough now Frank.’

 After that experience it was just the normal wandering through a Renaissance town with lunch in a 400yr old building until it was time to return home.

The homeward journey was full of surprises. The lady in the ticket office at the station is actually the last remaining Nazi official in the Czech republic from the time of the German occupation. She insisted that the train we get on would go express to Prague. Under no circumstances were we to disembark. The tiny rail motor we got on didn’t even go express to Kolin – ten minutes away. There we were all ordered off and told to catch the afternoon express to Prague. At least it was express between all the stops. The return train trip took nearly three hours.

My darling children, as your dear Mother and I wander around Europe we are comforted knowing how wonderful must it be demonstrating your kindness and patience toward each-other as you toil ceaselessly cleaning and tidying our house. And even though I may never understand the people of the Central European plains, they have given me an idea as a way for us to remember Charlie when she finally goes to dog heaven!
Perhaps Margie will help with the arranging.

Best let you go

F C-S

   
          

The Kutna Hora ‘Express’ to Prague

   

I have spent a couple of days wandering around Prague wondering why I haven’t really warmed to Prague. Perhaps Linda said it best when she said it reminded her of an ‘untidy Singapore – it lacks heart.’ Prague was the first European city we visited ten years ago when we came here with our children. It was the first time three of us have ever seen snow – but it still can’t inspire the depth of passion that many first-time experiences tend to evoke. The presence of so many tourists (like me) hasn’t helped – Prague hosts SIX MILLION visitors each summer in a city that numbers just 1.2 million.
    

There have been experiences I have loved of course. We saw a photo exhibition of the photos of Erich Lessing. Lessing was a colleague of Robert Carpa – both were displaced Jews, both worked for Magnum Photos, both were photojournalists, both photographed the seminal events that occurred in Europe during my lifetime. Lessing left Vienna when the Fascists took power – his mother stayed and died in Auschwitz. After the war Lessing photographed the effects of the war on Eastern Europe, capturing the plight of Poles, East Germans, and Austrians as they struggled to regain some sense of normality – sometimes maintaining, sometimes showing the complete loss of dignity that goes with deep poverty. Carpa stood on a land-mine in Vietnam and died at the height of his fame while Lessing , now 92, went on to become one of Austria’s living treasures.

Despite the prevalence of Tesco and Sainsburys we have found farmers’ markets with wonderful food. (Tip for travellers – when you see a queue of people linking up to buy sausages and ham, it is a queue well worth joining.)  Tonight for dinner we had ham, sausages and farmers’ cheeses, the most beautiful strawberries and cherries, and real bread. I hereby reaffirm my vow to give Coles and Woolworths the least amount of my income possible.

We probably won’t return to Prague. I fear it may become wealthier, busier, more crowded. The things we love about travel in Europe – talking with locals, the markets, the great food,  will be even harder to find in this cleaner and tidier ‘Singapore’. Pity really.

F C-S

   
              

   

  

I know that one shouldn’t be narrow minded when abroad, but I really do prefer English Breakfast.

   
 

A photo taken by an Australian traveller from Toowoomba, of a refugee from Guinea dressed as a Chinese rickshaw driver, trying to sell a ride around the sights of Prague, to an English couple from London. 

Sorry, what country is this. Where am I?

 

Sometimes an adventurer needs to take risks in order to encounter experiences that can then be shared with one’s legion of readers. Yesterday we travelled to the furthest reaches of Slovenia – to Slovenia’s ultima Thule. The outward journey alone took nearly two hours and because of the route chosen there was to be no turning back once the travel had commenced – no matter how difficult the day. Some residents of Ipswich – with their sophisticated, big city, airs and graces unkindly say that to get to Rosewood you go west 15 miles…. and back 100 years. Slovenia however is a little like that.

The Kranskje region is on the border with Austria. The first railway there only happened 30 years ago. It is still the home of alpine dairy herders who head to the mountain pastures in summer, turn all their milk into a type of emmenthaler cheese, and descend with their herds (and cheese) with the onset of cold weather. Meanwhile their womenfolk make the Kranskje sausages that are traditionally eaten in Australia by drunken men rummaging through the fridge to sate the beer munchies. (Here Krankje isn’t deep fried – rather it is always brought to the boil, then allowed to sit in the hot water for 20 minutes before serving – have they got some things to learn about Kranskje sausages in Slovenia, even if only how to spell it correcly!)

The day was spent driving around this region, thousand year old villages with two-hundred year old villagers. Hay racks dotting the countryside and beautiful lakes to punctuate our route. Lunch was simple – fruit, bread, cheese and another local delicacy – bear meat sausage (‘twould be a shame to let a good bear go to waste). Beside us was an old lady pulling the bugs off her potato crop by hand – they’ve never bothered with chemical sprays, and now their ‘organic’ produce fetches a premium at health food shops.

The afternoon was more wandering, more mouth-agape sight-seeing before stopping for a tea, poppy seed apple cake and a krem shnit (a local cream custard dessert – even if it does sound more like something that comes out of your nose). Then home to beautiful Ljubljana.

Afterall, someone has to take these risks or there’d be no blog.

The things I am prepared to do for my readers!

Yours etc

Farley

   
                      

Today we travelled to various shrines, including those of lesser known saints -Saint Gingivitis (the patron saint of Slovenian dentistry) and Saint Digitalis (The patron saint of…..? Our tour guide simply blushed when asked)

 And what exactly is that lamb doing? 

Sadly I may never fully understand Eastern Orthodoxy.
  
  

 

We are now in Ljubljana. This morning before breakfast from the windows of our apartment I took photos of ……

  
   
   

Even in beautiful Ljubljana you just can’t have it all Remington. You just can’t have it all.
Farley C-S 

There are any number of methods that can be employed in an attempt to secure a private compartment on European trains.  Music – however loud or whatever the genre, will repel some but attract others.  Food, no matter how pungent, will repel some but attract others. There is one method that we are now using that has proven particularly effective – I perform loud vocalisations, rocking actions and copious dribbling whenever a stranger approaches seeking a seat.

Whether the reuluctance of fellow passengers to share our six-seat compartment is out of concern for my ‘carers’ or out of a need to ensure their clothing is spittle free, it is quite immaterial as the effect is the same. So long as my two carers can control their mirth, (both Maryanne and Catrina have, at various times, let the team down in this regard) we are almost invariably guaranteed a space without the need to be polite to strangers.  This ruse has worked  in Italy, in Poland and once again on this very train to Lubljana!

Ah children, the travel tips you are yet to learn.
Your Dear Father etc