U3A Benalla and District Inc.
  • Home
  • Benalla
    • Benalla
    • Benalla District
    • Who, What and Where? - Benalla Rural City
  • About
    • Our U3A
    • President's Page
    • Executive Committee
    • Convenors >
      • Convenors
      • Convenors A - Z 2022
    • Program Suggestions
    • Newsletter
    • Website
  • Groups
    • Groups A - Z
    • Recent Groups >
      • Armchair History
      • German - Beginners
      • Meditation
      • Russian Literature
      • Hot Topics/The News - Fact or Fiction?
    • Archived Groups >
      • A - M >
        • A Different View Of German History
        • Armchair Traveller
        • Booker Reading Group
        • Bushwalking - Mid-week Walks
        • Comparative Religion
        • Facebook for Mentors
        • Google Apps/TS Plus
        • History - An Introduction to Western Civilization
        • History - Moments in Australian History
        • Investment I (1996 -2015)
        • Legal Matters (Short Course)
        • Making the Most of the Internet
      • O - Z >
        • On Target - Learning to Shop Online
        • Opera
        • 'Over There'
        • Rail and Tourism
        • Tech Savvy Apple Devices - Intermediate
        • Tech Savvy Community Projects
        • Travel Group
        • Zoom Short Course
  • A-Col
    • A - COL
    • 'A Taste of Art'
    • Art Appreciation
    • Australian History
    • 'As Time Goes By' >
      • Home
      • Our Stories - by topic
    • 'Be Connected'
    • Birdwatching
    • Brain Games
    • Bushwalking - Easy Walks
    • Cards '500'
    • Chat n' Chew
    • Coin Collectors
    • Collectors
  • Col-G
    • COM - G
    • Community Singing
    • Creative Writing
    • Demystifying Psychology
    • Enjoying the Internet
    • Exercises for Fun
    • Exploring the Universe
    • Family Research - Advanced >
      • Home
      • Family Stories
    • Family Research - Beginners
    • Film Discussion Group
    • Garden Appreciation
    • Garden Team
    • German >
      • Home
      • Lessons
  • I - R
    • I - R
    • 'In the Lap of the Gods'
    • Investment
    • Jane Austen Book Club
    • Let's Talk Books
    • Lifeball
    • Meet and Mingle
    • Music Appreciation
    • Page Turners
    • Patchwork and Craft
    • Photography
    • Play Reading
    • Politics & Current Affairs
    • Recorder Group
  • S - Z
    • S -Z
    • Singing for Fun
    • Sky's the Limit
    • Stock and Land
    • Sustainability
    • Tech Advice
    • Tech Savvy Apple - 'Pages'
    • Tech Savvy Beginners - Android
    • Tech Talks
    • Ukes4Fun
    • Wine Appreciation
    • Wise Guys Book Group
  • Join
    • Join Us
    • Membership Application/Renewal Form
    • Program Guide 2023
    • Timetable - Month Overview
    • Full Timetable with Dates
    • New Courses 2023
    • Venues and Maps
  • News
    • News - General
    • February Newsletter
    • Calendar 2022
    • Monthly Calendar
    • Website & Facebook
  • FB
  • Gallery
    • Gallery 2022
    • Gallery 2021
    • Gallery 2020
    • Gallery 2019
    • Gallery 2018
    • Gallery 2017
    • Gallery 2016 >
      • + Christmas Lunch 2016
    • Gallery 2015 >
      • Christmas Lunch 2015
    • Gallery 2014
    • Lifeball Video
  • Links
    • Resources and References
    • U3A Network Victoria
    • Seniors Online Victoria
    • U3A Albury Wodonga
    • U3A Beechworth (Indigo U3A)
    • U3A Bright
    • U3A Wangaratta
    • U3A Goulburn Valley
  • Contact

'Turning Point'

28/6/2020

0 Comments

 
​A turning point in my life was coming to live in Benalla.  Here is what made that happen.
 
Our friends Marg and Don Hauser were glider pilots who regularly came to Benalla to fly. On occasion they asked me to join them for the weekend, awakening my interest in the sport of gliding.
 
Working a full-time job and with three still dependent children, the time and money involved to make flying a reality led to it being put on the back burner.
 
One Saturday afternoon some years later, when the children were older, I was standing doing dishes at the kitchen sink. As I looked up, I saw a small plane fly overhead. On that day, our children were off with friends, one on a sleep over and the other two involved in a weekend with scouts and cubs. Karl was at lawn bowls. The thought suddenly hit me, “Why am keeping the home fires burning, when there is just me in it?  
 
When Christmas time came around, Karl asked me what I would like for Christmas. In answer, I formulated a list, on top of which was an emerald and diamond dress ring, and on the bottom, a new potato peeler.  Somewhere near the middle, I slotted in a week in  Benalla to learn how to fly. I got the potato peeler and not the ring. However, I did find myself in Benalla learning how to fly.
 
Gliding is a sport where males and females are able to compete on an even footing. Muscle power is of no consequence. Karl was from the country town of Tongala in the Goulburn Valley. We would often visit Tongala, however I found the small town claustrophobic.  I made it clear that I could never move to live in the country.
 
Eventually the children left home. Karl had semi-retired from teaching and I was still full time employed.
 
One Friday afternoon I came home and Karl said, ”How would you feel if we sold this house and built one in Benalla?” 
 
I thought for a minute. I had come to have a feeling for Benalla from my exposure to the gliding club.  Our eldest son Stuart, his wife and their two children were living in Yackandah, so we would be able to see them more often. It also meant I could have more access to my glider and flying.  All positives.  I also realised that the weather is better In Benalla, with more sunshine than Melbourne. 
 
To Karl’s surprise I agreed.  With that, he was on the phone to an estate agent who arrived a very short time later to talk about putting our home on the market.  The following day we drove to Benalla and looked around for a block of land. On Monday, when I came home from work, I found our house had been sold that day, so the die was cast for us to become Benalla residents.
 
It was the best move we ever made. We made friends and slotted into the local scene effortlessly.
 
The gliding club at Benalla is known throughout the gliding world as a premier soaring club. The conditions attract overseas pilots who want to fly in the northern winter and attain long flights in the excellent thermal conditions that this part of Australia provides.  Over the years we made many, many friends from England, Scotland, Finland, Canada, Wales and New Zealand. I have flown in England, Scotland, New Zealand and Slovenia and Hawaii. We have been able to offer accommodation to some of these pilots, especially those that bring their spouse. They have become lifelong friends.  We have been fortunate enough to have several overseas holidays staying with these wonderful people. Often, we were handed from household to household, moving from the south of England on up to the Lakes District, then Glasgow.  Staying with locals was a wonderful way to see more of England in particular.
 
I am eternally grateful to have moved to this friendly town. A turning point in our lives that worked out well for my family.
 
 
Claire Rudolph
June 2020
0 Comments

How we met - 'How I met Karl'

27/6/2020

1 Comment

 
I was working as a second year trainee nurse at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and it was approaching Christmas time in 1962. There were six of us living in a “flat” in Punt Road, just up from the then St..Kilda Junction.
 
The flat was a two storied terraced house, since pulled down to eradicate the said junction.  Marge Hauser. Nee.Laing and I shared the front room on the ground floor. The other half of the building was a mirror image of the side  we lived in.  At the time this was a “sly grog shop”. It  was not legal then to buy alcohol out of drinking hours.  Some individuals set up their own establishment and illegally sold grog on the sly. There were times when we were disturbed by a knock on the bedroom window when someone mistook our place for the one next door. It was not really a problem and was handy if we had a party.  The neighbours would not complain about the noise knowing that we would dob them in for the sly grog.
 
Some of our friends shared a house near the Toorak Station.  They were planning a Christmas party. On the day of the event they realised they did not have enough drinking glasses. Karl and several of his mates were living in the house at the back of the girls place. One of the girls approached the boys to ask for the loan of some glasses. Karl answered to door and said “Yes, we will make the loan if we can come to your party”. That is how Karl and I ended up being in the same place at the same time.
 
At that time I was keeping company with a chap called Bob Watson. He was an electrical engineer but at the time of this occurrence he was in Antarctica.  He had applied for the position as a weather observer a couple of times. Each time he grew a beard in anticipation of landing the job. Each time he was unsuccessful he shaved the beard off.  Eventually he was successful and left for a 3 month term in Antarctica. So I was without a date to take with me.
 
As I said, it was approaching Christmas.  Each year the Alfred nurses held a formal dinner dance at the Dorchester, a reception place by the Yarra just near the boat sheds and Princes Bridge. With so many nurses the numbers to attend were limited, but I was on the waiting list. On the day of the “do” I finished work at 3.30 pm and received a phone call to say there had been a cancellation, that tickets for two were available if I wanted them.  I accepted, then had to find a partner to go with me. Bob was not available.  I remembered Karl, who I had met the Saturday before. I did not have contact details so caught the tram to the girl’s house to await Karl’s arrival to invite him to come with me.
 
The party when I met Karl was typical of it’s time. Dim lighting and empty Chianti bottles (they had a raffia outer covering), each with a candle in the top. During the party Karl told me his name was Rudy and he was a “commercial artist”.  He said that he was painting a mural on a wall at Research near Eltham.  In an effort to talk with him to ask him out, I had phoned a couple of businesses in Research to see if anyone knew of an artist painting a mural. No one did.
 
Karl arrived, whistling, at about 4.45 pm. I was surprised to see he was a red head. With only candle light at the party I did not realise his hair was red . If I was asked out by a boy with red hair I would decline. He was wearing white paint spattered work overalls with a stick figure of a Saint with a halo embroidered on the pocket. Not quite my image of a commercial artist. He had stretched the truth. His commercial art mural was a King Neptune advert on the side of a petrol station wall.
 
I asked Karl to the dinner dance, explaining it was a black tie affair.  He accepted.  Later I found out that he had borrowed a friend’s car and driven to Niddrie to borrow his brother Clive’s dinner suit!  He did not have a car as he had sold his because he and a mate were going to NZ for a working holiday to work on a hydro electric scheme in the south island.
 
At our flat we often had boyfriend’s visit .even after they became ex boyfriends.  We would sit on the floor in the lounge room and drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, the room lit with Chianti bottles dripping with candle wax, Marg’s record player playing The Kingston Trio and Frank Sinatra in the background. Because we six worked shift work there was pretty much always someone home. Marion and Jenny Milkins, twin sisters from Casterton who ended up as our bridesmaids also had some of their boy mates who were living in Melbourne, drop by.
 
A couple of days after our night out, Karl called in.  We were all sitting chatting, smoking and listening to records. Karl was asked what he was doing over Christmas.  He said he was going home to Tonny for a few days to see his parents.  Marg pricked up her ears as she was also from Tonny. This was a  local.  name for Tongala.  She said to Karl, What is your surname”? It transpired that they lived in the same street in Tongala and were at the primary school at the same time.  Marg moved to Melbourne to continue her schooling as a boarder at MLC, so had not seen Karl  for many years.
 
I ended up accompanying Karl to Tonny to meet his parents a few days after Christmas.  We walked into the kitchen and Karl said to his mum and dad, “I would like you to meet the girl I am going to marry!!!!   I had known him for about 2 weeks. We became engaged 3 months later and married on Sept 7th 1963 at St Mathews in Cheltenham.
 
************

Claire Rudolph,
​June 2020
1 Comment
    Our Stories

    Claire's stories 

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020

    Categories

    All
    'A Love Letter To Travel - Bali
    'How I Met Karl'
    'Right Here
    Right Now'
    'Turning Point'

    RSS Feed

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay our respects to their elders - past, present and emerging.
Picture
News
​Newsletter
Facebook Page
​
Program Suggestions
​CO-VID Safety

U3A Benalla & District Flier 2023
​Membership Application/Renewal Form 
​
Program Guide 2023
Semester 1 Timetable with Dates 2023
Semester 1 Timetable Month Overview 2023
Developed and maintained by members, this website showcases U3A Benalla & District. 
​Photographs - U3A members; Benalla Art Gallery website; ​Weebly 'Free' images;Travel Victoria and State Library of Victoria