​There are some things that become indelibly burnt into your brain. Like the towering green bull bar of a greenfreight log truck coming at you on a sharp bend of a mountain road; or the huge legs and paws of a polar bear sweeping it along as it races across the snow at your sledge. Although they are memories that will live with me forever they were quickly dealt with, therefore not really a matter of courage.

It’s the insidiously little things that lurk in the back of your mind. One of my first memories is my sister saying that she was frightened of heights. I know that for me it’s not natural to be uncertain of my ability to handle heights. Its irrational learnt behaviour and I don’t know when it will strike.

It came into my adult life unexpectedly.  After a freezing cold night camped in Victoria’s high Alps we were sitting in the sunshine on top of a range they call ‘The Crosscut Saw.’ It was just a narrow path with a drop on either side. I was happy, until I stood up and froze on the spot. My companions said “How did she get up here, if she can’t get down?” It was irrational.
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Irrational fear of heights presents itself suddenly when balance and confidence are required, like having to walk carefully across a narrow plank to board a ship that is anchored on the far side of another.

At Oban in Scotland, the tide had gone out and it wasn’t possible to use the gangway to board the ship. They called up to me from about three metres down in the bows, “You will have to Jump.”  There was no time to think, just do it and land like a baby elephant.

But be careful of what you say, it will come back to haunt you.  In North East Greenland I was known as an experienced dog sledge traveller, but the rot set in when I travelled with Jonas Pike. He was a lithe young hunter with a good team and he could place those dogs anywhere.

I made the mistake of telling him that his sledge was a magic carpet and for the next week he did his best to prove it. We would stop for our lunch break on the top of a small island frozen in the pack ice of the Greenland Sea or beside a steep drop onto the fjord below. The other sledges would be facing the path down again, but Jonas’s team and sledge would be facing a cliff.  “Why aren’t you eating all your lunch?” I would answer that I was not really hungry!

When we leave Jonas leaps onto the back of the sledge to balance it. The dogs need no urging, they have no fear of heights. With a sudden burst of speed they propel themselves joyfully out over the edge. Bodies tense and twisting in mid air, tails held out for balance, legs and feet reaching for the snow below.  The fast moving sledge is propelled horizontally until gravity takes over and we glide down behind them. Paws taking hold and the dogs are away, racing downhill.  
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One memorable occasion occurred when we were going to board a helicopter that was out on the sea ice. “Bev, go with Ziggy.” I get on the back of the skidoo and he heads for the cliff edge! He stops and says “I don’t think I can do that.” That was close!


Bev Morton
October 2021

There are so many photographs!  Where to start?  With a goal of adding at least one photo to ancestry.com a day I have found myself immersing myself in the lives of two great aunts, ‘Auntie Beat’ (b 1872) and ‘Auntie Min’ (b 1877).  

​‘Auntie Beat’, my eldest maternal great aunt, never married, looking after her parents until they died, then living with nieces and nephews’ families until she passed away.  My only memory of Aunty Beat is peeping into a bungalow to see her while holidaying with an aunt who was caring for her not long before she died.  Two recent finds - a beautiful carte de visite from the early to mid 1880's in a battered album of the day and a loose photo, on the back of which is written ‘Beatrice Hooper – the eldest’.  A dressmaker, Beat is wearing a dark trimmed check dress, standing in front of a rose bush.  It was probably taken in the early 1900’s.  Photographs found in her scrapbook which suggest that she may have travelled with a theatre company to New Zealand.  While most of her younger sisters were dancers with J C Williamson’s, perhaps, being a dressmaker, she was in the wardrobe department?  There is a wonderful photo of Beat playing cards with a group of friends, another in an outfit suggesting she may have been a suffragette! ​

I now feel quite ‘resolved’ about the representation of Auntie Beat’s page on ancestry which now includes photos across her life span, including some in which she appears to be enjoying time spent travelling with friends. ​

‘Aunty Min!’ Do you have a person in public life in your family tree who other relatives all lay claim to?  ‘Auntie Min’ is that person in our family.   Family stories of her abound across the generations.  ‘Auntie Min’, my grandmother’s older sister Minnie Hooper, became quite famous as a choreographer and ballet mistress for JC Williamson and is remembered for having taught Robert Helpmann to dance.  While I have many photos of Auntie Min, until my visit to the farm last weekend they were almost all quite theatrical, revealing little of her life. 

I’d met Auntie Min when visiting Sydney as a child and remember her as a rather serious woman of considerable wealth who lived in a house looking over Sydney Harbour which had a path down to a private boat ramp.  I remember her son, John Rose, as being quite eccentric.  John was always described by my mother as a change of life baby, born after Min’s husband, Ernest Rose, then aged 51, had already had a stroke. 

Family research revealed that Min, who had married ‘Uncle Ern’ at 20, had two little boys who only lived for a few months during her twenties, followed by decades working in the theatre, before having a baby, John, at aged 46.  John was born with a disability which affected his development, and Min’s beloved husband died at 59 when John was 8 years old leaving her to care for John. Janette’s envelope for Auntie Min contains portraits of Uncle Ern pasted on a textured card and a portrait of John in early adulthood. 

​The photo in the envelope which somehow provides a deeper glimpse into their lives is a photo of Min and Ern sitting together, reading material in their hands.  Ern appears to be convalescing.  It is an evocative photo in which Min looks less severe than I remember her in latter years.  

​Adding this photo, and the portraits of Ern and John, to their profiles on ancestry a day or two ago, ‘rounded off’ my ‘time travels’ with Auntie Min’s family—at least for the moment. 
  
With Covid moving from pandemic to endemic, I’m likely to continue to lead a quiet life.  Underlying chronic illnesses have already impacted on my capacity to travel to places in which my ancestors lived to find out more, and now Covid! 

However, I can always resort to time travelling!


Beverley Lee
October 2021

I have for some time been totally confused by the mixed messages we have been receiving about Covid 19, the effects, and the complications. The complexity of the confusion has not been helped by a lack of accurate information, the fact that some politicians appear to be playing games with the welfare of the community, and a failure to explain the full story behind the treatment of the community in Victoria. In a word, a lack of ‘accountability’, from our elected representatives and some senior public servants. From the outset, I have seen inept, inconsistent and contradictory decision making.
 
19th March 2020: 2,700 passengers released from the ‘Ruby Princess’ in Sydney without Covid testing.
 

• Lockdown 1: March 30 to May 12, 2020 — 43 days

 
6th June 2020: A protest march was held in Melbourne with an estimated 10,000 people in attendance. The State Government took no action against the protesters, other than to fine the three organisers $1,652 each.
 
26th June 2020: On this day, during a media interview, it was revealed that the ‘health experts’ had released over 5,600 people from quarantine in Victoria, without testing them for Covid. The Deputy Chief Medical Officer explained during a press interview, that she was acting on a National Protocol. This ‘protocol’ had obviously not been reviewed in light of the Ruby Princess issues that had occurred three months earlier. In this case 2,700 passengers were released in Sydney without testing. They travelled to all states and territories in Australia, and were then credited with 696 active cases spread across the country, with 20 directly attributed deaths.
 

• Lockdown 2: July 8 to October 27, 2020 —111 days

 
During this time our active cases had been rolling along at a relatively low daily rate, until we passed through the 14 to 21 day window after the protest march, when the numbers increased dramatically. The Government officials denied any connection, however in a media conference the NSW Chief Commissioner of Police, stated that he had reliable information that much of the outbreak was connected to the march and the lockdown of the Maribyrnong housing towers. The Government denied any connection; however they did state in a written media release on 14th July, that five new cases had been linked to the illegal protest on 6th June.
This is some 38 days after the event??  The following day it was revealed that there were a total of nineteen active cases connected with the protest march. There were no more figures in connection with the march released after 15th July.
 

• Lockdown 3: February 12 - 17, 2021 —5 days – followed by severe restrictions.

From the ABC website: The 13 cases so far are all directly linked to the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn quarantine hotel, involving either returned travellers, hotel quarantine staff or their close contacts. But it's the speed of transmission of the UK variant that's deeply concerning Victoria's health authorities.
"This is the most infectious strain of coronavirus we have seen," Mr Andrews said as he announced the snap shutdown, which he compared to recent shutdowns in Brisbane and Perth.
25th April, Anzac Day. Victoria’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Brett Sutton, signed off in the previous week to an increased capacity of 85,000 for the Sunday match. The MCG allegedly hosted the biggest sporting crowd in the world since the COVID-19 outbreak, for the Anzac Day AFL clash between Collingwood and Essendon. Crowd attending, 78,000.
Four weeks later Victoria is in lockdown again.

• Lockdown 4: May 27 - June 10, 2021 — 14 days

From the ABC Website: The Victorian government has announced a seven-day lockdown in a bid to curb the state's growing coronavirus outbreak.
The state's outbreak has now reached 26 cases, with 11 new cases recorded from Wednesday to Thursday. Around 14,000 Victorians are either required to quarantine for 14 days, or test and isolate until negative. One of the cases was in hospital on a ventilator, but it is understood they were moved out of intensive care on Thursday night.

• Lockdown 5: July 15 - 27, 2021 — 12 days

From the ABC website: Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed the Victoria-wide snap lockdown with "a heavy heart" after two more local COVID-19 cases were recorded this afternoon.
It brings the state's outbreak to 18. The entire state will be locked down from 11:59pm tonight until 11:59pm next Tuesday. It is the fifth lockdown since the pandemic began and the third this year.
Mr Andrews said contact tracers and public health experts were moving faster than they ever had and were doing a "brilliant job". But he said the speed of spread of the virus meant cases could "ultimately get away from us". The premier said the state had no choice but to enter a "short, sharp lockdown."Key points:

• Victoria will be locked down from 11:59pm tonight (15th July) until 11:59pm next Tuesday.
• Two more cases were announced this afternoon linked to the MCG and Maribrynong apartments.
• There's no guarantee the lockdown will end after five days, but restrictions in regional Victoria may end earlier.

 

• Lockdown 6: August 5 - October 26, 2021 — 82 days

 
From the ABC website: Victoria has entered its sixth lockdown in response to unexpected new mystery cases of COVID-19 in recent days. Eight new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the state on Thursday, with six of those from results received on Wednesday.
 
Premier Daniel Andrews described the decision to lock down again as "very difficult".
"I can't tell you how disappointed I am to have to be here doing this again," he said.
"But with so few in the community with one vaccination, let alone two, I have no choice but to accept advice, and we collectively [have] to make this important decision to keep Victorians safe.
"The alternative is we let this run … away from us and our hospitals will be absolutely overwhelmed [with] not hundreds of patients but thousands."
 
Lockdown ended early on 22nd October due to high vaccination rates.
 
Victoria currently has new case numbers hovering around 2,000 per day, and the Premier has opened up the state??? I refer to the statements made by the Premier above, in relation to the hospital caseloads.
 
Announced on Sunday 24th October: From Friday 29th October, all Victorians will be free to travel around the state. But stay tuned for when Victorians will be able to travel to another state of this ‘Commonwealth’.
 
The Covid vaccine will not stop us contracting the disease, or transmitting it. It will however, significantly improve our chances of surviving from it.
 
PS: I have yet to locate any explanation of how many thousands of people managed to get onto passenger aircraft and cruise ships around the world in early 2020, whilst infected, but not symptomatic? This did not happen by accident!
 
 
Barry O’Connor.
October 2021.