Family

  • Blog,  Family,  Memoir,  Photographs of Tasmania,  Uncategorised

    Lake Augusta or Bust

    This is the third time my friend Viv and I have taken a few days in the Central Highlands, the high country in Tasmania. It must be at least three years since our last trip. This is Viv’s heart country. Her earliest memories are backgrounded by this sub- alpine landscape.  From the age of three, she lived with her late parents at Bronte Park, a Hydro village, and later at Poatina.  Her Dad was a bobby in Lancashire county, Northern England, before the family moved to Tasmania; it must have taken some adjustment, this sparse, cold place and living in an isolated village populated by mainly post war, immigrant dam…

  • Blog,  Family,  Memoir,  Uncategorised

    Becoming a Dowser

    on a summer day at Mount Pleasant in the middle of a long paddock my father took instruction arm tops tucked close to the side forearms horizontal, extending rods a couple of sticks, twisting in the hands till the bark broke free, his head thrust back mouth wide laughing unexpected divination with no effort what-so-ever dowsed with that erection till the fluid flowed, his power smashed the paradigm -that hard work guarantees success for Dad, 1937 -2022 This poem was written years ago, when my father was at the height of his physical power, so strong and full of life. It’s not only the end of one year and the…