Category Archives: Article

Australian Icons: Wonderland City, Tamarama NSW. Formerly the Royal Aquarium and Pleasure Grounds.

Article, biography, General Interest, History, , , , , ,

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To look at Tamarama beach today, it is hard to envisage that it was once the site of the largest open-air amusement park in the southern hemisphere, nor that there were attempts in the early 20th century to ban swimmers from the area.

Originally the site for the Royal Aquarium and Pleasure Grounds (commonly referred to as the Bondi Aquarium), it was an amusement park situated in Fletcher’s Glen at Tamarama beach.


It opened on the 1st October 1887 and touted a Great Military Band, merry-go-rounds, swings, shooting gallery, water boats, Camera Obscura, Punch ‘n Judy show, and dancing in the Grand Hall.

There were huge marine aquarium tanks featuring many fish varieties, sting rays, lobsters, turtles, wobbegong and tiger sharks. Seals shared a pond with a solitary penguin. There was a switchback railway, a roller coaster ride above the sand on Tamarama beach, two roller skating rinks, which eere “illiminated by the electric light”. Every Wednesday, Pain’s Grand Fireworks exploded overhead, and there were Sacred and Classical concerts every Sunday.

In typical early 1900s tradition, feats of daring-do were a must. Alexander, an Australian wire walker, walked a wire from cliff to cliff. Captain George Drevar floated on a “cask raft” in the surf. There was a Grand Balloon Ascent and Parachute Descent. Headliners from the Tivoli Theatre perforned on the Aquarium Curcuit.


Fire destroyed the Aquarium and Pavilion on 11th July 1891, but it rose from the ashes in September the same year, and continued on. The ladt known concert there was a fund-raiser for the Waverley Benevolent Society in 1906. Ownership and management chantes several times over the coarse of its existence, and it was finally sold by Mrs Margaret J Lachaume to William Anderson in 1906. He transformed and renamed it Wonderland City.                                                                        IMG_0232
Anderson was a Prominent theatrical entrepreneur, leased the land in Tamarama Park, minus a 12-footbstrip of coastline, to allow the public access to the beach. He also leased a further 20-acres of land in Tamarama Gully – formerly Tamarama Glen, or “the Glen” – and started to transform it into an amusement park.

The main entrance was a large white weatherboard building in Wonderland Avenue near the point at which it joins Fletcher Street. The entry price was 6 pence for adults and 3 pence for children with all rides costing an additional fee.

Opening on Saturday, 1 December 1906 Wonderland claimed to equal ‘those amusement grounds… of the far famed Coney Island, New York, or White City, Chicago’. William Anderson also claimed “there weren’t sufficient trams in Sydney to transport the crowd … for the opening.” On this opening night approximately 20,00 people travelled out to Wonderland to go on fairground rides, view the novelty attractions and walk among the natural beauty of Tamarama Glen, which was lit by strings of electric lights and described as a ‘fairy city’.

Some of the attraction included an artificial lake; the first outdoor ice skating timk in Australia; a roller skating rink which doubled as a boxing ring; double-decker merry-go-round; Haunted House and Helter Skelter; steam-driven swutchback railway; maze; circus ring; fun factory; the Airum Scarum, an airship that moved on a cable from cliff to cliff, was supported at bith ends by huge wooden structures, and at high tide moved over the sea; wax works; Katzenjammer Castle; Hall of Laughter; Box Ball Alley; Alice the elephant; a sea pond and aquarium; Japanese tearooms; Alpine slide;  and The King’s Theatre – a music hall – that could seat 1,000 people.

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Employing over 160 people, Wonderland set a new standard for Australian outdoor pleasure grounds. Large crowds, estimated at 2,000 people came every summer weekend, with seventy turnstiles at the entrance doing a brisk trade. Wonderland was known for its novelty and ‘shocking’ acts, with William Anderson the consummate showman. He organised for a couple to be married at Wonderland, and then paraded through the grounds on the back of Alice the elephant. One daredevil performer,  Jack Lewis,  roller skated down a ramp, through a hoop of fire and landed in a tank with sharks – much to the horror of the crowd. Miraculously Jack always survived unharmed.

Unfortunately, conflict with swimmers was bound to happen. Despite the 12-foot public beach access strip being excluded from his lease, William Anderson erected a 8-foot high wire fence over it anyway, insisting it wss hecessary, as fare-evaders wrre using the strip as a way to access the park via his beachfront boundary fence.

The barbed wire fence extended down the cliff on the southern end of the beach, across the rocks and sand to the rocks at the beach’s northern end. However this wire fence also blocked access for swimmers to the beach. Some of these swimmers were influential businessmen and having their local beach cut off incensed them. The swimmers started an ongoing battle with Anderson; they would cut his wire fence, he would repair it and contact the police. The police would arrive and warn the swimmers and the following weekend the same scenario would be re-enacted. George B. Philip, the foundation President of the Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club, was one of these swimmers and he later recalled how he got around one particular wire fence gatekeeper. ‘I scaled under the barbed wire fence practically every day, I knew every nook and corner of it – until I was caught by the gatekeeper. The outcome of this was that I came to an arrangement with him whereby that if I carried his billy of tea from the kiosk to (the) main gate at 5 o’clock each day, I could walk in and out when I liked (much to the envy of my mates, who were not caught)…’

The stalemate between the swimmers and William Anderson continued, with the swimmers eventually taking a deputation to NSW Parliament. On 6 March 1907, the Minister for Lands, James Ashton, issued an order to resume the 12-foot strip of land fronting the beach to “give free access for all time to the beach at Tamarama Bay.” At the Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club’s centenary celebrations Ken Stewart, grandson of one of the original fence cutters Bill Stewart, reenacts his grandfather’s cutting of the barbed wire in 19061907 Many of these victorious swimmers formed the nucleus of a new surf club, the Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club. On 11 February 1908 the first surf ‘gymkhana’, equivalent to a surf carnival, was held at Wonderland on Tamarama Beach and was held each year until Wonderland closed.

Meanwhile, bad publicity dogged Wonderland. The conflict with local swimmers and the wire fence incident soured the public image of Wonderland, as did complaints that the animals were being poorly housed and mistreated. The occasional breakdown of the Airem Scarem airship above the dangerous surf caused accusations of safety breaches and resident opposition to the weekend revellers at Wonderland grew.

The crowd numbers dropped but Williams Anderson fought back bringing in famous entertainers and more daring acts from his national touring circuit to perform at the King’s Theatre. Anderson responded with more elaborate public exhibitions, but the public was tiring of Wonderland and the crowds dropped. It struggled on from March 1908 to December 1910 with poor crowds and low revenue, finally closing in 1911. William Anderson is said to have lost £15,000 on Wonderland City. Wonderland was the precursor of Luna Park, setting unprecedented standards for popular outdoor entertainment in Sydney. In its day it was the largest open-air amusement park in the Southern Hemisphere, and its decline does not diminish the grandeur of William Anderson’s vision.

Although little visible evidence of Wonderland survives today, with the possible exception of the two paths on the northern boundary of Tamarama Gully, the NSW Heritage Office still considers the site to be of archaeological significance. Today a mural commissioned by the Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club on the side of their clubhouse celebrates the history of Wonderland and the part it played in the formation of their club.

Published by Waverley Library from sources in the Local History Collection, 2008.


Tamarama Beach today. The beach is popular with the gay community, and is referred to as “Glamarama” due to the number of muscle boys who like to pose around there.

Australian Icons: Leyland Brothers World, Karuha, NSW.

Article, General Interest, History, Icons, , ,

  
The rock. or whats left of it at the long-gone Leyland Brothers World on the NSW mid coast at Karuah

http://journals.worldnomads.com/stowaway/photo/6392/171049/Australia/The-rock-or-whats-left-of-it-at-the-long-gone-Leyland-Brothers-World-on-the-NS

Mike Leyland, MBE (4 September 1941– 14 September 2009) and Mal Leyland, MBE (born 1945), also known as the Leyland brothers, were Australian explorers and documentary film-makers, best known for their popular television show, Ask the Leyland Brothers. The show ran on Australian television from 1976 until 1984.

In November 1990 the Leyland Brothers opened the theme park Leyland Brothers World (32°37′3″S 152°4′48″E), on a 40 ha property at North Arm Cove on the Pacific Highway north of Newcastle, New South Wales. It included a 1/40 scale replica of Uluru, as well as amusement rides, playground, roadhouse, museum and a 144 student capacity bush camp. In a 1997 article in the Sunday Age, Mike Leyland said that the initial A$1 million loan blew out due to rain during construction and a 27% interest rate. In July 1992 Chris Palmer of BDO Nelson was appointed receiver and manager of the park when the Leyland Brothers company failed to meet its loan commitment to the Commonwealth Bank. Auctioneers Colliers Jardine estimated the yearly attendance of the park to be about 400,000 people, with 10,000 students for the bush camp. After an auction held by the receiver on 26 November 1992 the theme park was sold for $800,000, and continues to trade successfully as the Great Aussie Bushcamp.[ The brothers went bankrupt.

After the 1992 bankruptcy, Mike and his wife Margie ran a New Lambton video store and worked for the park’s new owner. In 1997 Mike sold part of his Tea Gardens property to fund the production of a far north Queensland film for Channel Seven. Mike and his wife Margie signed a contract with Channel Seven for 12 one-hour documentaries, the first of which aired in 1998 in The World Around Us slot. On 14 September 2009 Mike Leyland died from Parkinson’s disease. He was 68 years old. Mike is survived by his wife Margie, his daughters Kerry, Sandy and Dawn, his stepdaughters Sarah and Alison, and seven grandchildren.

Mal and his wife Laraine ran a photo processing lab in Queensland and launched a travel magazine. In 1997 Mal and Laraine launched a bi-monthly magazine, Leyland’s Australia. In 2000 Mal produced the television show Leyland’s Australia, with his wife Laraine, daughter Carmen and her husband Robert Scott – travelling around Australia in a caravan. In April 2000 Channel 9 cancelled the show after 6 episodes but the series was then picked up by Network Ten.
 

Leyland Brothers: Mal Leyland reveals financial rift tore popular brothers apart

Australian Story By Brietta Hague

Updated 16 Feb 2015, 11:34am

 Mal and Mike Leyland in the Simpson Desert
  
PHOTO: Mal and Mike Leyland film in the Simpson Desert in central Australia, 1989.

MAP: NSW

Long before Steve Irwin was jumping on crocodiles, Mike and Mal Leyland were sailing down the Darling River in a chaotic dinghy without oars — all in the name of entertainment.

They were the television legends whose wild adventures captured Australia’s imagination.
Armed with a camera and a catchy song that few can forget, they pioneered a successful outback documentary format and made millions of dollars along the way.
But it was their disastrous decision to branch out into the tourism industry by building their theme park Leyland Brothers World that would end the brothers’ collaboration — and relationship.
Mike Leyland died in 2009 and his brother Mal, now 70, has now agreed to repeated requests from Australian Story to tell their story.
“This is the first time that I’ve publicly spoken about what happened to the Leyland Brothers and why Mike and I went our separate ways,” Mal Leyland said.
“We made a conscious effort to make sure that people thought we were still travelling together.
“We didn’t want people to feel as though we were actually ready to rip each other’s throats out.”
By the time the project collapsed in 1992, they had lost more than $6 million and were bankrupt.
“The receivers came in and took possession of the whole lot,” Leyland said.
Who were the Leyland Brothers?
Australian explorers and documentary film-makers
Best known for their TV show Ask the Leyland Brothers, which ran from 1976-1984

Starred in a following series called Leyland Brothers’ World

Both brothers were awarded MBEs in 1980

“In hindsight, Leyland Brothers World was a huge mistake, the biggest mistake we ever made.”

Amid the financial woes, media reports claimed the brothers had transferred more than $1 million of assets into their wives’ names over an 18-month period.
“I didn’t really mind losing the money. I objected to being treated like a criminal because I lost the money,” Leyland said.
“The partnership that Mike and I had for 29 years was crumbling before my eyes and I knew would never be the same again.
“And since there was now nothing left that we jointly owned, there was no need for us to stay in partnership, so for the first time we went our separate ways.”
Brothers were original Ten Pound Poms
Despite their quintessentially Australian characters, the brothers were born in England and arrived in New South Wales in 1950.
Even at a young age they were fascinated by the outback and all things Australian.
The Brothers first set off to explore the country with their cameras in 1961 when Mal Leyland was just 15 and television was first starting to come to Australia.
Mal Leyland speaks with Australian Story
  
PHOTO: Mal Leyland says the financial rift over the failed theme park ended up pushing the brothers apart. (ABC: Anthony Sines)

They were the first to film Uluru in the wet and first to travel the length of the Darling River in a dinghy.

“We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. We were so inexperienced; we had no oars and only an outboard motor,” Mal Leyland said.
The adventures grew in size and ambition.
Their decision to travel from Australia’s western-most to eastern-most point was a feat never before captured on camera.
It was this entrepreneurial take on filmmaking that led to their early success.
“We decided we would road show the film, we would take it around the country and hire town halls, cinemas if we could, and advertise it ourselves and see how we went,” Mal Leyland said.
It was a risk that paid off.
“At the end of the two-week season we’d recovered $15,000, enough money to buy three houses at the time,” he said.
And so the Leyland Brothers were born.
Before long, their quirky television program Ask the Leyland Brothers was attracting some of the highest ratings of the 1970s and 80s, and the theme song is still a familiar tune to millions of Australians.
“Their place in television history is there forever. Historically, the films are incredibly important,” said entrepreneur Dick Smith, whose decision to make his own travel documentaries was inspired by the success of the Leyland Brothers.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-16/mal-leyland-reveals-financial-rift-tore-popular-brothers-apart/6091042

   
 
Above 2 photos taken in 2002. Private collection of Tim Alderman (Author)

Tim Alderman 2015

Exorcising Demons!

Article, Autobiography, biography, Family History, , , , , , ,

I hate my parents! No…perhaps that is a bit strong, having now written it. I dislike my parents…closer to the point, but now a little too soft.. I’m indifferent towards my parents is perhaps closer to the truth. Yes, I choose to ignore them, and in many instances, regret having to admit that they ever existed at all.

Maybe they loved each other, maybe they didn’t. God knows, love wasn’t exactly a subject openly discussed or displayed as my brother, Kevin, and I grew up. It is sad that Kevin had to be the one to pay the price for whatever did not exist (https://timalderman.com/2012/04/23/kevin-pickhills-the-unspoken-name/) and for what was not discussed, in their relationship. Did we have a happy childhood? In truth, I would have to say yes, though I’m aware that having said that, it is only myself that I speak for. Kevin may have been of another opinion, though, of course, we will never know if that is so.. He has been in his grave for the last 49 years, but I can assume that he would agree with me on that one point – a happy childhood.

It wasn’t difficult to have a happy childhood in the 50’s, and early 60’s. In fact, it appeared that childhood was destined to be that way, almost as if preordained. The weather was perfect – though there are those who say that idyllic weather is part of a co-joined memory of everyone’s childhood – we had perfect neighbour’s, perfect house, perfect pets, and apart from the fact that this is Australia we are talking about, it could almost have been a real-life episode of ‘Father Knows Best’. I was given reasonably free rein to roam Sylvania with my mates, and my dog, Trixie. Kevin in those days was a bit of a millstone around an older brothers neck, but who did not see younger siblings in that light? A necessary evil, in fact.

My childhood, like most who lived through those times was, in many respects, an urban myth. Up until the end of the first decade of our lives, the Easter bunny still delivered Easter eggs, the tooth fairy still left money for dearly departed teeth, and Santa stll came on Christmas Eve to deliver pre-ordered gifts. The only swear word I knew was ‘bloody’ – and had my backside beaten for using it – girls were definitely yucky; and when a school pal whispered into my ear one day about what I actually had to do to a girl to get her pregnant, I screamed, threw my hands in the air and ran!. Nobody would ever do anything that disgusting! Perhaps an inkling of my future lifestyle there! Anyway, I had watched a movie on television by this time, and had it on full authority – in my own mind – that women got pregnant by being kissed, which is why I went out of my way to avoid those situations.

Was it obvious that my mother was unhappy, and planned to desert our happy home? I wouldn’t say it was obvious, but I certainly knew that something wasn’t right. When I got home from school the afternoon she left, and found her gone, I can’t say I was really surprised. In later years, when I was temporarily reunited with her after my fathers suicide, she confided to me that she knew my father was having an affair.. I was more concerned with the issue of her leaving us with a father who was to prove mentally unstable. She claimed that when she left, she had no idea where she was going, or what she was going to do. She couldn’t have managed dragging two young children along with her. I accepted that explanation though must admit to never being entirely happy with it.

That my father was unfaithful to her, I never doubted. Within a fortnight of her leaving, a housekeeper named Nancy was suddenly introduced into the home. It wasn’t that she was identified as ‘housekeeper’ so much as the fact that she knew a little bit too much about us, was a little too familiar with the house. Add to this the fact that she spent the first night on the divan on the back verandah, then suddenly moved into the master bedroom – on my mother’s side of the bed – and even a twelve-year-old doesn’t have problems doing the math. Kevin and I hated her from day one. She was trying to act like a mother, but she knew she wasn’t, so discipline was a problem from the beginning. I hated her because she wouldn’t take orders – well, not from me at any rate. As far as I was concerned, housekeepers took orders. That was something else I learnt from television, and it also proved to be a lie.

For my poor brother, life became an absolute misery. You have to remember that these were still days of witchcraft, and ignorance. If my brother had lived another ten years, he would inevitably have been diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). However, in a time of witchcraft, his chronic disobedience, his problems with learning, and his hyperactivity were considered to by symptomatic of mental deficiency, and that was exactly how Nancy treated him – as someone who wasn’t ‘all there’. I had no problems with him, he was my brother, and pain in the neck or not, I had the patience of a saint with him, teaching him language, and reciting nursery rhymes to him until he knew them verbatim. He spoke what my parents referred to as ‘double Dutch’, and even though they had trouble understanding a single thing he said, I was always there to translate. I could never work out why they could never understand him! He spoke quite clearly, as far as I was concerned. But Nancy wasn’t even liberal enough to want him to have a translator. She just wanted him out. She was about to get her way.

Nag! Nag! Nag! God, if Nancy could do anything, she could nag. Some women are just born to it, and she was one of them. She treated Kevin and I like criminals and outcasts. We were watched 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and nothing crept by her – believe me, I tried. But worse than dobbing on me to my father for my occasional raids on the sacred biscuit tin, worse than alienating us from our friends and neighbours – you wouldn’t believe how many people she poisoned my father against, or in turn poisoned them against us – was that she picked on Kevin. I couldn’t protect or defend him from her. She was like an unrelenting demon from hell. If he looked at her the wrong way, if he spoke to loudly, played when she wanted him to sleep, spoke when she wanted him to be silent, she was on his case. And she made sure the old man knew all about it when he got home from work – and that was ever the threat. Finally he cracked, just caved in to what she wanted.

Fuck, he was a weak man! I think that shits me more than anything. He sprouted all the morality and principles on God’s earth, but when it came down to brass tacks, he just gave in to whatever was easiest. I could never believe that just getting rid of Nancy never seemed to be an option. Fuck knows, nobody else would have put up with her. Compared to my mother, she lived a life of royalty. I have tried to work out over the years how she
managed to stretch the money my old man gave her to do things that mum never seemed able to manage. The only conclusions I can come to are that he either gave her a hell of a lot more money than mum ever saw, or she had an income outside of what she earned housekeeping for us. It is a question that will never be answered now. Christ, she even moved her son into the house, who in turn became Demon from Hell #2. My old man even did up a car for him, and moved him into my brothers bed, which heaven knows he had no need for, being dead at this time. Which I guess brings us to Nancy’s revenge, and what was to be her downfall.

That Kevin would never have gone over The Gap at Watsons Bay, on that fateful 16 December 1965 night if Nancy had not come along is not even a debatable point. It would not have happened. Full stop! Even my mother suffered unaccountable guilt over my fathers actions, beating herself up over leaving home, leaving us in such volatile predicaments. Did Nancy herself ever feel guilt over what happened? In my observations…no! To her, a problem had been removed and life went on. Her alienation of people we knew now carried over to visiting sympathisers, close family, the media! She closed ranks, and not because it protected anyone, but because it was a further extension of her power. My curiosity at trying to come to terms with what had happened, trying to comprehend the sheer personal magnitude of it, was met with icy emotion, steel resolve that nothing and nobody was going to offer me any enrapturing arms, or sympathetic tears.

While all this turmoil went on, several other events occurred – I was, at no time, informed about what was going on with my father! I was kept completely in the dark, and apart from what I have been able to glean from press reports at the time, I am still in the dark about. I wasn’t even notified of his court cases! There was an attempt by my mother to take me back, which happened with such sudden and unexpected ferocity that it had the opposite effect on me to what it should have had…it scared the life out of me, and sent me bolting to a neighbours home for protection. And there was a custody battle between my mother and father, accompanied by threats – truly – from my fathers sisters on what I was to say to the judge to ensure my father – certainly not my parent of choice – retained custody. Nobody gave a flying fuck about what I wanted…it was all about spite, vindictiveness and control! Being a 12 year-old in the 60s was not to have any rights. You just did what you were told!

As for my fathers brief incarceration, there was one visit, and I was “encouraged” to write regularly, whether I wanted to or not.  Upon his release, Nancy stage managed his coming home to be a scene out of “Leave It To Beaver”, complete with me running up the road and into his loving arms! It was done reluctantly, I can assure you. My father and I effectively had no relationship from that time on, and when he committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning in 1978, there were no tears shed on my part. After his return, life’s disruptions continued, with the selling of our Melrose Ave home, moving to a shoebox flat in Kogarah – still with Nancy in tow – a name change from Pickhills to Phillips, and me having to change schools, leaving behind everything and everyone I knew. I ended up at a Marist Brothers boarding school in Campbelltown.

Still, there was one consolation – and again, it was unexpected, and came like a bolt from the blue. Dad arrived home at the flat one day, just in time to hear Nancy in one of her vitriolic tirades at me, for having helped myself to a biscuit from the Sacred Biscuit Tin! Now, whether he suspected that this may have been going on, or whether he was surprised to find it going on I will never know. Suffice it to say that, for the only time in our relationship, he stuck up for me, and bundled me into the car and took me to an aunties. I never saw Nancy again! Like ai cared!

My father and I never reconciled over Kevin’s death. Like with most of the unpleasant things that occurred in his life, he just pretended it never happened. Not Nancy, not my father, nor any of his family ever mentioned Kevin’s name again. It would be 35 years later before I felt comfortable, and able, to write about his death, to tell his story. A reconciliation with my mother just after his death likewise proved futile and fruitless. Too kuch water under the bridge by then. I believe she is still alive, and in her 80s. If my stepfathers death is any gauge, I will hear of her death several years after the event. I am not expecting to shed tears over that event, either’!

Tim Alderman (C) 2015

Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: Genealogy Trendies!

Article, biography, Family History, General Interest, Opinion Piece, , ,

imageThe current “trendiness” of genealogy, and the push by sites like “Ancestry” to get people interested in their family history has a downside – apart from hundreds of trees that are started and then deserted – for those of us who take it seriously. I do use “Ancestry” – indeed, have my whole tree up there – and it can be very useful for filling in gaps that you can’t find information for…though only if the names you draw from other peoples research have themselves been researched. Like many others, my tree is public, and anyone is free to take information, sources, documents and citations from it. However, there is a tendency for many trendies to want to take shortcuts, so just take information from trees without researching themselves, thus passing on information that is often not correct, which in turn has a pyramid effect as others take the information and add to their own trees. There are also those who are just headhunters and only interested in how many people they can add without checking anything at all. A guy on a genealogy page recently was bragging about the 20,000 people he had on his tree. When challenged about whether he had checked the sources for all of them, his comments suddenly stopped. Obviously…no!
I have just add d a convict to my tree – one of several who are closely related. This one is directly related to my maternal Grandmother’s sisters son’s wife…in other words, the wife of a first cousin. Thinking to check information against other trees, the results were fascinating, and a lesson on checking sources. Incorrect spellings of a prominent name, due to an obvious transcription error, was shared amongst the three trees I looked at. Incorrect naming of children, adding children twice – they were using census…as most of us do for England…but had added, for example, an Evangeline D born 1838, and an Evangeline Dorinda born 1838. The error there seems pretty obvious to me! They had made this error with three children, as if the family wasn’t big enough already without an extra three. They had poor Thomas Street arriving here in 1811 to start a 7-year sentence, then arriving again in 1816 to serve another 7-years. Poor bugger! A bit of research, and tying together some facts from the Colonial Secretary’s Papers – it’s all there – would have shown the 1811 arrival to be correct. As it is, the guy has a really interesting history here, and made quite a bit of money after being pardoned – something they don’t seem to have picked up on.
And people hate being corrected when they make mistakes. I have commented on three trees about inaccuracies, and been ignored. One woman, who I had quite a bit of correspondence with, made three errors with MY bloodlines…she added one colourful son to a cousin (he not only had different parents, but was born in a totally different area) who, despite my pointing out the incorrect parentage, is still there in her tree. She also had an incorrect birth date for a GG aunt, and had attributed her to a non-conformist meeting house record…despite the Priscilla she attributed it to having a different mother. All three errors are still there. Needless to say, I don’t trust any of the information on her tree.
I love seeing an interest in genealogy, but making people think that you just type in a name and off you go, and a little leaf popping up next to a name will give you all the correct information you heed is total bullshit. It is all about filtering and researching. There are no shortcuts!

Tim Alderman (C) 2015

Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: When a Pack of Shonks Govern A Country!

Article, General Interest, Opinion Piece, Political, , , , , ,

You have to hand it to the Abbott government – they are the regift that keeps on being gifted! If nothing else, they provide self-opinionated people like me – and the radical media – with plenty of ammunition! They are a constant living reminder of why you NEVER put conservatives in charge – I’m sure our American friends who oppose the GOP will agree with that –  and the need for us to press for a secular state. Religion and politics just DO NOT mix, nor should they be allowed to wander through our lives, hand-in-hand!

Yesterday, not for the first time, our government managed to make a total ass of themselves not just locally, but on the world stage. Never in the history of this country have we seen such shonky politics, economics, and misjudgement;  a prime minister (small P and small M) and a frojtbench that are so self indulgent, lacking in moral grit, and so divorced from the voices of their constituents governing us to nowhere! One can but pray that this is their death knell!

They are continuing to drag the marriage equality debate on and on, despite the majority of Australians wanting it to happen. Once again yesterday they spent hours at a party room meeting – instigated by Abbott at the last minute, naturally – arguing on whether to have a conscience vote on the issue. This has been going on not for weeks but for years now, and despite the issue not going away – as Abbott hoped it would – he continues to complicate and delay what will, in the end, be inevitable! Yesterdays tactics – which fooled no one – are again an rxample of a pm out of touch with the voters. Having had several members of his frontbench speak out against the party line policy regarding Same Sex Marriage, and with many of the backbench lending their support, he resorted to bully-boy tactics. By inviting the National Party – the most conservative of the conservatives – into the party room meeting to be included in the vote on whether there should be a conscience vote on the issue, he effectively ensured he got his way by the very blatant ploy of branch-stacking – the vote was 60-30 against. On the upside, at least 30 are not going to tow the party line! The fact that Christopher Pyne, Malcolm Turnbull and the Attorney General George Brandis stood up against him are positive moves indeed, and increasingly shows a pm out of touch with not only his own frontbench, but with his government overall! Thefeactures are getting deeper! It seems that we are now, due to all this government indecision, heading to a plebiscite (referendum) on the issue at the next election, which thankfully is not far off. The rediculous thing about this needless expense is that the outcome is inevitable…change will come! 

Not being happy with sticking their noses into the bedrooms of all Australians, they then decided to further insult our intelligence by pandering to both their anti-Labor stance, and to climate change deniers with their – excuse me while I laugh hysterically – climate change policy! Fuck me…where do thus mob get off!    Can one take a government who eliminated the portfolio of Science Minister seriously when it comes to climate change! I think not! They have always openly accused the opposition – who have a realistic approach to the SCIENCE of climate change – of having climate change policies that will increase the cost of living to the general population by an increase in electricity prices! Meanwhile, they dismantled the last governments Emissions Trading Scheme – despite the fact that it was working, and bringing money into the governments coffers – cut back funding to renewable energy resources, denigrated the benefits of wind farms, openly encouraged the opening of massive coal mines – recently stopped by the High Court after a massive public outcry – which not only threatened environmental vandalism, but endangered our Great Barrier Reef in the name of corporate greed, and at one stage just after their election threatened to decimate protected old growth forests in Tasmania! And what have they replaced this with? Well, renewable energy targets well below those proposed by other countries world-wide, carbon pricing that will be a burden to industry and the climate, and will in quick time do what they accuse the opposition of doing – increase the cost of living as businesses increase costs to cover the losses incurred by their policies. This is not policy with the environment or climate at it’s core, but policy designed to attack the opposition and hooefully gain favour with those who don’t really understand – or care – what it is all about! They have even nanaged ti take into account technologies that have not even come into being yet…if ever! If the government spent half as much time debating the issue of climate change as they did same sex marriage we may – though probably not – have seen some common sense prevail!

So, a week where we have seen our government pander to the climate change deniers, and deny their citizens the right to love whoever the like! Abbott is, beyond doubt, the worst and most destructive prime minister we have ever had in the political history of our country! His place in history will be as an example of stubborness and stupidity that is really unforgivable. His government is divided and seriously fractured by his need to impose his own morality and ideals upon those over which he governs. When his government fails, there will be no one left to blame but himself! And bring it on, I say! Bring it on!

An Unholy Alliance and Foxtel

Article, Gay Interest, Opinion Piece, , ,

Article from http://thevuepost.com/2015/08/10/an-unholy-alliance-and-foxtel/

We recently reported on the launch of a new anti-gay organisation in Australia, calling itself ‘Marriage Alliance.’ The organisation appears to have been set up by people affiliated with the Catholic Church, with the sole purpose of campaigning against marriage equality. We prefer to call it an unholy ‘alliance.’

As part of their efforts, Marriage Alliance produced a TV commercial alluding to some vague, horrible consequences for our society, to children, sex education in schools and our ‘rights’, would marriage equality be recognised in Australia. In our previous article we linked to the ad for your critical consideration and analysed some of the claims put forward by Marriage Alliance.
The TV commercial in question was rejected outright by Channels 7 and 10, however, it is being shown on Channel 9 and Foxtel. Marriage Alliance was quite upset by the rejections, and saw it as an affront to their ‘freedom of speech’. Meanwhile they are continuing to ban just about everyone on their Facebook page who expresses a view at odds with their hyper-inflated, and utterly unsubstantiated claims, including our Editor-at-large.
While the gay community was less than shocked by Channel 9 playing along with this new ignorant and homophobic ‘play-group’, we can’t say the same about Foxtel.
Foxtel is reportedly a good corporate citizen when it comes to the treatment of its LGBTI employees, although it does not take part in Pride in Diversity, and does not feature in AWEI’s 2015 top 20 Australian employers for LGBTI people. However, Foxtel is a proud, public corporate supporter of marriage equality. These factors make their decision to air the commercial even more baffling.
The ‘copy and paste’ Foxtel PR response to unhappy customers doesn’t help:
Hi [Name], Thanks for getting in touch. Foxtel is acutely aware that its decision to carry advertisements for the Marriage Alliance has caused hurt and distress to some our customers.
This decision was not made lightly and was made with the active involvement of gay senior executives. Foxtel has and will continue to express support for Marriage Equality.
However, as in Ireland, we believe this debate should be won by the force of the argument in favour of reform, not by refusing to engage in debate or to allow contrary opinions to be put. LGBTQI people were silenced for centuries. We do not believe that the same tactic should be used now against the opponents of Marriage Equality.
As a company Foxtel is a strong supporter of Australian Marriage Equality.
After all Foxtel’s ‘gay senior executives’ approved airing the commercial! Who are you to judge and question? We presume these are the same ‘gay senior executives’ whose jobs depends on playing the usual corporate games and whose bonuses depend of Foxtel’s profitability. Clearly Foxtel is confident that any losses from cancelled subscriptions will be offset by the ad revenue. And that’s fine, after all Foxtel is a business with the primary role of generating revenue for shareholders but, in the words of Judge Constance Harm of The Simpsons, ‘don’t spit on my cupcake and tell me it’s frosting.’
We also appreciate Foxtel, and its ‘gay senior executives’, might genuinely believe we should engage in a ‘debate’ with opponents of marriage equality, and allow ‘contrary opinions’ to be put. We believe Marriage Alliance is likely to advance the cause of marriage equality in Australia by highlighting the ridiculousness of anti-LGBTI religious bigots, however giving a significant national platform to what can only be described as ignorant, homophobic fear-mongering is another story.
Consider this for a moment: replace ‘same-sex marriage’ with the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal Australians in the commercial in question, warning Australians of the ‘many untold dangers’ of doing so – would Foxtel air such a commercial, and how would it be received in the wider community?
Foxtel is setting a dangerous precedent for any bigoted hate group that can cobble together the money for a TV campaign and assert they just wish to have a ‘debate’.
Where is the ‘debate’ in ‘opinions’ long discredited across the liberal democratic world? Where is the ‘debate’ in bigoted, unsubstantiated fear-mongering using the same old, long-demolished arguments that have been thrown around for the better part of the past two decades about marriage equality, involving children, religious freedom and the infamous slippery slope into social anarchy? And would someone please think of all the bigoted, homophobic bakers, florists and wedding photographers who may be subjected to witnessing love and happiness they disapprove of because … Jesus?!
Despite our non-theistic value system, here at The Vue Post we do support the right of people of faith to observe their respective religious beliefs. However, in a secular, liberal democracy that right cannot be unfettered. For example:
religious beliefs cannot be equated with, or override, proven observable facts and social and scientific theories; and

freedom of religion must give way when it comes into conflict with the dignity of human beings.

There must also be very limited role for religious institutions in public policy, especially in secular, liberal democracies. Religious ‘morality’ has little role to play in modern public policy and society.
Only public policy which is guided by common decency, human dignity and fairness and is informed by proven observable facts and social and scientific theories will be good public policy. Such policies will arguably also always satisfy the fundamental principles of religious beliefs, without importing the uninformed bigotry and prejudices developed and retained by their institutions over the centuries.
In a modern, liberal secular democracy we simply cannot have laws that entitle citizens and public business to discriminate against a group of their fellow citizens on the basis of so-called ‘deeply held beliefs’. Would we allow a Christian business owner to deny goods and services to Muslim or Jewish customers on the basis of their ‘deeply held beliefs’, or vice-versa? Would we allow LGBTI business owners to ask if a customer has a particular belief that considers homosexuality a sin, and then refuse to serve them on the basis of his or her ‘deeply held belief’ about such views being abhorrent and out-of-bounds in a modern, liberal secular democracy?
We think not. Society could not properly function and peacefully co-exist under such conditions.
We do support the right to an informed debate, the discussion of ideas and concepts and challenging the status quo. However, speech infused with bigotry, hatred and prejudice, such as homophobia, misogyny or racism by their very nature lack the ‘informed’ component. That’s why we don’t give a platform to people who still deny the holocaust or question the intellectual equality of people of colour and women to white men, and we would just laugh at someone who suggested the Earth is flat or the Sun revolves around us. But, sadly, ignorant homophobia is still seen as perfectly acceptable, even by an organisation that ‘prides’ itself on its support for the LGBTI community, in the name of ‘freedom of speech.’
An ‘opinion’ in the absence of evidence and facts to support it is usually just old-fashioned bigotry, hatred and prejudice, and so it is arguable that no one is entitled to an opinion, especially when the opinion in question has no foundation in facts, or has been conclusively and inarguably debunked. In our view, you are only ‘entitled’ to what you can coherently argue and factually support. For bible-based arguments against homosexuality and marriage equality that ship had long sailed. And make no mistake, Marriage Alliance is not an ‘independent alliance.’ It has deep and undeniable connections to the Catholic Church through every single person who has been publicly associated with the organisation.
Foxtel, and Channel 9, are misguided. They are not contributing to a ‘debate’ by showing the commercial. The ‘debate’ has been over for quite a while now. We are now in a war of attrition on the subject of marriage equality and Foxtel, and Channel 9, just awarded a free-kick to the opposition. A bigoted, homophobic and ignorant opposition, driven by extremist religious ideology which at its heart is opposed to the very existence of the LGBTI community.
Consequently, we cannot accept the explanation given by Foxtel for airing the Marriage Alliance commercial. Doing so is inexcusable, and their ‘freedom of speech’ argument in defending their actions rings as hollow, and intellectually and morally bankrupt, as the Marriage Alliance commercial.
The same applies equally to Channel 9. But at least the LGBTI community is not paying for the privilege of watching Channel 9, unlike with Foxtel’s expensive, subscription-based service, only to be verbally assaulted by a bigoted anti-LGBTI message in the safety of their own home, by a service they pay for.

Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: The Contract Trap!

Article, General Interest, Opinion Piece, , , , , ,

If consumer law nerds to start tackling a major problem in service delivery, they need to do something about both mobile phone, and gym contracts. No wonder people are over the blatant rip-off, and are opting for the growing number of “no contract” options.

I recently moved from Brisbane to Sydney. In Brisbane, I had already a huge dispute with a gym I first used up there several years ago. I was getting pissed off enough with the lack of care for regular, long-term users as it was, but the crunch dame when I was accepted to do a course at TAFE – my Certificate III in Fitness – and had to start there within a week of being accepted. Perhaps not surprisingly, the couse included free use of the Southbank TAFE gym. So, not only would I no longer be using my regular gym, but would be continuing to pay for something I didn’t use. But I was tied into a contract, wasn’t I, anddespite the contract itself having expired, because I had continued I was still bound by its conditions – apparently we had been notified of this at the time of signing the contract, though neither myself nor my partner had any recollection if it. So, could I just give a couple of days notice to quit the gym? Not on your life – I had to give 30 days notice and,nof course, despite not using the services I would continue to be charged for the 30 days. I was ropable, and tried – futilely – to wreak my revenge by just refusing to pay. Naturally, they threatened kegal action, and being unwilling to get a black mark against my credit history, I eventually caved in.

Now, this is a gym! It is somewhere that I spend about 3 hours per week in! I don’t live there! I don’t work for them! Yet the conditions of the contract treat me as if I am an employee! I am required to give 30 days notice to quit – evidently it takes them 30 days to cancel your direct debit, inlike the two days it takes the non-contract gym. If I want to freeze my membership or quit for health reasons, I amrequired to supply a doctors certificate! To a gym! If I am wuitting to move, or go on a long holiday, I am required to give proof..land get this – they will then ACCESS my eligibility to quit the contract! What an infringement of rights…not to mention unbelievable abuse and manipulation of someone who is doing nothing more than using a service!

Likewise with phones. On moving into the shoebox that us called an apartment, I wanted to get wifi. I don’t use the 3G or 4G networks,  as I do everything on my tablet and wifi pretty well covers everything I want to do. I didn’t want to get tied into a contract, as we will be moving to the central coadt after our lease runs out next year, and it is eadier to just cancel the wifi service, and reconnect it at a new address after we move. For the privilege of not having a contract, I pay an exhorbitant monthly amount. They think, evidently, that by overcharging me, I will eventuall fold, and jove to a contract. I have news for them, and it’s all bad! I will continue to allow them to rip me off – the telco is Optus, by the way – because of the convenience itoffers, including unlimited data  usage – very handy when using streaming services like Netflix. As for my mobile phone – I have, despite saying I wouldn’t, optrd for a contract again, even though it locks me in for 2 years. I only use it for phone calls and messaging…and a bit of Facebook…so the low charge – and bew phone – I am paying for is still cheaper than a sim-only phone. I tried a mobile wifi modem when first arrived back so as to have access to wifi, and ut cost me a fortune in data charges. The phone companies love to rort everyone for data usage! It is so blatantly dishonest, but evetyone just lets them get away with it. There are a few smaller Telco’s hitting the sim-only market now, with better rates and conditions, but they are still piggy-backing off the bigTelco’s systems, so how they fare in the future remains to be seen.

So I land back in miserable Sydney (I really hate this city now!). I have gad two years of a no-contract gym…Jetts…in Brisbane. Ground level gyms flooded with sun, and natural light, not over-crowded with equipment, and quiet during the day, which is when I like to go. The Jetts gym in Sydney is quite a distance away, so I stipidly – and against my better judgement – opted for the closest gym…an Anytime Fitness, which is a contract gym, and at $69 a month, is not cheap! The gym is underground, so dark and oppressive. It is crammed with 7,  offers nothing in the way of space. What they consider a quiet period is not quiet, and one often has someone breathing down their heck, or finding equipment tied up, or in the case of the 12.5 kg dumbbells…just NEVER available. I hate it, and I’m not using it. Infortunstely, all these hassles didn’t present themselves within my 7 day cooling-off period. So now I’m stuck with having to pay my way out of the contract – a cheaper option than the $69 a month I am cyrrently paying. Of course, they were quick eniugh to sign me up, but now I want to quit I can’t get any help at all. 2 requests by email for a final pay-out figure have gone unanswered. The longer they stuff me around, the more money they get out of me.

It really is time for this free-ride by Telco’s and Franchisers to be looked into by an independent body. It is time to give everyone a fair deal. The continuing rise of no-contract gyms and phone companies should be causing the contract budinesses some concern. In particular, the terms and conditions of contracts shiuld be gone over with a magnifying glass, and cleaned up, and made fairer for all. Onvioysly, the more competative these businesses become, the better it will be for everyone concerned. At the very least, if they are going to treat me like an employee – as is the case with contract gyms – they can bloody well pay me a wage!

So, it’s back to the battle of breaking-the-contract! One thing I can now promise you…I will NEVER use a contract gym again. I just hope that, like Foxtel now finding itself in a competative market with Netflix…who are substantially cheaper…they will eventually be forced to reconsider how they do business. If contracts are not going to end – and they should be outlawed – then they have to ge made a lot more reasonable, and fair. I know investigations gave been threatened for a while now, but maybe it is either take action officially, or people need to talk with their feet!

Tim Alderman

(C) 2015

Dieting Myths

Article, General Interest, Health Information, Nutrition, , ,

This excellent article appeared today from  http://www.shebudgets.com/health/diet-fitness/10-weight-loss-tricks-that-are-complete-myths/55503?utm_source=facebookpage&utm_medium=luan&utm_term=shebudgets&utm_campaign=weightlossmyths&ts_pid=2

If losing weight was easy and simple and becoming thin and gorgeous was easy and simple, we’d all be thin and gorgeous. But it’s not always the case; if you want to lose 10 pounds, you have to lose 10 pounds. You can’t just sit down and hope some magic potion is going to give you a wish and then you’ll be thinner and more gorgeous than you were an hour ago. There is no magic potion or trick for weight loss. If you want to get healthy and fit and look great, you have to make some lifestyle changes. You have to stop eating like a pig, over-indulging, skipping the good stuff and hoping that the bad stuff is going to make you skinny. It’s not. You’re not going to get thin and stay thin eating nothing but milkshakes or drinking pepper water. You have to eat well, exercise and live a healthy lifestyle.
Sorry (not sorry) – this is not what you want to hear. You want to hear that you can take a pill and lose weight and all kinds of good things will happen to you without you actually having to work for those things. And it’s not going to happen. You have to work for what you want and get actual results. It’s called responsibility and dedication. Diet trends and myths don’t work because you have to keep them up forever and ever and it’s not healthy or possible to do so. We have, instead, decided that we’d tell you that all those things you’re hoping will make you look good in time for beach season will not work long term. Skip them; make lifestyle changes for the better. These diets are myths and they will not work.

Goodbye Gluten

If you have celiac disease and you have to eliminate gluten from your diet, do it. But it always makes me laugh to see people who go gluten-free as if they’re doing something good for themselves as a whole. A gluten-free diet is not a weight loss tool. It’s a way for people with a certain illness to eat food without getting sick. So if you’re using this as a way of dieting, you’re just wasting time and money buying things that aren’t doing it for you.

Juice Diets

Why would you drink just juice and hope that you could lose weight? Of course you are going to lose weight just drinking juice. You are eliminating actual food from your diet and you are not going to be able to keep that up forever. Can you go the rest of your life without actual food? No, you cannot, and that’s why these silly diets do not work.

Soup Diets

See above – you cannot live on soup for the rest of your life. Sure, it’s healthier than juice, but it’s not a way of life. You cannot just hope that you will lose weight because you are eating only soup and hoping that weight loss comes to you in many forms. You have to actually go about losing weight like a real person by eating healthy foods.

Skipping Breakfast

It’s never a good idea to skip breakfast. Of course you feel thin when you wake up; you haven’t eaten in 15 hours. So skipping breakfast is not going to make you thinner or healthier. It’s just going to make you hungrier and it’s going to make you feel bad because your metabolism is going to slow down and work on a pace that doesn’t burn any calories.

Negative Calorie Foods

Some people call this the grapefruit diet, and it consists of eating only things that have negative calories. These are foods that have fewer calories in them than it takes to consume them. While most of these foods are healthy, they cannot complete your diet. You still have to eat and use regular meals if you plan on getting healthy and losing weight for the long term.

No More Carbs

You can’t do it; because carbs are amazing. Sure, it might work for a few days and you’ll feel good and healthy, but when you eat them again you’re going to miss them. And you cannot stay away from carbs forever. Some of them are actually good for you and you need those to survive. So skip the fad and just limit your intake.

Eating Every Two Hours and Skipping Meals

Little meals are good throughout the day, but you cannot skip big meals at all in favor of snacking and grazing every two hours. A handful of nuts or yogurt every two hours does not make for a healthy day. You’re doing yourself a great disservice assuming you can eat like this in a way that’s healthy and beneficial.

Drinking your Calories

All right, so sometimes we all do this. We order a small salad with nothing on the side and then we order three glasses of wine. While it might make for a fun occasional night out, it’s not good for us on so many levels. You can’t skip food to drink – it’s going to kill you. It’s disgusting and unimpressive and not at all good for you.

Food Pairings

Did you know that some people say you should not eat certain foods together? For example, you should not eat carbs with protein because it will make you fat the way that they work together as they digest. Whatever; it’s not the truth. You can’t let people tell you that you can eat as much as you want if you just avoid eating certain things together. It’s not the way eating works.

Not Eating

Sure, not eating is going to make you lose weight. It’s also going to bloat you and make you feel awful. It’s not healthy, and it’s not good for anyone. You’re entire life will change if you stop eating. You’ll become sick, tired, anxious, stressed, grouchy, depressed and you still won’t feel as if you look good. Why? Because you won’t look good and you won’t feel good.

Some real home truths there.

Tim

Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: People Who Don’t Research Before Commenting!

Article, General Interest, Opinion Piece, , , , ,

halalhəˈlɑːl/

adjective

adjective: halal

1.

denoting or relating to meat prepared as prescribed by Muslim law.

“halal butchers”

religiously acceptable according to Muslim law.

“halal banking”

noun

noun: halal

1.

halal meat.
I abhor ignorance! Followed closely by yobboism ( Yobbo is an Australian term for people who are ignirant and verbose about it, loud-mouthed, discriminatory and racist). Social media has pushed these people into the forefront of opinion, and has created pages and groups who foster and promite as common opinion the bias, hate, racism and uneducated rhetoric of these deluded imbeciles! The current debates regarding Halal Certification of food products in Australia has driven these ignoramuses into a frenzy! What is a fery simple – and in a multicultural society very fair – issue has been warped and twisted into misinformation and out and out lies.

With the likes of our local imbeciles such as Corey Bernardi (people actually vote for this South Austealianidiot!), who has called for a very expensive government inquiry into halal certification, and the so-called Halal Truthers who ignorantly inform us that the fees from halal certification go overseas to fund terrorism. Truly! There sre even thise – and I love this – who think halal is an actual dish to eat! Says it all really, doesn’t it!

Thank heaven for the voices of sanity and reason,  like Charlie Pickering.On His   weekly news commentary show last week he gave these idiots a blast, and put things into perspective. As he stated in “The Weekly”, “Luckily the only people who have a problem with halal certification are fringe people on the internet. Oh, and senators,” Pickering said. These fringe groups and extremists seem to think halal certification will change the intrinsic nature of foods such as meat, and…wait for it…Vegemite. With comments on Halal Facebook pages such as “What a crock of shit! Cease halal certification now!”, ” It is Sharia Law that says these ragheads…I loathe expressions like that…must eat halal food. We don’t have Sharia Law here”, “Screw halal and all who make it”; so they have tried to decry halal food as something to ge scared off…but that couldn’t be further from the truth! As Pickering points out, halal certification is no different to kosher certification, no things like “Made in Australia” label or the Heart Foundation tick for which small fees are also paid. 

The genefits of these dertifications is not to demonise food products, or to buy guns for terrorists! It is so the producers if these products dan increase their countries of distribution into places that orevioysly they could not sell in due to not being certified. It is really as simple as that! Why would you restrict your distribution to countries like Australia (or Britain or the US) when you vould get your products into Muslim Asian markets nearby, or even in the Middle East! To quote Pickerings statistic, Australian-made foods exported to Muslim populations brings in 13 BILLION dollars per year, and directly supports about 60,000 jobs.. Please follow this link for the whole Pickering segment on “The Weekly” https://newmatilda.com/2015/05/21/watch-charlie-pickering-takes-cory-bernardi-and-halal-truthers 

It is to our own benefit that these cettifications are put in place. It supports our industries, increases distribution of products, and supports employment in industries. What is the problem there! If you are going to comment on a subject, at least inform yourself about what you are commenting on! What Jack next door, your parents or your best friend thinks is inconsequential! Think and learn for yourself.

So, Vegemite is not going to change flavour or cost, you can still eat pork, and the Halal section in your supermarket meat cabinet is still accessible to you, and a terrorist with a “Spnsored by Halal Certification” label dangling off his gun is not going to suddenly pop up at your front door!  Halal certification is going to change nothing in your life, so stop fretting.

And before signing off, I should mention how inevitable it is that as soon as anything that involves the words Muslim  or Islam crop up, the “phobes” come pouring out of the woodwork! It is something we should not be proud of! Unfortunately, “yobboism” is alive and well in this country! Fortunately, informed, intelligent commentary outweighs the blabbering ignorancy we seem to find on docial media. 

If you can’t be bothered researching, then kerp your fomments to yourself! 

Tim Alderman

(C) 2015

 
 

Another Coming Out Story!

Article, Autobiography, biography, Gay Interest, History, , , , ,

“Life’s not worth a damn till you can shout out – I am what I am!”
Gloria Gaynor – I am What I Am

There is nothing worse than being 9 years-old in the 1960s, knowing that you are different to all the other boys around you, and not knowing how or why, or even having a word to describe it. I was just “Different”!

My father had a word for it though..poofter, though I could never quite work out who or what these poofter people were…perhaps from a country I hadn’t heard of…maybe! In the car one day with dad in the passenger seat, and Uncle Peter…a mate of dads…driving. There was a guy walking along the footpath in a pink shirt. My fathers window was quickly opened, and in unison both father and uncle screamed “POOFTER” out the window. On observing the guy through the back seat window…I could see nothing to help me define that word! However, I have a word to describe my father! It came into my vocabulary shortly after that age. Cunt! As you can already see…this was not a family who would facilitate…or appreciate…my coming out as gay!

Now let me see…what qualities singled me out as “Different”; playing with the girls in the school yard for starters. And unlike the boys, they accepted me into their girls clique with no recrimination or name-calling. I was an excellent skip-roper, and picked up the intricacies of French skipping (done with elastic) very quickly. It could have been my playing with dolls, which my mother actually bought for me…secretly of course! Or my penchant for hiding away in quiet corners and reading books…or my total dislike of sports…my keen eye for fashionable ladies wear…my creative science fiction inspired composition (essay) writing… my artistic streak…my perchant for playing “dress up” in my mothers clothes (which perhaps lead to the evolution of my gutter drag persona…Cleo…in the 1980s)…even my over-active imagination all kept me apart from the other boys I knew. At the beach I was attracted to…and stared at…guys in Speedo swimwear. This was the era of nylon Speedo briefs, and the young men hung very nicely out of them, to say the least. Even the nylon briefs with a “modesty panel” across the front did nothing to hide their manly virtues, as the panels tended to ride up, further emphasising their manliness! And I tore adverts for men’s underwear or photos of lifesavers or any other scantily dressed males out of magazines and newspapers. These adverts, for underwear such as Jockey y-fronts, or Bonds horizontal fly s’port briefs showed no real bulges…but I could imagine them, so to me they were erotic (and now my underwear fetish). I imagined a bulge on the lycra-clad comic strips heroes of the time…The Phantom, Superman, and Batman and Robin.

I also had my first orgasm at 9…and that was something I wasn’t prepared for. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I wasn’t even looking at anything that I fancied…just sitting class, gazing out a window. An erection…which I knew nothing about…just happened. Slightly moving backwards and forwards produced this pleasing sensation…and within seconds I blew. Confusion reigned, as it was such an unexpected occasion. I never mentioned it to anyone, though there was a thorough examination of my cock at bath time to make sure everything was okay. It was! I also started growing pubic hair, which I used to pull out as quickly as it appeared as I was embarrassed by its growth. A discreet viewing of the other boys in the change room revealed no hair on them, so this was obviously a freakish thing happening just to me. My parents weren’t great with the birds and the bees stuff! However, it must have clicked with them that something was going on…perhaps a discolouration in my Jockeys…or the fact that I learnt to masturbate by rolling onto my stomach, and rubbing my cock on the sheet until I came, thus unknowingly creating stiff patches on the sheets…may have been a hint that puberty had started. Nothing like a Christian sex pamphlet discreetly left by the bedside to educate you in the dynamics of sex. I was horrified! No wonder I was confused! Thank heaven for my little stash of adverts!

So I guess I just tucked all my “Different” away. After leaving school, and starting work, I hung out with a large group of people, so I came into contact with other gay guys who were included in our group, and as with many other things in my life, I accepted them on face value. However, they were nearly all in the display areas of Grace Brothers (in Roselands shopping centre), and were very effete…something I couldn’t relate to, so I guess it sort of added to the confusion I was already going through. If gay=effete…then I mustn’t be gay. It seemed logical at the time, especially with no other role models to help guide me through the confusion. So I went through the 70s dating girls, though never making sexual advances to them. It wasn’t even something I considered doing. The girls, in turn, loved going out with me because they felt safe, and knew I wouldn’t go in for the quick grope…and I often helped them buy their clothes. Jo was a girl I used to date who was kind of my “beard” (a term used to describe girls who used to act as girlfriends to stop family from asking difficult questions). She was quite a beautiful girl and I think my old man thought she was a potential marriage mate for me. She did try to seduce me one night, but when I fought off her advances…things must have clicked with her.

The next thing I know, she’s taken me out to Oxford Street in Darlinghurst, pointing out all the gay venues to me and taking me to a gay coffee lounge called “Nana’s” in Bourke St (which became a very popular Vietnamese restaurant in the 80s) where I was introduced to the owner, Nana, and his partner Cupcake.

Author in thev1970s on a solo vacation to Magnetic Island.

Yet there was one occasion when something almost happened. I would have been about 17, and worked for a menswear company at Roselands called E.L. Downes. There was a Clark Rubber store on the lower ground floor, and the manager there, named Barry, who was quite a handsome older man, served me on several occasions. I used to wave as I passed the store, and he used to sit next to me on the bus after work, as we both lived in Kogarah, though on opposite sides of the railway line. As I passed the store one lunchtime, he grabbed me and asked if I would like to go out with him. Without even a blink, I said yes! Told my workmates, and they just encouraged me…and it just didn’t dawn on me that obviously THEY knew I was gay! Talk about naive! Anyway, that weekend I met him at the station…at this time I was living with just my father (my mother left home in 1965), and there was no way I was telling him I was going out with a guy…and we cabbed it into The Cross to this VERY ritzy restaurant called “Mrs Beeton’s Tent”. I’d never been to such a sophisticated…and expensive… place, so was a bit dazzled by it all. Anyway, we got a cab to go home, and he was holding my hand in the back seat. All I could think was…what’s going to happen from here…what am I expected to do! If he asks me home, I’ll go…just to see what happens! The cab got back to Kogarah, and dropped us off at a small park in the main street. He grabbed me by the arm, and started pulling me towards the toilet block, telling me he couldn’t take me home, as he lived with his mother! A toilet block for my first sexual experience with a guy was NOT the romantic experience I was expecting, so broke his grip, said “my father’s expecting me home!” and fled up the street. Missed opportunities! Oh well, such is the life of the shy and naive! Not surprisingly, Barry never spoke to me again, and caught a later bus home from that time on.. When I think about it now, I just shake my head. Considering how outrageous I was to become…I can’t believe my actions that night!

Just after this I started renting with friends in Granville. It was around this time that I started buying bits and pieces of gay porn, and buying “Campaign” newspaper (it became a magazine at a later date). One old closeted gay guy I worked with at Pellegrini & Co knew I was gay, and he evidently wasn’t the only one. My flatmates took me to a party at the home of two gay guys they knew…John & Ray. They had me sussed out in the blink of an eye, but I ignored their innuendo and sly comments and continued to deny it. My flatmates found out by mistake when I went to Campbelltown in the latter half of the 70s to help my step-brothers (he also later turned out to be gay) wife who had had a stroke. I asked my housemates to bring up some clothes for me as I was staying a while, and…much to my horror, and despite a phone plea to ignore the magazines in the drawer (like that was going to happen!)…they unearthed my stash of gay porn mags, and actually kept hush about it until after I came out. In the interim, I had sex with one girl…Veronica…a friend of my female housemate, and who had a young daughter who actually idolised me…just to make sure I wasn’t straight!After having to fantasize about a man to get to orgasm with her, I think the dye was pretty well set…though Barry may have seen Kharma at work, as I shouted her a very expensive meal at the Millionaires Club in Darlinghurst on our first date, and she said no to sex as she wasn’t on the pill…that came after our second date. Yet I still didn’t come out, despite knowing for sure.

Me just before leaving for Melbourne at the Capitan Torres restaurant in Sydney circa 1978

However, circumstances were about to present me with the window of opportunityI needed, and the wherewithal to come crashing out of my closet!

In late 1978 my father committed suicide in bushland near his home in Vincentia, on the NSW south coast.. I am not going to go into details of life with my father, but suffice it to say it was tense. I cried a few crocodile tears, then clicked my heels and rejoiced. My sense of freedom at last was overwhelming! I don’t know what I would have done if this situation hadn’t presented itself. I could never have openly come out to him, as the repercussions could have been dire. As it was, I was moving further and further away…in a relationship sense…from all my family (I am not going into the complexities here, but…oh boy!) so it is possible that to live my own life, and be who I had to be, I would have cut them all off earlier than I did…or maybe Melbourne would have happened anyway, irrespective of anything, and I would just have cut them out of my life. I guess the simple fact was that I was an outcast…the black sheep of my family. One way or another…I really didn’t give a fuck!

In the middle of 1980, the retail company I worked for – Pellegrini & Co Pty Ltd – asked me if I would be interested in going to Melbourne and troubleshooting two stores they had down there. I jumped at the chance. So I flew to Melbourne, set up house in Cumming St, West Brunswick, and started to set in motion the cogs that would change my life, starting a whole new phase that would take me in directions I could never have imagined.

Now, this was no easy matter. Cogs can be complicated mechanisms. The two stores – one in the Myer Centre and one in Hardware Street were in a mess, and by the time Christmas 1980 rolled around, I had not even started having any social life, let alone coming out and banging my way through Melbourne! That was to come! After spending that Christmas and Boxing Day on my own with a bottle of whisky, I decided I needed to do something about it! But what? I went through the classifieds and social group listings in the gay press, mentally started ticking or crossing them out, then going through a process of elimination with the ticked ones, according to where I thought I might or might not fit in. One group seemed to stand out – Acceptance Gay Catholics. I knew not only all the ins and outs of the Catholic Church…but I managed businesses for a Catholic retailer. Seemed like a match made in heaven, so to speak! So I made a phone call, found out whose home the next First Friday Mass was held at, and the next First Friday found me heading out to suburbia to Max’s house for my first gay outing. I told no one I was not yet out, and not being from Melbourne they wouldn’t know if I was or not. Right up to the day I left Melbourne no one I knew was any the wiser.

So the guys all started piling in…and not exactly a pack of spunks, though a couple of lookers amongst them. Turns out the Servite Fathers conducted the masses for them. Not being under the jurisdiction of the local bishop, they were free to do what they liked.

A clone is born…Cumming St West Brunswick 1981.

After the mass there was a meal, then we hit Melbourne for a night out. My first gay club…The University Club in Swanston St. It was gay there every Friday and Saturday night. Started dancing with the guys from the group, and decided to play it safe by dancing with, then going home with, one of the older, plainer guys. At the grand age of 25 I was about to have my first gay sexual experience. It wasn’t the bells, whistles and fireworks I was expecting! In fact…it was a total dud!

Frank, naturally thrilled to bits to have a quite handsome bit of fluff come on to him (actually he made the first move – on the dancefloor! I wasn’t experienced enough to know that if you weren’t really interested, you said a polite “no thanks” and moved onto the next). I didn’t want to seem rude, so said yes when he invited me home, despite fancying a couple of the younger guys more. A steep learning curve here! So, Frank had a car and offered me a night at his place. I can’t remember where he lived now, but it was quite a drive out of the Melbourne CBD. No sooner was I in the car than he had my cock out, and out it remained all the way to his place, despite several near misses due to his…distraction! I often wonder what other drivers thought as Frank’s head disappeared from sight at every red light! Once we got indoors, I decided the ball was in his court and I would leave it up to him to drive proceedings. He assumed I was a young slut and would know how all the mechanisms of gay sex unfolded. Frank was also a bit old and stale, and not the most sexually adventurous person to go home with. From my perspective, I wouldn’t even be leaving the starters blocks with this one. Not an auspicious beginning to my gay sex life, having held myself back for so long. The next morning, it was breakfast, then finding out that I would be getting myself back into the city…on a train. Well, fuck you too, Frank!

At an Acceptance function just prior to returning to Sydney. Fred Diamond (left), Max (Centre) and me.

I started attending not just the First Friday Masses, but Sunday Evening masses as well, held in the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in North Fitzroy, and any of the other Acceptance social occasions that cropped up on the calendar. Thankfully, Frank attended pretty well none of these with any regularity, so it was quite a long time before I ran into him again. In the interim, I found out from Fred – we’ll get to Fred shortly – that he and the other young guys at the University Club that night were quite surprised to see me go home with him. Learn to say no is the first rule of survival on the gay scene!. So over the next few months I met the other members of Acceptance through the masses, or parties in their homes, and get-togethers in a few local eateries, and gay venues such as The Laird Hotel in Collingwood, Smarties Nightclub in North Melbourne, and Pokies, a Sunday night drag venue in St Kilda. My evil plan was working…I was starting to lead a gay life!

In the meantime, I wanted the world to know I was gay. I wrote to my ex-Granville flatmates and ‘fessed up…only to find out that they had known since the night they packed my luggage for Campbelltown. They had met my mother, who I had only just been reunited with prior to coming to Melbourne. On a visit to see her, they notified me by mail, they had accidentally outed me, thinking that I had notified her at the same time as them! They also informed me that she already suspected that I was gay, though she never brought the subject up with me. Years later, back in Sydney, I made no effort to hide my sexuality from her, though on a mother/son lunch in the city one day, she informed me that she blamed herself for it. It became a moot point between us, and she has never really reconciled herself to it. Tough shit! I wasn’t taking a step back for anyone!

After my rather unsettling encounter with Frank, where nothing more exciting than some oral happened, things went from bad to worse. I fell in love with Fred, who edited the Acceptance newsletter, and did a gossip column under the pseudonym of Jodi A Frean. Fred and I had a difficult sex life for the 6 months we were together, and being the innocent I was, I never picked up on the signals about his sexuality. Firstly, he was into light S&M…at least I knew that was, thanks to reading “The Joy Of Gay Sex” before venturing into the Gay void…and secondly…he was a beat quean! He, Danny (who was the second man to fuck me, and went to it like a rabbit on heat) and Jim (who gave me a handjob in the shower, after a swim at a beach house we went to for an overnight stay) were the only three Acceptance members I got off with. Another, Tony, who I should have been more attuned to, as he was more my type, had a crush on me, which I suspected, but unfortunately never followed up on.

At a Mass at my flat in West Brunswich, a very handsome man…Barry (I know…the same names seem to keep cropping up in my life)…caught my eye. He stayed after everyone else left. We chatted, he helped clean up, we drank some more wine, and ended up in the bedroom, where he had the great distinction of being the first man to fuck me. The sheer eroticism and intensity of getting fucked blew my mind! I took to it like a duck to water, and never looked back!

So, that was the start of my sex life. The next thing to do was to expand my horizons. A lot of thought went into it…I wasn’t a risk-taker so the beats held no appeal, no did the shadowy world of the sauna. I had been…unnecessarily… steeling and prodding myself to go to a nightclub in St Kilda called “Mandate”. It was to be another life-changing experience! I was terrified when I ventured there for the first time. It was unlike any nightclub I had been to before in that it didn’t have an entry where you just walked in. The door was closed, so I went and stood on the oppisite side of the street to see what was going on. It didn’t take long for it to dawn on me that, after watching several patrons arrive, that one knocked to gain entry. A security measure, obviously. So, over I go, knock on the door to find that a tiny window in the door opened, and I was being scrutinised by a drag queen. In my clone gear I obviously passed muster, as the door opened, I paid my entry, and up the stairs I went (NOTE: it was a good deal later that I found out that there were also under-stairs activities…though not my scene).

With Glenn W, the Sydney guy, at an Acceptance function. I foolishly allowed him to talk me into returning to Sydney…a mistake for both of us!

Here, I entered a world of men, and music, that set my heart blazing. There was a bar area to the left of the stairs, to the right was a communal area with a barred cruising area surrounding it, and to the rear was a copper dance floor that was to be pretty well my sole obsession over many, nany visits there. I loved Mandate. I loved its masculinity,  its testosterone-charged atmosphere, the pure maleness of it. If I had to imagine Nirvana in these early coming out days, Mandate was it and in the not too-distant future, the Midnight Shift in Sydney when I returned to my roots. I had my first pick-ups there, had my first public blow-job on the edge of the dance floor, met some wonderful men including a man called Brian Pryke who I had the most esoteric sexual experience with (and communicated with for a while after returning to Sin City), and some of my worst sexual experiences including a Dutch pilot who had the most disgusting dose of smegma I have ever encountered, and left me with the gift of anal warts. We live and learn! At Mandate I was introduced to dance floor filling icons such as Lime, Phyllis Nelson, Carol Jiani, 202 Machine, Shirley Lites, Tantra, KC and the Sunshine Band, Patrick Cowley, Sylvester, Divine, Paul Parker, Seventh Avenue, Peter Griffin, Hall & Oates, and many other artists who started my ongoing love for dance music. The wonderful nights I had in Mandate will live in my memory forever.

I continued my work and socialising with Acceptance (including some cross-denominational “spiritual shenanjgans” with a member of Angays (the Anglican version of Acceptance) until I returned to Sydney. They gave me a wonderful set of friends that kept me ocvupied constantly, and a rather frantic social life. I think that what disturbed me the most about being an out gay man in a Catholic social group was the “subtle” stigmatisation that we just seemed to accept. Though the Servite Fathers, who celebrated our home masses, were unequivocal in their support for the gay community, the particularly internalised discrimination and alienation that was integral within the Catholic church itself,  seemed to be tolerated more so than finding ways to support us. I always felt that much of the support came more from obligation than caring and understanding.

And while talking of the Servite Fathers, I must relate a home mass story here. First Friday Masses were shared amongst the various homes of Acceotance members. When I volunteered my flat in West Brunswick for one, I found I faced a dilemma. Confessions before mass were usually held in a private room, and the only one in my flat was the bedroom. The entire back of my bedroom door was covered in pictures of men in various poses and states of undress…mainly naked…and erect! In my wisdom, I decided that this was not an appropriate thing to have on display in a room where gay men were confessing their sins. Rather than remove all the pictures, I decided to tape a large sheet of brown paper over them.  Evidently during one of the confessions, the tape gave way, causing the paper to fall to the floor. Evidently there was a brief pause in the confession as the priest eyed off the door full of naked males, then continued on as if nothing had happened. The exposition was the cause of much hilarity for the rest of the night, with the priest commenting on my “good taste in art” as he departed.

The only other churches that catered to us were St Francis in Lonsdale St, and Holy Trinity Church in North Fitzroy. And even then we could only attend masses at certain times on Sundays. It felt very alienating, and was one of the reasons for me joining the Gay Rights Lobby when I returned to Sydney. For me personally, well….I was an Athiest disguised as a Catholic…just to secure myself a social life, though going through the actions of being a Catholic, and arguing stronly against the banality of much of Catholic belief and doctrine at every opportunity, which caused me no qualms. Only once was I dressed down regarding my staunchly held opinions, and I was stronly supported by the group I was with, as they did not believe in blind faith. There is hope yet in the world.

I went on to become Secretary on the Acceptance committee, and also a member of their social activities sub-committee. But I was about to make a really fucked-up decision that was about to yet again change my life’s direction.

It was at an Acceptance barbecue that I was to meet Glenn W, who was visiting Melbourne, and lived in Waverton in Sydney. It was a period where the Pellegrini head office in Sydney were quietly hassling for my return. Glenn quite swept me off my feet, and after several months of correspondence and with a position as assistant to the General Manager offered to me back in Sydney I rather foolishly decided to return.

So ended my wonderful, unforgettable life in Melbourne. Plans were afoot for a massed goodbye for me at Tullamarine, but to avoid what would have been a very tearful occasion, I quietly flew out the night before.

Glenn W turned out to be a psychopath! Another disastrous love encounter! Would I never learn! But that is a Sydney story! As is the early days of HIV, already being hinted at in the Melbourne gay press. Hard times ahead…and just as I was starting to enjoy the life that “coming out” was presenting to me. The Sydney story was about to begin!

Tim Alderman

(C) 2015