Confessions of a Free Range Prolapsed Catholic

Once upon a time, the time was 1966, my best friend Glenys and I were floating on our backs, beyond the breakers at Nobbys Beach. The regular swell and dip of the water lulled us as we wallowed in the peace of it all. We were in year 10, I was 15. She was going…

“One day I shall burst my bud of calm and blossom into hysteria.”. Christopher Fry is responsible for this piece of wisdom. Foreboding ? Perhaps. Insightful? Perhaps, Educative? Completely. I know it to be true because it happened to me! In 202I I celebrated the 71st anniversary of my birth. In February I experienced an…

(The beauty and burden of memory – Sarah Ferguson 7.30 report) There is one experience many of my generation had that I did not. I never had to hold my breath in the hope that one of my four brothers might come back safely from war. My Dad was born in 1914. He had a…

On September 11th 2001. the world was terrified. The terror in New York. That was the day we collected our plane tickets to fly to England to visit our daughter. The following day America started to bomb Afghanistan. We did not cancel our trip. It was wonderful and we were safe. On September 11th 2007…

I have recently been reminded of the magnificence of the Pomp and Circumstance Marches written by Edward Elgar for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. As a music teacher, listening to them was compulsory for elective music classes. Google tells me that the title comes from Shakespeare’s Othello, and the line “Pride, pomp…

I was born in 1951. I was born into a Catholic family. I was educated well and in catholic schools. My Dad had a good job, well respected. My Mum was an “ at home Mum”. She took on responsibility, with Dad, for providing a home for her Mother. Grandma was a “present” for me…

The title of this contribution was my mantra for the last thirty years of working as a teacher. Today, five years post retirement it has come screaming back into my psyche as a result of a phone call to the Chemist. With every other thing that is going on, however, the prospect of my bud…

One of my favourite movies is “a Time to Kill”. It stars Matthew McConaughey. To me, he is this generation’s Clint Eastwood. The movie tells of an horrific rape of a little Afro-American girl aged about 6 or 7 by a group of deadbeat racist white trash in the South. The father of the little…

In my 30’s I read a book titled “The White Chrysanthemum changing images of Australian Motherhood” .It was a collection of stories selected by Nancy Keesing published in 1977, the year before the arrival of my third child. I recently found a copy on line and I am salivating at the prospect of getting it…

From another State, another one is on his way, Hard to believe but another young man in the gene pool has collected L plates, with suction cups, and is on his way to taking control of the driver’s seat! When I first saw the picture, sent by his beautiful Mum to my iPhone I wondered…