Schools, Australian History and the Garden Gnome of Kirribilli House

One small bit of Australiana: as a descendant of the Guringai my nephew is one of the original owners of Kirribilli House, just as I, if it is indeed the case that I am a descendant of the Dharawal, am one of the original owners of Sutherland Shire…

But all that aside…

I experienced a chill when I read the highlighted words in the Herald by Anna Patty. I am forced to transcribe from the print edition as this report online is quite different. They confirm the nature of our current Prime Ministership, the iron fist in the velvet glove, the protofascist* — I do not use such words usually — under the Aussie mate surface:

Salmagundi

Now there’s a word to look up! It describes this entry perfectly.

Shire nostalgia

On Occasional rambles of a retired teacher, that excellent new blog of mine on Blogspot on the old Floating Life address which more of you should visit, I am about to write* the next in the inspiring teachers series based on Teachers Who Change Lives by Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game. That took me back to Sutherland fifty-three years ago, and I am sorry to report that memory does tend to fade after all. Odd things stay sharp though.

Forty years ago my mother wrote down some memories of her own — yes, they are on this site now — and I am truly amazed by their detail and by her style. She used under stress to dream about her New England, Braefield, and sometimes about life on the Hawkesbury before that. To her that was back in time about the same as Sutherland is to me. Incredible — to me, that is. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled… Denys will get that one.