A new sculpture was unveiled beside the jetty at Brighton.

It’s dedicated to Kitty Whyte. I decided to walk the 4 kms to have a look, as her story is really quite gruesome. Poor lady was a school teacher, and thought it was terrible that all these children living so close to the sea couldn’t swim, so she arranged swimming lessons. She was 35 on that fateful day in March of 1926 when she dived off the jetty, with a class of children watching, straight into the jaws of a great white shark. I walked out and looked down, and there were the usual fishermen fishing for whiting and squid, it was all so peaceful, and the water looked relatively shallow.

I  remember sitting with John on a bench just along from the jetty, and reading the inscription dedicated to Lily, who had travelled from Ayrshire in Scotland in the 1800s and was fondly remembered by her own words,

‘Sit doon a while and tak the weight aff yer feet’.

I wanted to read it again, but when I looked yesterday, and I read all the epitaphs on the benches from Glenelg to Brighton, Lily’s had been hacked out and stolen. So sad.

But on the way I read such apt phrases,

‘How serene time feels whilst sitting by the ocean’.

‘Sing, dance, run. Don’t be afraid to dream. For Tanya who was tragically killed at 17′.

 Imagine the horror I felt when John arrived home from work, and just after taking off his jacket his phone rang. He looked sort of bemused.  It was a death threat.

Some guy, he thinks it was an Asian voice said, ‘I know where you live Johno, I’m going to kill you.’

John sort of laughed and said, ‘Oh yes, so you’re going to kill me?’ and the phone went dead.

Before we came, the phone belonged to Jihun, the Korean fellow in the office, and John often gets miss calls…so he rang Jihun and asked him if he had any enemies etc. They made light of it, and there was a lot of laughing, and John reminded Jihun to make sure his salary was paid quickly etc etc….but this job is scary and there are a lot of gangs here in Australia. The nightly news is horrific, with murders, arson attacks, shootings. I am a little afraid to go out today…I shall be looking for shady characters lurking around our building.

At the weekend we went into Adelaide to see the newly renovated wing of the Art Gallery. It was all very splendid, and the paintings reflected a lot of Australian bush, and life as it was way back then…it was really interesting. But the one that really grabbed me was of a fine lady in black, clothed in sumptuous silks and adorned with precious jewels and gold, obviously reflecting her wealth and social position.

Elizabeth Soloman’s father-in-law was the notorious convict, ‘Ikey’ Soloman, who was transported to Tasmania in the 1830s and on whom Charles Dickens based his character, Fagin in ‘Oliver Twist’. Ikey’s son, John became a very successful gold merchant in Sydney and commissioned this portrait to demonstrate his wealth and success.

It’s sad really that the bush can only be seen in paintings of long ago. There is little evidence of it in modern Australia. Nothing in modern art work, songs or television. Gone are the programmes of The Flying Doctors, Skippy, and no one has replaced Steve Irwin who loved to dive into water holes and wrestle with crocodiles. We have to make a concentrated effort to leave the concrete of the pavements and find out what lies beyond the suburbs. Before I leave I would really love to take a bus from Adelaide and travel to Darwin. I do hope we can do it. I found this poem by Banjo Patterson who reminded me of the grandeur of this country and its skies.

‘And the bush had friends to meet him,

And their kindly voices greet him

In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,

And he sees the vision splendid

Of the sunlit plains extended,

And at night the wond’rous glory

Of the everlasting stars’.

So although so many creeks have become petrol stations, and people see it all from coaches with the air con on high, and so many small towns have blanded out and resemble outer suburbs with their organic food shops and tai chi classes, I still believe that if you really want to see the bush, you can, with a car and a couple of hundred dollars, and the wish and the will.

On On…to a new day!  Enough retrospection and morbid thoughts. The sea is blue and I don’t want to think of chapters of Hell’s Angels, Triads, or any other shifty order. Disconcerting though that everyone in this country wears shades….all dodgy!!!!