Letter From The Other Side. From Cynthia written by
Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Cynthia and Teddy take a trip to the Mallee country to visit old friends.

Dear Del,
It really isn’t any wonder they call the Mallee the ‘sunset country’. I am sitting here on Margaret’s veranda watching the fading light. The tenacious mallee scrub is silhouetted against the brilliant glow of the last crescent of sun as it dips below the western horizon.
A vapour trail from a jet, far too high for me to see or hear, has been turned into a glowing saffron ribbon which trails from the southern horizon to a point just above the house and continues unravelling as the jet travels north.
The nightly chorus of amorous frogs has begun down at the farm dam and the galahs and cockatoos have finally finished gossiping and fighting over who sleeps which side of the nest for the night.
Crickets and other evening sounds are taking over as I feel the frost beginning to come down and creep in under the veranda eaves.
The smell and sounds of the bush make me feel so mellow, I’m sure if there were a guitar close by I could pick it up and spontaneously play one of those soulful country songs the cowboys used to sing around the camp fires in the old Western movies and serials we watched as kids at the cinema; - the ones where the horses were usually smarter than the cowboys.
I wax lyrical and must admit to be thoroughly enjoying myself as Teddy and I revisit our old friends and sit quietly recalling some of our shared memories.
To know we no longer have to live here permanently fighting the harsh elements and the tyranny of distance also makes the visit rather poignant.
Teddy and Jim are at heart, still the young larrikins they were during the 1970’s.
It took them very little time after our arrival to disappear into the depths of Jim’s cavernous machinery shed and after a couple of hours emerge with a small ‘experimental’ wind turbine which appears to still need a lot of tinkering, because at present, it would take a force nine gale to make it rotate. They also produced a something they call a ‘gas gun’ made from white plastic pipe and plumbing bits and pieces they have cobbled together.
The idea for the gun was to frighten the kangaroos away from the one tiny cosseted area of grass Margaret tends with the small amounts of water she saves from her kitchen sink and bathroom. Its succulent green is naturally very attractive to them and when we humans are safely indoors at dusk, they hop quietly to graze on it, returning again at sunrise to enjoy any dew the small tender shoots may hold.
Jim didn’t want to hurt them, just scare them off. The two fellows had a difficult time deciding on suitable ammunition. This was solved eventually by using the very hard and juiceless mandarins produced by their thirsty trees this year.
Margaret was not at all pleased when she discovered the short bursts of gas being used were coming from her hair spray ‘borrowed’ from the bathroom. She has a sixty mile round trip to do any shopping, so I didn’t blame her one little bit.
I have to admit the mandarins travelled quite a long distance but as a ‘roo’ scarer the gun was entirely unsuccessful. The placid animals simply bounced around to the other side of the house and nibbled Margaret’s pot plants and some of her vegies which were poking through the vegetable garden fence. Now that did make Margaret cross as she evidently had problems only last week with an athletic calf which high jumped over her vegetable garden fence and ate some of her precious lettuce.
When we did live up here, Teddy’s Mum travelled from lush green Kent in the U.K to visit. We met her at the Melbourne airport and drove straight back home, adding 6 more hours to the poor lady’s trip, but we had cows to be milked and animals to feed etc.
She chatted happily most of the way catching up with family news and occasionally remarking ‘Innit flat!’ as she gazed out at the low undulating country.
When we at last arrived back home, it took quite a lot of convincing her we were still in Victoria, the smallest state on the mainland. She thought we had driven to Western Australia which as you know, is two time zones and over 3,400 kilometres away and across the desert.
For a lady not used to the vast open spaces she dealt very well with some of our wildlife, although when I handed her a large harmless stick insect to look at, she demurred very vigorously. The proximity of some of the sunbaking snakes kept her close to home, so we had little fear of her wandering off into the Little Desert and getting lost.
The family still have a laugh at her expense about the time she was in the shower and a Huntsman spider trying not to get drowned, took refuge by walking up her left leg. It was a big one, - not her leg, the spider I mean, - about the same size as the palm of my hand. Poor mum emerged from the bathroom still dripping wet and stark naked screaming so hard I think even Margaret and Jim heard her from way over at their place. Our kids thought it was great at the time and I’m sure they would have been the stars of ‘show and tell time’ in class at school the next day.
Jim still keeps quite a large flock of ‘Christmas dinners’ as he calls his turkeys.
Our old place used to be opposite Margaret and Jims farm but was pulled down when Jim bought the property from us. He kept turkeys then also and they used to sun themselves by sitting like a large row of gargoyles along the eaves of his tractor shed, until one day their weight finally made the entire roof spouting fall off.
They would gobble away amicably all day except when I made the mistake of walking out of our front door with anything in my hand which from their ‘birds eye view’ so to speak, looked as if it could be food. A shriek would go up from the leader of the pack or whatever they are called en-mass, and they would fly down like a large cloud of vultures and chase me up the driveway until I made the safety of the front door.
I took to keeping stones in my pockets as some sort of defence, rarely hitting them as I’ve never had a good throwing arm, but usually it was enough to divert them into thinking I was throwing food and some would stop to investigate the stones long enough to give me time to get back indoors. These days, I don’t like turkeys very much unless they are well and truly roasted.
As I mentioned our old place is gone now, swallowed up into Jim and Margaret’s property. He did us a great favour by buying it really and we were always very thankful to him as we were falling foul of the bank at the time, due to the drought and the mouse plague and an unfortunate incident when we were about to take some animals to the market for the first time in eighteen months. Of course this also meant we would be making our first money in eighteen months. A friend whose wheat crop was full of some sort of weed couldn’t sell his crop and rather than just dump it, he offered it to us for feed for our pigs. Feed was very expensive and it had been the bank’s advice to us to buy as much as we could which had got us into trouble in the first place. Anyway we thankfully took him up on his offer.
The day before our animals were to go off to market, Teddy fed them and next morning went up to load them onto the truck. Most were dead, some were still dying. Unbeknown to us all, the weed amongst the wheat was poisonous to pigs. It was the proverbial last straw for us. We spoke to Jim and Margaret during the day when we had recovered a little from our shock and explained we would have to sell before the bank took the farm away.
In 24hrs Jim had arranged to buy our property. He was a true friend and still is and we have never taken advice from a bank since.
Over our meal last night we recalled one of the highlights of our times here.
The adult population of the township would have only been about fifty people and I’m guessing it hasn’t altered very much in all the decades since. We had a one teacher school for the juniors with approximately 20 children. Of course once they reached the age for senior grades they were obliged to either be sent to boarding school( oh how those words bring memories flooding back Del!) or they were sent by bus each day on the long trip to the big towns. Of course that was at a time when there wasn’t any heating or air-conditioning in the buses. On the days over 35C, up here there are a great many of them, coming home from school was not a lot of fun…… I digress again.
The greater population lived on the farms, big farms with paddocks which were a square mile each. Some of them were soldier settler farms which had been amalgamated after hopeful men returning after the war tried to make a living from the marginal land and eventually because of the weather, the dust storms and the loneliness, or as in many cases, a complete ignorance of farming skills, they simply walked off the land in despair and others with more money and knowledge, took it over.
People would travel big distances to attend entertainment up here, they still do.
Well, we thought we would introduce a bit of culture into the place and some entertainment and decided to put on a play. We chose ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’ by Oscar Wilde.
Like most small settlements we had a community hall where dances etc could be held and ours could seat perhaps a hundred or so people.
There were very few people willing to try out for the parts in the play but eventually we found enough to begin rehearsals.
The lass playing the Hon. Gwendolyn Fairfax who, you will recall is a young virginal Victorian Lady, was in real life married to a hot headed man, who suffered from unpredictable emotions and a jealous streak wide enough to park a bus on.
Rehearsals went very well and were a lot of fun. Costumes were sewn and some of the men made us very realistic and imaginative scenery and people generously and proudly provided genuine Victorian furniture and props from everywhere. The tickets were selling so well we realized we would need at least three nights of performances. It was gradually becoming one of the best community fund raisers for ages.
We were aware that our ‘Gwendolyn’s’ husband was getting restive and feeling she was spending far too much time away from his personal supervision and home with the rehearsals and especially, in his view only, with the leading man, our poor blameless school master.
Two days before the play was to have its premiere her husband’s jealous paranoia came to a head. He threatened if she went on with the show he would shoot the innocent school teacher and bulldoze the hall down and turn it into firewood.
We all knew him well enough to take this threat seriously. He possessed all three ingredients needed to carry it out. He had the irrational anger, the gun and the biggest privately owned bulldozer in the district.
Frantically we searched for a new Gwendolyn but there was no one who would take the part on at 48 hours notice.
There was just one alternative person possible or else we risked everything, our work, the money we were going to raise, everything would be lost.
So, hoping Oscar Wilde would see the humour of it all we persuaded the only possible alternative for our new Gwendolyn to take the part.
Our audience, most of whom would have heard via the ‘bush telegraph’ about all the ruckus and problems with the demented husband, roared with laughter when our stand-in Gwendolyn appeared.
It was the school teacher’s wife and to her credit she only occasionally had difficulty with her self control as she carried off some of her lines without collapsing in a heap of laughter, because our new, virginal, Victorian Gwendolyn, was very obviously 8 months pregnant!
People speed through tiny hamlets as they rush up the highways, but living in them can be very interesting at times, one meets so many different characters and the stories these people have to relate are well worth hearing.
We shall be staying here for another week, so I may send you more news next time,
I must go to bed as everyone gets up early to feed the animals and milk the house cows etc,
Teddy has been milking one of them much to his delight. He used to say he got some of his best ideas as he rested his head against Brownie our old cow and milked her. Goodness knows what he shall be making in the shed when we get back down to the coast.
The sun is gone now, and so is the vapour trail, the sky is bright with stars and the mosquitoes are hungry so I shall go inside or I shall need a blood transfusion,
It was up here I became the 1970’s flower child you met Del and the influence of this land and that time has remained deep within me all my life.
From your nostalgic flower child friend,
Cynthia.(C)

Letter From The Other Side. By Cynthia.

Cynthia absorbs some culture and Uncle Rodger becomes an 'under cover cop.'

Dear Del,
How are you? I believe you had a very special birthday to celebrate, I do hope it all went very well.
It has been a time of birthdays for our family also. It’s strange but noticeable how many families have clusters of birthdays around the same time of the year and we are no different. The finances get stretched a little around now for us and as another approaches, we begin to sag at the thought of yet another celebration.
Some of the family have been touched by the economic downturn and it is hard to know what we, at our time of life, can say to make them feel better without our turning into the sort of old people we knew at their age You remember them also no doubt. All those old folk who were always telling us about their hard times and how much worse it was in their day and how little we appreciated what we had or what an easy life we lived.
Eventually we know our children will look back on their difficult years just as we all have and realize the sun keeps coming up and going down. Then one day they will wake, look back, and realize they came through their troubles and were stronger as a result of them. There are never any experiences in life that don’t teach us something, be they good or bad.
We’ve watched crops blown out of drought dried land. Teddy has been forced to shoot animals he loved because we couldn’t feed them. We’ve had losses and setbacks but each one made us the people we are for better or worse. We’ve stuck together through it all and shared the good and bad. Now we can even laugh about some of them at times, like the mouse plague when our daily sport was to see how many ways we could catch the little blighters as they surged around the grain bins and ran across our pillows at night. I even stopped making the beds because by the evening, when we turned back our blankets, they would have got into the bed and made nests.
William was only a baby and he was in a cot with heavy fly wire sides and a lid to stop them getting in with him at night. The cats were bored with the chase and only left token catches at the doorsteps to show they were doing a bit. To explain this sort of thing to people who haven’t seen them, is quite impossible. It’s like pictures of the rabbit plagues in my mum and dad’s time during the depression or the clouds of locusts which stuffed up our car radiators during 1950’s, and ate everything in sight which was green!
You have to experience something to know what it’s like. That’s how life is for anyone. If we want to grow in character as people, we must experience life, not just sail through it on calm waters.
Retirement is anything but retiring some months. We have been called on to babysit the youngest grandchildren. One of them discovered his grandfather wasn’t the soft old pushover he thought he was when Teddy wouldn’t buy a treat for him at the local shop. This resulted in a fine exhibition of how to attract the attention of a crowd. He performed an award winning display of frustration and temper tantrum which did not please his grandfather at all.
If it had been one of our own children when they were young, a good sharp smack and a loud ‘No’ would have been sufficient to stop him but these days we are supposed to explain or reason with the child when he is behaving badly. He was in no condition to listen or even hear us.
It is like trying to explain electricity to a toddler who is about to stick a screw driver in a wall socket. ‘No’ should be sufficient.
But then Teddy and I have never had a piece of paper saying we are experts in child behaviour, we just did what seemed logical and sensible to us and within the parameters of the prevailing thinking of society at that time.
However, each generation complains about the subsequent ones and we are no different. We all have to do things in our own way. Sometimes it works, others it doesn’t. None of us should remain chained to the past and maybe if we watch and listen, we will learn things as well.

Despite hurting his back while mending the fence for our elderly neighbour, Teddy has our winter spinach, broccoli, broad beans, chard etc growing well and because of our lack of space he is growing our potatoes in a wire mesh affair on some paving. We saw the idea in the local Botanical Food Gardens and thought it would suit our confined spaces very well.
I am hoping we will get rain. We missed out entirely on the last rain that you lucky people received over your side of the bay. I have to admit I’m gradually gaining far more faith in the predictions of the ants and Currawongs than I have in the weather bureau.
I don’t know how I would cope if we ever had enough water for me to take my companion of the shower, The blue Bucket out of the cubicle, I think I would feel quite alone after all this time of dancing around it every day. It’s surprising how many litres it has carried out to the garden over the past four years and how many plants have survived the 40 degree days as a result.
As I mentioned in my last letter, Teddy and I were to attend Monica’s gallery for an art exhibition opening. It was for one of her better known artists and we discovered he is also one of her more difficult ones. The artist shall remain nameless because it turned out not to be quite the glittering affair I had envisaged or one sees on television when the cameras are rolling.
I wore something I haven’t worn for ages since we don’t attend these functions very often and was pleased it still went over my hips without too much persuasion and Teddy agreed to wear a tie, which is quite a concession for him.
We arrived early because I thought there may have been a few little things we could help Monica with and found her up a ladder heaving paintings to every different side of the gallery and parts of the walls. Her lovely new dress was snagged and she was barefoot, as the high heeled sandals she had been wearing were not designed for climbing ladders.
The artist and star of the night, in his heightened nervous state, had demanded the paintings be rearranged because he had changed his mind about the original positions. Some of them were very large and very heavy and it took all of us, including Tony, quite a while to make the retched fellow happy. He of course did very little of the physical work involved, just a great deal of hand wringing while he barked multitudes of conflicting instructions at us.
By the time we placed the last one in its new position people were beginning to wander in the doors giving us very little time to have a drink and a quick tidy up.
Monica held her temper –only just—and with a supreme effort smiled her most welcoming smile making sure each guest was served with a drink and a suitable amount of attention to ensure they felt welcome before she moved onto the next.
Of course I know from having spoken with her at various times that many of the guests only come to be seen at these cultural happenings and as I watched and listened during the evening, I discovered many of them could do with a little bit of it rubbing off on them!
Others like to arrive in time to show off a little and make sure they are always close to the newspaper photographers just to make the social pages once more. They are a type we have nick-named photographer’s blow flies.
Many of course come for the social gathering and for the almost unlimited free drink and food provided. A few artists wander in to check up on what others are painting and to keep an envious eagle eye on the sales figures.
Sales were slow at first. Monica put me in charge of the red sold stickers to prevent some bright spark who has drunk too much red wine swiping them and going about putting a sold sticker on almost every painting…..just for a lark. Monica has had this happen in the past, and it took her a great deal of explaining to an excited artist who thought he has been discovered by the general populous and made a fortune overnight, to comprehend what had happened and then even more time for her to deal with his disappointment.
Eventually the our artist of the evening did make his first sale and was so pathetically pleased we all refrained from telling him it was purchased by a woman who thought it would be the correct size to cover up the faulty plaster on her wall from where her old air conditioner had been removed.
The second painting was sold because it matched the colour of a couch. Which was only a slightly better reason for its sale, but to a starving artist, it meant money.
The artist, after selling a third painting became elated and in his rapidly over imbibed state, unfortunately became far too free with his bonhomie and his hands with the wife of one of Monica’s best and most knowledgeable buyers. The result being he was roundly insulted and left standing in an alcoholic daze from a barrage of language he probably hadn’t expected from such a refined couple.
He was recovering a little just as he noticed one of his rivals peering at a large oil. This person’s nose was almost touching the paint on the canvas as he gazed intently at the work. These men have always been jealous of each others work and resent any success, Monica told us later, so she has always tried to keep them apart.
We heard the remark ‘If you aren’t going to buy it, don’t put your nose on it.’ from across the room.
‘Not worth buying. Anyway, I think it’s a copy’ was the reply.
Well, that accusation is like a challenge to a dual. They began to scuffle, grabbing each others collars and jackets and yelling insults and abuse.
You can imagine Del, which pictures appeared in the paper the next day can’t you?
Tony, who has a large collection of jokes about artists, was very good and calmed the situation while laughing with the rest of the guests about ‘artistic temperaments’ but it was very embarrassing for Monica.
While this was going on, the young couple Monica had hired to serve the drinks and finger food had been enjoying quite a lot of them in the kitchen. Her usual caterers had not been available, so she had hired this couple who worked nearby in one of the restaurants. I had noticed earlier the young man was weaving around the various groups with a little less dexterity than he had shown at the beginning of the evening. Now, neither of them was visible and some of the guests were looking about for refills for their glasses.
However it wasn’t until my need to go the ‘Ladies’ became quite pressing that I took the opportunity to glance in to check the state of the kitchen.
There for anyone who passed by to see, were the two young ones on the kitchen floor doing what most young ones will do at the drop of a hat, or trousers and knickers I should perhaps say!
I vaguely remember thinking how long her legs were and what a mess she was making of her clothes but I’m proud I at least had the presence of mind to shut the door and rush off to get Monica who after turning white, made her way as sedately but also as quickly as she could to the kitchen.
I have no idea what she said to them, I imagine health and safety by-laws and possible fines and bad press issues may have been only part of it, but they left shortly afterward looking slightly shabby and ruffled about the hair and very sheepish. The young woman who had tottered in on very high heels stumbled over the doorstep carrying her shoes and her dusty jacket over her shoulder as she tried to give the appearance Monica’s words had no affect on her whatever.
From that moment, Teddy and I took care of the drinks and the finger food as we were probably some of the most unlikely of those present to end up on the kitchen floor!
By now Monica was looking very tired and although she didn’t sell as many paintings for her artist as she’d hoped, I think the sales picked up during the following few days.
Teddy and I have a new and greater respect for her job and her reasons for sometimes being less than complementary about some of the clients and artists she deals with, but we will probably not go to too many more openings as I would find the anticipation of just what might happen rather unnerving to do it too often.
I did see a still life I liked because it would have suited our dining room but as Monica has said to me in the past, but until now I never quite understood what she meant by it, sometimes, after having met the artist, people don’t want to own anything he or she has painted. I can see her point now and know what she means, so my education was improved in one way at least.

We called in to see Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger at the village last week to discover he had been employed as an ‘undercover cop’ as he put it. He loves ‘The Bill’ T.V show and has picked up all he right ‘lingo’.
Anyway, there has been a spate of thefts from various people at the village. Unfortunately it does happen and the management wanted to catch the person they suspected red handed if possible.
So Uncle Rodger with the help of his mates devised the plan to set a trap by leaving the manager’s video camera hidden in the basket of his walker. They hid it under some clothing and pointed it at the desk he has in their rooms and left a small amount of money and Aunt Alice’s old watch, which no longer works, right where it could be seen.
The suspect would come in to clean and be tempted and videoed, as she succumbed to the easy takings.
It was all very hush hush and they were so excited to be chosen to be the ones to catch the thief.
They left the rooms and didn’t return for an hour or two giving the thief time to take the bait.
Sure enough when they came back the money and watch were gone. Uncle Rodger rushed….well walked as fast as his poor old legs could go… up to the manager’s office with the video recorder. I should remind you here that Uncle Rodger still uses a typewriter and old transistor radio; he knows nothing about new things like video cameras.
He waited with rising anticipation to see the results of his police work. Imagine how bitterly disappointed he was to find he had forgotten to actually turn the video on. So he not only didn’t have the pictures, he no longer had the money; Aunt Alice’s wristwatch or catch the thief!
They are going to try again next week, but expect other people to contribute to the money this time.
Ah well Del, it has been quite an interesting week one way and another. I’ll catch up with you again soon.
We intend to visit some old friends up in the Mallee next week and may take Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger. We’ll see, it’s a six hour drive to get there and could possibly be too much togetherness, for all of us,
Love from your slightly more educated and cultured ‘flower child friend’,
Cynthia.