Friday countdown — 1

Countdown to what?

Here is a clue. Those in the know will know — but it is very significant in my life, though the event itself falls on a weekend rather than a Friday.

That calendar marks the time I drafted this post — yesterday. The yellow square is the target date. I propose to select one blog entry from my archive every Friday until that date is reached.

Today: 2008

Yes, 15 years ago.

I mentioned this on the Gateway in What’s new on Monday, 30 June 2008.

I am currently playing “20 questions” with The Pakistani Spectator, having been invited to do so in a comment yesterday.

Now you can read the draft I am sending to them, which may or may not be what they want: Pakistani Spectator interview.

It has now been published.

This poll there is interesting:

Common Pakistani Cares Most About?

* Removal of Pervez Musharraf (29%, 2,321 Votes)
* Reinstatement of Judiciary (23%, 1,834 Votes)
* End to Terrorism (19%, 1,529 Votes)
* Price Hike (15%, 1,251 Votes)
* Shortage of Electricity (15%, 1,200 Votes)

Total Voters: 8,135

The interview — selected extracts

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

I was born in Sydney Australia 65 years ago into a very different world. That was after all in the midst of World War II. Not much to tell, except that I eventually graduated in Arts from Sydney University, becoming a teacher of English and History in secondary schools, with a then fairly rare qualification in Asian and Indian/Pakistani history. My teaching career began in 1966 and ran, with a few diversions, until 1995, continuing part time now. From 1990 I moved towards English as a Second Language teaching, adding a Graduate Certificate in TESOL to my qualifications in 1998.

I came to the internet quite late, in 2000, having earlier been something of a computerphobe. I have several blogs in two divisions. One, English, ESL — and more, began as a site for my own students but has since taken on a life of its own; the other is more personal — Floating Life, with a Gateway blog and some archives and a more pictorial blog where there are also pages detailing my family history back to a convict ancestor who arrived in Sydney in the early 1820s, and further back than that to Australia’s first people.

Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?

I think I do, despite my advanced years. This is partly a matter of becoming used to the situation of writing online, partly through feedback from others, partly through reading others and seeing what they do that I like. It is important because I do seek to communicate rather than to alienate, if at all possible.

I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

There have been some memorable bad moments, but among the more memorable good experiences have been finding out through contacts made on the blog even more about my own family, and meeting up with a colleague I hadn’t seen for thirty years. There have also been so many precious examples of communicating with people from cultures and backgrounds I may have never encountered otherwise….

What role can bloggers of the world play to make this world more friendlier and less hostile?

I think they can play a major role, simply by being there. It is difficult to regard someone one has really got to know, as in some blogs you can, as an enemy. Bloggers too would be well advised to avoid filling their blogs with hate, and avoid commenting on matters they may not understand….

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?

It has given me quite a few useful tools for my work as a tutor, and it has often enhanced my personal life, though at other times it may almost be a substitute for a personal life.

What are your future plans?

To survive in retirement…

A memory pic

From the Shellharbour Airport Facebook page.

The sleepy seaside village of Shellharbour from the air in 1948. And at age 5 I was there more than once!

The brat on the left in the sleeveless dark jumper is me, then Mum and Dad, cousin Betty, and in the front row left my sister Jeanette. I am not sure who the other two girls are. There was also a photo, now lost, of my older brother with an air rifle in a bushland area known as Blackbutt. Ian remembered that [in a phone conversation in January 2017].

He was 12, he said, which confirms my thought that this holiday (in my father’s home town) was in 1947. So I am probably 4 years old.

My brother also confirmed my memory that we stayed at Mrs Dunster’s guest house. See this from 9 August 1947:

I was absolutely fascinated by “the weck” as I called it on Bass Point, clearly visible from the verandah of the guest house. My brother actually remembers the event itself, fully described on Michael McFadyen’s Scuba Diving site.

The SS Cities Service Boston was an oil tanker being used during World War 2 to supply the Australian and Allied forces with fuel. Built by Bethlehem Ship Building Corporation Ltd at Sparrows Point, Maryland, USA, for Atlantic, Gulf and West Indies Steamship Lines and launched as the SS Agwipond in April 1921, the ship displaced 8,024 tons and had a waterline length of 141 metres. Its overall length was 146 metres…

Requisitioned by the US Department of War Administration for World War II and operated by them until its sinking, the Cities Service Boston was travelling to the Middle East from Sydney in convoy when it went off course and ploughed into the rocks of Bass Point…