Sunday, February 2, 2025

Monday, February 3

 It's another medical appointment today, this time for Marilyn.  It's just getting a blood test but it means a trip into town and that means pushing ourselves out of our comfortable rut.  Jamie has already been this morning, to drop Archie off on his way to work.  We see Archie most days and that's great.

Jamie and Marilyn have been busily planning her 80th birthday party.  I had mine at home but Marilyn's decided she wants to have it at the local Bowls Club.  There will be a lot more space and someone else will do the cleaning up.  Jamie has put a general notice on Facebook and those invited have already started to respond.  The local Filipino community will be heavily involved and we hope Madeleine and her children will come down from Brisbane for the event.,

I've been watching a number of travellers on Youtube, mostly from the UK but one fellow from Germany and a couple from South Africa.  Where are the Aussies, I thought, so I've checked with Google and identified a few.  Most seem to be caravanners doing the 'big lap' but there are one of two travelling in SE Asia.  I'll have a closer look at them.


BRIEF ENCOUNTER                                                                                        JUNE, 2020

How many of us can say, honestly, that we have met our heroes?  My wife and I had dinner once with Sir Edmund and Lady Hillary at a motel in Sydney and I’m happy to tell you more about that some other time but, unless you’re very fortunate or make a nuisance of yourself, it’s rare to see celebrities up close.  Normally, the best we can hope for is to have a brief encounter with someone we admire, perhaps in a crowded airport or, by chance, in the street.

In 1954, though, 70% of the Australian population were lucky enough to have a brief encounter with one of the most popular celebrities of the time – Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.  Yes, an estimated 7 million Australians, from a population at the time of around 10 million, lined the streets when the Royal cars passed by and flocked to the various showgrounds where the Queen would make an appearance.  As a reporter of the time commented:  Australians waited in all weathers and at all manner of vantage points to see her passing by, like a waving doll in a gilded cage. 

Our Prime Minister of the time made the most of this Royal visit. The PM left no doubt that he believed in the myth that Australia was a far-flung outpost of the Mother Country in the South Seas. Describing himself as ‘British to the bootstraps’, he must have been overjoyed at the opportunity to show his Queen all that Australia had to offer and, at the same time bask in the reflected glory attached to Her Majesty, which would help build up his standing with the voters. 

Ming the Merciless they called him, after an evil character in a Flash Gordon comic book of 1934.  It may just have been a happy coincidence that his preferred name lent itself to this connection and that some wit in the opposition party thought that there might be some political mileage to be made by using it as often as possible.

His name was Robert Menzies, followed by a string of initials, some of which allowed him to be referred to as Sir Robert.  He was intensely proud of his British ancestry and made it clear that he preferred the old Scottish pronunciation of his name - Ming-is: which led to his being dubbed Ming. 

The wharfies at Port Kembla also derided him as Pig Iron Bob because he expedited a shipment of raw steel to Japan in the 1930s which everyone knew would be turned into weapons to support Japan’s imperial ambitions in the Pacific and, as it transpired, they were turned against Australia during the Second World War.

He had two stints as Prime Minister at a time when Australians expected their PM to be aloof from the common herd, erudite and patrician in their demeanour. He is still Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister.

In the eyes of many, Sir Robert Menzies let his country down in his speech of welcome to Her Majesty in the Australian Parliament on a later Royal visit in 1963.  Instead of using the occasion when the world was listening to offer a speech which highlighted the achievements of a proud, young nation, firmly establishing its place in the word, Sir Robert Menzies chose to play the lovestruck young swain bending his knee after a brief encounter with the unattainable lady of the manor.

Quoting from a rather trite poem by Thomas Ford, Menzies stunned his listeners. 

I did but see her passing by

And yet I love her till I die.

 It is said the Queen simpered but it is just as likely she was trying to cover up a sudden bilious attack.

 

 


No comments:

Post a Comment