When we buried Dad we buried his Bible with him. Mum thought it would be a good idea and there was something symbolic about it that made sense. As sons and in-laws and grandsons hauled the casket from the hearse the breeze snapped the tattered and well worn volume open and we quickly grabbed the…
Monday 19 September 2022 Hue (Hway) aka Harry is a cherry, bespectacled chap with an open face and an engaging demeanour. His primary job is as a salesperson for Norwegian company Jortun but I wonder if he prefers his second source of income more – a Mekong tour guide. It goes against the grain to…
Sunday 18 September 2022 I have a memory of Ho Chi Minh City which is now a generation old and in the intervening period this city has modernised at an extraordinary rate. The wealth born of this very entrepreneurial people is reflected in the new high rise buildings but also in the refurbishment of the…
The call to prayer wakes me at 0445 and that prompts a distant rooster to get cracking but they both quickly fade out as the rain on the tin roof drowns them out and I drift back to sleep. I wake later, rain still drumming but imam and cockerel silent. It’s Sunday morning so now…
1 August 2022, Ipswich. Today John Kirkpatrick was buried and a celebratory service held afterwards. It was stirring day and not as tough as I thought it would be. Why so? Possibly because the reflection of the hope in him on which his faith was built. Not a gambler’s hope against the odds that be…
In 1981 the Queen opened CHOGM in Melbourne. The RAF VC10 aircraft and those other planes of visiting dignitaries were parked at RAAF East Sale where a handful of newly graduated dog handlers worked their first ever night shifts guarding them. Then in October 1982 I found myself looking after a RAAF 707 which had…
I inherited an eclectic array of postage stamps from Dad. ‘I didn’t even know he collected them’ was my first response. But then vague memories from my teen years of a friendship with the local post office manager in the gritty suburb of Reservoir, Melbourne. A chap who would hand over folded, crisp sleeves of…
In 1990 in a conversation with my colleagues in the ‘China team’ I took a deep breath and proposed the dramatic rise in the Chinese underground church would have to have an impact on the leadership of the country, in particular addressing the moral vacuum which derived from Mao’s ideology. I had no data, only…
Writing is a pleasure. No question. But a particularly enjoyable element to writing fiction is the visualisation and ‘ground truthing’ into which you graft the story. Lights of Rue Catinat is a working title of a narrative I have been tweaking for quite some time now. Two French servicemen have spent time in the trenches…
Monday 22 Nov 21 Diary: Roosters crow in the distance. Finches chit in the bushes near the feeder. Residual water from the second rain this season (the wet is late and may not actually arrive) plops from foliage stirred into action by a light breeze. Back in Africa to sights and sounds which get into…