1970s

And Now for Something Completely Different

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 22 Comments

A Covid free blog – almost.

When we are watching Mastermind or University Challenge, one question I can always answer is What is the name, meaning treeless, of the large / vast plain in Au… NULLABOR I yell.
As part of my pandemic escapist reading I have been dipping into Bill Bryson’s book ‘Down Under’ published in 2000. Coincidentally up popped Australian blogger Rowena’s ‘Beyond The Flow’ A-Z challenge ‘N’…

https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/n-australias-nullarbor-plain-a-z-challenge/

I loved reading about the Nullarbor Plain as I have crossed it! Once. Time and distance have left a romantic feel to the experience which probably did not exist at the time.
When I was browsing on the internet for Nullabor nuggets I came across this
Latin nullus ‘no, none’ + arbor ‘tree’
I never studied Latin, but I like picking up Latin origins and reading that line the Null arbor origins are obvious, but I had always assumed it was an Aboriginal word. It sounds like a name they would have been using for thousands of years before Latin was even invented.
‘The Nullarbor Plain is the world’s largest single exposure of limestone bedrock, and occupies an area of about 200,000 square kilometres, stretching about 1,100 kilometres from east to west across the border between South Australia and Western Australia.’
Our trip in the early seventies was from Perth to South Australia and my Aussie friend’s uncle’s orchard; then Melbourne, Sydney and eventually Tasmania. As I ended up back in England the following year ( that’s another story ) it remains my most adventurous trip; at the time there was a three hundred mile section of the highway that was still only gravel.

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Back in 1964 when we were new migrants we met another new family (of the whingeing Pom variety) who said if they didn’t like Perth they would drive over to Sydney. When an Aussie mentioned it was rather a long way they said they would take some sandwiches! I often wonder if they made it.
It is a long way. 2,444 miles – 46 hours 34 minutes in moderate traffic if you are planning to drive today.

https://www.bing.com/maps?q=perth+to+sydney+drive&form

One of my impressions was that we drove through a vast wheat belt, then the vegetation got smaller and sparser until it barely existed. On the other side the scrub gradually grew again and we drove through an identical wheatbelt. We slept on the beach at Eucla, we certainly never stayed at any accommodation. My friend was of tough farming stock, but the family friend we hitched a lift and shared driving with was another Pommie and I’m sure he and I had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for, though we knew the basics; take plenty of water and NEVER wander away from your vehicle. I had never been away from home for more than a week, my parents also had no idea of the journey. Were they worried, I’m not sure. In those pre internet days they would have had no idea if we had arrived safely until they got a picture post card. Absolutely nothing went wrong, though it was a boring drive and so easy to drift off to sleep at the wheel on that endless straight road. But a trip well worth taking to understand the vastness and aridity of a continent where most people cluster round the coast. Here I have to confess that it was so boring that nearing the end of our trip, after meeting up with friends who had flown over, loving Tasmania because it was so green and lush, just like England, I went into a bank and was pleasantly surprised to see a pay cheque had gone in to my meagre account. I booked a flight from Sydney back to Perth. A three hour flight that landed in Perth at the same time we had left Sydney. Sitting next to me was an unescorted child who kept saying ‘Are we nearly there yet’ so the flight felt longer than three hours, but not as long as the drive across the Nullabor.

https://www.australia.com/en/trips-and-itineraries/perth-and-surrounds/crossing-the-nullarbor.html

My children claim I was always talking about ‘when I crossed the Nullarbor Plain’ and it wasn’t till we were all chatting with an Aussie visitor about the trip that my then teenagers revealed they had always assumed I had driven across the Nullabor Plain by myself! No way…
Bill Bryson’s book describes the train journey across the Nullabor, a trip I would love to take, in a comfy sleeper, not the economy sitting all the way. He got to ride for a while in the driver’s cab and describes seeing a railway line that stretched dead straight for hundreds of miles.
Perhaps most intriguing about this journey is to realise how isolated Western Australia is. Holidays in Bali are nearer and cheaper for Perth people than going to the Eastern States. It could be another country especially when there is a pandemic on!

Last updated: 22 April 2020 at 6.07am
Arrivals to Western Australia after 11:59pm on Sunday 5 April 2020
Strict border controls are in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 in WA.

Arrivals to Western Australia
You will no longer be able to enter Western Australia after 11.59pm, on Sunday, 5 April 2020 unless an exemption has been granted.

Have you crossed the Nullabor Plain?

My novel Quarter Acre Block was inspired by our family’s emigration to Western Australia.

 

Tidalscribe’s Tiny Terrors

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 3 Comments

As I sat reading a book I felt and heard the reassuring rumble of the underground. But I was not on a London tube train, Mum and Dad were in the kitchen next door washing the dishes. We were in our little suburban house in Perth, Western Australia.
It was 10.59am, a bank holiday on the 14th October 1968, we had just experienced the Meckering Earthquake, my mother said she had to cling to the kitchen sink. The small town of Meckering was 130 km away in the wheat belt, the 45 second earthquake was magnitude 6.9 on the Richter Scale making it one of the largest recorded in the seismic history of Australia. A few buildings in Perth were damaged. A baby had a miraculous escape in Meckering, their town fell down, but no one was killed. Had the epicentre been in a big city it could have been a major disaster. For us it was exciting, proof that Man cannot control nature.

At school the next day the earthquake was the only topic of conversation. In the classroom we were all startled to feel an aftershock, this time we knew what it was and we were scared. The teacher told us to calm down. There was no evacuation or talk of emergency procedures. It was unlikely the one storey asbestos building would collapse dramatically.

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Fast forward to December 1974, Knightsbridge, London; I had a Christmas job as a floorwalker in Harrods toy department. It was the Saturday before Christmas and that afternoon I had the last tea break. The staff restaurant was on the top floor. As I stood in the Ladies combing my hair I heard a muffled thud and assumed it was an IRA bomb going off somewhere else. Of importance later was the fact that I had my handbag with me.

I walked out to see the busy shop deserted, the escalators switched off and a couple of security guards annoyed to see me still in the building, everyone else had been evacuated. Somehow I caught up with colleagues as we poured out of the building; it was only as we looked up and saw thick black smoke pouring from the corner of the iconic department store that the shock hit us. No one was hurt that day, the heroes were the staff who had noticed something suspicious in their department and evacuated customers safely. Heavy fire doors had contained the explosion. Once again I had had a wide escape. We sat in a nearby pub waiting to go back in and fetch our coats, but nobody would return to work that evening. Lucky for me I had my handbag with my season ticket for the train, even if the journey home was a bit chilly without my coat.

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News is with us in all the media twenty four hours a day and this year fire, flood, hurricanes and earthquakes have been regular events and of a magnitude hard to comprehend. We wonder what it is like to be at the heart of a major disaster. Reporters find their way to the most unreachable scenes of devastation only to ask victims how they feel.

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Back to Perth, Western Australia, when my fourteen year old self was riding her bike. The suburbs were laid out in a grid design with long straight roads, there was a ‘Give Way To The Right’ rule, logical as long as everybody obeyed; there were always accidents at intersections. I was pedalling towards a corner when suddenly two cars collided in front of me, one of them rolled over. The two young drivers clambered out with some difficulty, but both were laughing, unhurt. When I tried to get back on my bike my legs were shaking so much I couldn’t lift my foot onto the pedal. I have always wondered if everyone benefits from adrenalin when faced with real peril, or if some people turn to jelly. How many writers secretly long to be in the midst of a disaster and emerge unscathed, or just a bit hurt so they can tell their dramatic story from a comfortable hospital bed?

Our family’s migration to Western Australia inspired my novel Quarter Acre Block – only 99 pence on Amazon Kindle, also available as a paperback.