General stories

We walked barefoot to school at Logan Village. The gravel road near the Quinzy Creek bridge was sometimes covered in large meat-ant’s nests. These big red ants packed a powerful...

Recent news about crows menacing humans reminded me of my school days when Marty, Joan and I would walk barefoot the five kilometres from our home on Buccan Hill to the Logan...

How I love reading of the old days in the Tamborine Bulletin! Not only does it inform me; it sometimes takes me back to my childhood at Buccan and my school days at Logan...

 During the last war, my parents befriended two American soldiers, brothers from Idaho. We became very fond of them and were devastated when the younger one lost his life in the...

It was during the Great Depression, when money was in short supply, that the collector would visit weekly to pick up a small amount of cash toward the sum that was owed. The two...

I have a granddaughter who has ataxia, a form of cerebral palsy. She has a weakness in her hands, her tongue muscle and in the muscles of one leg. This means she cannot run, her...

The Hollywood Theatre once stood proudly on the corner of Logan and Chatsworth Roads in Greenslopes. Every Saturday morning in 1938 I would take my sixpence (five cents) to...

If I am engrossed in reading something (perhaps The Bulletin?) he will let me know he is there. Oh yes! He is impatient for me to notice him, for he wants to be fed. Not later,...

What a difference a few decades make! When I was a growing girl in the city, our doctor lived a few streets away. He practiced from home, and would make a lot of house calls;...

POPPY-SHOW Because of a recent foot operation, I was obliged to climb awkwardly onto the surgeon’s examination couch. I was unable to wear my customary slacks because of the...

One thing always leads to another. One of the many interviews that I have done has lead to a learned fellow coming up to do a podcast about ageing, with me, the nonagenarian,...

HIGH SCHOOL FORMALS I am hearing about the large sums of money spent on the Senior Formals of some private schools. Perhaps this applies to public schools as well. Or not. One...

My little grand-daughter had a tonsillectomy last week. She has recovered well. It reminded me of my own experience when I was five. After contracting the dreaded diphtheria when...

As she does, my daughter Katy brought me a bunch of seven huge sunflowers. She knows I love their brightness. But more than that, they remind me of my early school days.Barefoot,...

I cannot quite understand it. Here is this woman, 86 years old, very capable, well educated and articulate, good company and in good health, but who is flying to Switzerland next...

The doorbell woke me from my midday nap. I groggily answered the front door. The pleasant looking young man smiled at me. ‘My wife and I were going past your place,’ he said,...

When I say that I am ‘a child of the Depression’, most folk know what I mean. It tells them that I do not waste anything if I can help it; I buy hardly anything if I can do...

That’s what my father used to say when he was in his eighties. And now I am at least THINKING it. Yes, it is true. It sometimes takes a lifetime to really understand some...

AMY COLLINS | sexinyourseventies.com AMY COLLINS Mum was always a good and interesting listener. And I would bring home any newsy anecdotes from my work at the hospital. I was...

What a great entertainer! He has enabled us to enjoy such mirth! Such talent! He will be missed. Years ago, when my daughter Katy was a teenager, we were having a day at the...

We were leaving the district. Leaving the farm that had been home to four generations of my father’s family. The Great Depression still raged and times were tough for a small...