MUSINGS and STORIES

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 without it; and I get...

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 week to have...

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 I was three (read...

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, doing the talking! He...

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; needs must, because in...

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, but now. This...

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 attend the tap-dancing...

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 fingers will not...

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 young boys who were...