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“Outward Bound Australia is celebrating its 70th anniversary and, as part of the celebrations, last Sunday some 70 former students took a cruise on the Hawkesbury River to the site of the former Outward Bound school at Fishermans Point and nearby Bar Island,” reports Ken Bergin of Bensville. “With such a diverse group, it was not surprising that there were some Column 8-ers on board. I spotted Meri Will and Seppo Ranki. Just goes to show how ever-present Granny is, and rightly so!”
Peter Cowan has “no need to go to England to find Effingham Street (C8),” claims Alastair Wilson of Balmain. “There’s one in Mosman.”
This is confirmed by Warren Mitchell of that very environ, who informs that “it’s close to the croquet club and I expect any of those cursed hams that ventured too close would have been reprimanded with a mallet”.
Still in Mosman, denizen Jack Dikian wonders, “Is it just me? It seems virtually impossible to avoid people complaining about capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing while holding a $9 coffee, wearing activewear they never exercised in and sitting three metres from one of the country’s best beaches. I’m talking about my wife.”
“My Yorkshire-born grandmother also used the term ‘sunbeams’ (C8) when she returned unused cutlery to its drawer after a meal,” says Louise Watson of Canberra (ACT). “The daughter of a poor tenant farmer, she grew up on a vast agricultural estate before marrying a union organiser with whom she had seven children and continued to live in grinding poverty, even after they immigrated to this ‘working man’s paradise’ in 1911. After labouring all day in a smoky kitchen to put food on the table, perhaps she needed to seek joy wherever she could find it, hence her happy sigh over ‘my sunbeams’ as she fondled a few pieces of clean cutlery before embarking on the washing-up.”
The Fiat Bambino (C8) is having a moment. Here’s Ruth Magoffin of Cheltenham: “While walking in Paris, I witnessed the advantage of owning a micro car. Two men picked up a Fiat Bambino and placed it carefully into the only tiny parking spot available.” Jonty Grinter of Katoomba had a friend in 1960s London who owned one and “made a large silver-painted wooden key and stuck it on the back, and would regularly drive it around Trafalgar Square to let the tourists photograph it”.
Column8@smh.com.au
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