: “Lc., TEE SYDNEY BUSHWALKER )-7 A monthly bulletin of matters of interest to the Sydney. Bushwalker, The N.S.W. Nurses' —– Association Rooms “Northcote Building,” Reiby Place, Sydney. Box NO. 4476, G.P.O. Sydney. 'Phone 843985. Editor Bill Gillam, Old. Bush Rd, Engadine, 5208423. Business Manager Bill Burke, Coral Tree Rd., Carlingfard. 371 November, 1965 Price 1/ I C 'ONTENT S At our October Meeting A. Colley. A Climber in the French Alps R. Cox. Part 8. A History of Earling Climbing Around Sydney Dot Butler. Day Walks Natural History B. Gillam. Paddy's Ad. Letter from Bill O'Neill. Invitation to the Christmas Party. 2. 4. 6. 10. 11. 13. 14. 2. The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965 AT. OUR OCTOBER MEETING. A. Colley. The meeting opened with apologies from Jack Wren (who did turn up later) and Ron Knightley, and welcomes into the Club, along with good wishes and copies of the Constitution for new members Phil Butt, Ruth Constable, Barbara Evans and John Shepherd. Following a brief report on our annual re-union, Frank Ashdown expressed his appreciation, which was heartily supported, of Betty Farquhar's work in organising the children's camp fire entertainment. The reunion appeared to have been a financial as well as a social success as our bank Balance rose by E23/2/11 to k311/13/5 during the months Although September with its unseasonal heat and fires was not the good walking month it usually is, Bob Godfrey in his walks report described several well attended walks. In fact too many turned up on Bob Smith's rock climbing instructional. John White took a party of eight on his Moruya walk, and, despite drought and bushfires reported that Burra Creek was very interesting. David Ingram led 16 members 4 prospectives and 6 visitors to Topham Trig and the Basin on Fathers Day. He reported that the wild flowers were very good, though they might have been even better a fortnight later. He also reported a permanent fire ban on West Head Peninsula. Jim Callaway's walk from Governor Game Lookout to Audley was attended by 2 members, 3 prospectives and 4 visitors. On September 24-26 Bill O'Neill led 9 members 4 prospectives and a visitor from Cambewarra to Kiama over the Barren grounds. There were bush fires and a lot of smoke, (was the fauna reserve burnt out? we wonder). Margaret Child had 26 starters on her Bundeena Audley walk, but this did not prevent Esme Biddulph from ait.. tiactinganother 16 to French's Forest on the same day. Perhaps the club is big enough to support more separate walks for those who live in the North and the South. Margaret Child's Parks and Playgrounds Movement report described the Movement's continuous fight against misuse of Park lands. This time it was the use of Moore Park for car parking. The Movement is also trying to persuade the Minister for Lands to establish a 66 acre native Botanical garden at La Perouse and is advocating heavier penalties for rubbish dumping, gravel stealing and disposal of old cars in National Park. It was decided to let Mick and Evelyn Elphick, John White and David Brown represent us at the coming nature conservation conference. John White told us that the Tracks and Access Committee had found that the Florabella Pass at Warrimoo was not open as advertised. The Blue i.;4, gpveril*Gr 95 111-ie Sydney 314shualkor Mmtntains National Park Trust had been asked to place signposts near the hotel site in Megaleng, showing the way to Nellies Glen and the Devil's Hole. A track had b-een. cleared from Mobs Swamp to Merri4lerrigal. 4A7441 Rigby dew our attention to aA &rtigle We maggaileJtI witaVekre0 Goodbye” whiat contained. the observatIJon that oA44#0ttns ars engated on an all eur war on eve hi, fulrrod, 0 'di or that moves.“ T34v44ont a owed Wlt N/Pi4. Christmas carts were DOW 4140akile av1d ingram Undertodk to toll them.
It4Pri the l'rlstdeOtt at the and of the meeting, called for room MeviraTas, Davis Tporam said it would be better not to waste the meetingls time. Xohn White and he wDuld carry on as before. The ipeeting 61taped at 840 pith OINOMMOI10 3, IF YOU ARE P e A TRIP IN AUSTRALIA OR .1 MA SEAS, 1107 IS THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT :THAT NEW SLEEP/NG BAG. IF YOU7q:EGO/NG TO NEW ZEALAND YOU SAVE BY PURCHASING YOUR FAIRY D07N BAG IN AUSTRALIA AND PICKING IT UP WHEN YOU ARRIVE. THE 7IDEST RANGE OF SLEEPING BAGS IN AUSTRALIA. MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT COMPANY 12 Ortona Road, Lindfield. NSW also 13/187 test Street, North Sydney, NSW 1 923172. 461440 4. The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965 (7) A CLIMBER IN THE FRENCH ALPS Ron Cox Grenoble Dear Everybody, 00t ob er Things have been pretty quiet over the past month. I'm fairly disgusted with myself, really; I've not at all made the most of my opportunit- ies this summer, having been climbing on average only once every three weekends. Main troubles are lack of steady partner, transport, and above all a certain lack of push presumably caused by advancing old age. I shall have to try to make more of the coming winter. I had hoped to be able to dominate long climbs of D so that I could start on TD, such as the North Face of the Dru, next year, but in fact I'm a long way from tl-at still. Early in September Fred Mitchell turned up again in Grenoble and we had a pleasant Sunday's bushwalking type activity in the nearby Belledonne Range, being too lazy to go climbing. The Belledonnes are quite pretty, if unexciting. The summits go to about 99000 feet, but in summer they're quite bare of snow. In fact, the summits are bare of anything, peaks which looked quite impressive in winter being revealed as heaps of scree. However, at the intermediate levels between the unispiring summits -and the heavy pine forests of the lower slopes, there is open, very beautiful country of grass and rock, lakes and creeks with the aforementioned peaks rising behind. It is very much like Tasmania only there is no scrub and the access is such that you can get to most places on a Sunday. Even in these low ranges there are refuges scattered about eVerywhere, usually manned by a guardian, who will serve you with a meal at a price. Fred and I had a very lazy day in the range didn't even bother to climb any summits. Fred stayed in Grenoble only for a couple of days then left hoping to see a bit of Spain before returning eastward for the Munich October beer festival. After that he is going to England to work apparently his funds are running down a bit. He's had a pretty good run, having travelled mostly by hitchhiking from Italy to Austria (1 month's skiing), Germany; Inndbruk to Chamonix on foot, France briefly, England and Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Leningrad, Moscow, Warsaw (of course you don't hitchhike behind the Iron Curtain), back to the Alps for two months' climbing at Chamonix and Zermatt, leaving Zermatt just before this recent visit to me. Often I feel I may have made an error in coming to a steady situation here; Fred has seen infinitely more than I have, and of course done much more climbing than I have been able to do in weekends. At Chamonix he and Bob “Strawberry” Jones did l'M, Charmoz, Grepon, traversed MiagesBionnassayMont Blanc, at the endof which they were stuck in the Vallot hut for three days, later the MidiPlan traverse, the PetitDruGrandDrt traverse in almost the guidebook time, the Aiguille BlanchePeutery Ridge route onto Mont Blanc, the Dent du Geant. That's quite a good July's climbing. Last weekend I decided to risk going out with the local GUMS (Groupe Universitaire de Montague et Ski), despite the fact that every time I go out with them the weather is bad. We went into the High Oisans, the country which contains several peaks justat the 4,000 m mark, notably the Meije and the Ecrins some 40 miles east of Grenoble. We went u to a refuge near the foot of the Meije late Saturday afternoon,a4 easy 1i- hours walk. Objective was the November, 1965 The Sydney Bushwalker 5. “Difficile” graded W Ridge of the Pic Nord des Cmvales, a small 3360 m peak which gives a grandstand view onto the immense South Wall of the Meije. There was no grandstand view for us that day; when we gained the foot of the ridge at 7 a m. Sunday the weather was looking miserable and no one seemed to want to take it on. So we decided to try to make a small, new variant on the ordinary route of the Peak. The rain arrived some time later just as I was clinging on to small, slightly rotten holds, trying to raise the courage to take on a 20 ft. layback, not feeling at all happy t_bout the ability of my French belayer, some distance below, to ao the right thing if things went wrong. The rain really was a good face-saver; we all beat a strategio retreat, getting back to Grenoble at 3 p m. You people back home in Australia are lucky that you don't have to be troubled by grades and standards and, above all, times. It would be nice to be able to climb in the leisurely Australian fashion once again, starting late, etc. November. Skiing has started properly, the climate rushes towards full winter. For weeks Grenoble has been submerged ihn fog, an early-winter phenomenon. The top of the fog is at about 2,000-3,000 feet, so that if you drive up into the mountains a bit you come out above it. The forests in the lower ranges are very beautiful now with the autumn colours at their peak. Temperatures are getting fairly cold, the lasses have changed into ski clothes as town wear. In the last heavy snowfall, about two weeks ago, the snow came down to a few hundred feet above the town. The surrounding ranges once more look very attractive on the rare occasions when the fog clears to reveal them. Guess I really will have to put on skis soon. SOCIAL NOTES. Now it can be told (with illustrations, toolI) just how Ron Knightley spends his leisure hours (or maybe minutes) on his many jaunts overseas. “Degenerating in North America” will set the atmosphere at the Club on November 17. Ron has-not been willing to treat his visit to Japan with the same frankness, (Dorothy also reads the magazine). However, Ron is a popular man and his slides and commentary are bound to be of the usual high standards. Dushwalkers will remember Mr. Piggot appearing on a previous programme. It was then that he showed his own beautiful movies on Japan and Thailand. 7e are fortunate to be seeing some more of these delightful screen gems on NoveRber 24. This time We will be seeing Mr. Piggot's impressions of New Zealand, Canberra and the Southern Alps. 6. The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965 The Sydney Rodkclimbing Club are hoping to write a book about the history of climbing in N.S.W. and are asking all those who have participated in this sport to write up their recollections, with a bit of bOkground interest to show what induced them to take up climbing. In the following article Dot Butler obliges. “I was born a cliMber, as all children are, but whore ts 9 million, 999 th-msand, 99 out of 10 million have the climbing urge supressed by fearful mothers, mine aia nothing to discourage her children. It was no uncommon sight for the disapproving neighbours to see all or any of the five English children, ranging in age from 2 upwards, blindining along the tips of the paling fences, clambering over the roof of the twostory terrace houses, or shinning up the big backyard trees, a gentlynurtured little Momma doing her best to follow up behind “just to keep an eye on the baby.” It soon became evident to her that the least proficient climber was herself, so she wisely retired and left us to it We lived our young life in the Western Suburbs. It was the horse and cart age. I was 7 before I saw my first motor car and 13 befo*e I had my first ride in one. The rabbit-0 and clothesprop merchants called tl,eir wares through the slow suburban streets; the lamplighter came along at dusk with his ladder, put it up against the lampposts, and a slowlygrowing line of soft yellow lights marked his progress. We had no money, and took it for granted that the fun we had we had to make for ourselves. Climbing bedame our driving urge. Wiry and barefoot (noneof us owned shoes till we wont to high school), we ranged over our local territory, racing like a pack of young baboons up and down md over everything, both mnmade and natural,. that offered the slightest scope for getting off the horizontal. We could race to the top of the tallest pine tree in 10 second flat and descend in an almost straight drop, just checking at each branch as we shot through. The palms of our hands were so horny fror swiitng around on our homemade gym equipment (rusty waterpiping from the tip) that we could climb a telegraph pole, go hand over hand along the wire and come down the next polo. (Don't ask me why we weren't electrocuted). Sundays, our pockets full of loquots and green quinces, we would trail off through the sheep paddocks, which in those days occupied a good part of the southern side of Homebush, through the marsh and titree of Pott's Bush to the Chullora Railways yards. Just as the Sydney Rockies haunt Narrow Neck, so this place was our favourite testing ground. The prize was the great crane whose weekday job was to lift locomotives around. On Sundays it sat there, huge and unused. We would make a swift sortie from the railway cutting up the arm, slide down the wire 7. The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965
cable and away before the caretaker spotted us and 7rabbed up his saltpetre gun. You can see that the race was to the swift. The railway yards possessed a great clay embankment, now removed. The civic fathers Who tidy up their suburbs so that there are no wild challenges for the young cliMber are doing the present generation a great disservice. America is already in the sad position of being so scraped, scoured, sprayed, bulldozed and flattened that the only way for the urban young to let off steam is to gang up and go out and bash someone up. Let's hope our own land will not follow suit. In the railway yards I tried out my first experiemt in artificial climbing. This revolved round a sawnoff screwdriver. It had a smooth, wooden handle, sympathetic to the grip. From the base of the clay cliff we would eye off a feasible route, then make a long run and get as high as we could with the impetus. The first pitch was invariably done in a state of swift excitment. The screwdriver would be plunged in with a mighty swing, the bare feet mould rapidly excavate a toehold in the dry clay, and the climb was well started. So we ticked off all the mighty climbs close to home sandstone quarries, clay pits, brickkoln chimneys (up their dark inside, where the littlest brother had difficulty getting started as his legs could barely stretch across), the outside of buildings, down wells, up posts and poles and pipes, trees and wires and cables. This was a glorious childhood. By the time the two big brothers had reached high school age we were ready for more distant fields a twopenny tram ride out to Bondi and the thrill of climbing the cliffs at Ben Buckler and jumping into the sea. It used to get very rough at times but that only added to the excitment. It was a lonely unfrequented end of the beach. Generally we would have it to ourselves, but sometimes there would be a group of youths, with one wildeyed beautiful girl among them, all diving and swizliming in the bombora as naked as the day they were born. The story was she was a University student who suffered an attack of encephalitis which had left her slightly crazy. She was Bee miles. A recent newspaper picture of her in an ola. 7Tomen's Home a fat lethargic, tamed old woman of 60 was enough to make one weep for wbgtdestructive Time can do. Gradully the English family's climbing team disintegrated. The brothers migrated to tennis, racing motorcars and canoeing respectively, the elder sister went away to the country, school teaching, and two years after leaving school, I joined the Bushwalkers. It was like a hand fitting into a glove that was exactly made for it Bushwalking and I were made for each other. For twelve years I never missed a weekend in the Bush. November, 1965 The Sydney Bushwalker 8. There was a pack of us numbering ten or a dozen. These were the “Tigers” who eventually developed into the Rock-climbing Stxtion of the S.B.T. All, without exception, were outstanding for speed and endurance. The Leader was Gordon Smith (“Smithy”), a Big Ben Bolt type, big and quiet, powerful but modest. He worked at the Treasury and to save money walked sixteen miles to and from work each day. He held Marathon cross-country walking records, To keep up with his 5-mile an hour pace through the bush I used to run. From then on I ran everywhere and didn't stop till I was married and having my first baby. There was Max Gentle. He was a builder. Then his profession was hit by the Depression Max got on his pushbike and cycled up to Towns- ville looking for work, through millions of acres of prickley pear and a puncture every couple of miles from the thorns. Jack De Bert, instigator of the S0B.778 in 1927 or 1928, was also one of the mob. The Depression drove him down to Burragorang Valley where he ran a pig farm and as each new batch of piglets arrived they were named after Bushwalker girls. Pig farming brought in no money so De Bert used to walk up to Yerranderie each week to collect the Dole. There was Alex Colley who did his first 3-week bushwalk alone on 28 lbs of unpolished rice - because it was cheap (only 5d. a lb). “Little Alex” lived almost exclusively on unpolished rice and oatmeal while the Depression lasted. The Bushwaikers assigned him a crest in Heraldry - a (collie) dog rampant on a steak Dormant on a field of unpolished rice. I had my first job as a physiotherapist at the Children's Hospital at Collaroy and used to ride the pushbike 150 miles a week between home and work and the University. In two years I had cycled 25,000 miles, or once round the world. Other tough ones in the Tigers were Bert rainier, Tim Coffey, Bill Hall, Dave Stead, Hilma Galliott, Jess Martin, Bill McCoskor and Bill Mullins the poet. Permanently resident in Bill's pack was a book of poetry and a bottle partlyAinlof Rhinegold with whick we would drink the success of a climb and leave the bottle as a memento on the summit. One of the leading characters in the Bushwalkers at that time was Marie Byles, Australia's first women lawyer and also the country's first (and probably only) mountaineer. She was a friend of Dr. Eric Dark and in 1936 they organised a trip to the Warrumbungles and invited me along. This was my first introduction to technical climbing. Accustomed to rushing up and over rock faces barefoot and unroped, jumping for likely- looking holds, swinging about on scant bits ofiiegetation growing out of 9. The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965 cliffs, it was a new (and somewhat painful) experience to be tied on to a restraining rope, hooked over impeding belays, obliged to “stop and make sure two holds are secure before relinquishing the third”. I got very restive under all this restraint and wondered how anyone could want to take all the joy out of climbing in this leaden-footed marmr. I was highly suspicious of my partner on the rope when he contemplated a difficult pitch - if he falls I am pulled off with him. I would have made a good team mate to Dr. Dark's friend, Salmon, and his Queenslanders who scorned the use of rope, not because I though it sissy but because I thought it damned dangerous when shared with another climber. So much for independence. By the time I had spent ten days,clithbing in the Warrumbungles with that supurb teacher, Eric Dark, I was quite reconciled to using a rope, and even thought it rather fun. After we had climbed the hitherto unclimbed Crater Bluff and returned to Sydney, Marie sent in an aiscount of our success to the leading Sydney newspaper which came up with the paragraph that Miss Byles was amazed at the skill and agility shown by one, Dot English and now that she had proved herself on this first-grade climb she was going to form a Rock Climbing Section of the Sydney Bushmalkers. This was news to me, but I was quite happy to oblige Marie. Consequently I worded the tigers, Marie donated us a practically brand new climbing rope with a red and blue stripe woven through it in true Continental mountaineering style, and there we were, as you might say, founded. The year was 1936. DAY WALKS. November 21. Otford - Burning Palms - Era - Garie. 6 miles. There are 3 walks programmed for the Burning Palms - Era locality on this particular week-end. If you can't get away for the week-end jaunt the day walk. Traverses part of the Garrawarra Primitive Area with some fine coastal views. Suitable for new members. Train: 8.42 a m. Wollongong train from Central Steam Station to Otford. Tickets: Otfard return @ 8/- plus 2/6 bus fare Garie to Waterfall. Map: Port Hacking Tourist. Leader: Phyllis Ratcliffe. November 28. Waterfall - Uloola Falls - Heathcote. 8 miles. Now that there has been good rain, the pools along Uloola Creek will be fresh and clear again. This walk takes in the South Western Corner of the National Park. Suitable for now walkers. Train: 8.50 a m. Cronulla train from Central Blectric Station to Sutherland. CHANGE AT SUTHERLAND for rail motor to Waterfall. Tickets: Waterfall return @ 6/-. Map: Port Hacking Tourist, Leader: Dick Child - NOTE telophoone No. is 550411 (33) x.66. See the new. Walks Programme for details of the Day Talks during December - available later this month. 10 The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965 NATURAL HISTORY - “TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE”. Gillam. The Dewey decimal system of cataloguing books had not reached the High School level while I was there. In those years the shelves were crpmmed with books which were called by their true names and didn't masquerade under something like 610.III. It was a very serious school and so gave more space to Economics and Physics than to Travel and Adventure. I do not know what Dewey would call this c:enre. In line of S and DEU let us call it TA. I heard an eminent book reviewer recently state that if all the. books published on the Northern Territory were to be laid end to end '. they would stretch from Vestey's Meat Works to Ayers Rock. Once there was only the ubiquitous “Te of the Never Never” and the rarer “Buffaloes.” No doubt a Greek said much the same thing when Oddyseus came home from the Black Sea. The post war availability of travel and the readiness to devour the rrinted word garnished with astonishing colour prints are to an extent self-catalytic. These days a person writes a book in order to travel which gives him increasingly the once in a life time chance to take more, and more technically perfect kodachromes.In the avalanche of such books there are certain to be pedestrian Englishmen discovering Australia or Australians discovering Canada or Canadians discovering summer skiing in Peru. Most of these are eminently for- gettable. They appeal mainly to those stay at homes who have to take their travel and adventure as they do their vices, vicariously. Occasionally an author finds he can do this sort of thing with more than average competence and can produce, as Colin Simpson has/ an interesting and semi-definitive series. Such people are kept in reasonable comfort by their publishers who take as much interest in their foreign vaccinations as dust on the camera lens or a frayed typewriter ribbon. Of far more interest, to myself, are those TA. books produced incidentally to the Author's main line of work. Anthropologists everywhere have read “North American Indians in the Pacific” and have almost universally wished that the author had not come ashore from the Kon Tiki. Kon Tiki/ written with the left hand so to speak, is a masterpiece, fitting the TA concept perfectly. The more scholarly work, produced after an immense gestation has produced in its own scientific circle the 20th century equivalent of asking its author, like Gallileo, to recant. One can imagine/ faintly, Heyerdahl saying “Perhaps” and under his breath “But I still think so.” In the same rich lode as Ken Tiki is “Apu Apu”, the unravelling of the mystery of the Easter Island Statues. The” statues, severly J 11. nal DON'T YOU?” Over the years the development of Paddymade gear has gone ahead not only with our own ideas but helped by Imany practical suggestions from active bushwalkers and campers. For instance our Enuntaineer 'H' frame pack has 21 alterations and improvements since No.1; many of Which were from ideas and criticisms of the people who use them. Voomaclor 5,[ This is the reason Parldymade gear is the best made for walkers. Practical ideas tested and proven and applied to high quality materials by skilled. craftsmen. The latest developments from d 'Thy don't you?“ the i1 “Mogong” model sleeping bag. A refinement of the “Hotham” model this bag is made of a special quality BREATHING NYLON and is filled with prime quality superdown. The quilting is on the surerior “Box” principal and the dimensions are generous, 6'6” by 30“. This is a hooded bag and the . saving in weight, though superior in insulation is a terrific 15 oz i The price E21.15.0. That's not all the news. JUST OFF THE PRESS Te have two new maps walkers have needed for many years Michael Black's “DENDETHRA” and “TUROSS”. Price 4/ each a worthwhile addition to your map library. GOOD LKING FOLKS, PADDY PALLIN PTY. LIMITED 109A Bathurst Street, Cm. George Street. FOR ALL YOUR CAMPING NEEDS. ii PADDY PALLIN Lightweight Camp Gear -13M2685 12. The Sydney _Dushwalker November, 1965 stylised and apparently erected_ magically, had baffled Western minds for 200 years. The same ,insight and lave of travel and adventure that led to Kon Tiki plus some ftiendly interest and the islanders not only produced a half finished statue but became sufficiently , enthusiastic to see if their verbal traditions were in fact viable. Nowadays there are colour slides to prove that those traditions were more than a myth. A book devoted to such a triumph justifies a lot of the genre. A journey, travelling is one of the most valid and enduring symbols in literature. Serious and great novelists have written TA as a preliminary study of their material. Grahame Green visited Mexico during one of its more violent anti-clerical and prohibitionist phases. Such a combination of attitudes alone would make a wonderful novel. “Lawless Roads” was published as a TA study for the more polished fictional account appearing as “The Power and the Glory”. Green's travels in West Africa produced “Journey without Maps” which became symbolically and in fact “The Heart of the Matter”. Joseph Conrad spent his life on the sea, with travellers and men who in all senses of the ward were adventurers. His navels became a complex memoir of all the voyages he had made, all the odd people he had met and showed a colonial world more realistic than the popular Kipling. “Heart of Darkness” read as travel literature is one of the most adventurous stories ever written. Very often suck, ventures by authors have been misunderstood by the critics who have hailed, maliciously, the demise of the authors talents. Hemingway was castigated for “Death in the Afternoon” by the same critics who applauded his preoccupation with death, despair and courage in earlier books. Then he wrote the “Green Hills of Africa” mock prayers were offered for his salv4tion and hopes expressed that he would become disenchanted with the life which he had been leading. But from the mass of words he wrote on bullfighting and the peculiar elation of big game hunting as it was then practised, he assayed with fire some of the most monumental short tales over written. Then there was the fisherman who had fished for one hundred and something days; recently a Cuban exile claimed to be Hemingway's real-life character. Such is the way to martyrdom. One of the most satisfying TA books of the local scene is “Journey among Hen” a joint and successful effort by Russel Drysdale and Don Serventy; and artist with an unsuspected gift for expression in words and a biologist with an acute understanding of men. Slide nights, hoieVer,halting the dialogue and unselective the eye are Travel and Adveniure.. An addict as I am will listen and watch. And take willingly such adventures vicariously. The Sydney Bushwalker November, 1965 …….1.1.1.111 VMO.M. Extracts from a letter by O'Neill, who sailed for England last week. “The time has no COMB for me to say au revior as I prepare to return to my homeland.,, It is with mingled feelings of pleasure and regret that I look, forward and back reviewing, reflecting and planning the next phase ahead-. It has given me great pleasure to associate with the S.B.W. an honour to represent the club and a lasting joy to have shared the wonderful companionship of the, members in the club a remembrance which I wilfgreatly treasure for I do not know at this stage whether it will be possible to return to this fair It is my hope that this will be possible but circumstances make it quite impossible to forecast such an event it may weII.be sooner or indedd later than one anticipates-. As:one who comes from afar, the activities of the club have much influenced my appreciation of Aug:tralia this may be a little hard td ; understand by those who have moved very little outside their own pe4ticu1ar ,:,nvironment. Coming from overseas, the immediate impressions can often encourage an altogether erroneous picture heavilY'prejudiced and subsequently distorted. I have no hesitation in stating. that the ClUb, thro its activities and its members has thro the cause of my association with it, enlarged and enriched my perception to the degree that my pen falters for want of words to adequately qualify this remark. Perhaps the quality that appears above all to oxpress this is compatability a term which over the last 6 -9 months has been much to the fore in the deliberations of the 'Club and its' official activities. May I, in prasing this attribute pray that this may be so nutured and cherished that longevity of the Club be assured and perpetuated it is the life blood of the club itself may I endorse the remarks made by Dorothy Lawry (NZ.) in a recent letter f6r the summing up of my sentiments and affection for the Club. My addressSor all correspondence in the future will be as under. LA. O'Neill, 60 Brassie Avenue, East Acton. London. W;3. United Kingdon. ” t,..D Si-“\TIJ RID/Y ril”, DECEMBER r-Ck PelX,C-1– Li VD9 M ALTO N RP EPPINt51,4—4, CUT-DO') R EAC1 N —- …,r) . ,..a. r) 1.6:: \ `1… i- :-….–..–v-,z, - – ,. ←(_ /… ii ji .1/ fi frI VI c”:–1 PP ER il 4.S t., ! (v v6-. ev EAR6 - cotir- FAieLY A /V_LI BA)/ Afic ',You'? w/v reA. .5A y CXIDI3YE To SA/ 0,1 BROvi ANT._) if) Li_ A-1E77-4 L, L. 1A V/A/C- F15/,- sn,c5A/. :S14 E LTE k_!.: ER EcrEo Do)v)rc Pur 0 8Y leaniiiv Over-r)i k-t- v VIA) ose lie je-6:9.,2,01. ALL F-OR ON,-)1 107 E C. 1-4