Category: My Diary

The Department of Education, in New South Wales, plans to spend a million dollars on the modernisation of St. Peters Public School.

Tiki and I met two years ago at Milford Sound on the South Island of New Zealand. To celebrate, we boarded the John Cadman Cruising Restaurant at the Jeffrey Street Wharf, in Kirribilli. A gentleman, in old blue overalls, was fishing from the wharf whilst listening to “Livin’ Thing”, by The Electric Light Orchestra, as it blared from the radio beside him.

A crowd boarded with us and we headed straight upstairs for a glass of lemon squash each, at fifty cents per glass. The boat became quite congested after it berthed at Circular Quay to take on more diners and we decided to move downstairs as we we passed the Opera House.

The waiter did not appreciate me asking for us to be moved to a separate table for two, after we had been seated at one of three tables that were placed side by side. We were shown to a table at the foot of the stairs. Still more patrons boarded, this time, at Rose Bay.

The “John Cadman” dates from 1906 when it was the ferry, “Lady Scott”. The vessel was gutted by fire in 1972 and rebuilt as a cruising restaurant by September of 1974.

At dinner we both ordered identically: barbecued scallops, with rice, as an entree (we each received a lovely fresh bread roll); deliciously tender fillets of steak prepared in a red wine sauce, served with tasty carrots and small potatoes; Cheesecake Bernard was followed by a cup each of white coffee. A bottle of Penfolds’ ‘Spring Rose’, — coincidentally of 1975 vintage — had been partaken of during our main course. The total bill came to only thirty-four dollars and eighty cents. We were extremely pleased, both with the food and the excellent service.

Once dinner had been served there seemed to be but a fraction of the number of persons on board. We stood at the open starboard doorway, with just the safety chain before us and gazed out at the lights of the northern shore of the Parramatta River and the reflection they cast on the calm water, on the cloudy, yet clear, night.

It was whilst standing there that I espied a quantity of friable cheesecake atop a nearby abandoned traymobile. Tiki was delighted when I homed in on the two handfuls and began to eagerly consume them.

The “John Cadman” turned around at the Gladesville Bridge and headed back along the southern shoreline, past container ships and wharves, as we danced to the music provided by three musicians. It really did not seem like four hours on board but, nevertheless, it was 11.27 p.m. when we returned to our car.

Tiki and I are boarding at her parents’ house. Prior to departing for our night out she had decided to perform a striptease for me. Enjoying it as I was, the act was abruptly terminated with a shriek when an impish compulsion arose that led me to glance towards the doorway to our room and declare, “She’s good. Isn’t she ‘Mum’?”

I lodged our entry form on ‘The Pools’, at the agency of the Totalizator Agency Board, in Brighton-le-Sands, at a cost of fifty cents. It has been a fine and warm day.

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, flies from Canberra to Brisbane.

I paid thirty cents for a pound of plums, from a costermonger in the form of a barrow man on the corner of Swanson and Malcolm streets, in Erskineville.

The film, “The Odd Couple”, from 1969, which stars Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau, is on television this evening.

The car transporting the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser is pelted with tomatoes when he visits the industrial city of Newcastle, to the north of Sydney.

“Royal Force”, a pacer from Western Australia, narrowly defeats, “Paleface Adios”, to win the prestigious Miracle Mile, held at Sydney’s Harold Park Paceway, this evening. “Royal Force” started at the odds of 7/1.

“Paleface Adios” is nicknamed The Temora Tornado in honour of the town, in central southern New South Wales, where he was bred. He is also trained in Temora.

A single red rose cost me fifty cents.

My sister and brother-in-law are renting a furnished home unit in the suburb of South Yarra, in Melbourne, at a cost of just thirty-five dollars per week. South Yarra is juxtaposed to the exclusive suburb of Toorak.

I walked to Caringbah and stopped to witness a slow beginning by Sutherland in its first grade match against Western Suburbs. It was not until the left-hand batsman, G. Marston, came to the wicket and hit forty-five, in as many minutes, that the runs’ tally began to move along in earnest. Andrew Hilditch, who batted with him, was to progress further and score 103 not out, in Sutherland’s score of 7-216 declared.

Tiki and I returned later and witnessed Peter Toohey’s dismissal, when his score was on thirty-nine. Former Australian captain and opener, Bobby Simpson, compiled some of his sixty-one runs while we were there. However, it was somewhat cold and the play rather slow, hence we departed at five o’clock. Western Suburbs was to hang on to be 9-199, at stumps, which meant that the match ended in a draw.

At six, after “Countdown”, on Channel Two, I watched “Match Of The Day” which featured a replay of the first match of the season, in rugby league’s premiership. Manly-Warringah defeated South Sydney by twenty-two points to four after the latter had led by two points to nil at half-time. The diminutive, yet highly elusive, John Gibbs made a substantial difference when he was called upon, as a replacement, during the half-time break.

From half past seven, on Channel Nine, we watched an edition of the series, “Baa Baa Black Sheep”. It is set in the Pacific during the Second World War and stars the short Robert “Hawaiian Eye”/”The Wild, Wild West” Conrad as ‘Pappy’ Boyington, who is the leader of a squadron of fighter planes.

The film, “Operation Thunderbolt”, about the Israeli raid to free the passengers being held hostage aboard an airliner at Entebbe, in Uganda, is being screened in town.

“Rhalif”, a galloper from Queensland, who is visiting Sydney, won the Manion Cup, this afternoon, and paid three dollars for each twenty-five cents invested on the win tote of the N.S.W. T.A.B.

We selected five of the thirteen ‘score draws’, the most we have predicted on “The Pools”.

On a gloriously sunny, mild morning we paid fifty cents each to enter Elizabeth Bay House, at Elizabeth Bay, and eighty cents each to enter Vaucluse House, in the expensive suburb of Vaucluse. The latter, with its turrets resembling those on a castle, was once the home of the early explorer, William Charles Wentworth. The party of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth was the first to find a way across the Blue Mountains, in 1813. They chose to keep to the ridges whereas previous attempts had not. Wentworth was also a barrister, author, landowner and statesman.

At the inviting cafe-restaurant, Father’s Moustache, in Rose Bay, we shared a nice slice of pavlova ($1.10), a slice of cheesecake ($1.00) and had a cappuccino, at a cost of fifty cents each.

Carlos Pace, a Brazilian racing driver in Formula One, was killed at the weekend, in the crash of a light plane. The crash occurred near Sao Paulo. Carlos was thirty-two years of age.

A lady, at my place of work, told me about her friend who mistook ‘Ajax’ cleaning powder for flour and used it to make rissoles and a birthday cake.

At 7.30 p.m., on Channel Seven, the “Dick Emery Show”, and at 8.00, on ABC-TV’s Channel Two, tonight’s edition of Bill Peach’s “Holiday” series looks at Cape York, Hong Kong, and a guest house at Wyong, as possible destinations for one’s holiday.

“Mannix”, a series which stars Mike “Tightrope” Connors as the private investigator after whom the series is named, is screened between 3.00 and 4.00 p.m., on Channel Seven.

At half past seven, on Channel Nine, we watched a ‘Special’ on Abba and Silver Convention. The latter is comprised of Romana Wulff, Penny McLean and Lynda G. Thompson. From half past eight, “Barbarella”, a film that bears the copyright of 1968 and which stars Jane Fonda in the title role, is being screened.

A woman I met told me that she and her husband are having to replace most of the wooden framework in their old house with steel because the problem with white ants beside the Woronora River is such a significant one.