Day 5 - of 2012 - an icon falls

Today was a great day for the Australian Cricket Team. Long-standing records at the Sydney Cricket Ground were broken. Michael Clarke, the Australian Captain,  made 329, just a few runs short of Donald Bradman's score. So today, Tim Murray's poem "Tibby" is very appropriate.

______________________________________________ The Box Brownie Camera A small, simple camera for the masses, created in 1900 by George Eastman, changed the face of photography. It was this camera, made by Kodak, that broke all boundaries of photography. Before the Box Brownie, photography was a hugely expensive hobby. The Box Brownie reduced the cost of cameras by 100 times to make it available to everyone who wanted one. You simply took your pictures and sent the whole camera off to Kodak. They would send you back the photos and they would have re-loaded your camera for the next batch. It was very user-friendly. Malcom has lived with a misspelt name all his life Some things have really "pissed me off" this week. The amount of news time devoted to American politics is absurd!  The American  Republican Primaries, it seems,  is where the rest of the world is left with the impression that the future of the Universe will be determined by the outcome in Iowa. I bet most yanks don't even know the name of our Prime minister, and hopefully they haven't even heard of  our national embarrassment, Tony Abbott.    I have been suffering from a huge overdose of cooking programs on the ABC. It seems they have one or two of the wretchedly boring programs every night, and then repeat them ad nauseam  just to inflict more boredom onto us culturally starved and bereft viewers. The ABC News Channel is especially guilty of  doing cross-overs, interviews and ad infinitum repeats of the Iowa Primaries, and this is the first Primary of too many. Simply give President Obama another term so that we don't have to hear about the "Alice in Wonderland' tea parties in America.    The Day's Postscript   Today Dianne from the White Hart Hotel in Murrurundi called into Pearl's Gallery. In October last year, her home burnt down. She lost everything in the fire. She said it is only now that the loss is becoming more real. Dianne said items she once owned now come into her mind, and each memory is a tiny grief.                           "It is almost as if you want to forget what you once owned, because recalling the accoutrements of your whole life becomes just too painful."

_____________________________________________________ Towards the end of 2010 I became aware that there had been a Poetry Competition on the theme of cricket.  I was too late to submit an entry but made contact with the organisers and am on their mailing list for this year.  In April I read about Tibby Cotter in a book I was given for becoming one of the first 500 ‘Friends of the Shrine’.  Tibby was the only Australian test cricketer to be killed in the First World War.  I got the idea of writing a bit of an Aussie ballad on Tibby and this is the result.  I may submit it for the 2011 Cricket Poetry Competition.  Nothing ventured….. 20 April 2011 Tibby His name was Albert Cotter but the world knows him as Tibby, the fastest bowler ever, people say; and Tibby was a legend with a fearful reputation, the Thompson, Lee and Lillee of his day. He splintered stumps asunder: they called him ‘Terror Cotter’; the Poms were keen to have the Terror banned. When skipper Darling brought him on and set an eight one field consternation spread across the land. In nineteen hundred and five he played the gentlemen of England and bowled a beamer straight at Doctor Grace, who thought the brash colonial was really not a gentleman  to bowl a ball at such a height and pace. They say he was a larrikin who always spoke his mind, a dinkum Aussie and a loyal mate; he loved his sport and played eight years of cricket for Australia and captured 89 at 28. But then the clouds of war began to gather in the north to shatter many people’s hopes and dreams; and Tibby gave his verdict to his country’s strong appeal and khaki took the place of flannelled creams. The time had come to test himself, apply his strength and skill on different fields of battle far away; and so he joined his team mates on the slopes of Anzac Cove where Turkish soldiers, well dug in, held sway. The prospect of an outright victory soon evaporated and both sides looked like playing out a draw; in fading light our boys drew stumps and quietly left the field, as silence settled on that sacred shore. They all regrouped in Cairo for some further team selection and Tibby transferred back to 12th Light Horse. Their mission was to drive the Turks from Palestine and Sinai, a mighty challenge for this mighty force. The brilliant bowler now became a mounted stretcher bearer redeeming what he could of pain and loss.  Through desperate heat and cold he ran the gauntlet of the battle fields Protected only by a blood-red cross. In May of ’17 the speedster Cotter was promoted: it was his due, but soon he told them ‘Thanks, I’d rather play the game out as a trooper with my mates,’ and so returned to join the other ranks. On the last day of October as the evening shadows lengthened and the burning orange sun began to fade, the vital word was given to the 4th and 12th Light Horsemen and so the great Beersheba Charge was made. When the Turks laid down their weapons in a gesture of surrender many brave young warriors lay dead, and one was Tibby Cotter who was picked off by a sniper who shot him from behind and through the head. So Albert Tibby Cotter had bowled his final over and earned his place among Australia’s best. In peace he played the noble game but when the bugle blew he made reply and passed his final Test. Of all the 60,000 lads who didn’t make it home just one had worn the famous baggy green. He played and fought with equal zest and made us understand what sportsmanship and patriotism mean. ___________________________________         Pearl Red Moon Gallery - Murrurundi