UTA’S DIARY

I copied the following from this website: http://www.illawarrafolkfestival.com.au/lola-wrights-keg-night and http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/lolas-keg-night-story-of-lola-wright.html

“Lola Wright’s Keg Night” is a musical memoir adapted by PP Cranney & Christina Mimmocchi from the autobiography of Lola Wright. It’s a new verbatim play with music based on the passionate life and times of former Illawarra resident, Lola Wright – teacher, activist, performer, wife, mother, lover. For over forty years, from the 1940s to the 1980s, Lola contributed to the Illawarra’s vibrant social history. Whether teaching nursery rhymes to primary students, establishing the South Coast’s first bush band, playing piano at local dances, singing The Red Flag at miners’ strikes, or leading a sing-along of The Internationale at one of her infamous Oak Flats Keg Nights, Lola’s passion for music, and social justice, left its mark on all who knew her. This is her story in her own words and the music that she loved – an entertaining, audience-participation reading-in-progress performed by Vashti Hughes, Laura Bishop and others.

With thanks to the Alistair Hulett Memorial Fund, the NSW Teachers’ Federation, the National Library of Australia, the Bush Music Club, the Illawarra Folk Club and Merrigong Theatre.

Lola’s keg night? Well, Lola was famous for her parties, where the keg was not broached until sufficient songs were sung! And no one could say they didn’t know the songs as the words were projected onto a screen. After all, she was a teacher.”

Mrs. Wright (Lola Wright) was principal of Oak Flats Primary School in the 1960s. This is how our children know and remember her. She is 88 now and lives in Morundah, a small town in the South West of NSW with 22 dwellings, a pub and an Opera Centre. (See: http://www.morundahopera.com.au/contacts.html) In April 2013 we stayed in Fig Tree Motel in Narrandera for one night. It’s a pity we did not know then that Mrs. Wright lives in Morundah very close to Narrandera! https://auntyuta.com/2013/04/page/3/

Christina Mimmocchi, the producer of Lola’s Keg Night, says that she had the pleasure of delving into the National Library of Australia’s oral history and folklore archive to seek out old songs . . . . Christina listened to all fourteen hours of Lola’s interviews and recordings for the NLA. So everything in the play has been either said by Lola in her National Library interviews or has been written by her in her unpublished autobiography. http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22720011?selectedversion=NBD24494996

Folkloric recording.
Lola Wright was born in Childers, Queensland. She recalls her childhood years frequently moving around the country because of her father’s work as a sleeper cutter & bushman; graduating from Armidale Teacher’s College, N.S.W, rising to the position of School Principal for Oaks Flats.; settling in the Illawarra, N.S.W. & becoming involved with the Communist and Union movement; the local communist party branch’s involvement in local folklore; working conditions for women in the 1950s; her actions as a feminist fighting for equal pay in the education system. She recalls forming & running the South Coast Bush Band in the mid-1950s after a visist from the original Bushwhackers to Wollongong; life during mining strikes.

Our family was very interested to see Lola’s Keg Night. Caroline booked tickets online for six of us for Saturday night, 11th of October 2014, at the Merrigong Studio in Wollongong.

http://bushmusicclub.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/lolas-keg-night-story-of-lola-wright.html

The above website shows pictures from the Merrigong Studio. There were individual small tables for the theater goers. There were candles and pictures on each table. Matthew organised the pushing together of some tables for our family group: There were Monika and Mark, Caroline and Matthew as well as Peter and myself. All of us had a terrific evening. In time I warmed up enough to join in the singing of some of the bushsongs. The texts were always displayed on the screen above the stage. Our group took to drinking beer. During intermission I felt that I’d rather have some hot tea to drink. Matthew soon arrived with a lovely wooden tray with an old fashioned tea-pot on it plus a beautiful cup and a creamer and sugar. I enjoyed this tea very much.

Weekend Diary

Saturday, 4th of October 2014

Peter is busily turning all our clocks one hour ahead right now. This means, we lose one hour during the night and from tomorrow on we are going to be on daylight saving (summer) time already!

It is 9 pm now. With the clock going on daylight saving during the night I tell myself it is really like 10 o’clock. I might soon get ready for bed and do a bit of reading in my kindle before I go to sleep.
I am about to start the fifth chapter in “1984”. Reading Orwell’s book a second time I find quite a challenge. I did read this book once before, as long ago as the 1960s. At the time 1984 seemed a long time away. I think I kind of could not believe that changes in society could become as extreme as what Orwell predicted. But of course we started to make plenty of jokes about it all the time when some changes seemed to become slightly Orwellian.
It seems to me changes are getting now actually more and more Orwellian. If for instance people do not blindly believe everything the government tells them and voice their opinion about it, people fear this may result in some kind of surveillance. And people realise how electronic surveillance is possible and more and more being made use of without people’s knowledge even. Just reading on the internet certain blogs that criticise the government could perhaps have consequences. This is what people think.
Anyhow, one gets the feeling some governments do not welcome a proper debate on issues that are controversial. More and more governments wants to hide things from their population. I think it is hard to trust a government that becomes very, very secretive; never wanting to tell people the truth. WAR IS PEACE. This is Orwellian!

Sunday, 5th of October 2014

Notes from Chapter Five of Orwell’s 1984

“Freedom is Slavery”

Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness

thought-criminals and saboteurs

DUCKSPEAK, to quack like a duck
Applied to an opponent, it is abuse,
applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.

Syme. There was something that he lacked: Discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity. He said things that would have been better unsaid, he read too many books . . . .

About a quarter of one’s salary had to be earmarked for voluntary subscriptions, which were so numerous that it was difficult to keep track of them. For Hate Week the house-by-house fund. . . . .

Thought Police – to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: FACECRIME, it was called.

Sunday, 5th of October 2014

Notes from Orwell’s 1984, Chapter 6

Winston was writing in his diary about a woman with a young face painted very thick. The whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips appealed to him.

But then he could not go on writing. “He wanted to do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black out the memory that was tormenting him.” . . . .
“For days at a time he was capable of forgetting that he had ever been married. They had only been together for about fifteen months. The party did not permit divorce, but it encouraged separation in cases where there were no children.
. . . .Very early in their married life he had decided – that she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her.”
So some three years ago Winston found himself in a kitchen of one of the poorer quarters with the white painted woman who was a prostitute. He is aching to write about it, to confess. He remembers, “what he had suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman was OLD. The paint was plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.
He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:
‘When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.’
He pressed his fingers against his eyelids again. He had written it down at last, but it made no difference. The therapy had not worked. The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.”

UTA’S DIARY

Today is Thursday, the second of October 2014. The weeks and months seem to pass in a flash. Is it already one week since Peter drove Aileen and me to the centre for the heart move exercises? I can’t believe it. Where has the week gone to? Aileen is one of my neighbours. Last week she came along with me for the first time to see whether these heart move exercises were suitable for her. It turned out that she liked the class very much. So today she wants to come along with me again.

On Friday last week we had our games afternoon at Irene’s place. Erika is back now from her holidays and she invited us to come tomorrow to her place for our games afternoon. Last Saturday, the 27th of September, our beautiful new great-grandson Alexander was born. We spent a wonderful afternoon with him on Sunday. His parents had gone to the hospital just before midnight on Friday. It took less than one hour before little Alex was born. About twelve hours later the parents went already back home with their little bundle of joy.

Peter drove me on Sunday to church for the 9,30 Mass. That Sunday turned out to be quite a warm day already. Then on Monday and Tuesday the temperatures went up to a bit over 30 Degrees Celsius. Peter and I had dental appointments for Tuesday at the Sydney Holistic Dental Centre. We caught the train from Dapto as we always do when we go to the Dental Centre. I had taken an extra cardigan along for the train and Peter had taken a warm jumper along. We knew the air-conditioning on the trains is often turned up much too high on a summery day. And so it was. On our two hour train ride we both were cooled down a lot with the air-conditioning blowing very, very cold air all around us.

We had appointments with one of the Dental Centre’s Dental Hygienists. Our appointments had been made months ago. On Tuesday Peter had had a bad night because he had developed a very bad toothache. Even a lot of painkillers did not make him feel much better. The pain had already started on Monday. He felt like there was an infection in the tooth. It may have resulted in some kind of poisoning wandering around in his head for he could feel it was affecting his brain! But he decided to wait till Tuesday when we had dental appointments anyway. He was lucky, he did get the right kind of treatment by a friendly young dentist at the centre. He killed the nerve of the tooth. It turned out that the infection was a root infection. He drained the infected area, which made Peter feel much better immediately. The dentist said he could have given Peter antibiotics. But these would not have been a guarantee for a cure.

Peter felt totally all right the following day after having had a good sleep. When the Dental Centre rang in the afternoon to ask whether he was feeling okay, he could assure them that he was fine. He said the dentist did a good job. I think this made them happy. But in about four weeks Peter has another appointment to see the dentist who usually treats him. It was only a few days ago when Peter said he is not going to make any more appointments with the Dental Centre for he wants to save the money for another trip to Berlin. Peter likes to make jokes about it, saying now the dentist can go overseas instead!

The Dental Hygienist asked me how I was feeling. I said considering I just turned 80 I do feel all right. I am glad I can still move around, but I said that I did not like this very cold air-conditioning on the train to Sydney.

Pictures from a Week after my Birthday

A week after my birthday Joan, one of my neighbours, called and gave me this beautiful large rose out of her garden.

On Monday, 29th of September, Peter and I went to the Dapto Leagues Club. As a member I had received birthday vouchers for free cake and coffee. I chose a rather large piece of cake with a profiterole. It was delicious. There was plenty for both Peter and myself.

After we finished our coffee and cake we went to another room where we had noticed – surprise, surprise! – on a big screen was shown the Berlin Marathon that had taken place on the previous day and where a Kenyan had been running a world record. There was still one hour’s running left to show on the screen. We decided we would sit down and watch it.

These lovely pots of tea were served to us.

I gave Peter my camera. So he took quite a few pictures from the screen. Most of these turned out all right.

Baby Alexander

Lucas gets acquainted with his little Brother.

Sunday, the 28th of September

Yesterday, on the 27th of September 2014, Baby Alexander Robert, a brother for two year old Lucas, was born in Wollongong Hospital. Ryan and Ebony made it to the hospital barely an hour before little Alex was born. Twelve hours later they were already on their way back home, where the first family visits soon arrived.

Today, on Sunday, Caroline came from Sydney to see the new baby. Peter and I picked her up from Dapto Station. Caroline arrived on a rail bus. There were no trains today because of track work. Towards 3 o’clock in the afternoon Peter, Caroline and I could see the new baby for the first time. He is such a sweetie! The baby had been born soon after midnight on Saturday. So this afternoon he would have been going towards forty hours, that means he is still less than two days old! It was great that Ebony was allowed to go home already.

Grandmother Monika, Great-Grandparents Uta and Peter with Baby Alex

Soon there were cups of coffee and cheese-cake for everyone.

In the morning I had been going to church. I noticed some beautiful yellow roses and took some pictures of them after Mass.

It was a lovely, balmy sunny morning. In the afternoon the temperature reached 28 Degrees Celsius. We felt that this was a bit like a summer day already. I have not been to the swimming pool for a while. If we have some more weather like we had today, I might have the courage to go for a swim some time soon. So far we had either clouds and a bit of rain or very strong winds. But maybe the next few days are going to be very pleasant. I hope so! 🙂

Wednesday, 24th of September 2014

This picture is from yesterday (Tuesday) morning. Marion, one of my neighbours, came along to ask for our gardener’s phone number. Peter gave her the number. I showed Marion in the computer the photos that we had taken on Monday morning at the lake.

Here is another photo that I tried to shoot with my camera from the computer screen. It shows part of that beautiful playground near the lake.

Marion asked me whether I still felt to be in a celebratory mood. “Very much so,” was my reply. Tuesday morning was a lovely morning: Wonderful sunshine, the air felt balmy. When Marion arrived we had already finished our morning tea outside in front of the house.

A little bit of Sunday's ice-ream cake was still left. Peter and I enjoyed this before we had our cup of tea. — A little bit of ice-ream cake had still been left from Sunday. Peter and I enjoyed this before we had our cup of morning tea.

Sitting outside in the sun I decided I would wear this hat. — I wore this hat sitting outside in the sun.

I had tried the hat on in the bathroom to see what it looked like.

Before I got dressed I had taken another picture in the bathroom. My aim was to take a picture of the flowers when I noticed I could also be seen in the mirror!

So I stepped back - but surprise, surprise: the mirror did still catch me! — Later I took a picture stepping back a bit – but surprise, surprise: the mirror did still catch me!

Looking through my birthday cards again I felt like I wanted to take a picture of them. — Looking through my birthday cards again and again I felt I wanted to take a picture of them.

These are the names of the ladies who gave me these beautiful flowers. Joan came a bit later after work. Her name is missing on the card. Anyhow these are the flowers I received from the ladies on Monday. Aren’t they beautiful?

So Tuesday morning I went around enjoying all the flowers. I kept shifting them to different places and took pictures of them from different angles. I just love taking pictures of beautiful things!

Here you can see Peter in the kitchen busily fixing the curtain rod.

Here is this week’s TIME magazine. On page 14 it says:

ON A HUMID MID-SEPTEMBER NIGHT,
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY
ARRIVED AT THE ROYAL PALACE ON SAUDI
ARABIA’S RED SEA COAST TO BEG
THE FAVOR OF A KING

The writer of this article says that Abdula bin Abdulazis is perhaps the most powerful man in the Middle East.

It is said in this article that the U.S. has built a fragile web of alliances to fight ISIS.
The question is being asked: WILL THIS SHAKY GROUP OF PARTNERS HOLD?

I, Uta, ask myself, how can we as ordinary citizens possibly grasp all the complications? It’s of no use working myself up, right? But I still want to know as much as possible where we are at at present.

Back to my flowers. Here is another glance at them:

Under the above picture it says: Diplomatic dance Kerry leaves a photo op with leaders of the Gulf Cooperaton Council in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, on Sept. 11 — Under the above picture it says: Diplomatic dance
Kerry leaves a photo op with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, on Sept.11

On Sunday I turned 80

Uta’s Diary, Monday, 15th September 2014

SIXTY-year-old grandmother Myra Gold was asleep when four police officers raided her home.

They were deployed to confiscate her phone, dig through her rubbish and search her car.

For stickers.

Anti-G20 stickers.

If ou want to read more about this please go to

http://aussiejustice.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/big-brother-watch-out-forget-about-the-g20-sticker-blitz-another-kind-of-revelry-may-be-a-thorny-issue-cairns-post/

I glanced over newly published blogs that I had not seen yet when I came across the above one. It made me realise that more and more we are not allowed to say any more what we think. I want to point out here that I am in principle not against the G20, not at all. I mean I too may have some objections but I want the G20 to go ahead. However, I do not believe the meeting is going to be stopped by some people displaying a few stickers. I am very concerned when people are not allowed to voice their objections any more. What sort of a world do we live in when security forces over react to such an extent? Does our government want to stay in power by scaring us to death?

On a lighter note, we had a lovely day in Sydney yesterday. We saw Caroline and Matthew. We also saw quite briefly Matthew’s daughter Alex who came with her boyfriend to take Matthew out for lunch for a belated Father’s Day meeting. Caroline and Matthew showed us heaps of beautiful photos from their short stay in Bali. They packed a lot of things into the few days there including their friends’ Wedding Reception, which was the reason for this trip.

After we had some coffee Matthew left for his lunch and we had lunch with Caroline. Rather than go to the park for a picnic lunch, we did eat our salads at Caroline’s place and had a cup of tea also. We assumed the park would be packed full of people since it had turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. After lunch Caroline drove us to Centennial Park. She soon managed to find a parking spot. There were hardly any spots left, even though it is a huge park with parking all along the different drive-ways that go through the park.

We then had a lovely walk in our toe shoes. A few hours later Matthew had arrived back home and we had tea and excellent pieces of cake with him before driving back to Dapto.

Caroline and Matthew had given Peter a bottle of duty free Hennessey as a belated Father’s Day gift. It was great that we could go on this outing to Sydney and meet Caroline and Matthew after their exciting trip. I had been somewhat concerned that maybe Bali was not such a safe place to visit. But it turned out that my concerns had been totally unwarranted.

Caroline's Toe Shoes — Caroline’s Toe Shoes

There were a lot of these flowers in the grass where we were walking.

One of these flowers got stuck between my toes.

PS: Here is another update.

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/blair-urges-air-strikes-against-scotland-in-event-of-yes-vote/

Does this make your mind boggle?

A picture that Peter took on Fathers Day 2014

Peter took this picture on the morning of Sunday, the 7th of September 2014. This was Fathers Day in Australia. There were blue irises as well as a bottle of Peter’s favourite port-wine. The cake made with ground almonds was for the afternoon. Monika arrived in the afternoon with sons and daughters as well as two year old grandson Lucas. Monika brought gifts along for her Papa: A lovely bottle of wine, chocolates, scratchies and a card.

Son Martin rang from Melbourne at night-time. This call was diverted to our interim mobile phone that Telstra had sent us to use while our landline phone was out of order. This mobile phone had no ringing sound. Instead a computerised female voice always announced to us when we had a phone call.

Caroline and Matthew had been going away for a few days to attend the wedding of their friends. They are back now and we are going to see them on Sunday. They probably made a lot of pictures and are going to tell us a lot about their trip.

Peter thought he had a lovely Fathers Day last Sunday. We are looking forward to seeing Caroline and Matthew very soon.