I have been preoccuppied lately and regret that I have not had time to post. The local councillors are making their move to take over maintenance, and possibly management, of Nobelius Park, removing it from the Committee of Management, of which I'm chairman.
One councillor in particular has been an active opponent over a period of years and various means have been employed to destabilize our committee, to the point of almost total destruction a couple of years ago. The museum was about to be closed down and management of the park taken over by Emerald Lake Park, perhaps the whole sorry tale is a story for another day. We survived and have rebuilt our committee and active participation, with sheer persistence winning the day against silent lack of support and tactical manoevering to make everything we try so painfully difficult.
Over the past two years, our committee has resisted two major pushes to put another track/ maintenance road through our park. The first of these came from Council itself, put forward by the councillor I referred to above. The second came from The Emerald Village Committee, the chairman of which was chairman of our committee, an appointment organized by the same councillor, who held the position for eight months before his sudden resignation, which was pivotal in our near demise at crisis point in 2010.
In my naivety I was unaware of the political tactics but they became clear to me as time went by.
As a committee we resisted the new path, in fair and logical judgement as is our right, voicing our non support. With council elections due next October, the knives have come out . Their way of dealing with a differing view that holds up some grandiose masterplan is to obliterate the obstacle.
You can get the gist of the recent developments by going to-
berwickleader.com.au
and scrolling down to the article and clicking on the poll. Alas, so far, comments supporting the COM have not made it to the site. Due to some initial glitch someone had, the people commenting our way have been sending to the journalist, and the emails do not appear on the website. I could weep.
I'm about to be the victim of a group of old puffed up egos exercising the last power they'll ever have. To some people power is all important, better than currency. They crave it like an addict a drug. But don't be concerned for me, I have done my best and have a full life. Nothing in this world is permanent. When I leave NHP it will be much better than when I arrived. That's all I can do. And I have respect of people that matter.
TO VINCE AND LEIGH, who have both enquired about A Sense Of Humour Helps, this was an article I wrote on the other computer on Word, then put it on blogger so that I could copy it onto the other computer and send it to the editor of 'Signpost'. I'm not really up to speed with this technology I'm enjoying dabbling with. Apparently in doing this blogger puts it up on my followers' dashboards but when you go to it it's not there as I didn't intend to post it.
Here it is V and L. I hope Editor doesn't mind me putting it up before the April edition is published, I don't think she will because my blog readership is small and the magazine circulation is larger. I chose Bill Holmes because he's helping us with a display in the museum topical for ANZAC Day, but learned when I interviewed him that he's been in 'Signpost' a few years ago, and his wife Erna was in last year. So I tried a different approach with a humanitarian message of understanding. I think it worked but it's not for me to judge.
A SENSE OF HUMOUR HELPS
With a twinkle in his eye and a hint of a grin, Bill Holmes says of his wife Erna, who is standing by his side, “When she comes to the club I say to the blokes, ‘Here’s the leader of the opposition’.” The grin breaks into a chuckle.
Erna counters, “Ah, he is my toy boy, he runs and I chase.
The jokes and laughter flow when you talk with Bill and Erna. Bill is 88 and Erna 90 this year. Not long before their marriage in 1974, Erna’s first husband died of a heart attack, and Bill’s wife “took off with another bloke."
“That was my 30th wedding anniversary present; she did me a favour I think, in the finish.”
A spade is a spade to Bill. He grew up in Moonee Ponds, his father died when he was 14 in 1938, and he joined the AIF in 1941 at age 17. His battalion was on its way to defend Timor when Darwin was bombed. They camped by the side of the road, outside Darwin, where there was nothing much left, and it was some time before they had tents to sleep in. They finished up staying in the Territory preparing for more air attacks and possible land invasion, for 23 months. The battalion went on to fight in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Bougainville. Bill was a Bren gun operator. The motto of his battalion was ‘Cede Nullis’, which means, Bill said, “Never give up.”
He returned from the Islands in June 1946, going back to work as a costing clerk as he was before enlisting, but he couldn’t stand being inside and retrained as a carpenter. He had a number of bouts of malaria and was hospitalized four times. He worked for the Housing Commission and then Mayne Nickless, where Erna’s daughter also worked, resulting in him meeting Erna.
Erna too was caught up in the Second World War, but on the other side of the world. She grew up in Germany and was seconded into a munitions factory to make bullets in her teens, before being drafted into the Luftwaffe. She worked in the radar room monitoring plane movements, and later in the glass towers to spot planes. She was lucky to survive one attack in particular when her tower was strafed by a Mustang fighter bomber.
“The voice on the radio screamed ‘Achtung! Achtung! Stay by your post.’ To hell with that, I was out of there in a flash and down the ladder like greased lightning.”
After the defeat and destruction of Germany, Erna’s homeland was given to Poland and she became a war refugee forced to beg for food and live by her wits. She eventually found work and shelter with a Polish boot maker, Leon, who had spent nine years in concentration camps where he made boots for the SS. Erna and Leon married, and migrated to Australia in 1950.
After moving to Emerald in 1982, Bill and Erna have been active in the community with the Emerald RSL, Probus and the Emerald Evergreen’s, and have made many friends. In 2010 Bill was awarded the RSL Life Membership with Gold Badge in recognition of his outstanding service to the League over many years.
Both Bill and Erna had four children in their first marriages. Bill has lost one son to cancer and another following an operation for misdiagnosed lung cancer. Erna has lost a daughter to multiple sclerosis and a grandson to cancer. All the hardship and grief, and advancing age, have not dulled Bill and Erna’s zest for life, or shared humour. Laughter heals.
“I have no grudge against the Japanese,” Bill says. “There’s no point, it would eat you up.”
Erna says, “Before the war, where we were near the Polish border, everybody got on well, there was no problem. But Germany invaded Poland because of politics. It’s always politics. Look at Vietnam, and now we have so many Vietnamese people here. My grandfather told me that in World War 1, on Christmas Eve, the German soldiers would sing ‘Silent Night’ in German, then the British, who of course knew the tune, would sing it back in English. They met in ‘no man’s land’ to show each other photos of their families. The next day, because someone said it should, the fighting and killing started again.”
Listening to Bill and Erna it becomes clear that not one of us has a say in where we are born, or the political circumstances of the time, or our early life.
On Anzac Day, when we say, “Lest we forget” for our fallen servicemen, and women, let’s not forget the millions of others who pay with their lives for being born wrong place wrong time.
