Myths Busted

I grew up in the 1950's and early '60's. On TV I watched the The Happy Hammond Show which was sponsored I think by Tarax soft drinks. Happy always had a bottle of Tarax in hand or close by. Another show featured Peter's Ice Cream with clowns Zig and Zag. The catchphrase "Peter's Ice Cream, The Health Food of a Nation", was forefront.

In later life I was to learn that one of the clowns Zig was convicted of molesting his granddaughter, and Happy Hammond was not always so happy. Nonetheless my childhood included big quantities of soft drink and ice cream.

Later, in my adolescence, the Marlboro man was prominent on TV. Also memorable was the sophistication of  Peter Stuyvesant and Benson and Hedges, not to mention Hoges and "Anyway Have a Winfield" and "Matter of Fact I've got it Now". I took up smoking and alcohol as did most of my peers, this despite the advice and insistence of my parents who were abstainers and bible thumpers. It could be said that I over indulged. I was, in my tender youth, a nicotine addict and alcohol abuser, as were most of my mates.

My parents in 1971 made a life change and sold the family home in Mt Waverley and bought 6 and a half acres in Emerald. They did this (thankfully) because as self employed business people they found the ever increasing traffic stifling and saw a tree change an escape. Emerald was a quiet little country town, a village or hamlet if you like, far removed from the husltle and bustle of choked down by traffic Melbourne which at that time had about 5km of freeway in total. They took the brave decision to "escape the rat race".

They moved to Emerald in 1972. I wasn't with them, I was at Puckapunyal being marched around the parade ground and the bush as a conscript for National Service, where I found myself before I really knew what was what, in the aftermath of some political expedient decision that joining the Vietnam war was a good idea. Yeah, good one that.

There was a Federal election in December 1972 and a change of government, which saw my Army career, which was always going to be short, come to an even shorter conclusion not far into 1973 as the wheels turned. The lesson was how amazingly one's life can be changed by politics, but it was a lesson I really did not absorb till a couple of decades later.

Let's move ahead to the 1980's. I had spent 5 years in the Department of Agriculture as an apiary inspector based in Wangaratta before returning to work in the now thriving family business at Emerald after I married in 1981. We bought a couple of acres in Gembrook, a quiet rural town where land was still reasonably affordable. Mid 1980's my father had a heart attack, a shock to us all as he was a tee totaller and a fit active man. He had 5X bypass surgery and lived another twenty years.

In the 1990's I was concerned about my genetic history and visited a GP to assess my health and risk of heart disease. I was promptly put on a statin drug to reduce cholesterol. There was, after some time, a minor complication with liver function impairment so I wavered, and for some years was on and off the statin drug as my fears either of heart attack or liver damage plagued my mind.

In the meantime the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer, Zig's indescretions were exposed, and the Vietnam War was exposed as a political farce. It came to light, that my father (who died in 2007), suffered kidney damage after a lifetime of high sugar intake.

One day more than a decade ago I was in a car park behind the shops in Emerald when I saw my doctor in her brand new gold Mercedes trying to negotiate the narrow lane way. I decide then that I'd had enough of regular trips to the GP for blood tests and prescriptions and forever putting my hand in my wallet. I went off the statins. At age 64 I have not succumbed to a heart attack, and am thankful for the money I have saved, and the comfort from less worry and living a healthy lifestyle.

Speaking of doctors, I saw this year that a man who grew up in Gembrook applied to council to set up a medical clinic in a house he owned in the Gembrook main street, a house he bought for his mother to live in in her old age. She was a well known and respected lady and after she died her son thought it would be nice if the house could be used to bring a doctor to Gembrook, a basic service denied the town for nearly all the 35 years I have lived here. He was knocked back a planning permit as it was claimed the property did not have sufficient parking spaces.

Here we are now, and Puffing Billy Railway has shifted to Gembrook as it's Event Hub. As many as 400 cars are expected each day for 18 extra days of Puffing Billy Events. The town will be choked down by traffic. My quiet rural retreat of Gembrook is being destroyed. The rat race that my family fled is brought to my doorstep. I cannot believe this is to be allowed.

I extend a message to Jason Wood, our Federal Member for LaTrobe, and to Brad Battin, our State Member for Gembrook (interesingly they are former policemen as they love to remind us). I also include prospective councillors in the upcoming council elections, with apology to the lady candidates.

"PLEASE gentlemen. Grow some balls. Stop cowtowing and sniffing around Puffing Billy for the opportunity of grinning photo shots with the the train, to feather your nest by re election. For the sake of the community please come up with some real ideas to benefit the town and district and not the easy way of trying to look good with the same old unsustainable bulldust."