The Australian disease

Everyone applauds the good intentions of those who 'help' refugees.

But that is not the point.

What westerners (and we Australians) all need to realise -and soon - before it is too late -is that comfortable folks like you need to begin to...'learn' from other cultures how to live (Including from indigenous Australian culture).

Not teach them.. learn from them.

Maybe I should repeat it:

Not teach  them,... learn from them!

We need to learn to be more humble.

'Helping' people can be counterproductive, unless the help is requested. It can make people feel dependent and ultimately resentful.

People, including refugees and migrants, don't want to be patronised-they want to teach us something, just as much as we lust after teaching them to make ourselves feel good about ourselves.

What we in the west, and people in Australia, need to be cured of is this 'disease' we have of patronising everyone else.

'We are so wonderful here!'

We don't seem to have the humility to learn something from people from other cultures who have arrived here in desperation on a boat.

We don't see it as an opportunity to 'learn' something to save ourselves from ourselves.

That is what it is. A blessing in disguise.

All we seem to want to do is 'teach' them to be like us!

Jesus! Who would want to be like us?

We seem intent on 'teaching' them how to integrate into our wonderful Australian culture.


"We've got the answers -just be a little more like us - and you'll be ok!"

What would Chris Lilley say?

Greed and The Australian Psychological Society

The winner of this week's "Ethical Scumbag of the week" award is the Australian Psychological Society.

I understand that the Australian Psychological Society in it's 'code of ethics' endorses the ability of qualified psychological counsellors to exploit the most vulnerable in Australia.

The government will pay a counsellor 115 dollars per hour (through medicare) for sitting and listening to our problems.

But that is not enough for these "Worthies" (the Counsellors).

Most of these moral midgets charge a "Gap"

This means they can charge 'extra'- however much they wish in fact -or what the patient is prepared to pay.

All legitimised by the code of ethics of the A.P.S. which they they gleefully quote at you down the phone if you ask-and even if you don't ask they are so proud of themselves.

Fair go in Australia!

Are these greedy 'Professionals' ethical scumbags or what!

And what does that make the A.P.S then?

Banks aren't the only moral midgets in our brave new deregulated world.

I hope these moral midgets get haemorrhoids as they sit and listen to us.

Interlude (33) Blogging is a failure in some respects

The blog has been a failure in some respects.

In fact, it has been counterproductive in some ways!

It has freed the small number of people who were previously on my mailing list from the obigation to reply to my E-mails. (Not tht many of them sent them anyway!)

Maybe they now feel free from the obligation to respond because the blog is not addressed to them personally on an address list. I can only guess why.

Of course,one of the main reasons I took up 'blogging' was precisely to get people to E-mail me their news!

So, it has been a total flop in this respect.

People E-mail me even less than they did before because they now get my news on the blog without having to give me theirs - they don't even have to click in reply!

Nevertheless, I am comforted by the fact that I have got hundreds of 'hits' on my blog from other readers 'out there'.

I have a new audience!

And I love to pontificate anyway!

summer heights high humour in Australia

At last, I have found some real humour in Australia.

I once knew a friend (not a Pom) overseas who revealed a quite commonly held antagonism to Australians (which most Aussies seem to be unaware of) when he said

"Australians are just a just a bunch of people who laugh at other people and other people's misfortunes"

I know what he means. How any times have I seen Aussies roaring with laughter at someone else's expense. Yet, they almost never seem to laugh at themselves.

Finally, I've found something completely different.

"Summer Heights High" is a DVD box set about life in an Australian High school.

At last I've seen some real humour.

It's taken me twenty years to find it but it has been worth the wait.

Some friends of mine gave it to me and my son and daughter have now bought it.

If you see it in the shops be sure to buy it -you will not be disappointed.

I have actually laughed out loud sitting watching it on my own in my little lair here. As you probably know by now it takes quite a lot to make me laugh. (It does help if you have a bottle of Coopers handy , but it is not essential for the humour to be appreciated.)

Aussies laughing at themselves-and NOT mocking others?

Am I joking?

No, indeed I'm not.

There is hope.

1978-1980 Methodist College

Methody 1978-1980

Anyway, at this point Dad did the needful. How ungrateful I was to my father at the time, and for many years afterwards- to everyone –including my parents.

Western youth are the most appallingly soft and spoiled youth of any culture that I know.

But psychologically they are isolated and vulnerable because no-one really gives a damn about them apart from their biological relatives.

such a culture is a sad 'joke' compared to many others I have read about, seen and even experienced.

Sadly, I have more respect for the youth of many other other cultures than I have for western youth.

In retrospect, I myself was no exception. I was an obnoxious youth obsessed with myself and my own problems.

What I needed was to have some responsibility beaten in to me. but it never happened.

So ultimately , it was not my own fault that I was this way. But neither was my family able to do anything about it.

It was the culture itself.

The same is true today. It is not the fault of youth that they are the way they are -it is the culture they are brought up in -and are surrounded by.

That is the tragedy.

I was not belligerent as a youth, but still a pain in the neck in a passive-aggressive way.

Anyway, Dad stepped in and took me to see Ernie R who was the Head of Grosvenor High school in Belfast. Dad was related in some way. I nodded and didn’t say much. Ernie subsequently phoned the Head of Methodist College – Jim K – and he phoned me to come for an interview. I met K and Peter P a few days later and was offered a job at Methodist College as a Biology teacher– my first and possibly last job at a really good school!

So, I had Dad to thank for that – although I didn’t thank him at the time. Dad was worried about me not having a job course but I wasn’t: the arrogance of youth!

‘Methody’ was a great school. Although I had my work cut out in the first year keeping up with the preparation I found it almost therapeutic compared to King’s hospital. The students were much better behaved and I felt much more comfortable with the staff. I really learned how to teach at Methody. In retrospect I should have stayed another couple of years but I was bitten with the African bug. In my second year I was asked to go into the boarding department and I had a great year there. On the social scene I became involved with the RVA or Returned Volunteer Action Group which met once a month and organized activities for overseas students in Belfast with Bruce and Janet R ex VSO’s from Tanzania, Jim and Eileen R, and Jim and Hazel A. We were the mainstay of the group –and we organized parties and picnics for various Pakistanis, Iranians Africans etc.

Among these was one chap I became very friendly with-a Pakistani called Muzaffer K. Muzzafer was an Ahmedi Moslem – which from what I could gather was a liberal type of Moslem. He was a tall impressive figure and a PHD student at Queens University. I used to enjoy his company and invited him home regularly to meet the family. He spent one Christmas with us at Robin Hill. We often went to the Queens University Social Club and had a Guinness. He even had one or two himself. We used to chat and discuss the social scene. we called it “Zoological studies!”

I took M and his brother to Portaferry one day – I still have the photos. Muzaffer was a great favourite with Mum and Dad. Dad used to call him ‘Mustafa’ and the latter would laugh at this –he had a good sense of humour – not a characteristic of all Muslims!

Later in the summer , I remember taking him to Donegal with David C and having an animated discussion about the the divinity of Christ.

The ‘Methody’ years were fairly uneventful otherwise. Socially, apart from RVA nothing happened. I still was clueless about how to approach the opposite sex-especially Irish girls –they seemed so complicated – rather like myself in fact. Women appeared to me to be a bit like rich kids in a classroom: they wanted to be entertained. It was all ‘form’ and no ‘content’. I wanted intense, deep and meaningful conversations which is of course the last thing women wanted! No surprise then that I wasn’t ‘successful’ with them.

I was a very frustrated guy in all senses of the word at this time. My intuition told me I was never going to would never going to have a satisfactory relationship with any Irish, English or modern type ‘white’ female – and I don’t think I ever will.


I developed a distinct ‘persona’ to cope with my social situation in these years. I was basically very shy; but with a serious need to be noticed! (I hate being ignored)

Hence the blog!

This was a very dangerous combination! The persona had two opposing aspects. On the one hand, I was the quiet, silent type who observed (with feigned calm) the frivolous but fascinating interchanges of others.

On the other hand, (when ignored for too long) I could be unpredictable - even jovial – in a forced and frenetic, contrived and backslapping way-nudge, nudge wink! wink! etc.

This complex persona quite naturally confused many people at times–including myself as I wasn’t quite sure which of the two persona’s was the real me! Of course they both were me. It was (or they were) a persona which I was to use for most of the rest of my life in ‘white’ cultures.

The boarding house at Methody was quite interesting. Stephen L was an interesting character who was my boss as Housemaster-a physics teacher who was in the process of retraining to be an engineer. Stephen was basically a straight guy , an excellent housemaster, who found me entertaining and perplexing.

Then there was ‘Eaky Peaky’ - with huge brown eyes and blond hair, and who had grown up in Chile. I remember he was an old Campbellian. ‘Eaky peaky’ was weird –but a cartoon character really and an excellent teacher assistant in the boarding department.
To this day I don’t know if Eaky-peaky” was being real or just playacting a role in his daily dealings with people.

There was Gerry T-the only catholic, a real rarity at Methody on the staff.

Robert K-from the Geography department was also in boarding. Nothing special but a fine agreeable colleague.

‘Ooh haw’ McCluggage from Larne was a Biology teacher and dated one of his sixth form students. He eventually married on of my former from three students-Lynn J, who later replaced me when I left Methody-it’s a small world!

Near the end of the year J, a “Collegian” joined the boarding department. He was a fine fellow-as indeed were all these people in their own way. But he was a little crude. I remember one very funny incident in the staff TV room. I went in one night and Johnson was sitting watching the T.V. The next thing Johnson let out the most enormous fart – it was so loud. Before I knew it , I had said in a tone of serious irritation:

‘Johnson , kindly ameliorate your manners!’

The phraseology, as much as anything else, made L , who had just entered the room burst into laughter every time he thought of it for years to come.

It was quite a good example of what a little prude I really was in those days. If you had told me at the time I would never have admitted it.

In fact, I have always been a bit of a prude about many things –come to think of it-I still am.

There was also Ian M, a very friendly fellow (ex VSO I think) in the boarding house who developed cancer at the age of about twenty two. Tragically, I died at the end of the year from a brain tumour at the very young age of 26.

This incident had very little impact upon me. The arrogance of youth.

The boarding staff were all a great bunch of people-and I quite often went out for a drink on Friday nights with them to the local pub. I sometimes went on other nights as well.
We had the ‘Monday club’; the ‘Tuesday club’ etc. The teachers were easy to get on with compared to the Kings Hospital Gang in Dublin.

So. Why, you may well ask, when I seemed to like the place so much did I start looking for jobs in Africa again?

A very good question indeed –which would need a skilled psychologist to give an objective answer. I don’t know what my biographer would say. But that is exactly what I did.

I always felt I was different from other people in Ireland or England. I think I was in love with the warm congeniality of Africa which had given me the opportunity to break out of my complex persona which I had developed to survive in Ireland. That is really why I think I went back to Africa.

Anyway –not too fast- at the end of my first year in Methody I went for a summer vacation trip to Kenya, Zambia and Malawi with Martin R – the sister of Janet R-the VSO in Jirapa, Ghana.

We had a marvellous trip. Zambia was good and we visited Gibson and Karen F in Kaoma –who were there on contract teaching.

Malawi was beautiful - and I fell in love with it. The purple mountains, the azure blue skies and the friendly people – it was just too much for me. I was smitten and knew I just had to go back.

So, In October, when I saw an advertisement in my oldest friend, the Times Educational Supplement, for a science teacher in Malawi with ‘Christians Abroad’ I applied and was invited for interview in London.

Escape from George Orwell's World

I am planning my escape from George Orwell's world.

I need advice:

I have no money or job security. I am no longer needed by my family.

I have few friends, little respect, no pleasure, joy, dignity or self-respect.

The doctors and counsellors can't be bothered to see me. They're too busy.

Even volunteering is useless.

No-one wants to employ me in Australia because I am too old (inflexible) or too expensive to employ. I am overqualified.

I get some pleasure from interacting with people who are not from developed countries.

But people from developed countries leave me ice cold. All of them.

Nobody reads anything I write..

If anyone else can assist me to leave this Orwellian hell I will listen gratefully.

2009 Volunteering again,

It was a humiliation to apply for a job as a volunteer overseas and then be asked to compete with other applicants by some pen-pushing, corporate, bureaucratic non-entity with the initiative of a sheep who has never left her home town and who likes to give orders.


I was a volunteer over thirty years ago for two years in Ghana

Now in order to apply again I have to compete with young ambitious 'go-getters' who say things like:

"I applied to volunteer to help overseas students as a mentor in Adelaide because it would look good on my CV"

Jesus! She was even proud of the fact!! 

And I thought I was the one who was morally and ethically bankrupt after all these years!

Is this not the the proof of the triumph of the greedy political 'right' in the last two decades?

They have taken over the entire developed world.

Thatcher, Reagan, Howard, Bush and Kohl and all their licensed bullying petty bureaucrats must be laughing all the way to the bank in heaven or hell!

And all the dumbasses who voted for them in their 'Democracies'

They sure knew what they were doing those champions of democracy.

Reader, you're not one I hope!

(L) Dublin 1977-1978

Teaching at Kings Hospital school.

I knew it would be a shock coming back to ‘civilization’ after Ghana –but I was not prepared for the extent of the shock –it was traumatic in the extreme.

In the first place the students were of course insolent and idle compared to the Ghanaians. I had my work cut out adapting my style to them.

Secondly, the subjects I was teaching were new. I was teaching sixth form chemistry and third form geography as well as some biology and lower school General Science.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly I was totally unprepared for the staffroom politics. The staff bullies who had been there for years made life hell for the younger ones –like myself. Especially, if they took themselves seriously-and I took myself very seriously indeed.

I was a world changer when it came to education – I had read Ivan Illich and Everett Reimer and I had taught in Africa – unlike these pretentious Prima donnas such as J W and A McG. The more truculent I was with them the more they baited me of course. I have never been able to handle bullies and I could not handle these guys. I hated their smug sarcasm. P found himself in a difficult position because he was my friend –but also their colleague –and he had got me the job!

The high point of that year was Mrs Flanagan. I lived in her house which was right beside the school. I was in the boarding department and so it was convenient. She was the landlady and a wonderful old lady she was. She smoked like a chimney and had a lovely big fat smelly dog called Cindy. Mrs. F. lived in the kitchen with Cindy and I slept upstairs. The room was like a fridge! In fact the whole house was like a fridge. Every night I would come home and I would go in to Mrs Flanagan and she would chat and chat. She always offered me a pint of milk as well. I grew really fond of her. She was a great golfer but turned out to be in the terminal stages of lung cancer. By the end of the year she was looking awful. The end came very quickly and she died in the summer.

I shared the House with R B who turned out to be a very pleasant and intelligent young man – a friend of P G. I remember R surprising me by getting married at the end of the year. I couldn't’t imagine why anyone of my age would get married. It just seemed a weird thing to do to me.

There were many low points: the discipline in the school was awful – especially in the boarding house. Some of the lower classes were terrible too – I remember P C being a revolting object in the third form. I was under a lot of pressure in the first term getting my classes prepared for all the subjects I was teaching. I remember Thursday was a very heavy day and Friday was quite light. So,on a Thursday night I would go out into Dublin to have a drink–usually with Topsy H – Tim H’s Sister. Tim was in the US and KH was in England by this time. I used to go and drink whisky with Topsy until late on a Thursday night and then go home to Mrs F’s and sleep right thru till about 12 noon on Friday. Then I got up and went into school for lunch and taught in the afternoon.


I remember being so tired at the end of the first term. I went home to Belfast and spent four weeks recovering. The second term was a little easier but the staff situation wasn’t any better. I really disliked the senior staff and they didn’t like me. Naive, as usual, I thought this wouldn’t be a problem –but of course it was.

Politics is everything in schools and I learned the hard way.

In the end J W and A McG started to pick and prod me. P looked on in embarrassment. Eventually, I was informed by P that my non-attendance at a Ist XV rugby match was seen as a serious offence by the powers that be.

How dumb I had been!

I suddenly realized that they wanted me out!

And, not for the first time, I to played straight into the hands of my enemies. I seized the initiative and handed in my resignation in May.

This was not to be the last time I resigned from a job by any means.

J.W. and A.McG must have chuckled to themselves.

In my youth I was more arrogant: I thought I would get another job easily.

Chatting and flying pigs in Adelaide

One of the advantages of being lonely in Adelaide is I almost always have time.

I can't fill my time.

Is this because I'm lazy?

No, I don't think so. Even though I work and volunteer with three agencies every week, I still have a lot of time on my hands.

No-one else seems to have time.

Whether it is at work, in the shops, or at the gas station or at the medical centre or even with the doctor herself, it is always a case of rushing and feeling under pressure to finish the encounter, to complete the 'transaction'.

I feel I am imposing on the time of everyone I meet.

Even with friends I feel I am always interrupting them. They are always either just finishing something or about to do something else, or both. They are somehow 'squeezing me in' to their busy schedule. It makes me feel uncomfortable. This was the same in Northern Ireland and England, but less so in the Republic of Ireland-especially the rural areas such as Donegal

It was also not the case in other cultures. In Africa, for example in Ghana and Malawi and to a lesser extent in parts of Asia where I have lived, the greatest honour that could be bestowed upon anyone was to receive an unannounced visit by a stranger or friend. When I did this the whole household would stop what it was doing for a while and and receive the visitor. This was not just a ritual welcome -it was a genuine feeling of being honoured by the visit. To a certain extent the same was true of Mexico and Colombia.

This is what I think we have lost in the 'west'. It seems to be a characteristic which accompanies the process of development.

Why? I don't know.

But the qestion of how is easier to answer.

It is a question of values and priorities I think.

I suppose partly it is because time is money in the west. Everyone, wants time to make more money and buy more material comforts. But it is surely more than this. In western culture (and Australia), it seems like people value other activities more than just communicating casually with a friend, acquaintance or a stranger. Chores of course have to be done but some people seem to value the work they do as more important than maintaining acquaintanceship or friendships.

But I think there is even more to it. I think many people in the west just value any activity -no matter how mindless or boring -in order to avoid the reflection on their own values which 'chatting' with an acquaintance or stranger necessarily involves.

TV is a good example, but I can think of others

I think of the Pubs with 'Pokie' machines that open at six in the morning in Adelaide to receive the lonely people who have no-one to chat to.

A lot of people's 'busyness' is another example of the same thing. It is unnecessary -it is busyness for it's own sake: designed to prevent people from experiencing and reflecting on their own loneliness.

They don't realise that the only way to overcome your own loneliness is not to deny it with mindless busyness, but to face up to it and deal with it.

By chatting.

It is so easy, but people don't see it.



The day when someone actually makes an announced visit, to my little room here in Campbelltown visit will be a very memorable day.

Come to think of it the day someone calls me on the phone will be memorable too.

There is a trickle of e-mails in response to my blog.Most of them a few lines.

But the day someone makes an unannounced visit to me the sky will be full of flying pigs all over Adelaide.

Unnecessary 'Busyness' can be just a form of denial and such people may not even know they are closed and unapproachable.

Unfortunately all of these busy souls make life very lonely for everyone else.

On the other hand, the African and Latin American, and to a lesser extent the more traditional Asian are naturally open.

If I were younger I would go back there.

I might try to anyway.

I feel like life is ebbing away from me here.

Fiesta a la Mexicana!

It was a great evening. The annual Latin American reunion of the church.

So glad I went. (nearly didn't due to inertia)

Organised by the catholic church, I was re-introduced to Rodrigo and M.  I had met them at Christmas but entirely forgotten them.

Started off very formal-but polite -as always with Mexicans.

After a while, I broached the subject of a drink first-but Rodrigo pretended to be coy.

When I persisted, he gave in surprisingly easily.

We were soon on the way to buying tickets for the tequila.

After an hour and four tequilas each we realised there was only one bottle of Tequila.

Rodriguo was in the groove and he had Rogelio, the barman ,on the phone to try and get another. He wasn't successful.

Just as well!

The performances were soon over over and the "Salsa' and the 'Rumba' music started, and Maria and I headed to the dance floor.

With half a dozen tequilas I thought I danced really well.

I think Maria was more impressed with me than usual too.

Maria was the designated driver.

A bloody great evening in Adelaide!

Wish it happened more often.

Maybe we should head for Mexico.

Hmm..

The tree

There is a tree in an area close to my back garden which I can see from my chair as I sit and read and drink my Coopers Sparkling ale of an afternoon.

It is a magnificent thing-this tree-a phenomenon. It is a source of life for so many birds who squawk and squeal as they chase each other.

They are oblivious to the aimless meanderings of humans down below who think they are in control of everything and everybody.

The tree celebrates life.

It welcomes the birds into her bosom.

Nothing gives me pleasure anymore as much as this sight and these sounds.


On a perhaps related, but different tack, I appear to have lost all my interest in sport.

Older friends will remember me as a sports fanatic-particularly of cricket and golf.

But quite suddenly, in the past few months, I have lost all interest in chasing a little white ball around a golf course or trying to hit a slightly larger red ball with a flattened piece of wood.

I prefer the tree and the birds.

Bossy Real Estate agents in Adelaide, Get stuffed!

Yes...I did Google real estate agents in South Adelaide to see if there was such a thing as a house with four bedrooms for sale for less than 250.000. Not that there is a remote chance of being offered a loan on my salary.

Why did I do it?

Just in case, you know... I mean you never know.. we might win the lottery and be able to afford a deposit.

Actually, I called the agent because I have nothing else to do with my time other than dream and complain.

So, what happened?

I had to answer some 'online questions' and.. Lo and behold! the heavens open and the next thing I know I get inundated with E-mails and phone calls.

'Emma' just won't leave me alone.

She calls me in the middle of class.

The same the next day, and the next , and the next.

On each call it is..

"This is Emma" with that grating and over- familiar tone Australians use when introducing themselves to a complete stranger (something they have been trained to do formally by the company , and now has become part of Australian culture. They think this is being 'assertive', and therefore a good thing.).

"I am calling regarding your enquiry about real estate..."

It is the same tone bossy women habitually use in Australia to "command" complete strangers to shut up and listen to them, whatever may be the context. the tone is intimidating and she thinks using this tone means she will not be interrupted...

It still takes me by complete surprise, even after twenty years. you would think I might  be used to it by now.

"Wait a minute Emma," I say, "I hope you are not going to ask me a lot of personal questions."

She now takes offence, which was her original intention of course. This gives her the moral high ground and the right to intimidate me further.

"No, I'm not interested in your personal life at all ...she goes on... but I will need to know some of your financial details if you want to get a loan" she says

"Ok Emma" I say. "No thanks".

I end the call.

Why can't I ask the questions first?

Why does the real estate agent, and every other Tom, Dick and Harry, think they have the right to ask me a string of questions before I am allowed to ask them one?

I'll tell you why. Because they don't want to answer any of my questions. They want to find out if I have any money before I waste their time talking to me.

Hotels, Doctors, Dental, school or real estate receptionists, whoever it may be -they are all the same- they want to use my time without me wasting theirs.

They want to use me.

They are all rude.

So, Emma!

Although you may not be aware of yourself (Don't take it personally) I have an urgent message for you and the thousands of others out there who use their 'assertive' manner to try and intimidate innocent punters like myslef on the telephone:

Get STUFFED!!!

Dobbers on Mitcham Council Adelaide.

Mitcham Council.

These are the bureaucrats  that gave me the fifty-four dollar fine for parking in the middle of nowhere at my place of work last week.

I was trying to avoid the car parks.

This is a University that charges its own employees and students exorbitant fees to park. Eight dollars a day!

So, after being fined one day for not paying in the University car park I tried to find a spot where I could park. I succeeded eventually-but it was less than ten metres from a junction so I was fined by the Council. There is no traffic as it is in the middle of nowhere in the bush - and in a cul-de -sac!

Flinders University colludes with the council and dobbers, and the Council run around collecting revenue EVERY DAY!

I found out what happens from the lady herself.

I asked the lady, who was gardening outside the house where I park if she was the person who had dobbed me in to the council for parking outside her house in the middle of nowhere(to try and avoid the University parking charges)

"Oh No!" she says, "I wouldnt do that. It's the Mitcham council. He comes round every day and puts a ticket on some one's car." she said.

"'Two Sudanese boys last week'" She says. (What do the Sudanese know about Flinders exploitative parking regulations?)

Targeting penniless students.

'No wonder foreigners hate us!' she says.

No wonder indeed.

Turns out she and her husband have been watching the 'revenue collectors' from the Mitcham Council for months now and have come out to warn folks from parking there.

One of the neighbours is a Mitcham Council dobber (not her,of course)-living right there in Bellevue Heights at Flinders University.

So watch out! There may be a sad dobber in your neighbourhood.

Interlude (22) Of Bikies and Hoons in South Australia

For the uninitiated, South Australia appears to have a thriving 'Bikie' subculture: rebels who roar around on motorcycles upsetting everyone.

Six months ago, when I first arrived in Adelaide, I thought to myself

'How can there possibly be a 'Bikie' culture in Adelaide?'

Adelaide seemed to me to be so calm, ordered, peaceful and well...civilized and ...well-regulated!

And I was dead right!

It is over-regulated.. you can't put your elbow out the window of your car without being fined.

And that is precisely why there is a bikie subculture.

These 'Bikies' just thumb their noses at the regulated mainstream society of Adelaide.

I'm beginning to see why.

"Good on them!" I say.

The calm is phony. It reminds me of middle-class suburbia in Belfast or Dublin or Bristol

but..get in your car or on your bicycle and find out what mainstream Adelaide is really like.

The honking horns, the flashing lights -the strings of curses and shouts from open windows- it gives the lie to the "We're more civilised than you' attitude which Adelaide tries to project.

The 'Hoons' are there too-especially at night when they come out to drive like drag-racers in the suburbs-to take their revenge on the sleeping hordes of petty bureaucrats and petty officials...

(K) Ghana 1975-1977

Ghana 1975-1977  These recollections were written 2004.

September the Sixteenth 1975-I remember the date of the flight. a friend  came to Heathrow to see me off.

On the flight –British Caledonian-I was so excited and awestruck by the views over the Sahara.

We arrived and stayed in Accra for a couple of days orientation. We went to the British Council place in Accra first. They were officially responsible for us. I remember passing the billboards on the road and feeling it so curious that there were Africans on the billboards-who else would be there! There were advertisements for Pilsener beer.

It was love at first sight. I almost instantaneously fell in love with Africa . In spite of the din of traffic and the rich smells, there was something gentle and innocent about the people on the billboards-and on the street, most of whom were walking. And there was something light and friendly about the atmosphere.

At the British Council I remember gazing at the greenery-the huge leaves of the banana trees.

We were ‘orientated’ by some officials from the Ministry of Education at Winneba Teacher Training College. All I can remember of this was the friendliness of the Ghanaians and how they so much wanted to teach us how to dance!

I think I got sick pretty much right away: serious stomach cramps right form the start.


I also remember that my future  roommate in the small village of Wa in the bush-said virtually nothing to me-which irritated me. In retrospect, I think he wanted to make friends with the others before they departed to all parts of the country. Probably a good move. I also remember meeting L for the first time. She was the French Canadian volunteer who would be at Wa. She too avoided me like the plague. It wasn’t a very auspicious start as far as my companionship in Wa was concerned!

 I was hopeless with women anyway-painfully shy–and covered it up with a kind of passive-aggressive, resentful ' bluster', which I figured passed for  'manly' in my teens and twenties,  and which quite understandably, failed to have the desired effect of charming  the girls.

I never have never been able to convince myself that anyone could have been more insecure than I was at that age of 22. Basically, I was terrified of all women although my head often told me that women  were more nervous than me-but this knowledge did not  stop me from quaking in my boots in the presence of many females. L was  very pretty in a tomboyish way. Prettiness and beauty in a female have always intimidated me.

When we reached Wa after a two day journey by bus, A and I rolled up at the school. Of course our bungalow was not ready for us, and we had to clean it on our hands and knees.

The very first night was one to remember: I went to the switch on the wall to put off the light.  As I turned round to look at the bed so I could make my way to it after putting off the light I glanced down and there it was..large as life, sure enough, the proverbial African scorpion making it’s way towards the bed from the wall! I was transfixed with terror. I shouted for A who was equally hopeless and in panic. We searched for something to squash it with and we couldn’t find anything –eventually I got a tin with an elevated bottom and this only just managed to successfully squash the intruder! Of course we were the intruders and we were disturbing it!

I remember the first staff meeting was at 9 .A.M. the following day.

I remember splashing my way through the rain and  mud to reach the staffroom on time-a very silly thing to do in Africa. All the Ghanaian teachers,  quite sensibly waited until the rain had finished–only a white man would run thru the puddles   to be on time!

I remember being  ‘appointed’ Head of science in that very first meeting. I was also told I would be teaching O level Chemistry then - not biology! I hadn’t a clue about the chemistry but I had my old book from Campbell ‘Clynes and Williams’ and I had one week to prepare a course. I started from the beginning with the structure of the atom – which I think I did with all five classes! I managed to keep a couple of days ahead of my O level class all year-and no-one was any the wiser! My students did very well and I learned a very valuable lesson early in my professional life, namely that I could do just about anything if I was  asked.

The Laboratory was really little more than a old room–more like a garage room with two long benches . There were three Bunsen Burners which worked. Each was attached to a gas cylinder under the bench. There were no sinks. Just a bucket of water and assorted pieces of glassware –a few test tubes and beakers etc. Very few chemicals –but there huge vat-like bottles of concentrated Sulphuric acid, Sodium, Potassium and Phosphorous! There were two memorable Lab assistants, both obliging, but with very  modest skills.

The students were wonderful. I loved them. They were so friendly and appreciative of the work I did with them. I remember after about six weeks of teaching General Science students., two of them came to my bungalow and and said...

‘Master, would you be able to give us extra classes in the evening?’

I said

‘Ok’ . So, at 7 pm I turned up, and all thirty eight of them were sitting there!

A few days later I asked my star student Adams Adamu what he would like to do when he left WASECO. He said

‘I would like to go to New York Sir!’

‘Ok, I said , and if you can’t go to New York ?’

‘London, sir!’.

I took a deep breath.

“And if you can’t make it to London?

“Accra sir!”

Accra was the capital of Ghana-600 miles away from Wa.

This brief conversation gave me much food for thought. I realized that what I was doing was helping to depopulate a very poor part of rural Ghana of its most able and intelligent youth. I was helping to send them to New York - or at least Accra –how idealistic was that!

I did a lot of soul searching and decided I was enjoying life too much to resign. So, I did not resign in disgust. I remember the names of all the others in that group....Kwesi Basambe Tongo, Winniyah Seidu Nabor, and Bakaweri BVC. at the time I thought they were the most wonderful group of young people I had ever met.

I loved the teaching in spite of the blistering heat.

Alphonsus Asumah The Head Prefect was perfect gentleman, and at 24, two  years older than I was. After class he would walk me to my bungalow holding me by the hand. I had a bicycle which he sometimes borrowed. He used the most quaint form of English

‘Master, I came to your bungalow and met your absence’. The politeness, the respect.

It was a boarding school and on Saturday evenings the students would set up dancing sessions using their wooden xylophones and dancing away in the dust to entertain themselves. I was in heaven-transported by the romance of the scene.

The staff were from all over Ghana. Some young-some older.

There was Mr. S , the Head, who seemed to be quite efficient but was not popular  by the  missionaries who regarded him as an ambitious wheeler dealer.

The Deputy, the benign Mr Kwankwari  had a permanent but forced grin on his face. He was a man of the world and knew that I was just a transient creature who would pass through. (something I didn’t know because  I was so full of my own self-importance). He was friendly, like all Ghanaians, but I think a little taken aback by the arrogance of the white volunteers. We had assembly every morning at 7 outside around the flagpole and we would sing the national anthem. I didn’t of course as I thought such things were ‘divisive’. Nationalism for me–as a child of the seventies, was a redundant and dangerous concept. I remember Mr. Kwankwari asking me one day very politely

“Why don’t you sing the anthem?

I think he was rather bemused by my attitude –I don’t blame him.

There were some younger Ghanaian staff from the South and a few older ones with families from the north. There was Mr. I-the agriculture teacher and another other ‘agric’ teacher whose little boy died of drinking kerosene by mistake. There was also Mr B the Bible studies teacher who was very strict and short tempered.

There was Mr. P  the English teacher who was very friendly. Mr P  later became a member of parliament and is now Speaker of the House

But perhaps the person I got to know best was John D, the Physics teacher.

John was a small and gentle Ghanaian man from Takoradi. I used to go and chat to him in his house. His wife was living in Takoradi on the coast. At Christmas, he invited me to stay with him in Takoradi. I had a great time. On the way back I took Nick W (another volunteer) with me to Wa. We got on well together. He was a qualified doctor who wanted to be an administrator without doing any doctoring. He had a great sense of humour. He stayed with me in Wa for a while. That was the last I ever saw of him.

John was a very gentle fellow. I had a dog called ‘Tofa’ – and she really was a cracker of a bush dog. I grew attached to her of course. Well, Tofa and my friendship with John came to a tragic end.

Midway thru the second year John’s wife died giving birth to their first baby. In Ghana, the funeral expenses are enormous and poor John didn’t have the money. He borrowed about ten dollars off me and then I think he was embarrassed to ask for more. So what did he do? He arranged for ‘Tofa’ to be kidnapped and sold to be eaten in the local village!

I only found this out a few days before I left Wa forever, after my two year stay.. It was very embarrassing, John couldn’t look me in the eye for the last few days. It was so sad.

The Volunteers were an interesting group. There was J  and R in a village one hour away,  Jirapa. Both English. J was a great type-a really energetic, practical but easy going female with a great sense of humour. She actually came to visit me in Ireland after I had returned there. I used to go to Jirapa and stay there for a break from Wa. (and Allen.!) Ralph was a dour Liverpudlian with a sense of humour which appealed to me. We used to amuse ourselves and everyone else by mimicking the local accents

‘Eeh! We Ghanaians - we are Sooo corrupt!’

Polly W was also in Jirapa –she was a Londoner –and Heather E, from Toronto, with her 5 year old daughter was also in Jirapa.

My own two companions were each very interesting in very different ways: A, my housemate in the first year was a  misfit-I can’t imagine anyone less suited to being a volunteer. He was very prim and proper and I think he disapproved of his uncouth, 'Irish' housemate –but he was too polite to say so. He never really relaxed and enjoyed Ghana.

He wasn’t popular with the locals. I remember one night he got fed up with the noise in the next bungalow. It was classic. Africans live with noise-chickens, voices ,radios punctuate the darkness at night. It is never quiet. I used to put cotton wool in my ears.

But one night A couldn’t stand it any longer –and he went across to the bungalow and asked them to turn off the radio! He was never forgiven for doing that!

I loved the frendliness of people, and I trusted them in a way couldn't trust the Irish or the English. I  would even deliberately leave the door of the bungalow open when I went out ! I was tempting fate! It was almost as if I was determined that this was going to be  paradise, and in paradise there were no locked doors. It was of course a stupid and irresponsible act, which Allen quite rightly took exception to. He didn't want his belongings stolen! This attitude of tempting fate has persisted with me. It is  almost as if I wanted to force the world to be a paradise, the way that I wanted it to be! This anecdote gives you an idea of how idealistic I was.

Very soon after my arrival in Wa I got sick of course. In fact I think I was sick before I even arrived in Wa! I would get these awful stomach cramps –gripes-and have to take to my bed in a sweat for a whole day. The next day I would go back to work although not fully recovered.

As the months wore on the attacks became longer and more severe. The missionaries thought it was amoebic dysentery and they recommended a vicious drug called 'Flagyl'. I took three a day–after eating. They almost made me dizzy –and I was nauseas. But they did no good at all and the attacks kept coming.

One day I had cycled down to the mission to see Mick G who was training to be a catholic priest. After a coffee I told him I wasn’t  feeling well and off I went to the toilet.

The next thing I remember is being pulled off the floor and out of the toilet by Mick with my pants still around my ankles. He was laughing!

I had fainted with the pain of the cramps.

Anyway, I decided to go to the south again for the long summer break.

On my way back,  I called in with Nigel R at the British council–my boss. Nigel took one look at me and said

’My God, Donald, you look awful what is wrong with you?’

I said ‘What do you mean? I feel ok!"

But I had lost a lot of weight and Nigel immediately spotted it and sent me home to London to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

He made me go back to Accra to make the arrangements immediately. I sent a telegram to Mum saying I was 'thinking' of going home for a visit. I did not say I was sick.

Meantime my mother had written to me to say that my eldest brother was getting married in August.

I replied immediately by telegram asking her to reply 'instantly' informing me of the date so that I could attend the wedding and coincide with my trip home to hospital in London.

The photographs are proof of my attendance at the wedding-even if I was a bit thin!

In those days there was no fax or e-mail . I had not spoken to my parents by phone in over a year. It was too expensive in those days.There was no e-mail, Facebook, Messenger or text messaging!


I spent almost two weeks in London in the hospital for Tropical diseases while they did test after test. Eventually, they said they thought it was ‘Giardiasis’

"It is quite common" they said "even here in England!"!! I was a little deflated...thinking I had some exotic tropical disease!

'The difference is you have a massive dose of it and it has damaged the absorption by the villi in your intestine'

‘What shall I do ?’ I said.

They told me to go to Belfast and take twelve ‘Flagyl’ after breakfast and go to bed!!! (the same drug I had been taking in Ghana all year). I was to repeat this for three days in a row. These were the same pills I had been taking in Ghana all year. This I did –and I never looked back!

It was great to get some home-made raspberry Jam and Mum’s cooking! At the end of August I went back form Belfast to the London hospital for a check-up. I was fine.

But just before I left they announced that a blood test showed that I had (subclinical) Hepatitis!

My God! I was devastated. Hepatitis was serious.

The curious thing was that I felt fine. Day after day went by and I still felt fine. I was really anxious to get back to Ghana. I phoned Dilys N –an English Doctor who had been in Jirapa. She told me that in London they were probably just holding me in order to carry out experimental tests and that I should discharge myself-if I felt ok. So, I did just that, and walked into VSO headquarters in London and asked them to book me a ticket to Accra.

In a few days I was back in Wa again. When I arrived there, a new volunteer, Rod T had moved into the old house I had been sharing with A.

I had asked for my own house in the second year.

Rod was not a happy chappy. He was miffed that I had allowed Alphonsus Asumah to borrow my bicycle over the summer break. The bicycle was not available for Rod – he registered his displeasure in no uncertain terms with me!

Almost immediately he became sick and within twelve weeks he was back in England. Officially, it was thyroid trouble. But I never saw much of him, and don’t know what the real story was.

Phil G, my old buddy form Trinity College Dublin, visited at some stage-I can’t remember when exactly. I don’t think he was that impressed really. Phil had been a good friend in TCD but he had changed and become quite hardened to life–a side of him which I grew to dislike.


Louise  L was something else. She was, like many Canadian and Australian females independent, to a fault.. I found her very difficult to deal with at first. She seemed like the stereotypical aggressive, cold, white female who terrified me. She made me quake in my boots.I had always found white women cold and unapproachable

but, after a few weeks a strange thing happened. Determined to forge some sort of relationship with her as  the only other white person in the school (apart from Alistair),  I called on Louise in her bungalow one night - and to my complete surprise she welcomedme and invited me in.

 Having broken the ice I was astounded to find her to be really quite personable. I used to pass her bungalow on my way home from school in the evenings every night, and so it was easy for me to call in on her. Soon, I began to feel attracted to her and feel it was mutual. I got into the habit of calling in on her  in the evenings as I knew  she enjoyed my visits. I could tell. She had beautiful blue eyes and sensual lips and  was very intelligent,and talkative. We talked and talked  about anything and everything under the sun.  Within a few weeks  I was beginning to have really  serious feelings of attraction which I had never had before,.It was so exciting, and yet somehow I could not bring myself to make 'the first move' to take the relationship to the next level. I didn't really know even what that really meant. In those days I started telling myself. 'Come on, you are expected to take her to bed!'  I think that is what she expected and wanted, but I just  I didn't know what to do!

In retrospect, she clearly expected me to take her to bed. After all, this was the seventies, and that's what men and women did at 23, and very much earlier in most cases. I was a late developer and  a virgin (as was she ) and neither of us had the remotest  how to proceed. We both became frustrated.  I  fantasised about her all the time, but I just didn't know how to proceed. I was so angry with myself.

Unfortunately, although she was a confident woman in many respects, in matters of the heart (and the 'bed') she was as inexperienced as I was!  She wasn't confident enough to make the first move either.

Maybe this is just a rationalsiation for my own ineptitude,  but until then, I had  always told myself   that sex before marriage was a risky thing - if the couple didn’t intend to marry. Marry? Of course, I couldn't even  look after myself, let alone a partner, much less  a child!  I was still a boy. What would happen to the child if she became pregnant?

This sounds ludicrously old fashioned now, but at the time it made sense to me.  I had no idea how to use condoms and besides, where could i get one in Wa??  And  I  had never had the courage to ask anyone, even my male friends, about that sort of thing. There was no internet in those days and we had been taught nothing at school or at home. Mum and Dad were too embarrassed by the subject and  looked the other way when that type of subject would pop up in in conversation. In fact, they made pretty damn sure that it didn't pop up in conversation!  I had 2 brothers who were much older than me and wouldn't talk to their 'kid brother' about such things either. I had no sisters and had been to a boys only school.  I was clueless. Perhaps this was a   major reason I had run away form my own culture-a culture with which I have never been at ease ( a feeling which persists, even to this day).A psychologist might say it was no surprise I was in a remote village in Africa. Here I was locked up with this attractive woman who was attracted to me. I was  excited and scared to be madly in love with this beautiful person.  and yet I didn't know what to do. It was maddening.


I suppose nowadays I think  sex is ok for the unpartnered, as long as you are careful. women know how to protect themselves and men too. These days, women are more independent of men financially and, ifnecessary, they can bring up a child on their own, if that is what they want. I know many women who even choose to do this rather than live with a partner. But in those days that was a very difficult thing to do!  Both of us were too embarrassed to discuss any of thee issues.


Both of us were so powerfully attracted to each other–it seemed so natural for us to go to bed with each other, but I wouldn’t make the move, and subsequent events showed that she expected me to do that.

Sexual frustration entered into the relationship and it was hell for me,and probably for us both.

Louise  had a very, very  soft side to her. Although her natural voice was quite strident, when she relaxed, it changed , and  her voice became soft and seductive. For me, with some women, it is just a few words ,or a look which  enslaves me for ever. I was soon enslaved by louise. In my opinion, men may be more powerful physically but women have much  more psychological and emotional power over men, for me anyway. .One look,or a few words in the right tone,  and I am a slave for life. Its just not fair! I was soon truly smitten. She was very astute, articulate and and happy to talk to me about any topic under the sun.

Surprisingly, in spite of all this  unresolved sexual  frustration and tension, we developed a very strong  relationship over  the next year. It was heaven and it was hell.

On St Patrick’s day 1976 (in our second year)  I remember being invited to the Catholic mission by Father Eugene for a beer. We had music and Louise and I danced. That was the closest we ever got to each other physically. I drank one bottle of ‘Star’ beer and my constitution was so weak (with the giardiasis) that I became drunk and suddenly felt violently ill. I staggered off into the night and found the steps of the chapel an appropriate place to throw up. Somehow, I found my way back to a car to get a ride home. I don’t think Father Eugene was impressed. nor did he approve of the friendship. He visited Louise (a catholic) regularly after that-probably to warn her about me!

In the second year she started to come to my bungalow for lunch after school. She some times didn’t leave till mid-afternoon. I felt so emotionally  close to her. She was a true soul-mate! My first true female soulmate. In spite of our problems, I felt confident in myself and in her feelings for me. My masculinity was affirmed.

 But she was a woman too, and sadly for both of us, it all ended very badly. A few weeks before we were due to leave Wa, quite unexpectedly, she decided to sleep with the PE/ Maths  teacher...Jones Netty.

Jones was  a very congenial, charmimg guy with a great body. Of course, he was attractive

I suppose Louise decided that  she was going to lose her virginity.I never did find out from her how or why it happened

I don't know how I found out. I did notice them hanging out together in the evenings in her bungalow. One evening, as I was passing her bungalow, I heard Jones 'booming' voice inside through the louvered windows.They were in bed and I could hear them from outside through the louvered windows.

 Louise had stopped coming for lunch and when I heard them through the window,  the penny finally dropped.

Jones was a great character and I bear him no ill-will at all. He  was an affable fellow.loise was a very attractive white woman.  Nature took it’s course and she slept with him.

 But I was crushed. My pain was indescribable. I had absolutely no idea that she would even contemplate sleeping with Jones. I'm sure she did it without realsing how it  would make me feel. After all, I had  had my chances, so many of them, hadn't I.?

but,it seemed to me the ugliest of   betrayals. It was an atrocity. This was my first  experience of the  raging power of passion. It was excrutiatingly painful,  and I was uncontrollably  angry. I can't describe the rage..I was emotionally eviscerated.  To make matters worse, Jones  was such a nice guy and I liked him!

Anyway, when I found out I  reacted very badly and confronted her with angry accusations and recriminations. I did and I said unthinkable things that I should not have said and done. They are best left unsaid. I am not proud of them.

I think I only really realized then what an ugly and violent temper I really had. I was 23. Thankfully, there was only three weeks to go till we left Wa for ever

Louise never spoke to me again except, surprisingly to ask me for a photograph  a few days before we left. I obliged with a feeling of emptiness.

A year or so later in Ireland, I wrote to her and she did reply to say she had 'recovered'  from it  all by staying on her Uncles farm in Quebec.She wanted to forget  about it all. Women are so much more practical then I am in these matters. They can just cut themselves off when they want to from a relationship. I can't do that. I couldn't forget her and I never will. I can understand why she cut me off.

So, it all ended in tears. I was glad to leave in the end-what with Louise, John D and Tofa, I was really ready to go anywhere.I couldn't have survived another week

I met Mick G, the priest, years later in Dublin when he was ordained.

A few years after that he left the priesthood and married!

He was a good looking fellow. Louise  used to say he was wasted as a priest!

Some of the trips south were memorable. Getting up at 3.a.m. in the morning to walk to Wa bus station in order to queue for a ticket to Kumasi. Then the long ride to Kumasi on the big SETRA buses –East German made. Then the trip to Accra..

I remember sleeping one night on a bench in the bus station in Kumasi and then getting up to go to the ticket office at 5. A.M. Although the crush was indescribable, it was exciting-and the Ghanains were invariably a delight to be with. I never had even one moment of anxiety in my two years in Ghana.

Towards the end I began to think of what I would do next. It was amazing-in those days there was no concern about unemployment. As it happened Phil G talked to his boss at King’s .Hospital School Dublin to offer me a job. It was as simple as that!

Everything was so simple in those days! So, when I got home in 1977 I already had a job!

Time

People will not give me their time.

Everyone is so 'busy'.

People in the shops, colleagues, friends.

They will give me help-resources, information, advice, even gifts.

But no-one will give me the thing which I want:

Time.

Maybe I just bore people?

Time is the only thing I have to give and I'm not very much in demand.

The Octopus of life

I was thinking of a metaphor to describe my present situation and into my mind came this image of the octopus at the Carnival.

When I was a little boy in Ireland every summer the Carnival used to come to Dundonald. I could see it from my bedroom window at night.

I don't think I ever partook of the pleasure, but we drove past it sometimes, and I'm pretty sure I visited it on foot to watch with some mates when I was a youngster.

The Octopus was exactly that - a mechanical device which whirled couples or small groups of friends or families around in their little metal capsules in all directions.

At any given moment the capsules could be spinning in the opposite direction or moving up or down on the giant mechanical arms.

It was chaos!

I feel now here in my little room in Adelaide like when I was a child watching the octopus.

The little capsules are metaphors for the people I meet here every day. Friends and colleagueshave their own little capsule which they have carefully built to protect them from the vicissitudes of life on the 'Octopus'.

But after all these years I still seemto be watching the Octopus.

I have no capsule. I am still not able to go for a ride.

I want my own capsule-even if it is spinning out of control.

Outsider!

Will I always be?

Officious receptionists

It's not just in Tehran or North Korea that you get beaten like a dog for speaking up for yourself.

It happens right here in Adelaide -every day.

It's just that the treatment is verbal here rather than physical.

I called into the Doctor again to ask if my prescription was ready.

I said..this is a prescription the Doctor made out in error last week

So, after going through the "name, date of birth, address" routine worthy of George Orwell's "1984" I was told in a voice loud enough to intimidate me.

'Your prescripion is ready. That will be five dollars!

As is normal with these vampires, the tone is that of a command, using inappropriate falling intonation, not a request.

So rude!

I said

'No, I'm not paying five dollars.This was a Doctor's error!

"All prescriptions are five dollars!" she said raising her voice deliberatley to a threatening level so that everyone could hear"

"I'm not paying it1" I said, and plucked my prescription from her grasp. She tried to grab it back.

Her colleague intervened - the one with whom I had had the exact same conversation the previous week.

She was conciliatory and the whole thing ended in a muddle with fudged reconciliation all round. I didn't have to pay.

These receptionists treat people like dogs.

Who was it said 'People consent to their own oppression'. He /she was right.

I can't understand it.

I thought this was supposed to be a place where people stood up for their rights.

How it has changed in the past ten years.

It is worse than many other countries where I have lived and which are criticised by Australians as not being democratic.

There may not be "Democracy" in these countries but the receptionists are polite-and so are the police usually.

I don't think I'm going to last for very long here.

Am I the only one who finds it difficult to get any pleasure here?

Where is the joy in such living?

Perhaps another embolism is on the way to put me out of my misery.

2009 Don and El nino

A demon who still annoys me a lot is "el nino".

Ever since I have been little el nino has bothered me.

Even before I was a teenager, I can remember the panic rising in me when my brother would bait me in an argument. El nino made me defend myself against  my big brother.

But as a teenager in school life too el nino began to interfere. If someone laughed at my school rugby team, or my own football team,  or my country, el nino threw a tantrum and created havoc all round him.

If anyone got in his way they were for it. El nino was wild and reckless. When I was eleven after an argument with my brother I remember pursuing him at speed from the kitchen into another room - flailing my belt wildly at him. He was too quick for me and just got the door closed in time for me to embed the buckle in it. There are still the marks there to this day!

As I grew up el nino squeezed himself into many other aspects of my life. He became attached to my ego so that by the time I was a teenager, anyone who criticised me became the object of el nino's wrath. we became inseparable. I had grown up.


I was a hypersensitive teenager.

Later in adult life el nino created havoc in my professional life when he urged me to make some pretty rash and ill-considered decisions which I later regretted.

When El nino took a ride, the panic was unstoppable. There was no way of stopping him. I even felt sorry for him at times. I just hung on for dear life until he cooled down.

Nowadays, el nino still bugs me. He has taken to stopping me from sleeping.

In the evenings he also sometimes likes to chill me with waves of loneliness, panic and fear about some small unimportant thing. Maybe to do with the next day's work.

Before a really important event-like an interview, or first day at a new job at work, or the beginning of new class el nino can be troublesome. He can be very cruel. I will break out into a cold sweat and almost shudder with anxiety. When this happens I sometimes have quieten him down with some pills.

That calms him down.

He doesn't like the pills.



but el nino has his good side. He is passionate, determined and committed. If he is treated with respect he can be very loyal and show a lot of initiative.

He is  also capable of showing compassion and mercy and springing real surprises on everyone around him from time to time. He can make people smile and people forgave him.

He has charm.

The witches of Macbeth

It is amazing how unfathomable the human mind really is.

Some days I think I understand pretty well what people are thinking and why they are doing what they are doing.

Other days I think the opposite. I am at a complete loss.

Some days I think people all live like me with demons and witches in their heads chattering away all the time-the witches of Macbeth. Other days I think people are living a calm, uneventful and 'normal' life, completely different from my own-with nothing inside their head at all.

For me, the witches are always there chattering away. I just don't let them out.

In the past when i have let them out they have made me do something I regret. They do sleep sometimes and they like alcohol.I'm thinking of maybe inventing a name for them so that perhaps I can get to know them better without being afraid of them. Because if they drink alcohol-they certainly eat fear. Fear is their food. Maybe, if we are on more friendly terms,they will weaken.

Some people seem not to have witches-lucky, lucky people I say.

Others let them out and then there is sadness and tragedy. Because the witches make you do really harmful things to others and to yourself.


My witches for years prevented me from reading famous iconic 'books' like "The Da Vinci Code" or watching 'iconic' movies like 'Titanic'.

Have you ever read "such and such" famous classic?

"No, they would say to me 'You don't need to read what everybody else reads. You are special-not common- like all the rest of the riff-raff out there."

Have you ever seen the movie 'such and such'?

No, they would whisper in my ear. " I didn't want you to see that movie -what is the point in doing what everyone else does?

The result is of course that I am not well read!  Many of the really good pieces of literature I am only reading now.


I don't really understand the witches.. Maybe , if we become more friendly I will ask them  some time why they made me do, or not do, these things.

but even witches do some good.

For example, the witches first encouraged me to travel and explore the world.

So, no,  I don't hate them -but I am just wary of them

(J) Bristol 1974-1975

Bristol University

And so to Bristol – in the 1970’s that hotbed of subversive teacher trainees. In retrospect, I’d have to say it was an adventure - like most other chapters in my life. At the time though it was a pretty boring place to me and another Nixonian ‘Outsider’ experience-one which had to be ‘endured’ rather than enjoyed. I was lonely there –I think of darkening evenings in the autumn- trudging up and down the streets of Whiteladies road –killing time- not knowing whether to eat in the pizzeria or the University refectory. Both were soulless. But the food gave me comfort. This was the beginning of an addiction to salt-one of many addictions in my life. Apart from the terror of my early teaching experiences, the cultural differences between Ulster and the South of England soon became all too apparent.

I have always been mystified by comments of people who look back on their University days with nostalgia. People talk about them as if they were a time of relaxation and recreation on some tropical island. I remember them as grim –to put it very charitably. Everything was grim-my apartment, the lectures themselves, many of the lecturers, and even the southern English themselves..

The city centre looked like a bombed out concrete jungle-which is exactly what it was of course.

My cooking was grim, the long lonely evenings, the even more lonely weekends and my first pathetic attempts at teaching were grim.

Above all the English themselves were grim. They were a total disappointment –they seemed almost dumb to me- they didn’t speak. They rebuffed any attempt to approach them. They all seemed to be paranoid about someone taking advantage of them in some way. I couldn’t work out what it was they had that any one could possibly covet. Maybe they all had secret stashes of gold somewhere?

They were positively allergic to visits to their apartments. They stood in the doorway with a stupid grin on their faces looking over your head into the middle distance as if I there was a ‘SWAT’ team behind me taking aim at them.

Thus they valiantly defended the stashes in their castles from a lonely but well intentioned Ulsterman who just wanted a bit of a chat.

They were helpful of course, but that wasn’t what I wanted. The English are ‘doers’. Like their Australian derivatives they are obsessed with doing things. The Irish, on the other hand just are. We just like ‘being’ –not doing. We are not lazy –we just like to be – if you get my drift. I could never get on with the English or the Australians.

Why did I end up in Bristol? Well-it was like this: I became obsessed with education at Trinity College in Dublin. I avidly read, noted, and inwardly digested the radical philosophies contained theirin of Messers Ivan Illich, Everett Reimer, John Goodman- and other anti establishment ‘Deschoolers’ of the day.

In hindsight, although I thought I was at the time, I was not really interested in teaching in schools per se but more in the ‘Idea’ of schools. I have always been excited by ideas and I was excited by the idea of education itself. What was it? I had no idea really but I spent the next several years trying to define it and, in fact, after 33 years I still don’t really know what it is, although I probably have a clearer idea of what is not.

Anyway, in those days I wanted to abolish schools altogether. I believed that on balance, the negative influences of schools on society outweighed their positive effects. Above all, I believed that it was the ‘Hidden curriculum’ of schools that was the problem. Marshall McCluhan was dead right when he said “the medium was the message” I agreed. Schools existed to engender conformity and dependence-and not to truly empower students.

After thirty - three years I basically still believe this though with a little less passion than I used to (but not much less). I do admit that schooling as a default position for a developing culture is perhaps more desirable than the anti school Talibanic approach proposed by Islamic extremists. But to admit that is not to admit very much at all.

In those days I was so theoretical it just wasn’t true: I was basically ‘offered’ a place on the PGCE course at Cambridge by George Dawson, now deceased – my professor at TCD. (through his connections at Cambridge). But would I accept it? Oh no! – someone had told little nerdy Nixon that Cambridge was full of failed rugby players-not true educationalists like himself in pursuit of worthy causes and who would spend years wasting time trying to define education.

True educationalists justifiably scorned the idea of chasing a ridiculously shaped piece of leather around a muddy field in order to compete violently with other males for the attention of even dumber females.

I was having none of it. I was going to go to the most progressive teacher training course in the United Kingdom – to Bristol University. Yes, (I mean ‘no’ actually), I wasn’t going consort with Rugby players and I was determined to cut off my nose to spite my face to prove it to everyone –especially myself.

Besides, I could get drunk and have sex without playing rugby. Even though there was no internet at that time there were plenty of X rated movies cinemas to visit to take care of the sex  and Dad had foolishly given me enough money to buy booze should I wish. As it turned out I had little of either  in Bristol (sex or drink).  I got the idea (“Bristol” that is, not the sex and booze) from E O., a lecturer at Trinity College who had supervised my vacation work in County Mayo. So, it was “Thanks, but no thanks George (my old professor) old boy–no Cambridge for me!”

If  you are thinking that I was immature and a presumptious prat at this age I would have to agree that I was. Some might say I haven’t changed all that much. But I hope I think have faced my demons enough to have changed just a little. Maybe you should ask my wife if I have changed much. On second thoughts maybe you had better not ask her. (Actually, I went ton Bristol seven years before I met her)

I think education became an obsession for me at Trinity because I was such a social misfit. It was a substitute for everything in life that was pleasurable and to which I did not have access: laughter, joy, social fulfillment, academic success, sex , fame-in short-all the really good things in life. Every day was a struggle for me –a struggle to enjoy myself. Everybody else seemed to have at least something – and it seemed to me I had nothing. I was a miserable, nervous wreck. But- the one thing I did have which others didn’t have- was a passion for education.

Pitiful? Yes, it probably was.

So, off I went to Bristol arriving one cool September night on my ownsome at ‘The Quadrant’, Coldharbour Road, off Whiteladies Road, to spend a year learning how to be a teacher.

The first major problem I had to face in my little ‘flatlet’ was the toilet. It was an ancient design consisting of a chain pulled from a tank high above one’s head. I must have spent fifteen minutes trying to get the damn thing to flush. Eventually, I had to ask the landlady –how embarrassing! Even worse, she wasn’t able to fix it, and her gorgeous sixteen year old daughter had to go into the toilet and show me how to flush it! What a humiliation. I don’t think I ever used that toilet again for the whole year I was there. More importantly, I was never able to look that lovely daughter in the eye again.

Social life in Bristol.

I quickly made friends with a Scotsman from Edinburgh who had just done VSO in Malawi. G F was an intellectual and in a way a fellow misfit. Reserved and retiring, he had a powerful brain and was basically much more mature than I was in many ways and certainly much more streetwise. For some reason, he seemed to appreciate me and we had a lot of common interests. What united us most was our interest in Africa. We spent hours and hours together chatting about Africa as well as philosophy, politics, books and of course education. In retrospect, a fly on the wall would have noted that we never talked about women. The simple reason for this was that we were both terrified of them and neither of us knew much  about them. We played table tennis, squash, dived into and pounded up and down the swimming pool.

The days passed. G became a good friend. He couldn’t resist an argument and I was always up for it. I can remember coming back to my flat for coffee and spending hours talking to him –both of us smoking ‘Embassy Regals’ till the room was a dense fog of smoke.We just liked talking for its’ own sake –a characteristic we shared with Africans and Latin Americans –but not with The English or Australians.

Two years later he married a delightful girl named K and I am still in touch with them thirty years later. I was always aware that G was an intellectual heavyweight.

Other memorable characters included ‘E’ from Liverpool –‘fooking ‘ell man’! Who was on cannibis for much of the time when he was not sleeping with a succession of gorgeous girls who couldn’t seem to get enough of him. E was mad. He had long hair down to his waist, never stopped talking, was funny, good looking and well-built. The girls couldn’t keep away from him.

G and I just marvelled at his success with women.We oozed and groaned with jealousy. So, that’s it! I would say to myself women want humour, a good body and good looks? This was a devastating realization. What chance did I have then? G and I had none of these attributes of course–so we hung around E and his harem, irritated and fascinated; half-deriding him , and half hoping that some of his animal charisma would rub off on us. E had a terrible temper but this didn’t seem to worry the girls at all. In the end he was thrown out of the course after losing his cool with a lecturer. He hardly ever attended lectures anyway. He was definitely unstable. I wonder where he is now. He was into Neil Young.

Then there was G –the upright German. Cool and confident in a shallow way. I didn’t really like him and I don’t think he liked me. He seemed too self assured. I was jealous. But he seemed to respect G so we often hung out together –the three of us –in the cafeteria - or in the bar.

Those were the days! But I spent a lot of time on my own. I remember also becoming very interested in books about the Yaqui Indians in Mexico by an American Mexican author called Carlos Castaneda. When I was bored, which was almost always, I would go the library and dream about the mystical way of life of the Yaqui Indians. Very romantic.

It was a beautiful spring which turned into a wonderful summer. Mum and Dad came over to Bristol at the end of the year and we all went for a tour around the south of England. I remember Mum and Dad fighting a lot in the car. At one point, Mum got out and stomped off up the road. Dad turned round and said to me. “You know at a certain time in their lives women get very moody –that is what is happening to your Mother now”. As far as I was concerned Mum had always been like that –and so had he.

On the same trip on another day, I also had a huge fight with Dad. Eventually Mum intervened on my behalf saying…

“Well, you won’t have to put up with Donald for much longer, Cecil, because he will be going to Africa soon and you won’t see him for two years”. Mothers always seem to support their sons against their Father-something I have learned with my own children. It was true I would be going to Ghana to do Voluntary Service Overseas that September.

I was very lonely in Bristol and I made a first attempt at writing there too – introducing an autobiographical short story with a main character called ‘Macmillan’. I had it typed. I was so embarrassed when the typist asked me questions about it. She liked it and said the character of Macmillan was very ‘Irish’–whatever that meant. That was 1975. All I can remember is that it contained a lot of “F” words which I was so ashamed of. I’ve lost it now-no idea where it is I probably lost it deliberately in a Freudian sense because it contained the ‘F' words.

I never wrote another word until the year 2001!

In a way I was a model student at Bristol. I got an ‘A’ in all my assignments. But I blotted my copybook at the very end by saying in my last assignment what I really felt- -that I was a ‘deschooler’ and didn’t really believe in schooling at all, and saw schools as instruments of social control rather than education. A D, my tutor, didn’t like it and gave me a ‘C’. I thought Angela was shallow and didn’t appreciate my intellectual profoundity. I’ll bet she wasn't giving ‘C’s to Andy - the shallow, smooth-talking, good-looking hunk on the course.

Why do women always fall for…..oh.. what’s the point?

Jon and Jacky A were a very pleasant couple. Simple and straightforward. John had an old model of a car-a Ford ‘Prefect’. At the end of the year I invited them and another couple –N H, a hot headed Londoner, and his girlfriend U B over to Donegal to stay in a rented Caravan. I brought them over to see my parents in Port-na –Blagh and we all went surfing together. At Tranarossan youth hostel I remember N putting up the Union Jack outside his tent. This was 1975 –when the political turmoil was at it’s height. It was a provocative and a very imprudent thing to do to in catholic rural Ireland, to say the least! I was appalled. He could quite easily have got himself a visit from the local IRA had we not persuaded him to take it down. It was one of my first lessons in ‘realpolitik’.

I remember becoming a bit tetchy in the Caravan as my departure date for Ghana neared. I always become irritable when I am close to a major change. I used to think of myself as ‘laid back’ when I was young man –but I think the truth is I have always been quite the opposite– very highly strung. I have only been able to see it more clearly in my latter years.


One incident I remember clearly was a rock climbing trip up the Avon gorge near Bristol with J D. I expressed an interest one day, and at his suggestion we went climbing together in the gorge. He went up first and I followed blindly. It was cold and it started to rain. About half way up I realized that I could go neither up nor down and that I was “stuck’. I panicked and in the end had to retreat to the bottom, trembling with terror. I have never rock-climbed again. It was a case of ‘Once bitten , twice shy’

A similar experience occurred on a November afternoon in the Mendip hills.as part of the outdoor education unit. A group of us went caving. I was excited and was expecting to see a large overhanging structure under which I would walk from a wide tapering entrance to a fairly narrow tunnel or cave at the back in the shadows. The sea would be heard lapping amiably on the stone shore at a friendly distance from the entrance to the cave.

You can imagine my surprise when we piled out of the van into a field in the fog one Sunday afternoon. I looked around me for the sea-and there was no sea. Nor did their appear to be a wide cave entrance under which I could walk. I was too scared to ask anyone and reveal my ignorance to the others so I just tagged along as we made our way into the field. I began to think that the entrance must be quite far away in the distance when suddenly the leader stopped and said.

“ Ok then, here it is …I’ll go first. Now, you go in backwards- just follow me.”

I noticed he had taken a few steps into a dip at the centre of which appeared to be a hole with a stream running into it. He suddenly turned round with his back to us, sat down in the river, leaned back and crawled into the hole backwards disappearing from view in a few seconds. The next person followed him. Incredibly, I did too. I amazed myself. I had not had enough time to protest or be frightened. But, if this was caving then to hell with it….

I never saw nor heard from most of these Bristolian friends again, but I can remember them thirty years later as clearly as if it were yesterday.

The Bristol course was well resourced. This was the early seventies. I did an outdoor education option and we went canoeing one memorable day on the River Wye in winter. We also went camping in a tent on Dartmoor in January. I was never very good at these things and I suppose I was one of the least fit. Everybody else seemed to be fit and ‘Hearty’ but I grumbled about this and that. I remember ‘Tony the Straight’ the group coordinator getting annoyed with me once-I don’t quite know what for – it was something to do with a box of matches. Tony didn’t like my droll sense of humour – I think he thought I was a loser. I thought he was supercilious and shallow.

We camped on Dartmoor and broke camp in the middle of the night. The next morning we jumped into the river Dart in our boots with snow on the ground.

I loved it and it helped to make a man of me I’m sure.

Lecturers at Bristol

In the seventies the Staff on the Biology PGCE course were almost all liberals and optimists. In fact, for me they were so optimistic they could have been Americans or Aussies.

There was A D –the Coordinaator of the biology Unit. Angela was a large hearty , premenopausal female with white teeth like vertical piano keys constantly on display . She had a a permanent smile on her face which I thought at the time meant she was a profoundly happy person. In retrospect, she seemed too happy and I think it probable she was into toy boys or sex toys. Her toothy smile was so huge that it made a little nerd like me nervous. At times I found myself thinking she might actually open her mouth and swallow me. Like a crocodile I hoped that she would keep her teeth firmly shut and not open her mouth.

Angela was a kindly lady really but beneath that smile she revealed herself at times to be phony. I found this out at the end of the course. I had got ‘A’s for all my assignments throughout the year until the last one when I introduced my ideas about deschooling society and abolishing schools altogether. For me it was easily my best assignment-well researched and original-if a little controversial. That was the bottom line of course. I got a ‘C’.  So much for freedom of expression at the most ‘progressive’ teacher training College in the UK! I went off Angela in the end.

Lecturer S had written a book which he had recommended as part of the course he was teaching. He was a tall, reserved but imposing figure. When speaking to him it became obvious that he was painfully shy. He was very nervous and his hands shook visibly during conversation. I found myself feeling almost protective towards him and yet he was many years my senior. The difference in status didn’t seem to affect this feeling. He had written a book called ‘The reluctant learner’. I couldn’t imagine him coping with a bunch of recalcitrant 15 year olds-but I suppose he must have been able to do it as he had written a book on the subject. In fact he looked like a taller version of what I imagine myself looking like to others today.

The roles were reversed with Professor T. He was the father figure and I felt like the son. He would conduct his seminars with an avuncular style smoking a drooping pipe. I would say nothing usually.

However, there was one memorable seminar I remember in which we were discussing third world development issues. I felt awful at these seminars – I was sizzling with suppressed rage at the inequities and injustices of the development process -and my pathetic attempts to articulate a meaningful response to them. I stayed silent for long periods because I lacked confidence and then I blustered and blurted out inappropriate things when I finally did speak.  It was a time when there was much criticism of the way governments in developing countries had imported western schooling willy nilly-and the negative influence on the recipient cultures.

One day I finally had my chance –I had been building up to this moment all year. . After a group discussion to which I had contributed nothing, Professor T finally asked me what I thought. I decided to speak and proposed the abolition of schools entirely as suggested by Ivan Illich in “Deschooling Society”. I was a ‘deschooler’. Prrofessor T paused, looked at me, puffed on his pipe, and then said very carefully:

“You mean the complete dismantlement of industrial society and the schooling system as we know it?’

“Yes!” , I blurted out – with just a little defiance in my squeaky voice.

“Hmmm…” said Thompson puffing on his pipe again. He disappeared from view in clouds of smoke…

I don’t think he was too impressed but it was difficult to tell through the smoke. Anyway I never said another word in his seminars again just to be sure.

And he never asked me another question.

I remember the day before teaching practice started going into my room and being in a panic with nervous tension at the idea of teaching the next day. I wondered if I had chosen the right profession.

I was in tears with an attack of anxiety. But I was on my own and no-one ever knew about it.

This was my first panic attack in my life.

I didn’t realize up until that time that I had a nervous disposition which is prone to such attacks.

They have recurred at various times when I have been under pressure. Sometimes it seems to me extraordinary and irrational that I have propelled my self voluntarily into so many stressful situations time and time again in life. You would think I might have chosen some other profession. No doubt the psychologists would have a field day with these reflections making the perfectly useless observation that I was ‘sabotaging myself’ or some such nonsense. Not that I don’t believe in the concept of self sabotage: suicide bombers really do sabotage themselves- but not nerdy Irish adolescents living in England.

My teaching practice was done at Bristol Cathedral school. But first we had to team teach at a comprehensive school. I remember having to give a lesson on the blood circulation with three other students. I was doing the double circulation using an Overhead Projector. It was almost my first time public speaking. I have never been so nervous in my life. It was worse with my peers there. I was more nervous of them than of the students. It was excrutiating. I can still remember it vividly.

At the Bristol Cathedral school I was very lucky to have a decent supervising teacher –Peter Templar who graciously allowed me to teach his lower sixth. I did respiration with them. Basically, I just lectured to a small group of them and they were polite enough not to ask me questions. They were good Grammar school boys and played the game. I could see they felt for me. If they had asked questions and I hadn’t been able to answer them I would have dissolved into tears. I think they knew this.

I began to realise at Bristol that I had had a pretty sheltered background and was not ‘tough’ enough to teach in the normal government schools. I would have been mawled. I had a third year class in which I remember getting them to draw a Goldfish. They were all well-behaved –and it was just as well because, had they chosen to play up, I would have had no idea idea how to control them.

Funny Story! I was demonstrating the preparation of Oxygen using Potassium Permanganate with the form ones. They were a bright and very well-behaved class. I had on a new purple cashmere sweater which Mum had given me for Christmas. All the little squirts were up at the teachers bench watching my demonstration. I was so nervous I lost my concentration. I remember I was listening to myself talking. I just kept talking and talking and didn’t realize that my right elbow was on fire until the smell from the smoke became overpowering. The kids were so polite they didn’t dare tell me until there was a sizeable hole in my brand new sweater! As I ‘Put out my elbow’ they giggled and snickered just a little-but not enough to embarrass me. I maintained a straight face.

Oh God! In most schools I would have been laughed at mercilessly for such a blunder, and probably later sacked or sued for negligence.


I loved it and it helped to make a man of me I’m sure.

Around Christmas time, Under Gibson's influence, I had definitely made up my mind to do Voluntary Service Overseas in Africa.(I had been thinking of this since third year at Trinity). G kept me enthused as he had done V.S.O. in Malawi. I went for the interview and I remember they asked me some really weird questions one of which was

‘Mr Nixon. are you looking for real poverty?’


“No. just a bit” I said

and the doctor asked

‘Do you bite your knuckles?’

“No. well just a bit” I lied

And the doctor persisted ‘Why do you bite your knuckles?’

‘Oh! that’s nothing’ I lied ‘ I didn’t even know I was doing it!’

But the Doctor had noticed. Little did he know that at the age of ten Mum had taken me to the doctor with this problem. (Biting my knuckles-not my fingernails) He had got me to paint my knuckles with a revolting tasting paste which hardened to an indigestible flaky brittle stuff.

But I loved the taste.!

I was a nervous child.

Trinity College 1970-1974 Charisma

Trinity College also provided me with my first encounter with charisma. Unfortunately not my own, but someone else’s. D M was a dynamic young Genetics lecturer from Cornell and was the talk of the town. He seemed to dazzle everyone with his ‘Macho’ style of lecturing. He worked ‘at the cutting edge’ in the new exciting field of DNA genetics. He was young, handsome and loquacious. For me that was it –that was the man. This seemed to be enough to impress everybody –especially the girls who drooled over him in the most irritating way.

The lectures took place at eight in the morning in a prefabricated structure which was freezing in winter. I remember listening to him and wondering to myself what all the fuss was about.

Come on girls! Yes he was handsome and had a gravelly voice –but can’t you see he was a shallow jerk? These were my thoughts as I tried to unfreeze the ink from my pen and scribble down meaningless notes. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Neither did the girls but that didn’t seem to matter. They just wanted to hear his voice I suppose.

He was not good at answering questions-as he tended to dismiss the questioner and make them feel very small. This was acceptable in the old days. I imagined him doing that to me because I never had the nerve to ask him a question.

So, that is charisma then?

I don’t want to mention Hitler and power–but I do feel I have to at this point.

What is it about power that attracts everyone then–especially women?

Is it avoiding the uncertainty of life- the sheer bliss of letting someone else make the difficult decisions?

Surely there must be more to it than that.