Media: hardcover - 184 pages
Author: S. Guthrie (editor)
Year: 1986

Published by South Australian Council on the Ageing for South Australia’s 150^th Jubilee

FROM THE FOREWORD

The marking of 150 years of European settlement has given the people of this State of South Australia the opportunity to celebrate this significant birthday in a vast variety of ways that range from sporting championships, through family reunions, historic re-enactments to the creation of lasting memorials.

The sesquicentennial year has been the catalyst for the research, compilation and production of many worthwhile titles that have documented the past, the present and pointed the way to an even more exciting future.

My Board supports the initiative of the SA Council on the Ageing in assembling this stimulating and comprehensive collection of contributions from so wide a range of contemporary South Australians.

The writings will be enjoyed by today’s citizens and no doubt treasured by those who follow thereafter just as have been those earlier books that were issued to coincide with our centenary celebrations of 1936.

Over the years, South Australia has certainly provided its fair share of sons and daughters who have left their marks on the world’s stage.

The authors whose writings comprise what lies hereafter are indeed worthy and proud citizens of this fine State. Their names and deeds are and will continue to be honoured far and wide and this particular volume will be a worthy addition to the initiatives that the Jubilee 150 year has created.

H. R. (Kym) Bonython, AO, DFC, AFC

FROM THE INTRODUCTION

The idea of producing this book originated with the generous gift of $5000 jointly from the Rotary Club of Adelaide and the Westpac Banking Group, to SACOTA, the South Australian Council on the Ageing, to commemorate the South Australian Jubilee Year, 1986.

We decided to make it a celebration, a sort of public relations exercise about growing older.

We approached a number of South Australians whose lives have made a distinct contribution to the world around us, and who are still living full, interesting lives, sometimes in spite of disabilities. We were delighted with the response.

We share in this volume their wit and intelligence, their ideals and personal standards, the living history as they record it, not as historians write it in years to come.

The title Late Picking is, we feel, a most appropriate one, signifying as it does that the grapes that stay on the vine longest are the sweetest.

We hope that people of all ages will enjoy this book, but perhaps particularly the younger ones who will be encouraged by the warmth, vitality and achievement of their elders and may feel that they can look forward, without trepidation, to the prospect of growing older.

We thank all our contributors, hoping they found pleasure looking back into their lives while writing for us, and that both they, and all who read their work, will savour the richness of the vintage.

Dorothy Pash, OAM, BA Chairman, SACOTA

CONTENTS 

Foreword — Kym Bonython

Introduction — Dorothy Pash

Acknowledgements

Isn’t it Strange

Editor’s Note

Australia—To Me — Marion Sinclair

Journeys — Max Fatchen

My Romance with Lake Eyre — Warren Bonython

A Missionary in New Guinea — Rodger Brown

The Birth of the Gunbarrel Highway — Len Beaded

The World is a Village — Bertram Cox

The Film Industry — Irving Cook

On Becoming an Australian — Ellen Christensen

Caricatures — Lionel Coventry

The Art of Living — Stewart Cockhum

A Few Notes about Francis Thompson—Pam Cleland and Ruth Tuck

Art and Music—Music and Art — David Dallwitz

Ross—a Reminiscence — John Dowie

The Duguid Story — Phyllis Duguid

Our Memory Tree — Edith Eadie

A Sunday School Picnic — Max Fatchen

Over Sixties Radio, Radio 5UV — Bill Flanagan

Ecumenism — Archbishop Gleeson

Anzac Day — Brigadier Greville

The Pioneers Came by Sail —Jason Hopton

Reminiscences of a Would-Be Linguist — David Hogarth

Yalumba — Wyndham Hill Smith

On the Sheep’s Back — Lady Hawker

An Enterprising Yorke Peninsula Agriculturist — Rhoda Heinrich for Ossie Heinrich

Adelaide — Min Humphreys

Reflections — Min Humphreys

The Value of a Small Voice? — Barbara Hardy

Dreamtime of a Pensioner — Bernard Hesling

The Adelaide Festival of Arts — Sir Bruce Macklin

Airships in the Royal Navy, 1916 — Errol Monk

Football—Past, Present and Future — Bo Morton

Conservation and Preservation — Verne McLaren

Prematurely Old South Australia — Sir Mark Oliphant

RFDS—‘The Sky Above ...’ — Graham Pitts

Silken Halters — Kenneth Peake-Jones

Spare Time Activities — Archbishop Reed

Cricket — Phil Ridings

Half a Century of Geological Exploration — Reg Sprigg

A Balance Sheet — Ron Sullivan

Cardio-Thoracic Surgery — Dr D'Arcy Sutherland

Quotations — Mervyn Smith

The Plastic Age — Ruth Tuck

Come Out, Old Sun — Ruth Tuck

The Longer View — Colin Thiele

The Good Old Days — Grace Trott

We Try Harder in Our State, Mate — Ray Whitrod

The First Grand Prix, Victor Harbor 1936 — Ma Willis (Betty Corbin)

The Kookaburra Song — Marion Sinclair