Jennifer Mosher's Blog

On 1 January 2023, Wayne and I took a trip out to Warragamba Dam in western Sydney. We’d discovered a few days earlier that the wall above the spillway was open to pedestrians on weekends and public holidays only, so what better time to go for a walk, avoid the crowds and revisit our pasts than early on New Year’s Day?

My parents never owned a car or even had drivers’ licences, so until my aunt, uncle and cousins arrived from England on Australia Day 1964, our outings were limited to public transport or those where my parents’ friends drove us. When my Aunty Doff and Uncle Red arrived, the whole world seemed to open up for me.

In school holidays, Aunty Doff would often bundle me, Mum and my cousins up in the Morris and take us on outings to the Blue Mountains (she loved the Mountains) and other places of local interest. One of those places was Warragamba Dam, which had opened in 1960.

Warragamba was a place we all loved. We lived in Blacktown, so it took close to an hour to potter out there, up the Great Western Highway and probably down Luddenham Road and out via Wallacia. I don’t know about my cousins, but I loved going for a drive and never got car sick, which I find amazing when I look back now.

Haviland Park, Warragamba Dam

On arrival, there would be a rush to find a picnic spot in what I now know is Haviland Park, and then for us kids to play on the swings, the roundabout etc. while Aunty Doff and Mum unpacked and readied the lunch, which probably consisted of sandwiches and apparently involved a teapot and china cups – along with a pack of biscuits! I have no idea where the boiling water came from to make the tea. I have a vague memory of it being supplied at picnic grounds in years gone by, but that could be false memory syndrome.

Aunty Doff (Dorothy (Waring) Redwood) holding me with Mum (Margaret (Waring) Butler), picnicking at Haviland Park, Warragamba Dam, 1965Warragamba Dam suspension bridge

Following lunch, we’d go for a walk down to the lower level grounds on the north-eastern side of the dam wall and then have a walk on the suspension bridge. I had a love-hate relationship with that bridge! It was fascinating and terrifying – even more so when my cousin Chris bounced around on it to scare the proverbial out of us.

We would walk across it, but never seemed to venture far on the other side, so I have this memory of being frustrated by never having really seen what existed on the western side. Sadly, the suspension bridge is long gone.

Mum, Aunty Doff and I on the suspension bridge, Warragamba Dam, 1965 Warragamba Dam suspension bridge entry – 1 January 2023 Warragamba Dam suspension bridge historyCarols by Candlelight, Warragamba Dam

One of my other abiding memories of Warragamba Dam is being there for Carols by Candlight when I was a kid. I suspect it probably wasn’t much later than 1965 or so, and I have a vague recollection of molten wax dripping on my hand, but oh, what a wonderful evening out for a little girl! The event was held on what’s now known as ‘Lower View’ – I have no idea what it was called back in the day. And it was a magic setting with the flickering lights and voices echoing up and down the gorge.

Aunty Doff, Mum and I on the Lower Level, Warragamba Dam, 1965 View from the Lower Level, Warragamba Dam, 1 January 2023 View of the Lower Level from the spillway, Warragamba Dam, 1 January 2023

To relate the above photos to your memories of Warragamba’s grounds, refer to the vistitor’s map available from the Water NSW website here: https://www.waternsw.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/158150/WaterNSW-Warragamba-Heritage-Walk-Dam-Wall-Gardens-Walk-Map-FINAL-V3.pdf

Why this blog post?

For many years now I’ve been researching family history, collecting data, images etc., and building family trees. The hard part is wondering what the value of all this is. The facts and images are one thing, but it’s the stories behind the facts and images which matter – and they’re the things I need to record before they’re lost forever.

Many people manage to collate the information, images and stories and write a book – but I have Mum’s stuff, Dad’s stuff, my stuff and more – I can’t imagine how many books I’d have to write! And the work involved in collating it all into a logical order intimidates me, and who’d read them anyway?

But this visit to Warragamba Dam last weekend gave me a different idea – one of telling stories by place. Not just my stories, but stories from family members, from letters and documents collected over the years. These stories will hopefully have meaning for others, help them understand their own histories etc., where they can connect with them.

So today’s post is hopefully the first of what will be many ‘history by place’ stories I aim to write to get stuff out of my head, out of my cupboard, and out into the world where it might be of use or interest to others.

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge that the construction of Warragamba Dam flooded the lands of the Gundungurra people, the traditional owners of the Burragorang Valley, and resulted in the loss of access to those traditional lands for them.

More background into the history of the Gundungurra people and their lands can be found in Sacred Waters by Dianne Johnson, published in 2007 by Halstead Press https://halsteadpress.com.au/site/

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Here we are again – 26 January – and even though I’m only a first-generation Aussie, I still feel too uncomfortable to celebrate Australia Day. I want to – I love my country and I’m proud of it – but the history behind 26 January conflicts with the love I feel for my country and my fellow citizens. How can I party when I know there are people around the country remembering that this day also marks the start of the end for so much of their culture, their way of life, their people, and so many of their ancestors?

Over the last two decades, I’ve been increasingly supportive of the ‘change the date’ brigade. I mean – how the hell can we move forward as one nation when the very day we choose to celebrate our oneness is tied to the day Captain Arthur Phillip raised the British flag in 1788 to claim this land from its original inhabitants?

An opinion column in this week’s Sydney Morning Herald by Quandamooka man Wesley Enoch helped me think about the whole thing differently. Elements of his editorial unsettled me – especially the line ‘This country has a habit of forgetting its history.’ As a whitefella, I feel like I’m often being reminded of the things the whitefellas of the past did to our original inhabitants – and for some obscure reason, I so often feel guilty about it, too.

And this is why so many Australians are reluctant and confused about how to celebrate Australia Day.

In his column Enoch also makes mention of ‘a new tradition forming on the evening of January 25 as we gather to reflect on the Indigenous history of this country.’ This inspired a different kind of ‘change the date’ thought in me …

Why should a reflection on the Indigenous history of our country be an undefined, unmarked event of organic growth? Why don’t we mark it with a specific date? I mean, let’s face it – we’re talking about 60,000 years of First Nations’ history, including close to 240 years of colonial history … there’s a lot to remember and reflect on. And a lot to learn from, too.

What if … we redefined and changed the purpose of 26 January. What if 26 January became ‘Reflection Day’ – a day dedicated to learning about and reflecting on our country’s past – all of it. The whole 60,000 years.

We can then change the purpose of Australia Day to be about how all of us – this wonderful, multi-cultural nation – can work together and look to the future, and then we can celebrate that – our togetherness and our shared future.

And rather than having the Australia Day public holiday tied to a date on the calendar, we revert to celebrating it on the last Friday in January, so that we all have one final, happy hurrah before the end of our main summer months? I mean, seriously, what could be more Aussie than that?! To top it off, there will be the occasional year when Reflection Day will fall on that last Friday in January, too – and that will give us the chance to combine our reflections with our celebrations every now and again.

But to truly move forward, we also need to work on defining the meaning of what it means to be an Aussie. These last two years have told me that it’s about how most of us are willing to knuckle down, look after each other and do what we feel is right for the common good – even at the expense of our own happiness and freedoms. These last two years have made me proud to be able to say, ‘I’m an Aussie’ and I want to celebrate that – happily – with all my fellow Aussies.

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When I was 9, Santa brought me a much longed-for six-string acoustic guitar. From memory, it cost Mum and Dad AUD$13 at Kmart. I kept it in its triangle-shaped cardboard box, sliding it under the bed and dragging it out again, until my 10th birthday when they gave me a black carry-case for it.

Learning the wrong thing for you

For the best part of the following decade, I tried to learn that damn instrument. I changed the strings to metal when I was about 12 but even with various teachers over the years, I never ‘got it’. Not in my head and not in my heart – it just didn’t make sense to me.

All the lessons I had taught me to play chords. I knew what chords were and I played them and practised, but they didn’t do anything for me. I couldn’t sing (ask my family!), and so it was just chords. The piano did make sense, however: I would play the chords with my left hand and the melody with my right, so when I played piano, someone else would have an idea of what I was playing. But with the guitar, I was just strumming a bunch of sounds that ‘meant nothing to nobody’, as my dad would say.

Clapton unplugged – by me

And then around 1977, 2SM – the cool Sydney radio station of the day (AM of course – this was before FM!) – ran a series called The History of British Rock and the theme tune was based on the riff from Sunshine of Your Love by Cream. (Try singing ‘the history of British rock’ to Sunshine of Your Love – it works!) For some reason, this ‘woke’ me and I figured that, as I was able to pick the riff out on the piano, I just had to translate those notes to the guitar and … I could pick the riff out on my guitar!

Clapton I ain’t – never was, never will be. Like most of us. But I could do it – I could pluck a recognisable tune on my guitar. Finally! But then came the same old problem – why? What to do with it then? I never did solve that question.

By the time I was out of my teens I’d given up the guitar-playing. I was still playing piano – and enjoyed it – but the guitar-playing was something I had to leave to those who connected with it. It was always a regret – how would I ever be a rock ‘n’ roll star if I couldn’t play guitar? So I became an accountant instead – as you do.

The answers come when you least expect them

Fast-forward 40 years. I’m scrolling through the phone one day and see a film-clip of three people on a porch – one bloke playing a suitcase, a woman with a washboard playing tambourine and singing, and a big bearded beast with a guitar, also singing. I watched the clip as it was entertaining by itself, they looked like they were having fun and the song was catchy, but I couldn’t work out whether the guitarist was playing bass or what – I thought I could hear the effects of two guitars, but could only see one. I figured that there’d been a session muso adding depth in the recording studio, but they didn’t want to show that on the clip. Nope. Turns out I was wrong – one guitar, one player, amazing sounds.

The penny drops, albeit a bit too late for me

With a bit of research I found out that this was the Reverend Peyton, a man who uses a style of play often referred to as ‘fingerstyle’, where the player doesn’t use a plectrum, doesn’t strum, but uses their right hand (or the left, if they’re left-handed), to play notes independently. This means one guitarist can create a wider variety of sounds – bass and treble – making it seem as if there is more than one guitar involved. Now this type of guitar-playing made sense to me! Unfortunately, it was 40 years too late. If only my guitar teachers of the 1970s hadn’t been so keen to teach us chords to things like The Green, Green Grass of Home … But I digress.

So for the last couple of years I’ve played guitar vicariously in my head via The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band.

Last year (2021) they released an album called Dance Songs for Hard Times – brilliantly titled for the way we’ve all been feeling the last couple of years, but also with some awesome tracks on it. The lyrics inspired my husband to label their music ‘pov rock’ (not to be confused with ‘POV rock’) – and it couldn’t be more appropriate.

Then this week The Rev released a video of himself playing Ways and Means, one of my favourite tracks from the album, unaccompanied. Again, just watching his skill with the guitar blows my mind. Aside from that, I love the #povrock lyrics. Things like:

My knife is sharp, my guitar never flat, king of the laundromatAsk your mama, she’ll say the same thing, I got all the ways, I just ain’t got the means

Amazing, huh? Also – play it twice and you’ll be singing it for days.

So what’s the lesson here? Pretty simple: if your kid wants to pick up a guitar, please expose them to as many different ways of playing as possible, and start here, with the Reverend Peyton. And please don’t send them to a teacher who only knows how to play chords – get them someone who can help them make sense of the instrument, so they can enjoy it. They may never be a professional guitarist, but if they can form a relationship with the instrument and can enjoy playing it, in whatever manner works for them, then the lessons will never be wasted. And they can be applied to other instruments, too:

Here’s to the musos of the future!

And here’s to the Big Damn Band touring Australia one day – I’ll be booking front-row seats. Am I an ageing fan-girl? Hell yeah! And proud of it!

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Whatever did we do before the internet?

A bit over a week ago I wrote about a snippet of a photograph of a man driving a tram which I’d found in a box of old photos belonging to my late in-laws (https://jennifermosher.com.au/tram-76-where-are-you/). For various reasons, most related to memory, I was pretty certain this belonged to Marjorie, my late mother-in-law. After posting a link to Facebook, friends weighed in with lots of different suggestions, some which I could rule out straight away, others which I investigated, or at least tried investigating.

Ultimately it was some ideas and clues from Sally Asnicar that helped unlock that the tram was most likely from the Manchester area, more specifically Eccles – exactly where my mother-in-law’s family originated! Some more searching led to an awareness of Salford Corporation Tramways and the British Tramway Company Uniforms and Insignia website.

Gathering the pieces

This got me really excited (it doesn’t take much ). Perhaps somebody in my mother-in-law’s family had been a tram driver? I logged into Ancestry and started scouring hubby’s family tree. Marjorie’s mother, Eleanor Smith, had been born in the area in 1888 and Eleanor’s father, Arthur Gilbody Smith, had been born in the same district, too:

Arthur Gilbody Smith b. 28 Dec 1867 registered at Barton-Upon-Irwell, Manchester, EnglandEleanor Smith b. 10 Jul 1888 registered at Barton-Upon-Irwell, Manchester, England (married Peter Buckley)Marjorie Buckley b. 5 Dec 1911 registered at Barton-Upon-Irwell, Manchester, England (married Keith Mosher)Wayne Mosher b. mid 1900s, Australia (married me, Jenny Butler )

So – locations tied in: Salford, Barton and Eccles all being in the same area.

Then … in the 1901 UK census Arthur was noted as living at 55 Park Street, Eccles, Lancashire, England and his occupation was (wait for it …) ‘tram car driver’!

On 2 March 1911 Arthur and his wife, Mary (Mary Elizabeth Chapman), left England for Australia. Sadly, Arthur died two years later in Swan Hill, Victoria.

If this was Arthur, then the photo had to be taken prior to 1911.

Other people’s hobbies can be a surprising asset

I then discovered a page about the Salford Corporation on the British Tramway Company Uniforms and Insignia website here: http://www.tramwaybadgesandbuttons.com/page148/page152/page216/page216.html This page has some great photos of tram car drivers and their trams, all with the headlamp above the engine number. About half-way down the page is a marvellous photo of tram 95 and its driver and conductress. Surely the driver was the same fellow driving my tram?

‘My’ photo on the left, and the driver of tram 95 on the right (the tram’s conductress has been cropped out of this image), courtesy of the British Tramway Company Uniforms and Insignia website

Could they both be Arthur? I emailed the site’s owner, Ashley Birch, and presented my evidence …

Ashley was wonderfully helpful – and extremely knowledgeable. It turns out that the photo of tram 95 would have to have been taken after 1915, as conductresses didn’t exist on the Salford network until 1916. (Prior to 1916 Salford only employed conductors i.e. men.) This meant that it couldn’t be Arthur on tram 95 as he’d passed away in 1913 – in Australia. Ashley also advised that:

… [1916] is also when the new wreath-style cap badge was introduced, so the motorman [on tram 95] cannot unfortunately be Arthur.

One thing I can however say for certain is that the photo of Arthur [the photo I’m trying to identify] is definitely of Salford Corporation Tramways. Furthermore, it can be dated quite accurately as electric services only began in 1901 (4th October), and he is wearing a drooping-peak cap, a style which was probably superseded in 1903.

So, back to the family tree. Arthur was tram driving in 1901 and the cap on the driver I’m trying to identify is a Salford Corporation cap from the 1901-03 era. Arthur came from Eccles and the tram in the photo is almost definitely a Salford Corporation tram. All fairly neat and tidy, but I needed a clincher – just one more thing to make me believe …

Putting the pieces together

Some more research led me to Arthur’s sister, Amy Templeman Smith, born 1880 and, sadly, died 1916. In the 1901 census, Amy and her husband, Horatio Grundy, were living at 21 Green Lane, Eccles. And Horatio’s occupation? Photographer!

I have absolutely no evidence to prove that Horatio took this photo of Arthur and still no real evidence that the photo is of Arthur, but it does all fit a little too neatly together, doesn’t it? I mean:

It’s a great quality photo for its time.The actual snippet I have is little more than 6 cms high, so it had to be taken by someone with quality equipment.Arthur, as a tram driver, would not have been likely to have the funds to commission such a photo himself. And if it had been taken by a press photographer, or one hired for marketing purposes by the Salford Corporation, would Arthur have been given a copy of it? Probably not – not at the cost of photo developing in those days.

So, in the absence of further evidence to the contrary, I’m pretty confident that this is a photo of Arthur Gilbody Smith, my husband’s great-grandfather, and that his grandmother, Eleanor Smith (Arthur’s daughter), saved this scrap of photo with whatever other treasures she may have had as a precious memento of her late father who died all to soon, so far from ‘home’.

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Over the last week I’ve been scanning some old photos from a little wooden box owned by my late father-in-law, Keith Mosher. Not all the photos in it are his – some came from his wife, Marjorie Buckley, and possibly her family – but it’s fun looking at some of them and trying to work out what they’re of, or where they’re of, or who they’re of.

Calling all tram buffs!

Probably my favourite find so far has been a scrap of photo mounted on cardboard – possibly this was a mounting board from an old picture frame, I’m not sure – but after scanning it at 1200 dpi so that I could blow it up as much as possible, I’m just astounded at the clarity of such an old photo. Here’s a web-friendly (96 dpi) version of the image – an early 1900s electric tram with driver/engineer, conductor and background observer :

Tram 76 with driver, conductor and background gent in front of the ‘gents’The clues

The biggest clue is, of course, the tram itself. It’s a number 76, but unlike most early electric trams I’ve been able to find images of, the number is below the headlamp, rather than above it. I am hoping this will be meaningful to a tram enthusiast out there!

The next clue is that it’s an open-front, double-decker tram. The metwalwork winding up from the driver’s left-hand side represents the floor of the staircase leading to the upper level, so it ran somewhere that double-decker electric trams were used.

And then there’s the location – it’s in an English-speaking country, going by the sign for the below-street level gents’ toilet over by the footpath, and what looks to be a sign saying ‘Saddler’ on the building above the gents’ loo. My original guess was London based on the clothing, but it could also be Manchester. Marjorie’s family came from the Barton upon Irwell and Eccles area, so it’s feasible that it was taken there. They arrived in Australia after 1911, so if it is Manchester, then it was probably taken between about 1900 and 1914. There’s a remote possibility that it’s Sydney, Australia, but the buildings and road look a bit too ‘established’ to my mind.

The people

But even if I can find out where the tram was driven and where the photo was taken, do you know what I’d love to know the most? Who the driver and the conductor are! The driver is so serious – looking straight ahead, steering his tram. His got a great moustache and, like the conductor, wears a uniform designed to help keep him warm – hence my theory that it’s more likely a UK tram. And the conductor looks so young and perhaps just a wee bit nervous. I wonder if he ever settled into his job – or if he was merely nervous about having his photo taken? And then there’s the fellow in the background doing his best movie-star impersonation – although movie stars probably hadn’t been ‘invented’ at this stage!

I’ll likely never find out who any of the people in this photo are, but it would be great to get an idea of where and when it was taken. If you can solve the puzzle, please let me know!

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If you told me that a half dozen psychologists with a good sense of humour went out for Friday night drinks and came up with Huge in France, I’d believe you. It’s so decidedly rare these days to see a show which understands and showcases the human animal so well. And when I say ‘animal’, I mean ‘animal’ – there are characters in Huge in France which are a little too real at times.

In brief, the main plot line is about a French comedian, Gad Elmaleh (played by the ‘real’ Gad Elmaleh who is, apparently, huge in France) who flies to LA to reconnect with his teenage son (Luke) after his ex-wife (Vivian) asks Gad to surrender his parental rights. For years Gad has paid Vivian huge amounts of support and she, Luke and her new partner, Jason Alan Ross (all names required!), live very comfortably thanks to Gad’s successful comedy career in France.

Much of the storyline works from there, with the usual fish-out-of-water themes where Gad learns about life outside of France and discovers that while he’s huge in France, he’s actually very small (i.e. unheard of) elsewhere. It’s a huge shock to the ego for ‘C’est Gad’, and hard for him to believe, but the humour and storyline are only part of the reason for watching this show. What got me with Huge in France was the amazing portrayal of such 3D characters – so flawed, so damaged, but also understandably so.

It’s easy for scriptwriters to create characters who are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – the characters we know we’re supposed to support and the ones we’re supposed to cheer about when they suffer their downfall. But in Huge in France, while you’re hoping that Gad gets his way in one scene, you’re just a little disappointed by his actions in the next. And while you’re hoping for Vivian’s downfall in one scene, you can’t help feeling just a little sympathy for her in the next. And this is courageous script-writing – where you might actually see the ‘hero’ of the story as a real, flawed human being or the ‘villain’ as someone you might momentarily feel for.

But the big one for me was the way they turned the tables on gender roles in domestic violence. We all know that men can suffer from domestic violence – but when do we ever see it? In Huge in France we see it in spades as Vivian subjects her partner, Jason Alan Ross, to some horrific coercive control.

With governments around the world bringing in laws against coercive control, I found Huge in France to be an absolute revelation in this respect. Academically, I know what coercive control is, but being lucky enough not to have ever suffered it, it’s hard to really understand how it might feel. And I wondered if I would be able to identify it. Seeing the character of Jason Alan Ross suffering at the hands of Vivian really brought it home, really helped me see what it might look like and how sufferers can slide into that situation so easily.

For that alone, Huge in France is worth watching – so that we all get a better understanding of what coercive control might look like, so that we can ensure we’re not perpetrating it, and to help us help those who might be subjected to it, to identify it.

To round it out, Luke displays similar attitudes and a temper to match as a spoiled brat who, like his mother, expects his step-father to do his bidding for him. This is, of course, understandable – he’s just a 15 year old boy who’s working hard to be a model, and when Jason Alan Ross promises to do something, Luke can’t understand why it’s not done. So you can see both sides of the story – but it’s a great lesson in how not to raise your child.

I’m not going to tell you about particular episodes or any of the other storylines or characters – you need to discover them for yourself. But be warned, episode eight, the last of series one, really throws some great punches. Well worth waiting for.

If you like your comedy a little dark, a little uncomfortable and with a few surprises, then Huge in France should keep you watching. It did me.

Bring on season two!

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If you’re looking for an easy and inexpensive project to keep the kids entertained during the Covid-19 lockdowns, then here’s one for you. All you need is:

a piece of cardboard – can be from a cereal box, a beer carton – you name itsome PVA glue or other glue which can be squeezed from a bottlesome acrylic paint, preferably metallic, or some acrylic paint with glitter thrown ina picture frame (optional)



Find and prepare your ‘canvas’

First up, cut a piece of cardboard to your desired size. I had an unused picture frame in the house, so I cut my card to fit the frame. My card came from a beer carton, so I had to draw on the inside as the outside had been printed on. But first I traced the matting board from my frame so that I knew how big my picture could be.

Find and prepare your ‘canvas’ – I cut my card to fit a frame a wanted to use

Then draw a picture on the cardboard.

Draw a picture on the cardboard

With your picture, you just need to use clean outlines – nothing too sketchy or detailed.

Can’t draw? Perhaps you can get a little technical

I have to admit – I cheated a little. I had an image of a frog which I really liked from a teeny-tiny Steve Parish notebook. I photocopied the image and blew it up to a size which would fit inside the space. I then traced the main lines onto a piece of baking paper with a pen. I turned it over and scribbled with a 2B pencil across the pen lines.

I cheated and traced my image

Then I flipped it back, placed it on the cardboard, and drew over the pen lines again, which left a pencil drawing on the cardboard.

Then I transferred my image onto the cardboard



Grab your glue!

Once I had my frog outlined on the cardboard, I took the glue pot and squeezed it gently, leaving a raised trail of glue covering the pencil lines. I then waited 24 hours for it to dry.

Start applying PVA glue to the lines



My frog, fully glued!



Watching as the glue dries



After 24 hours the glue should be dry



Grab your paint!

The next day, I grabbed my tube of copper paint and painted over the cardboard, making sure to extend the paint past the lines where the matting board would come to.

And now the fun part – bringing your image to life by painting over it!



Frame that frog!

The day after that, when I knew for sure the paint would be dry and not at all tacky, I framed my frog. Isn’t he gorgeous?

My finished, framed frog – just make sure you wait 24 hours for the paint to dry!



Benefits of this project

A little project like this will teach your kids:

planning – they have to think about the finished product (size, image, paint colour etc), and what they’ll need and have to do to achieve thatpatience – waiting for the glue to dry and waiting for the paint to dry teaches them that there can be rewards for waitingfine motor skills – if they’re drawing, tracing or squeezing the glue, each of these processes will help with their fine motor skillsre-using and recycling – because you can use cardboard from any old box, this teaches kids to value things which would otherwise go to the big recycling pile in the sky!

If your kids (or you

Over the last eight-ten weeks I’ve had a lot of differing thoughts on Covid-19, aka the Coronavirus, and as a way of making sense of them, figured I would process them as blog posts – sort of like a public ‘Dear Diary’. I think, in time, it might be interesting (or potentially very boring) to see how my thoughts change as 2020 develops.

First comes acceptance

I think the most interesting thing is that my acceptance of the seriousness of this disease almost mirrors the graphs showing new cases in Australia. My original thoughts were that it would be worse elsewhere, it’s only the flu, yeah, we’ll get it here, but I’m not worried; happy to get it myself as it will build my immunity (how stupid was that initial thinking?!); we won’t suffer too much – we’re an island nation, so we have that natural border which will help us keep it out, yada, yada, yada … Clearly they were the thoughts of someone who had very little understanding of what Covid-19 is about.

Covid-19 confirmed cases from abc.net.au
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704

Then on the flip side, I would occasionally think that it might be ‘seriously serious’, that it could change the way we live – for a while, if not forever – but whenever I envisioned things like lockdowns etc., I told myself I was being a drama queen, that it would never get that far. And yet it has. Here we are, in the first few days of a lockdown, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

The psychology of not having to make your own decisions

Curiously, I find the lockdown a relief. It won’t be fun – although I will do my best to make the most of it once I settle into it – but to finally be told what not to do, and what I may do, takes a lot of pressure off me as an individual.

Not so long ago we spent many months facing the thought of losing our home due to the massive bushfires around us, and we anguished during those months about whether to stay or go, should the fires get that close. And if we did decide to go, when we should go, and where … And would we get there in time?

To be told to go into lockdown takes the responsibility away from me of making what could potentially be life or death decisions. I feel a sense of relief early on that I never felt during those months when the fires were creeping towards us.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

What I also find curious is the hysteria of people wasting so much airspace criticising our leaders on their ‘mixed messages’. I mean, seriously, what do people expect? There is no handbook on this. Our leaders are not trained to handle this. No one really is. Sure, we have a huge, well-trained scientific community around the world which can advise, but until we all started to get a handle on this thing, all they could do was advise on theory – and boy, have there been a lot of theories! (Still are …) Unfortunately, for anyone to obtain useable facts and data, Covid-19 has had to transmit and kill first.

Scomo has been criticised for not going in hard enough at times, but I’ve actually come to realise that there can be a noticeable separation between our federal and state parliaments and the laws each can make. Those extra steps do have to be taken by the states – there are limits to what the feds can do.

I’m a swinging voter – so this is not ‘Liberal love’ happening here – but I’ve been impressed with Gladys Berejiklian’s attitude towards all this. That girl – like Jacinda Ardern – has true cajones! She’s determined to cut off the toe to save the leg – and that’s smart thinking when you eventually won’t have the resources to save the leg.

Gladys Berejiklian, Premier of NSW: prepared to do what needs to be done to kill this thing stone dead.

Funnily enough, despite some of the issues we’ve had to face recently, I do think the last few weeks have been handled reasonably well from a people-management point of view. (Sure, there are massive queues at Centrelink and a lot of people are scared about their finances etc, but in terms of actually getting us into lockdown, I think it’s worked well.) It might be sheer accident, but I think the timing of all this has worked well with our psychology as a whole:

Lockdowns 101



We have enough Covid-19 cases in the country for people to see that the graph is on the J-curve – it’s starting to look scary to the Ordinary Joe, but it’s still small enough in actual numbers that we can stomp on it, if we do the right thing. So psychologically, the lockdown has come at the right time to ensure that most people would agree that we need to do it. ‘Compliance will save us.’We’ve seen what’s happened in Wuhan – which was locked down fairly quickly – and in Italy, which wasn’t. So we can see the difference between action and inaction.The lockdown has come in small stages, every few days, giving the bulk of us time to ‘move with it’. There were always those few voices ahead of each stage, calling for more stringent measures, and always those others at the end of the scale saying that each step was too much, but the bulk of the population seemed pretty understanding of each stage as it happened, and so we moved together as a nation, without riots or too much fear.Each stage was linked to an event, like the great toilet-paper shortage of 2020, which scared a lot of people but left most of us wondering ‘Why? Why toilet paper?’ We had time to process the thought of empty shelves, to view those terrible videos of people punching each other out over a pack of poop paper, and time for the manufacturers and the supermarkets to amp up production, to bring in changes to trading hours, and to assure us that we would be fine.Each stage of the lockdown was forecast in the media – I’m convinced each stage was deliberately leaked so that we would get our heads around it before it happened. If it was, it was a great way to stave off panic. Can you imagine if the lockdown had been announced without warning? If you thought the shelves were empty last week … And those brawls between one or two people over loo paper? They would have been full-scale riots over everything! So the little steps towards it were like herding a bunch of toddlers into a room – little step by little step … and then … we’re there!



Show me the money

I have been surprised at the financial stimulus packages that have been offered. I’m still not sure how it’s all going to help, though. I do worry that it’s only going to stave off the inevitable.

As a small business owner who sells a discretionary product, I’ve seen sales dry up over the last four weeks and have had to stand down my two casuals, which was awful (for all of us).

And while it seems that there’s money flying everywhere, not everyone who needs help is going to get it. A partnered mother losing her job may not receive any help if her employed partner is above a certain threshold. How will they afford the basics over the coming months if the partner’s wage paid the mortgage or the rent? There’s a limit to how much they can expect from their landlord or bank.

I believe my business will get a handout, but without sales I will be preserving what I can to cover bills so that I can go back into business in the hope that this is over within a few months. And I’m not sure that’s what the government wants – they want me to spend that money. But if I have no work coming in …

No such thing as a free lunch

And I wonder at the payback. I know there’s a theory that governments just ‘print more money’ but it’s not quite that simple. And a lot of economic damage will be done before this is over – I’m not sure how quickly we’re going to be able to recover from that damage. I also wonder if we won’t be paying for it in higher taxes in the years to come – and in essence, I don’t have a problem with that. Borrow it now, get through the mess, pay it back later.

My other thought is that there will be fraud – and there will also be ‘accidental’ fraud by business owners who receive handouts but don’t apply them the way the government intended, and so what will happen to them? Will they have to pay back anything they’ve received? There are shit storms on the horizon there!

In your dreams

The dream – in my head – would be that by the end of June, or perhaps July at the worst, we haven’t had any new cases for several weeks and the lockdown starts to lift, bit by bit. And as no new cases develop, that by the end of September we’re back to 80% of normal economic production, and nearing 100% by the end of the year. Sadly, I’m sure that there will be deep-seated damage in many areas where some businesses can’t be brought back to life and the flow-on effects of that will scar communities and families here and there.

But one thing’s for certain, over the next fifty years and more, Covid-19 will spawn a thousand novels (wanna write and publish yours while you’re under lockdown? Visit https://indiemosh.com.au #shamelessselfpromotion

If you’re an Aussie author planning on self publishing, then you may have heard the term ‘legal deposit’ during your research. For many authors, the term ‘legal deposit’ seems scary – as if you’ll get into trouble if you don’t do it. So what does it actually mean?

Quite simply, legal deposit means you need to send a copy of your published book to the National Library of Australia (NLA) in Canberra so that your book will always be available for future generations. And depending on the state or territory in which your book was published, you may be required to submit a copy to other libraries as well, depending on whether it’s in print or ebook format.

Do I have to submit my book for legal deposit?

In short, yes, but there’s no actual penalty if you don’t.

If you’ve created your book as a very private document and you haven’t purchased and assigned any ISBNs to it, then you don’t need to carry out legal deposit. (Although under certain circumstances you may choose to.)

However, if you have assigned an ISBN to your book, then you really should complete the legal deposit requirements. And even if you haven’t assigned an ISBN, it’s still great to send a copy to the NLA so that there’s one held in their archives. You just never know – what if a descendant or researcher stumbles across it in a hundred years’ time? They’ll have your ‘voice’ on the page, and you’ve left behind tangible evidence of your existence and your thoughts, no matter the topic. Can you imagine finding a book written by your great-great grandparent? Whether fact or fiction, you could learn so much about them, apart from just the thrill of finding a treasure like that!

One side benefit of legal deposit is that it can help protect the copyright in your work. Legal deposit itself isn’t a copyright registration (we don’t have that in Australia), but it does record when the book was published and received, thus providing evidence of its existence at a certain point in time. (For more on copyright, visit the Copyright Agency here: https://www.copyright.com.au/ )

Plus, I think it’s great that ‘we, the people’ have the chance to put our versions of events on the record, too. Legal deposit means that not just the ‘official record’ of our times is going to form our history, but there will be other views and perspectives available to future historians. So if you’ve written a memoir or research of your own of any kind, that could be invaluable in providing an alternative or corroborative viewpoint on things in the future.

If you haven’t purchased and assigned an ISBN to your book, you’re still encouraged to submit a copy of your book for posterity. The same applies for a private publication. A book doesn’t have to be available to the general public – you’re still welcome to send in a copy of a book which was only distributed amongst family and friends.

How do I submit my book for legal deposit?



Step 1: Prepublication tasks

Your first step is to register your book with the NLA’s Prepublication Data Service just prior to your release date. This applies to ebooks as well, so even if you’re not having a print version, you should still register your book with the Prepublication Data Service.

You don’t want to do it six months out – wait until you’ve got your ducks lined up e.g. editing’s been done, layout/formatting has been done, cover’s been designed and you’re just a week or two away from ordering a printed proof or uploading your ebook to an ebook platform.

Visit the NLA’s Prepublication Data Service site at https://www.nla.gov.au/content/prepublication-data-service and click ‘Apply now’.

You’ll need to supply some basic details such as:

a contact nameyour email addressyour publisher’s name (usually yours unless you’ve registered a business name)your publisher imprint (if you’ve registered a publisher name which is different to your business name)what type of publisher category you fall under (usually Individual / Self)book details such as title, subtitle, ISBN, format, estimate retail price, format, expected year and month of publication, genre, subjects, author and other contributors, other formats – the page leads you through the questions.

Once you’ve completed your application, click ‘Submit’ and then check your email – you should receive a notification within a few minutes summarising a bit about your application and providing you with an application number.

Why should I register my book on the Prepublication database?

Unless you’re creating a truly private publication, you’ll want all the help you can get to market your book – assuming you’d like people to buy it. Registering your book on the Prepublication database is no magic bullet, but it means that information about your book will be made available to more than a thousand Australian libraries and library suppliers, creating greater exposure for it which will help increase its sales potential.

There is no legal requirement to use the Prepublication Data Service, but as it’s a free service you’d be mad not to!

And you can register ebooks for prepublication, too, so it’s not just limited to print books.

Find more information and answers to your questions (FAQs, ‘Is my publication eligible’, etc.) at the Prepublication Data Service here: https://www.nla.gov.au/pds/faqs

Step 2: Post-publication tasks

Once you receive your printed proof and decide that you’re going with a print run, or you’re going to release it as print on demand, that’s when you need to carry out legal deposit.

When you order your initial copies, make sure to add a few extra for legal deposit. You’ll need one copy to send to the NLA, and then at least one more copy for your state or territory library, but some states have other libraries requiring copies, too. Check out your state or territory’s requirements here: https://www.nla.gov.au/legal-deposit/australia-wide

Bear in mind that the state or territory in which the book was published is the state or territory which applies. So it’s not necessarily the state or territory that the author lives in.

Now you just need to get the addresses of the various libraries (at the link above), type up a covering letter stating the title and ISBN of your book and explain that you’re delivering it for legal deposit, and pack and post it. Don’t forget to add your contact details to the letter e.g. email address at a minimum, if not a postal address and/or phone number, so that the libraries can send you a receipt or get in touch if there’s a problem.

My book will only be an ebook, there is no print version

Easy-peasy! You can deposit a copy of your ebook via the NLA’s Electronic Deposit Portal here: https://ned.gov.au/portal/

You will have the choice of making your ebook available for borrowing, or restricting access to library visitors only, so if you’ve released your ebook commercially and don’t want to risk undermining any contract with your ebook retailers, you can choose the level of public access from ‘openly on the internet’ to ‘onsite only within the National Library and applicable State/Territory libraries’. Choosing ‘onsite only’ means the item can be viewed, but not downloaded or printed at any point in time.

What if I’m using a self publishing service?

Some self-publishing facilitators will carry out legal deposit for you, so check with them first – no point in going through the process yourself if they’ve already done it for you!

At IndieMosh, we carry out legal deposit and prepublication registration on behalf of authors using our ISBNs.

Getting the head around it

The steps are pretty simple; it just seems confusing if you’ve never done it before. So, in summary, and assuming you’re not using a self-publishing facilitator who will do the work for you:

When your book is close to release, register it with the National Library’s Prepublication Data Service. Find out more here: https://www.nla.gov.au/content/prepublication-data-service



Once the book has been released:
if it’s only an ebook, then register and upload it to the National Edeposit portal here: https://ned.gov.au/portal/
if it’s only a print book, or if it’s a print and ebook issue, send print copies to the relevant libraries according to this list here: https://www.nla.gov.au/legal-deposit/australia-wide And yes, if you’re in New South Wales, we have the most onerous legal deposit commitment – including the NLA, four libraries in total! But if you’ve had the confidence to write a book, then you should also have the confidence to send it off for posterity.

If you’re thinking of seeing the new Guy Ritchie movie, The Gentlemen, then do yourself a favour and book your tickets now. But a warning – if you’re going to do it for date night, see the movie first. You’ll have plenty to talk about over dinner and won’t be sitting through the movie with a belly full of food and a bladder full of booze while you try to concentrate on what comes next!

Written and directed by Ritchie, from a story he wrote in conjunction with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, I had no idea what to expect from The Gentlemen – other than that it should be entertaining, and probably a bit violent – but I wasn’t disappointed.

The first 20 minutes required a little bit of work – I wasn’t quite sure what was going on or who was who and so had to focus to get my head around the characters and how they inter-related, but after a while I settled into the ‘story-within-a-story’ concept and the bits started to fall into place.

This is a movie which helps actors break out from prior roles. In particular, I think Hugh Grant, Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley from Downton Abbey and Alice Fletcher from Godless) and Henry Golding (Nick Young from Crazy Rich Asians and a presenter on BBC’s The Travel Show) would have had great fun trying out their different dialects, clothing styles and new personalities as they developed their roles. And that was something I really enjoyed about this movie – the way all the actors seemed to enjoy their roles, to relish in them. If the actors aren’t making it look like work, then the whole package is more fun to watch!

A few other things I enjoyed about The Gentlemen:

The business concepts (naturally!