Thomas Hastings and Faithful Ebzery Thomas Hastings and Faithful Ebzery were born to farmers in the small village of Shanagolden, County Limerick. They married in April 1850 in Mitchelstown, County Cork, three days before boarding the ship, Emigrant which left from Plymouth bound non-stop for Moreton Bay. He was 32 and she, 26. He gave his profession on their marriage certificate as being “late of the Irish Revenue Police” and she, a domestic. He resumed the title “farm labourer” label on his entry into Australia. They were most likely part of the Monteagle migration, Shanagolden being part of the estates of Thomas Rice in Western Limerick. They most likely took advantage of the altruism of Lord Monteagle and his second wife who saw migration as a solution to the plight of the Irish during the Potato Famine. Migration appealed to the adventurous and the desperate. As a Revenue policeman, Thomas would have trained in Dublin before being posted outside of his Limerick locality. The...
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At the hairdressers
At the hairdressers I sat in the chair my face directly reflected in the large mirror before me. I am forced to look. There is nowhere else to go. -Here, I’ll take your bag. Upon which she placed my orange cloth bag on the chair on my right, visible but unreachable. Out of the way of the ubiquitous strands of hair that will eventually infiltrate it if it remains where I had dumped it on the floor beside me. -How are you? And I know that she genuinely cares. We have known each other for a long time I answer with the obligatory ‘Fine’. -And the dogs? How are they? She places a black folded towel behind my neck followed by the ritual draping of the upper half of y body with the black material necessary to prevent hairs and dye from decorating my clothes. I’ll have to tell her. -I had to put the old one down last week. I’m missing her. The young one is grieving. So am I. There. It’s out. -Oh, she says with prolonged sympathy and authenticity as shown in her who...
Queensland Winter
On a Queensland Winter's Night (in an old wooden house without heating) Strip. Turn on hot water in shower. Too hot? Too cold? Just right. Under the water. Water pummelling on back and on front. Heaven. Four minutes be damned. Hot tingling skin. Out. A cold front hits me. Quick. Grab that towel. More stimulation as shivering, I rub all over; a Finn rolling in the snow after a sauna. Track suit jarmies. Into bed, under the cool cotton sheets, under the doona, under the alpaca blanket. Stretch out and feel the confrontation of cold meeting warmth; the best part of a cold winter's night in Brisbane.
The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes This is an interview with a pair of my red shoes or rather sandals, a very intimate item of mine. My feet never leave them when they are on. How can they talk, you ask. Well, shoes have tongues, don’t they? And sound percolates through my body, down through my legs and my feet. ****** Interviewer: Hello, shoes. Which shoe should I address? Left, or right? Left shoe: Oh, we swing both to the left and right. Right shoe: Sh...
Irish Lumpers
I exist because of a potato; a potato covered in lumps called a Lumper. Original, eh? Not an oompa loompa but a Lumper. I know that there are many other factors besides these potatoes that have lead to my existence; factors from all over the world: from France to Ireland; from England to Denmark; and finally Australia. However, if the lumper had not come to be, I would not exist. I could have been a Margaret Thorkelsen, whom my mother would have chosen to marry instead of Stanley Charles James Hastings, whose ancestors migrated from a small village in county Limerick called Shangolden in 1850. But Lumpers were and I am. They came originally from Mexico; or somewhere around that part of the world; carried back to other parts of Europe in the holds of ships which had previously taken migrants to the new world, all hoping for a better life. Lumpers existed everywhere throughout Europe. They had one fault: they were susceptible to 'the blight', a disease ...
Grantham Bridge, January 10 and 11th, 2011
GRANTHAM BRIDGE Grantham Bridge was the saving grace of many of the inhabitants of Grantham that January. One farmer had seen the approach of the giant wave coming across the sodden paddocks from the direction of Murphy's Creek. He ran to Grantham village to alert as many of the inhabitants as possible to run to safety and then made ready his boat. He knew a flash flood was approaching. Inhabitants who could, ran towards the railway line and the accompanying railway bridge being the most elevated parts of Grantham. The railway bridge led to the highest part of town where the school and several other houses were situated. In one case, a woman was pulled on to the bridge as she tried to escape the deluge. Cars, and the flotsam from homes, farms, cars, livestock was either washed through the erstwhile roadway or piled up under the bridge. By the next day, news helicopters filmed many aspects of the bridge...a dead black bull wedged amongst the myriad items and bric-a-brac stuck on top...