A trip to Panda Mart

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During my life retail has seen numerous changes: the growth of supermarkets and retail chains, big box discount stores, IKEA, online shopping and more. New to Australia is South Africa-based Panda Mart. They opened their first Australian warehouse outlet in Cranbourne, an outer suburb, 43km (27mi) SE of the Melbourne CBD on February 27th, the occasion being marked by huge crowds necessitating additional security and police attendance.

The store, housed in what was a Masters DIY shed until its closure in 2016, has been described as a bricks-and-mortar Temu. Out of curiosity rather than needing anything, I decided to take a look. A healthy 25-minute walk from Merinda Park station got my step count up to target – not that I need have worried. From outside, the store is a totally unprepossessing sight though press reports say that a large panda mural will shortly adorn the fascia.

Inside it is huge! I walked nearly every aisle, skipping multiple rows of partyware, toys and petware . This took me a full hour, 2,265 steps!

What’s on offer? Think of a mega-size $2/pound shop but much cheaper. No clothes, no food, but you will find furniture. Lots of hardware and tools, housewares, stationery, craft supplies, artificial flowers and much more. They claim to stock 28,000 products. The pricing was, as promised, extraordinary. The base price seems to be 40c (25c US, 20p UK), though the cheapest paintbrushes were 30c.

Having initially decided to buy nothing, just look, I did succumb. My $11.60 spend bought me a premium quality paintbrush (hopefully, yet to be tested), $3.20, a spanner, $1.90, and a LED worklight, $6.50. I bought the last since the pack stated it took 3xAAA batteries and I have (not sure why) a box of 25 looking to be used. Bad news: on opening it up, it actually takes AA batteries – I had to buy some!

Conclusions:

Good: Vast selection of merchandise at unbelievable prices.
Good: See before you buy and no waiting for a mail order package
Good: Unlike Temu you won’t get spammed and there are minimal privacy issues
Bad: For some things, product quality is uncertain. In the first week, Consumer Affairs (Trading Standards) seized lots of merchandise that didn’t meet Australian standards including toys with insecure button batteries and dangerous electrical goods. There’s no excuse for this: they should know what standards apply and have already had multiple product recalls in New Zealand, whose standards are probably very similar to ours. They had lots of cordless power tools: would I trust their chargers and batteries? No. But this will probably change: when I was a child ‘Made in Japan’ was synonymous with junk.
Bad: As with all goods whose prices are too low to believe, you have to wonder about the working conditions and pay of those in the supply chain. That said, how many higher priced products are made in sweatshop conditions with those down the line creaming off the extra.
Threatened?: If Panda Mart builds a large branch chain it’s possibly bad news for Temu, AliExpress and the like, also all the $2 shops, Daiso etc. As I write this, Canadian Dollarama has just bid a generous A$259m for the Australian Reject Shop chain, with the intention of expanding from 390 to 700 stores by 2034, so they obviously think they have nothing to worry about. Kmart should be OK: they’ve worked hard to establish a good reputation for their Anko-branded goods and appliances. Time will tell.

Panda Mart’s Australian presence will double when a second store opens at Preston in Melbourne’s inner north, due to open mid-2025.

Panda Mart, 1280 Thompsons Road, Cranbourne North, 3977

A trip to Benton Rise Farm

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Like most Australians, I buy nearly all my food from my local supermarket. I know that I ought to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables and with the Queen Victoria and South Melbourne markets within walking distance I’ve really no excuse. Further afield, Victoria is home to numerous farmers’ markets and farm shops.

A few weeks ago Channel 9 TV’s Postcards programme featured a farm shop with a difference, Benton Rise Farm. What’s special? The site is now home to a 1955 W-class Melbourne tram and a 1910 ‘Red Rattler’ train carriage which houses the farm shop.

752 W-class trams were built by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) between 1923 and 1956, the majority at the MMTB’s Preston Workshops. Tram 1005 entered service April 1955, then was stored from 2000 to 2009 when it was returned to service, to be permanently withdrawn from service in 2015. In 2019 it was moved to its current site and is set up for children to play in.

Wooden-bodied Tait carriages, 623 in total, were built from 1910 in preparation for the electrification of Melbourne’s suburban railways. Initially they were steam hauled. Between 1917 and 1922 they were converted to run on electric power. They were progressively withdrawn from 1974, the longest-serving (including this one, 256M) lasting to 1984-85, a service life of around 70 years. They’d been banned from the City Loop from 1982 due to the fire hazard presented by their wooden bodies, so spent most of their final years on the Port Melbourne, St Kilda and Sandringham lines.

Both train and tram are – and I’m sure the owners won’t mind me saying this – in poor condition, badly needing some TLC. Hopefully they’ll get it before too long.

As for the farm, there’s a good café where I enjoyed banana bread and coffee. As said above, the railway carriage is home to the farm shop with lots of local produce on offer; I came away with locally-sourced honey and marmalade. Outside, children will enjoy seeing the sheep and goats, and there’s a playground and space to have a picnic.

Farm address: 150 Coolart Rd, Tuerong VIC 3915

Farm website

Mamma knows South review

Hobart Revisited

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On January 5th I boarded Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth for my fourth, and possibly last, time. This cruise, five nights, sailed from Sydney to Hobart, then returning via the magnificent scenery of Great Oyster Bay and the Freycinet National Park.

Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania, was first settled by the British in 1804. I’d been there twice before. My first trip was by air in 2018 when I got to see most of the sights – Mount Wellington, the Cascades Brewery, the Female Factory (women’s prison), Mawson’s Huts museum, MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) and more. My second visit was as part of my 2020 Queen Elizabeth cruise, the day being spent on an excursion to the one-time penal colony of Port Arthur.

This time, after a good breakfast (please don’t tell my GP about the sausage, egg, bacon and the rest!), I disembarked with no set plan for the day. Cruise ships visiting Hobart dock at Macquarie Wharf, just a short walk from the city centre. This season Hobart is due to see 93 cruise ship visits. On cruise ship days the terminal is home to a well-supported Makers Market.

As we left the terminal several operators were offering excursions to those who weren’t already booked on cruise company tours. As it was leaving shortly, I signed up for Gray Line’s 90-minute no-stop tour of all the key attractions as a way of refreshing my memory of my previous visits. Sitting on the open top deck it was cool and windy and I was glad I’d taken my rain jacket.

At the end of the bus tour I walked up to St David’s Cathedral which I’d not previously visited. Construction of the first church on this site began in 1817; the present cathedral, designed by English architect George Frederick Bodley, was consecrated in 1874. The tower is a later addition, only completed in 1936. Like many sandstone buildings in Hobart it still looks good, a reflection on Tasmania having some of the cleanest air in the world. The superb stained-glass windows were made by Burlison and Grylls, London, at the time one of the most highly regarded producers of stained glass in Britain.

Then on to the Maritime Museum which absorbed me so much I forgot to take any pics of the exhibits. After a late lunch I walked up to the Botanical Gardens, established in 1818. The uncertain morning weather had given way to bright sunshine and I thoroughly enjoyed the walk and time in the gardens. Then back to the ship.

Why perhaps was this my last cruise on Queen Elizabeth? For the last few years she has been homeported in Melbourne and Sydney during the Australian summer, offering a dozen or more short cruises.

From 2026 the only Cunard visits to Australia will be when one or more of our ports is on a world cruise itinerary – for example in March 2026, as part of 108-night world cruise, Queen Mary 2 will call at Sydney, Brisbane, Yorkey’s Knob and Darwin. The most expensive suite is $640,998 (US$402,219; £326,617) – still available as I write this! Alternatively, slum it in an inside cabin, just $47,510.

FDR’s Splendid Deception

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FDR’s Splendid Deception book cover

Last month I wrote about how I came to get interested in Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. My current project, to read all my New Deal books once more and then dispose of them, continues.

I’ve just finished another book, somewhat different to the others, FDR’s Splendid Deception, by Hugh Gregory Gallagher. The subtitle explains: “The moving story of Roosevelt’s massive disability and the intense efforts to hide it from the public.” The author contracted polio at the age of nineteen and has been wheelchair-bound ever since, so brings an understanding to the subject that others might not have.

Franklin Roosevelt was born in 1882 to a well-heeled family; Theodore Roosevelt, later to be President (1901-09), was a fifth cousin. FDR was destined for success and in 1913 at 31 he became Assistant Secretary to the Navy, serving in this capacity through WW1. James Cox selected FDR as his running mate for the 1920 presidential election but lost to Warren Harding.

Then disaster struck. In 1921 FDR contracted polio, which left his legs paralysed. His political ambitions were done for. Or were they?

Urged on by his wife and close advisor Louis Howe, FDR resolved to continue in public life. He laboriously taught himself to walk short distances while wearing iron braces on his legs. Until his death he would spend much of his time at Warm Springs, Georgia, believing in the recuperative powers of the waters.

FDR got his big break in 1928 when the governor of New York State, Al Smith, resigned so as to run for president. He persuaded FDR to nominate for the governorship. FDR won by a whisker, then by a more than comfortable majority in 1930. Having shown that his disability was no obstacle to political leadership, he won the Democratic nomination for the 1932 presidential election, then won the election by a handsome margin (see below).

Those who know something about FDR probably think first of his speeches and his wireless fireside chats, his wonderful delivery accentuating his fine choice of words, for example:

I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. [First inaugural address 1933]
The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself [First inaugural address 1933]
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. [Second inaugural address 1937]
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. [Second inaugural address 1937]
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

Could a wheelchair-bound person win a presidential election today? I doubt it especially if their politics were at variance from the mainstream media.

But things were different then. The picture on the front cover of the book is one of only two known to exist showing FDR in a wheelchair. To quote Gallagher’s book (pp.93,94):

During his first campaign for governor, FDR made it a rule that photographers were not to take pictures of him looking crippled or helpless. His actual words, said to some newsreel cameramen taking his picture as he was being helped out of a car in 1928, were “no movies of me getting out of the machine, boys.”

And from then on, remarkably, no such photographs were taken. It was an unspoken code, honoured by the White House photography corps. If, as happened once or twice, one of its members sought to violate it and try and sneak a picture of the President in his chair, one or another of the older photographers would “accidentally” knock the camera to the ground, or otherwise block the picture. Should the president himself notice someone in the crowd violating the interdiction, he would point out the offender and the Secret Service would move in, seize the camera and expose the film. This remarkable voluntary censorship was rarely violated.

Did the press’s self-imposed censorship matter? For the first three elections arguably not. FDR’s physical limitations did not materially affect his ability to serve as president. Indeed several surveys note him as one of the USA’s best presidents but by 1944 things were different. The demands of wartime leadership had taken their toll. FDR was not a well man as many could see. Key advisors Tommy Corcoran and Ben Cohen decided to tell their beloved leader that he should stand down and not contest the 1944 election, but when it came to it Corcoran couldn’t get the words out and Cohen, the ‘parfit gentil knight’* of the New Deal, chickened out and sent FDR a letter, which was ignored. FDR would contest and win the election but his fourth term ended just months later with his death on April 12, 1945 aged just 63.

Joseph Lash, Dealers and Dreamers p.452

Electoral College votes (FDR/others) and share of popular vote:

1932: 472/59, 57.4%;

1936: 523/8, 60.8%;

1940: 449/82, 54.7%

1944: 432/99, 53.4%

The book: FDR’s Splendid Deception, by Hugh Gregory Gallagher, Vandamere Press 1994, ISBN 0-918339-33-2

Remembering World War 1

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November 11th 2024 – 106 years from the signing of the Armistice

Australia was more than a little involved in World War 1. Over 421,809 Australians served in the military with 331,781 serving overseas. 60,000 Australians lost their lives and 137,000 were wounded. These were all people who chose to serve King and Country: referendums on conscription were held in 1916 and 1917; both failed.

Across Australia, as in the UK, you’ll find war memorials everywhere, most usually in the form of stone pillars or honour boards listing the names of the fallen or those who served. ANZAC Day – 25th April, the date of the first Gallipoli landing – is an important day on our Australian calendar.

On this post I’ve pulled out a few photos of mine that show some unusual war memorials.

The first two photos were taken at Lakes Entrance Avenue of Honour in Gippsland (SE Victoria) when I visited in December 2021. In 1924 twenty-six Monterey Cypress pines were planted along the Esplanade to honour local soldiers who were killed In action in WW1. By the 1990s many of these trees were dying. Six stumps were preserved, with local chainsaw artist John Brady commissioned to carve memorial images in 1998.

Twenty-two years old, English-born John Simpson Kirkpatrick was an unlikely figure to become a national hero. He enlisted in the AIF, expecting this would give him the chance to get back to England; instead, he found himself at ANZAC Cove on 25 April 1915, and was killed less than four weeks later.

Famously, Simpson used a small donkey to carry men down from the front line, often exposing himself to fire. The bravery of this “man with the donkey” soon became the most prominent symbol of Australian courage and tenacity on Gallipoli.

The second, third and fourth pictures commemorate WW1 nurses. The second is another of the Lakes Entrance carvings.

The third, taken December 2021, of one of the Devenish silos, shows a modern day combat medic and a nurse from WW1.

The fourth is of the Lemnos memorial, Albert Park, Melbourne. It was unveiled on the 8th August 2015 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Australian nurses’ arrival on Lemnos, a Greek island, on the 8th August 1915 and was the first commemorative memorial dedicated to honouring the role of Lemnos in the Gallipoli Campaign to be erected outside of Lemnos in Greece. The memorial is located near Port Melbourne from where Australia’s diggers and nurses departed during the First World War.

Almost every one of the 50,000 Australian diggers who served at Gallipoli received medical care or rest on Lemnos. Many of those who arrived ill and wounded recovered with the care of Australia’s nurses. Amongst the over 1,300 Allied service personnel buried in Lemnos’ war cemeteries are over 200 Australian and New Zealand war dead.

The Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, who got this memorial erected, hold an annual commemorative service at the memorial to commemorate and raise awareness of the role of Lemnos in Australia’s Anzac story,

My last picture, taken last month, is of a memorial in Victory Park, Ascot Vale, Melbourne. The plaque reads:

This statue was commissioned by Women Caring for Veterans of War Inc.
In Honour of the Enduring Sacrifice made by Women who cared for Veterans of World War 1
Unveiled on 29th August 2015

We will remember them

Ickes’ People’s Peace

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The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

Last time I wrote about Harold Ickes, FDR’s Interior Secretary. The last chapter of Ickes’ 1943 ‘Autobiography of a Curmudgeon’ is titled ‘A People’s Peace’. He yearns for a peace that comes from the ground up rather than being imposed from above and suggests the following principles:

First : The right to think and speak and print freely.

Second: the right to worship according to the dictates of one’s own conscience.

Third: the right of freedom from discrimination on account of race or creed or colour.

Fourth: The right of adult citizenship which means the right to vote on terms of equality with all others.

Fifth: The right to work at a fair wage that will provide a living, with something over for leisure and modest luxuries.

Sixth: The right to an education up to one’s ability to absorb and use that education.

Seventh: The right to create for oneself such happiness as maybe within one’s capacity.

Eighth: The right to move freely and to act independently, consistent with the same rights in others.

Ninth: The right to security — to financial security and to physical security including the right of preventative and of curative medicine.

Tenth: The right to justice without fear or favour and at the lowest possible cost.

Eleventh: The right to free government of one’s own choosing.

Twelfth: The right to freedom from servitude to unfair and undemocratic special privilege.

Thirteenth: The right to be taxed fairly for the support of the government on an equitable basis as between the richest and the poorest.

Fourteenth: The right to an equal opportunity under the law.

Fifteenth: The right to bring international criminals before the bar of an international court.

Sixteenth: The right to live while recognizing the obligation to let live.

Harold Ickes: Pilgrim, Warrior or Curmudgeon?

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Back in 1991 I was in a mess. My software business was losing money. I was deep in debt, working all hours, thrashing around like a drowning swimmer. Then a friend gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received. “You’re doing yourself no good;” she said, “each week you need to take some time off work. But if you decide to do this, every week there will be some good reason why you can’t. You need to find something that forces you to take time out, whatever else is going on.”

Just then my local college (West London Institute of Higher Education as was) was running ads in my local paper, “Study for a degree, two evenings a week.” Without thinking too hard, I signed up, subject ‘Business and Computer Studies’. Unlike my first degree, this was a modular degree, made up of 18 modules each taking half a year. Full time students would take three at a time, three years; part time students, two, so four and a half years.

An extra twist was that first-year students had to take two non-cognate modules to broaden their education. I chose ‘Islam and Judaism’ and ‘American History 101’. Having really been engaged by the latter, I signed up for a further American Studies module ‘Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal’ even though this would not count towards my degree. One of my better calls.

Righteous Pilgrim

Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) served as US president from 1933-1945. He died in office on April 12th 1945, just months after winning his fourth election [the two-term limit came into force in 1951]. His presidency brought many new people to the fore. One, my focus here, was Harold LeClaire Ickes, Interior Secretary, one of two cabinet members to serve through FDR’s entire term (the other being Frances Perkins, Labor Secretary). T.H.Watkins’ biography runs to 864 pages (+86 pages of footnotes) so I can only pull out a few points of interest.

Ickes’ personal life was worthy of a soap opera. He was born in Pennsylvania, 1874, had a somewhat challenging childhood. On his mother’s death, he, aged 16, moved to Chicago to live with an aunt while he worked his way through university. As an initially impecunious journalist he went to live with James and Anna Wilmarth Thompson. He had an affair with Anna and after her marriage to James broke up, married her. It was not a happy union; were his multiple affairs a cause of the unhappiness or a response to it? In 1935 Anna was killed in a car crash. Her wealth passed to Harold, leaving her children with nothing. On stepson Wilmarth’s suicide a year later, Ickes pulled strings to get the police to destroy an incriminating suicide note. All rather unsavoury.

And then, now in his sixties, he fell for the attractive Jane Dahlman, younger sister of Wilmarth’s wife and 39 years his junior. In 1938 the two of them travelled separately to Dublin, Ickes using a false name, where they were married. Finally this man, who had lived such a rollercoaster life, found security and true happiness. He died in 1952, aged 77. Jane died of heart failure in 1972, aged just 59.

Roosevelt’s Warrior

Politically, Ickes was initially a Republican, moving to support Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose campaign. During WW1, 1917-18, he served with the YMCA in France. Subsequently he was actively involved in Chicago politics, but was unknown nationally until 1933.

The 1932 presidential election took place during the depths of the great depression. On being elected and knowing the huge challenges ahead, FDR was keen to assemble a cabinet drawn from across the political spectrum, one that could get things done. The post of Secretary of the Interior was offered to several possibles including Hiram Johnson, a Republican Senator who had switched his support to FDR, but Johnson was uninterested. He, however, recommended an old ally, Ickes. At an age when many would be thinking of retirement, Ickes’ time had come.

Ickes had never even met Roosevelt when summoned to New York. His autobiography records FDR’s words after their first meeting:

“Mr Ickes, you and I have been speaking the same language for the last 20 years and we have the same outlook. I’m having difficulty finding the Secretary of the Interior. I want a man who can stand on his own feet. I particularly want a western man. Above all things I want a man who is honest and I have about come to the conclusion that the man I want is Harold L. Ickes of Chicago.”

The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

History records Ickes as someone who could be difficult to work with, in his own words, a curmudgeon. In the foreword of his autobiography he notes: “If, in these pages, I have hurled an insult at anyone, be it known that such was my deliberate intent, and I may as well state flatly now that it will be useless and a waste of time to ask me to say that I am sorry.”

During his early years in office Ickes was best known to the public for his work as the director of the Public Works Administration, a New Deal agency. Billions of dollars were spent on building much-needed infrastructure whilst providing employment. Schemes like this had a long history of rorts, but under Ickes’ watch, corruption was all but eliminated.

One of Interior’s responsibilities of particular interest to Ickes were the USA’s National Parks. During his secretaryship parks were improved, extended and new ones added.

Ickes was a strong supporter of both civil rights and civil liberties. He had been the president of the Chicago National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Under his watch the Interior Department HQ’s rest rooms and canteen were desegregated as were facilities in National Parks. [Native American] Indian affairs were given a new importance.

Ickes’ finest moment came in 1939. African American contralto Marian Anderson wanted to perform at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall but the DAR refused; only white performers were acceptable. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was outraged and resigned from the DAR: “I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist … You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed.”

What to do? Anderson’s manager, Sol Hurok, persuaded Ickes to make the Lincoln Memorial available for an open-air concert. It took place on Easter Sunday, April 9, with Ickes as MC. He spoke for two minutes making “the best speech I have ever made.” In introducing the lady who needed no introduction, he told the 75,000-strong audience:

“Genius, like justice, is blind. For Genius with the tip of her wings has touched this woman, who, if it had not been for the great mind of Jefferson, if it had not been for the great heart of Lincoln, would not be able to stand here among us, a free individual in a free land. Genius draws no color line. She has endowed Marian Anderson with such a voice as lifts any individual above his fellows and is a matter of exultant pride to any race.”

Space does not allow me any consideration of Ickes’ secretaryship during WW2. Notably he banned the supply of helium to the Hitler government, effectively bringing German airship development to a halt. At the height of WW2 Ickes held down 16 major jobs, e.g., Solid Fuels Administrator, Coordinator of Fisheries, Petroleum Administrator etc.

Following FDR’s death in office, Harry Truman, the new president, reappointed Ickes as Interior Secretary. In early 1946 a suggestion was made to Ickes that Truman’s campaign funds could benefit by $300,000 if Interior dropped its opposition to an offshore oil prospecting proposal. Ickes, “Honest Harold”, of course refused to be bought. When a Senate confirmation hearing asked about this, Ickes confirmed it was true. Truman’s response was to suggest that Ickes’ memory might have been faulty. This brought a fiercely worded resignation letter:

“… I don’t care to stay in an Administration where I am expected to commit perjury for the sake of the party…. I do not have a reputation for dealing recklessly with the truth …”

And with that Ickes’ time in government came to an end. He lived out his last six years at the farm he and Jane had bought, Headwaters Farm, near Olney, Maryland.

The books:

Autobiography of a Curmudgeon: by the man himself, 1943
Righteous Pilgrim: T.H.Watkins, 1990, ISBN 0-8050-0917-5 – the definitive biography
Roosevelt’s Warrior: Harold L. Ickes and the New Deal: Jeanne Nienaber Clarke, 1996, 0-8018-5094-0 – mainly covers 1933-1939 period

At the Foot of the Cherry Tree

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‘At the Foot of the Cherry Tree’ cover

My first four-week trip to Australia in 1986 was going to be my last one. Life had other plans though and in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1996 I revisited Melbourne, staying in the eastern suburb of Box Hill. The motel I stayed in was fine at the time; it now generates the most extraordinarily bad reviews (‘I would rather sleep homeless in a warzone that in this hellhole’)! In those days, Box Hill was the Korean capital of Melbourne; it’s changed significantly since then with a number of high-rise towers being built in recent years and Mandarin Chinese now being the single most spoken language in Box Hill homes.

Roll the clock forward to 2008 and I moved to Australia, not to continue the suburban life I’d left behind but for a new life in a Melbourne Docklands high-rise. Box Hill still interested me so in time I joined the Box Hill Historical Society. Our monthly talks have covered a wide range of subjects. I’ve particularly enjoyed those from members describing growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, comparing my UK experience with theirs.

July 2024’s talk was one that I went to unsure as to how interesting it would be. How wrong I was! Our guest speaker, Alli Parker, told us about her historical novel, At the Foot of the Cherry Tree. It’s a novelisation of the true story of Australia’s first Japanese war bride, Alli’s grandmother, who came to Melbourne after World War II, but only after a long hard struggle.

Alli’s grandfather, Gordon Parker (b.1928), the second of seven children, grew up in Ringwood, 10km east of Box Hill, and at 18 volunteered to serve in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) who were stationed in Kure, 20km SE of Hiroshima. Following the end of WW2, BCOF was responsible for supervising demilitarisation. On his first day there, he met Nobuko Sakuramoto (“Cherry”), a 16-year-old atomic bomb survivor, who was employed as an orderly in the BCOF camp. Despite strict anti-fraternisation rules between the Australians and Japanese, the two became friends and fell in love.

As Gordon’s service came to an end, he decided that he wanted to bring Cherry back to Melbourne as his war bride. Opposition came from all sides. Many Japanese wanted nothing to do with those they saw as responsible for the horrific bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Australians, like other allies, were all too mindful of the treatment that had been meted out to their POWs by the Japanese. Almost no one could understand why Gordon should do something so stupid as to get involved with a Japanese girl, let alone marry her – twice, at a Sinto shrine in 1948, then at a Japanese Anglican church in 1950 after he discovered the White Australia policy wouldn’t let her into the country.

The defeat of Labor in 1949 had led to a change of immigration minister: Arthur Calwell, a staunch proponent of the White Australia policy, was replaced by Harold Holt. Holt continued with the White Australia policy but “added his human touch and flexibility to hardship cases.” The press carried articles sympathetic to Gordon and Cherry’s plight which evoked a lot of public support, though not from everyone.

And then … At then end of 1951 Cherry and children were granted visas to come to Australia. Note everyone cheered: ‘Distressed Father’ of Sale wrote to the Herald: “As a father of two sons fighting in Korea, I protest against Mr. Gordon Parker being given approval to bring his Eurasian children and Japanese wife here. We are fighting right now for the right of whites to live in their own country. We do not want Eurasian children to mix with our children in schools or anywhere else.”

The voyage to Sydney took a month. The press were in force to record the arrival of Australia’s first Japanese war bride. Trans Australia Airlines had laid on limousine to take them to the airport for the flight to Melbourne.

At the Parker home in Ringwood friends and family were gathered. A huge pile of cards and gifts from unknown well-wishers showed the better side of Australian society. On the other side, the threatening and abusive phone calls and letters would continue for months: Cherry was not allowed to answer the phone or open the mail.

Don’s father addressed the crowd. These may not have been his actual words, but they were his sentiments:

‘First of all, I’d like to thank all of you for being here today to celebrate Cherry’s arrival home. It is marvellous to see all of our family and friends here to welcome the three additions to our family in Cherry, Margaret and Kathleen. Plus the little one on the way.’

‘Today is a signiﬁcant day in so many ways. It marks our family being ﬁnally reunited. It marks a change in government thinking as to who is permitted to live among all of us as our neighbours. And it marks a fundamental truth in that the power of love is stronger than any of us could have imagined. My son fell in love. Everyone told him it was the wrong type of love. His fellow soldiers. The Army. The government. But Gordon, channelling a level of stubbornness that can only be inherited from both myself and my wife, refused to listen. Why should the government decide whom he could marry?’

‘So Gordon fought. And he kept faith. Even in the face of impossible odds, he never gave up. Why? ‘Because he loved his wife, his two daughters, his third unborn child. He never stopped believing that he had a right to bring his family home. He never stopped ﬁghting. And here we are. His belief changed a ﬁfty-year-old immigration policy, a policy some would argue is carved in stone, to allow his family to be here today with all of us. It is my deepest wish that today be only the beginning of a long and happy life for both of you.’

And so it was. Gordon died in 2010, bringing this 62-year-old love affair to a close. In 1957 Cherry became the first Asian person to be granted Australian citizenship, though the White Australia policy would only be formally abolished in 1975. Tragically, in 1958 Gordon’s father, Harry, was killed by a drunken driver. His contribution to civic life is marked by the H.E.Parker reserve in Heathmont being named after him.

There’s so much more to this story. I’d encourage you to buy and read the book. You’ll be moved to tears by the tales of love and kindness, cruelty and prejudice. It was originally conceived as a screenplay and may yet become a film.

The book: At the Foot of the Cherry Tree by Alli Parker, pub. 2023 by Harper Collins Australia, ISBN 9781460763520

Life in Box Hill, one of Australia’s strongest Chinese communities (video 2:14):

Alli Parker talks about her book at the Leaf Bookshop (video 17:46)

Alli Parker talks about her book: Better Reading podcast (video 32:20)

Warm welcome arranged for Japanese wife (Australian Women’s Weekly, July 1952)

Portarlington by ferry

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Portarlington is a small bayside town (2021 pop. 4436) on the Bellarine Peninsula, 104 km (64 miles) from Melbourne Docklands by road, just 45km (28 mi.) over water.

Earlier this month some of my neighbours and I spent a day in Portarlington, taking advantage of the Port Phillip Ferries ‘Grand Day Out’ package which covers the return ferry journey from Docklands to Portarlington fare and lunch with an included drink at the Grand Hotel. Helped by beautiful weather we had a great day. After lunch the rest of our party went on the optional (free) winery trip; I went for a very pleasant walk enjoying the sunshine.

The ferry

In contrast to Sydney most of Melbourne’s bayside settlements have from early days been well served by rail. An 1892 proposal to build a railway to Portarlington was rejected: “the Sectional Committee do not think the line is justified. The roads throughout the district are very good, and conveyance to market cheap and convenient. On one side of the district traversed there is the Drysdale railway station, on the Geelong and Queenscliff line, while two lines of well appointed steamers call at Portarlington daily, and furnish a cheap and direct communication with the Melbourne market.” The steamers would continue to operate until the 1940s when better road transport took over.

In 2016 a new outfit, Port Phillip Ferries, started a ferry service between Wyndham Harbour in Werribee South and Melbourne Docklands using a 400-seat, 35-metre EnviroCat ferry built in 2011 as a crew-transfer vessel for Gladstone LNG. The patronage was low, most potential passengers sticking with the existing Werribee train service. Undeterred, Port Phillip Ferries decided to run to Portarlington instead. A look at the map shows that this makes a lot more sense. The new service started in August 2016. Two purpose-built Incat fast catamaran ferries, Bellarine Express (2017) and Geelong Flyer (2019) now run the service. They are 36 metres long and can take just over 400 passengers. The maximum service speed is 28 knots or about 52kph.

Journey’s end

At Docklands the ferry originally docked on the south side of Victoria Harbour. Subsequently a café, t/a Off with the Ferries, located at the harbour end became the terminus, offering refreshments and shelter for a limited number of passengers. Then in 2022 this was replaced by a full-service terminal.

At the Portarlington end, docking was originally at an open jetty. Significant upgrades were made to the harbour in 2017: the existing northern breakwater was extended and a new eastern breakwater constructed, thus greatly increasing the sheltered water area. A $10 million upgrade to Portarlington Pier in 2022 provided a covered walkway along the pier.

The journey

Initially the ferry operation was handicapped by the low speed limit applying to the lower section of the Yarra river, largely to prevent bank erosion from vessel wash. From December 2017 a trial allowed the ferry to operate at an increased maximum speed of 15 knots on the section below the West Gate Bridge. Between the West Gate and Bolte bridges, the speed limit of 6 knots was left unchanged. Since then an exemption has been granted allowing the ferries to operate at 15 knots subject to visibility and other conditions. The schedule time is now one hour ten minutes; Google Maps gives a drive time of around an hour and a half.

And finally … Portarlington itself

Given the small population, it’s not too surprising that there’s not too much on offer. Somehow I managed to miss the Portarlington Mill, now a museum. The Grand Hotel, where we had lunch, is one of the town’s most prominent buildings. It was originally built in 1888. In 2019 it was purchased by the Little Group, parent company of Port Phillip Ferries and has since been the subject of a $10 million refurbishment. After lunch I walked along the foreshore, first in an easterly direction, then westerly until I came to the miniature railway track (trains run on Sundays). Then back to the pier for the ferry home.

Trial by Jury

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Among the musical works I enjoy are Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas. My first encounter with them was their 1875 ‘Trial by Jury’. The plot concerns a “breach of promise of marriage” lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of light-hearted satire.

In 1881 The Graphic noted that when considering such cases, “the Court has to decide whether any promise has ever been made, and this entails the reading of many love-letters which, however amusing to people in general, cannot but be exceedingly painful to both of the parties concerned, while occasionally it is an absolute waste of public time.” One such case, in early 1906, concerned New Malden (Surrey) undertaker Frederick Paine, then aged 35.

Was this sad case of interest to anyone outside the NW Surrey area? Apparently so: amongst the many newspapers carrying the story were the Hartlepool Daily Mail, Drogheda Conservative, Derby Daily Telegraph and Halifax Daily Guardian. The Dublin Evening Mail helpfully told its readers that Mr. Paine was “a gentleman of very ample proportions and a gentle voice” whilst Laura Mills was a “young lady of great literary gifts”. The Belper News rated it an amusing breach of promise case. Most news reports ran to several hundred words (probably from agency copy), but the Surrey Comet’s report ran to nearly 3,000!

Reynolds News, Sunday 04 February 1906, reported the case thus:

LAUNDRESS OBTAINS DAMAGES FOR BREACH OF PROMISE

In the King’s Bench Division on Monday. before Mr. Justice Darling, and a jury, Miss Laura Charlotte Mills now of Merton-road, Southfield, sued Mr. Frederick Owen [William] Paine, an undertaker and house and estate agent. of New Malden, Surrey, for damages for breach of promise of marriage.

Defendant pleaded that the relations between him and Miss Mills were purely platonic. Counsel for the plaintiff stated that the latter assisted her brother in a laundry, and defendant in partnership with her mother, carrying on the business of an undertaker, ironmonger. and house agent. The parties became acquainted in 1894, where they were both living at the time. He became “struck with her,” said counsel, and asked her to marry him. The reaction came in May, 1904, after “hundreds of letters” had passed between the lovers, and the undertaker had put off the marriage several times. He became very cold and terminated the engagement.

The lady’s counsel then gave the Court a number of glimpses into the voluminous correspondence of the pair. In one of the first the swain signed himself, “Scorcher.” ”

“A Lot of Humbug”

Here is a note dated January 4, 1901 :

My Dear – I expect you will be looking for a letter from me, so I must not disappoint you. I well know what it is waiting for the post coming in. I think there is nothing more trying.

I have a very bad headache. I have been to chapel twice and church once this week. At the latter I was present at a christening. It struck me as being a lot of humbug, and I wondered whether I should ever be called upon to play a similar part in a similar ceremony. It was the first baby of a newly-married couple. The Vicar … said it was a beautiful baby, and ever so good.—

With love, yours faithfully. FRED

A letter of his, in a different strain, ran thus. Its date was May 25.1905 :-

Madame, I have received a letter from your solicitor. l am astonished at audacity. After all the kindness and sympathy I have shown you, and after all I have done, you threaten to blackmail me because you failed to inveigle me to marry you. Since you abuse what intended for a purely platonic friendship, I feel justified in making use of your letters, all of which I have kept and also if I find certain relatives are assisting are you, I shall feel justified in giving them certain statements you made concerning their moral character.

Mr. Moyses, for defendant, said Mr. Paine would deny that he made a promise to marry. He was an undertaker, and a funeral was more in his line than a marriage. In the witness box Mr. Paine emphatically denied that he ever made a promise. The jury, after deliberating for a quarter of an hour, awarded plaintiff £50 damages and costs.

Two things surprise me about this case:

Firstly, before writing this piece I would have expected such cases to be the preserve of the upper and upper middle classes, perhaps where an engagement had been announced in The Times or The Lady and then broken off, but here we have a laundry assistant and undertaker in the High Court. Virtually all the cases thrown up by a search on ‘Breach of Promise’ in the British Newspaper Archive concern ‘ordinary’ people: a housekeeper and baker, a nurse and grocer, a parlourmaid and electrician and so on. Confining the search to ‘London Evening Standard’ and ‘1906’ pulls up 125 reports, no doubt all lapped up by a prurient audience.

Secondly, the verdict. In his summing up his Lordship said that “in the letters there was not one word about marriage. If there was a promise of marriage it was remarkable that it was not mentioned in the letters.” I read this as a strong hint to the jury to dismiss the claim, but they didn’t. The £50 damages (+ costs) would have equated to around a year’s wages for Miss Mills, a not insubstantial amount.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. About what happened to Laura Mills. I know nothing. Do you? Frederick Paine went on to marry but the marriage ended in divorce. On his death in 1945 his undertaking business, then one of the largest in the country passed to his sister, then in turn to London Necropolis, Alliance Property, Great Southern Group, SCI and then Dignity plc. Breach of promise lawsuits in UK were abolished from 1 January 1971 (More).

Tony Bryer

Bits and pieces from my life

A trip to Panda Mart

A trip to Benton Rise Farm

Hobart Revisited

FDR’s Splendid Deception

Remembering World War 1

Ickes’ People’s Peace

Harold Ickes: Pilgrim, Warrior or Curmudgeon?

At the Foot of the Cherry Tree

Portarlington by ferry

The ferry

Journey’s end

The journey

And finally … Portarlington itself

Trial by Jury