Haveachat with Les Shipp

by Les Shipp

out ok but it turned out to be much the same. He had just swapped cities. He did his best to make it work but the nightmare of what happened in London kept coming back. He found it even harder to have a personal life after the shock rejection he experienced in London. He stuck it out for some time but in the end he knew it couldn’t go on. He was in his forties and much too young to retire so he arranged to have time off while he recuperated. He had visited northern Queensland some time before and thought it would be a good place to find peace.

  He found a farm on a small island just off the mainland. It was ideal for him as it had a cottage and everything he needed for a quiet life in it. He fell in love with the place as soon as he arrived there and felt it was his piece of paradise. He was the only inhabitant on the island so wasn’t going to be bothered with neighbours. He bought a motor boat to travel to the mainland for supplies and a canoe that he planned to paddle around the island in.

  There was a mountain on the island that he loved to climb and look out on the beautiful scenery at sunset. He had his music with him that he enjoyed as he sat around a campfire at night with a glass of wine. The paddling kept him very fit and he had taken up painting which he found he not only enjoyed but was very good at. What a life he had, not missing his highflying life one bit. This was going to be it for him, he didn’t need anything or anyone to make his life more complete.

  After many happy years on the island he found he was becoming tired very quickly and was subject to bad headaches. Sometime later he thought he had better have a check-up with the doctor on the mainland. Not good news the doctor said after many tests. “You have an inoperable brain tumour. “ Joe asked what the prognoses was. The doctor advised he would have to leave the island and be close to care as he didn’t have long before he went blind and wouldn’t be able to look after himself for the few months he had left.

  Joe went back to his island and thought what the rest of his life would be like. After a sumptuous seafood meal and a couple of glasses of his best wine he launched his canoe. As the light faded on his paradise, he quietly paddled out into the moonlight night. His canoe washed up on a beach some days later.

  WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN.

  Bill had inherited a vast cattle property in the Northern Territory from his father. Up until his father’s death he had worked beside him, and knew what was ahead. During his school days he had attended a boy’s boarding school in Adelaide so he knew there was another life outside the property but he loved Bonny Downs as much as his father had. There were many ups and downs on the land and when things were getting very tough his father always said, “ Don’t worry son, the wheel will turn for the better, all you’ve got to do is wait till your boat comes in.” In his twenties Bill never forgot his father’s saying after he was killed in a horse accident. Alone on Bonny Downs, Bill had many moments of shear loneliness. He only had the company of itinerate stockmen who came to work for him but they never stayed long because of the isolation. The nearest neighbour was two hundred miles away so he only met up with them if there was a race meeting at Birdsville. That was a journey and a half for him to get there.

  His mother had left when he was only eight years old so he didn’t have a female figure to guide him. His only memory of his mother was of a beautiful lady with a soft caring voice. His father had explained to him when he grew older that the isolation and loneliness had driven her away.

  After many hard years of drought, the weather took a turn for the better and Bill enjoyed several productive years that brought him in enough capital to buy and learn to fly his own small plane. This changed his life completely. He was no longer so isolated and he could pop over to Birdsville and down to Alice Springs, no bother at all. Most of the surrounding properties had airstrips on them so he was able to drop in on neighbours, who always made him welcome, as was the way of the outback people. Not only was he able to visit people but he was also able to run his property more efficiently.

  Now in his thirties he found he was still lonely in spite of his new found wings. He thought he should do something about providing Bonny Downs with the next generation. He thought the best way to meet a suitable lady was to go on an overseas tour, that’s what everyone else did. He had a wonderful tour and enjoyed every minute of it. He was a good looking young man and had no trouble attracting the ladies, some of which became a little serious. He was a practical man and when he weighed up the possibilities he couldn’t see any of the ladies in their six inch heels and tight skirts enjoying life with him back home. He put the whole exercise down to a great holiday and that was all it was. Back home, life for Bill went on as usual and he had put the idea of a Mrs Bill on hold for now. One of his neighbours had a governess to tutor their children and Bill had met her briefly a few times but hadn’t really spoken to her as her job was away with the children. Sally, the governess was at the end of her employment as the children were off to boarding school soon. The neighbours were very fond of Sally and were sorry to see her go so they planned a big party in her honour and Bill was one of the guests.

  When he arrived at the party, Sally was dressed in her best and looked a picture. Bill wondered why he hadn’t noticed her before. He found he was really able to talk with her and they hit it off so well Bill decided here was the girl for him, under his nose all the time. He knew if he didn’t want to lose her he would have to get a move on. Sally wasn’t due to leave for a couple of weeks and Bill was a visitor for most of the time. He eventually plucked up enough courage to invite her to fly with him over to Bonny Downs. She was enthralled with the property, so much so Bill took the bit between his teeth and there and then asked her to marry him.

  As they flew off on their honeymoon two weeks later, Bill thought to himself, now I know what it’s like to have your boat come in.

  NEW OLOGY.

  There are lots of ology’s, take your pick. There’s anthropologies, palaeontology, biology and many more. To come up with a new one the world is your oyster. It covers almost anything you can think of, that’s if my google is correct.

  The new one I am inventing for myself is walk ology. A study of why, how and when people walk. Do they do it for something to do because it is expected of them, or just being alive, our bodies force it upon us and we walk involuntary, not thinking about what we are doing? Not unlike breathing.

  Toddlers seem to have an obsession about walking and they go to no end of trouble to accomplish this feat. Parents are in awe as they watch this small person struggle to become upright and put one foot in front of the other. Then the parents start to worry about how they are going to keep track on the now walking child. It was reasonably safe before it was up and going and now there is no end of trouble they can get into.

  Soon it becomes an advantage that the child can now walk by themselves, and don’t have to be carried everywhere. You can now take them hiking over hills and bush tracks. Hiking goes along with walking, it just takes a little more effort.

  If the exercise of walking goes well and they enjoy it, then it becomes more important in their lives and they do more and more of it. When you are young, walking becomes a compulsion for many and they tend to set off on long walking treks that really test their stamina. It is interesting how quickly their young bodies recover from these arduous long walks with just the help of a short rest.

  Of course walking is an important aspect of getting from a to b in a spot you can’t drive to. We are told that walking is very important to our health when we start to age, which is strange because you would think the legs could do with a rest after carrying you around for so long.

  If we abuse the instruments we use for walking then we could be in trouble and they won’t work so well in the future. Sports people are inclined to put their walking apparatus through extraordinary feats they weren’t really designed to do. Dancers to often take walking to extraordinary lengths and pay the price later on.

  Most people who have lost their ability to walk would give anything to be up and going again. Walk ology become
s an important subject in old age and we have come up with many inventions to keep us on the move as well as medications. Some battle with walking frames while others manage with a walking stick. I’m sure most would like to throw these objects to hell and get on with the job of walking.

  So I’m very pleased with my new ology called walk ology and plan to study it to the end.

  GRETNA GREEN.

  Lord Fitzgibbon of Fitzgibbon Manor was a wealthy aristocrat with large estates and shares in lucrative mines and cotton mills. He was master of all he surveyed and his opinion was the only one that counted.

  He only had one child, a complete disappointment as she was a girl and he wanted a son to carry on the name. His daughter, Bethany aged sixteen, neither liked or disliked her father. He was always remote from her, ignoring her most of the time. She was a beautiful girl and he thought the only way to redeem the sad situation was to marry her off to a substantial man he could mould to his ways.

  Bethany had already made her debut out into society and had been introduced to countless suitors of her father’s choosing. Few of them were young men, many of them more her father’s age. She decided she would rather die than be