Fran Kirby of Castle Hill has had her cards marked: “Doing my regular banking transfer from one account to another, my usual description, using my initials – fk Amex – was denied. As was frk Amex (also my initials). I’m not casting any aspersions, but clearly it is now seen as a derogatory, swearing comment. Wonder how things work for those whose initials are sht?”
“Talking about Fred Trueman’s delivery method (C8), Trueman himself reckoned that for West Indian paceman Wes Hall, they had to open the gates to the ground because Hall was running in from the car park,” says Stewart Copper of Maroubra. Granny recalls the implosion of Fred’s daughter Rebecca’s marriage to Damon Welch, son of Hollywood topliner Raquel Welch, after just 15 months. When asked about it, he said: “That marriage didn’t last as long as my run-up.”
“If a Best of Column 8 (C8) were published now, there’d be chapters on puns, runs, nominative determinism, songs for all occasions, Spam and Vegemite,” thinks Meri Will of Baulkham Hills. And not forgetting the saga of Mal, Jono and Vic.
Seppo Ranki of Glenhaven certainly thinks it’s time: “By my reckoning, we are missing almost 20 years of contributions being suitably chronicled. How about it, Granny?”
Speaking of “it’s time”, Robert Hosking of Paddington writes: “The stature of the Whitlams (C8) is legendary. As well as jokes such as ‘I’ll meet you under the Whitlams’, I remember my best and beloved saying at a concert, ‘Goodness, that woman is small!’ I replied: ‘She’s standing next to a Whitlam.’”
According to Peter Riley of Penrith, “the young brolga” didn’t always slum it: “I recall a flight with Gough in the late ’70s on a TAA 727 (remember them?) and the great man definitely sat at the pointy end. He was about 10 feet tall, and after serving as an RAAF navigator in WWII aboard those cramped bombers, he’d earned the right to occupy seat 1A later in life.”
Gordon Pike of Warrawee has “a further observation about the US education system (C8). In the 1980s, my family and I were posted to California to monitor a technical project. Our eldest son started at Palos Verdes High School only to find that, while sport was compulsory every day, science was only offered for half the school year. We returned to Australia earlier than intended to continue our children’s education.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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