I bought a 70cc Honda Chaley scooter to get to work about 1972. I think I looked and perhaps felt a bit silly on it. But it was immensely practical. It was just a bit far and too time consuming to walk and if I took the car it denied its use to Valerie and it just sat in the sun all day. Buying another car was an extravagance that was not warranted.

Besides you could fill the Chaly with fuel for 70 cents in those days. It was very economical and could keep up with the traffic flow in town. It had a centre stand and when I wanted to pick up something from the shops at the weekend I found it would usually park in the space left between two cars. A thow-over pannier bag set - perfect.

I remember a group of guys riding past one day on "Harley's" when they saw the "Chaley" they laughed and cheered and I took it in the good-natured way that was intended and acknowledged them ruefully.

I stepped up to a Honda XL 175. This felt like a monster bike after the Chaley. I had moved my work to the other end of town and the "175" made the extra commute a whole lot less of a frazzle. The 70cc of the Chaley would get me there but it always seemed flat out.

When we moved out of town to where we were building a house I found the Pacific Highway traffic too much. The XL either would not keep up with or I was unwilling to keep up with the rest of the traffic. It did not have a screen and I had not bought any special motorcycle clothing so having ones jumper ripped off in the slipstream was not one of my choices of fun.

Besides this was exacerbated by semi-trailers overtaking me. The highway at that time was one lane each way and the edges were full of potholes. I therefore had the choice of wringing the neck of the XL and going faster than my comfort level, staying on the bitumen at a slower pace and risking getting sucked under a passing semi, or moving over and doing a bit of off-roading through the edge potholes. None of these choices suited me and we had graduated to two family vehicles so the XL was left in the shed, the registration ran out and after a while I sold it to finance our new stove. Very sensible (cheer).

Years later. I had given up checking what a rider was riding when I passed a motor-bike on the road. (Those who own bikes will know what I mean). When my eldest son bought himself a 185 trial bike that was cool but unflustering. Then his 10-year-younger brother (our fourth son) decided he was getting one as well that was more "uncool". Eldest was looking for a bigger bike so it was "arranged" that youngest bought his old bike (in good condition) and "Dad" wasn't going to let them go out and enjoy themselves without him going out to keep and eye on proceedings and perhaps enjoy himself as well.

So Dad bought himself a brand spanking new XL 250 Degree. It seemed "so big" that he had to get eldest son to ride it home for him but after a few wobbles around the backyard it all came back again.

And so to the big adventure, family bike outings ... Anyone who knows these parts will know that we have endless kilometres of forestry trails - ideal for trail bike riding. They would also know that a good number of them are steep, very steep, so steep that they give a close resemblance to a cliff in places. Students of the things that make humans tick also know that young people have no sense of mortality and that the steeper trail the more challenge and the more fun. My boys also din't mind dropping their bikes every now and then, they were scratched anyway ... But Dad had a new, shiny one and was a bit more cautious in his idea of "fun". The upshot is that I didn't go on many family bike outings, I redefined my idea of terror after the first couple and discovered that they were much better riders than I would ever become. I took to going off and exploring by myself on the easier trails and at my own pace. Now that was fun, but it is not a good idea to be in your own in the limitless maze of half-made roads that forms our local fire-trail network. If you fell off somewhere out there by yourself it might be quite some time before someone found you. So I stuck to the easy stuff and restricted my explorations and after a while it became boring.

I bought a Cagiva 600cc which was nice. It was a pretend-trail bike but really happier on the road. After one very wobbly trip over a very slippery greasy wet clay fire trail I thought I would stick to the road in future.

The Cagiva had a known problem with its ring-gear and starter motor and when I had a repair to the stator that hinted at worse to come and was simultaneously alerted to the price of original parts I became worried.

The dealer who sold it to me offered my money back on a trade to a Yamaha XJR1300. I was on the rebound and that was the only thing they had on offer in a true road bike that wasn't head down and bum up. I took it for a test drive and was "sold". Great big pussy cat. Doesn't handle but it is nice and smooth and quiet to ride. Just poke along at the speed limit and does it have some torque when you need it. No more being pushed off the road by aggressive semi-trailers. This big thing can keep up with the traffic flow and incidently I have bought proper clothing this time.

More on my bikes later. I still have and love my XL 250 but it has only done a little over 6,000 kms - a total dwarfed by the "1300". The "1300" is really only "1250cc" but some sort of one-upmanship makes them call it a "1300". When you get to this capacity does it really matter?

My sense of humour comes to the fore so I made myself up some small decals "12 1/2" and put them discretely on finishing plates. No one knows what I am on about but it is an allusion to the famous Moto-Morini "3 1/2" bike. I have a quiet smile to myself but it passes right over everyone else. You would have to be a well read enthusiast to work it out.

Tom

I don't know who to attribute this quote to or whether I have phrased it correctly, but it is very true. Much of the world's ills are caused by the disinterest in history and the nature of humanity to need to repeat it.

I have found a similar quote that says much the same thing:

"What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced form it" (Philosophy of History) George Wilhelm Hegel 1770-1831.

As the world order lurches to the right we still talk of the evils of fascism and yet we can see emerging hints of the fascist mantra in control of the press, governments that lie and get away with it, populist policies for the "proles" as George Orwell foresaw and the dead hand of government regulation and information gathering. Restrictive and repressive new legislation takes away civil rights to "protect" us against terrorism. Australia has not had a terrorist attack on our shores (for which we should be thankful) and yet we are giving faceless men and women incredible powers to interfere with our "freedoms" and anonymously create files on anyone that is an enemy of the state.

We have also vastly increased our manpower in our secret services. Given that they might not have a lot to do, wouldn't it be normal for them to start up a few files on anyone and everyone who may have the wrong sort of leanings? Perhaps the next step on the slippery slide is to deem anyone whose views are not popular to be deemed a "potential terrorist"?

Its a worry, we live in a wonderful country of toleration and goodwill. I would not like to see the abuse of powers granted to be used as a tool to stay in power. I do not have a problem with governance at the moment but I would hate to see the system of checks and balances weakened to the point where there is temptation for their abuse.

We rely on the fair mindedness of those in power and of the independence of the judiciary.

My opinion is that the rule of law should and always should prevail. Governments may vary to the right and left but never too far in either direction. Totalitarian governments of either right or left have been proven evil by history and should be prevented at all costs.

The problem can arise when one particular government thinks it has a divine right to rule and will stop at nothing to achieve it.

History? A study of history will show that citizens rights have, on occasions, been eroded with their willing compliance when they have been convinced that these erosions are absolutely necessary to protect them from an outside threat. They have cheered at mass rallies and endorsed these governments by re-electing them. Their governments took aggressive stances against other nations until the rest of the world finally intervened. Who am I talking about? Well we can start with the Taliban, the former government of Iraq, perhaps Mugabe, and many historical governments, that would be a start, but the list goes on ..

Tom

Ah cameras! and what they can do!

When I first came to Australia my maternal grandfather David Bain was sponsored by our family and came out to be with us about six months after we arrived here. I think it was arranged that he buy and Agfa Silette 35mm camera in Aden on the way. They were much cheaper there.

It was a wonderful present for a 15 year old migrant whose family were struggling to get established in Australia and I saved money from my holiday job in order to buy film. B&W negative and I took some pretty ordinary pictures which seem to have become lost. I suppose I used about one roll per year and it was still "my camera" when I became married. It went on the honeymoon and I must have improved because these pictures have survived and are "not too bad". A young married couple have many other pressures on their budget and buying film is not on the priority list. So the "Silette" archive is pretty slim. Children came and it was easier to use Valerie's Kodak "Instamatic" for family snaps and it served the purpose for a number of years until I was established in my own business. Serving the purpose was good but it was hardly a camera for capturing the nuances.

The big change came when I bought a Ricoh XR-2s SLR from a client who had a camera shop. My aim was to get a better camera to take family pictures. What I discovered was the joy of multiple lenses and the fact that I had become a better photographer! Buying lenses, I couldn't help, as that is my nature to try and do everything I do well. But the same nut was pressing the shutter and composing the photograph - they just worked better. So, Lesson One: if you want to improve your photography then buy a decent camera!

Because I now had more capable gear I now started taking the odd "arty" photograph. Family and scenes when on holiday still predominated, but the seed had been planted.

Years later I bought a Canon EOS 620 then, of course, I had to re-buy my lenses because it had a different mount! Arghhh! But again, the EOS was pretty much auto-everything and was a great help in "improving" what I did.

Like many though, the cameras lay in the drawer and only were pulled out on feast days and holidays. Often I would develop a film and find photographs on it six months or more old. Scots by birth I was too tight to waste film. I have come to the conclusion that Scots are not mean (truly) they just hate waste.

In some societies it is thought polite, when a guest, to leave a little food on the plate so that the host can be satisfied that they have fed their visitors properly. Not so the Scots! We have to show that we are not wasting the food we are given and duly scrape the plate bare - even though our eyes might be popping and our stomachs about to burst!

I recently collated my film archive and there are quite a number of negatives but I did work out that I must have only been using 2/3 rolls of film per year.

Going digital was a revelation and my camera usage at first was much the same but the great kick came when I started editing them myself. The keys to photography-heaven had been handed to me. I would never have been bothered with the chemicals and mystery of the film darkroom, but as I was computer literate and the darkroom is my computer ... different story.

My digital experience was to produce many more images in a few years than I had produced in the equivalent number of decades previously.

This I will leave for another ramble.

Tom

Its my surname so I am bound to be interested, but I found out many years ago that if all you want to do is to track back your personal ancestors then you will hit the proverbial "brick wall" sooner or later and more likely sooner.

Being an innovative sort of person I decided that I woud take and interest in "all" Caldwell's and by doing so set up a sort of scatter gun approach.

Not only do I trace my family backwards but also sideways and downwards. This means that the family tree gets bigger and bigger, but it also finds other things:

I have found a long-lost branch of our family in Australia, they came here 75 years before our branch but I managed to meet one of my Father's second cousin's a few years before he died. It is remarkable that our families had been out of touch since the first world war and here I am meeting up with a reasonably close relation in 1984 - exactly 100 years after his family had emigrated to Australia.

My children have a fourth cousin living in Coffs Harbour. Fourth cousins are getting a bit distant, but we would not even have known if it had not been for my family research.

Now if I went back to Kilmarnock where I was born in Scotland it would be another thing. There would be so many relations there! And I don't know my second cousins in Scotland let alone my fourth cousins! Seems that family trees are only important as a sense of belonging once they are lost due to distance or the death of a senior person in the family.

If it is out there and in your face nobody seems interested, but if it is lost and difficult to find then it becomes a challenge. As a child I remember my maternal grandfather's "ramblings" about his work and the places he travelled to in his work as a fitter for the Glenfield and Kennedy works. He used to tell the same stories and frankly in my childhood I found them boring. I now wish I had paid more attention and taken some notes.

Maybe I will make amends by rambling on here and perhaps create something that might otherwise be lost.

Tom

This is going to be the thread where I get things off my chest. I aim to be polite and not too controversial, but some things need to be said and the art of good conversation is to be able to find a "starter" subject that might inspire others to agree, or disagree, or just to give their opinions anyway.

I will try and keep this ramble on a higher, more adult, plane befitting my my elder status (ouch).

I believe that sport is for playing and not watching or otherwise paying for the privilege of others doing what they do best. I am an accountant and I sometimes fantisise about setting my office up in an ampitheatre and charging admission for crowds to watch, I could even sell television rights, sell off my branding rights to calculator and pen manufacturers. I am very good at my job and I am sure the cut and thrust of the workings of a busy accountant's office where we make hundreds of decisions every hour or how to unravel recalcitrant bookkeeping to get at the truth of accounting presentations would make rivetting viewing. The sudden inspiration and slash of the pen that saves a client thousands in tax would be a grand flourish of bravado that would have viewers glued to their screens.

Why everyone is not doing it in their own trades and professions defies me. It works for nearly every sport. Why cannot we have the same thing for Plumbers, Truck Drivers and Architects? I ask you?

We have high drama in police shows, courtrooms, yea even pathologists!, the daily life of a vet seems fasciating, even murder is of such seemingly universal appeal that it is invented in increasingly lurid and imaginative detail! Yet the daily grind of surveyors and many other forgotten occupations is considered sooo boring that nobody wants to watch.

Hi - Welcome to my new blog!

There you go Tom.. enjoy it! Please delete this entry as soon as you like.

I set one of my own up today, take a look if you like it's at http://www.harpham.info

Cheers,
Chris