Welcome back. This week there are a couple of things to tell you — and another couple of things about which I’d like to chat.
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First, I had a lovely phone call with Bridget McNamara — known to her friends as ‘Biddy’. She wanted to tell us that she, and her new husband, purchased 59 Maude St from Mollie Hill in November 1951. The house was called ‘Brynhavord’ and cost them 3900 pounds. Mollie left a painting for them as a welcoming gift. However, the newlyweds’ house was not yet totally furnished; they needed a dining table. They swapped Mollie’s painting for a nephew’s dining table, which served them well for many years. Biddy can’t remember much about the painting but says she is able to “borrow it back” for the display at the Shepparton Heritage Centre.
It appears we’ll get a small display of Moll’s work happening. Please remember to let me know if you have any memorabilia.
I also want to mention Biddy’s surprise that I had called her back. Could I please make it clear that I am happy to talk with any of our readers? I consider it a part of my job and one that I very much enjoy. We can communicate in whatever way suits you. (I had coffee with a couple of our readers this week and it must have been the longest coffee date in history. Heavens! We can talk!) I love to hear your stories — or to have a chat about anything that’s on your mind. Annoyingly, I’ve had some phone issues of late — but that will be rectified just as soon as I’ve got this copy safely to the office. I thought I needed a new phone and had concerns about the data it contains; turns out it just needs a new battery.
In remembrance
The second ‘item of interest’ this week is a poem — written for a special occasion. On September 22, at the Tallygaroopna Memorial Hall, a memorabilia afternoon was held in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. There was a display of posters of the Queen’s portraits; people took along their keepsakes and shared their memories. Paddington Bear also attended. Unfortunately, I was unable to be there but one of the Town Talk ‘team’ reported a most successful event. She has also supplied a poem written by Joan McCann, who is 91 years of age. I thank Joan for her efforts and have included it on this page.
Six degrees of separation?
You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a gentleman (Kim) from the USA regarding our story about Radio Australia. Anyway, we have communicated a couple of times since then because he noticed that my married name is the same as his mother’s maiden name. The facts are that his grandfather (Andrew) emigrated from Glasgow to Chicago in the 1900s and my father-in-law (William) emigrated from Glasgow to Melbourne in the 1920s.
These days, Glasgow is a bustling city (or it was the last time I was there!), but, compared to Melbourne, not a big one. Its current population is just over 1.5 million. However, in the 1900s it was (of course) less than half that size. There is a chance that Kim and my husband’s family are connected; hardly a probability, but perhaps a possibility.
When we were travelling, I remember being surprised at the populations of many of the cities — much lower than I had expected. They seem so crowded and busy. However, Dublin for example, has a population of around 1.2 million — and yet, trying to get around it by car is difficult. The city was gridlocked several times. I guess it is because the cities are so old, with narrow streets; not as well planned as Melbourne. (Imagine Melbourne, if most of the streets were the width of Flinders Lane!)
Would you like a hospital with that?
Yes! The election is looming — and, last week, whenever I watched a news program or read a newspaper, someone was talking about building a new — or bigger and better — hospital. And yes! The health system is struggling and has been, in many instances, since before the pandemic. But is building more hospitals the first stage to fixing it? Will building stage two at GV Health restore our visiting rights?
As our political leaders battled to outbid one another, I kept thinking that the building is the easy part, but ‘how will you staff them?’
I know that the current Victorian leadership has an incentive plan in place to encourage nurses, but there has been no information about registrations. Perhaps it is a bit too soon! Perhaps we will soon hear that there are a thousand applicants, or perhaps 3000. Or perhaps, we won’t. So, how many do we need?
It is difficult to discover how many nurses were lost to the system, for various reasons, during the pandemic. However, after spending some time searching, I finally found this from Channel Nine’s Today program — 12 months ago.
The shocking impact of the pandemic on frontline health workers has been revealed, with more than 20,000 Australian nurses quitting the profession in the last year alone.
Australian College of Nursing chief executive Kylie Ward says the flow-on effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the amount of work, the type of work and the strain it is having on individuals is taking a toll on nurses, who are giving up their registration and choosing other options.
"We have almost 400,000 nurses registered in Australia so that figure is a lot," Ms Ward told Today. She said the system was already under pressure before the pandemic hit and nurses, particularly those in aged care, had been suffering for some time.
Remember, that figure was for one year only. Victoria’s population is 25 per cent of the country's — so, we need at least 5000 new nurses to get back to where we were before the pandemic. And the system, in some regards, was struggling before the virus hit us. It seems to me that we are in a difficult situation that will take money and creativity to fix.
Just a reminder that out of the past 15 years, Dan Andrews has been Health Minister or Premier for 12 of them.
The super supermarkets and me
Like every other business in this country, the supermarkets have had a difficult time over the past three years. Short of staff — and stock — they found it tough. When prices began rising, I was wondering whether they were maintaining their margins — or reducing their percentage to help the population. Then we were told that they improved their profitability — with one clearing a billion dollars in profit and the other $1.5 billion.
I have no problem with supermarkets making money; we need them and they need us. However, I am angry when they treat their customers with disdain. There was a local example, early in the pandemic; a full page ad, for regional Victoria, on page two of The News. It listed all the ways in which they would help us through this difficult time, including home delivery to help keep us safe. Except there wasn’t! I made, in total, seven phone calls to Shepparton, Melbourne and Sydney. No-one could, or would, tell me why this service was being offered to all regional centres except us. They kept telling me there was no home delivery to Shepparton, but not why. I talked about ‘misleading advertising’; they were indifferent. At this point I stopped shopping with this lot — and, of course, they remained totally indifferent. It was a good 12 months before they started home delivery here.
Here's another example — more recently, as prices were rising. There was a small item I bought regularly. It was $4. I was expecting the price to rise and when it became $4.50, I thought ‘Okay! It’s a 12.5 per cent increase, but who cares — it’s still only $4.50.’ Then, as I was ordering, I noticed, in red, ‘Was $5. Now just $4.50.’ What? No! It wasn’t $5. No, the price hasn’t decreased — it has increased. Do you people think we are all stupid? How am I supposed to believe the other discounts I read on their site?
And I’m just curious about this small matter: why is sausage mince more expensive than sausages? Sausage mince is, currently, at both major supermarkets $12 per kilogram. (Sold in packages of 500g for $6). You can buy thin beef sausages for $6.95/kg. This has always puzzled me but, since the price rises, it is more obvious. Sausage mince was $9.90/kg a few months ago — it went up by 20 per cent. Sausages haven’t increased in price. I buy sausage mince quite regularly because my family enjoys home-made sausage rolls — and every time I make the purchase, I wonder at the logic. Sausages need machines and skin, and surely there is some cost to that!
Well! Finally got that off my chest. If you’re a shareholder, good on you!
Under the clock
October 29, 1914
UNPROTECTED VEHICLES
Ernest Campbell, Samuel Dowker, James Mason, Alfred Walkington, James Nelson and Peter Hup Lee, for leaving their respective vehicles in the public streets, without strapping the wheels, or otherwise acting so as to have the vehicles under control, were each fined five shillings or 12 hours by Mr Knight, P.M. at the police court on Tuesday. Constable W.H. Perry was the informant. Senior-Constable Corry stated that the defendants were brought up so as to be a warning to others; and Mr Knight replied that in future the fine would be increased. He added that he often saw people leaving their vehicles in charge of children of a very tender age. A passing motor or anything else might cause the horse to bolt, and the wonder was that more accidents did not occur.
That’s all folks! And yes, thank you for asking. My May bush is in bloom — and was merely three days late. It is growing wild though. One sunny but very cold day, I went outside with my gardening gloves and secateurs. For some time, I stood and stared at the hundreds, if not thousands, of skinny little branches; then I returned to the warm house. I repeated the exercise a couple of weeks later. The May bush is still growing wild and overtaking everything in its path.
Enjoy the sunshine — and may it be easy, my friends.
Marnie
Email: towntalk@sheppnews.com.au
Letter: Town Talk. Shepparton News. P.O. Box 204. Shepparton 3631.
Phone: Send a text on 0418 962 507. (Note: text only. I will call you back, if you wish.)
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