The school canteen

is apparently becoming a thing of the past. It is said they are no longer financially viable. There are schools with no canteen at all. Others have a canteen open one or two days a week. 

I suspect one of the reasons for this is not just the increased cost of running a canteen but why those increased costs are being incurred.

When I was a mere kitten school canteens were very different affairs. My first school had no canteen but it was a small country school. Once a term the mothers might run a "soup and pasty" day. This would mean tinned tomato soup and homemade pasties brought in by the mothers and sold as a fund raiser. We might get sweets of some sort on Sports Day - but I am hazy about that one.

In my next school the then standard arrangement applied. If you were "buying your lunch" you brought along your money and gave it to the teacher who wrote the order on a brown paper bag. This was for the very youngest children. As you went up the school things changed slightly and by the final year of the primary school children wrote their own orders. The bags were printed with room for your name at the top and then boxes to tick with only a sandwich or roll filling to be entered.

The menu was definitely limited. You could have a pie or pasty or sausage roll if you wanted something hot. Other than that you could have a sandwich (only white bread available) or a roll. The latter could be "single" or "double" cut. "Double" meant two layers of filling and was naturally more expensive. 

After that, if your mother was feeling generous with the money, you could have something like a "cream  bun" (with ersatz cream and a dob of red "jam") or a "finger bun" or a "jelly tart". 

I almost never bought my lunch. I might be able to count the number of times I did it in the first five years of school on all my fingers and toes and have some fingers and toes still to count. It was a once a term event. (We had three terms back then.)  Many other children would have been the same. There were a few who bought lunch once a week and an even smaller number who bought lunch every day.

Our mothers ran the canteen overseen by a canteen manager who was paid a small sum to see to things like orders and cleanliness.

All that has changed dramatically. If there is a canteen the manager will be paid a proper wage. There are very few mothers who help there. They have gone off to paid employment instead. Those who do work there need to have "working with children certificates" and they need to have done a course in food preparation and have a certificate to show it too.

And the food has changed. The menu we had is now considered unacceptable. Children are being offered "healthy" options instead. These so called healthy options tend to be much more expensive to provide. I also suspect they are much less attractive to eat. Parents are also being told not to send their child to school with a range of the very sort of food children want to eat. One local school actually inspects lunch boxes in the lower grades and "advises" parents if something unacceptable appears in them. Well intentioned? Perhaps -but I do not believe it is acceptable to say "that piece of your birthday cake from last night should not be there".

Is it any wonder that school canteens are fading away? I remember a teacher quietly providing one child with a sandwich from the canteen each day for a week when his mother was in hospital and his father really was not coping. It was easy to do it discreetly and the boy repaid her by doing extra to help not because he was asked to do it but because he wanted to do it. It would be much more difficult to do that now.  School canteens have a value for that sort of reason alone.

I wonder how the food police feel about all this. Does it worry them at all? 

National Socialist Network or

National Nazi Network?

There were some arrests at a march in the CBD over the weekend. They related to a small group of people who have been labelled "Nazis" or at least "Nazi like" by some. Certainly their views would be considered extreme right wing.

One of the group has refused bail and chosen to stay in prison rather than recognise the authority of the court. It is very likely he wants to be seen as a "martyr" for his cause. While those of his fellow protestors who were arrested have accepted bail conditions he has not. 

I wonder where this is going to end. What these protestors believe is not what I believe at all and it is not what anyone I know believes. At the same time I suspect more people share their beliefs than many others realise. I am also concerned that more people will move further to the right if they feel the arrests were unjustified or that other protest groups are being treated differently.

And there is an argument to suggest that there are groups being treated differently. There have been weeks and weeks now of anti-Israel pro-Gaza protests. They have continued even after a ceasefire. They have continued even though the Jewish community has been targetted over and over again. Yesterday there were reports of a caravan "filled with explosives" being found and information suggesting it was intended to be used outside a synagogue.  It is likely that no such act was intended but the presence of the caravan was intended to stir up more trouble. 

Those who organise these protest marches and who commit any number of acts which are designed to spread hate are not even being pulled up, let alone arrested. There seems to be a concern that doing so might cause more violence. At the same time others are being told, "Don't protest. Keep silent." Flying the national flag is something that needs to be thought about, not simply something a citizen has the right to do.  Vandalising buildings and statues is not condoned but the reporting of such suggests a certain sympathy towards the perpetrators.

I do not know what the answer to all this is but I do believe protestors need to be treated equally under the law. If someone, however much we agree or disagree with their views, is advocating violence then we need to act. If you choose to "protest" in a public way then do so without causing harm. Violence is never the answer. 

Auschwitz was

liberated eighty years ago and it is absolutely right that there should have been something special made of this occasion.  We need to remember these things through our ancestors and then through our own memories. The horrors of the concentration camps are not something we can simply sweep under some sort of carpet or brush aside. Those horrors were real and there are still people alive today who experienced and remember those things. They have had to remember them all the rest of their lives because it is impossible to forget such things only possible to learn to live with them.

Many years ago now someone came to the late Senior Cart. This man brought with him a small branch from an olive tree. He asked the Senior Cat to make something called a "holding cross" from this. For those of you who do not know a "holding cross" is something occasionally given to the ill and the dying as a comfort and, perhaps, an aid to prayer. Although often given by a priest they can be given by anyone. I know very little about such things apart from the fact that they are shaped to fit comfortably into the hand of the recipient. They can be made from any sort of timber but olive wood has special significance for some people and this olive wood was considered to be something very special indeed because it came from a tree that had been grown from another on the Mount of Olives, the ridge that runs just outside the oldest part of the city of Jerusalem. 

The man who asked the Senior Cat to do this was the son of a man who had fought in Jerusalem in WWI and never returned home. In a long and complex series of events this now elderly man had come to this country and brought with him what became the tree. Olive trees can live for hundreds of years. This one is almost certainly still alive somewhere but this branch had been taken from it for the purpose of providing comfort for a concentration camp survivor who was now dying. 

The Senior Cat, a man who believed in what he called "practical Christianity" rather than ritual, set about fulfilling the request as carefully and as well as he could. He passed the finished cross back some little time later along with a second one he had been able to cut from the timber he was given. When he returned from having delivered both crosses he was rather quiet and I wondered if they had not been well received. Far from it, the Senior Cat sat down to lunch and said quietly, "You know, he hugged me - and he had tears in his eyes. I am so glad I made both of them."

Olive is a timber I recognise - in more ways than one.  

School is back

today and there is the inevitable picture of some of those attending school for the first time. This time it is two sets of twins, cousins, who will all be attending the same school.

I looked at them. Yes, nice looking "normal" (whatever that might mean) children who are about to start on a tough journey.

I would not want to be a child starting school now. My start at school was so very different. Perhaps it was not quite the same as that of many other children but mine and theirs was very different. 

I started school before anyone had a computer at home. The "internet" was unheard of. There were still many people who did not have as much as home telephone. There was no television. By no means everyone had a car. If you wanted money you went to the bank with your pass book and so much more.

And no, I am not really "that old". It is just that enormous "progress" has been made in my lifetime. I wonder about that progress sometimes. The internet has allowed me to work from home and that allowed me to care for my parents. The phone I use is not a fixed line now. It can go anywhere there is a "signal" and I can talk to people anywhere in the world there is another "signal". There is no need to go through an "operator" or "telephonist" or limit the call to three minutes.  All that is good.

I will not dwell on the harm that has also come about because of all this. It is enough to say that much of this has also brought out the worst in human nature.

There are some things from the past however it seems we might return to and recognise as not such a bad thing. Curiously one of those things is at school. It seems there is an increasing return to "four straight rows facing the board". It may not be an actual blackboard any more but I know that, given a choice, I would set up a classroom this way. 

I would do it not because I am "old fashioned" (although perhaps I am) but because I really do believe it is the best arrangement to encourage learning. It would not necessarily mean it always had to be that way but it would mean that when I was teaching the students would be looking at me. Having students twisting around in their desks to see the teacher is surely not comfortable or conducive to learning. Discipline is more effective too if a child is facing you and not making faces at the child opposite. I would not want "sets" or "groups" or "tables" when teaching is being done. Leave that for the occasional group activity. They are important too...just not all the time. 

I do not envy the child starting school now. I just hope they might find themselves back in the past - at least some of the time.  

Sooner or latte

a friend of mine is going to have to give up the coffee habit. I worked it out recently and the habit is costing him almost a hundred dollars a week for three cups each day. Still, coffee is an important part of his life and I hope he can still afford at least one cup a day when he retires.  

The coffee habit is not nearly as bad a habit as that of cigarettes. Someone told me not so long ago that a packet of cigarettes costs upwards of forty dollars. It seems that both coffee drinking and cigarettes are expensive but I would much prefer people indulged in the former.  It is much healthier - and not just for the coffee drinker. It is also friendlier.

This morning I have been invited to "coffee" with a cousin. He is my "second" cousin. His father and the Senior Cat were first cousins. I grew up seeing P... on an intermittent basis. Our parents would catch up at school holiday time. P...is a couple of years younger.  He is, as he puts it, "the last man standing" in his family. His parents have gone and so has his sister.  Meeting him there in the shopping centre is important because such meetings are more than "just a cup of coffee" or tea or whatever you like to drink.

His father, an engineer and Riley car enthusiast, died many years ago. For all his engineering skills and his capacity to pull a car engine apart and put it together again he was hopeless at home maintenance. It drove his wife, F..., crazy at times. He did not drink coffee and detested tea made with tea bags. We got along well...because, according to him, I knew how to make a "proper cup of tea". P...gets his engineering skills from his father perhaps but in the field of forensics instead. P...drinks coffee as well as tea.

F..., his mother, was one of those incredibly able secretaries, the sort that allow their bosses to get on with their work and achieve much more than they otherwise might. Her boss thought so highly of her he gave one of the eulogies at her funeral. She was also a history enthusiast and avid reader. We would sometimes go to Writers' Week sessions together. I enjoyed introducing her to people I knew because she could always put people at ease. When she was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer's I felt angry for her because words were so much a part of her life.  She drank both tea and coffee and used them as a social occasion. P... has inherited her ease with people and it makes it easy to be with him even though we do not see one another often.

P...lived interstate and it was hard for him, particularly hard because his sister J... was not at all well. She kept her own cancer diagnosis to herself for as long as she could. Their father never knew. Their mother only knew once it was no longer possible to hide how ill she really was. Many cups of coffee  (and tea) were drunk while all this happened.

P... is the last of them and has now come for the funeral of the man he was named after. Coffee appeared in that relationship too. It appeared often. 

I too think of P... and this other P... every time I see the coffee drinker. They knew each other as I knew them. It was on a casual sort of "hello, how are you" type basis in the shopping centre. The senior P... was very kind to the Senior Cat when my mother died. They would sometimes "have coffee" in the shopping centre. P... once remarked our shopping centre was the equivalent of the old village green and perhaps he was right. We locals see one another there. People drink their coffee there. They chat to each other and ask "Do you mind if I sit here?" when seats are taken elsewhere. They read the newspapers put out each morning. There is an easiness about all this that matters more than most people realise. It allows us to connect with each other.

And perhaps that is why the coffee drinker I am thinking of does what he does. He can stand there and chat to someone else buying coffee while the Syrian refugees who own this smallest of small venues prepare their coffee and pass it over.  There is more to buying coffee than ordering it and paying for it.   Eventually the worker regulars will join the retired regulars and the conversations will go on - sooner or latte.  

Vandalising statues

 seems to be becoming an all too popular activity around this time of the year. 

Yes, there were more pictures of a statue of John Batman that had been covered in red paint and broken. Presumably the message to the rest of us was that this man does not deserve a statue of himself to be anywhere.

Read the far left commentators and they will tell you he was a murderer responsible for the deaths of many indigenous people. Read the perhaps more balanced view of trained historians and there is a real suggestion that he was much more sympathetic and interested in the indigenous people he met. He attempted to buy the land he was interested in through a treaty with the local indigenous tribe and that is something no other "invader" or "settler" or "explorer" attempted to do at the time.

So, why do some feel the need to destroy his statue? Why is there a need to put extra security around the cottage once owned by an explorer who never actually colonised anything? 

There is a small, discreet memorial to a local man who spent many years working quietly to keep the local railway station (a listed venue) clear of graffiti and in good repair. He maintained the garden first set out by an early station master's wife and gathered a group of volunteers who continue the work now. Recently there was an attempt to damage it too. 

I asked one of the local teens why he thought this had been done. He thought about it for a moment and then shrugged, "You wouldn't understand. It's about it being there and him trying to wipe us out all the time." 

No, I don't understand. I don't understand the thrill of vandalising statues because of a different view of history - or of a view of history that we want to exist rather than the one which is possibly more accurate. History is strange. We have only been there for as long as we have. We have to rely on other people for the rest of it. 

It seems that some people don't even want that. 

By the way, should you be interested, it is said Batman attempted to exchange 40 pairs of blankets, 42 tomahawks, 130 knives, 62 pairs of scissors, 40 looking glasses, 250 handkerchiefs, 18 shirts, 4 flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes and 150 lb. of flour for what is now a large part of Melbourne.

 

"Mr Trump is getting things done,"

T...said to me a moment ago, "Why can't our Prime Minister be more like that?"

I tried to explain. "Our Prime Minister does not have those sort of executive powers. Our system of government is different."

"Yes, but we are both supposed to be democracies."

"And democracies are not all the same."

This was uphill work...and T...is an adult. Try explaining all this to a child.

Yes, the President of the United States of America has "hit the ground running" as they say. He has already done some of the things he had threatened to do when campaigning.  He is being admired by those who agree with his policies and loathed by those who do not. 

I see he has also been halted, at least for now, over the issue of citizenship by birth. It is an interesting idea - that one should be a natural citizen of the country in which you are born...and that, in some instances, you are not. Most countries do not allow a child born of diplomats to become a citizen at birth. There are also countries like Japan where one parent must be a citizen or the UAE where the father must be a citizen in addition to the child being born there. Even then there can be difficulties.

The situation is not the same now but I once knew a student couple from the United States who deliberately made sure their child was born in London in the seventies so that their child could be a British citizen. (And yes, he left the United States as an adult and has resided in the UK since then.) That situation changed in around 1981 or 1982.  

But what does it all really mean? How can someone be a "citizen" of two countries - with voting rights in both? You cannot be a member of our federal parliament if you have "dual nationality". It suggests divided loyalties.

Tomorrow will officially be our national day again. There will be people who "become citizens" on that day and they will come from a wide variety of backgrounds. There will be "protests" from people who say it is "Invasion Day".  There will be people who fly flags and go to events that are intended to instil in them or simply express pride in their citizenship of this country.

Our Prime Minister can encourage, indeed exhort, people to be involved in all this but he cannot independently confer the right of citizenship on people without consultation. He cannot independently take it away either. 

I will almost certainly be considered a little strange when I say that I have no strong feelings about being a citizen of this country.  I have no desire to fly a flag or sing the national anthem or go to an event where people get misty eyed about "citizenship".  That said I do know and understand that, for some people, it is very important and I respect them for it. The idea of having a Prime Minister who could take that away at the stroke of a pen is not something I want.  

Selling a house

even in a "seller's market" is proving difficult.

I admit this house does not quite fit in with the rest of the district. It is only forty-one years old. It has been cared for. It has been scrubbed and polished and dusted and then cleaned all over again. Things have been painted and some small things have been repaired. 

We had been told "of course it will sell" and "it is the sort of thing people are looking for" and "it will suit a family". I had some doubts. It would suit someone working from home, someone who needed an "office" but would that room really become bedroom four? 

I know the kitchen is not "modern" by today's standards but it is far more functional than many kitchens I saw when looking for somewhere new. The bathroom is the same, so is the ensuite in what what was the bedroom my parents used. 

There is the large workshop (could be a teenage retreat) and two smaller sheds. There is a garden if you want one... I could go on. We were not expecting a huge price but all the land agents who have viewed the place have mentioned a price we thought was reasonable and would have been willing to accept. There were seven land agents who wanted the job of selling this place and they all told us almost exactly the same price.

I could go on...and on.  

The house was put on the market by the executor company and they grudgingly agreed to the land agent of our choice. He has done a very good job. I know. I have had to make sure that the place was ultra clean, ultra tidy, ultra ready-ready for people to view it on numerous occasions. It has been very hard work for me as well as him.

And, at the closing yesterday of "expressions of interest", there has not been a single serious offer. There has been "interest" but the sort of interest where someone is hoping to grab a valuable parcel of land at below its actual value.

Middle Cat is growling at me because of the delays in getting the house ready for sale but the reality is that it could not have been done sooner. Everything had to be put on hold while we sorted out the problems caused by the Black Cat. Now we may have to rethink how things are going to be done or we might be lucky - but right now I still cannot move anywhere. 

School attendance is

still down post Covid?

Apparently a third of state school students are missing from school at least one day a fortnight...or so the article says. Only fifty-eight percent of them are achieving a ninety percent attendance rate. Even in the fee paying system there seems to be a high absentee rate - only just under sixty-nine percent are achieving that ninety percent rate. This is down from seventy-two percent in state schools and eighty-two percent in fee paying schools pre-Covid.  

I suspect that even the pre-Covid rate is down on the levels of school attendance when I was a mere kitten. Yes, there was a truancy problem. There will always be a truancy problem but, back then, it was rarely condoned by parents. Even the worst offenders rarely had the support of their parents.

It is perhaps indicative of how much society has changed. Mum was more likely to be at home during the day so you could hardly head back home. Once you were home what did you do? There was no television, no computer, no screen based toy to entertain you. If you were caught wandering the streets then someone would haul you up.

I never skipped school. Most of the time of course I would have had no chance. My parents were there. They would have noticed my absence.  

There was an occasion on which I was spoken to by a policeman. I was in school uniform on a Friday afternoon. I was sitting on a seat at the country bus station waiting to catch the bus home for a "long weekend" from boarding school. For some reason we had also been given Friday afternoon as well as the Monday off. All I was permitted to do was sit at the bus station "doing homework" while waiting. Along came the policeman who asked what I was doing there. I thought it was pretty obvious but he was nevertheless checking. He wanted to see my ticket. I showed him and after a "don't talk to strangers" he was on his way. 

I wonder if he would do that now? I doubt it. There always seem to be students in uniform all over the place. It is one advantage of school uniform you may not know the individual student but you know their school. I would have to be doing something wrong for the police to stop and speak to me now. If I was sitting in the library with my laptop out in front of me it is unlikely that anyone would notice, especially if I went off at intervals as if attending lessons at the local high school.

In this street there are two children who seem to have frequent days away from school. They are less frequent now their work-from-home father has been forced to return to the office. I have talked to their parents of course but their attitude towards school attendance seems to be remarkably casual. They shrug and say, "Oh they catch up easily enough." Perhaps they do but that is surely hardly the point?

My own days off school were so rare they were remarkable. It was not that we were never ill. We simply were not allowed to be ill. Mum would only have kept us home if the law demanded it.  As a "Christian Scientist" she did not believe in illness. On those so very rare occasions we needed to be at home then it was my paternal grandmother who cared for us when we lived in the city. Out in "the bush" we stayed at home alone but we were given our school work to do. It did not matter if we were feeling ill or were actually being sick we had to do our work. Mum really believed this was the best thing for us. If we felt ill during school holidays we were expected to be up and dressed and "just sitting quietly".  Perhaps this is why we were so rarely ill?  

I wonder now whether all the potential entertainment at home is one contributing factor to absenteeism?  If both parents are at work and you can be pretty sure they won't be home until later, if you can forge their signatures on sick notes and more then the temptation to take a day off here and there might be greater than it was for us.

I still would not have been able to skive off but I might have wondered if I could do it - and get away with it.

 

There was an "incident"

in our local shopping centre on Monday.  I was sitting having a lovely iced drink with my good friend L... when we and others were disturbed by a group of boys riding their bikes through the centre itself.

Riding bikes or skateboards through the centre is of course banned. It is banned for very good reasons. In the past there has been the occasional rider, some "kid" who usually gets off and walks when told to do so.

On Monday afternoon it was a different story. There were five of them to begin with and, a little later, seven. They were riding their mountain style bikes past the tiny cafe which sits between one of the supermarkets and the newsagent. They were weaving in and out of the pedestrians, some of them elderly and others with young children. They were shouting to one another and, when told to stop, turned on those speaking to them and used words that would have had me or my siblings given a walloping and grounded for more than a week.

People began to film them on their phones but it made no difference. Those people just found themselves being threatened. My friend L... and I sat still. We did not want to add to the potential for the situation to escalate. 

Eventually they headed off...but not outside. L... went one way and I went another and came across them again. I was knocked to one side as one of them came rushing past me. It did not knock me off my feet but it would have done had I not been holding on to a shopping trolley. Ahead of me an elderly man I know by sight was also knocked against and it was only someone else's quick reaction which caused him not to fall. He sat down on one of the seats looking shaken.

I'd had enough by then because the boys were ahead of me and still shouting and arguing with the customers and the shop keepers. I rang the emergency number and asked to be connected to the police. It only took a moment. I tried to be calm and reasonable but I must have sounded anxious. I told the person who answered what was going on and that I was worried the situation could escalate. 

And then, something very strange happened. The voice at the other end said, "Is that you Cat? Are you all right? Are you still at...? " I assume the police have access to a data base of registered phone  numbers but this person seemed to know me. I still don't know who I was talking to but I could hear someone else in the control room say, "Yes, someone else reporting it too...and there's been another one."

I just said "thank you" when I was told a patrol car was on the way but I do wonder to whom I was talking. 

On my way home I saw the trouble makers. They had been into a fast food outlet and were on their way to the railway station. There they would catch the train into the hills in order to ride down the road at speed endangering themselves and all car drivers. 

There are a good many people who are looking forward to the end of the summer school holidays. 

Is the car too big or is

the garage too small...or do we have too many cars? Might it even be a combination of all these things?

Our state government wants to change the planning legislation and the building regulations to provide for bigger garages.  This is so "people won't need to park on the street because their cars won't fit in the smaller garages".

Cars have grown in size since I was a kitten. The first car my parents had was a "baby Austin". I can just remember this car. It had just enough room for my parents and my bassinet. When I outgrew the bassinet I sat on my mother's lap. There were no such things as seat belts or child restraints. 

We had that car until my brother arrived two years later. I remember my last ride in that car. The Senior Cat took me with him to pick up our "new" car - a secondhand Morris Minor.  We brought it home and the Senior Cat set about repainting it. I was allowed to "help" - by washing it with water.  I can only imagine that painting it was essential. We would not have had the money to spend on anything non-essential. We would only have had a car because, living in the country, it would have been essential to have some sort of transport apart from the train. (The train has long gone.)

That car did us for the next eight years. It was only changed for a secondhand Holden when we went to live in a very remote area. That was a bigger, heavier and sturdier car much more suited to the unsealed roads we then travelled on. Looking back however I know it was smaller than the cars I now see around the city. People have things called 4WD's and SU V's. They are big, some of them are very big. They can apparently go over rough terrain - the rough terrain of urban bitumen. The bigger they are the better they are - or so it would seem. They won't fit into the garages built to accommodate the old small cars. No, you put your "extra" possessions into those.

There are still some smaller cars around. They are often "the second car" because many households have two cars...or even more. That is where the problem really begins to escalate. People begin to park on the street because only one car will fit in the shortened driveway of a "new build"...or they block the footpath...or even do both.

People have children and then...they have cars too. There is a family of mum, dad and two boys around the corner. They have four cars and two motor bikes between them so of course they park on the street. Not much further along is a family with three cars. The same sort of thing continues right along my pedalling route to the library. Near the end there is one house with three cars and a motorbike and they are next to a house with two very big vehicles, a sports car and a boat. Almost no house has just one vehicle...and most of those vehicles are much bigger than anything my parents ever owned. 

The owners of these vehicles, with very rare exceptions, never leave the urban areas. They would have no idea how to handle a vehicle on an unsealed road. So why have they got such big cars? The argument that they are somehow "safer" seems to me more of a reflection on the poor driving skills of the population at large...and a desire for the convenience and comfort of transport of one's own rather than the effort and necessity of using public transport.  

So "youth crime" is on the rise?

 There was an article in the Sunday paper suggesting that youth crime has "skyrocketed" by 140 percent.  The Assistant Police Commissioner was saying this - and also questioning the role of parents in all this. He is reported as saying that around ten percent of offenders account for fifty percent of the crime. They are in other words "recidivists". Why? A small number of them have over two hundred offences on their charge sheets. Where do they find the time and the energy to commit so many offences that actually get that far? It is highly unlikely that these are the only offences they have committed.

The  Assistant Police Commissioner is saying that what happens at home matters.

He asks, “Where are their parents? Where are their guardians? What responsibility have they got? They’re the ones who are failing and they’re the ones who need to step up and accept their own responsibility so that we have a safer community – and not always point the finger to other people to solve their problems. If you want to be a parent, then you actually need to accept that responsibility and have some accountability for your kids.”

 

That all sounds perfectly reasonable but these young offenders often come from single parent homes or homes where neither parent works, where drugs and alcohol and petty crime among the adults is also common. They can also come from homes where both parents work and really take very little interest in their children due to time restraints and not enough knowledge about how to parent effectively. 

 

Ideas about parenting have changed too. If Dad gives you a "good walloping" he is likely to be charged with assault. If Mum won't buy you the brand of footwear you want then you can accuse her of being "neglectful".  This of course assumes that you have both "Mum" and "Dad" and not a step-parent, "uncle", or two Mums or two Dads. Families have changed and there are plenty of children and young people who resent the structure of their own families.

 

I was talking to a young woman who was deliberately conceived out of wedlock and then grew up with "two mothers". She also grew up being told all this was normal and acceptable  "but I never invited other kids home and I found I was sometimes not invited because parents did not approve of my family set up."

 

Her birth mother "Mum" died when she was fourteen. Her "other Mum" died a little over a year ago.  She found her father  and they have met but he lives in another country and she felt no connection with him. "I am supposed to feel sad I am an orphan but it's a relief in many ways. I don't have to worry about how they might influence any children I might have."

It would have been easy for her to go off the rails but she is an intelligent and able person who is now in a steady relationship with someone I know well. I hope it works out for them because parenting does matter and they know this better than most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A house was vandalised

and set alight in Sydney last week. Cars were set alight as well. Apparently the family who once lived there were Jewish and that was seen as reason enough to cause the damage. That they no longer live there was apparently unknown or irrelevant in the minds of the perpetrators. 

In Melbourne another house was also damaged and this time the occupant, minding the house for her brother while he was on his honeymoon, was killed. The police are saying they think the house was "wrongly targetted". A friend in Melbourne is wondering whether the attackers also think the residents were Jewish.

Just what is going on here? When did attacking Jewish people in this country become a "thing" and why? We are told the pro-Palestinian protests "will continue even though there has been a ceasefire agreed to". Really? Why?

We have Holocaust survivors in this country - and the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. The stories are passed down the generations. I have talked to some of these people and seen the indelible marks on them. The horrors do not go away simply because time has passed. It is even harder for those who have nobody left from their childhood, who believe that nobody else can possibly understand. How can they when they have not lived through the horrors?

I really do not understand what makes people "hate" Jews. I have Jewish friends - and Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist and Christian and a few other things as well. They are simply friends. Some of them are closer friends than others but all of them are people I would be very happy to be seen having a cuppa with in the local shopping centre or inviting into my home. They hold a wide variety of views on world affairs and I do not always agree with them but I do try to respect their point of view and where it comes from.

I also try to educate myself by listening to them and to others, by reading a variety of sources. I have been known to mutter imprecations of a sort at some of the statements made by newsreaders and journalists. I have also been known to express myself in letters to the editors of more than one newspaper but I do try to back my arguments with verifiable facts. Here I tend to let go and express an opinion or two...or more!

But the idea that I should "hate" someone who has done me no harm for their faith is still something I find hard to understand.

Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost the plot with respect and tolerance of differences. Perhaps instead of being told what to think from the time we start to understand at day care or pre-school we should be encouraged to believe in ourselves and each other?

If "the Greens" hold the balance of power

after the next election, and some of the pundits think they could, then we will be in serious trouble as a nation.

The so-called "Greens" are not the friendly, tree hugging environmentally committed party of my earliest political days. They are now a far left group with old style communist type policies.

They want "free" visits to the GP, to the dentist, to a psychologist and for the nurse to visit you. Someone has to pay for this of course but, according to the Greens, someone else will pay. It won't be the person voting for them. Similarly they want all abortions to be publicly funded nationwide.

They want a complete transition to "renewable" energy with the same sort of funding. Someone else will pay and of course, under the Greens but nobody else, our power supplies will more than meet the demand and be completely reliable.

They want public schools to be funded so well that even the wealthiest fee paying schools will look on them with envy. They also want to wipe all student debt. (They have no plans to reimburse those who would have incurred the same level of debt if they had not paid upfront.) Don't worry about who is going to pay for this or that the Greens want to spend $150m a year on Disability Pride events rather than on Disability Services. 

They want "old growth" forests to be left untouched - although I have been reliably informed that this is not the best thing to do for the forests if you want them to survive and be healthy. (Trees have a natural life cycle and culling old trees and replanting actually assists the environment.) Similarly they would like us to do away with cows and sheep and all associated products and return a great deal of farmland to "nature". I am not sure what they think we will eat. There are too many of us to eat as the aboriginal community once did. And, talking of population, they think we should greatly increase our migrant intake. Where we will get the water from I am not sure but they have the housing policy all sewn up - but of course that will be paid for by someone else.

I am not sure how all their policies could possibly work - and I am worried that just enough people might like them enough to give them far too much power.  

"Will the ceasefire last?"

One of the regular dog walkers asked me this a few minutes ago. I will miss these brief early morning conversations.

I know this man has thought long and hard about the situation between Israel and Hamas. He sees fault on both sides but has no doubt about which side started the most recent conflict. He has no time at all for the support our present federal government is effectively giving to Hamas.  He also blames Hamas for the death of the aid workers, not Israel. 

"They should not need aid workers there," he tells me, "They should be getting on with the job of sorting out what's going on inside their own country instead of expecting the rest of the world to do it for them. Most people who live in that place (he means Gaza) probably just want the same thing."

I have no doubt that his last statement is correct. Gaza is a war zone. It is an absolute disaster area. Hamas has been dictating what can and will be done - and most of the population is too frightened to do anything other than obey. There are individuals who are ready to resist - often with fatal consequences - but there has been no large scale uprising against Hamas.  I doubt there will ever be any such thing. You need some sort of structure for that sort of thing to occur.

It makes me realise yet again how fortunate I have been in living in two countries where there is a democracy of sorts. Neither place has a perfect system of government but they are both vastly better than being governed by a group like Hamas. 

There is no effective opposition in Gaza. The ceasefire will last as long as the leaders of Hamas think it is in their favour for it to last.  

"Withdrawing an ambassador"

is not something which should be done lightly. Yes, occasionally there is a small spat and one country will say to another "I'm not playing with you anymore." It is when there is a much more serious breach in  affairs that we need to be concerned.

We have not yet withdrawn the current Ambassador from Moscow but perhaps we should. If the Russians are murdering prisoners of war them they are committing a very, very grave offence indeed. It is a matter for the International Criminal Court and those responsible should be locked away for life. Murder is never right. 

The problem with withdrawing an ambassador from anywhere is that lines of communication are lost - often when you need them the most. From my own observations of diplomats at work I suspect those lines of communication are vital. If you want to do your job you need to know people, the relevant people best of all. They won't necessarily be other diplomats or high ranking people. They will be "smaller" people as well. 

I remember being invited to dinner one evening at the home of the Senior Cat's cousin. Among the guests was a very new, very young member of the staff of the South African embassy.  I was asked to take special care of him during the evening. It was a very difficult evening to begin with because this was some years before 1994 and Mandela becoming president and this young man was one of the "blacks". Even in our largely very tolerant nation's capital there could be issues. In the end we had a very pleasant time. We found we knew people in common from a university there and from their time and mine in London. 

Eventually he decided a diplomatic career was not for him and a career in politics would not be right either. He went on to teach at a university there and we corresponded spasmodically until his death. He worried about the diplomatic world and the manner in which people are expected to serve it. I remember him writing, "I am withdrawing my service before I am asked to do so. There will be things lost to me but I hope to gain others with my return to teaching."

Yes, he lost all his lines of communication from his previous position and that was inside the system and with no wrong doing on his part. He commented later on how much harder it must be for people and countries when ambassadors are withdrawn or, worse, sent home because they are no longer welcome. 

It is not something to be done lightly. It affects many people. Doing business and helping those in trouble is so much more difficult but it needs to be done if murder has taken place. 

How well do you know your local MP?

 Have you actually ever spoken to them...or even been to their electorate office? Would you recognise them if you saw them in the local shopping centre or at a football match?

I realised with some alarm yesterday that I am not on a "casual-friendly" basis with either my local member or my federal member. This is the first time in many, many years that I can remember this being the case. The last time it happened was when I was away for so long that I was not voting. I soon remedied the situation when I came back.

No, I didn't pounce on them in the shopping centre or the library or anywhere else. I was introduced to both by someone who thought I might have an answer to something - I have forgotten what the problem was.  I remember the MPs being polite in the way that people who want something from you but really can't be bothered with you are. They really made no secret of the fact they did not want people fawning over them.

I am not the fawning type. It is much easier for me to write a letter than make a phone call. Asking for an appointment to see my local MP is the sort of thing I will avoid even when I know I should not. I don't think I am shy. Someone I know has actually said I come across as "assertive" on these pages. I am not in the least bit assertive and will go out of my way to avoid confrontation of any sort. I am not in the least bit like Middle Cat who challenge anyone.

But the MPs? I have known a few in my time, known a few quite well. I have known them well enough that they know my name and will discuss a problem with me. Their secretaries have called me and asked me to do a rough draft of a letter they need to send. I have been asked to talk to X family or Y individual of Z group and get things together so the MP can do something about a situation. I have never minded helping out in such situations - for MPs on both sides of the political divide.

So, what has happened now? I have tried to work it out and failed. All I can come up with is that they are failing to do their job. I was convinced of it when someone who is at very least moderately politically aware could not name his state or federal representative.

"I don't know Cat. They sort of aren't there. They aren't making any sort of noises. "

I realised he was right. The current two would probably be pleasant enough if I met them but, so far, they are not representing me in any meaningful way. They have sent out a couple of "newsletters" but that is all the contact I have had.

There has to be a federal election this year. If the current incumbent wants me to vote in their favour they will need to do a better job of representing me.

It is not the role of the police

to care for the mentally ill or the homeless. Their job is, or should be, much more about law and order and the safety of the population at large.

Apparently the police are being used to try and keep mental health patients under control before they enter emergency departments. The police are now helping ambulance officers do their jobs. It is taking them away from the other jobs they should be doing but this sort of work is deemed "essential" because it involves public safety.

I know what emergency departments in hospitals can be like. I have experienced them in a number of places both here and in England.  They can be chaotic places, especially if there are multiple injuries from an incident like a road traffic accident.  When that occurs those working there on other issues do not need to be distracted by very disturbed mentally ill patients. It is sufficiently difficult to deal with everything from a nail through a finger to a heart attack, a stroke or the suspected serious concussion from the football game. 

My doctor nephew worked for a while in the "walk in" clinic for the mentally ill in the city. Concerned for his own safety he eventually left and other people went as well. They really need police there full time but some people will not go there if there is an obvious police presence. That of course means that some people will delay getting help they know they need. Some of them will then end up in the Emergency Departments in a far worse state.

We closed the hospitals which helped the mentally ill. We put the people who once attended them "back in the community" so now they have nowhere specialist to go. The police cannot take them somewhere like that and hand them into the care of people who are trained to help. There are more and more people taking drugs of one sort or another and they seem to be more freely available than ever. Covid and the resultant lock downs seem to have made the problem, if not worse, at least more visible.

I am wondering if closing the hospitals was such a good idea. Some people with mental illnesses find it impossible to live "in the community" at least at times. The regular hospital emergency departments may be adding to their stress.  Being there under police guard is only likely to make matters worse.  

Emergency evacuations

in a fire zone or in any other situation must be planned to include everyone. 

There has been much made here of the fact that a father and son did not make it out of the fires in Los Angeles and that they were both disabled. The father was apparently in a wheelchair. His son had visual and mobility issues. 

Someone should have been assigned to help them not on the day of the fire but years ago. There should have been a relative, a friend, a neighbour, someone from an organisation who had the first responsibility to evacuate them. If that person was not available then they should have the responsibility of passing the message on. "I am out of the city X...and Y.. need to be evacuated."

One of the reasons I have never wanted to live in the hills behind us is the fire danger. I would not be able to get in a car and drive out in an emergency. I would be dependent on someone else. I could only pedal so far - and perhaps not pedal at all. 

Here in the suburbs I would have more chance of reaching safety but even then I am conscious that leaving quickly and doing so independently is nor an option for me. I will not simply run from my place of residence and seek safety - but I can leave. 

Making sure people have access to a phone for emergencies will help of course but not everyone has such access in an emergency. If the system fails then other measures need to be put in place, tested and tried before there is an event which puts lives at risk. 

And there need to be very special measures for people who cannot communicate easily - or perhaps at all. I know of a non-verbal man who works in a small family orchard. He knows how to do all sorts of things around the property but it is unlikely he would be safe alone in an emergency. His adopted family have a system in place and hope it will be enough if there is ever an emergency. It has been a lot of work and involved teaching more than one other person how this man communicates. I hope all that preparation is never needed but I also know that those who care deeply about this person are happier knowing that they might be keeping him as safe as possible. 

There are also the very young, the very old, those who are frail in other ways and others who may need help. It is all very well to try and rely on mobile phones, on "alerts" and more but nothing can replace human to human contact and preparedness. 

And when people are safely evacuated we need to be aware some of them might still need more help than others need.  I can remember all too well the occasion on which my friend J.... was stuck in a corner in a crowded room at a conference. I finally managed to reach him and his first words were, "Cat, could you please get someone to give me some water?" That was just at a conference. It was not an emergency setting. J... had a doctorate in mathematics but he could not get himself a drink and needed a straw to be able to drink at all. We raised the issue then and all these years later, more than twenty years after his death, I am still having to raise it.

Emergency evacuation procedures and after care are not working unless they include everyone.  

Scanning a QR code

is something I have never done. I simply do not have the right sort of phone to do that. 

My phone is an old style "flip top" with the capacity to make and receive calls, receive text messages and (if I could actually do it) send text messages.  Possibly I could do other things on it. I have never bothered to find out. 

The idea of using my phone as a sort of mini-computer with access to the internet and as a means of paying for my milk and cat biscuits is not something I want. The news that scammers are now using fake QR codes over actual codes in an effort to get people to part with their money is even more reason not to do it.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to find ways around the ever growing number of demands to do things "with your phone". Even the local bakery expects people to be "loyalty" customers by using their phones. Why? The idea that you might get a "reward" of some sort is ridiculous. Someone is paying for the reward - almost certainly you in the prices you pay. 

Many years ago my mother made everyone in the family get "Fly-buy" cards - and expected us to use them. I dutifully handed the card over when asked for it and eventually reached about eighteen points - only to lose them again because I did not "use" them in time. Eventually I tossed the card in the bin because I know I will never spend the sort of money which will earn me the "reward" of even a reduced fare. I am simply paying for others to do it.

There are people who might get something from all this I suppose. A local man retired a couple of years ago. About once a week he flies interstate and then drives a car back for someone who needs a car brought into the state. He has set it up as a legitimate business  and it pays well. He likes driving but he is also adding to what are now "Frequent Flyer" points which he apparently plans to use for a holiday of some sort. 

But do I really need to do this? No, I do not. It is the consumer world which wants me to do it. Instead of being a nicely anonymous and cash paying customer they want to know more about me. They want to be able to "guide" my expenditure into areas I do not need or want. They want to make sure I spend what little money I have and make even more sure I spend it with them.

Now I am puzzling over the requirements to enter the UK. Apparently it requires access to a phone that can scan something in order to get the necessary documentation. The site says get someone else to do it if your phone cannot do it. That seems wrong to me. There should not be a requirement to do these things when they put us at risk. It is not going to stop fraudulent behaviour. Criminals will find a way around such things very quickly. The rest of us need to be constantly alert for the unseen nefarious activities of others.

I managed to get through Covid without using a QR code to check in anywhere but how much longer am I going to be able to avoid all this?  How soon before I get caught up and harmed?

There was an attempt to shoplift

yesterday in a supermarket near here. I saw it happen and so did at least two more people.

The supermarket was one which provides "free fruit for kids". This is a bowl where people can take a piece of fruit like an apple or a banana and give it to a small child. It's a good idea for a number of reasons. I have even seen a very harassed grandparent insist on paying for the privilege of using it.

This was not enough for this woman. She also chose two rolls from the "self-serve" cabinets and handed them to the two small children with her. Was she intending to pay for them at the checkout.

I was with someone else. We had been to a funeral of a woman who would have worried herself sick if she thought she had taken something without paying for it. M.... looked at me. Someone else looked at us as well. We all wondered if she was intending to pay.

M...and I were delayed by someone wishing to speak to us. We found the woman several customers ahead of us in an "eight items or less" lane. No, she did not pay for the rolls which the children were still eating. 

At this point it would have been easy enough to be honest and say something like,"Oh! I am so sorry. I forgot. The rolls were keeping them so quiet."

Instead she swore when the other person who had noticed her take the rolls said something quietly,

"Shut the f... up. You have no idea. Bloody places like this make massive profits and we're expected to pay more for less and less," was the next response.

Store security appeared in the form of the manager. He is a large man. M... hastily paid for what she had come to buy and we left.

"I need something to drink and I'm buying for both of us," M... told me and steered me into a small cafe across from the supermarket. 

We sat there drinking iced drinks. We saw two police officers appear and go into the supermarket. We heard shouting and then children crying loudly. It was not pleasant. 

A few minutes later we saw the two police officers and the woman. One police officer was pushing the trolley with the two crying children in it and the other was with the woman. She was still shouting obscenities.  

The whole incident left me feeling shaken. I felt, still feel, so concerned for those two children. There was good food available there for nothing. If the children were hungry and the woman was not able to afford to buy food for them there were alternatives. At very least they could have had two pieces of fruit. What was this woman, presumably their mother, thinking? M... and I will never know but I hope the woman gets the help she obviously needs. The children are going to need that at very least.

 

 

The wildfires in California

should be a warning to us. We are not prepared.

Several days ago Middle Cat and I went up into the hills behind us. To get there we go up what we call "the freeway". The Germans would probably consider this is a minor road but it is one of those places where going 100km an hour is the right thing to do. 

There is not much time to view the scenery if you are driving but of course I was in the passenger seat. I could see how dry the country is. We have had no proper rain for months now. It would take one fool with a match to set that straw yellow grass alight. It would take very little for it to jump the road in a wind.

We travelled further on, turned off the freeway at the exit which leads into all the small "towns" (villages) in the hills. We went left but the right hand turn is similar. Many of the houses are close to the road but public transport is almost non-existent. Having a car is essential here. There are trees everywhere, often very close to the houses. 

It all looks lovely. If we had gone up the "old" route into the hills there would have been even more. The roads wind in and out, go up and down, end in "dead ends" or cross the railway line that now goes no further than half way to the highest point.  The Senior Cat's late cousin K... once lived in one of those streets. The driveway was steep. The house was surrounded by gums and native "scrub". K... was no gardener. He did the minimum to keep the place accessible. His "spare" time was spent rebuilding classic cars. 

Every summer we would watch the fire reports and wonder if it might be this summer that K...and his family would be forced to evacuate in a hurry. His wife, F...., kept some things packed so they would be ready to grab and leave. We wondered if they would even be able to leave because of the location. If a train was halted over their crossing then getting out of the hills in an emergency could be a real problem. 

I looked up there again this morning. It is going to be another hot day and I can see houses tucked in among the trees. In its own way it is very beautiful. The flora can be magnificent. The wild life is very varied.  "Cooler up there," someone said to me in passing.

It may be cooler but come a fire and it will be very different. California's climate is similar to this one. They have other winds and have not had nearly enough rain. The fires have gone right into the suburbs there and the idea that they would never do the same here is ridiculous. We need the council inspectors out checking to see that people have removed the undergrowth around their homes and cleared their gutters. We need the police on patrol. We need people to be fined for failing to abide by the regulations. 

It is a privilege perhaps to live in an area which has so much to offer. The problem is that we are treating it all much too casually, as if we have a right to live there and disturb the natural balance of nature. It would be better if we acknowledged the privilege with the proper preparation.

There was a shooting here

earlier in the week. It made headline news for a number of reasons. The person who was shot was wielding a knife. He is alleged to have been mentally ill. The police shot him after they had attempted to taser him and failed.

Our Police Commissioner was, if you listened carefully, struggling to maintain control. He was not angry. He was upset. You could hear the grief in his voice. There is apparently every reason to believe the police officers involved did as they are trained to do but that will make it no easier for them. The Commissioner knows that.

I think I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog that I was once very peripherally involved in an incident involving police and guns. It was a Saturday morning in London and a long time ago. The problem is that, when reminded of it, the incident still feels as if it happened yesterday.  

Another student and I were going into the local post office to send off those all important "we're okay" letters to our parents when we were knocked aside by two (I think) men with guns rushing out. They had just robbed the post office. It left B... and I shaken - but not as shaken as the staff or the customers who had been in there at the time.

I don't suppose I was ever in any real danger but it did not feel like that at the time. The incident left me and my friend shaken, very shaken. 

There always seemed to be police around in central London and they had the situation under control very rapidly. I can only suppose the offenders eventually faced court. We did not see any of that but it still took some time before B... and I stopped looking over our shoulders or we felt comfortable going into that post office. Now I tend to remember it when something like this happens or on the rare occasions I have used a small post office in another location. That post office has also been subjected to a number of incidents over the years.  

I have wondered about the post office staff and the people who were in the post office at the time. I have also wondered about the police who were first involved in the incident. They had to try and apprehend the armed offenders without the use of firearms themselves. They had no tasers to help them. Somehow they must have done it.

I wonder what would have happened here if the police had not been armed. I also wonder how they will cope with the knowledge that the shots they did fire killed a man. It might have been done within their training and within the law but it isn't going to be easy for them.   

A hymn is a song

or it should be. The definition of a "hymn" is usually a song or a poem which praises a deity of some sort.

The matter came up yesterday when a friend stopped me in the post office and told me quietly that her mother had died. She was quite calm about this. Her mother was ninety-six, had been ill for a long time and was "ready to go".

Her mother was also an intensely religious person...and I mean intensely. For years she ran a business in the shopping centre. When it folded she still ran a ticketing agency. Often there would be no customers at the little booth and M...would sit there with her eyes closed. Many people thought she was asleep but she wasn't. She was praying. She spent hours in prayer, many hours.

It was not something she talked about. I only knew because her daughter told me about it. Her daughter would occasionally mention other things as well, such as her mother's attendance at church more than once a week and her mother's involvement in other church related activities. Her mother's faith seemed to be absolute. She appeared to have no doubts at all.

Not so long ago her daughter said to me, "Mum's impatient to go to God...but he's keeping her waiting." It was an interesting thought. I am reminded of the occasion when one of the local priests told me, "Most of the saints were very impatient people." The remark came after I had remarked about something requiring "the patience of a saint".

M... apparently kept praying even in the hospice where she ended her life. The hospice was once run by nuns and it still has a strong "Catholic" presence about it. It is a "good" place - as much as a place for the dying can be "good". 

The funeral for M... will be held on Friday. It is being held at the big monastery church up the hill from here. There will be a "Holy Rosary" the evening before. I am not familiar with such Catholic traditions. I know the Mass the following day will be very solemn and very traditional. The music will be solemn too. It is what M... would have wished for, what her family will expect. The words "celebration of life" will almost certainly be mentioned but it will not be as it was for the Senior Cat. He asked me to make sure that people went out of the church to "something happy, preferably the song our African kids sang for me".  

"Banaha" is a nonsense song. The words are in a Congolese dialect. There are many versions of it on the internet. It is a song which should be sung in canon or as a round. It should be sung loudly and cheerfully and quickly.

Yesterday, and for another purpose, I wrote some English words for the tune. It is perhaps a hymn of a sort because a hymn is a song and we need songs in our lives. I wonder what M... would have made of it.  

The sea is not ours

and we perhaps need to have more respect for how dangerous it is.

In the past week there has been news in this state alone of a surfer taken by a shark and two people drowned. They are by no means the only such events that have occurred so far over the summer. 

The sea is the shark's "home", not ours. If they see something invading their space they will react. If they are hungry they will see a source of food. They will not see a person. 

The drownings which occurred this past week were apparently caused by a boat flipping in the water when an unpredictably high wave swamped the boat.  I don't know whether the occupants were wearing life jackets. They were said to be older and very experienced but there was apparently a "freak" wave and even life jackets may not have helped. 

There are boats parked in driveways around here. I don't know how often they get taken out but I suspect it is less often than people would have others believe. Boats are expensive to maintain and good safety takes time and money too.

My paternal grandfather grew up around boats. It is hard to imagine him as a very small child learning to swim. He was the second child so it is likely his older brother could already swim at least a short distance. Their father would have taught them to swim simply by throwing them in the water, getting them first to "dog paddle" and then to do an overarm stroke. It might not have produced Olympic style swimmers but that and the capacity to float kept most children in and around the port safe. They were watched by other children and by adults of course but the skills were considered vital for those living around the water. Even my paternal great-grandmother could swim. She had been taught in the freezing cold waters in the far north of Scotland.

Grandpa taught me and Brother Cat to swim when we lived close to them. We did not live there as long as we would have liked but Grandpa would pick us up very early in the morning, usually around 6am, sometimes a little earlier.  I can still imagine the feel of his firm hand on the crossed straps on the back of my bathing suit. As he was we were taught to "dog paddle" and to float. He taught us the old way to do an "overarm". It was only at swimming classes we went on to a "breast stroke" and a "side stroke". I have not been in the water for a long time but I am confident I could still manage to stay afloat for a time. If I still lived close to the sea I might well, but taking all precautions, exercise that way.

Our lessons over Grandpa would leave us digging holes in the sand. He would swim out and spend perhaps no more than ten minutes exercising that way before he went home to his breakfast and then to his place of work. Even when he was almost blind the staff at the nursing home would see him across the road to the beach and he would swim out guided by the jetty he could just see and take his exercise. He did that almost to the very end of his life. I have no doubt it kept him fit and healthy for a very long time. 

The ability to swim and to float won't necessarily save you but it might too.  It might also extend your life too.