Dec 19ISSUE No. 412 December 2019
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Dear Fellow Dickensians
Christmas
So Christmas is upon us again, the season to be Jolly. Being born in Australia and having spent almost half my life living in the UK, I was able to enjoy and compare the difference between the two countries in relation to Christmas.
An Australian Christmas is holiday time. Melbournians enjoy the summer weather, lazing on the beach whilst watching children playing with their new beach toys or enjoying a swimming pool. Shopping is much more enjoyable due to the Christmas sales and hence getting a good bargain in buying presents. The fruit shops are awash with the new seasonal fruit including bright red strawberries, vermillion or near purple cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, prickly pineapples, nectarines and more, all vying for attention with their colour and form. Then there is the Christmas windows where, even in some of the humblest shops or in the the Myer windows, there is a celebration of the festive season, and, of course, we have the ever popular Carols by Candlelight. Many industries close down and so the majority can relax and recharge the batteries. All of which truly reflects the Aussie expression of ‘No worries mate’.
When I arrived in England in late November I stayed in the top storey of a house in Shepherd’s Bush, London sharing with five Australian journalists and, handily, around the corner in another top story of a house were four young nurses, but I digress. On my first Christmas Eve there, I well remember standing in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and looking out the window thinking to myself that as I had never seen snow in my life, wouldn’t it be lovely if it snowed now, and yet just as I thought that, it started snowing. I swear that is exactly the timing of that happening. (I checked and since 1960 to 2016 this has only occurred ten times). Later, when older and with children, there was always the school’s Christmas Carols in the village church, part of which dated back to Norman times. In the lead up to Christmas the village pub always had a visit by the Mummers who went around at Christmas time to all the pubs performing their play. I could never quite get my head around this tradition which apparently goes back to at least 1296. The play that they perform is always the same one with, basically, St George encountering a Turk and having a sword fight and ultimately killing him, a doctor then joins them and attends to the Turk who comes back to life, and that’s it! However, it is traditional and, of course, a good excuse to pop down to the pub. I need point out that living in a hamlet meant that the only gathering place was the Horse and Harrow pub. Christmas shopping in Oxford really put me in the seasonal spirit; overcoat, gloves and a scarf and the Georgian shops with little Christmas windows, and of course popping into a cosy panelled pub with an open fire, to take stock of my purchases before heading out again. On Christmas Eve when my girls were young I used to gather them around and read out all the festive stories from their heavily illustrated children’s books. This was followed by mince pies and mulled wine for me whilst we often watched ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ Yes reader, but don’t knock it till you watch it.
On Christmas Day, whilst the turkey was roasting, we would briefly pop to the pub where the locals had a free pint on the landlord and all enjoyed the Christmas morning ambience. I was always amused by watching the men walk in with the ubiquitous Christmas present
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of a new jumper, which their wives or girlfriends made them wear to the pub on the day. The afternoon did indeed have us doing the typical pastimes of charades and all the other games. The evening was spent relaxed in front of the television watching the big Christmas film and eating the first of the many turkey sandwiches of which we will be consuming many over the following days. Dickens always features over Christmas. Obviously A Christmas Carol in all sorts of forms is high on that list, but there are often other shows and references. A reasonably recent example being the television series Dickensian.
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Trotty Veck Illustration by Frank Reynolds
Whether you liked it or not it was excellent for an introduction to, or promotion of, Dickens and his works. This had the tabloids and magazines printing innumerable articles on Dickens and many with full colour illustrated spreads. Certainly, Dickens has done much to promote Christmas and in turn Christmas has done much to promote Dickens.
Boxing Day was spent eating more turkey sandwiches and doing as little as possible. New Year’s Eve was seen out at the pub and singing Auld Lang Syne before heading home about one in the morning. So, after all that, it was back to work on 2nd January. You were broke, cold and you knew it would be as much as three months of this ahead of you. Then the cruellest cut of all; on television comes all the advertisements for packaged summer holidays in Spain and beyond. These, of course, are delivered against visuals of tanned bodies stretched out on the sand or having a good time in the surf. And hence there was affirmation of the universal truth that misery loves company and, indeed, we all moaned to each other and we were all miserable together.
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Uriah’s Utterings
I was privileged to give a presentation to the branch at our last meeting; Dickens, Deafness and Doctor Marigold. This continues a fine tradition, for which our branch is rightly renowned. Our members provide the information and the entertainment and it is well researched and relevant. I hope mine was up to scratch and, if it were, it was mainly due to the excellent readings given by Brian Ruck, Lyndsey Burton and Alan Dilnot. It was also enhanced by generous contributions from Barbara Sharpe and Lyndsey, about their personal experiences of deafness.
Nipper is always tantalised by mentions of presentations from decades ago, as she minutely examines our minutes, but they are seldom if ever detailed. We aim to correct that, by publishing, at least, a summary of our shows, so that future generations of our branch will not be denied.
Thanks again to Paul who has put together another calendar of activities over the holiday period, and to Dennis and Lyndsey for showing respect for Christmas traditions in England while also celebrating our own.
Merry Christmas to all! (Would the real Uriah have ever said that?)
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Miss Nipper’s Notes
Miss Nipper loves to go snooping through history. She likes trawling through old documents and telling people about them.
One of our scrapbooks contains two interesting items from 1961. The first, from the Sydney Daily Mirror dated May 31st, refers to Professor Colin Horne. Born in Bendigo in 1912, Colin James Horne attended Melbourne University. While a trainee teacher at Melbourne Teachers College he began a teaching career before a scholarship enabled him to establish an academic career at various British universities. He returned to Australia to take up an appointment at the University of Adelaide.
The article tells us that Horne’s former colleagues at Cambridge were preparing an edition of about 11,000 of the letters of Charles Dickens. Publication of the first volume was planned for 1962, to celebrate Dickens’s 150th birthday. Sponsored by The Pilgrim Trust in America, it was to be called the Pilgrim edition. Professor Horne’s job was to hunt down letters held in Australia.
The Bulletin of June 17th 1961, recently purchased by Frank Packer and edited by Donald Horne, notes that professor Colin James Horne is to go ‘sleuthing’ for letters of Dickens held in Australia. The Bulletin notes that Professor Horne took over as Jury Professor Of Language and Literature from J.I.M. Stewart, better known as Michael Innes. Perhaps sleuthing is in the Adelaide water.
Both articles review the Australian careers of Alfred Tennyson Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens. Professor Horne is reported ‘elated’ by the response his appeal, only four weeks old, had drawn. He was especially pleased by the response from the president of Melbourne’s Society for Psychic and Occult Science Research, who informed Professor Horne ‘that he still keeps in close touch with Dickens’.
Publication of the letters has had a chequered history with re-writes and dubious edits; an authoritative edition was needed. Looking at the lined-up volumes, we do not necessarily think of the labour of compilation, but it made perfect sense to get local people to hunt out letters. Some of our members, visiting a college library some years ago, were surprised that the staff did not know of the Pilgrim edition. However, in 1961, at least two popular publications publicised the essentially academic exercise. Letters written by Dickens continue to emerge and are published under the aegis of The Dickensian as The Charles Dickens Letters Project. http://dickensletters.com/
From the Secretary. Report on the Meeting of November 20, 2019
The president, Dennis Marriott, welcomed 31 members. The secretary reported on correspondence: London Particular from London: Dickens Down Under from Christchurch and the newsletter from GRAD in The United States.
There were reports from the treasurer Karen Brkic, the social secretary Nita Jawary, the librarian Ann Douglas and Andrew Gemmell, editor of the newsletter. The president reminded members that the next meeting is on the second, not the third Wednesday of the month, December 11th for the Christmas party. Attendees should bring: a gift costing no more than $10.00, food to share and something for the raffle hampers. Dennis asked that people make their payments for the birthday dinner on February 14th, the cost being $50.00 for members and $55.00 for non-members.
Dennis also told the membership of the committee’s decision to change the format of the dinner. Because the evening tends to peter out after tea and coffee is announced, next year, it will formally end after dessert with the customary singing of Auld Lang Syne. People who then wish to have something of an after-party, sitting around talking and having a tea or coffee may do so. While this happens, equipment can be packed away, the dishwasher can be started and a general clearance begun to allow the re-organisation of the furniture for the church’s activities the following morning. It will be made absolutely clear that people are not being hurried out. Certainly, the people who lingered last year did not feel that way. The main business of the evening was Andrew Gemmell’s presentation, Dickens, Deafness & Dr Marigold. Andrew suggested that Dickens wrote the story specifically for performance by him in his public readings. It covers a lot of territory, child cruelty, disability and the attitudes to deafness and special education.
Extended passages from the story were read aloud by Alan Dilnot, Brian Ruck and Lyndsey Burton. Andrew prepared a timeline illustrating the history of the attitudes to deafness. Two speakers spoke of their experience of deafness. In a presentation that was both entertaining and informative, Barbara Sharpe observed that it was an invisible disability. She became profoundly deaf before, late in life, having cochlear implants. Lyndsey Burton spoke of her knowledge of deafness and her experience of somewhat impaired hearing.
Elna Estcourt proposed the Vote of Thanks.
Kitchen duties were performed by Pamela Chaikin-Badoer, who also brought some supper, and by Kerry Cussen.
John Leonard
By Barbara Barrett
John Leonard passed away some time before Friday October 11th, 2019. I first met John in 1963 when the C.A.E. drama group was to do Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. John had the part of Dolabella; Gavin Dyer was the director. The production played at The Russell Street Theatre.
Thirty years passed before I met John again, at the English Speaking Union’s rooms in Toorak Road. John had a new lady on his arm and we later found out that she was his wife, Margaret.
Later, they joined the Dickens Fellowship and John was just the same, always helping out, even setting up tables and chairs. John always gave good readings from Dickens’s works.
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He was also fond of Alice In Wonderland. John, Glenda Benness and others performed The Tea Party Season at a garden party. John was the Mad Hatter. He was a man for all seasons, regarding people.
We shall miss you John dear, love from all your friends at The Dickens Fellowship.
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Janáek, Dickens and Unrequited Love
by Patricia Wiltshire
Leoš Janáek, the Czech composer, will be no stranger to lovers of Dickens who also love music. Those who listen to Andrew Ford’s ‘Music Show’, which is broadcast twice weekly on ABC Radio National, may have been fortunate enough to hear an interview with Nigel Simeone, author of a new Janáek compendium.
It was this interview, with its revelations about the relationship that inspired some of Janáek’s greatest work, that set me thinking about that other relationship between Charles Dickens and Ellen Ternan and some parallels that could be drawn between the two female protagonists.
At the age of 63, while staying at a favourite Art Nouveau resort spa in the depth of the Czech countryside, the Czech composer Leoš Janáek (1854–1928) met and fell in love with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman almost forty years younger than the composer
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(who was also married). Janáek instantly developed an overwhelming passion for her which was not reciprocated and, though this obsession was one-sided, she served as the inspiration for the music he would write for the rest of his life. In all, he wrote 700 letters that were kept by her, while she also served as the inspiration for chamber music, orchestral works and four major operas, all written in the last eleven years of his life and explicitly inspired by his love for Kamila.
As time passed, they became friends but we are told it was ten years before he as much as received a friendly kiss from her. She was happy for him to visit, but always in the company of her husband. He was known to have become fond of her two children in this way.
In an autograph book that Kamila kept, Janáek wrote all the intimate thoughts he had about her and gave her daily updates about music he was composing: You stand behind every note. Those notes of mine kiss every part of you. When the earth trembles it will be the best music.
He wrote a wedding mass for the both of them, where he depicted a wedding taking place in a forest with the animals as witnesses. There seemed no limit to his imagination and no limit to the beautiful music his passion inspired. Such a passion in another man might be a source of ridicule or pity; when such a passion nurtures a creative genius and leaves the world enriched by sublime music or great literature, it serves a different purpose.
It seems both Kamila and her husband, as well as Janáek’s wife, who nevertheless resisted attempts by her husband to link the two couples on friendly terms, at least accepted the roles they had to play if the inspiration was to continue. I think you will agree with me that the musical world is richer for the roles they did play, if you watch the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5QBSMjdIFI
What we do know of Ellen Ternan’s character has never been fully explored. We have seen portraits of an upright, confident-looking woman and we know of her upbringing in a theatrical family and her own love for literature and romantic poetry. She also had the distinction and unique opportunity of being able to count other great authors amongst her friends and acquaintances, and Anthony Trollope as a relative through the marriage of her sister. It should come as no surprise that a young woman of this background and sensibility, would attract the attention, and the benevolence common to such men at this time, of Charles Dickens.
As Mrs Wharton Robinson, she was known for her public readings which included Dickens’s A Christmas Carol being read at Margate where she lived, after Dickens’s death, with her husband and their two children and where she helped manage a school. She continued these public readings in London after George Wharton Robinson’s death and now lies buried with him in the same grave in the Highland Road Cemetery, Southsea.
The story of Janáek and Kamila could be said to be a case of fact being stranger than fiction. The speculative fiction depicting Ellen Ternan as Charles Dickens’s clandestine mistress in The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin, is one that, while it has gained in popularity and is now being reported as fact, is not supported by all the facts we do have of the life, letters and workload of the great Charles Dickens; nor does it fit neatly with the material available in the Ternan archives.
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(Presented to the Dickens Fellowship Melbourne on November 20 2019)
Hard Times has been a wonderful success this year. I cannot recall, in my time in the Fellowship, when a Book of the Year was greeted with such creativity by the membership. The shortest Dickens novel, written under pressure, covered such a variety of themes that
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Doctor Marigold, teaching Sophy to read. Source: Victorian Web
those who write found ample to write about. Their presentations and their contributions to the newsletter have been frequent and excellent.
The small size of Hard Times led to the idea that we needed a back-up book and Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions was suggested. Dickens wrote this little book late in his career. It first appeared in 1864 (in the Christmas edition of his magazine All the Year Round). Soon after, he included it in his public reading tours, in fact it seems to have been written with just that in mind.
It is a bit odd, but refreshing, to read such a short tale by Charles Dickens; he can go on as you all know. But he was a born storyteller. He can do it bare-bones style, or with all the frills and adornments.
The work is about a poor man who makes a living as a discount street retailer, or in his own words a Cheap Jack. The story is classic Dickens; a poor but well-meaning and under- educated older man, a wife and mother with a bit of bitterness about her and, not one, but two, young girls, both are innocence personified.
I would urge you to read this marvellous little book. It is freely available from Gutenberg and many other places. To cut a short story shorter, Marigold eventually finds himself in charge of an adopted daughter who is deaf and dumb and he begins to try to teach the girl how to communicate. He goes on, at great emotional and financial expense, to ensure that she receives the best education for the deaf that Victorian England can provide.
What follows is a brief account of the treatment of the deaf in history.
A Timeline
1000 BC: Hebrew Law, via the Torah, protects the deaf from being cursed by others but does not allow them to participate fully in the rites of the Temple. Special laws were established for deaf-mutes, but they were not allowed to be witnesses in the courts.
364 BC: Aristotle asserted that the ‘deaf are born incapable to reason’ and ‘that the blind were more intelligent than the deaf’.
360 BC: Socrates, quoted by Plato in Cratylus, mentions the deaf who express themselves in gestures, depicting light or a higher sphere by raising their hands, or describing a galloping horse by imitating its motion.
355 BC: Ancient Greeks deny the deaf an education; Aristotle believed that ‘deaf people could not be educated and, without hearing, people could not learn’. The Greeks also viewed the Greek language as being perfect; anyone who could not speak it was a barbarian. Thus deaf people were barbarians.
44 BC: A Roman, Quintus Pedius is the first deaf person in recorded history known by name.
131: Galen, a Greek physician from Pergamon, wrote: ‘Speech and hearing share the same source in the brain’.
700: St. John of Beverley in England purported to restore speech in a deaf boy by making a sign of the cross on his tongue and claimed that the boy later learned to speak the alphabet.
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Dark and Middle Ages: Deaf adults are objects of ridicule and are committed to asylums because their speech and behaviour made them suspect to being possessed by demons.
c. 1400: Teresa de Cartagena, a Spanish nun who had been deafened later in life, confronted her condition, gaining fame as an author of religious texts. She is regarded as one of the first feminist writers.
1500s: Geronimo Cardano was the first physician to recognise the the ability of the deaf to reason, and tried to teach his son using a set of symbols.
1550: Pedro Ponce de Leon is credited with being the first teacher of the profoundly deaf by developing a form of sign language, and successfully taught some deaf pupils in Spain to speak.
1620: Juan Pablo Benet published the the first book on the subject of manual alphabetic signs for the deaf. It wasn’t until 1885 that it was published in England as: Simplification of the letters of the alphabet and the method of teaching deaf-mutes to speak.
1664: Thomas Willis discovered the role of the cochlea in relation to hearing.
1760: Charles-Michel de l’Epee of Paris founded the first free school for the deaf with sign language as the method of communication. This model spread all over Europe for the next hundred years where 33 schools were established, using his methods.
1778: Samuel Heinicke of Leipzig promoted Oralism, a method of teaching spoken and written language through speech and lip-reading exclusively, without the use of a sign language.
1817: The American School for the Deaf was founded in Hartford, Connecticut. This was the first school for children with disabilities anywhere in the western hemisphere.
1860: The British colony of Victoria opens its first school for the deaf in Melbourne, the Victorian College of the Deaf.
We could go on, but that brings us up to the time when Dickens was writing Doctor Marigold.
In the British Isles in the 19th century, it was difficult to determine if a child was born deaf, with some children not being diagnosed until the age of 2 years when they failed to learn how to speak. In the 1851 census report, only those who lacked hearing and speech under the age of 2 years were classed as being truly deaf and dumb.
The 1861 census attempted to identify congenital deafness by including the description ‘from birth’ in the infirmities column. This census identified approximately 12 thousand people in England and Wales listed as being deaf and dumb from birth, almost 2.5 thousand were born between 1837 and 1846.
Many children may not have been born deaf, but could have become deaf due to childhood infections. Meningitis and Scarlet Fever were believed to account for more than 50% of incidences of deafness in infancy in 1880. Despite this, Alexander Graham Bell, who was part of the Eugenics movement in the late 19th Century, believed that deafness was hereditary, and wanted to prevent deaf people from marrying each other. Research in
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1889, however, found that only 2% of deaf and dumb children had two congenitally deaf parents.
From the early 1830s many deaf institutes, churches and social clubs were established which provided a social and educational network for the deaf and dumb.
They were initially started for bible study and prayer meetings, but gradually expanded to cater for other social events. By the 1870s, lectures were often translated, parties and outings were popular and sign-language translations of religious services, baptisms, marriages and burials were also available to the deaf community.
Some of the popular activities included art and crafts and amateur dramatic groups that would put on regular performances, deaf sports such as football and cricket were invented and played. In 1891 it was reported that 3,000 deaf people attended the first international deaf football match in Glasgow, Scotland.
Finding a suitable spouse also presented challenges for the deaf and dumb. One man from Newport, East Yorkshire, who described himself as ‘unfortunately deaf and dumb’ advertised in his local newspaper for a wife, with the added stipulation that she should be ‘a member of the Methodist connexion’.
The marriage of deaf and dumb couples was unusual enough to appear in the newspapers. One article regarding the marriage of a deaf and dumb couple in Ireland was reported in an East Yorkshire newspaper, and it expresses surprise that the couple were “intelligent, industrious and prosperous artisans.”
Although there are no statistics for the marriage of the deaf and dumb in the mid-19th century, it was found that less than one third of these researched in East Yorkshire did marry, and of those, most married someone who was also deaf and-dumb. The marriage ceremony was similar to the usual service with the exception that the words of the officiating minister and the responses of the couple were interpreted using sign language, often by another minister who had the skills.
Little is known about the family life of the deaf, but case studies show that very few, if any, lived in the Workhouse, or another institution, simply because they were deaf. Most of those living in deaf institutions either worked there as teachers or domestic staff, or were residential pupils gaining an education. Those who married and had children lived in the same type of accommodation as their hearing neighbours, whilst those who remained unmarried or were widowed either lived alone or with family members.
It is clear that although life was undoubtedly hard for the early Victorian deaf, they lived a useful and independent life within their communities, just as their non-deaf counterparts did.
Today there are assumptions that the Victorian deaf and dumb were given the worst kinds of occupations due to their disability. The research shows that this was not true.
The education of the deaf and dumb in Britain started with the opening of the Braidwood’s Academy for the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1760, which taught speech, reading, writing and sign language to the children of wealthy parents. This school is believed to have been the first in Britain to use sign language in education.
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In 1851 England had nine schools for the, one of those was the Yorkshire Institute for the Deaf and Dumb (YIDD) in Doncaster, West Riding of Yorkshire which had opened in 1823 and catered for pauper children from the age of 9 years. The YIDD provided residential care by means of subscriptions or paid for by Poor Law Unions.
In 1855 the Free Schools Bill allowed the free education for pauper children in England and Wales except for those who were deaf, dumb, blind, lunatics or criminals. It was not until 1870 that the Board of Guardians was required to send pauper deaf and dumb (and blind) children, under the age of 14 years, to a suitable institution for their education. The education of deaf and dumb children became compulsory in 1893.
Several different ways were used to teach communication skills and was known as the ‘combined method’. This would include signing, finger spelling, natural gestures, using pictures, lip-reading and speech as well as reading and writing. The use of the combined method of communication was thought by many deaf teachers to be the best qualification for living a practical life.
Up until 1880 most of the deaf schools in the UK had deaf teachers and primarily focused on the use of sign language. From 1868, however, some schools decided to focus on the oral approach and concentrated on teaching speech. The late 19th century saw the start of the ‘manual versus oral’ (signing versus speaking) debates, which led the way to sign language being banned from deaf schools in 1880, and so forcing deaf children to learn how to speak and lip read. This in turn not only affected the children’s education but also their chances of employment and their quality of life.
Two of our members, who are affected by deafness, agreed to assist me by telling parts of their stories at the meeting. Lyndsey Burton allowed her story to be heard by a wider audience in these pages.
On being a bit deaf
By Lyndsey Burton
I’m only a bit deaf. I wear two hearing aids and have a minor form of deafness compared to profound deafness. In an edition of the periodical, Better Hearing of November 1955, there is an article called ‘Decibels and Hearing’ by Fenton Burton. Fenton was my father and a radio engineer from the Radio Research Laboratory of Royal Melbourne Technical College, (formerly the Working Men’s College now RMIT).
As a radio engineer, it was perfectly logical for him to consult with Glendonald, Melbourne’s school for the deaf and with other associations connected to hearing and its technology. There was a personal reason too. His mother became very deaf.
With a radio engineer for a son, she always had the very best technology available, but those big clunky hearing aids were the very devil for women to wear. Typically, women’s clothing is short on pockets and the devices were far too hefty to slip into a bra. The picture from Fawlty Towers shows the hearing aid of Mrs. Richards strapped around her waist.
Consequently, I grew up in a hearing-aware family, not least because we had an audiometer in the house and my father tested our hearing regularly. So I realised, very early, that hearing impairment was a possibility and was not surprised when it started. I
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have lost some high frequency hearing. The television news is fine, but put music behind dialogue and I need the sub-titles.
When a car turns in front of you and the indicators stay on for the next kilometre or so, it is a safe bet that the driver cannot hear the clicking because of some high-frequency hearing loss. For me, at work, it became a joke that I heard best when I wore my glasses.
If someone from behind you shouts, ‘duck’ or ‘run’ it is probably wise to duck or run, but if hearing is impaired and warnings are not heard, deafness is just plain dangerous. There are certain countries for which the Smart Traveller web site advises listening for changes in traffic noise; the sound of an engine suddenly revving could mean a vehicle mounting the pavement to mow down pedestrians. Alerts to danger are often signalled by warning sounds and, sometimes, flashing lights. A deaf person gets only half of the warning alert.
When I finally saw an audiologist, I knew both too much and not enough. I knew all about the process of hearing and the disadvantages of hearing aids. The human ear hears a pin drop and a jet engine. The brain regulates the sensitivity to such extremes of sound. When we talk, traffic noise is virtually unheard while we listen to conversation. I knew that a hearing aid could not regulate and prioritise input the way the brain can. While I expounded these insights to explain why I really did not want hearing aids, the audiologist was very polite, but did wonder what century I was living in. These days, hearing aids are little computers that talk to each other so all sound does not register equally. He gave me a pair of aids to trial over a weekend. He also gave me a warning, the world was going to sound tinny, not because of the technology or me; the world really does sound that way.
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Fawlty Towers: Mrs Richards wearing her clunky hearing aid around her waist. Daily Mail
The first thing I noticed was birdsong. I do not know when I stopped hearing birds. I did not like the noise of the wind rushing past an open car window; it was several years before I could tolerate full volume. The world is very noisy. I really like the somewhat muffled world; as a result, I only wore the hearing aids when I expected to be talking to people. This was precisely the wrong thing to do. They must be worn all the time so the brain learns to interpret the input.
I referred to the physical danger of impaired hearing, but there is social danger too. Even moderate, acquired deafness is socially isolating. Speakers tend not to repeat what listeners have failed to hear. Deaf people themselves can get fed up with forever repeating, ‘Pardon?’. They also feel that they are being a pain in the neck, always asking for things to be repeated, so they will sit back and let conversation wash over them. Isolation is restful.
When I commented to the audiologist that hearing loss is just another aspect of the great adventure of ageing, the audiologist said, ‘Oh no, any deafness due to ageing hasn’t started with you yet. Yours is a hereditary nerve deafness.’ It is nice to have something to look forward to! Presumably my father knew the nature of this deafness; I am grateful that it has hit me much later and less severely than it did my grandmother.
The developing technology is wonderful. The hearing aids become ever smaller. It is now possible, with Wi-Fi, to have telephones and television feed directly into the hearing aids. I hope that the technology continues to keep me ahead of the game.
What’s On from Paul Haydn
Hi, this is Paul Haydn. I hope you or somebody got some enjoyment from the activities that I listed last month. With Christmas just around the tree there will be plenty to be joyful and jolly about. For example, I highly recommend the album by Robbie Williams called The Christmas Present so you can enjoy the season over and over. But take in the CBD decorations and a show or two.
Shakespeare Readings of the Complete Works 2020 commences from February 24th at the Alex Theatre in Fitzroy St, St Kilda.
https://alextheatrestk.com.au/event/shakespeare-the-complete-works/
For some wonderful Christmas outings run by the City of Melbourne, check out https://whatson.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Christmas/Pages/default.aspx where the highlights include projections on the Melbourne Town Hall, Christmas themed films and Carols by Candlelight.
Not to be missed is the Gravy Day Singalong with special guest Claire Bowditch for Saturday 21st December at Federation Square, 8-9pm.
Another must-see Christmas treat is to visit the Myer Christmas windows which this year feature scenes from a much loved Australian female author.
Visit the Gingerbread Village in Collins Lane, Level 1, 260 Collins St. Follow the delicious smells.
https://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/carlton-christmas-cinema
The music of Ella Fitzgerald with Meg Hickey at the Speakeasy HQ until the 21st December. Also check out other acts including Dusty Springfield and Petula Clark shows.
https://www.speakeasy-hq.com/
On the 13th February 2020, Gene Kelly: The Legacy at the Melbourne Recital Centre features movie clips and memorabilia with Gene’s wife, Patricia Kelly, speaking.
www.melbournerecital.com.au
Hamlet – The Australian Shakespeare Company at the Royal Botanic Gardens from the 20th December to the 9th February.
shakespeareaustralia.com.au/shows/hamlet
An Australian Christmas By Lyndsey Burton
Our president has written of his Christmas experience in England. How different it is from the Australian Christmas experience!
I have a letter dated July, 1854. It is written by the family’s first woman in Australia. The mail was unreliable and she writes, ‘we have been waiting week after week for a letter from you… no letter from those that we love’. Two years and eight months since they had left England and not a single letter had reached them. She had given birth to her daughter on the boat out and her words ooze loneliness. It is so unpleasant my dear mother to travel through the bush and you may walk day after day and week after week and never meet a soul not see nothing of a house or tent. Loneliness and isolation: the reality behind The Pioneer, Fred McCubbin’s painting of 1904. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_McCubbin_- _The_pioneer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Christmas, for new arrivals in the alien environment with its upside down seasons, without family, must have been particularly difficult. Emigration was forever; there was no QANTAS flight home for Christmas.
More than one hundred years later, Christmas means summer and summer means the beach. The family is well assimilated to the sort of Christmas shown on the cover of this newsletter. The iconography of the northern Christmas has remained strong, tinsel imitates snow, cards have snow scenes and robins, decorations suggest winter. Few people find this incongruous; the events celebrated did occur in the northern hemisphere after all. However, I
well remember one Christmas in London. After a visit to The National Portrait Gallery, I exited into Trafalgar Square with its huge tree. Falling snow softened the cityscape and I found myself inside an image I had known my whole life, but never lived.
The Australian Christmas is very different. Through childhood, we might stay down the beach and the children could have a morning in the waves while adults prepared the midday meal. After a compulsory rest, one must never swim after a meal we were told, it was back to the beach. One relative, after camping for years, bought a beach house. His children rebelled; they wanted their summer friends and the foreshore social network they had enjoyed all their lives.
The more usual Christmas was at home in a Melbourne suburb. Grandparents in attendance, we had roast chook and plum pudding for lunch. Turkey was deemed an inferior fowl; chicken was a rare and special food then and the meal’s only meat. After lunch it was all hands on deck to prepare for the extended family to descend. This brought aunts, (carrying food) uncles and cousins to the house. Most adults stayed inside; others played in the obligatory backyard cricket match. The evening meal was cold leftovers and trifle.
The film night was another summer, although not expressly Christmas, event. My father was a qualified film projectionist and could borrow from the State Film Centre. The children who lived in the street, often with a couple of parents or even a grandparent, would collect in the lounge room for a film night. The evening began with a couple of Charlie Chaplin shorts. Easy Street was all right, but The Rink was the favourite. Too young to recognise Chaplin’s athleticism and balletic grace, children loved watching an adult being silly and anarchic.
The main feature followed. We liked The Overlanders well enough, but easily the most popular film was Bush Christmas. It starred Chips Raferty and was directed by Ralph Smart; he later wrote, directed and produced Danger Man and other television programs. Bush Christmas told of a group of children harassing horse thieves. This was before television created more sophisticated tastes. It might have been a bit Famous Five in conception, but it was a landscape, climate and set of relationships we recognised and everyone spoke with our accent.
Traditionally, the new year is a time for reflection, looking forwards and looking backwards, but I think that Christmas present, brings to mind Christmas past with its familiar people and rituals. Christmas future is brought to mind somewhat less so, nonetheless, how many of us have had an elderly relative say, ‘I think this will be my last Christmas.’? Or in the case of one of my great-uncles, ‘Another day’s journey nearer home.’ It was always true, eventually.
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The Dickens Newsletter, Melbourne, founded in October 1982, is published by the Melbourne Dickens Fellowship, monthly except in January.
The editor is Andrew Gemmell, Home Address: 15B Kipling Street Moonee Ponds, VIC 3039; Mobile: +61438655585. Email: gemmellenator@gmail.com He is glad to receive contributions.
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The Dickens Fellowship, Melbourne, was formed in August 1904, as Branch No. 24. It is now the oldest Branch of the Fellowship outside England.
The Melbourne Dickens Fellowship is incorporated, with the No. A00287 19W. Its website address is www.dickens.asn.au We warmly welcome new members to our meetings, which are normally held on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 7.30 pm in the Faichney Room, Toorak Uniting Church, Toorak Rd.