Waiting for my future

My British Childhood is vaguely religious, with strange days spent in the Village Hall, Schools days spent in assemblies wearing Daps. Or haunted rainy days spent indoors watching the dreamy world of TV. Full of, weird French animation with obscure jazz soundtracks,The Clangers,experiments in garden sheds and Spike Milligan’s Q There was even some more bonkers stuff. 

At worst it was slightly creepy and malevolent with certain menace lurking behind next doors curtains. At best it’s very English,with a cultural strain leading from David Bowie to Radiohead, Dr Who to Banksy.

Its a Strange late 1960’s hangover, post hippy, with slightly folked up sensibility and a Punk can do attitude.It seeped into my subconscious, Leading to an amateurish adulthood of Bad Science,Dark Humor and World War Two sensibilities.

Although if the main strain of Television I watched while growing up was correct (as it should be) the vision of that brave new world by now should be here, I would be living in a sexy spandex suit provided by the welfare state on Vulcan,eating food pills and having sex in zero-G with all manner of pleasure droids in a distinctly English way.

When NASA’s Apollo space missions took off for the Moon in 1969, the world was already gripped by science fiction, Not Science tomorrow but Science in 40 years,(where I am now) this white hot vision of the future,fueled Film, TV and books of all types to promote an imaginative vision of the future, whether utopian or dystopian.

By my teenage years,I lamented that I missed out on the swinging sixties,its visions of urban utopias,its teenage revolutionaries, its sex,drugs, and rock and roll.

But hell I grew up in the seventies and men with pointy sticks, flair trousers and side burns were telling me about how good the late nineties were going to be and not only in science programmes.I was going to be laid in the future and it was only a short teleport away. 

My formative decades watching the box promised so much more than today’s 24/7 TV with their 64 rubbish channels, You actually have to be a certain age to remember waiting patiently for the next programme. Waiting for your future entertainment. In between programmes the TV displayed a disappearing clock to keep you occupied or a test card, which could hypnotically transfix me,on  our then new 24inch colour television.

By 1978 I was lapping up a diet of The Tomorrow People, The Prisoner, Blake 7,Thunderbirds,UFO,Dr Who,Space 1999 and Tomorrows World.

My dedication to that tube had a world that included Glowing Alien births, Strange Parallel Universes, Funky Guitar Solos, Groovy Jazz, Perspex Oracles, Exploding Extra Terrestrials, Rigid Hairstyles, Spray on Catsuits (for Man and Women), Holidays in Space, Cars lower than my knee, Rigid Plastic Bras,Strange God like people and Stranger Daemens,Intergalactic power storms and nude kick ass geeky girls all on one electric box in the corner flashing a psychedelic red alert.

This personal and sexual liberation of my technological utopian future, always seemed to be just around the corner when I was 12 , so I mourn it from my porn fatigued present,my adolescent imagination of a post millennium. before all of our pornatopia imagery existed.

My unusual whiff of childhood is now no more than a myth.Knowing that I could never have lived through it, makes it a more of a myth.even with the all cliché Tee-Shirts I see about Jet-packs.

Metung Victoria

So, for my Birthday we went to Metung, Victoria, a small village on Gippsland Lakes just a four hour jaunt from St Kilda.

In my steel and plastic eurobox, In Australia, the drive to any destination down the sinews of tarmac. Are always punctuated by enormous safety signs, ‘7 Fatal Accident,17 Serious Accidents this year don’t be Next ‘and ’Speeding is the Biggest Killer’ These seem to me, to be less about stifling the dickhead in people and more about wrapping us up in a nice sheepskin jacket.

Putting your body into a contraption and travelling at more than 40kmh, means you could suffer a catastrophic accident and die. If you were a pioneer pilot flying a plane during the 1930s, there would be no way of ‘closing your eyes to revive’.

VICroads fear is. We cannot be trusted on these trips. But sooner or later the meditative effect of foot on throttle and hands on wheel will be replaced by our own autonomous vehicles. These self-driving carriages will be able to drive you to your destination of choice, using technology orbiting the globe,Powered by electricity supplied by their own solar cells backed up with wireless energy transfer (park your car in a designated spot and recharge) while you play 3D backgammon on the back seat, with no fear of an accident.

All those nasty random elements of your journey will have been taken into consideration by a scientist at MIT. It will also come with the mind numbing effect, of no delight at a new discovery, for there will be none.

The journey to Metung seemed to be a trip though ideas now lost and looking for meaning especially as they don't make any economic sense Telephone kiosks, Churches, and Power Stations. My Birthday to me is always about journeys, Especially as its a NASA anniversary of the first man mission to Skylab. Space flight was something that punctuated my formative years. It fired my imagination when I was five, as it does now. I always seem to be thinking of being fired off, away from our sphere and moving about in weightless three dimensions on some fantastic voyage.

On the first morning at Metung, during breakfast it was reinforced again while I read ‘The Age’. It dawned on me that this tiny outpost had been set up by people who were so far away from where they started out, it was the equivalent of going to the moon. The paper had an article on Neil Armstrong, the first person to step on the moon, making him probably the world’s most famous explorer.

I marvelled at our now lost ability to travel anywhere and risk all. Here was a man who flew 78 combat missions in the Korean War, who between 1960 and 1962 managed to travel at 6420kmh (Mach 5.74) and get to an altitude of 63,000 metres while testing the envelope of the X-15 rocket plane.

 
Here was also a man who allowed himself to be strapped iton a rocket with two others in 1969, so he could stand on an object that orbits our home.Traveling over 500,000 km to get there and get back. Basically,in a tin foil box no bigger than my car.

 From the place of my birth I have travelled the 18000km to and from Australia many times. Always in the comfort of big, electronically controlled airplane. Those that initially travelled to Metung not only travelled the 311km from Melbourne, overland or by sea, but probably came from all corners of the globe. These people took part in some heroic voyage, so they could build a better safer life. These voyages could and did result in people dying in the pursuit of this idea.

Regretting that I didn’t use the toilet while in the cafe, I glanced at a tourist information board about a boat slipway being used during the 1930s for flying boat refueling. The board showed a weather washed picture of a flying boat.

Not really paying attention, due to the bladder pressure,I was off on an imagined history of RAAF Catalina’s and Qantas Empress flying boats using the lakes at Metung as base during World War Two. While the Catalina’s looked for Japanese Subs,like the one that sunk the ‘SS Iron Crown’ off Gabo Island in 1942 the Empress’s transported General MacArthur up the coast, what transpires was totally different so I should have read the board and had a pee at the cafe.

Australia suffers from a treacherous coastline, With Victoria being singled out, due to the higher traffic history between Sydney and Melbourne. The ‘SS Christina Fraser’,was a collier built in 1925 of 717 tons; Owned by R. W. Miller & Co.She left Newcastle NSW Thursday 22^nd June 1933, on her maiden interstate voyage bound for Geelong Victoria  , she was last sighted battling a  strong gale about six miles south of Gabo Island, by the steamer ‘SS Koranui’ at 1.50 a.m. on the morning of Saturday 24th June 1933.

Her late arrival started an airborne search, that wouldn’t surprise anybody today but which at the time had every aviator showing bravery as they flew up against a Victorian Winter. Showing fortitude, proficiency, and self-reliance these men were pioneers of search and rescue. Their planes made of wood and canvas, their windows of cellophane (if they had any) and sometimes their transport had their ability to stay aloft compromised.

On Wednesday June 28^th the ships agent chartered a Saro Cutty Sark for an air search. A small twin engine flying boat it was piloted by a Mr G. Jenkins, and left Essendon airport for Gippsland, using Sale for an overnight stop after its initial search. While searching again on the Thursday 29^th the little Saro with two observers aboard, was forced to make an emergency landing in the wintery sea, due to engine trouble, caused by a cracked fuel pipe. Luck was with them, as they alighted on the sea near a Norwegian tanker the‘SS Varanger’ who plucked the crew and plane from the water.

Friday 30^th June the search was intensified by the owners of the collier.Engaging the services of the Hart Aircraft Company's triple engine Fokker F.VIIa-3m Trimotor,piloted by Mr J. Turner, it too left Essendon looking for the missing collier.

The worn picture on the tourist board depicted what was one of two RAAF  Supermarine Southampton’s (I think it did,I needed a pee).The Southampton was an open cockpit wooden hulled twin engine, biplane flying boat, weighing 4300Kg with a crew of five. It made its first flight in 1925 and was used for coastal reconnaissance.The pilots of this machine would have stepped into an open cockpit coping with winter weather while two snarling 450hp Napier Lion V motors assaulted their ears five feet behind them. The RAAF Southampton’s operated out of Point Cook VIC. Searching the sea for the missing ship since Thursday 29^th but had spent the evenings at Metung.

 

The RAAF plane was now flying with six men included a wireless operator and three observers with powerful binoculars,the flying boat would cover a 1000-miiles over a section of the Tasman Sea each day.

Adding to the search on Saturday July 1 1933 was the famous ‘Southern Cross’, Fokker F.VIIa-3m Trimotor. This left from Mascot Airport Sydney piloted by Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, with a wireless operator and an observer; it along with the other two aircraft flew down past Eden NSW over the area looking for the ‘Christina Fraser’.

 By Monday 3 July 1933 all hope was beginning to be lost, as no sign of crew or identifiable wreckage had been found. Still the big flying boats spent three & half hours looking.On July 3^rd a radio message from the master of the liner ‘SS Westralia’ stated that at 7.30 am. an object 10 feet long was seen protruding 3 feet out of the water 15 miles west of Gabo Island. The RAAF flying boat flew over the position given but a long search failed to reveal from tho air any sign of wreckage.

The search was called off on Tuesday 4th July when it was finally concluding the ship had founded in heavy winter weather with the loss of all on board. Neither she nor ‘SS Koranui’ the vessel that last sighted her was fitted with radio apparatus. So no Mayday was ever sent or heard.

Aug 4^th 1933 In Sydney an open verdict was recorded by the Commonwealth Marine Court, which investigated the loss of the missing collier The Court, in announcing its decision, ex- pressed the opinion that all seagoing vessels on the Australian coast should be fitted with wireless apparatus (Radio), The Australian Navigation Law was changed in late 1935 to accommodate this.

The names of persons on board the vessel at the time of her disappearance were:.John Walsh Queen, Master; Chas.Wm. Frost, First mate; Arthur W. Lucey, Second mate;Daniel Palmer, Bosun: Charles. A. Gale, A.B.William England, A. B;Albert Seager A. B. Paul Kuraimes, A. B;John Stafford Huntley, O.S.; Frank Walker, first engineer: Robert D. McPherson, second engineer; James Birrell, third engineer; William H. Olsen, fireman; William Bassett, fireman; Joseph Rogers,fireman;Charles James,cook and steward; Ernest Collerson,and a boy.

The search for the missing ship highlighted the remoteness of Gippsland in the 1933. Let alone when it was first settled in the 1840s, the roads or tracks to this part of the state , suffered from heavy rain especially in winter and the topography was hilly.

Born in 1821 Captain Alfred Darby kept a journal of his time afloat. Starting as an ordinary seaman, he rose to the rank of Captain,. His first attempt at a master was on a schooner ‘Mumford’ assuming command in the capital of The Philippines, Manilla.During Oct 1844, he sailed with a cargo of sugar and cigars bound for Hobart, Tasmania.Unfortunately the ship lost a mast in a typhoon on the way.

The newspapers announcing his arrival two months later Dec 29^th. 
After other duties and other ships,Darby captained the 'City of Hobart'a three masted steam ship for five years between 1860-1865,a hundred years before Armstrong flew the X-15,this ship was battling its own climatic envelope as it battled across the Tasman Sea between Melbourne and Dunedin with mail and general cargo.The Newspapers of the time would  list his coming and goings in the miscellaneous shipping adverts.

 

My winter Birthday weather was reported as

May 25^th 2012

‘A deep low pressure system over Bass Strait south of Wilsons Promontory will move steadily south-eastward’s past the east coast of Tasmania tonight then away across the south Tasman Sea during the weekend. Damaging winds averaging 50 to 70 km/h with peak gusts around 100 km/h are forecast for mainly coastal areas of the West and South Gippsland and East Gippsland forecast districts. The severe weather warning for parts of the Central forecast district has been cancelled, but the situation will continue to be monitored and further warnings will be issued if necessary.’

It’s easier for me to check this (took two minutes on the web) but Captain Darby and a host of other ships would pitch themselves against weather that was not predicted, only expected time and again. The trip took about 11 days. In 1864 alone, Darby travelled this route ten times.

In 1865 he took charge of a coastal Paddle Steamer the ‘Charles Edwards’.

The Launceston Examiner of June 4 1867 reported that:

‘The Charles Edward has been In the Gippsland lake trade for some time. She is 129 feet long, 20 feet beam, and 8 feet deep; 141 tone, 60 horse power, and steams 10 knots.She has accommodation for eight ladies and twelve gentlemen in the cabin,and about forty in the steerage’

This Paddle steamer plied its trade along the Victorian coast to the lakes with Captain Darby until the late 1860s, when Darby would have been in his early 50s. On our wanders at the back on Metung we saw a sculpture of the ‘Charles Edwards’.

 http://www.wrecksite.eu/img/wrecks/ss_charles_edward_31.jpg

 The four hour trip through Melbourne suburb’s to a cute holiday destination and back, is now punctuated with signs telling me to go careful. I can read of travels in the recent past where nobody could stop the ride because they wanted to get off. But my immediate future now, always seems planned out by committee.

It started to rain on the way home which the wiper blades of my car dealt with efficiently. Maybe we are all getting a bit soft.

The Pyre

Artists reference their lives all the time, Maybe it’s a desire to return to the past or getting trapped by an organising principle.

Being the manager of my own life and not wanting to let the inner Artist out without a purpose. I had an Art Pyre at the weekend.

After being ill for 8 months, turning 44 and now having to wear glasses for the first time in my life, a burning seemed appropriate.

Metaphorically my scribbles seem to take up more space than they should. But the catalyst was talking to a UK street artist who had just sold $50,000 of work.  

I had also noticed in Melbourne a candlelight vidual for a ‘Banksy’ It turned out that some people believed that a Chapel Street wall painted by somebody from Bristol in the UK to be of some supposed Australian cultural merit.

Every work created with a street artist seems to reference a screen printed 'Warhol’, he did it first.It’s really like trying to be the ‘Sex Pistols’ why bother.(yes I know its stencil Art, but the same principle applies)

While in London earlier this year I saw a ‘Grayson Perry’ installation. His new works alongside objects made by unknown men and women from the British Museum’s collection.

It wasn’t perfect screen prints or past ups but people having a decent stab at craft. Coming up with incredible beautiful but wonky objects.

Street and Non Street artists go through the same process it’s just that Graffiti art is just a bit me too at the moment, Makes me want to burn all my stuff. Oh I just did.....