My father taught me to play squash before he let me use his Pancho Gonzales tennis racquet (example pictured). Dad was good at both sports until his back injury precluded him from playing much.

Because I started with squash, that was my dominant racquet sport until I stopped playing in my mid 20s.

Tennis was only ever a social game for me, and I never considered myself very good, although in relative terms I’m a capable player even today.

Australia was a declining world tennis power when I began following the game in the mid 70s. From 1950 to 1967, Australia won 15 out of 18 Davis Cup titles.

Australia won the Davis Cup 16 times between 1937 and 1973, but only five times since.

Australian players topped the rankings in the 60s and early 70s, including Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong.

John Newcombe

Most tennis was played on grass in those days. It was also very much a serve-volley game. Search YouTube for players from that era and you’ll see what I mean.

The introduction of hard courts made the game accessible to more people in Europe and South America. It also saw a shift to power tennis and the demise of serve-volley strategy.

Australia subsequently declined as a tennis powerhouse.

I haven’t watched much live tennis. The only time I’ve been to an Australian Open was at Kooyong in 1981, where I saw eventual champion Johan Kriek, from South Africa, win an early-round match on grass.

In a lesser league, but more enjoyable, I watched the Mount Gambier women’s tournament two years in a row, taking photographs and filing match reports for the local newspaper.

In 2009 I saw former world number eight Alicia Molik contest the tournament on her comeback trail.

But I’m not one to watch tennis on television and I’m not particularly motivated to sit in the stands at a major tournament.

The modern players are largely anonymous to me and I don’t find the style of play as enjoyable as it used to be on grass.

Young Michael is really interested in tennis though and wants to see the Australian Open next year.

For those who don’t know, Evonne Goolagong was an Aboriginal player who won 14 grand slam titles. Her father was an itinerant shearer and she grew up in the small country town of Barellan.

Here’s a musical tribute to the great Evonne Goolagong from 1981:

This thought came to me today when I heard that Maggie is due to get her “pen licence” this year when she starts Year three in a few weeks.

I think I was in grade three when they gave us cartridge pens, but it may have been later.

I don’t remember much about them, except they seemed to scratch the paper, rather than write, and I had to use blotting paper under my hand, otherwise everything got smudged.

I’m pretty sure we only used cartridge pens for a couple of years.

According to this informative website: “The difference between conventional fountain pens and this class is that cartridge pens get their ink from a disposable ink cartridge, which is a small plastic container that fits into the pen. When the ink runs short, the cartridge can be replaced. Fountain pens have one permanent cartridge, and they get their ink from bottles.”

This writer continues to use a fountain pen today.

“A fountain pen trains you to write with light pressure and is much less tiring than a ballpoint, rollerball or pencil,” he says.

I struggled to think this morning why our teachers in 1975 would have thought a cartridge pen was better than a ballpoint, but the explanation above probably nails it.

The fact less pressure is required to write probably makes it easier for little ones. I guess it also gave us an appreciation of ink and legibility. There may have been merit as well in teaching cursive script.

Not that I have ever been particularly neat with my writing. In fact, my handwriting has deteriorated over the years as I’ve produced far more words using a keyboard than I have with a pen.

The rare occasions I write anything apart from my signature, like Christmas cards, are actually a chore and require significant concentration.

Maybe a cartridge pen would make it easier.

In fact, I recall visiting the boy next door and listening to it with him in a treehouse.

I think he was a North Melbourne support, and obviously was delighted with the result.

North had a terrific side in those years, with great players like Keith Greig, Wayne Schimmelbusch, David Dench, Malcolm Blight and Doug Wade.

Their coach was the legendary Ron Barassi, who had taken Carlton to premierships in 1968 and 1970.

For the record, North Melbourne 19.8.122 d Hawthorn 9.13.67 in front of 110,551 people at the MCG.

Along with the traditional sprint and hurdles (over tiny jumps) they “competed” in a range of novelty events including an egg-and-spoon race (with a golf ball instead of an egg), sack race, goal kicking and minkey (hockey).

It brought back memory fragments of my school sports at St Michael’s in the mid 70s. I can only remember us running a sprint and a relay.

In the early years we competed on the fire track in Kay Street, Traralgon, next to the school. In later years we went to the hockey grounds at Agnes Brereton Park and the soccer grounds at Harold Preston Park.

Diverting for a moment, fire tracks were common in country towns back then and brigades used to have competitions. I think they still do, but you don’t hear much about it.

Anyhow, I have one strange recollection of school sports; that we used to do marching.

We practised for this too. Hours of parading up and down with no apparent purpose except the struggle to keep in formation. I don’t remember there being music, just the constant drill of marching.

We started with: “Left, left, left, right, left”.

I can’t fathom the purpose of this. It’s like a throwback to wartime militarism, perhaps a legacy of that period.

The marching faded out of my life. I’m not sure if that’s when I left St Michael’s in 1978 or earlier.

I’ve mentioned this on my Facebook wall in case anyone I know can remember more.

UPDATE: A quick reply from Anne B on Facebook: “Yes and we did have music and I remember it so well. Our outside lines had to take bigger steps and the inside lines had to do little steps when we turned and I even remember clearly the boy beside me once when we stopped and he peed all down his legs.”

The Governor General, Quentin Bryce (drawn right), was due to arrive in Mount Gambier today for a taxpayer-funded private visit.

I knew she had an engagement at 4pm and figured wrongly she would fly in about an hour beforehand.

I got to the airport at 3pm and discovered she had already arrived. Her RAAF King Air was sitting empty on the tarmac.

She may have had another engagement I didn’t know about, because details of her visit were scanty, but it’s more likely she retired to a hotel.

I opined in the paper yesterday about the fact Her Excellency should have been more visible on this visit.

It’s the first time a Governor General has visited Mount Gambier, South Australia’s second biggest city, since 2001.

She’s here mainly to address a rural women’s gathering tonight, but was also scheduled to visit a home for disabled people this afternoon.

A real paparazzo would have staked out the airport from early this morning. I just didn’t cut it.

The King Air is an interesting plane. It’s a twin-engine turboprop with two crew and six passenger seats.

The Royal Australian Air Force King Air 350 is a versatile aircraft primarily used for Air Combat Officer and Airborne Electronic Analyst training. It is also used for low-level tactical and maritime operations training, and as a general transport.

Rambling along, I have met a Governor General before. Michael Jeffery visited Kalgoorlie for Australia Day in 2006, arriving just a few days after I did.

The civic reception for His Excellency was the first official function I attended there. It was held in the beautiful Boulder Town Hall.

Quentin Bryce has vice-regal experience as the former Governor of Queensland and carries herself well.

Michael Jeffery (pictured) however, with his military background, was perfect for the role.

Meeting a Governor or Governor General used to be a big deal. The first one I saw was Sir Zelman Cowen in about 1979 when he visited Traralgon.

I remember the school bused us to the Showgrounds, where we sat around waiting for him to arrive and give a speech after we had all stood for the national anthems.

Yes, there were two anthems then. God Save the Queen was played in addition to Advance Australia Fair at any function where the Governor or Governor General was in attendance.

The sad part about Quentin Bryce’s visit to Mount Gambier is that nobody will see her except the select few at the two places she is visiting.

Unique Cars and Parts says: “Produced between 1961 and 1963, the EJ was the first of a bold new shape for the Holden. Gone were the fins of the previous EK model, and a new flat boot and lower roofline was created to keep pace with the more modern looking Ford Falcons.

“The EJ was designed from the Opel Kapitan, but incorporated some American influence, particularly in regard to consideration of aerodynamics. The trusty grey motor was carried over from the previous model, albeit with a few refinements.”

The EJ was introduced in 1962 and according to Wikipedia, the EH Holden was released in 1963, four years before I was born.

A total of 256,959 EH Holdens were produced and sold from 1963 to 1965, when the EH was replaced by the Holden HD series.

According to this website, many people consider the EH model to be Holden’s greatest achievement.

Apparently, selling more than 250,000 in the first 18 months of its release made it the fastest selling Australian car ever.

A far more substantial facelift of the EJ than those that had been attempted before, the “EH” featured a far more commanding look with a revised roofline and clever styling which, to most eyes, improved its looks from every angle. And the improvements were not limited to the exterior of the car. The biggest news with the new model was in the introduction of the new “Red” motor that used an oversquare design with a seven bearing crankshaft.

Being so young at the time, I don’t remember anything about these cars.

I do recall that some vehicles in the 1960s could be started without a key. The driver simply had to turn a silver-colored ignition knob.

It’s etched in my mind; I achieved this feat aged three or four and crashed into the garage.

Sometimes I remember things randomly from the past. Little things, like finding a dead cow on the farm at Pambula. Or riding a bike in the rain.

Some of these memories correspond with photos. The line between actually remembering something and a photograph is sometimes blurred.

Does the picture prompt the memory or does it become the memory?

Anyhow, the latest flashback is unrelated to any photo.

It concerns me being on a train at night, an old “red rattler” between Drouin and Traralgon.

From the time I was about 10 or 11, I sometimes took the train 40 miles to Drouin, where my grandparents lived, and Uncle Jim and Auntie Molly.

The first time was an interesting experience, because I misread the timetable. The train I took was an express from Warragul to Melbourne. Drouin is the first station after Warragul.

There I was, young and shy, watching helplessly as the train rolled through where I wanted it to stop.

I had to explain my situation to a conductor, who organised for the train to stop at Longwarry (the next station) and Uncle Jim picked me up.

I might have taken the train to Drouin two or three times after that, without drama.

To be returning at night on a red rattler it must have been winter because I wouldn’t have taken a late train.

I’m one of those people who prefers solitude and personal space, if it’s available. If I walk onto a train I’m happy to have an empty seat next to me.

On this particular carriage the compartments were all empty. I had the whole carriage to myself. I walked up and down, changed seats and inspected everything.

Red rattlers are actually Tait trains. According to Wikipedia:

The Tait trains, also referred to as the “Red Rattlers”, were a wooden bodied Electric Multiple Unit train that operated on the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They were introduced in 1910 by the Victorian Railways as steam locomotive hauled cars, and converted to electric traction from 1919 when the Melbourne electrification project was underway. The trains derived their name from Sir Thomas James Tait, the chairman of commissioners of the Victorian Railways from 1903 to 1910. The first cars were built during 1909 with the last entering service in 1951.

They were decommissioned in 1984. My trips would have been in about 1978-79.

UPDATE: I researched this a little more. It was almost certainly a “W type carriage” I travelled on (see comment below).

I’m not a train spotter or enthusiast, so I don’t know why this memory came back to me. It’s a pleasant one, so I can’t complain.

The picture below shows a retired Red Rattler by Rossco on Flickr.

I doubt we’ll ever live on the foreshore anywhere ever again. I also doubt we’ll ever miss an opportunity again to buy a foreshore property for $130,000. Such is life.

I quite liked Ceduna. Being on the sea mitigates the heat of summer; there’s always a change to relieve the heat.

Juliet was less fond of the place.

We moved there soon after we were married. Juliet arrived from South Africa while I was working in Melbourne.

Although she came from a country town herself, she liked the city.

Ceduna was unlike anything she was used to. Some people say it’s similar to South Africa because of the climate and the blacks, but Juliet came from George on the coast, which has a mild climate and the people are mostly white or mixed race.

Anyhow, we flew into Ceduna in March when it was piping hot and dry. The company car was a small Hyundai with a broken door which the acting editor apologised for.

We had trouble finding a house and lived initially on a farm 30km out of town at Maltee.

It was only $60 a week to rent! Hard to believe today, but there was 10km of dirt road to get there and Juliet didn’t have a licence, so she was very isolated.

I worked as late as 2am on Tuesday nights and midnight on Monday, also hard to believe now. I got home on Wednesday afternoon and went straight to bed.

After a few months of commuting from Maltee, the house on O’Loughlin Terrace became available to rent. It was 50 metres from the office on Poynton Street.

We left because Juliet wanted to live in a bigger town and I wanted to advance my career.

I think now if we’d stayed there and bought the house we would have had just as good a life.

Reverting to Street View for a moment, our Melbourne house doesn’t show there. I read that Google is getting more complaints about houses that are missed than it’s getting about privacy issues.

We stayed at a motel in Carlton and made our way to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) each day for five days of gripping action.

The scores were fairly even and below 300 for each team on every day. The crowds were large throughout.

Towards the end of the fourth day Australia looked certain to lose. Allan Border, who was in poor form at the time, was batting with the tail.

Australia needed more than 70 runs to win when fast bowler Jeff Thomson joined Border for the last wicket. They surprisingly batted through to stumps.

With England capable of winning from a single ball, the gates were opened for free on the final day. More than 20,000 people including me and Dad rocked up. The game could have been over in a single minute.

It turned out to be one of the most abosrbing sessions of test cricket ever played. Border and Thomson inched their way towards the target and looked destined to make it.

Unfortunately, with a boundary required to win, Thomson edged the ball to slips and a juggled catch was taken to give England victory.

The atmosphere was amazing. I will remember it forever. Here are some of the final moments on YouTube.

I don’t handle much change these days except one and two dollar coins. When I was a child these were banknotes. The one and two-cent coins of my youth no longer exist.

Decimal currency was introduced to Australia in 1966. Pounds, shillings and pence ceased to be legal tender in February 1967, a month after I was born.

It was common when I was young to find sixpences and shillings in the change. A sixpence was the same shape and color as a five-cent piece and a shilling the same as 10 cents.

Ten cents was a lot of money then. I remember getting a shilling in change for selling raffle tickets and agonising over keeping it for my collection. I simply couldn’t afford to substitute 10 cents for the coin!

It was the late 1970s when I last saw a pre-decimal coin in my change. New Zealand coins were always common, especially 20-cent pieces. They were the same size and color, with the same image of the Queen. Instead of a platypus their coin had a kiwi.

Coins from Fiji and the United Kingdom sometimes surfaced as well. Foreign currency in circulation is rare these days, possibly because the 50 cent, one dollar and two-dollar coins are distinctive.

Back to the 1900 sixpence, Australia used British currency in the years immediately before and after becoming a nation.

In fact it was 1910, nine years after Federation, that we produced our own coins, albeit at the Royal Mint in London.

That was the final year of Edward VII’s reign. He died on May 6, 1910 just after three million Australian coins were minted bearing his effigy. A badly worn 1910 sixpence has pride of place in my collection, along with an 1861 penny I dug up near the railway line in Traralgon.

The appearance of a 1900 sixpence in circulation today is probably the result of theft or someone clearing out their cupboard and mixing old coins with new.