8/12/03

Dear Lore,

I hope that this letter finds you well and enjoying your role as Matriarch as much as ever. You will be pleased to know that the wonderful family picture you sent last year has been part of the large picture gallery in our kitchen ever since, so, though so far away, I see you every day. These pictures are a great talking point for all our visitors and when I run out of space it is always hard to decide which one to discard.

Another year seems to have zoomed by and I wonder whether you have had any more incredible adventures with David and the MK5. We have stayed close to home this year, as we didn’t want to get caught up in any disaster.

My grandsons Jay and Ben are now in the full flight of young manhood. Jay has found employment in his chosen field of electronics, and also now has a lovely wife, Jodie, and a baby daughter Jo Beth, our first great grandchild. Ben, whom we helped tutor for his end of high school exams only a few years ago, has now graduated in civil engineering and started in his first job with a group of consultant engineers. He has just set up house with his girlfriend Robyn, who still has two years to complete her uni course. Vanessa, now 16, and her parents, Mark and Judy had a month travelling in Germany, France and England early in the year and particularly enjoyed seeing German castles in the snow. They are all living in Sydney at present. It is nice for us to have Ian and his family living close by. Evan is going to a new (private) school for the last 4 years of High School and is rather excited about that. He took 4 months out of school this year to travel to Japan, England and Europe, a great experience for him. Kati has almost finished her degree in Environmental Studies and Asian History. She studies at the University of Wellington N.Z. and is about to spend a week with us, so we shall hear more of her plans. Lex’s six grandchildren in USA (the 2 oldest boys are 15) are also a lively bunch and doing well and busy with their many activities.

In January we visited Taipei in Taiwan, mostly because it was a convenient place to spend a week with Lex’s daughter Linda, who was on her way from Virginia to India. The week turned out to be a very happy reunion as well as one of exploring together all the interesting places, which Taipei had to offer. Three main features of the island most impressed us. They have a magnificent collection of Chinese art treasures collected by successive emperors in Beijing over 2000 years, then boxed for safety against the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and then brought to Taiwan by Chiang Kai Check when driven out of China by the Communists. We were also impressed by the scenery of the east coast which has been raised from the sea into a very steep range by the impact of the Philippines Sea tectonic plate and is cut by very deep narrow gorges in which Buddhist temples have been built. Finally we heard about the aboriginal people who are related to the Polynesians and in former times were great seafarers, sending fleets across the Pacific and to south Asia and Madagascar. There is a fine modern museum in Taipei showing their artefacts and telling about their history.

We had two busy visits to Queensland this year with family members. Bruce brought his family from Virginia to enjoy the places he visited as a teenager. Karen’s parents came too for their first visit to Australia. We spent time around Brisbane (specialising in zoos for grandsons Eric 11 and Adam 7), Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island, Lamington National Park and Heron Island. The 8 of us, in 2 cars, had a great and memorable adventure. It is always rewarding to take people to places they have not previously visited – they were all completely delighted.

Shortly after, Richard and Freda from Lex’s ancestral family in Rugby, England, arrived to retrace the movements of his grandfather who migrated to Australia in 1873. The English and Australian families have kept in contact ever since, recently by email. We visited his landing place in Maryborough, all the existing descendants, the site of his blacksmithing business, his farming property, and his beach shack in Noosa. Since then Lex has looked up the list of 456 fellow migrants of his grandfather on the St James, a small wooden ship built in Quebec which came to Australia only once. They are mostly young to middle aged couples with young children, and young single men and women coming to a new life and new jobs. Quite a few of the latter, seemingly travelling alone, were only teenagers. They included full payers travelling in second class (mostly school teacher families), steerage passengers, assisted migrants, free migrants and remittance families. Some interesting social history could  be deduced from all that – where they came from, why they chose to migrate, why to Maryborough especially and how they got on subsequently.

Our computing skills are slowly improving. Lex having to reformat the reference submissions of a hundred contributors to “Geology of Victoria” was a challenge. I am getting much more computer literate under the tutelage of my very patient son Ian and occasional visits to monthly meetings of the Melbourne PC club – now the largest such group in the world which has as its motto “Users helping users”. Having one part of the family living in Sydney and other friends and Lex’s family overseas, has stimulated me to a good understanding of email. We are also taking the first uncertain steps into the field of digital phoptography.

Lex and I have continued our association with our Wednesday Walkers. In March we organised our week trip to Beechworth in north eastern Victoria for 40 of our walking friends. Unfortunately the area was ravaged by huge bushfires just a few weeks before our visit and there were many totally burnt out forests that we travelled through. In Beechworth Cemetery Lex found the grave of his great grandmother’s sister who came there with her young family for the earliest goldmining. She was widowed there at a young age, took a job as barmaid to support herself and her children, then married a young man from the Island of Guernsey and had a second family who have preserved her memory.

Our walks have taken us to many interesting areas around Melbourne this year. We meet twice a month and always look forward to catching up with our friends and enjoying most beautiful places together.

We are promising ourselves another trip to Europe and England, but have made no plans. 2005 will be our big year (80) and Lex’s family have asked us to visit them for the celebration.

Lots of love to you and good wishes for 2004