I have two stories about the Whitlam Dismissal and the subsequent election.

1    I was running school camps at Steiglitz, in the Brisbane Ranges west of Melbourne and I distinctly remember hearing the news of the dismissal as I walked between the BBQ pit and my residence. One of the teachers with the visiting school happened to be a friend of mine who had trained in the RAAF Reserve as a spotter; he could recognise and identify aircraft types the way teenaged boys could ditto cars from 250 yards. One route to Steiglitz from Melbourne took you past Laverton RAAF base and that was the way he'd chosen to travel a couple of days before the Dismissal. On hearing the news, he got very excited about realising the implications of an observation he'd made while passing Laverton. He'd identified an aircraft at Laverton which he said was "Air Force Two".

Air Force One is always at the service of the US President and its whereabouts are always recorded but Air Force Two is available for "Other duties" and, according to him, was at Laverton just before the Dismissal. Quite some time later he told me that he'd found out that there was a gap in Air Force Two's logbook records (available to the Non CIA snoops) for the few days before the Dismissal.

Whether or not his recollections after the event are true or not, he did comment at the camp, straight after the news broadcast, about his observation of Air Force Two.

2    At the election, a couple of friends of mine were in France, travelling. On their return to Melbourne they told me they'd seen the news of the election broadcast on French TV, including and interview with Tammie Fraser. The broadcast was, predictably enough, in French and Tammie, as one might expect of the Western District squattocracy could speak enough French to conduct the interview in that language.

According to my friends, she was asked (in French but translated in English as), "To what do you attribute the unprecedented nature of this landslide victory?" The only English translation of her answer was, "When in doubt, the people always turn to the aristocracy!"

Cheers, Rowan