Hey, we went to Oz in 2006 to stay with Mrs Steve's old aunt and uncle in Perth and to see one of my old muckers who was in my class at Thornleigh in Bolton in the sixties. He's bit of a folkie, well-regarded in Oz and I think he runs choirs in Perth, stuff like that. His name is Bernard Carney and if you know him tell him that Steve Shaw mentioned him! We do exchange Christmas cards still and he and his wife Eleanor have stayed with us in Bude.

On that trip we did see some horrid discrimination against aboriginal people in Perth: one particular boatman on the Swan River ferry crossing refused to carry what seemed to us to be a peaceable family of native Australians. We also encountered a disturbingly condescending attitude to native Australians from otherwise well-meaning people, even in our own family. Just sayin'