Town Talk

Dear Geoff and Mrs Walker,

Playing now at Wimbledon is the experience of our lives, and is proving to be the highlight of this marvellous holiday; treated more like film stars than the tennis ‘twins’ we actually are. I am really lapping it up.

Yesterday I beat Horberg of Denmark in four sets and today, at 2pm, I must try to win a few games from American Mike Green. Hope you and your family are well. Best wishes to your mother and father. See you in September.

Your good friend,

Bert K.

Born in Murchison, Bert played tennis from an early age, competing in many state championships. For 10 years, from 1958, he competed in the great tennis tournaments — Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open. In the Aussie Open of 1961, Bert was defeated by Roy Emerson.

Murchison Historical Society president (and one of the Town Talk team) Kay Ball went to have a chat with Bert at his family’s stock and station agency, which has been operating for over 100 years. For some time, they chatted about the region’s agricultural activities — and eventually, Kay brought him around to the topic of tennis.

The difference between the current major tournaments — and Bert’s time on the international circuit — is staggering. Bert’s example of this was Frank Sedgman — Australia’s world number one.

In 1952, Frank won all three titles at Wimbledon — singles, doubles and mixed. Sedgman was presented with vouchers totalling $400. Frank’s wife, Jean, purchased a dinner set with the vouchers — and had to convince the retailer to honour them.

It took Australian players many weeks to get to England, by ship, at their own expense. They certainly had no support staff, and accommodation was provided by sponsors. They were issued with a book of vouchers, which enabled them to eat. However, the Aussies were welcome at Wimbledon, as it added an international flavour to the event.

Today, Bert says, a player can be paid more than $100,000 — for losing in the first round.

And he is not particularly impressed with the behaviour of some of today’s players. In his time, no-one argued with umpires — or smashed their racquets in bad-tempered fits. In Bert’s day, as we might expect, players were well-mannered, got on well with one another and provided a more appropriate example to young players. Bert says it is advertising that has affected the money situation. Today, there is advertising everywhere: the courts, the players, ball people’s clothing and even on the tennis net. With advertising, comes money.

For many years, Bert played tennis regularly on the veterans’ circuit — competing with all the well-known champions of Aussie tennis.

Kay says a chat with Bert is always worth having; he is a very knowledgeable, modest and contented man, who has experienced a great deal over his 92 years.

The Rockman’s ad

Last week I mentioned a story sent to me, after the 1945 Rockman’s ad encouraged some happy memories.

On a pleasant autumn day in 1945, Arthur Sidebottom visited Rockman’s. Patronising a ladies’ frock shop was not something he had done previously, but this was a very special occasion. His sister Myra was home, from Darwin, on leave from her Morse code duties and there was a ball coming up. Arthur knew that his sister didn’t have a ball gown, so he visited Rockman’s to surprise his sister with something beautiful to wear to the ball.

However, the universe has a way of rewarding selfless acts of kindness. He not only found the perfect ball gown — but also the perfect girl. Peggy Shaw, the shop assistant, was his ideal woman and he fell in love; if not at first sight, surely when they met again — because they were engaged to be married just six weeks later. Peggy tells me that Myra looked stunning in her new gown and that their marriage was happy and successful — with the birth of three sons and three daughters. Sadly, Arthur passed away at just 46 years of age.

I have taken some licence with the autumn weather in 1945 — but the rest is as Peggy remembers it. I thank her, and her daughter Susan, for sharing their story with us.

A gallant little book

While I was in town, doing a message, one of our readers dropped a book off for me to read. My husband said “she thought you might like to read it first”. This I couldn’t understand. When I have a new book, I can’t wait. I love everything about it: the way it feels in my hands, the smell of the pages — and the anticipation. What will this one bring? (What? You’ve never sniffed the untouched pages of a book? You don’t know what you’re missing!)

I called her — my man hadn’t misheard. She was in no hurry. So, I read the book, three times. It is a simple book — a quick read with a powerful message. It’s titled The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse — written and illustrated by Charlie Mackery. In his introduction (which the author says he never reads in other books) Mackery explains, “I hope this book encourages you, perhaps, to live courageously with more kindness for yourself and for others and to ask for help when you need it — which is always a brave thing to do.”

You know, sometimes, life gives us few options — we find the courage to move on, or not. (Here I’m thinking about a couple of our readers who had a very bad year in 2022 but have found the strength to live courageously. As difficult as it has been, they are making plans for a brave future.)

There are a dozen or so thought-provoking and quotable quotes in this little book: such as, “Sometimes all you hear about is the hate, but there is more love in this world than you can possibly imagine.”

Now, I must call my friend and make arrangements to return her three-times-read book — hopefully, before she reads about it.

The future is here

There is some computer software around — and has been for two or three months. It is ‘artificial intelligence’, which has always scared the hell out of me — and this particularly dangerous piece of work will do your writing for you. You feed it some examples of your writing style and ask it to write a letter or a school essay on Macbeth or a screenplay about the last world war (in the style of Aaron Sorkin).

My first thought, when I heard this, was for lecturers and secondary school teachers — who are, as it turns out, very concerned about this A.I. It is currently easily available from the internet and free of charge, which makes it worse. How will teachers tell the difference between a student’s work and something that has been spat out in seconds from ChatGPT (which is what people seem to be calling it)?

A smart student, not averse to cheating, would make a couple of alterations and misspell ‘remuneration’ or ‘necessary’ — and make a couple of punctuation errors — to make the essay appear to have been written by a fallible human being. Who could tell it wasn’t?

A television reporter asked it a question: “What are the dangers for students of using this program?” The answer was a solid paragraph, which wasn’t on the TV screen long enough for me to read. However, I learned elsewhere that the composition of a school essay takes around three seconds. It can write anything: poetry, lyrics, whatever.

This is the future crashing in on us — but what can we do? A future that encourages people, particularly our young folk, to cheat and lie, is not the future I wanted. I wanted some sort of jet-pack; so I could hop down to Melbourne to see my darling great-granddaughter more often.

Shepparton Art Museum

Don’t know about you, but I’m disappointed to read that SAM is closing its doors on Tuesdays. This building is a huge investment for our city and, personally, I’ve been really hopeful. Having visited Bendigo a couple of times, I had dreams of bus loads of people visiting wonderful exhibitions which, like Bendigo, are widely promoted. This sounds a little like giving up on its potential.

Once upon a time, Tuesday was Shepp’s slowest retail day; and the taxi drivers agreed. Of more recent times, local shopkeepers tell me that trade is less predictable — anything can happen on any day and surely, for people on holiday, one day is the same as the next. Why would they not expect this beautiful building, designed to attract visitors, to be open seven days? Inevitably, the good people at the Tourist Information Centre will take the backlash.

By the way, I’ve finally figured out why the SAM traffic lights remain masked — and, if I’ve found an answer, it means that at least 32,000 people out there have also put two and two together. Why didn’t somebody tell me?

Thank you

I appreciated your kind thoughts/remarks/texts about the history of this newspaper, which ran two weeks ago. One of my grandsons got a kick out of realising that his great-great-great-great-grandmother (who lived in Congupna) was reading the same newspaper (in a somewhat different format!).

And I’m also grateful for your appreciation of Azem and Jeihan. For some people, the giving is its own reward.

I hope you have a good week. Enjoy Australia Day, on Thursday; yet again, the future is crashing in.

May it be easy, my friends.

Marnie

Email: towntalk@sheppnews.com.au

Letter:Town Talk. Shepparton News. P.O. Box 204. Shepparton 3631.

Phone: Send a text on 0418 962 507. (Note: text only. I will call you back, if you wish.)