Yesterday’s MDFF in this blog quoted indigenous academic, scholar and leader Patrick Dodson thus  “The strategy for assimilation of our peoples is not a mistake made by low-level bureaucrats on behalf of successive governments who didn’t know better. It was and continues to be a deliberate act orchestrated at the highest levels in our society, and no amount of moral posturing can hide that reality. This Assimilation I talk of has not been evidenced by equality, but by further control, incarceration and subjugation to norms and values without our consent.”

Today’s Poem “Conservatives Sells” is from indigenous Poet, Lionel G Fogarty’s 13th book, Eelahroo (Long Ago) Nyah (Looking) Mobo-Mobo (Future)

Conservatives Sells

Here is the Modern humorous
Aboriginal best known to be conservatives
And black students who just care bout getting
Their degrees.
Translate this and we get them thinking white
Not all are serious for their people’s voices.
We will be critical of you live in white communities just for comfort
Conservative blacks will turn
To us for themes
But the method will be white instructions.
Sure them darkies have beautiful
Gentle face of intelligence
But we both Ancient and new will out do.
Our excellence with sober
Wisdoms will brake
Arrogant illustrates
Now you conservative blacks
Think it’s time for new ways
Where sunlight creates appeal
Where effort s be no more
Where opinions is a choose
And rich is sensibly reasons
Have live-in in luxuries.
So your Antithesis treatments
Comes clearly of nonsense
Writing we read by youse.
Past forgive rest in the divine
Trueness of our blackness
Yet conservative blacks are
Trying to be naive fighters
Thinking they do in goodness for us
Seeing it as development for us
Here we are Modern blacks too
Yet we have these conservatism in
Some blacks in power decisions who
Just play white games.
We must denounce destroy these suckers?
We Aboriginal have folklore
And you tells us dat J.C. came over here,
This is not via Christianity.
Mythological we are
Native legends we are
The eccentric by white
Fairy tales is typical
But we are typical blacks
A mysterious adventurous
Human go sets white man
Came unincorporated in narratives.
Now here in 2019 their government
Wants to buy our land up
North Q.L.D. BACK FOR US.
Gee-shit aren’t this tribally out rightfully own land anyway
Peoplestoday misinform what imparts with maternalistic
Whites or yellow Japs.
Certainly this thing happening
To our land cultural moving flightiness,
Is a white classic?
Most think Aboriginal themes
Causes of declines and banishment is not neglected
Disregarded anymore.
As changed for the betterments
Of our blacks here and there
This the fake foolishment of
Your 2019 societies.
They’ll give back a skull or
Bones, but in the long run
Take the mind soul maybe.
Most whites and some blacks are
Profoundly pessimistic viewing.

(Sunday 10.30 pm, 2011-01-09)

Guten Tag Freunden,

Dirtsong- Black arm band….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-kxPpuOfZI

German Blitz =lightning, Krieg = war. Blitzkrieg is what happened in 1940 when the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France where occupied in a matter of days.

Donner und Blitzen = Holy fug or bloody hell, alternatively two of Santa Klaus’s reindeer.
Patrick Dodson, one of Aboriginal Australia’s better known deep thinkers made a speech at UNSW entitled: “Can Australia Afford Not to be Reconciled?” The speech included:
“The strategy for assimilation of our peoples is not a mistake made by low-level bureaucrats on behalf of successive governments who didn’t know better. It was and continues to be a deliberate act orchestrated at the highest levels in our society, and no amount of moral posturing can hide that reality. This Assimilation I talk of has not been evidenced by equality, but by further control, incarceration and subjugation to norms and values without our consent.”

When a living being has a crap, under certain circumstances a coprolite can result The name is derived from the Greek words κόπρος (kopros, meaning “dung”) and λίθος (lithos, meaning “stone”). A coprolite is a fossil turd. They can last thousands of years. You can buy them on E-Bay.

When a Blitz (Wirnpa in Warlpiri) strikes a sand dune (Warlpiri Ngalyarrpa) the result can be a fulgurite (Latin Fulgur= lightning bolt). A cylinder of molten silica that can last for thousands of years.

1. A Coprolite:
2. A Blitzkrieg is adeliberate act orchestrated at the highest levels. It takes years of preparation, days to execute, and the consequences can last for generations.
3. Where I was born (the Holland part of the Netherlands) the WWII occupation took days. Liberation took 5 days short of 5 years.
   Three years earlier the Basque town of Guernica was bombed in what is now regarded as a dress rehearsal for the bombing of Rotterdam.
   Picassos’ famous painting and Zadkine’s sculpture say it all.
   

4. Three years ago Oombulgurri community in the Kimberleys was closed down by the West Australian Government
   http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/the-trauma-of-oombulgurris-demolition-will-be-repeated-across-western-australia
   Last month the bulldozers rolled into Oombulgurri.
   A dress rehearsal for the proposed closing down of 150 communities in Western Australia. A deliberate act orchestrated at the highest levels.
   Black arm band ‘Our home our Land’  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd5USIuYOM0

5. Misinformation, distraction and deceit are used to great effect in Blitzkrieg.
6. Red Herring = something that distracts attention from the real issue. Thus, the debate regarding inclusion of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution was defined by a participant on an NITV panel show.
   

Government propaganda has distracted us with the NTER (Northern Territory Emergency Response), Closing the Gap, Stronger Futures, Generation One, the Wilson report on NT Education, the Forrest report on Aboriginal employment und so weiter ad nauseum.  All the time a Blitzkrieg was being planned, a deliberate act orchestrated at the highest levels. An Endlösung (final solution) aimed at the reversal of Aboriginal Land Rights. The recreation of Terra Nullius aimed ultimately at giving access to vast areas of Australia for exploitation (such as mineral extraction, oil & gas –including fracking, military exercises and nuclear waste dumps) without the need to obtain “informed consent” from the original inhabitants.

Speed and Surprise are used to great effect in Blitzkrieg (in fact they define it).

Whilst we’re all savouring the Schadenfreude derived from watching the Mad Monk squirming as a result of the puppet master’s Senate performance, Blitzenare taking place on a wide front.

In the NT under the guise of “Northern Development” and a need to speed up the “negotiating process” (with mining companies), the Giles Government (in cahoots with federal minister Nigel Scullion) are mounting a serious attack on the Land Councils and Aboriginal Land Rights (see attached article by Ian Viner). Divide and rule tactics are being used by exploiting Aboriginal discontent about aspects of the Land Councils’ modus operandi.

It is ironic that that weather vane of Aboriginal NT politics, Alison Anderson, is now a member of PUP and has become our best hope against the onslaught.

The Jolly Giant doesn’t fool me, he did (after some entertaining populist outburst and some chest beating about “amendments” and “concessions”) after all allow the abolition of the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax to pass through the senate. But as far as I’m aware Clive Palmer has no mining interests in the NT.

In Queensland, an Aboriginal group is taking the Newman Government to the UN over fracking in the Lake Eyre Basin. If the notice taken of the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples

(James Anaya)’s report after his Australian visit in 2010 is anything to go by, the Lake Eyre Basin Aborigines shouldn’t be holding their breath.

In South Australia the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) people’s land rights are under serious threat by the recent proposed changes to the APY Land Rights Act. The changes to the Land Rights Act are being rushed through parliament, without any consultation with Anangu. The comment piece attached tells all. 

All of this under the approving gaze of Australia’s own Prime Minister for Indigenous Australians.

Australia is indeed “open for business”

Standin’ on Solid Rock Standin’ on Sacred Ground….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNeWmzPOZE

Words are easy, words are cheap
Much cheaper than our priceless land
But promises can disappear
Just like writing in the sand

Nhima djat’pangarri nhima walangwalang
Nhe djat’payatpa nhima gaya nhe
Matjini … Yakarray
Nhe djat’pa nhe walang gumurrt jararrk gutjuk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7cbkxn4G8U

Auf wieder sehen,

Franz
http://www.change.org/p/colin-barnett-stop-the-closure-of-the-homelands-state-and-federal-governments-must-fund-services-in-remote-aboriginal-communities?recruiter=12232583&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

http://www.change.org/p/geoff-brock-reject-the-proposed-changes-to-the-anangu-pitjantjatjara-yankunytjatjara-land-rights-act-1981?recruiter=12232583&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

“Professional” engineers poured scorn on Stephenson for his ill-educated ways saying he would ‘come to nothing’.  Stephenson counters with the superb design of an effective locomotive.  By Tarquin O’Flaherty

George Stephenson

Instead of coming to nothing he produced his first locomotive, the ‘Blucher’ in this same year, 1814.  The Blucher had many faults, was forever breaking down, but each time it did, George was there to repair, modify or change whatever needed attention.  The big problem with early locomotives was their lack of power.  One of George’s great innovations was his routing of the steam exhaust into the chimney effectively creating what became known as a ‘blastpipe’.  This increased the power of the engine so well that other engineers waspishly claimed that Stephenson had stolen the idea from some unknown but better educated engineer, whilst others claimed he had discovered the process by accident, by a fluke, and not by any educated process of deductive reasoning.

Stephenson ignored them and went on altering and improving the ‘Blucher’ adding external connecting rods to the wheels which dispensed with trains of gears, which considerably reduced vibration.  He improving the system of valves which controlled the water and steam, and entering into business arrangements with a Newcastle ironworks owner William Losh, to improve the quality of cast-iron rails.  Over the next five or six years he produced perhaps sixteen engines, each one new and improved, mostly for local colliery use, but with at least one going to Scotland.

In 1819 Stephenson laid down the first real colliery railway at Hetton, near Newcastle.  It ran for eight miles with a mixture of stationary engines, gravity and locomotives.  It was specifically designed to carry coal.  From 1814, when Stephenson began work on the ‘Blucher’, most engineers had given up on locomotives.  There’s no evidence that anyone other than George Stephenson was still working on locomotives in the period from 1814 to 1820’s.

Despite the ridicule of the profession, who haughtily considered locomotives (and Stephenson) to be a professional waste of time, Stephenson was beginning to acquire quite a reputation as an engineer himself, much to the chagrin of the London based engineers professional body.  People began to arrive on his doorstep from America, France, Spain and Russia to ,look at his engines and learn.

Meanwhile, as the 1820s progressed, public interest in railways at last began to began to pick up.  A Mr Edward Pease, a cotton merchant from Darlington, met George Stephenson to discuss the most economic way of getting coal from the inland Stockton mines out to the river Tyne, and thence to London.  Mr Pease could see there was a quid to be made from lowering the cost of transport and was keen for Stephenson to have a look at the problem.  Engineers had been consulted and a canal had been recommended.  Others had suggested rail and stationary steam engines to drag the wagons along.  Stephenson wanted locomotives.  Pease wanted  to invest in both a railway and George Stephenson.  He could see there was money to be made.

The Stockton-Darlington railway was built and opened with great hoohah and fanfare and was hugely successful. It did wonderful things for Stephenson’s reputation.  Nevertheless, the whole caboodle, from start to finish, was still regarded as a piece of smelly, noisy equipment associated with coal mines.  Nobody, except George Stephenson perhaps, saw any other use than coal haulage for these great puffing, stinking monstrosities.  Transport, in most peoples’s minds was still firmly fixed on coaches and carts, canal barges, towpaths and horses.  But business was beginning to sniff around for alternatives to the exploitative monopolies of river and canal commercial transport.  This interest would turn the world upside down.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Poetry Editor, Ira Maine discusses Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was a dazzling talent of the Elizabethan age.  He was dead at twenty nine, having already written some of the finest plays in the language, including Tamburlaine the Great and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.  Like Kim Philby in the 20^th century, Marlowe, whilst still studying at Cambridge university, was recruited as a spy, not for the USSR, but for (and upon) England by Elizabeth the First’s secret service.  He had two other interests, atheism and homosexuality, either of which might have got him in big trouble, and both of which might have been used as levers to persuade him to go spying in the first place.

In this scene from Marlowe’s play, Faustus has done the unthinkable.  He has sold his soul to the devil.  The devil, as his part of the bargain, grants Faustus, for an agreed number of years, anything his heart desires.  This undoubtedly, right here, is every man’s fantasy!  You can imagine a superstitious Elizabethan audience, their lives filled with terror, portents and omens, horrified by this bargain yet fascinated, mesmerised by the choking audacity of Faustus, enjoying a life of riches in the full knowledge that at the end of the agreed period, the devil will return to claim his soul.

As this scene begins, the Doctor, courtesy of the devil, has Helen of Troy in his arms.  He looks into her eyes in wonderment and awe and asks;

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? [Troy]
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss (they kiss)

He is, while it lasts, Paris, the lover of Helen, a god and therefore immortal.  He cannot die.

Faust wants to be immortal to avoid his pact with the devil.  Instead Helen, who is just a shade, a ghost, does the devil’s work and sucks his soul from his body.

Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies!

This line might also be read thus:  Helen’s beauty has stolen his soul to the point where he is in Heaven, and intellectually at least, out of reach of the Devil.

Either way, Faustus is no fool.  He knows it is not yet time for the reckoning.

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again…’
Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips,

This is profanation.  You can almost hear the audience gasp.  To compare a woman’s charms, no matter how desirable with the reality of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, is utter sacrilege.  Yet Faustus is doing precisely that, and the audience, the true believers, despite themselves are on the edge of their seats and absolutely electrified.

Elizabethan England, it must be remembered, is in the midst of change.Protestantism, through Elizabeth’s father, Henry the Eighth, has taken the place of rule from Rome.  Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno and Tycho Brahe are turning traditional beliefs in the stars on their head.  Certainties are being swept away and everything is suddenly open to question.

Marlowe is asking a question that people of the time hardly dared ask.  What if this earthly existence is all there is and that perhaps, all of this fear of God, Heaven and Hell and all the rest of it is simply wrong?

And all is dross that is not Helena.

Surely Marlowe means in this line that everything outside the beauty of the earth, in all it’s forms is open to question and doubt.  All of the churchgoing, the praying, the self sacrifice, the toleration of suffering and humiliation in order to ‘…get your reward in Heaven…’ is a waste of time.  All of the dogmas and doctrines, scriptures and sins imposed on us by churchmen of every stripe for hundreds of years, are in the end ‘…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…’

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sacked:

The story of Faust originated in the Poland/Germany region.

And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.

Briefly,Greek Helen was married to Menelaus, brother of King Agamemnon.

Paris, a Trojan, visiting the court of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, meets Helen and abducts? seduces? makes off with her back to Troy.  Menelaus is not happy and summons everybody to rescue her.  Thus begins the Trojan war, with Ajax, Achilles, Odysseus and all of the rest of the legendary characters who have so influenced western literature.

Yeats poem ‘Leda and the Swan’ deals with Leda’s impregnation by Zeus who has taken the shape of a swan. She gives birth to Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.

James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses’ deals with the travails of Odysseus/Ulysses as he makes his slow way back home after the Trojan Wars.  The Romans adopted many of the Greek gods as their own and Odysseus the Greek became Ulysses the Roman.

Tennyson’s poem ‘Ulysses’ deals with this character in old age and his need  ‘…to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield…’

Thom Gunn, Louis MacNiece, TS Eliot, Patrick Kavanagh and a host of others have all put this Helennic legend to good use in their work.

In part two we will look at Faustus’ last hours and how this devilish situation resolves itself.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Yaxşı gün dostlarım,

The 1980’s were a time when there was live music everywhere. Yuendumu was no exception. Papunya’s Warumpi band was formed in 1980, Broome’s Scrap Metal in 1983 and the most famous Aboriginal Band of them all, Yothu Yindi in 1986. At some concerts all I had to do was wave my trumpet about, to be invited on stage. That I wasn’t quite up to scratch didn’t bother the musicians, it was an inclusive scene, and I didn’t overstay my welcome and only joined in a few tunes.

In 1987 we decided to travel overseas as a family (our oldest son was 18). It was the year of the stock-market crash and the coldest European winter in a half a century. Christmas 1987 we were in London, and I got to “sit in” with Howlin’ Wilf (no folks, I know how to spell)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhEPPTzDlns

My trumpet playing days are all but over, and I certainly haven’t been responsible for any walls tumbling down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u02t3-QoO7c

Last week in Yuendumu some walls came tumbling down. The walls of the Police Station. They’re making room for our new Police Complex. A friend sent me a copy of the media release announcing the proposed $7.6M Complex, which was headed: “Improving safety in Central Australian communities” . My friend wanted to know if I was feeling safer. It goes without saying that I’ll continue to cringe in  fear(Lani kana pandarimi) until the complex is completed.

I suspect that when the Larrakia people of Darwin heard about the Police Complex on Warlpiri land, they got minmayi (jealous), and demanded they also get  something from the NT Government. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRAiz5VvIVs be careful what you pray for….

My friend duly sent me a copy of a subsequent media release: “New toilet block for Casuarina Coastal Reserve”

“We’ve listened to concerns of visitors to the reserve and have made sure the new toilet block will be located out in the open with good lighting to make it safer and less intimidating for people to use,” and “This government is investing $410,000 for the toilet, which will make the area more attractive for possible investors wanting to submit an Expressions (sic) of Interest for the reserve” “It is proposed to have Larrakia Traditional Owners paint the new toilet block with images of Casuarina Beach and in particular the turtles that nest there.”

$410K, another bargain I say. Safety at all costs. When you’re down and troubled….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhlMWtk7-0E  …. You’ve got a friend…

When Kevin 007 ousted the instigators of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) we waited for the “roll- back” of the Intervention. The pre-election promise of the roll back morphed into a review of the NTER after one year. The thorough Peter Yu review cost a few million dollars- another bargain we thought. In October 2008 Paul Toohey in an article in The Australian reported that the official version of the report dramatically differed from the leaked draft report. The highly critical draft had morphed into a bland report that supported the Intervention.

“Too frequently, often at a subliminal level, indigenous culture is regarded by policy makers as an impediment to the future development of remote communities, rather than an essential resource for their development.” Appears in the leaked draft, but is not to be found in the final report. Pourquoi pas?(Why not?)

From an illustrated Yuendumu school book Mangkurdu-kurlu (pertaining to clouds) (Warlpiri Reader Level 3):

Kurdu-kurdu: Nyampuju mangkurdu kurdu-kurdu wita-wita ka panu-jarrimi ngapa-ku ngarnti ngula kapu wantimi.

Milpirri- Nyampuju mangkurdu wiri karlipa ngarrirni ngulaju milpirri ka karrimi manu ka ngalpa ngarrirni ngapa wiri ka yanirni ngula kapu wantimi.

Matayi- Nyampuju mangkurdu ngulaju matayi maru-nyayirni ngapa palka ka kanjayani wantinjaku-ngarnti

The first are ‘fair weather cumulus’ the next are cumulus and the third are cumulonimbus.

Kurdu-kurdu is synonymous with ‘children’…. The small clouds grow into larger clouds that foretell rain and eventually mature into very dark clouds that bring rain.

“To deny a people an education in their own language where that is possible is to treat them as a conquered people and to deny them respect.” (The Hon. Kim E. Beazley Sr., 1999)

The current Federal Government is putting lots of resources into the ‘Remote School Attendance Strategy’. They even employ (part time) some Warlpiri people and provided them with a (second hand) bus and those ubiquitous bright yellow jackets (presumably to keep them safe). Federal support for teaching in the vernacular is distinctly lacking.

My Warlpiri friends are far less likely to bash their heads against brick walls in the hope they come tumbling down than I am.

I try to follow their example.
I do this by listening to music. ..

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own sweet head
Shine it when the night is burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold cold ground
Shine it till these walls come
Tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around

Do yourselves a favour …. Take the 7 minutes it takes to listen to this:
zövq almaq
http://youtu.be/kcDaAr3EPqI

Frank

And if you have (or make) the time, a little bonus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mylo0piAgc

Previously in Man as Machine when “(s)omewhere in Cornwall the steering mechanism collapsed, the locomotive took off, out of control and crashed heavily into a house” we left the party ensconced in a public house whilst both locomotive and house were destroyed.  Let Tarquin O’Flaherty continue his account of George Stephenson

George Stephenson

The year 1804 was a milestone in the development of Trevithick’s steam locomotive.  Challenged in the South Wales collieries, where he was supplying stationary engines, to use his engine (on rails) to haul 10 tons of iron for nine miles, he not only did this but included seventy men in the load as well!

The great difficulty with all this was both the weight of the engine and the vibration.  Time and time again the wooden rails were chewed up and spat out.  Even when later cast iron rails were used the engine’s great weight cracked and split the brittle rails.  Some of these problems seemed insurmountable.

Whilst all of this astonishing development was going on, George Stephenson was growing up.  Aware of the value of education, he paid for private lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.  Working in the coal mines in the North East of England he found he had a natural understanding of machinery and was soon put in charge of maintaining most of the mine’s stationary steam engines.  The Wylam colliery, having heard of the Trevithick engine, ordered one to be built at Gateshead in 1805.  The engine worked well enough but it was found to be impractical because it wrecked the railway tracks.  It never left the testing ground at Gateshead.  Cosidering how much excitement and interest this must have generated locally, it seems inconceivable that Stephenson would not have been aware of it.

Trevithick, in 1808, put together a new locomotive and exhibited it on a circular railway track in London, charging admission.  Sadly, even the new improved engine eventually destroyed the track.  With this, Trevithick, an astonishingly inventive engineer, abandoned the idea and moved on to other things.

As is usual in these matters, for the next few years, interest in locomotives waxed and waned as people kept on coming up against the same old problems.  Gears, wheels, and axles were all very imprecisely manufactured, which was perfectly acceptable for slow moving, horse drawn machinery, but applying this standard to faster engines inevitably resulted in bone shaking vibration whenever a little speed was demanded.  This vibration literally caused machinery to fall to pieces.

George Stephenson, by 1814 was 33 yrs old, with a young son, Robert, aged 11.  His wife Frances had died of tuberculosis in 1804 having produced a baby girl who only lived for a few weeks.  He was now employed as enginewright by a group of Quaker mine owners known as the Grand Allies.  This meant that Stephenson was now in charge of all engine work for this group.  Other mine owners had experimented with building locomotives and the Allies offered George the same opportunity.  Stephenson had no education, was almost illiterate and was virtually a self taught engineer.  He was also highly opinionated and arrogant.  Engineers of the day scoffed at this ill bred upstart and openly declared he would come to nothing.

Tarquin O’Flaherty opens a series on the import of George Stephenson. This continues on the general theme of ‘Trains’, where in the last post the role played by navvies was discussed.

George Stephenson

In 1781 the British general Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and American Independence was guaranteed.  The King of England, George the Third, being marginally unhinged, had developed the habit of talking to trees.  The Tory government of twelve years was about to be kicked out and George Stephenson was born nine miles west of Newcastle-on Tyne, North East England, in the village of Wylam on the 9^th of June.

It seemed unfair of me to celebrate the railway navvies and not give George Stephenson and his contribution to railway locomotion its proper due.  Stephenson was born into that fateful period where Europe was being devastated by the Napoleonic wars, when horses and feed were fetching astronomic prices and the Industrial Revolution was gathering pace.  Because of increasing industrialization, all through the 18^th century, creative engineers had been playing around with steam as a source of power to drive pumps.  Mines were notoriously prone to flooding and an alternative to the power of horse driven pumps was becoming more and more urgent.

The notion of introducing steam into an enclosed space, then allowing the steam to condense so as to create a vacuum was well known.  A vacuum pump invented by Thomas Savery,(1650-1715) roughly on the principle of a coffee syphon, and using the vacuum to draw water from mines was tried but found to be inadequate.  The idea of using a piston was introduced by the French physicist Denis Papin (1647-1712), inventor of the pressure cooker, when he demonstrated the principle that steam could move a piston in a cylinder.  Unfortunately he took the idea no further.

Working with these two ideas, a steam pump, used extensively to pump water from mines, was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, approximately 60 years before Stephenson was born.  In 1782, the brilliant James Watt, incorporating Newcomen’s design ideas, came up with a stationary steam engine with winding wheels, which, using either ropes or cables, could be used, from a stationary position, to haul heavy loads.

It had been long established in the mining industry that carts or wagons, with flanged wheels  and mounted on wooden railway lines, allowed horses to pull much heavier loads than if they’d been on the road.

Ten years before Stephenson’s birth, Cornishman Richard Trevithick, inventor of the first steam locomotive, was born in 1771.  Suffice it to say that he very soon became Watt’s rival in the production of stationary steam engines.  He completed his first locomotive in 1801 which ran (briefly) on the road.  Somewhere in Cornwall the steering mechanism collapsed, the locomotive took off, out of control and crashed heavily into a house.

This is what Davies Gilbert, one of Trevithick’s friends recorded of the aftermath of the crash:

‘The parties adjourned to the hotel and comforted their hearts with roast goose and proper drinks when, forgetful of the engine, its water boiled away, the iron became red hot, and nothing that was combustible remained, either of the engine or the house.’

Today Lord Cockburn concludes the story of his remarkable role in Australia’s manufacturing industry and in our warm relationship with Japan

Postwar Developments
From our experience gained an with the assistance of Sr William Hartnett and Sir Alec Issigonis, we developed the first mass produced, family sized submersible, amphibious car, ‘the Dullard’.  This model the Dullard, Mk 2 was unveiled at the Earls Court 1946 Motor Show and caused quite a stir.  Lord Nuffield put it into production and it featured some very innovative design features.

Description 3  You talk of infrastructure, well post war infrastructure was pretty basic and the concept did away with the requirement for bridges and major highways.  Simple design, robust construction, this three quarter litre side valve Austin engine, powered this five ton submersible, a little underpowered on land, but submerged, and  underwater it was anything than underpowered. Nicknamed the ‘Dark Mermaid’, (‘Lucas Electrics’),  It sported an optional surrey top, crank start,  and radically,  heating and proper brass catches on the portholes. All was standard on the deluxe Princess Margaritte model. Cocktail cabinet and Keith Miller look alike being optional.  Other Optional extras incorporated important safety devices, air, and non stick bakerlite fittings. We had a winning combination!!

Sales were quite impressive until we got wind that the Japanese were at it again,

The Japanese response: The Akagi
At the Fukuoka Nuclear and car parts industry summit of 1954 they released the Akagi. We were dumbfounded! It looked almost identical to the Dullard, but incorporated technological refinement we just couldn’t compete with; variable speed headlights, adjustable induction cooling vanes, the ‘Shitsu-Hendra’ hybrid engine and a light alloy body. Most notable the rubber seals worked under pressure and the Hitachi electricals completely outclassed our non performing Lucas equipment. Critically whereas we had the old immersion crank start mechanism, theirs was entirely electric. We were engulfed in a Tsunami of cheaper, more reliable Imports. In  1955, they exported worldwide the ‘Shinano’, then 56, the ‘Zuikaki’, then 57, the ‘Fuso’, 58, the ‘Yamato’, and finally in 59- 60 the ‘Shokaku’ and the sportier ‘Nippon Denso’. To compound our problems, their marketing department exported all the models year in year out with catchy and attractive brands that won instant appeal to the upwardly mobile.  The ‘Akagi’, being sold in the Commonwealth as the  ‘Wodewick’, the ‘Shinano’, being the ‘Wonald’, the ‘Weginald’, ‘Wowick’, and finally in 1960 the ‘Denso’ was marketed as the ‘Cedric’.

Desperate to re-capture market share we thought cunningly we’d beat them at their own game  and secretively acquired their new model runabout for 1961, the rocket assisted Ohka (or cheery bosom).  We worked round the clock and unveiled the ‘Ocker’, designed specifically for the Australian market, and hoped for a rush of export orders and contracts.

The Ocker was a lightweight submersible with an upgraded triumph herald twin carburetor power system incorporating all the latest advances in stability control, pure amphibian potential, and auxillary seating for children and incorporating a renewal of the separate control and command systems as pioneered with Peta and Tony. As you can see there the wife seat is at the rear in a soundproofed compartment, whilst the husband has the option of an extendable steering mechanism, cruise control and drive systems…

Sadly the ‘Ocker’ was not the success we anticipated it to be, being totally outclassed by the japanese and their clever device to appeal to the emerging womens’ market, with their distinctively designed ‘A-Sheila’, and their more compact ‘Scrubber’.

Since then, motor industries have declined in Australia, I was engaged in the 70’s to assist Leyland with the tooling of the P76, and was proud to be given the first model off the ramp, which Lady Cockburn drives it to this day.

I was asked subject to my submarine expertise to assist in the development of the Collins Class, and now full circle you may say I am engaged by the federal government to work with the japanese government on the next purchase of submarines.  All of this for later, and much is cabinet in confidence, suffice to say I have this much to say, have we learnt much in all these years of design, development and improvisation.??  I think the answer is obvious…the collapse of the car industry, the lack of incentive for thinking, the axing of the science minister, it points to one thing – Australia the clever country??

Indeed we are  we are working on a new vehicle with nuclear Fusion, satellite guidance and Mag-lev transportation capability and I think it will be a great success, and the name chosen to lead Australian manufacturing out of the doldrums, something catchy, something inspired and something that goes to the heart of our Anzac spirit of camaraderie and egalitarianism, from our manufacturing plant in Burnie: ‘The Lambie’!!!

Combining feminine curves and masculine aggression with an absence of overwrought styling, minimal, compact and head turning. It’s explosive potential will create a new trend in motoring, and importantly keep Australia on the crest of the R& D wave.

And why, it’s a hybrid!!! Cutting edge technology, and comes courtesy by current research from the Minerals Council a coal burning gassification plant at the rear.

I present to you the the future of Australian manufacturing ‘The Lambie’!!!