Dad

 

 

I had a father – as we all did.

I remember parts of him so well but much is unclear

A mystery man – generous to a fault

In latter years all he did was talk.

 

We travelled country roads together:

-            he taught me how to travel

-            he taught me how to play sport

-            he taught me how to love football

-            he taught me how to hate stories. They never ended.

 

I loved him, unreservedly, as a child

But I grew up and saw the cracks

I grew up and saw people avoid him

They loved him -

-            They just couldn’t stand to be with him.

 

Cos all he ever did was talk

He stretched the truth – but he loved and cared for us

He made the gravy. And the chicken Maryland.

And drove our mother crazy.

 

He never learned to listen

       Never learned to ask ‘how are you’ and mean it.

 

But he played with me when I was young.

He taught me right from wrong.

Was gentle when I erred.

He always understood.

 

He never lied but he was often wrong.

He could invent the past with such conviction.

Change the way things were.

 

I want you to know he was a good man

With many faults – like us all

But he loved us; he loved our Mum.

 

And that in the end is all that matters.

He loved us, and he loved our mother.

Pomona - Adelaide University Theatre Guild

Little Theatre
Fri 7 Aug, 2026

A naked reading of Alistair McDowall’s Pomona is somewhat depressing. It reads a little like a whine manual for conspiracy theorists – everything wrong with the world is other peoples’ fault. ‘They’ are out to get you. I was intrigued as to how this bleak text could be wrought as entertaining theatre, but I needn’t have worried. Director Thomas Midena and a committed, talented cast of capable actors pulled it off with aplomb.

Pomona is both a metaphor for the eerie unknown aspects of existence, and a mysterious place within a city. Pomona the play has a plot of sorts, with a cast of characters interacting with each other in different contexts via a series of vignettes that slowly reveal who they are. Each vignette may or not be connected in time or narrative. Characters are not always sure where they are, or even who they are. There’s a feeling that everything is happening as part of a continuous loop on the treadmill of life.

Dialogue is mostly uncomplicated, often with short unfinished sentences that reflect an uncertainty of purpose.

With this lack of a linear narrative, no obvious goal or endpoint, there needs to be some reprieve from the uncertainty for a live audience. This comes in the form of strong performances in quirky scenes. Each scene or vignette is a work to itself and carries weight on its own. They are distinctive and entertaining enough to hold audience interest. The scene featuring a branched scenario game played in the imagination between Charlie (Jessie Chugg) and Keaton (Lily Watkins) was really well done – quite gripping. And neat how it morphs its way back into the action later in the play to blur the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Another highlight where a man visits a prostitute for nothing more than to just talk and touch was beautifully played by Louis Bianchini and Airlie- Jade Windle. A moving and poignant scene.

I appreciated the invoking of the spirit of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull to make light of one of the more disturbing images from this play, before it once again turned to tales of dystopian horror.  What do you do if you are stuck in Pomona? The final group scenes suggest you can let fate take its course, or you can take control of your own destiny. The choice is yours. And if you are struggling to find your way out of Pomona there will be other souls who will reach out and share the journey with you. No matter how bleak life may seem you are not alone.

Despite the constant presence of angst this production was ultimately really enjoyable. Cleverly put together with great variety in scene presentations, and enough levity to keep it from being too dark.

This review also posted on The Clothesline.

The Story of Hiske

The first time I saw her she was walking across the front of the dining room on a kibbutz on the edge of Israel’s Negev desert. She was wearing a leopard skin patterned raincoat, half-length pink rubber boots, and sucking a piece of what the Dutch call zoethout (sweet wood) and which looks for all the world like a cigar. A kibbutz is an agricultural community; basically a large collective farm, and I’m sure several people watching her were thinking ‘she’s not gonna last!’. Well she did. She was one of a large number of young Dutch women who’d just arrived to work as volunteers. Hiske worked several months in the kibbutz orchards picking fruit.

Turns out in fact that she shared the bedroom next to mine down in ‘the slums’ – what the volunteers called our rather basic accommodation. Sometime  soon after her arrival I heard someone playing music on the other side of the thin bedroom walls. It sounded quite sweet and lovely and I went to investigate. It was her. We soon started playing songs together and the rest as they say is history.

Together with Eitan, one of the permanent kibbutz members who played guitar, we formed ourselves a band which we called ‘The Irrigation Band.’ (Eitan and I worked in irrigation). We played a few songs at whole kibbutz events, and after we left the kibbutz Hiske and I hit the busking road up and down the length of Israel and became quite well- known. We even had a story about us on page 3 of the Jerusalem Post!

Post Israel we lived in Holland for a few months, then spent about 2 years in Australia before returning once again to Holland with our young 2 year old son. I stayed home while Hiske studied modern dance full time. After 3 years we once again returned to live in Australia and by then our relationship had become quite lifeless. We eventually separated.

Over the next 30 years for the most part we remained good friends. Not close exactly but there was certainly no animosity. We saw each once or twice a year because we had a son together, and now there are grandchildren.

And in the middle of this happy arrangement she suddenly died. I had heard from others how the death of your first spouse can often trigger feelings of lost love and grief and the power of it really surprised me. She had been pronounced brain dead by the medicos but was kept on life support to give time for relatives from Europe to come and say their goodbyes. I was in two minds about whether I should join in the goodbye ritual by the hospital bed – we had been separated for nearly 40 years after all and in many respects she was now a stranger to me. However I got the feeling from my son that he would like me to be there so I followed that emotional scent and went to the hospital vigil that was now occurring in Sydney.

I shared grief in her passing with members of her extended family and many friends from her life in Sydney. Occurring at the same time was a spontaneous outpouring of grief and praise for Hiske as she lay on her death bed. Tens, if not hundreds, of people on social media referred to her great friendship, her artistic talents, her wisdom, inspiration, spirituality, and generosity. The praise of so many aspects of Hiske’s personality was fulsome and for me a little bewildering.

Hiske and I spent 7 years together when we, and she, were much younger. We separated when she was 26. But the person I knew was not as people were now remembering her. I was dumbfounded. I don’t question any of the effusive outpourings that blossomed after her death, but I am left with the obvious conclusion that she changed a great deal after we split up. Perhaps she realised who she really was (sounds corny I know) and what it was she wanted to do with art and music. Whatever the case it is clear that in this latter part of her life, she touched a great many people with her music and creativity. Words like angel, free spirit, a true creative, and inspiring friend were frequently used to describe her and signal what it was about her that her friends and followers were losing. I have nothing but respect for the truth about her as many people see it, but I did not know this person.

It seems petty now to quibble about this. I feel even more strongly now that our age difference back then was a significant factor, as was the fact that she was relating to me in a second language. Throw in the fact that she was seriously anorexic the whole time I knew her and I just don’t think she was able to express herself fully with me. Clearly moving on from me was the right thing for her to do. I cramped her style.

 "You are like a hurricane" (Neil Young)