una dempster

I was quite tickled a few years ago when my father told me a story his mother had told him, about her friend Una Dempster who used to come and visit her (they both lived in Hawthorn) and would sing-song her own name as she came to the door, 'Una Dempster, Una Dempster'. Oddly enough although I liked the story I had a complete mental block on her last name, and when I dropped in on him this afternoon I got him to remind me and this time I wrote it down, deciding that - knowing absolutely nothing about Una Dempster except that she was my grandmother's childhood friend and she sang her own name - I would see if I could discover more. 

Una Ethelwyn Dempster b. 13 April 1906 only daughter of Arthur and Gertrude Dempster of Wellesley Road, Hawthorn. She had a brother, John. She married Harold Niewand in October 1928 and they went to live in Murtoa which is between Horsham and Minyip. Almost exactly a year later they had a daughter, Joan and a son (name unknown) some time later. Una Niewand died on the 24 April 1954 in Rupanyup. 

Strangely my father said today that maybe his mother had made the story up about Una Dempster singing her name but I said really out of the two people, Una Dempster and Mavis Heilman(n), one of them had to have been adequately imaginative to conceive of a girl who sang her own name so why not give the honour to Una. 

My father also said that if Una was still alive she'd be 114, good guess, but actually she died before she turned fifty. 

the mavis collection

A few days ago a collection of paper was passed on to me from the estate of my grandmother Mavis. It was an unusual bunch of stuff, none of which she had actually earmarked for me specifically but obviously a decision was made that (1) I would be more interested than anyone what she'd elected to keep of the things I'd drawn/ published and given to her and (2) I just liked old printed crap anyway, so I'd probably like this old printed crap. (1) is less true than (2) because I am only mildly interested in old things I've done. Or rather a lot of it embarrasses me a lot, because I know more than anyone that what I thought I could get away with lazily actually doesn't radiant brilliance and never did. However, this is brilliant:

There are only about ten copies in the world. I did it specifically for Mavis (a 19 page comic strip) because she was always saying she wished I'd draw more. Unlike all the other Winky strips there was no swearing or nudity, which was an interesting challenge, so as not to offend her. Not that she would have said anything if there had been (or read it either way, as far as I know).

This is sort of impressive for the amount of effort involved, but it's not very good:

I think for a few years I made kind of comic book christmas cards. It's the kind of thing that grandparents are, or say they are, impressed by. You probably can't read the comic on the front but it's my usual lazy thing of telescoping an 'only a dream' story... I did that a lot. Robert Smith once told me that was how he thought, which was great at the time, but now I think doesn't perhaps reflect that well on him or me.
Speaking of Robert Smith, Mavis kept two issues of Smash Hits which I suppose I'd sent her. This one has an article by me on James Dean (!?) and one on Cheap Trick as well as various other bits and bobs I wrote probably.

Back to my own publishing things, this is a small comic book I had no recollection at all of ever seeing before though some of the content was familiar. How creative I was with the typewriter, and the funny absurdist title.

I couldn't imagine why Mavis had this in her collection of stuff, then I realised the (deliberate? to go with the cut-up cover graphic?) typo in the spelling. Norm would have retained this. In fact, I have a very vague memory of him showing it to me, believing it to be a genuine error, and I suppose it might have been, I just don't know. The interior of this issue is quite interesting, I'll tell you about it sometime.

No idea why Mavis had this. Must look inside it one day. Maybe there's an article about a bowls triumph of hers or something.

This was the school newspaper which Saul and I edited at least one year. It blew out of all proportion, became a millstone then a white elephant. One contribution we agonised about for months because we thought it was so stupid and then we ended up burning it on the stove, laughing (probably giggling if truth be told) hilariously. This was so obviously my forerunner to fanzines.

I was perplexed for a while as to why this was in Mavis' collection - not just the great cover image. It's the Herald and Weekly Times house journal, and Norm worked for the competition. Then I read it.

There is an article on the second last page of the 'Inter-house Bowls Test' inc. this picture of Norm bowling on 19 April 1962 at Middle Park Bowling Club. My sister Tamsin made a copy from the original of this photograph and she has it on her wall (or one of them), she showed it to me only last week, saying Norm didn't usually take a very good picture, but in this case he came out alright. And he's doing something he loved (at least as much as smoking and eating). I will look like him in ten years, but with hair.

Norm served in New Guinea and I guess the four or five issues of Guinea Gold in the pile were things he collected from that time, along with the 'native spear' which now enjoys pride of place under our house, and which I believe is my right to bear particularly as oldest family member of my generation. This is a pretty special issue of GG, isn't it:

Don't know why Mavis had this copy of the Bulletin but once again... it's interesting.* Sorry, that's all I can say right now.

I must have sent her this copy of B-Side! Christ she had to be a tolerant person - well, she was. I mean no disrespect to B-Side, great magazine (though note the misspelling of Lighthouse Keepers on the front - Norm would have loved that).

And look, here's my own fanzine, second issue, usual kind of mental cover. Well done me. Look at that celebrity line-up!

* I asked my father when we went to the football last Friday why Mavis would have had a 1961 Bulletin amongst her things. He said it would have been a mistake, as she was an assiduous thrower-outer.

so it's hot so what

I hear they're doing it even tougher in Adelaide. Well, we get through heatwaves: that's what Australians do. The one we're presently taking on in Melbourne this week is purportedly the hottest week since 1908 (years only went a week in the good old days). I mistakenly thought, when I first heard this, that my 99 year old grandmother Mavis would be the only person I knew who could verify this, then realised that of course she is 99, not 100, so while she might have experienced it in utero, she basically didn't.

I suffer more in extreme heat because I am naturally a very warm person; it's most uncomfortable and sad for me, and however others feel it's usually worse for me (this is true of practically anything). Well, plus the car radiator seems to be massively overheating too (what do you need a radiator for in a car anyway?) which makes it nervous to drive. Tomorrow I am going to brave public transport, which is most likely going to mean going very early and coming back quite late (i.e. avoiding the crush at peak hour). Wish me luck. I know you can't help yourself whether you want to or not.

By the way, I drank all the soda water in Melbourne. Sorry about that.

if life were a musical

mine would be pretty sonorous at the moment. From where I sit I can hear Mia doing something with a saw out the back. I should do something? Well I offered but obviously I don't really want to that much. I have nearly finished reading Suzi Quatro's autobiography (is this her second?) and Mia and I are both reading Madame Bovary which is yeh not bad. My friend Saul perfected a way of saying 'not bad' that sounded like 'knobhead' and that was pretty good. It was the seventies. Speaking of the seventies, fuckin' Facebook... never thought they'd perfect anything above myspace for putting you in touch with (or potentially in touch with) people you didn't need to be in touch with... christ. And of course even a straightforward statement like that is a minefield. It is my grandmother Mavis's 98th tomorrow and my niece Niamh's 2nd, so, together 100. It's my father's next week (69) and Mia's too (35, but that's not old by the way). I assume there is a crash-through point where you stop going on about how old everyone is, and how you used to think they were old and now you realise they weren't but are now... I went through the ARIA nominations this morning and there were about 3 acts I'd never heard of, a couple I'd heard of but never heard, and a couple of records I knew and liked... Silverchair and Powderfinger (actually that's far from their best album), Operator Please and Architecture in Helsinki. I bet I'd like Gotye if I ever heard him/them/it. Anyway, that's no sign of age, really, even when I was working at Smash Hits there were a lot of records and groups who meant nothing whatsoever to me and I was being paid then for them to mean something. Should I give some of my wages back? I added some good links at the right there to other blogs/etc I recommend. I took Prawnwarp off because I think it's kind of died. I'm into pruning right now. Other things I'm into: seaside daisies frogs cinnamon promoting myself controversy flaxseed oil gankok bulbogi or whatever it's called the jammed the believer