The Bassett family site
Maxwell Edgar Fatchen, AM (3 August 1920 – 14 October 2012) was an Australian children’s writer and journalist and a cousin; see https://www.bassetts.com.au/tree/index.php?route=%2Ftree%2Ftree%2Fbassett-sandry%2Findividual%2FX8271%2FMaxwell-Edgar-Fatchen
I read with mounting concern a complaint by a letter writer about the quality of the modern school bag. This set my slow mind moving back to the portable leather carrier with its eager straps tonguing the buckles that was a part of my undistinguished schooldays. Then the schoolbag had leather of rhinoceros hide durability. …
He won (an) award at New Year & this is a beaut piece I reckon [Handwritten note from Grandma] Maxwell Edgar Fatchen, AM, looked dismayed. “It’s no good, Max, you can’t run away and say you’re too busy. I’ve been assigned.” As he heard the words, 59 years of shyness and modesty wrote themselves on …
Continue reading “MICHAEL JACOBS: Behind the buffoon, another Max—AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS”
A telephone with a hand attached, which will be able to caress by remote control, may one day be available, says a US journal on electronics. The hand may be capable of pointing, feeling, touching, caressing under remote control over a telephone line, the magazine says. Hands have been attached to our telephone for years. …
The democratic Swiss propose to give their women the right to cash-payments from their husbands for staying home as housewives. The money would be in addition to housekeeping expenses and would have to be the same as the husband had for his own pleasures. This news has been processed in a less hilly and less …
The Reserve Bank of Australia is considering making money last longer by coating notes with plastic or impregnating them with stronger materials. I have been conducting my own research but not with conspicuous success. I tried to preserve a $10 note by hiding it in a picture frame but next moment my wife was brandishing …
The news that English children say that more than $A5 is inadequate as weekly pocket money because of the price of lollies and comics, comes as no surprise. The children I know have stopped writing to Santa Claus. They now write to the World Bank. I found one of my grandchildren studying the stock exchange …
“The postmistress had a quick eye for letters, knew handwriting at a glance… her head a kindly computer of the district lifestyle.” The closing of small post offices is something that might be an economic necessity but it means the loss of one more meeting place, one more personal contact in an increasingly impersonal society. …
Queensland’s kiss-a-cop campaign for happier relations with the Law reminds me that I have been an advocate of kissing for a long time. In fact I’ve been a member of the CIB (cuddle-in-bed) squad for as long as I can remember. It’s my contention that it’s better to kiss than hiss and to love than …
The shortage of whiting, which has prompted the Minister of Fisheries to say there are other fish in the sea, has brought a sour smile to the cracked lips of the hard-bitten brotherhood of jetty, ledge and beach. Having endured the inroads of foppish whiting fishermen into my slow, painfully constructed accounts of rigorous days …
The news that a WA tycoon is making a bid for a share in Rolls-Royce parked off intense financial activity in our house. My wife read it in a voice full of toast, tension and last years marmalade and I took another dry biscuit with a hand that sweated slightly. Frankly, I was surprised at …