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’m glad some gentle rain from heaven has been falling on the place beneath. But I know that my country cousins won’t be satisfied with the falls until their livestock start coming from the paddocks two by two and standing around the trailer boat. Last week my country cousins rang me with one of those …
A small UK family firm has landed the dream job of making THE bed for Prince Charles and Lady Diana. I’ve studied a few beds in my time. It’s one subject you can take lying down. When it comes to considering beds I like to spread myself, grabbing a clean sheet and scribbling frantically. We …
The news that Mrs Margaret Thatcher takes vitamin pills and a glass of mineral water for breakfast could signal the end of that noble institution, the British breakfast. It also sends a chill clean down the egg-stained dressing-gowns of all those who love the leisurely breakfast, the panoply of salt and pepper, the volcanic toss …
It was when a young couple we know, a cool, sweet girl and her jolly spouse; it was when they arrived with sweaty hands and a tendency to giggle that I knew something was afoot. It was when the girl asked, “have you any empty pots?” and my wife replied, “Well there’s our big one …
There is a little fernery in our garden, flanked by bamboos; a miniature rain forest where I go when I feel desolated by the every-day and anaemic with elections. We call it The Grove. The bamboos stir and rustle in a papery dance and their green pennants ride against the harsh sky and they slice …
Continue reading “An earth father with a mossy mind reflects in tranquillity”
My country cousins rang this week with their silo serenade-full of joybells of barley and wonderment of wheat and seasonal greetings. The great moment had come when the procession of farm implements had left the field like Roman legions leaving the battle, the column of tractors, the triumphant trucks, the snouted harvesters that had nosed …
Wayside stops are those soporific spots where you veer carefully from the highway to a cement table and seat, a granite rubbish bin and lots of time if you care to take it. They are roadside respites, parking bays in which we drop anchor to catch our motoring breath instead of driving ourselves mad just …
The mail is still being delivered along the Birdsville Track despite a dispute between station owners and Australia Post over a recently imposed mail service levy. I think I’ll send a letter in my somewhat florid prose Along the track of dust and dreams to where the Cooper flows, Where wearily its waterholes await another …
Such things as butter and cream and milk are so pack aged, container and cartoned these days that the romance of manufacture escapes one. Which takes me back to our underground dairy in the country with its mysterious annexes of preserves and shelves of honey and the shining separator that night and morning, flowed with …
Continue reading “Separating ways in the days before packaging”
In that acute financial atmosphere known as home this old artful dodger smiled a sad, defeated smile at the new Federal steps to make people pay all their taxes. Far down through the misty computers of time my spools gather dust in the Treasury like scalps in a tepee, broken symbols of a man who …