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
SA will oppose the planned national biological control of the controversial weed, Salvation Jane , so I read. The weed helps fodder supplies in dry seasons and the apiarists have been stung into activity because it supports honey production. I’m glad in a way. I dislike biological warfare. Anyway, you can’t smoke Salvation Jane or …
Maybe it’s just a touch of the sun and we’ve had so much to touch us lately. But have you noticed how life turns full circle? When I was young I splashed in the shallows, a fair headed child with an abdominal overhang. Then I began to swim and disport myself beyond the breakers, a …
They call it tommy time—when the small tommy ruffs fin their way at dusk beneath the sunset boulevard of the sea. Like lances of a waiting army, the fishermen’s rods waver and nod to the approaching night; nests of little lights flicker and bob on the jetty ramparts, manned and watchful and armed to the …
The Saturday Review THE ADVERTISER AUGUST 4 1984 After a lifetime in journalism MAX FATCHEN, the man of wit and warmth, has retired. Here he reflects on his career as a journalist and the places and people who shaped his life and work. One night in the late ’30s on the beach near Henley a …
Have you ever noticed how the world shoulders its way into a seat at your break- fast table? I was sitting quite peaceably among my marmalade and toast when suddenly I saw Mr. Fraser sitting sternly opposite me while President Carter spread himself another slice and commented on the lack of peanut butter. Then we …
You know, a thought has just struck me. When the jolly swagman wasn’t jumping into his billabong he was probably dunking his bush biscuit in his billycan. “Dunking,” the questionable art of moistening biscuits by a quick immersion in one’s tea, is not normally regarded as one of the social graces. Screams of “Yuk” can …
Inflation has now boosted the human body to $6.55 for its minerals and chemicals, so I read. Dr. H. Monson, of the Illinois College of Medicine says that 10 years ago, the human body was worth only 89c, but inflation may soon up the value to an ego-boosting $9. I ran my eye over my- …
They have all gone back; the grandchildren. The poodle is recovering in her basket and the birds are coming back into the garden again One doesn’t find knickers in the bath or sharp plastic toys, one isn’t under siege for stories, one hasn’t had to answer such questions as “Why are you old?” “Will you …
Frederick Forsyth demolishes roast beef sandwich with remarkable speed, downs a half pint of lager in one gulp and says he is a man with simple tastes. True, if the desire grabbed him he could eat caviar for breakfast, lunch and tea, buy himself a jet…together with a villa in the South of France. So …
The news that a Japanese, Mr Yoshiro Nakamats, has invented a chair that will improve a person’s thinking is guaranteed to send people like me clean off their rockers. He claims that his chair emits infra-red rays and vibrations from a platform at its base and stimulates the brain. There is a general consensus that …