The Bassett family site
Serious pieces by or about Max
“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. …
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 …
Be just to children. Watch them in the playground and you’ll learn a lot about them They will test you but years later they come back as adults and thank you… This is the philosophy of Mr James Lord, 83 of Rose Park, who has seen society and education change but who has retained his …
When Norman Hanlin saw the great masts and yards of the squarerigger Herzogin Cecilie soaring above in the wharf sheds at Port Adelaide as he rode by in the bus in 1933, he knew he must make a closer inspection. So he climbed off the open-topped, double-decker bus at the next stop and hastened to …
When young Richard Smith accidentally banged a cricket ball through the Payneham Primary School bass drum back in the ’20s, it had some unforeseen consequences. For instance, when he became the school drummer he had to learn to avoid the ruptures and holes in the drum and to beat where the skin was tight. It …