Plotting a path

Oh boy, did I cop a tongue-lashing! And this was from my friend with MS. If my daughter had sprayed the same opinion there would have been guilt as well as exasperation.

Sunday morning early, I hauled the bod up the rise to Paddington Town Hall to hail a 380 bus as the 389 did not start its service until 8:18 - this being a genteel suburb. By the time we turned from the Bondi Junction interchange into Grafton Street the bus was standing room only, so crowded it was with "young folk". There are immense benefits to having Christmas in summer.

Crossing over Campbell Parade just before 8am, the glare from the ocean was extreme and I made a mental note to get me a pair of prescription sunnies from OPSM this week - EARLY. Bondi is a very open beach with wide expanses of concrete, sand and water none of which are good for sensitive systems. Taking my next set of ankle-huggers off at the top of the ramp, I noted the open blister that I am no longer capable of feeling, tied the laces together and dangled them from my back-pack, already loaded with camera gear and water.

Dry sand quickly induced brain-fog. As luck would have it, for the first half of the beach prone bodies and their assorted gear were infrequent, but the sun was biting even this early, the glare was extreme and the effort required to plot any sort of a path, that alone a relatively straight one, was immense.

The North Bondi half of the beach was littered with bodies and awash with nippers in training. Trying to keep to the dry sand and avoiding outstretched limbs became an exercise in itself. Laughable when you realise that there must be 9 parts of dry sand to 1 part of wet, packed sand! Eventually, I plomped, exhausted, on a ledge in the shade and watched mummies and daddies introduce their sprogs to the joys of the rock pool at the northern end of the bay that is Bondi. It was just after 9am. Bloody hell, thinks I, I still have to get back. You can start to word the lecture yourself, I suspect.

I tumbled through the grill that is my front door a little before 10:30 - this little ramble along the dry sand at Bondi had taken 3 hours, 5 if you count the kip that I now had to partake.

Update - Tuesday
Missed the 389 that passes at 6:01, so up the rise to Oxford Street I trundle only to find that, this being a main peak-hour thoroughfare, the service in the opposite direction is patchy and I had to wait for the 333 at 6:34 and it would not take my pension card SO I HAD TO PAY!!

However, with brain in gear this time, I think I have this routine by the short'n'curlies, if it is permissible to mangle the vernacular in this way. Managed sand-stomping fromn 7 to 8 and home by 8:45 with a litre of milk for my weet-bix. A good pattern could be: bus there (30 mins), sand stomp (60 mins), bus back (30 mins). Tomorrow I will shoot for the 6am local bus and back here by 8am.

Went half way along this time, and returned. Rest. Then did a number of legs from the wet-dry sand divide to the promenade and back. My head and body was exercised and my mind was relaxed watching the (beautiful) people and the (magnificent) landscape.

Volley'd and thunder'd

Canons to the right of me. Canons to the left of me. Or so it seems.

Half-way down this passage-way, at the side of my (below ground) apartment, I am pushing the walls away with the back of my hands, whether to stop them toppling on me or me crashing into them, I am unable to determine. Loathe to keep my eyes open through the discomfort of the ever-moving vision (dear readers, something like a cursor that never quite keeps up with the movement of the mouse and forever has a contrail of its own entrails in its wake - if indeed, contrail and wake are permitted in the one analogy), I squeeze them shut as the walls expand air-bag-like to expel the life out of me, welling the nausea within. I panic to the end, with bP breaking through the fragile facade of control that the flaying hands serve to provide.

Two causes I think. CA = cerebellar ataxia. BV = bilateral vestibulopathy. This later is in the severe range implying that the little hairs that radar the inner ear are well-nigh plucked. The former implies that the nerve pathways through the cerebellum (brain stem) are oops-a-daisy casual rather than wonky and may or may not fire if only they could remember where they mislaid that impulse.

This is a distressing 20m walk akin to walking on the professor's sand, me thinks.

Voila - me new hoofers

The girls and I are shouting ourselves to our Christmas gift to each other this evening: each other's company. This is at Catalina's in Rose Bay. Bit swanky. Bit up-market. Tres expensive.

So I needed a new pair of hoofers, oui?

If I recall the professor opined: rubber on the road, filled in, laces and ankle support without being too heavy.

How about this pair of Converse which the label assures me is "Chuck Light Hi"?

Diagnosis

I have some bad news and some good news.

Silence.

The bad news is that there is no cure. The good news is that at the rate this is progressing you will be in a wheel chair by the time you are 90.

I did not come expecting a cure. What I am after is a label. I just want to know what it is.

Cerebellar ataxia with bilateral vestibulopathy (CABV).

Well, that's okay then. I came in here convinced you were going to say Parkinson's Disease.

No, it is definitely NOT Parkinsons, nor MS nor Meniere's. What you have is a three-pronged degeneration in your ability to balance: cerebral ataxia is the degeneration of the wiring of your nerves coming from the cerebellum and the effect of this is your poor coordination and wonky gait (ie ataxia) caused by your inner ear which registers very poorly in the audiometric tests; bilateral vestibulopathy means that your eyes (both of them) do not move in synch with your head, they play catch up in a series of saccades, which is why you cannot determine where the other cars are on the road and why you suffered the syncope which brought all this to a head; and, most unusually, you have the peripheral neuropathy which is causing you to have poor balance generally in your body movements. Usually people have two of the three.

Other patients diagnosed with CABV have also had the PN for up to 20 years prior to the ataxia which brings them in for a diagnosis. Whilst there is no cure and there is no medication, we can monitor the progress at least of your sight, which is where the most impact is often noticed.



So he sent me in with two young guys (both doctor doctors, one visiting from Switzerland) who hooked me up to what appeared to be an electric chair and measured and graphed my eye movements. Judging them to be my son's age and amenable to inquisition, I cajoled them into explaining the graph and its implications. Each of these readings is valid for my problem. The graph is not of my eyes but a representative example. Eyes do not follow the track of the head, they play catch up and the wild oscillations are the eyes madly trying to work out where to go next. No wonder the ground appears to bounce beneath my feet when I walk - or drive!

So ... what can be done.

Have you got a walking stick. Well yes ... but ... but hey I bought a shopping trolley on wheels and that acts a bit like a third leg. Good. How about ping-pong are you any good at that? Well, no and not likely to rustle up many people to play against either.

How about Wii ... Yes, yes. Brilliant. And there is a plastic cushioned extra you can get for about $120. Just what you need. Yes that will do it. Otherwise, the physio will give you 50 head nods in this direction, an 50 head nods in the other direction.

What has Prof Halmagyi suggested? He says I have to walk through the dry sand at Bondi once every day. Use it or lose it. The eyes have to be exercised but in a place where if you fall you wont hurt yourself. Groan ... okay.

Also, get yourself a torch. Dont walk much during the dark or at least know the terrain. And get rid of those sandals. All sandals. Look how much they are stubbed at the front. I trip a lot. Mmmm ... You need plenty of rubber under your feet. Flat and well shod. And they need to lace up. And they need to come up to your ankles. Charming, thinks I.

Come and see me again later in January. I will send you my paper on the subject. Then you will have my email for any more questions.

All in all, a bloody good day.

The Visit to the Opthalmologist

We arrived at 8:30 and left at 10:30, although we spent an inordinate length of time waiting, waiting, waiting.

My sight is fine, but my eyes are not. The orthoptist (?)- Annie - said that my vision was 20/20 with just a bit of confusion between S and B. I should probably get my lens updated and have a largish pair of sunnies scripted too. Glare is not tolerated too well. The glare of a light shining in my eyes caused me to swear at the bloke. We were on first name basis by that stage.

There is a lot of expensive equipment in an eye surgeon's rooms. Annie measured my eyes and my glasses and then started to examine the tracking. That is when she went and got the surgeon, Brian. He did that thing with his finger and the lid of a blue biro - follow around the world, left, right, up down. Again and again. He did it so she could see the nystagmus. Then he went in with the microscope. Follow the yellow brick road again. And again. They looked in the eyepiece. Brian called Kirsten over to look in the eyepiece. I gather both extremities of my eye (they were looking into the left one, but I gather the right one is only worse) jigs around all over the place. This would explain why the end of a street looks like a mirage. This would explain why I cannot judge speed or distance when I am a pedestrian or a driver. It would also explain why I will never drive a car again. I had been trying to explain that I had to check things with my brain not with my eyes. Nothing is automatic any more.

Then he asked me to get up and walk over to Kirsten. I got to my feet and, as I have trained myself, paused for a second or two (but not three) to get control and to ease the ache from sitting that is in my groin. Brian asked me what I thought I was doing. I quipped/snapped that I was getting started! When I got over to Kirsten, he asked me to turn around and walk heel'n'toe back to him. Even looking at his face, I swayed all over the place and he caught me and stopped me after three steps. The same thing happened when he asked me to stand upright with both feet together. Simply cannot do it.

The problem lies within the brain stem. It is a wiring problem within the cerebellum. It is degenerative. I gather the neurologist will expand upon that next week.

Here are the symptoms: peripheral neuropathy, poor coordination and balance, eyesight difficulties, cramps in both legs but mainly the right leg, cramps in all segments of the arm, cramps under stress that envelope the left upper arm and chest wall that resemble angina (but are not angina because my heart is fine), cramps across the back of my shoulders, syncope caused by low blood pressure, vertigo.

That's enough to go on with.

Hut C on Middle Head

This post is a re-write of a post from January 2008 when I drove Dad (Laurie) out to Middle Head to revisit his old army camp for the first time since he learnt to march there on the parade ground.


My father joined the AIF (Australian Infantry Forces) in August 1941, two months after his 20th birthday. He had wanted to join the Navy but his own father's permission was required and that was never going to be forthcoming. The excitement in the car rose as we drove along the road, with Dad telling out loud the things he remembered used to be here or used to be there. As we curved the slope down to HMAS Penguin on the left he turned over me to point out the large sandstone-verandahed house that used to house the officers. It was still there. As was the flat area of land on the turn-off down to Chowder Bay where he and his fellows used to wash their army trucks.


The huts along Middle Head Road are now dilapidated but Dad knows he was in Hut C and we figured that to be the third hut from the left (closer to the Heads). I will go hunt through Dad's photos from that time and see if I can come up with some more information for Diane, who also trained at this same location but some 20 years after my father.

I will go find those photos now as I am going down the road for a chat with Laurie this afternoon and I will try to get him to name the chaps in the photos.

Pillar to post

It is not Multiple Sclerosis, although it has symptoms of MS. Is is not Meniere's, although it has symptoms of Meniere's. It is not Parkinsonsm although it has symptoms of Parkinsons. It is most definitely Peripheral Neuropathy, of both the motor and sensory variety.

In the fall that I took on October 7th I lost consciousness. This does not happen when an MS sufferer falls nor when a Meniere's attack occurs. I did have vertigo and I did spend the evening dry retching. I spent the next two days at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) having both cardiac and neurologic assessments. The raised troponin levels (CPK) were symptomatic of an impending heart attack. But they are also raised when a seisure has occurred. All the muscles at the base of the buttock and down the back of both legs were frozen and took about 24 hours to relax back to normal. Prior to the fall I had the whirling and the flashing in the top RH quadrant which are indicative of vertigo which is a massive aspect of Meniere's.

I returned to work for another 8 days and then the second episode occurred. My son, who was with me organised the ambulance and I was in RPA for four days. I underwent two cardiac procedures: an Angiogram and an Electro-psysiology Study (EPS). The EPS found a wayward electrical beat in my heart and cauterized it. Not too unusual, occurring in about 10% of the population. Extraneous to the other symptoms. The Angiogram indicated that I had a strong heart with minimal heart disease. All this was good. But why was my blood pressure measured in the ambulance at 60/40 and why did it consistently read low during the hospital stay? And if my BP was low, why was I taking 20mg of Coversyl each morning!



Yesterday, I saw the cardiologist again. He is convinced it is not cardiac. But he is leading the holistic team that is nibbling around the symptoms and the test results to try to make sense of the data. With the balance, the gait and the vision problems, he has now suggested an opthalmologist join the team. I have diplopia in the left eye extensively and a little in the right. He could not see nystagmus but the week prior both the neurologists could see this in both eyes.

The extensive testing from the Brain and Mind Institute (BMI) that I underwent during 2008 is available to this new team. This includes many nerve induction tests, a complete body x-ray (13 in all) and a number of MRIs of the head and chest.

I have difficulty determining if the information coming from my eyes to my brain is correct and have to think through crossing the road. It is a bit like a mirage down the other end of the street. I have trouble determining depth when I take a step and am hesitant to put my foot down too firmly. Know when you step off only to realise that there was no further step to negotiate. Imagine that with every other step you take. My balance on the LHS is wonky and I diverge to that side and sometimes have difficulty bringing myself upright again. My friends have convinced my to purchase a walking stick to have with me in my backpack - for rough ground. I now always accept the proffered arm.

The rules are: reduce stress; no driving; stairs with balaustrades only; more sleep; better nutrition; reduce alcohol; wear a hat and reduce heat; and, the hardest one, don't live by myself.

I am staying with my daughter for three weeks. Although I only moved into a new cottage two months ago, I am breaking the lease and moving to another place which is 5 minutes drive from Kirsten and has no internal stairs. It is also on a bus line (the 389) and about 100m from my father's nursing home. Living with Kirsten I am developing better patterns of sleeping, eating and drinking that I will be able to take to the new place with me. Kirsten has both the car and the car keys (for a while I had known that when I stopped the car and opened the door to get out, the bitumen was still moving).

Tomorrow, Friday 6th November, I retire from my job at the university after two weeks sick leave. The job was an experiment which to me did not work. The reports and systems that I created were not used by any of the academics they were created for. I was doing work that was not appreciated and there was never enough of it. This is immensely stressful. Both my children suggested that I stop even though my retirement age (as calculated by the government) was 64. One of my tasks this week is to set up a flexi-pension from my superannuation fund.

I will post this and reread it as the day progresses, adding anything that I think rounds the story out.

How do I feel? Nervous. Apprehensive. Pleased. Positive, perhaps.

My daughter sent me an article called "Diversify Yourself" by Peter Bregman.

Arthur's Circus

A "circus" is a circular arena surrounded by tiers of seats in which public entertainments are held. In ancient Rome a circus was a large, usually oblong or oval, roofless enclosure, surrounded by tiers of seats rising one above another, usually for chariot races. Rome has the Circus Maximus. London has Piccadilly Circus.


So here we have Arthur's Circus. Yes, it is the same Arthur who established the penal settlement that bears his name. The same Arthur who tried to erect a warming wall around the Botanical Gardens. Sir George Arthur, Governor of Van Dieman's Land from 1824 to 1836.


This area in the suburb of Battery Point was purchased by Arthur in 1829 from the Reverend Robert Knopwood.


When Arthur sold the land almost 20 years later, the auction advertisement described "delectable building sites in a neighbourhood that will inevitably become The Resort of the Beau Monde".

Politicians haven't changed much, have they?

The future of the Harold Park site

What are the most important issues that Council should be considering when planning for the renewal of the site?
It is essential that there is no corruption. That the decision is made transparently. The pressure from the Paceway to be compensated for $760m is laughable. They themselves agree that within 5 years they will have no patronage from the public. The area is a valueable geographic area that traces old creeks from Grosse Farm on Petersham Hill down to its entry in the harbour. This should be paramount in the redesign.

How can the Harold Park Site be used, and how can its renewal positively contribute to life in the local area and wider Sydney?
Revert the land as much as possible back to its original shape. Reforest and regrass. The land should be turned over mostly to passive recreation use: no ovals, no apartment blocks, no shopping centres, no parking lots. There could be an amphitheatre serviced by the trams and ferries for the performance of music and drama. There should be an extension of the lite rail over to White Bay and along Wigram Road to Booth Street then Johnson Street. This should be combined with public ferry routes to Glebe Point and The Crescent. The tram sheds should be restored as a historical museum to the working class of early Sydney (1788 - 1939). This should be done by the people from the Loftus Tramway Museum. There should be no apartments built because this would only be afforded by the well-heeled and that is not the heritage of the area.

The Sustainable Sydney 2030 Strategy and the State Government's Draft Subregional Strategies set out some objectives in relation to housing, transport, the environment, community and culture. How do you think the renewal of Harold Park can contribute to these objectives and to Sydney becoming more "Green, Global and Connected"?

Waterfront housing only brings out the greed in us, so it is to be avoided at all costs. Extending the lite rail and the ferries is a green alternative to the car.
Reverting the land to its original shape and reafforesting it is environmentally friendly in the long term. The local community retains a valueable greensward and passive recreation area that slopes down to the harbour. The amphitheatre and the Working Man's Museum pay deference to the culture of the area.

I'm just a kid again

As I was trimming his hair, he tried to explain how he could not remember how to recharge his shaver and had not shaved all week ... later, as we shuffled down to the car, he could still join in with some of the words:

When the red, red, robin Comes bob, bob, bobbin' Along, along, There'll be no more sobbin' When he starts throbbin' His old sweet song. Wake up, wake up you sleepy head, Get up, get up, get out of bed, Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red, Live, love, laugh and be happy. I'm just a kid again, doin' what I did again, Singing a song, When the red, red, robin Comes bob, bob, bobbin' along. I commend to you my Hands post tomorrow ... his energy waxes and wanes ...

Monotone cf colour

I am trying to work out which images work in B&W and which are better left in colour.

It seems to me that B&W requires strong lines and the fewer details the better. Like, I don't think this one works. The colour - minimal though it be - adds to the image. Whereas the previous post works well.

I would value your opinion.

Get to the point

the beauty and the power

on the make

steady

hare and tortoise

Great white waying

My head is spinning from the sheer variety:

Saturday Ann and I were in the matinee audience in the Drama Theatre of the Opera House immersed in a performance of Shakespeare's "Pericles" which was a joint performance by Bell Shakespeare and Taikoz.

Sunday Christine and I were in the Opera Auditorium of the Opera House for the Final Audition of the Young Artist Program of Opera Australia where eight young vocalists performed two arias a-piece for the chance to join the ranks of Opera Australia in 2010.

Last night, my daughter Kirsten and I attended the first performance of a dramaturg at Belvoir St Theatre by the Sydney Street Choir which was a joyous regailing of their individual journeys mirroring the Greek myth of Orpheus & Eurydice.

Defending the colony (1)

This drawing jumps ahead a bit and shows Dawes Point and its battery in 1825. However, it also shows the height of the ridge and the slope to the waters' edge.

Consider the southern approach to the harbour bridge akin to a long, red, fake nail that has been slipped over a finger. I am interested in the finger underneath: what was it like before being graced with the nail; and, how the nail has changed the finger since.

Left: the slope down to The Rocks showing all that is left of the original promontory. Right: The slope down to Millers Point and Dawes Point. You can see the plateau that is now occupied by the Sydney Observatory.

The finger consists of a ridge running out along a promontory and gently sloping down to the water on both sides and around the finger tip. The ridge itself used to be York Street which extended well nigh to the finger pad but which during the late 1920s was dramatically redecorated and aligned to form the southern abuttment of the Harbour Bridge and to be renamed as the Bradfield Highway.

Imagine yourself standing at the point where York St morphs into this highway (facing north): face toward the bridge. To the right of you - to the East - the land gently slopes down from the ridge to the edge of Sydney Cove. This slope is now the inner city suburb known as The Rocks. To the left of you - to the West - the land plateaus for maybe 200 metres before gently sloping down to the edge of Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour. This slope is now the inner city suburb of Millers Point. At the front of the finger - underneath the fake nail to extend the metaphor - the land dramatically slopes down to the harbour waters. This land is known as Dawes Point. It is not a suburb. No-one lives in Dawes Point.

The middle photo was taken in April 1925 and looks down what is left of York St North. The photo on the left, was taken under the bridge showing well-nigh that same view today. Both these photos are facing north. The photo on the right is facing south and shooting along the Mlllers Point side of the bridge approaches. Now see those terraces there that appear to be white? Look in the 1925 photo on the LHS. The same row of terraces.

Governor Arthur Philip granted Lieutenant William Dawes' request to locate an observatory on this high point. Dawes named the northern most extent of the ridge Point Maskelyne after his benefactor, the Astronomer Royal. A roughly housed observatory was constructed but did not long survive the return to England of Dawes - in 1792 - and Philip in December 1791. Dawes' observatory is not the Observatory that we have today.

This high ridge was an ideal vantage point from which to defend the early colony and that is pretty much the role it played from 1792 until about 1920.

The Dawes point hypothesis ...

This is not a definitive answer: I have unearthed no official documentation.


This structure was part of the rebuilding of Millers Point after much of the suburb was razed as a response to the bubonic plague just prior to WW1. The plague was used as an excuse by the state government of the day to take control of the area and develop the maritime infrastructure that is so essential for an island continent. Hickson Road was carved through the suburb and ended at the edge of the harbour beneath the Dawes Point Battery which stood on the high part of Dawes Point facing to the east and was an essential part of the defence of the colony.


This entire wharf area was restricted, with the hoi-poloi kept out

From 1910 to 2005 the general public was kept out of Walsh Bay for their own safety and the security of goods being discharged.

When the old Sydney Harbour Trust took charge in about 1913, they sliced through the area and carved out Hickson Road which, effectively, separated the residential area of Millers Point from the maritime area of Walsh Bay.


As I said in my post on Sydney Eye

Hickson Road - named after Robert Hickson, an Irishman who was the first president of the Sydney Harbour Trust - was carved from the steep slope that ran down to Walsh Bay. Henry Walsh - after whom the wharf area was named and who migrated to Australia from Ireland in 1877 - was the Chief Publc Works Engineer between 1901 and 1919 instigating improvements to the ports of Sydney and Newcastle.

Now look at these diagrams:


See in the RHS photo how Hickson Road snakes through and does a big curve to the right at Pier 1. This is the location of the towerette. It is in line with the curve of the sandstone escarpment. Now look at the sandstone blocks embedded in the bitumen: they run from the towerette in the direction of the escarpment which has been "lined" with a very similar sandstone block. The LHS image shows just how intrusive Hickson Road was: how much land was resumed. The sandstone footings noticed by Sally - and totally overlooked by muggins here - are in line from the tower to the sandstone reinforced escarpment.

Looking at these three historic photographs:

There is a timber structure in three (small) sections that is very close to where the towerette now stands. This timber structure (to my eyes) is very similar to a structure on the Opera House walk which now sells coffee but whose original purpose was a tram control point going toward Fort Macquarie. These photos were taken as they were excavating for the southern abutment, the first in April and the other two in May of 1925. The more fascinating photo is the one in the middle which faces west. Look immediately beyond the diggings, yet before Pier 1: there is a small building with pointed eaves. This is what reminds me of a tram control point. Check them out in that old photo that you published of Railway Sq. Sally. Now look immediately in FRONT of this TCP ... dah-dah!! Note that the SHB did not disturb the railings.

I put these things together: people were supposed to be kept out; and, the escarpment ended in an entry point which was overseen by this towerette and (possibly) another towerette on the landward side - now lost to history, like so much else. My best guess: this was constructed immediately prior to WW1 and was part of a control gate, either to control trams or to keep people away from the wharf area, in which case I would expect a similar structure on the Barangaroo side. Now to find out where the trams ran in Millers Point. I think it is now time to contact someone in the council or the SHFA to see if they have anything to help us.

The Dawes Point puzzle ...

Sally has a post with a puzzle today: HB and sandstone and I simply cannot resist an historical treasure-hunt. So I have beavered away this evening chasing down clues ...
Here is Sally's photo on the left with the little structure in question. On the right is a photo I took going out to Cockatoo Island during the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend. Sal took her's on the Saturday and I mine on the Monday. But I digress ...

This image is captioned "HMAS Canberra sailing into Sydney Harbour in 1930" ... look down there to the left of the pylon - near the bow of that tug boat ... could it be ... So it could be that it was in situ prior to the bridge going up. But surely they would not leave it there during construction with all the mess flying around it stood a good chance of being damaged. But as I look more closely, the closest shore is the northern abutments of the bridge. HMAS Canberra is going INTO the harbour. And over there is the southern shore. Looking carefully I can just make out the smoke stack which is just to the east of the southern approaches of the Bradfield Highway. So there is a similar little structure on the northern shore in 1930. This doesn't make sense - yet!

So what was on the southern point (Dawes Point) immediately prior to them demolishing the whole lot for the southern approaches? In 1789 Lt Dawes created a rough observatory with scientific instruments lent to him by Maskelyne. Dawes named the area Point Maskelyne after the Astronomer Royal, but our forebears were not much into boot-licking either and just called it Dawes' Point. The Dawes Point Battery site was further down toward the water than Dawes' own observatory. Dawes himself had nothing to do with the Battery. More on the history of this in the next post.

The railings are interesting. There are similar railings on the other side of Sydney Cove around the Opera House Walk. However, there is a blacksmith working out in the Everleigh Carriageworks Precinct who has a massive reputation:

Guido Gouverneur's work appears all over Sydney. The New Zealand-born master blacksmith's most recent big-scale commission, which occupied him from April to December last year (2007), was the restoration of the balustrade at Dawes Point, running from Horseferry Steps to Pier 1. "It was a huge undertaking for us, restoring it properly and getting the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority to recognise that it should be done properly," says Gouverneur.The balustrade had been spot-repaired over years but this was a much larger project: the posts were lifted from their sandstone base and corroded elements were replaced - in some sections, old bars from Parramatta Jail replaced damaged posts.

You can see the railing all along the walk in Sally's photo and again her that I photographed last year:

The above book should give me more information:The Fragile Forts: The Fixed Defences of Sydney Harbour 1788 - 1963 i have borrowed it from Fisher Library at the University and will use it to inform the next post.

There are steps down in this area variously known as Ives Steps and Horseferry Steps. Need to track down the derivation of Horseferry Steps. The ferry from Milson's Point (prior to the SHB) did not stop here but went directly to the Quay.

On the left here is the southern approaches to the bridge dated 1925. On the right is the tram and ferry terminal over at Milson's Point dated about 1920.

Keeping tally on the waters of Purgatory

The house Laurie built 1950-1951, corner Sherbrook Road and Pulbrook Parade, Hornsby

"My life hasn't been a total waste, you know: I've built a few houses in my time. Wanna see the one in Sherbrooke Road today?"

Dying is a long and winding road.

Norm Ingram was the bloke who helped me build the sunroom on the back of Hunter Street, then I asked him to help me build on the block of land I bought down the bottom of Sherbrook Road. We only worked Saturdays on it: sunrise to sunset though, and I picked him up in the Bedford and delivered him home after. He lived on Pennant Hills Road just down from Pearce's Corner. Took us over a year but Norm agreed to be paid only after I sold it which was not easy being not long after the War and I'd only take cash. I got finance from Ray Aspinall who managed the Bank of New South Wales on the corner of Florence and George, just near the station.

Letter written by Laurie to his mother, Sylvia Irene Veronica Cole, October 1956 when he was building a house on the farm with my older brother, Barry, as his only companion. All six pages form this one letter.

Timber was hard to come by after the war: nothing second-hand, mind you. Not DAR but I insisted on newly milled. Had contact with this bloke with a lumber yard on the highway down in Roseville. Huh, I remember one darned day, when I loaded the truck up with 40 foot planks. They were so long, I couldn't just dangle 'em over the tray: the coppers would've bin onta me like the proverbial off a shovel. So, I had to reload them so they sat up over the cabin AND dangled off the back. That was tough work. Well, I was on me way back up the highway and I was over the rail bridge past the pub on the left and part-way up Pymble hill ... yeah yeah ... Jools see where that car is parked ... 'bout there ... when the bloody load shifted and the clatter was enough to get all the drinkers out from behind the bar to gawp at me. Bludgers ... they were muttering and frothing ... but a couple took pity on me and gave me a hand.

Not long after that, I was slaving away one day when the bloke who owned the block next door came and asked me if I wanted to buy it from him. I only ever did cash in those days: so I haggled with him a spell and ended up buying for 100 quid. I sold it about a year later for 200 quid. Didn't tell the Deputy Commissioner, though.

I didn't make much dough from Sherbrook road but gee, I got good experience from it.

What other houses have you built?

Well, the one on the farm, right? And the one in Denman: in Turtle Street ... ... ...

Left: Farm house built by Laurie during 1956 Right: House built in Denman by Laurie during 1962

And didn't you build one down in the Riverina?

Yeah, yeah the one for the Chaunceys: they came from out Myambat way. Geez, they were a funny pair. Never seen a father'n'son fight so much. They would go at it hammer'n'tongs: really belting into each other. Yeah ... I built one for them, too.

Never made much money outa building things ... ... ...


The letter bears witness to this: 300 pound - after costs - for slaving his heart out every Saturday for over a year.