Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

The Christmas newsletter is well on track

I spent a goodly amount of time early one morning last weekend revising this year's edition of Weaver News, which is an illustrated family newsletter I circulate to distant cousins and other family members at Christmas.

Compiling this good natured propaganda usually commences a week or so after the previous Christmas and is added to throughout the year. It also records something of an obituary about family members who have passed away during the year - and if available, these are accompanied by some photographs.

For example, this year there will be an item about my mother-in-law Ivy Webber who died from a stroke in August. I have included a beautiful portrait I took of her a few days before she died. But I have also managed to assemble three images from her earlier years. One as a baby, one as young girl on a beach, and one as a young woman in her twenties.

There is another obituary for cousin Gilbert Weaver, the "black sheep" of the family who reformed and lived out his days to a ripe old age with his family in Sydney. I have two images of him, one taken in his youth and a grainy one taken about 1988.

Then there is a story about my long lost half-brother Don who suddenly turned up on the doorstep in February. He had been living in Queensland where he had changed his name to Peter because he had owned a business called Peter the Possum Man. There are now a few Peter the Possum Men in the eastern states, but apparently he was the original. I have a fine photo of us reunited in February, plus one of him in RAAF uniform taken at the end of WW2.

Don and Gilbert were born a generation earlier than me.

I was particularly pleased to receive Don's air force photo. It ads to my collection of the many other family members who have served in uniform, including three of our own teenagers who are members of the Australian Army Cadets. I have included a fine photo of them in their uniforms in the newsletter too.

In yesterday's The Australian there was an article by weekly columnist Imre Salusinszky. Titled "Seasons greetings from the heartland" it was an attack on family newsletters, which apparently many people produce at Christmas. His whining article will be available for a few weeks in the "opinion" section of the paper's website.

I think he must be suffering from writer's block because according to my memory it is the third time he has rehashed this same article in as many years. I guess he just digs it out from his computer files and changes a few words here and there, then sends it in and waits for his cheque. I feel sorry for Dr Salusinszky. His essay suggests to me that inwardly he is a quite unhappy and unloved person.

There was a program titled Grumpy old men at Christmas on ABC TV last light with some male British "personalities" who have passed their prime, expressing their negative opinions about Christmas. Some of them were harping on about being on the receiving end of Christmas newsletters too. I thought they were a bunch of sad old specimens, the lot of them.

A few of my ancestors left written records of day to day life which are now cherished amongst the family members who discover them.

Great Grandfather Joseph William Wright (1853-1901) came to Western Australia from Dudley as a bachelor adventurer on the Lady Elizabeth in 1873. I have transcribed his shipboard diary and a series of 42 letters written to relatives at Dudley UK. What a funny name for a town? The letters and a copy of the transcriptions are now in the Western Australian State Archives. They are a unique and detailed record of his observations about life in the still young colony of Western Australia.

His daughter and one of my grandmothers, Constance Norris was also a writer and produced some reminiscences of the port of Geraldton, which is north of here. These were "discovered" posthumously in the 1980s and published by the Soroptimists' Society as Memories of Champion Bay. There have since been other compilations of her assorted scribbles.

In another branch of the family, an entertaining journal of Great Grandfather Joseph Norris has recently turned up in Queensland. I am very grateful for a typed copy sent to me by a cousin. She will soon receive a Christmas newsletter.

Its certainly not going to be a case here of following the miserable wretches who ridicule such writings.

This year's newsletter looks like running to ten pages. Not much considering the amount of material which I have covered in this daily journal. Believe it or not there are many other things which have occurred through the year which I simply haven't had the time to address anywhere.

My Christmas production will continue to be churned out for a few years yet, and distributed accordingly. I know that one day when I am long gone, there will be some descendants who will appreciate that I made the effort, and hopefully one of them will continue what has become a popular tradition in this family.

© MMV Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days.

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