Blog Archive

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Walking in Renmark

I went for a nice long walk in Renmark today where we have been visiting rellies.
The yellow bushes are wild asparagus

Asparagus berries







Here are some of the pics.
The walk was on Government Road at Renmark West.









Sunday, May 27, 2012

Most popular blogs of last month

Apr 26, 2012
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Saturday, May 26, 2012

Talkin' about my Generation-part 3 Sport part 2

In my previous post on sport I hinted I would post some football budgets and newspaper clippings from my sporting generation.
While many of these have my name mentioned(my grandmother saved all these for me) they give you a little bit of appreciation of SANFL football in the 60's and also South Australian District cricket in the same era and Northern Territory Football league in the 1970/71 football season in Darwin.
The year I played in Darwin a former Port Adelaide and Sturt player,Peter Yeo, played in the finals in Darwin which was a bit controversial at the time.
Some years ago now he suffered a crippling injury in his home.
I have attached a link about Peter which also links to a radio interview he did on the ABC Radio conversations with Richard Fiedler.
So some of these articles are posted for my niece Carly's benefit and a bit of  a grandfatherly boast that I once could play a little bit.
So forgive me for my self indulgence.

This was in the centre spread of Adelaide's Lunchtime edition of the News. I was under a "hospital ball" and Kelly Stringer ran about 20 yards and placed his knee firmly in my back. I was given a free kick.The game was on Adelaide Oval the famous cricket ground and soon to be an AFL venue again.

State of origin matches between South Australia and Victoria were always a big talking point


The year after this Sturt started their huge run of about 6 premierships in a row.

This day I came off the reserves bench and played most of the game.

There are some great footballers in these seconds reams who went on to make their mark and some already had and were windind down their careers

Robert Day was a West Adelaide Champion only a couple of years older than myself.He also played in a premiership team with Hawthorn

Ken Eustice had been a West Adelaide Champion who transferred to Central Districts as a Captain Coach.I had his number 13 in my brief leaugue appearnces with West Adelaide.h

!965 News Feature on how the teams were shaping up for that season


This and the below article was from a pre season trial game in 1966.I had a very good game but a few months later I had left the club to play amateur league.I bumped into Don Roach a few weeks after I had left and he encouraged me to come back but I did not take his advice as I had dropped my confidence to play League Football and was enjoying Amateur League with my mates in the Postal Institute football Club. We won a premiership that year.
The first and last time I made this weekly list of A Grade best bowlers

For J Thompson read G Thompson. I also ran out Bob Simunsen in this game.



In this my first game in A Grade I hit Colin Harrison for 4 from the first ball I faced.I batted with Kevin Griffiths for some time and was getting over confident as I thought Harrison was not such a  great bowler. I was out LBW to Harrison from a wrongun.I remember Barry Jarman saying didn't you pick that one? I said "does he bowl a wrongun?"



Darwin football now.The ost enjoyable season of sport I ever played

Our team the Wanderers were the first mainland league team to play a game on Bathurst Island. I was acting captain.There was hardly any grass on the oval.Instead of tossing a coin for ends we tossed a stone from the playing surface that had spit on one side. We were thrashed by mainly young teenagers, mostly playing without boots.What an experience!

Bob Elix and Tony Shaw were former South Australian champion footballers


see the link below about  Peter Yeo.







http://www.abc.net.au/queensland/conversations/stories/s2006412.htm?nsw







Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Unseen football photos.


I have been watching and photographing this week an AFL junior football carnival in Adelaide.
The rules about photography are that you can take photos but they are not allowed to be posted on the internet.
I got some great shots but you will have to imagine them.
There were some Galahs at the game so I have posted a photo of them.
Enjoy!


A little bit of added blur from iPhoto makes the picture even more pleasing to my eye.




Monday, May 21, 2012

When your Dad is your Hero




While doing a recent "then and now" project with the ABC Open programme in the Riverland of South Australia it reminded me of a "then and now" photoshoot I did with one of my mates and his dad just a few years ago.
Sometimes you get asked to do things as a photographer where you feel very privileged and this was one of those occasions.
My mate's name is Greg Stanford( we played cricket together) and his dad was Ross"Roscoe" Stanford who was a distinguished South Australian cricketer but also a member  of the original "Dam Busters" Squadron in the second world war.
Ross played with West Torrens Cricket Club and also played briefly for South Australia in the Sheffield Shield competition in Australian Cricket.
As his dad was getting older, Greg asked me if I could come around and do some photos of him and his dad and memoriblia from his days in the airforce and in particular when he played cricket representing Australia in the famous "Victory Test Matches" immediately on the finish of the war.
These were never recognised as official test matches but did much to help restore morale, particularly in England, immediately following the war.
There were some notable Australian cricketers in the team, namely Keith Miller and Lindsay Hassett.           .
They were very successful winning half of their "test" matches and according to Keith Miller in his book "Cricket Crossfire", the English public seemed to think they were the actual Australian test team.
Ross has passed on 6 years ago and a large funeral service was held at the Adelaide Oval honouring Ross and his life.
Greg gave a very passionate eulogy about his dad and he was not backward in saying his dad was his hero.
Greg did an amazing job looking after his dad as a personal carer in the last difficult years when his dad was very unwell.
So I have sought Greg"s permission to share some of the photos we took that day.

Ross put on his uniform as Greg thought it would be good to recreate a photo of him in his uniform in his war years.

We have also recorded a video interview of Greg reflecting on his Dad and his Mum.The video is at the foot of this post.

My dad was a hero to me too.

We are indeed fortunate if we can say this.

Thank God for your parents every day regardless of whether they were your hero or not.

If there is any bitterness towards your parents let it go.

Here is the wikipedia link for the Dambusters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters










Roscoe and commemmorative bat of the victory tests
commemmorative bat of the victory tests



Ross stands at first slip while Greg faces up.Geoff Thompson is at the other end.








Below is the final version of our interview.