New England travel wish list: visiting Comboyne

 

I have never been to Comboyne or its surrounding plateau. Many years ago after my father retired he took mum on a series of road trips including three days on the Comboyne Plateau. He came back praising its beauty. 

I was reminded of all this by  a story on ABC Comboyne locals rally to revitalise their mountain-top town after trifecta of drought, bushfires, floods. It's a story of recovery in the face of isolation and natural disaster. 

Comboyne lies to the south west of Port Macquarie, north west of Taree. It's a bit over three hours from Armidale by road. Definitely time for me to visit!  

The poetry of Les Murray 1 - introduction

I have been reading Les Murray, The best 100 poems of Les Murray, Black Inc, Collingwood 2004. I have referred to Les Murray before on this blog, but this was is first time that I have taken the time to really taste his poetry. 

Wikipedia records that Leslie Allan "Les" Murray was born on 17 October 1938 at Nabiac on the Wallamba River, 24 kilometres south of Taree and 25 kilometres west of Forster/Tuncurry on the Mid North Coast. 

Today Nabiac has a population of around 600 and services the surrounding communities of Wootton, Failford, Rainbow Flat, Dyers Crossing, Krambach and Coolongolook.

Murray grew up in the neighbouring district of Bunyah. He attended primary and early high school in Nabiac and then attended Taree High School. 

In 1957 he began study at the University of Sydney in the Faculty of Arts and joined the Royal Australian Navy Reserve to obtain a small income. Speaking about this time to Clive James he has said: "I was as soft-headed as you could imagine. I was actually hanging on to childhood because I hadn't had much teenage. My Mum died and my father collapsed. I had to look after him. So I was off the chain at last, I was in Sydney and I didn't quite know how to do adulthood or teenage. I was being coltish and foolish and childlike. I received the least distinguished degree Sydney ever issued. I don't think anyone's ever matched it."

Murray developed an interest in ancient and modern languages, which qualified him to become a professional translator at the Australian National University where he was employed from 1963 to 1967). During his studies he met other poets and writers such as Geoffrey Lehmann, Bob Ellis, Clive James and Lex Banning as well as future political journalists Laurie Oakes andMungo McCallum Jr. Between times, he hitch-hiked around Australia and lived briefly at a Sydney Push household at Milson's Point. He returned to undergraduate studies in the 1960s and became a Roman Catholic when he married Budapest-born fellow-student Valerie Morelli in 1962. They lived in Wales and Scotland and travelled in Europe for over a year in the late 1960s. They now have five children.

In 1971 Murray resigned from his "respectable cover occupations" of translator and public servant in Canberra  to write poetry full-time. The family returned to Sydney, but Murray, planning to return to his home at Bunyah, managed to buy back part of the lost family home in 1975 and to visit there intermittently until 1985 when he and his family returned to live there permanently.

On his poetic inspiration, Wikipedia notes that twelve years after Murray's induced birth, his mother miscarried and died after the doctor failed to call an ambulance. Literary critic Lawrence Bourke writes that "Murray, linking his birth to her death, traces his poetic vocation from these traumatic events, seeing in them the relegation of the rural poor by urban élites. Dispossession, relegation, and independence become major preoccupations of his poetry". The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature writes that:

The continuing themes of much of his poetry are those inherent in that traditional nationalistic identity – respect, even reverence, for the pioneers; the importance of the land and its shaping influence on the Australian character, down-to-earth, laconic ... and based on such Bush-bred qualities as egalitarianism, practicality, straight-forwardness and independence; special respect for that Australian character in action in wartime ... and a brook-no-argument preference for the rural life over the sterile and corrupting urban environment.

I think that description is about right. However, what is perhaps less well recognised is Murray's role as a regional poet. He captures the cadences, the rhythms, of a life departed or now departing or at least threatened. He mourns and celebrates aspects of that life, descriptions that would be instantly recognisable to most people in New England, especially to those of an older generation.   

In my next post in this series, I will introduce you to some of the poems selected by Les Murray for his 100 best poems and link them to aspects of New England life. 

Coal Seam Gas - AGL's Gloucester BTEX woes

AGL has suspended operations at its Gloucester coal seam gas (CSG) project north of Newcastle, to allow tests to be carried out. after the discovery of potentially toxic chemicals in flowback water .

Acording to ABC News (link above) AGL announced on Tuesday afternoon 27 January it was voluntarily suspending the controversial coal seam gas pilot program in Gloucester.

Late in 2014 the company performed test fracking operations on four pilot wells at Waukivory, just outside Gloucester.

The company said the chemical BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and three forms of xylene) was found in a sample of flowback water, taken from two of the wells and an above-ground tank. Flowback water is water returned to the surface after it has been pumped into the ground mixed with chemicals to open up coal seams.

AGL stated categorically that BTEX was not in any of the hydraulic fracturing fluids used in their pilot operation. It is, in fact, illegal under NSW law. Rather, BTEX occurs naturally in coal seams, although amounts vary across deposits.

Greens NSW mining spokesman Jeremy Buckingham was  not impressed. AGL should now leave the Gloucester Valley, he said.  

"BTEX chemicals in the water are an absolute nightmare and the Greens want a permanent ban on coal seam gas and fracking in NSW," he said. 

"Coal seam gas is unsafe, unnecessary and unwanted.

"AGL should pack up and leave the Gloucester Valley for good following this latest pollution incident before they do any more damage to either their battered corporate reputation or our precious water. 

"How many more spills, leaks and accidents will it take before the government acts to ban coal seam gas?"

For more on this story see

• NSW government suspends AGL's CSG operations in Gloucester
• AGL faces delays, additional conditions after BTEX chemicals detected

• NSW government suspends AGL's CSG operations in Gloucester

Discovering Kempsey's Dunghutti-Ngaku Aboriginal Art Gallery

I know New England quite well, but am constantly discovering new things. For example, I hadn't discovered the Dunghutti-Ngaku Aboriginal Art Gallery  (DNAAG). The Gallery is housed in an annex of the Kempsey Visitor Information Centre designed by internationally renowned architect Glen Murcutt

This work, Brolga Chorus 1 is by Gumbaynggirr woman Alison Williams. While born in Sydney in 1968, Alison has obviously retained her North Coast connections.

Do have a browse of the Gallery's site. There are some very nice pieces there My thanks to Regional Arts NSW (@RegionalArtsNSW) for introducing me to the Gallery.

St John's Church at Stroud

This is the inside of the of St John's Church at Stroud. Built in 1833, it is one of the oldest surviving church buildings in Eastern Australia. Few people know that it exists.

This is a photo of the outside of the church. It is an unpretentious building, but very characteristic of the architecture of the time.  

The sad story of the Dorrigo to Glenreagh Railway 3 - the Dorrigo-Guyra line

This post continues the story of the Dorrigo-Glenreagh railway from The sad story of the Dorrigo to Glenreagh Railway 2 - building the line.

In 1927, the first Nationalist-Country Party ministry came into power. The new Country Party ministers came to office with seven years' accumulated dreams and hopes to fulfil, and with an electorate that expected them to do just that. Neither they nor the electorate were to know that Depression would shortly bring a sudden and bitter end to their hopes. The result was a brief Indian Summer of intense activity, some of the most productive months the Country Party has ever know.[1] Buttenshaw immediately accelerated public works expenditure: his Department provided country towns with water supply and sewerage schemes, while a number of new railway lines were commenced. To the North, the most important of these was the long-dreamed of Guyra-Dorrigo railway.

The ideal of an east-west New England railway line had a very long history. Now, for the first time, it could become a reality.

On 20 October 1928, before a crowd of between 3000 to 4000 people,CP Leader Buttenshaw turned the first sod of the new line at Guyra.[2] After praising the new state and Country Party workers who had campaigned for the line - Bruxner, Drummond, Thompson, Colonel H.F. White and others - Buttenshaw declared: 'The Government had decided that no work would be authorized, no sod turned, until they were absolutely safe in saying the work would be finished.'[3] Despite the freezing weather, it was a day of hope and speeches. To Drummond, the railway was a sign that 'the people of the North were combined, each party realising that if it could not get what it particularly wanted, it must help other parts in their efforts.'[4] For Victor Thompson, the day was a step towards something bigger:

The job, however, was not finished, and they could not sit down but must go on with the great Northern works. Most of them would live to see the turning of the first sod of something much bigger than was now being celebrated. - the first sod of the new Northern state, which once established would have a powerful influence on not only the North, but on New South Wales, and on Australia. (Applause).[5]

Two days later a similar ceremony was carried out at Dorrigo. The Armidale Express remarked happily that the new line marked 'a new era for rural New South Wales and the north, in particular.'[6]

As the Great Depression engulfed NSW, work was stopped. Faced with great financial stringency, the Nationalist-Country Party coalition returning to power after the defeat of the Lang Labor administration did not resume construction despite the dominance of the Northern leadership in the new United Country Movement (the new name for the Country Party). To many, this was a betrayal. It also left the Dorrigo-Glenreagh line truncated from its broader hinterland, dependent on Dorrigo Plateau traffic for its survival. 

---

[1]Unless otherwise cited, material in the next paragraphs is drawn from Ellis, The New South Wales Country Party, pp.106-114.

[2]Reports in the Armidale Express, 23 October 1928, and Armidale Chronicle, 24 October 1928. Cited in: G.S. Harman, 'Politics at the Electoral Level - A Study in Armidale and New England, 1899-1929', MA thesis, University of New England, 1964, pp.164-166. The opening is also reported in detail in the Northern Daily Leader, 22 October 1928.

[3]Armidale Chronicle, 24 October 1928.

[4]Northern Daily Leader, 22 October 1928.

[5]ibid.

[6]19 October 1928.

The sad story of the Dorrigo to Glenreagh Railway 2 - building the line

My first post in this series, The sad story of the Dorrigo to Glenreagh Railway 1 - ghost railway, simply set the scene,  

For those who don't know Dorrigo, it lies on the Dorrigo Plateau perched on the edge of the New England escarpment. This is truly beautiful country, although the colours are not quite your Australian stereotypical colours as so often presented. It is just too green because of the high rainfall.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Dorrigo was heavily forested. Lumbering and clearing began, but the high escarpment made it difficult to get produce to the seaboard. Timber in particular had to be hauled over rough roads to Armidale or Grafton.

This type of difficulty was was true to greater or lesser extent across New England. Fights for east-west rail links helped fuel the discontent that generated the desire of so many New Englanders over more than 150 years to gain Northern self-government.

In 1905, work finally began on a north-south North Coast line. Settlers on the Dorrigo Plateau began an intensive campaign to link their area to the projected railway. On 28 December 1910, the Glenreagh to Dorrigo Railway Act was passed, providing for the construction of a line linking Glenreagh on the coast to Dorrigo. This would allow timber and other produce to be shifted through the small port at Coffs Harbour. However, the protagonists saw this as a first step in a longer inland east-west line.  

The photo shows bullock teams at work at the Coffs Habour port in 1928.

Survey work on the new line did not commence until 1914, actual construction a little later. In 1917, the war interrupted work, with construction beginning again in 1920.

Construction was no mean feat because of the rugged terrain and regular rain. Land slips were common and were to plague the line throughout its life.

The new line was finally opened on 23 December 1924, providing a Christmas present to residents of the Dorrigo. Next step, construction of the Dorrigo-Guyra line begins.

Next post. First post

Postscript

I felt a bit sad writing this post. It's not just a story of lost dreams, but today everything is so tied up in rules, regulations, proscriptions, evaluations, impact statements, cost-benefit analyses, performance measures etc that the Government in Sydney struggles to build a single railway line. 

Further reading

For those interested in a little more:

• The colours of New England looks at the changing colours across New England and the relationship with geography
• Memories from a Glenreagh past contains a link to a video that gives a good feel for life when timber was at its peak

Kempsey worries about its flood levies

I have written two stories on floods in Kempsey, both connected with the 1949 disaster - Belshaw's World - Kempsey disaster – six killed, huge damage, Aeradio and the 1949 Kempsey Floods. Now I see from the Macleay Argus that Kempsey Mayor John Bowell is worried about the state of the levees protecting the town.

One on the features of New England rivers is their quick rise with heavy rainfall. Quiet streams can quickly go to rampaging torrents.

I do wonder whether or not we need new approaches to flood mitigation. It's not an area I am expert in. I do know that in the 1950s there was a coordinated approach to the topic centred on dams and levies. The approach now seems to have become much more reactive. In fact, we seem to be struggling to maintain the work previously done.

I am not saying that we should build more dams, although that may be sensible in some case. I am just wondering how we get a better approach. 

Manning River Winter festival 2012 dates set

There is already a Manning River Summer Festival. Now I see from the Manning River Times that there is a Winter Festival as well.

Next year's Festival will be held over a four day period, June 7-10, 2012.

Sixty-four organisations have been approached and the organising committee is awaiting responses from them.

Roger Woodward, world renowned concert pianist, will appear in an afternoon concert at the Manning Entertainment Centre on Sunday June 10, on the new grand piano.

Other events already scheduled are: the art awards at Manning Regional Gallery, combined choirs concert, artists walk and art gallery exhibition, possible dance or ball and the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Should your organisation wish to be involved in the program next year, contact president Mike Collins (02) 6553 6659 or  Don Macinnis (02) 6552 3080. There doesn't appear to be a web site at this point.

Memories from a Glenreagh past

I found this rather wonderful history video via the Glenreagh community blog. 

For those who don't know where the village is, it is the south western gateway to the Clarence Valley, a half hour drive along the Orara Way from Grafton (in the north) and Coffs Harbour (to the south east), through the picturesque Orara Valley. From Armidale, we would drive down through Dorrigo.

I do recommend it to you. It's fun.

Update on The Save Bellingen Hospital Campaign

It's been a while since I reported on the campaign to Save Bellingen Hospital.

If I understand the campaign Facebook page and official website correctly, real action on the official side appears to have been in a state of stasis pending the formation  of the area health network, with campaign actions focused there plus continuing efforts to help the hospital.

In the meantime, problems at Coff's Harbour continue the pressure to re-open Bellingen Hospital's Emergency Department. I thought here that I would just quote a recent entry from the Facebook page.

Jenny Edman: Have just read todays Advocate, so a few weeks ago Coffs Campus was inundated with sick people, surely that should send a message to the NCHS that Bellingen needs to open it's ED department, if our locals had to travel all the way from Dorrigo or Bellingen to have to wait up to 9 hrs to be seen by a Dr is ridiculous, shame a 100 fold on NCHS, until next year it is still working for the mid north coast.

Frank Bolte: What do you mean Dorrigo people can't even get to bello or C/h Monday to fridays during the day. Waterfall way is closed. I feel sorry for them

Mary Peters: i waited five hours / ambulance refused to take me to bello hosp! i wasnt seen i got back to bello myself for injection because of anaphalactic reaction! im disgusted... as i could see for myself how many ppl in waiting and in ed / no one saw anyone in that five hours where was the doctors! four nurses pushing an empty bed laughing and police standing there with ambos discussing how bad the system is all in earshot of the patients / simply a disgrace really!

Tasha Lee: What about dundurrabin thats 20 mins from dorrigo. i am due to give birth in febuary thats a looong drive to a woman in labour and i read last week there wasnt even a peadeatrician on duty for a full week they were sending women to john hunter hospital to give birth. now if i even make the hour and a half trip down the mountain into coffs im not going to make it to john hunter especialy considering my last daughter was born in bello 20mins after i arrived total labour time 1hour 20 mins. not knowing where my baby will be born is causing a great deal of anxiety for me

For those who don't know the area at all:

• When the mountain road is closed, the nearest hospital to Dorrigo is in Armidale, 124k or 1hour 40 away by car. 
• When the mountain road is open, Dorrigo is 29k, roughly 21 minutes, from Bellingen. If you come from other parts of the Dorrigo such as Dundurrubin, then extra travel time is involved; Dorrigo sits at one side of the Plateau adjacent to the escarpment to the coast.
• Bellingen is 35k, 32 minutes from Coffs. Dorrigo is 64k from Coffs, 53 minutes, plus any travel time from elsewhere on the Plateau.

All distances and drive times are approximate depending on location and weather.

Some of these drive times may not so sound long to Sydneysiders with the city's traffic congestion. However:

• Those in the area have seen the closure first of the Dorrigo hospital and then the downgrading of Bellingen Hospital through centralisation of services, adding to the time and difficulty of accessing hospital services. Obviously, those on the Dorrigo plateau have suffered the greatest impact.
• Coffs Harbour Hospital is large and over-stretched. There are simply not the alternative nearby base hospitals that you would find in Sydney. John Hunter, the other hospital mentioned, is in Newcastle, a five hour drive away. If you have to travel that distance, I would have thought Armidale a better option, although it may not have the capacity.
• Not everybody has access to cars. Public transport is limited, taxis expensive. I am not sure how many ambulances are available, but I would have thought that the number was not large relative to potential peak demand.

The crux of the Bellingen argument, then, is not just that they have been losing services, but that everybody in the Valley and on the Plateau, and indeed the whole Coffs Harbour hospital catchment area, would be better off if certain services were restored to Bellingen Hospital.

Implications for New England from health reforms

I have just finished a post on my personal blog, Unpacking the Rudd Government health care changes. I wrote it to try to clarify my own thinking.

One of the problems for New England from the changes is just what the changes might mean at local level. This is quite complicated, but I think that locals need to watch this like a hawk. I thought that I might tease this out a little, taking Bellingen Hospital as a case study.

By way of background for those who don't know Bellingen, the services at the local hospital have been cut back. The fight now lies in the best way of recovering some of them, preventing further erosion.

The new health care approach provides for direct funding to local hospital networks. Generally, this will be on an activity basis - a specified price paid for a particular type of service delivered. The more services, the more paid. However, there is provision for bulk funding for regional/rural hospitals in some cases that might otherwise be disadvantaged under the arrangements.

In addition to these changes, the Commonwealth is taking over full responsibility for primary health care and for aged services.

Now what might this mean for Bellingen and the surrounding area? Well, based on my experience we can put forward some tentative conclusions:

1. The decline in services offered at Bellingen hospital means a decline in the potential revenue from activity based funding.
2. The ability of a hospital network to access bulk funding depends upon the way the network is defined. A network that includes a relatively large base hospital such a Coffs is less likely to receive bulk funding, more likely to be on a fee for service basis. This applies across the whole network. In this event, the capacity of smaller hospitals to get any extra cash will be reduced because it means taking cash away from bigger hospitals who have "earned" that cash from bigger volumes of services.
3. This adds to the urgency for Bellingen Hospital to re-build its service offerings in advance of any move to the new arrangements. It's now become an absolutely time critical issue.
4. The issue of just what local hospital network and the boundaries of that network Bellingen might belong to also becomes quite critical.
5. Given that the existing area health services are to be abolished, this will affect their planning and willingness to do new things. I do not mean this in any way as a criticism. It's just going to add to inertia.

To Port Macquarie the interesting way

You know, I do love the strange by-ways that my interest in blogging takes me. Like this story from Paul Barratt: To Port Macquarie the interesting way.

I really do love driving around the back tracks.

Gordon Smith's views of Bellingen

I was reading an official document a day or so ago and I read a description of Bellingen as a declining community lacking services. I wonder if Bellingen people would share that view?

I spoke of Bellingen and the Bellinger valley in Saturday's post,  Distant memories of a now vanished North Coast - Bellingen. In some ways, Bellingen is like a town time forgot, but it is much more than that.

Consider the following picture by the inimitable Gordon smith of the old Hammond & Wheatley Department Store located in Bellingen’s main street. Magnificent, isn't it?

I described Bellingen as a town time forgot because it's distance from the coast preserved things lost elsewhere. That is also the reason why Bellingen has become such a centre of alternative life styles, something of a cultural hub.

Long may it continue.  And so may Gordon's photos!

$6m funding boost for medical education in Taree

The University of Newcastle has welcomed the Australian Government's commitment of more than $6 million dollars for a new multi-purpose education centre in Taree for medical and allied health students to complete clinical training.

The Taree Medical Education Centre, to be located on the grounds of Manning Base Hospital, will be home to the University Department of Rural Health (UDRH) and the Rural Clinical School (RCS).

The funding was announced by the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon MP, during a visit to Taree today.

Professor Mike Calford, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University's Faculty of Health, said the new Centre was a significant win for the Taree region.

"The Centre will provide students with access to first class facilities in a non-metropolitan setting when they undertake their clinical placements," Professor Calford said.

"Students from medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, nutrition and dietetics, radiography, pharmacy and occupational therapy will use the facility.

"The University, and its partners, warmly welcomes the commitment of funding by the Australian Government. Efforts are also underway to attract additional funding to support the Government's contribution."

The Taree Medical Education Centre will feature clinical laboratories, tutorial rooms, office for senior staff and video conferencing facilities. When complete, it will be home to up to 20 academic and support staff.

The Centre will be modelled on the Tamworth Medical Education Centre and is expected to be completed by late 2010.

Acting Director of the UDRH/RCS, Associate Professor Steve Doherty, said there was a strong commitment to training students in regional, rural and remote locations.

"There is a chronic shortage of health care workers outside major metropolitan areas. It is important that we expose undergraduate students to career and lifestyle opportunities outside the big cities," Associate Professor Doherty said.

"We are pleased to have considerable support from the local community which will ensure that this purpose-built education and training facility fulfils our needs and contributes significantly to local infrastructure."

The UDRS and RSC are a partnership between the University of Newcastle, the University of New England, Hunter New England Health and Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.

Bellingen's Commercial Emporium - a further example of North Coast architecture

This photo by Gordon Smith shows Bellingen's commercial emporium, reportedly the first commercial cement brink building in Australia.

I love the way in which Bellingen has been preserved as something of a time warp!

Armidale-Kempsey Road - historical snapshot

A visitor's Google search on Armidale Kempsey Road found Armidale-Kempsey Road - pretty but difficult featuring a photo by Gordon Smith.

Checking this search brought me to this photo from the NSW State Library. It is simply listed as Kempsey, Armidale to Kempsey road with a 1905 date.

Looking at the photo, a number of things jumped out at me.

The first thing is that the photo is staged. We have women above, men below.

The building itself - a hotel? - is an example of what I have come to call North Coast architecture. It is wood as so many coastal buildings were. We have the iron lacework above, then notice the wood fretwork below the balcony. There are a number of surviving examples of wood worked to provide decoration.

Then I noticed the bike. Some years ago I stayed with Arch and Nancy Gray at Scone. Arch had one of the greatest collections, perhaps the greatest ever collection, of New England material. This included a North Coast Steam Navigation Company pamphlet promoting its services.

Released, I think, shortly before the First World War, it encouraged (among other things) Sydney people to go bike touring on the North Coast. I really don't know enough of the history of the bike, so I haven't written of its place in the history of New England.

I liked the dog on the left sitting in the dust on the road. You can also see the wheel tracks in the road.

Hidden New England - Comboyne Plateau

Photo: Comboyne Plateau, view from Mt Gibraltar.

There is so much of New England that I have yet to visit properly. This includes the Comboyne Plateau.

When my father retired and had more time, he took to long drives. As part of this, he and mum just spent time driving around the Comboyne taking photos.

The Comboyne Plateau lies between the valleys of the Manning River to the south and the Hastings River to the north. It is about 60km south-west of Port Macquarie, 35km west of Kew and 54km north-west of Taree.

The Plateau has an area of approximately 180 square kilometres. The topography is unique; it is a volcanic plateau, ranging from 600 – 800 metres above sea level. The region has deep red basalt soils and a high rainfall. The plateau was originally covered by spectacular rainforests, but extensive clearing has left only a few pockets of remnant vegetation.

The plateau edges are surrounded by several State Forests and Reserves. Since white settlement, about 100 years ago, the region has been a prime dairy farming area. Over recent years a number of horticultural enterprises have been established. These include plantings of avocados, macadamias, blueberries and other fruits and vegetables.

Photo: Comboyne village.

Today there are approximately 800 people on the Comboyne Plateau, with less than 200 in Comboyne village.

New England Australia's Aborigines - Dainggati Entry Page

The Dainggatti are are a Macleay Valley language group with close Tablelands' connections. As part of my historical reseach, I have created a page to provide an entry point to all my posts on the Dainggatti

Congratulations to UNE's (and Kempsey's) Phil Schubert

I see from the Macleay Argus (11 December) that Phil Schubert has graduated from UNE with a combined bachelor's degree in arts and law.

Phil studied at the now defunct Collombatti Rail Primary school and then Kempsey High. He gained early admission to UNE through the Principal's admission scheme.

I mention Phil because he combined study with extra-curricula life, something that I as a UNE alumnus value highly. Phil was President of the Students' Association in 2004, a member of the University Council 2004-2206, and recipient of the New England Award for services to the university community.

My congratulation to Phil and his family including dad Graeme and grand mum Nettie.