Murky depths of the deep end...

For those struggling to plumb the depths of El's more cryptic than usual and most recent blog, I can cast some illumination on the murkier depths of pear-shaped hiccups.

:-)

I was in the midst of rehearsal last week when an ashen-faced Pat Stroud arrived at the door with a message that I needed to call Sharon, my wife, urgently. As it turned out, my father had passed away suddenly at the age of 72.

Dad was known nationally and internationally as a leader in saltland agronomy and, in particular, research into the revegetation of salt-affected farmland:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200609/1747888.htm?southcoast 

He championed and worked hard on a range of environmental and other social issues, sometimes against current popular opinion. He was the secretary of the New Heart for Perth Society in the sixties: I remember touring shopping centres with petitions, silk-screened bumper stickers (THUMP: The Heart U Must Prefer!) and a huge polystyrene model of the Perth CBD showing the railway sunk below ground and extensive parkland in the middle of the city.

After raising five kids and a lot of overseas travel, in the 1990's my parents made the front page of The West and featured in a number of TV programmes for their back to basics lifestyle. They'd moved to Denmark on the south coast and were living in an old house as if they were living in 1920 - woodfire, no fridge, no washing machine or microwave oven. The house was open most days of the week as a live-in/living museum for a number of years.

Dad, his brothers Jim and Ian and his parents Harold and Isabel, were very involved in the Methodist and Wembley Drama groups back in the first half of the last century. While I've been markedly more active in the industry than Dad, I was delighted to discover that while I still don't, Dad does rate a mention at IMDB for the ABC TV series The Yarns of Billy Borker:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343323/

http://www.memorabletv.com/australia/tvay.htm 

I remember visiting the ABC studios in Perth as a youngster and sitting in the foyer on an uncomfortable bench seat watching Dad perform the show on a little black and white TV set high on the wall - we didn't have television at home. I'm guessing that the two seasons of thirteen episodes probably played live to air. The show consisted of two blokes sitting at a bar having a beer and a yarn. Dad was a tee-totaller. I understand the production team had nightmares trying to get a head on his "beer" that looked authentic and would last the length of an episode.

:-)

It's not unusual for children to regard their fathers as heroes. It's somewhat unusual though to carry this impression into adult life and find that it is shared by a large number of other people. Something in excess of 400 people turned up to celebrate Dad's life and mark his passing at the funeral service in Denmark on the south coast of WA.

Apologies to the cast of Cosi for cancelling Tuesday's rehearsal so I could get to the funeral. But I was delighted when most of you decided to go ahead and rehearse anyway!

Cheers
Grant 

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Director, actor and administrator of this website