I love this.

“Do you think now and then, now or then, in the whirl
Of the city, while London is new,
Of the hut in the Bush, and the freckled-faced girl
Who is eating her heart out for you?”
― Henry Lawson

Something for stressed-out HSC students to remember

I recently received an email from a lady whom I shall call Jill... mainly because her name is Jill. Her son was in the same guitar-making course as my dad, and she contacted me to let me know that her mother had said to say hi to me.

Let's go back a bit. When I was a wee lad of four or five, we were living in Papua New Guinea, on a mission college campus. I loved books. We had a lot of books in our house. I loved stories. My parents read me a lot of stories. And Mrs Palmer, who lived close by, had a lot of books, and story records. You know, dramatised stories, mostly riffing on Christian themes (being nice to people, being honest, sharing your toys, honouring your parents, washing your hands before dinner, all that kind of good gear). And I used to sneak away without asking permission and tell Mrs Palmer that my mummy had said it was OK for me to come and listen to her records. (Spot the irony?)

I recall Mum would occasionally get frustrated that she'd have to come and get me (she always knew where I was, at least), and no doubt she felt obliged to apologise to Mrs Palmer for having to accomodate her wandering lad, but I don't remember her ever getting angry about it. Maybe she knew that I was happily up to my eyeballs in that wonderful story-world, and it wouldn't have made much difference if she had kicked my tail about it anyway.

In her email, Jill calls me a 'dreamy little kid'. In my Grade 1 school report it says a similar thing: 'James would do better in school if he could stop daydreaming'. Maybe. But school ain't everything.

Good luck to all those kids doing their HSC exams this fortnight, but try not to let the stress get on top of you.
(If you're reading this via Facebook Notes: this post is redirected from my 'head vs desk' blog.)

My new baby...

...which I'm yet to pick up.

That's my dad, making me a guitar. Sitka spruce top, myrtle back and sides, mahogany neck. It's all strung up and ready to play, but I haven't got it yet. Soon, very soon...

If you're reading this via Facebook Notes: this post is redirected from my 'head vs desk' blog.)

I dare anyone to watch this and not smile.

I learnt something very cool yesterday...

My brother Rob and his son Lachlan are currently on a motorcycle tour of Central Europe.

(That's not the very cool something I learnt yesterday - I already knew that.)

A few days back, they went to a city in Germany called Hildesheim. This is the place where my great-grandfather Gustav Bachaus (later Gus Backhouse) was born. I was reminded of this when Rob put a bit of info about the place in his travel blog, and mentioned how special it was for him to be in the birthplace of a forebear.

(This is where the cool bit starts.)

I looked at the name of the city, and that, in conjunction with Rob's description of how much of Hildesheim was bombed flat during the war, reminded me of something. The familiarity of the name, and the rebuilding following the war, the state in which the town resides...

Then I remembered. (And this is the cool bit.) The German edition of my book Town is being published by Gerstenberg, a publishing house based in (guess where!) Hildesheim! Where my great-grandfather was born! How incredibly cool and circular and appropriate is that?

One more cool (but mostly unrelated) thing: on the front of the Gerstenberg website is a link to the German edition of Eric Carle's 'pop up buch', Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt, which translates literally to 'The Little Caterpillar Glutton.' I thought that was kind of cute.

The Mamre boys

Yesterday I attended a entirely uplifting event. It was the graduation for the boys from the Mamre Project Links to Learning program. This was originally set up by the Sisters of Mercy to help Year 8 and 9 kids from the Penrith/St Marys/St Clair area who have been deemed to be at risk of not completing Year 10.

Basically, for two days a week over twelve weeks, the students head out to the Mamre homestead in St Marys and have intensive work on relationship-building, boundary setting, some school stuff (writing, reading, maths), and a lot of sport. They establish their own rules (respect, no put-downs, no fighting, only building each other up etc) and abide by them. The program's been going for almost eight years now, with two groups a week, for two 12-week blocks a year, and the outcomes have been fantastic, not least of all the fitness outcomes.

I got involved last year, when I was asked by a friend to go and chat to the boys about writing. They'd been reading Problem Child together, and when I got there for my first session they were pretty buzzed, and very keen to talk about the book. In fact, on three occasions now they've kept the last couple of chapters unread so that I could finish the book with them, which has been terrific fun.

So yesterday was the graduation, and the boys were all dressed up, with parents, teachers and others turning up en masse to support them. They were very proud, those guys, and so were their youth workers, Mat and Mel.

But for me the proudest moment was when one of the boys rather nervously read a speech he'd written, all about setting personal goals. He said that Problem Child was the first book he'd ever read all the way through, and that he was now halfway through Tomorrow, When the War Began.

And at risk of sounding mushy and sentimental, isn't that what it's all about?