IN TRIBUTE TO THOSE WHO REFUSE TO BE DOWN UNDER

Today, we're breaking BeWrite Books blog's tradition to stray from the usual subject of books and publishing ... just a tad.

Many of our authors are Australian by birth or by adoption. Many personal friends and ever-close family members live there (my own now entering their fourth generation), on the Fatal Shore that could never defeat them. "She'll be right," has proven to be no empty show of desperate optimism but a casual declaration of quiet determination.

Aussies are, by nature, kind and tough, warm- and stout-hearted, sharp-witted and informal. Among all nations, they prefer a joke to a jibe. Rarely do they boast of their mind-boggling achievements or trumpet their nationalism. Austrlia is a country born behind bars and now more free than perhaps any other on the planet. It openly apologises for the mistakes all nations' pioneers make in their birth pangs, and its current generations make amends to the very best of their boundless ability.

The country is artistically and courageously creative, it is practically innovative. It lies remote from the northern hemisphere and what is known as 'The West'. But it is a jewel in our planet's crown (though that description would make many an Aussie blush).

Only by the habit of ages do we hang our maps and position our  class room globes North Pole uppermost. There is no cosmic or geographical reason for that. A habit we might well consider dunny-worthy.

So g'day family and mates in Oz and those many others here with strong ties Down Under. The  video clip below was sent today by old true-blue Brit pal and prolific author Ian Skidmore (read about his new BB /RBP book in the blog post beneath this one).

The song he sent me beats the oft misunderstood 'Jolly Swag Man' and knocks the socks off 'God Save the Queen' when it comes to an appropriate Australian national Anthem (especially today – maybe not so especially today, come to think). It is sung, not with sombre expressions and hands ostentatiously on hearts, accompanied by military bands, but with smiles on glowing faces of all hues and of all ages in the free-and-easy atmosphere of a canteen. Must admit, it brought not a few tears to these auld een, severely watering my breakfast beer.

As did these words recently, penned by another old UK newspaper colleague; ace international reporter and former national newspaper editor, Brian Hitchen:

Some of us have covered terrible disasters, where tidal waves have swept a wall of mud before them, and hurricanes have rolled double-storey houses, end over end, until they collapsed in rubble and matchwood.

And from out of the wreckage, crawl human beings. They always do. It's called survival ... One of two things will happen.

... The survivors find a patch of dry ground, and wait. Until the international aid agencies, like the UN Food Programme, or Oxfam, trailed by television crews, arrive to feed them.

In Australia, when a disasters happen, there is no food, no drinking water, no power, no fuel, no hospitals.

But the people didn't sit on their arses and wait for the Salvation Army tea wagon to arrive. They emerged from the swamp water and the wreckage of their homes, and they got on with it. Without a bloody Oxfam guy within a thousand miles.

I am filled with admiration, for those tough, big-hearted, courageous, Australians.

So cop an earful if this, lads and lassies, Bruces and Sheilas; and I dare you not to be catch your breath with well deserved (if stubbornly concealed) pride.

NOTE: The link above now works perfectly -- thanks, Tony) 

Love and very best wishes to all those who refuse to be down under when disaster strikes, to those who climb the highest peaks of human endeavour and remind the rest of us of what's so largely forgotten in this splintered world: We Are One, But We Are Many. Neil M et al

PS: Every hit on this YouTube link adds another wee slice of Google ad income to the flood fund. If you don't click, you're missing something of great value ... but the Aussies will get by anyway. She'll be right. N