The Bribie Islander

The observances of Anzac Day here this year have taken my memory back to when we moved to Ft McMurray in northern Alberta Province in Canada many years ago. You can imagine my surprise when I found a small hamlet some 35km south of Ft McMurray was named Anzac. No one seemed to know how that hamlet got its name. There was no obvious Australian or New Zealand connection there. The residents of Anzac were primarily First Nations people. Hence some suggested that maybe “Anzac” was an Indian name. As a result, how that hamlet got its name remained a mystery.

Sometime after our first visit to Anzac, I was in Hill Drugs (the local pharmacy) when an insistent infant had to be fed. So I found a chair and retired to a quiet corner. No sooner had I settled down when Walter Hill drew up another chair to chat. Walter liked to chat. He had served in France with the Canadian forces in World War 1 and had moved to Ft McMurray with his new bride Gladys in 1922 to work in the newly established pharmacy. Walter took over the pharmacy some years later and stayed there until he turned it over to his son Ken in the 1980s. He and Gladys retired in Ft McMurray and their grandson David carries on the family’s pharmacy tradition in Ft McMurray today.

Walter quickly picked up my accent and just as quickly proceeded to tell me about his Australian connections and how the local village of Anzac got its name. After World War 1, the Alberta Government initiated several railways to northern outposts in Alberta including Ft McMurray. The Ft McMurray railroad was completed in 1925 and this allowed heavy freight to be moved north of the large set of rapids on the Athabasca River south of the township. That freight could then be offloaded onto barges and taken north on the Athabasca River to northern villages like Ft Chipewyan, Hay River and Norman Wells and even out to the Arctic Ocean.

Walter said that the railroad had reached the area south of Ft McMurray in the spring of 1924 and a decision had been made to install a siding there to service those local villages.

According to Walter, the bureaucrats in charge of naming these sidings had no imagination and had given them the most uninteresting names. So he had been helping by suggesting more appropriate names. It was April 1924 when the railroad was approaching the Anzac area and Walter remembered the many Anzacs he had fought within France in WWI. He remembered that they observed something they called “Anzac Day” in the trenches in honour of those who died in the “pasting” (Walter’s words) they had taken in Gallipoli. When Walter suggested the new siding be named Anzac in honour of the Anzacs he had known in France, that suggestion was accepted by the authorities.

Barry Clark’s article, “Bribie link to first ANZAC DAY” (The Bribie Islander, April 23) on the origins of the observance of Anzac Day, shows that Anzac Day was first celebrated in Brisbane (and probably Australia) in 1916 – the first year after the Gallipoli landings.

Walter Hill’s recollections would suggest that in faraway France, this special day in Australian history was observed there that year as well.

IT IS EYE ENVY’S 11TH BIRTHDAY BUT YOU GET THE PRESENTS!!!

As Eye Envy didn’t get to celebrate their 10th birthday due to Covid, they are celebrating their 11th instead! So they are celebrating by giving you 30 to 50% off all frames when purchasing complete glasses!

Eye Envy Optometrist was founded by Justin and Alayna Gribbin in 2010 and are a family owned independent Optometrist. Living locally at Wamuran, they love the area and know it well as Alayna’s family are 3rd generation local farmers. Now their 2 daughters are the new generation attending the local school.

Their goal was to create a welcoming, relaxed Optometry practice where they could care for our community and provide a warm, friendly atmosphere in the practice. They have certainly achieved that goal and more! Opening their own practice meant they could create a refreshingly pleasant port for people to drop in and say hello and have a chat. The practice grew quickly, scooping up several local retailer awards and have a team of optical experts and wonderful support staff to the Eye Envy family.

They are renowned for patient care and support, making the process of eye testing and examination simple, easy and comfortable, Taking the utmost care and diagnostic precision with your vision and eyes. Eye Envy also have an on-site glasses laboratory allowing them to produces single vision glasses within the hour subject to the prescription.

What sets Eye Envy apart is their ability to take time and listen to their patients. They never rush appointments, listening and helping with any vision/ eye disorders that their patients may suffer from. They aren’t part of a mass corporate group that are foreign owned and adopt a cookie cutter approach. Eye Envy are local, employ locals and support local businesses.

They are always on the hunt for the most unique, fabulous range of fashion frames to suit all tastes, styles and budgets and happily help you choose the perfect look for you. They did that for me and I am very fussy but was extremely happy with my glasses!

From Justin and Alayna Gribbin, “At Eye Envy we are passionate about providing the best in eye care. Drop in and say hi and let us help you with your Vision, your identity”

I ’m sick of the journey. I’m like that annoying six-year-old in the back seat whining, ‘When are we gonna get there?’

Where? I hear you ask. To a land where the word ‘journey’ may no longer be used in polite company. In this land should you utter or write this word, soap and water or a writ will surely come your way as night follows day. Once upon a time, ‘journey’ was a respectable workman-like word, deriving from the distance travelled in a day. But I’m afraid this fit-for-purpose word has been elevated way above its station and tragically overused. Sadly it’s picked up a lot of baggage along the way, becoming over-burdened with sentimentality and gravitas to the point of nauseating exhaustion.

It’s time for ‘journey’ to be put out to pasture for a while to graze among other similarly abused and exhausted words. I’m thinking here of some personal non-favourites of mine, ‘trope’ and of course ‘facilitate’ and ‘utilize’. And while we’re at it, let’s add one of the words bequeathed to us by COVID 19. People don’t adapt any more. They ‘pivot’. Seriously?

So how did ‘journey’ fall into such a desperate situation? Until the likes of celebrities started bandying it about, a journey was simply a trip from A to B. Somehow thanks to reality television and rampant over-use this humble noun has become suffused with a hero’s suffering – more akin to the journey on the road to Damascus or perhaps Homer’s Odyssey.

‘I’ve learnt so much on my journey,’ declares the latest overwrought singing star (substitute any reality television participant, recovering drug addict, celebrity chef).

The awful thing about ‘journey’ and other horrid words, like the American ‘butt’ for bottom, is that they seep into the language like some sort of noxious runoff. At first, they’re unremarkable, but pretty soon the stench is overpowering and I just want to taser the next person who mentions their amazing (awesome, life-changing) ‘journey’.

The thing that sucks the life out of all words is either abuse or overuse and sometimes both. In this case, the journey has been stuffed with corn and overly dramatic hype, then used so often in tearful confessions and conclusions that the word becomes mindlessly meaningless and hopelessly hackneyed.

And don’t we humans love to travel – on a spiritual journey, aging journey, holistic journey, breastfeeding journey? Just take any qualifier and add the word journey and it will elevate whatever you’re describing to heroic proportions – my scrapbooking journey, my journey through tinea, my incredible irritable bowel journey.

Some authors obviously believe the word journey will give their book title depth and reverence: for example, Of Mystics & Mistakes – The Journey from Confusion to Clarity, from Error to Enlightenment, from Self-Deception to Self-Discovery. Some trip that would be. Why can’t people be a little more imaginative and bring back the colour? Why not just say you’ve ‘come a long way and learnt a lot’? Or what about, ‘This whole experience has been a real trip.’ Admittedly you’ll sound like some sort of acid-affected hippy but at least it’s a colourful expression.

And if you’ve come a really, really long way, then it’s not a journey. It’s a bloody expedition! I’m completely over this idea that everyone’s life is a journey. Give me zoologist Desmond Morris’s take any time. ‘Life is like a very short visit to a toy shop between birth and death.’

After nearly 39 years in business, Bribie Island icon, Dianne (Di) Wells is starting the next chapter in her life. She plans to rest for a while, then travel around Australia in her 6 metre Golden Eagle Tourer. Di took this luxury van on an 800-kilometre trip last Christmas. She said she was pleased with her achievement only scaring herself on one occasion when a large truck sped past her and sucked the van to the point of swaggering.

Once her grey nomad adventure is over, Di plans to settle down to enjoy her golden years on our beautiful Island. She said ‘with its Aussie wildlife diversity and beautiful sandy beaches there is no other place on earth I’d rather be than right here on Bribie. It’s in my heart and in my soul as are the friends I have made here.’

Di has been living on Bribie Island since May 1980 when she and her husband John moved here as newlyweds. Their first home was in Banya Street. John worked for Queensland Rail and Di was nursing at Prince Charles Hospital. They drove to and from Brisbane each day maintaining 100 kilometres speed most of the way and rarely saw another car on the Bribie Island Road.

In 1980, Bribie’s population was around 7,000 and Di said it was like living in a small fishing village. Their neighbours used to stretch fishing nets across the road so they could mend any holes. All the other neighbours would drive around the nets and toot and wave. It was a friendly, relaxed and happy neighbourhood.

Di opened her first business in Bongaree on 14 August 1982. ‘Allure Boutique’ was in the shop front now occupied by the Post Office. The business was very successful and within 18 months Di had moved to larger premises in Kangaroo Avenue where she opened ‘Deckout’. When the Shoe shop next door became available, Di took over that premises, took down a wall and operated the ladies fashion and shoe shop together.

By 1989, ‘Deckout’ was a thriving business that supplied a variety of ladies fashion brands, as well as shoes for men, women and children; however, Di had a vision of opening something big. In August 1994, ‘Wells Cargo Barn’ (WCB) opened on First Avenue. The new venture was a cooperative trading area for women. The Bribie Island Orchestra played at the official opening of WCB, which was attended by Mayor John White and 100 guests. The ‘Barn’ was home to seven businesses – Di’s ‘WCB’; Linda Walcott’s ‘Barn Hair Studio’; Sharon Hawkins‘ ‘Island Accessories’; Sue Cunningham’s ’Clover Magic’; Jackie Russell’s ’Gifts go Troppo’; Donna Overton’s ‘Donna’s Discounts’; and Carol Dobson’s ‘Island Collectibles’. The Kangaroo Avenue ‘Deckout’ was moved to the new First Avenue premises. The name change to ‘Wells Cargo Barn’ solved one delivery name problem that came up from time to time when parcels would arrive addressed to ‘Dickout’. This caused much laughter among staff members and couriers; however, some companies even managed to refer to the new name as Wells Fargo.

In 2003, when the Bribie Island Shopping Centre opened on Goodwin Drive, WCB’s 356 square metres of family shoes and ladies clothing and accessories, ceased trading. The arrival of major shoe and clothing stores in the new centre necessitated a reinvention for Di’s business. So she returned to the Kangaroo Avenue premises and opened ‘Grosso Modo’ which provided fashion for the mature woman. The business had a name change to ‘Anna’s in 2014 and remained in Kangaroo Avenue until 2020. Due to COVID-19, Di traded from her home for a few months. She then opened in the Bribie Island Shopping Centre and finished her retail career in March 2021.

As well as running these successful businesses, Di and her husband John were raising four children and were both very active in the community. Since 1991, Di has been a member of the Bribie Island Surf Life Saving Club. She is a highly qualified volunteer surf lifesaver who has coached all lifesaving disciplines. She also managed the training of our local nippers making sure they understood surf awareness and safety.

John died in 2005 and Di said she, David, Peter, Raylene and Anna all think about him and talk about him often. I asked Di if she had any advice about this next chapter in her life and she said “Stay safe in the retirement, value good health and good relationships. Be generous, optimistic, adaptable and keep on learning. In the words of Clint Eastwood ‘get up every morning, go out, don’t let the old person in’.”

Di was so welcoming to me when I was new to the community and knew no one. She invited Michael and I to join her group of friends at various events and always went out of her way to help me organise Rotary functions. On behalf of our community, I wish Di safe travels and a long, happy retirement.