On a beautifully sunny day in a wonderful send-off a lovely lady, Nelligen's oldest resident, Rita Butcher, was laid to rest today.
John Butcher's eulogy summed up what has been a life well lived. Indeed, it was so memorable that it ought not to be forgotten, and I am hoping to obtain a copy and permission to publish it here.
And when it does, I know I'm in for a treat: a real letter. Not an email, not a rapid-fire, typed-with-one-thumb-on-a-tiny-keyboard communication, but a real letter, thoughtfully written by someone who had something worthwhile to communicate and took the trouble to shape it into words of more than one syllable.
Our modern-day culture streamlines our interactions with each other into bite-sized encounters. But we trim the beauty when we cut the fat. The case for writing old-fashioned letters is the case for slowing down. For doing a thing deliberately and allowing space for thoughtfulness to bloom. The practice makes us intentional because it requires a little more of us, even if the note we’re writing is only a short one.
A letter always arrives from the past. There is a waiting – a forced patience – built into the art of letter-writing. We wait for a letter to arrive. We wait for a reply. In the time it takes for the letter to reach its destination, anything can happen: births, deaths, and marriages.
There’s nothing nicer than opening the mailbox and seeing something friendly, something that’s not a bill or trying to sell you something. Think about being on the receiving end of a handwritten letter, actually opening the envelope, looking at the stamp, feeling the paper and seeing the written word — it's everything. Doesn’t it make you feel a bit special? Someone took the time to write to you. They value you. You can give that gift to others, too, because here's something I've noticed: people really do like having something to hold. Hold onto that thought!
I hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws. Just wanting to spread the good work these amazing volunteers of the South Coast History Society are doing. Subscribe or join them!
Jerome K. Jerome's hilarious story of what is probably the worst holiday in literature has an air of delightful nostalgia and is still laugh-aloud funny more than a hundred years after it what first published with this preface:
And yet, it is full of wisdom as well, "... not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.
How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with - oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all! - the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!
It is lumber, man - all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness - no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the forget-me-nots.
Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work ..."
There is so much insight packed into this little book - useful information indeed, to say nothing of the dog! - that you almost regret having come to their final toast, "Here's to Three Men well out of a Boat!"
But that's a whole 184 pages later, so sit back and enjoy! (or listen here to the audiobook)
If you like oysters you're not alone: Egyptians and Assyrians knew that these molluses were delicious; the Greeks and Romans thought they were an aphrodisiac.
I don't like them - in fact, I've never tasted one, even though they grow in profusion on our own jetty -, maybe because at my age I no longer need an aphrodisiac, or maybe because the oyster has a sex change and can be first a male and then a female and back again.
But the movie "Oyster Farmer" is not about oysters but a rollicking good yarn with oysters, set on the Hawkesbury River near Sydney.
Of course, here at Nelligen we have much better oysters and a much better river but that's an argument for another day.
or click here to view and print the brochure
Most travellers speed across the modern bridge that spans the Clyde River and fifteen minutes later reach Batemans Bay. Before 1964 they would have joined the long queue of vehicles waiting to be ferried across on the punt. 30,000 vehicles used the punts at Nelligen in 1963, the year before the bridge opened.
But a lot has changed at Nelligen. In its heydays Nelligen was a busy seaport and coastal town. The village was laid out in 1854 when the Illawarra Steam Navigation Co (ISN) began operating here.
Nelligen became a depot for supplies brought down the coast from Sydney and up the Clyde River by the ISN. From here they were transported mostly to Braidwood and the neighbouring goldfields.
By 1860 fine hundred horses and nearly as many bullocks were carrying the trade between Nelligen and Braidwood. By that time the village boasted four public houses, two stores, two blacksmiths, a baker and a watchhouse manned by two policemen.
Today Nelligen is a quiet little backwater, but still fulfilling the role of a rest stop for the traveller as it has done since the "road" via the Clyde Mountain was opened in 1856.
It is a picturesque little town, nestled as it is on the banks of the slow-flowing Clyde River. Nelligen has an air of history and old-time charm about it, remaining untainted by the progressive developments down the road at Batemans Bay.
Click here for an early-morning view of Nelligen and the Clyde
Nelligen Community Notice Board
Bygone Days of Nelligen & Batemans Bay
