In May 2023, I joined a local group campaigning for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We had high hopes. But as the Referendum result proved, in Australia, while some things change, some stay the same. And voters rejected the proposal to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.
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The photo is from March 1983. My dad has his arm around me at a party for my twenty-first birthday. I had plans to travel back then, but no one thought I’d leave my hometown forever. Let alone that in 2023 I’d have an arm around my son’s shoulder for his twenty-first on the other side of the country.
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I saw my first West End play as a newly arrived backpacker in London in 1987 and was immediately hooked on live theatre. Living in Brighton and Windsor from 1987 to 1995, I saw countless professional and amateur productions. But I didn’t dream in 1987 that one day I’d be up on stage, too, taking a bow.
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The candid photo of my son and wife in Sydney’s Centennial Park was taken by a friend in March 2005. I had met Marie, and her husband, Drew, a retired couple, one weekend through a mutual park and dog-lover friend. My son was two-and-a-half and had long hair. And Marie dubbed him Christopher Robin.
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In 2018, I shared a blog post about My Week in Politics, handing out how-to-vote cards for Dr Kerryn Phelps, an independent candidate for Wentworth. Kerryn won that by-election but lost the seat in the 2019 Federal election. Three years later, I spent six weeks in teal helping another independent, Allegra Spender.
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My parents separated in 1967 when I was five, and my younger brother and I went to live with our grandparents. Nan looked old to my young eyes, and leathery Pop ancient. But born in 1907, Nan was only sixty when we moved in, a cause for reflection when I reached my milestone sixty in March 2022.
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Michael Palin embarked Around the World in 80 Days in 1988 and again from Pole to Pole in 1991. My wife and I were avid watchers of his adventures on BBC TV. And inspired by Palin, we left England to travel overland to Australia following his “Pole to Pole” route and means of transport in 1995.
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A member of the ABC Book Club on Facebook recently asked, What do you use for bookmarks? So I rifled through the bookshelf and posted a photo of my motley collection: tickets, postcards, photographs, ribbons, receipts, newspaper clippings, notes, a letter, a leaf, and an assortment of proper bookmarks.
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Life began at forty for me. Obviously, I’d had a life before my fortieth. I’d travelled and lived overseas, changed careers (several times), got married (once), bought cars and property, and owned a dog. But the birth of my son in 2002 changed everything for me. And I learned the joy of being a dad.
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My birthday is on March 30. This year (2020), I turned fifty-eight, and when fireworks heralded the new year, I didn’t expect to remember my birthday for COVID-19. I thought it’d be just another tick towards a more significant (sobering) milestone, sixty. But now I wonder should I forget it this year?
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I have kept a diary since I set off backpacking in March 1987. In the early years, I only recorded occasional highlights. However, as I wrote in 32 Years of Diaries (Janunary 2018), I made a New Year’s Resolution in 2005 to write up every day. Hence, a lost diary is a disaster—it’s happened to me twice.
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My wife and I visited Turkey in 1988. We had endured our first English winter and spent two-weeks hugging the coastal sites and sunny beaches. We returned in 1990, venturing far from the coast, to the mountains of eastern-Turkey, where Kurds befriended us, and we learned a little of Kurdish culture.
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By definition, brevity is the key to good microfiction. There is no time for plot and character development, so every word must count. ~ Robert Fairhead
I hope readers enjoy the short story journeys in Twelve More Furious Months and make it home in time for dinner. ~ Robert Fairhead
I look forward to the Writer's Centre's monthly Furious Fiction competitions because I've become addicted to the escapism of writing short stories! ~ Robert Fairhead
This slim book is hard to put down. And the only regret we may feel after reading it is that we reached the end too quickly! ~ Denise O'Hagan
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou
Share your untold story — fiction, nonfiction and reviews — on Tall And True, an online showcase and forum for writers, readers and publishers.
