Echo 20th Birthday

O H C E200TH BIRTH

JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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J U N E 6 , 2186

DA Y

THE DAY THE ECHO STOOD STILL WHEN WORDS COLLIDE MIDDAY ZONE INNER LIMITS FORWARD TO THE PAST AND OTHER DUMB THINGS

WHEN SOUVENIRS MEANT SOMETHING

2 June 6, 2006 Byron Shire Echo

www.echo.net.au

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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3 PUTTING TOWNS TO THE LATTE TEST

5

RELAXED AND COMFORTABLE IN THE DARK AGES

7

THE NAKED BUNCH

9 THE WRITERS LIFE

11 TWENTY YEARS BEFORE THE MASTHEAD

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PHOTORAMA

14 A BRIEF HISTORY OF DEBAUCHERY

20(0) YEARS OF ACHIEVEMENT David Lovejoy

OK, it’s not two centuries, whatever it feels like, it’s just two decades. But it did get you to turn the page… and turning pages is what it’s been all about ever since the first tiny black and white Echo popped into existence on June 11, 1986, twenty years and thousands of pages ago. The Brunswick Valley Echo was the brainchild of Nicholas Shand, whose picture appears every week on page eight of our regular edition. Nicholas wanted our district to have its own voice, not the patronising dictation of the corporate media with their real estate articles and ‘lifestyle’ content. So he went round the Shire talking to people to see how realistic it would be to start another newspaper in an area where there already existed a daily and two weeklies. It would be financial madness, he learned, so of course he did it. I got involved because Nicholas had drive, vision and charisma but no practical experience of the nuts and bolts of producing

VOX

POPS

17 BIRTHDAY JASON

19 TYAGARAH IS NOT TUSCANY

21 A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN OLD DOG

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PUSHING THE ENVELOPE ALL THE WAY TO THE STARS

25 THE ECHO: IT’S FEAR

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ARUN LOHMAN

The informative truth. Originally from the Hawkesbury Valley, Arun has resided in the Byron Shire for just shy of a year, and came in search of the ultimate truth (which he subsequently found hidden deep within the atom of his navel while floating naked in the blissful waters of Wanganui) ‘The Echo is great because it gives ordinary civilians the chance to risk abduction by a terrorist SWAT team for speaking their mind. If such an opportunity should present itself, I would urge you all to tear down the fences and the barbed wire to make sculpture out of Parliament House, letting nature roam free. It’s simple: if we boycott oil, mindless materialism and eat local organic produce, we won’t need to fix the highway and we can spend the $20 million.’

newspapers. Soon we collected other longterm toilers in this enterprise: Michael McDonald, Carol Page, Jeff Dawson… To this day Michael’s words and Jeff’s pictures remain the bedrock of the paper, and the late Carol Page’s legacy is the thriving Snowy River Echo. A lot has happened in twenty years. The Shire has expanded in population and diminished in diversity. ‘Alternative’ pioneers like

Nicholas have become the old guard. There’s a greater choice in consumer items like surfboards and bikinis and fewer vegetarian cafés and local craft shops. Developers have become, in most cases, more environmentally aware than the slash-andburn vandals of the eighties. And the community has certainly acquired a voice – just ask the NSW government how deeply it has had to become involved to ensure that the direction of development in Byron Bay is determined by money rather than residents’ wishes. The Echo has chronicled all this change, interpreted it, resisted it on some occasions, facilitated it on others, but most of all provided a forum for people to have their say on the fun and frustration of living in Byron Shire. I don’t know whether at the end of the next twenty years we’ll be drowning in a climate catastrophe, frolicking in paradise or, given the current political atmosphere, chanting in unison, ‘All hail the great Leader’. Whatever the future brings I suspect there’ll be a wry comment or two from The Echo’s writers – and readers – transmitted from our website to your handheld e-text screen.

DAVID HENDERSON

From: Sister’s Beach (near Burnie) Tasmania Favourite Poet: Dr Seuss Occupation: Architect at Troppo Byron is a great place to live, and an interesting place to be practising architecture as there are a lot of changes happening, new buildings popping up everywhere. It is understandable that we protest change, but it is inevitable that change will happen. I just hope that these changes will start to become more sensitive to the local environment by adding something beautiful and integral to the community and the public streetscape, rather than building more carbon copy brick veneer, and precast concrete boxes with ‘bolt-on attachments’ that say nothing about this wonderful place. The natural environment around the shire is as beautiful as anywhere in the world, and we do a great job of keeping it that way. If only we could give a fraction of the level of respect and consideration to the creation of the built environment, as we have admiration for nature.

Publisher David Lovejoy Editor Michael McDonald Graphic design Mandy Thane Front cover Mandy Thane and Geraldine Searles Photographer Jeff Dawson Advertising manager Geoff Williams Contributors Lesley Patterson,Alex McAuley, Mandy Nolan, Hans Lovejoy, Victoria Cosford, Mungo MacCallum, John Campbell, Geraldine Searles, Lilith Rochas, Larry Buttrose, Horatio Bitemark, Peter King, Jane Schneider, Simon Haslam, Eve Jeffery Many thanks to all Echo staff past and present – and to their long-suffering family and friends – for their fabulous contributions over the years. Thanks also to all our advertisers and readers who kept the flame alive, either by waving their cigarette lighters or mobile phones in a darkened concert venue or by coming to our emotional and/or financial rescue. (c) copyright Echo Publications P/L, Village Way, Mullumbimby. Printer: Rural Press Reg. by Aust Post Pub. No. NBF9237

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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PUTTING TOWNS TO THE LATTE TEST Lesley Patterson

The metropolitan and national press seem to have a love/ hate relationship with Byron Bay, knocking it for its idiosyncrasies one minute then ­extolling its attractions the next. This media fascination includes Adele Horin’s interesting piece in the ­Sydney Morning Herald a few months ago lamenting the lack of suitable towns in regional NSW to escape to when the lights of the city begin to pall. ‘The problem with NSW,’ she wrote ‘ is that there is only one Byron Bay – and it’s full.’ Listing the criteria for her ideal seachange town she says it ‘would have progressive social values, an artistic life, the possibility of joining a monthly book group....There’s an environmental group, a decent wine boutique, a gourmet deli and a critical mass of Labor and Green voters.’ Sounds like us. ‘There will be an annual festival of sorts – world music, or yoga, perhaps – and a weekly produce market.’ There is a name apparently for towns like Byron Bay. Latte towns. A latte town looks nothing like Tweed Heads or Coffs Harbour, Horin says, and will be more lively than Lismore or Mudgee. ‘Apart from Byron Bay, it is hard to think of a latte town that a disgruntled inner westie could call home,’ Horin laments. After a recent camping trip along the north coast I visited many seaside towns with stunning beaches and beautiful natural settings. With Adele Horin’s words echoing in my head I looked at every place with more scrutiny than usual, putting each one to the latte test. While a decent coffee is undoubtedly becoming easier to find, in the main most towns felt staunchly conservative with not a book group or a gourmet deli in sight, let alone a drumming workshop or yoga class. If I moved here, I wondered, Heaven knows what I’d do when my inner chakras needed balancing. This set me wondering why Byron Bay has evolved along such a different path to most other places along the state’s coastline and whether Nimbin’s Aquarius Festival in the mid 1970s was the start of our emergence as a latte town. John and Denise McCormick, who have been living in Byron Shire for over 30 years, believe the seeds of an alternative culture were sown before the Aquarius Festival. ‘As far as an alternative society, it was started by the move to the country and paint your mail box blue thing. The same thing happened in California in the late 60s after Haight Ashbury fell to bits. When the hippy thing was taken over by the media and the money people, people decided to go back to the country and drop out.’ ‘The whole movement of back to the country was before the Aquarius Festival. People decide to buy

LOCAL HERO

Grace Jeffery

cheap land, grow their own vegetables, build a house and not be part of the system. It was a dream,’ says John, who still lives in the simple house he and Denise built themselves. John and Denise followed an old surfing friend to Byron Shire and say they were attracted partly by the prospect of cheap land. In those days your half an acre in the hills cost a mere $400 and there was a more noticeable attitude of tolerance among the existing farming community compared to other towns. ‘There were other communities already here. There were Indians doing bananas, a Finnish village, a big Greek community that lived around here, so the local Australian farmers were used to other groups of people. They were more tolerant of the newcomers,’ recall the couple. ‘When we first came it was a totally different world. Our big event was going out once a month to the Kohinur market.’ As the alternative population grew, vegetarian cafes popped up and Santos started a wholefood co-operative to nourish the demand for alternative food. ‘The Byron Bay thing started to get on the map through surfers. Visiting Californian surfers knew about the place and surfers came up from Sydney and down from the Gold Coast. In their own way the surfers were drop outs too because all they wanted to do was surf,’ says John. One of the early surfers to move to Byron Bay was Cas Coffey who arrived in 1972 as an 18 year old escapee from the big smoke. ‘It was like the Endless Summer surfing down at the Pass with no one else there. It was just amazing and felt like the start of a counter culture,’ she recalls. ‘Byron attracted people from other cultures. There were many Americans here many of whom were disillusioned with the Vietnam War.’ Cas found employment serving up teriyaki burgers at one of the first alternative cafes. The Ribcage Cafe set up shop in a converted garage at the side of an old house in Jonson Street where Fresh now stands. Started by a young American surfer called Derek Beckner it catered to the non-conformist tastes of the new arrivals, along with the Wholemeal, a cafe and store below what is now the Balcony Restaurant. Later Cas left the Ribcage to work at the Arts Factory, a former piggery and cement block factory which had been bought by a wealthy Californian, Danny Doeppel. Prior to its emergence as a music venue it provided a focus and meeting space for artists, who were also increasingly attracted to the area. ‘In those days it wasn’t just a music factory. It was about theatre and artists. It helped people to come together as artists,’ explains Cas. This was the era before property booms on the north coast and accommodation was cheap. Another early arrival, Rusty Miller, describes something almost unthinkable today, farmhouses for rent at $15 a week. Travelling up and down the coast selling surf wax and body boards he was able to compare the development of other coastal towns. ‘Byron was probably the most expanding surf town. Surfing wasn’t the only thing happening. There was a small arts community and there were the early eco

The surfing media had discovered the attractions of Byron Bay by the early 1970s, printing this shot of Jonson Street in front of what is now The Balcony. Agriculture was then a major part of the local economy and a rural produce store occupied the opposite corner which today houses the boutique Running Wild.

tourists many of whom never left,’ he says. The success of the Aquarius Festival in 1973 really put the Rainbow Region on the map and spread the word about the emerging scene on the far north coast. There was a natural hunger for an alternative culture, Rusty says, one which he believes is still alive today and explains the continuing stream of new arrivals. In the 1990s the Seachange phenomenon renewed interest in moving to the country as Sigrid Thornton proved there is life outside of the capital cities. Byron Bay attracted a disproportional amount of the fleeing baby boomers who contributed to the town’s rapid population growth. Rusty points to the recent work done by Australia Institute Executive Director, Clive Hamilton, on the growing tide of ‘downshifters’ who now make up more than one in five Australians. Downshifters are typified by their rejection of a lifestyle based on materialism and the choice to devote more time to family and a life outside work. An ‘alternative’ lifestyle of a kind and one which has led many to Byron Shire. Byron’s idiosyncrasies, our history of resisting overdevelopment, the embracing of alternative thinking and therapies and our rich community of artists sprang from those early days. During recent times there have been attempts to sanitise some elements of the alternative scene. Ferals were unfairly accused of offending the sensibilities of tourists and discouraged within the town centre. Understandably as the population has grown a more mainstream ethos has diluted the alternative flavour of the local community. However it is that same counter culture and divergence from the mainstream that sets us apart from other towns and continues to make Byron the special place so many of us have chosen for our home.

hat makes a 13 year old girl want to give up her after school time to work in a soup kitchen? Year 8 Woodlawn student Grace Jeffery, who lives at New Brighton, claims that her time spent in the kitchen is one of the highlights of her week and allows her to indulge her passion: helping those less fortunate than herself. ‘I’ve always wanted to work in community service,’ said Grace. ‘I think that ultimately I’d like to work as a teacher of disadvantaged children, such as those in detention centres.’ Despite the common perception that teenagers are selfish, Grace doesn’t consider her values to be unusual among her peers, in fact she says

TIME LINE

1986

Front page of the first issue tells of the escape of five children from a house fire near Laverty’s Gap. The Journal of Edward Herring begins in issue four: a tale of an Echo journalist forced to travel to Shelley Shire and work in a parallel universe. July 30 sees the advent of Michael McDonald, ‘Overseas Correspondent’, with a column headed ‘Far from the tropics’. Chincogan Fiesta raises $20,000. A leaked report reveals the Shire Engineer has unilaterally reduced the Ocean Shores development bond by $455,000.

1987

The year begins with The Echo forgetting to change the year on its masthead. On April 1 the headline is ‘The Echo sells out!’ with the story of the Northern Star making an offer we couldn’t refuse. Mullumbimby’s Burringbar Street is ornamented with palm beds and straightaway someone starts growing dope in them. The Chincogan Fiesta raises a record $44,000 thanks to Maurie Summers, Trevor Watts, Megan Richardson and the Main Arm Push. Noted Huon Valley poet Tarquin Dupree makes his appearance with ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins Goes Golfing.’ Elections see a new Council headed by Shire President Oliver Dunne.

most of her friends have a strong sense of social justice and are involved in community service in one form or another. She also claims that her values have developed as a result of upbringing and environment. ‘Our mother has always taught my sister and me to consider others,’ said Grace. ‘We also live in an environment where we are exposed to people from all backgrounds; if we lived in a city we may never come across people who are struggling unless we really looked for them. We see them all around us here, and by working in the kitchen, I’ve got to know them and realise that they are no different from me, just less fortunate. ‘And, it’s fun working here; everyone is really friendly and we have a good laugh.’

www.echo.net.au

JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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RELAXED & COMFORTABLE IN THE DARK AGES

VOX VOX POPS POP OPS OPS

Mungo MacCallum

My first contact with The Echo was as a passing ­visitor; while taking a badly needed break from Canberra in 1987 I was invited to the first Echo Awards Night, a sparkling event held in the Mullum Civic Hall. I distinguished myself by ­winning the Limerick competition with the following poignant offering:

We long for the day when The Echo Will run to a wine that’s more secco. What the paper affords For the first up awards Resembles the piss of a gecko. It is pleasing to report that the Echo tycoons reacted to this plea with speed and decision. At all subsequent awards nights the free grog was cancelled, presumably to forestall further criticism. And my verse was considered too dirty to reproduce in a community newspaper. Ah, those days of innocence and crook riesling. A year later I returned permanently, having obtained early release from the federal parliamentary press gallery rather than face the trauma of moving into the new Parliament House. However, I continued to write a weekly column for the Melbourne Herald, and after a year or so Nick Shand persuaded me to give him a copy for The Echo. When the Herald disappeared as an independent paper, and my column with it, I continued to write for The Echo; if nothing else it helped to get the shit off my liver, and I had developed a considerable admiration for the local rag and all its eccentricities – which included the fact that it paid starvation wages, if any. And the rest, as they say, is history. Thus the background. The foreground was Byron Shire, then and still the best address in Australia. It is, as I continue to boast, the only New South Wales local government area north of Newcastle which con-

LOCAL HERO

Jenny Batson

sistently votes Labor in both state and federal elections and voted yes in the republic referendum. And in 1988 it was a welcome safe haven, for out in the real world great and dire changes were taking place. Paul Keating was in the process of opening up the Australian economy – or, as he put it in another context entirely, planting an axe in its chest and levering its ribs apart. In retrospect the operation was necessary and perhaps even overdue, but at the time it seemed seriously risky and hideously painful. It also seemed very unLabor. What the traditionalists considered to be unshakeable icons were torn down: Qantas was privatised, as were the national shipping and rail services and even the Commonwealth Bank went under the hammer. This was the unkindest cut of all: one of its founders, King O’Malley, had said of institution, ‘Its importance is so overpowering I tremble. Hope sees a star and listening love hears the rustle of a wing.’ Just fifty years earlier Labor had been swept from office on the promise of nationalising the remaining private banks; now it was disposing of its own creation as if it was no more than a worn out piece of furniture. Interesting times indeed. To rub it in, Keating invited foreign private banks into the country, an invitation which was eagerly accepted. And in case there were any true believers who had still not got the point, the currency was floated. Economic fundamentalists cheered this as a bold step into the major league; the more cautious saw it as the government taking its hands off the steering wheel. The dollar inevitably plunged and Australia settled into a long period of agonising readjustment. There are those who would say we have not yet emerged. After the roller coaster Hawke-Keating years, John Howard, the last Liberal standing after an increasingly desperate search for a messiah which included Andrew Peacock, John Hewson, Alexander Downer, John Elliott, Ian McLachlan and Bronwyn Bishop, promised to make us relaxed and comfortable; most of us believed he would at least make us bored. We vaguely knew he had some wacky ideas about industrial relations that belonged outside the asteroid belt and would never get through the senate, but apart from that we expected him to behave just like the myopic suburban mummy’s boy he always had been. Instead, Mr Magoo morphed into Genghis Khan, laying waste the political landscape in an extraordinary outburst of primitive savagery. With barely a pause to misappropriate Kirribilli House all convention and principles were abandoned: the public service was politicised, accountability trashed and integrity ridiculed. War was declared

EELS VILLAROY

Works: Contemporary artist/natural healer/therapist/tantric lovemaking specialist Lives: in the hills Been here: seven years What have you got to say about the media? ‘Mainstream media sucks. The Echo rules!’

TIME LINE against the so-called elites – indeed, against all manifestations of compassion and even intelligence. Howard set out to do to the nation what he had already done to his own party: reduce it to a personal fiefdom, and if that meant destroying its international reputation in the process, well tough titty. The electorate, well nourished on the economic bacon now being delivered from what was portrayed as the abattoir of Labor’s regime, fell dutifully in line: the generous and rational optimism of the pre-Howard decade was swiftly replaced by a mean-spirited and superstitious fear of the unknown. It was like a relapse into the Dark Ages. And part of the collateral damage was information, ruthlessly controlled by Howard and only timidly sought by the media. Part of the reason was geographical: the new parliament house, opened in 1988, isolated the press corps in an unprecedented manner from contact with the government. A thoroughly cowed public service ceased to be an alternative source of news. But that still didn’t – doesn’t – excuse the acquiescence of journalists who roll over as soon as Howard invokes terms like national security, operational matters, commercial in confidence, or simply inappropriate. A real media would dismiss them for the weasel words they are and delve all the more determinedly for the truth behind them. Alas, the Australian mouse pack seems unwilling even to test the barriers. And the Labor opposition, apart from the exciting but ultimately disastrous experiment with Mark Latham, follows even further behind. Which is all the more reason to celebrate 20 years of The Echo, which, whatever its shortcomings, is neither gutless nor hypocritical. We are in danger of losing the light on the hill, but in Byron Shire there are those who keep a flicker of hope – every week.

enny Batson epitomises a local hero. Her entire adult life has been devoted to doing things for other people; even her choice of career as a nurse gave her the opportunity to embrace the needy in her community in her professional role. As a nurse herself, Jenny’s mother gave her the following advice: ‘You can be a mediocre nurse, but please be kind.’ Jenny took that advice to heart and made it the principle by which to live her life. In 1999, Jenny was named Byron Shire’s Citizen of the Year in the Australia Day awards, not only for her work as a Veterans’ Affairs nurse, but for the thousands of hours of fundraising and volunteer work she had put into the community. At the time, it was estimated that she had been instrumental in raising more than $110,000 for a variety of worthwhile causes, an amount that she has

1988

A bullock wagon travels to Sydney to celebrate the bicentenary with Ros Elliott aboard. A police marijuana raid is mounted in the Mullumbimby area. ‘Shopping in the Nude with Jeff’ is inaugurated. Di Horder top bills in the first Echo Awards night which coincides with the publication of The Big Echo, an anthology of the first two years of the newspaper. A history of Byron Bay by Harry Mercer is published in instalments.

1989

Fast Buck$ discovers that the principal of the Lismore Northern Rivers CAE has ripped off the education department of the Solomon Islands. Premier Nick Greiner visits Byron Shire Council and encounters noisy demonstrators. ICAC names National Party MPs Don Page and Don Beck in their enquiries, along with Roger Munro and exCouncillor Mike Watterson.

1990

The TV column accidentally defames an NRTV news reader, setting off a lawsuit that will take years and cost thousands to resolve. Activists stop the new XPT train at Mullumbimby. An Echo opinion poll predicts that Charles Blunt MP will have trouble holding Richmond. Derek Harper (‘El Presidente’) runs for office, slogan: ‘A vote for me is a vote for your continued personal safety’. Neville Newell wins Richmond with the help of independent Dr Helen Caldicott. Second Echo Awards night features the kidnapping of Nicholas Shand by the Albanian Liberation Army. The issue of October 31 is dedicated to marijuana, the facts and the myths.

no doubt increased since then. Her generosity knows no boundaries; she has worked to support organisations such as the Brunswick Surf Lifesaving Club, Coolamon Villa, Mullumbimby High School, The Cancer Council, The Chincogan Fiesta and the local Diabetic Support Group to name a few. She was also a key fundraiser for the building of the olympic sized swimming pool in Mullumbimby and was instrumental in the organisation of the street parade and Civic Reception for Petria Thomas in September 1994. Officially, Jenny is now retired. What that really means is that as she is no longer employed as a nurse, she has more time on her hands to devote to her community work and is showing no signs of slowing down. Jenny’s mother can be very proud of her; she has indeed spent her life ‘being kind’.

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BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

9

THE NAKED BUNCH Mandy Nolan

Whenever I’m asked to recount my most memorable performance, without fail, the image that comes to mind is not of a darkened room full of half tanked punters, but a Byron beach, awash with the undressed skin of some 500 nudies. Nine years ago, with only a sunflower and a hat stolen from Molly Meldrum for modesty, I fronted the first ‘Nude Ain’t Rude’ Rally, where Byron residents took to the beaches to protest the introduction of on the ‘spot’ fines for bathing in the buff and to champion the merits of clothes optional bathing for our local beaches. It was an euphoric occasion. Bodies were painted in clay, cartwheeling, performing star jumps and when the TV choppers cruised over, a group message for the mass media: downface dog. Hundreds of naked bodies were moving together like one giant organic form, laughing, chanting and passionate. It was the funniest gig a comic could ever hope for. With nudity on mass what could they heckle you with? ‘Show us ya kidneys’? It is disarming how beautiful people are with their clothes off. All shapes, all sizes, bumps, lumps and grumps – once the orange peel is off, there is a startling luminosity in the sheer vulnerability of an unwrapped human. It is a reminder that while clothing functions for warmth and protection, it also acts as a fabric signifier of lifestyle, occupation and even values. It’s hard to pick a lawyer from a plumber from someone on jobstart when they get their gear off. It’s overwhelming how transient our concepts of ‘difference’ can be. At a nude rally, it’s not the nakedness that’s confronting, sometimes it’s just imagining them all with their clothes on. The Byron Shire has a history of naked civil disobedience. Dean Jefferys, instigator of the 97 and 98 Nude Ain’t Rude rallies, was arrested on the beach for nude bathing. His infamous remark, ‘If I am going to get charged you are going to have to lock me up naked’, saw him led naked to the paddy wagon, escorted naked from the paddy wagon and also ‘hanging loose’ in the cells. After being sprung by a nosy neighbour taking a naked leak in his own backyard and later arrested, one local resident made his protest by rollerblading down Jonson Street in his birthday suit. On Anzac Day this year, those handy with the bat and ball disrobed to participate in a nude cricket match at Tyagarah. After the intial confusion as to who actually had the ball, the game got off to a terrific start. Almost 15 years ago Chris McIrath ran for council, sporting nude campaign photos. He covered his massive election with his How to Vote card. And who could forget Nyck Jeanes’s remarkable comeback to a sarcastic serve from the Austentayshus at the Byron Film Festival? Mr Tayshus took Nyck to task over his MCing – so what’s a man to do when he becomes the butt of the joke? Show his hairy butt, that’s what. Nyck took the stage in all his naked splendour. He brought the house down, and saved his arse.

LOCAL HERO

Dailan Pugh

To raise money for much needed medical equipment at the Mullumbimby Hospital, local doctors dropped their dacks for 12 long months for a 2003 calendar. Swiping my Medicare card was never so much fun. In a desperate bid to add five minutes to a show, I performed the some say gutsy, I say, ‘cry for help’ reverse strip, where I came out naked and got dressed to strip music. The usual stuff – g string, big undies, thongs... I have made a pledge to perform that act until well into my seventies. Feros Village better get themselves some poles. When it comes to spontaneous acts of nudity, The Echo has probably sported more Free Willy moments than most. Back in 1987, in response to the Advocate’s regular column ‘Shopping in Mullum with Jan’, our very own Jeff Dawson did a ‘Shopping in the Nude with Jeff’. I’m talking the full Mullum Monty. Byron is famed internationally for one of the most spectacularly moving acts of public nakedness on the planet. In 2003, 750 women made their way to a hill in Federal to use their bodies to spell out ‘NO WAR’. Celebrity chanteuse and local resident Grace Knight had come across the story of twelve American women who’d used their naked bodies to send this message to the President, and something told her that this might just be the way to express our growing rage at our involvement with our American allies. ‘We tapped into a need that everyone was feeling. Because we thought we couldn’t stop the war and we were all furious that John Howard was ignoring us and treating us as a mob. I knew nakedness would keep them interested.’ For Grace and a lot of the other women involved in the No War action, public nudity was a challenge: ‘I’m not a Nimbin hippy! I don’t like showing my tits!’ In a powerful letter penned by writer Kate Stead, the call for ‘female’ hit the email: ‘Disrobe to Disarm’: ‘We need the male-dominated political leaders of Australia to hear us. They are unlikely to listen unless we get their attention.’ It was the perfect pebble for a pissed-off pond, and garnered the kind of response that would have the most professional publicist turning green with envy. In just six days from the inception of Ms Knight’s little idea, cars lined the streets of the tiny village of Federal for as far as the eye could see. All manner of women made their way to the ‘secret’ location, old women, young women, thin women, fat women... where the glorious naked heart framed our fleshy memo to the Prime Minister and the world: No War. It was the most downloaded photo in Australian history. As the last woman pulled on her undies and left the field, the photo had already been downloaded by a Brazilian newspaper. The next day it was front page of newspapers all over the world. Jackson Browne was later sighted at a festival with us nudie North Coast girls plastered on his chest. We all got naked with a rock star and at the same time told the world what we thought of their stupid war. Later on a bunch of blokes let it all hang out at the Byron Footy Field for a brotherly take on the action with their tongue in cheek: ‘Peace Man’. It just goes to show, that in a world full of everything, if you want to change something, sometimes it’s just best to use NOTHING! bush childhood spent raising orphaned wombats and emus created Dailan Pugh’s deep and enduring love of nature. As both an artist and a conservationist, Dailan says he is torn between painting the environment and fighting for it. The battle for Terania Creek turned him on to conservation in the late 1970s and was the start of a long struggle to save old growth and rainforest from logging in New South Wales. The rewards included the preservation of thousands of hectares of sensitive vegetation and several successful legal cases against State Forests for illegal logging. Ten years of activism with the North East Forest Alliance, which he helped found in 1989, was

recognised by the federal government with the Order of Australia Medal for services to forest conservation. Dailan says he was trying to take a step back from the demands of conservation activism to devote more time to his artwork when he was approached to take on the presidency of local environment group BEACON. ‘I am one of those people who put my whole life into a project. It is something to do with my personality,’ he said to explain how what was meant to be a part time job turned into a full time obsession. ‘At the local level there are so many issues going on such as the Cape Byron Marine Park, coastal erosion and how global warming will affect Byron Shire. We need a good planning regime which can overcome our problems and set us up for the future.’

mullumbimby

healing and wellness Mullumbimby is a no hype, no rush alternative community where you can receive healing and pamperings from professionally run health centres where the tourists won’t pay any more for their sessions than the locals. Mullumbimby is a true healing environment.

LOTIONS & POTIONS

MULLUM HERBALS

When you step in the doorway, you can feel the goddess energy within. The gift shop is full of nurturing products for the body, home and soul. The skin care range is by Perfect Potion they use only aromatherapy oils and natural ingredients. Other products include aromatherapy oil blends and oil burners electric and candle, locally made candles, spiritual cards, natural perfumes, handbags, shawls, baskets and heaps more. The healing centre is an amazing space offering the quite and tranquillity of being away from the main street.

SERVING THE COMMUNITY’S HEALTH CARE NEEDS

Naturopath – Ellie Dyson offers free herbal dispensary advice, Monday-Friday. Consultations with iridology photo, Tuesday & Wednesday. Margaret Maes – Spiritual healing/massage & readings. Thursday and Friday. David Ackerman – Chiro cranial sacral balancing. Monday afternoons Tina Gough – Homeopathy/massage. Thursdays. Michael Mills – Body stress release. Monday- Friday. Donna Peyr – Beauty treatments/massage. Wednesdays and Thursdays. Natalie Shwedosh – Bowen/massage. Tuesdays. Veronica – Energy healer. Tuesdays. Donna Navarro – Remedial corrective muscle therapy specialising with children. Fridays. The energy of Lotions & Potions is the true energy of the heart! Burringbar St, Mullumbimby. Phone: 6684 1419.

• Free over the counter advice and prescribing • All staff fully qualified naturopaths • Herbal medicines - organic where possible • Best available natural medicines

LLUMBIMBY U M

Herbals...

Mullum Herbals offers primary contact health care. All staff are well trained qualified naturopaths. We offer friendly, over the counter advice and prescribing ensuring the most appropriate treatments are taken. There are a multitude of products on the market, we will help you choose the ones which are most relevant. Our advice also includes basic dietary and lifestyle recommendations.

The herbal tinctures and teas we sell are primarily organic and of the highest available quality. We grow many of our herbs and manufacture most of our herbal tinctures and creams. We feel our herbal products are the best available. We have a large range of pleasant tasting glycetract based herbs, thus we can treat children using herbs they will comply with. In addition to our free over the counter service we offer full one hour consultation in Naturopathy, Ayurveda, Homoeopathy and Massage. Here a full health review is undertaken including full medical history and dietary analysis, the resulting recommendations encompass a comprehensive diet, lifestyle and medicinal program. 79 Stuart Street, Mullumbimby. Phone: 6684 3002.

BALANCE IS THE NATURAL KEY TO HEALTH

MULLUMBIMBY HEALTH AND BEAUTY CENTRE

By Michael Schwager, Chiropractor

Beauty Therapy with Rosmarie Maeder: Waxing, tinting, facials, manual lymphatic drainage for the face and neck, Weleda and Dr Eckstein beauty products. New full body lymphatic drainage available from the end of August. Available Wed – Fri, Sat by appointment.

Our bodies, minds and spirits are marvellous self-regulating systems designed to keep us functioning and feeling happy, strong, open and effective in the world. Inevitably, the stresses and strains of life can throw us out of balance, and this can lead to illness and disease. Rather than treating chronic conditions after we’ve become sick, there’s a much more intelligent way to maintain optimum health. All bodily functions are moderated by our central nervous system, which can become under or over-aroused by internal or external influences. A balanced nervous system is evidenced by high energy, resistance to disease, positive mental attitude and a youthful, vibrant presence. By contrast, an unbalanced nervous system can appear as low energy or lack of motivation, anxiety, depression, headaches, tight muscles and restless sleep, impulsive moods or distracted attention, eating disorders, PMS, frequent illness and emotional distress. Eventually, this imbalance can lead to high blood pressure, bowel problems, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic fatigue, even an emotional/mental breakdown or auto-immune disorder. With correct Neurobalancing through gentle Chiropractic adjustments, the body and mind facilitates self-healing and regeneration, and can establish new patterns of balanced living for optimum health. To make an appointment, call Michael Schwager on 6684 1962.

Bodywork with Gina Offredi: Deep tissue massage, Reiki, Craniosacral Therapy and Zero Balancing, Nurturing Pregnancy Massage. Delight in profound relaxation, harmony and wellbeing. Available Thur and Fri. Counselling with Tina Bell: Marriage /Relationship, Grief/Depression, Parenting, Wholistic Life Coaching, Self Esteem/Anxiety, Communication and Relationship courses. Available Wed. Acupuncture with Simone Ormsby: Gentle effective Japanese style for the treatment of physical/emotional and spiritual disharmonies in men, women and children. Specialising in infertility, pregnancy and post natal care. Available Mon – Fri. Joining the centre in June is Japanese style Acupuncturist Phillip Baxter. 104 Stuart Street. Phone: 66841255 Opposite Mitre 10 and at the rear of the Presbyterian Church.

ALCHEMIA

BRUNSWICK VALLEY HEALTH CENTRE

Alchemia provides a beautiful and spacious haven of comfort and healing from the daily stresses of life offering you possibilities for clarity, balance and wholeness.

For a Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body This clinic has been established over the last 20 years. Karl Wedeman (registered chiropractor) Brent Verco (registered chiropractor)

We are in the heart of Mullumbimby specializing in personal and comprehensive care in sensitive and relaxed surroundings.

Gently releasing the spine and extremities using a variety of techniques that encompass either manipulation or stretching techniques such as kinesiology or sacro occipital techniques.

Our highly personalized care can benefit everyone from babies to elders,

Ina was a nurse and paediatric nurse in Germany. Now she addresses a wide range of physical, emotional and mental health issues with homeopathic remedies. They target a patient’s totality of individual symptoms in a safe, non-toxic, non-addictive and effective way. (Health Rebates) Homeo-PATH-y The PATH for me.

Find physical and emotional relief with Remedial, Sports and Injury treatments with Steve. Are you pregnant or have a new baby? This is a wonderful and important time to be nurtured by someone who understands the needs of mother and child or Deep Tissue, Intuitive massage and healing with Abby.

Christina (Ina) Buhse – Classical Homeopath (Adv. Dip. Hom)

Krishna Reville – Psychotherapist, Art Therapist (reg) (MA,ATR, AATA)

Clinic space is also available to motivated and passionate healing professionals.

Incorporating a unique blend of Eastern philosophy and Western psychotherapeutic practice, Krishna works with her clients to attain profound connections both internally and externally. Utilising a combination of talk therapy, arts therapies & meditation, always emphasising the connection to the body, Krishna offers an integrated experience that clearly translates to daily life. With over 15 years experience Krishna specialises in awareness and transformation via trauma, grief, anxiety, intimacy and relating.

Come up and see us at 73 Stuart Street or ring on 6684 6384.

110 Dalley St, Mullumbimby. Phone: 6684 1028.

Experience the powerful two hour transformative journey of “Royal Ho’ola Lomi Lomi” with Hinaku. Be rejuvenated by the therapeutic benefits of Aromatherapy massage treatments. And the subtle dynamics and positive effects of Reiki, Sound and Crystal Healing of Malini. Alchemia is open weekdays and after hours by appointment on Thursdays. Beautiful workshop, teaching or meeting space for groups evenings and weekends.

Krishna, Brent, Ina and Karl of Brunswick Valley Healing Centre.

JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

11

THE WRITERS LIFE Larry Buttrose

In recent years the Byron region has gained renown for its active literary community, and now numbers some of the nation’s best-known authors among its residents. The Northern Rivers Writers Centre and the annual festival provide an invaluable focus, and Jill Eddington’s vision, dedication and can-do nous – hers will be a very hard act to follow indeed – have helped transform the Shire from literary Erehwon into a veritable Hobbiton of scribes. Writers tend to select their domicile carefully. After all, they are going to spend a lot of time walking the streets, staring out the window or at the wall, pacing the hall. Writers – unless they burn bright and die young like Shelley or Plath – tend to be in for the long haul. A writer can start in their teens and be hard at it in their eighties. There’s little to stop them beyond money, health, and the cruelty of The Chair. Six or even seven active decades is a very long innings and a writer learns to ride the inevitable ups and downs – the big sixes into the crowd, the intimidation of the bouncer barrage, the sledging from the slips. But given the possibility of a long creative life, the writer has the chance to chronicle not just the world around them, but the stages of life, its distinct acts. As Truman Capote remarked: ‘Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.’ Some might rejoin that his own third act was a Frankenstein monster of his own creating, but it is certainly the case that a writer’s life has almost definable acts. For some it’s a brightly written first act, followed by two more in which everybody nods off. For others it’s just one of those long slow nights in the theatre, arsenumbingly tedious, invested with much commitment but sadly leading nowhere. For others still, the second act is their strongest; writers like Virginia Woolf, who in mid-career produced arguably her finest works,

LOCAL HERO

Pat Gregory

Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse, and whose own third act ended in a note left on a mantelpiece, resignation from the human race. Then there are those for whom it’s a build to a climax in which all their authorial strengths, thematic threads and accumulated experience coalesce into a masterwork like Don Quixote, or 1984. It’s a privilege of course simply to be a writer. As a cadet journalist I dreamed of one day being able to call myself that. When did that point come, I wondered: the publication of your first short story, novel, or premiere of your first play? Of course it’s not like that. It’s not so much what you call yourself as the life of work you have chosen, which in turn helps fashion the person you become. While living in the region it has been my privilege to teach writing at Southern Cross University. Like many writers I had previously wavered before the chilling maxim that those who can, do – and those who can’t, teach. But offered teaching work here I took it, and have in the process learned a great amount about writing. It’s one thing to know things intuitively or instinctively, another entirely to have to articulate them clearly to a group of students. It has proven akin to driving a car for two hundred thousand miles, sometimes happy with its performance but usually less than, stopping at last to look under the bonnet and see how it all works. A tune-up in order, inevitably. One of the intriguing aspects of teaching is the line between what can be taught and what can not. A good proportion of it can, especially the long-lost discipline of grammar. But literature is not science, it is art, and it works in ways which defy attempts to impose the rules and categorisations of science. It’s not chemistry – it’s alchemy. It’s not digital, but derives its beauty and its strength from what exists between the digits, the unseen and unsaid, the unknown and unknowable. Like our very humanity, literature is mysteriously durable. It has even survived the era of postmodernism, during which an entire generation has been subjected to intellectual colonisation by a dogmatic wolf garbed in sheeply pluralism, a philosophical peepshow that has infected the creative arts with the pseudo-scientific gobbledegook of ‘Theory’ encoded in works absurdly poorly expressed and aesthetically repellent, a gruel of pompous jargon both fearful and

disdainful of the clarity of plain language which would readily expose its blah and wank. Ostensibly doctrinally of the Left, its authoritarianism marks its temper more of the Right. While telling us it celebrates many voices, it tolerates none in dissent against its liturgy, and has become a largely uninterrogated orthodoxy for many academics across the world, people of integity and dedication who nonetheless seem to have lost sight of the fact that the academy is only as good as its debate, which should be as searching, passionate and fearless as an open mind. One of the many ironies of the writer’s life is that it continues beyond the grave. Consider Hemingway. Though dead nearly half a century, he’s still surfing trends of fads and taste. Among the greatest stylistic innovators and most distinctive voices of the twentieth century – both attributes understudied with his mentor Gertrude Stein, whom he says he taught dialogue writing for his own part – he has been largely ignored for decades after being tarred and feathered by ideological fashion police as a meaty bearded sexist, a man who shot animals and behaved badly towards women. Similarly, some people would presumably have us avert our eyes from the paintings of Picasso because of the repute of his personal relationships. Presumably such people themselves conduct impeccably Politically Correct personal lives, audited by an Appropriate Intimacies Sub-Committee comprising Carl Jung, Julia Kristeva, Stephanie Dowrick and George Pell. To me the truth about Hemingway is that his novels are largely fairly conventional romances set against dramatic backdrops, but it is his voice – the hardedged voice of troubled times, tanged with an idiosyncratic wit – which distinguishes him. He also happened to win the Nobel Prize, as did Steinbeck and so many others whose writings are now disparaged and ignored for a welter of humourless minor-key whinging. But such are the times. Hands up who’s read any Woolf or Dostoyevsky for pleasure lately; or Mann or Mansfield, Greene or Stein? Joyce, especially Finnegan’s Wake, would require a secret ballot. Even beyond the grave the writer’s life is bound up with caprice, marketing, and changes in technology. To paraphrase Hemingway, it’s a bastard of a life but there’s nothing better.

at Gregory started woodworking in 1984 in Bristol, UK where she trained in carpentry and joinery. Since settling in Mullumbimby in 1994 over 300 women have taken one of Pat’s Woodwork for Women courses. Most women come to the classes because they love timber and or want to make something. But when the class is done they come away with much more than a fabulous cabinet, table or work of art. Pat, as well as being a skilled wood worker loves teaching and is passionate about the way people are taught. A bad teacher experience inspired Pat to be a good one and to teach others how to be good teachers.

TIME LINE 1991

Peace march in Byron Bay, addressed by federal Labor MP Neville Newell. NSW health department swears on the bible it has no plans to reduce hospital services in the Shire. End of the Cape Byron Academy saga as its DA lapses. Religious bigots sink proposed Bangalow Festival for its ‘new age’ associations.

1992

Petrol tanker blazes in Mullumbimby street. Ian Cohen hurls the Big Turd into Ballina Council Chambers in protest against sewer outfalls. Steve Gilpin, lead singer of MiSex and Under Rapz, dies in a car accident. Magistrate fines man for being naked on his own property. Twenty people stage a ‘Naked Lunch’ in Apex Park, Byron Bay. Senator Flo Bjelke-Petersen visits the Echo office and tries out the editor’s terminal. 150 people celebrate Frank Hall’s birthday at Kohinur.

1993

Echo front page from January 2003 mysteriously appears, records opening of Shire’s fourth Macdonald’s and the Sandhills Hilton. Echo goes up to tabloid size in March. Jim Brokenshire, former editor of the Mullumbimby Advocate, dies at 81. Petition of 7000 signatures against Club Med presented to Shire President. Prodevelopment lobby holds public meeting organised by Cr Tucker and general manager Max Eastcott.

1994

New years eve riot in Byron Bay. Conservative Councillors remove sight-impaired Cr Wentworth’s reader. Final chapter in Roundhouse: Council pays $1.4million. Reg and Jean Wright retire from the Byron News. Push for Mullumbimby Council Chambers begins. Eighth birthday of The Echo leads directors to deny ‘secret roots’. Kohinur Hall burns down. Council seeks to introduce a ‘wards’ voting system.

As soon as you walk into one of Pat’s classes she makes you feel safe, comfortable, nurtured and respected. She supports everyone to work at their own pace, encouraging them to put themselves first and do what is right for themselves. There is never any guilt involved about being late or not being able to make it somedays. She aims to meet the needs of her students, supporting their learning in a natural and comfortable way. Women come away feeling empowered, able to do things they never thought they could and with a support system that doesn’t end when the class does.  As well as running ‘Woodwork for Women’ courses, teacher training courses and home schooling her daughter, Pat is also writing a ‘Woodwork for Women’ book. Her dream is to have a workshop in this shire, ‘A large, light and airy space where women can come and go and learn all aspects of woodworking and where scholarships would be available’.

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

13

20 YEARS BEFORE THE MASTHEAD Michael McDonald

Well, almost. My first encounter with the infant Echo came when my father, who lived at Ocean Shores from 1974, sent down the first issue to Tasmania in 1986 and noted on the front cover that my friend from the 70s, David Lovejoy, was one of the founders. Yes, it’s not what you know but who you know and the fact I knew David became an entrée to a job which some of my forlorn girlfriends over the years have described as a marriage. I was quick to observe that Tasmania is separated from the mainland by a body of water and so it was only fitting I became The Echo’s overseas correspondent. In a little shed which had once been a laundry out the back of my farmhouse near the tiny town of Cygnet, I tapped out with one finger on a manual typewriter over a month 600 words of bucolic observations and nonsense doggerel. Back then The Echo was desperate for copy – what is now known in cyberspace as ‘content’, as if prose is something you pack into a can like sliced peaches – and most months my work got a run. My fee was the satisfaction of being published, and a very satisfying fee it was. At the age of 35 I was beginning to feel my way back into ‘real’ writing after a stint in North Sydney hacking out advertising copy for an investment firm and arguing over the phone with the then Corporate Affairs Commission about the precise wording of the legal information in financial prospectuses, which is about as enjoyable as chewing aluminium foil. Two years later my wife of ten years and I divorced – it was an amicable parting, our kind-hearted lawyer, Mr Wong, cried the most bitter tears when drawing up the settlement – and I relocated to Byron Shire with just a suitcase full of clothes. Momentarily I had thought of living as a hermit in a shed I had built on the front five acres but that would have meant certain madness, whereas editing a newspaper only means uncertain madness. I met The Echo’s founding editor Nicholas Shand in 1987, I think, while up in the Shire visiting my parents. I breezed into his office with a jaunty ‘Nicholas Shand, I presume’ and was met with a look of panic, as if I were a potential serial killer. Editors can be nervous about random encounters which can entail verbal confrontation and once in Nick’s case resulted in his large and heavy desk being overturned. (Editors adore their steely-eyed receptionists and treat them like goddesses.) Once I had explained who I was the meeting became much more congenial and our shared

LOCAL HERO

Raylee Delaney

love of red wine led on to greater rapport, and more red wine. So on April 7, 1988, in the middle of flooding, I settled in Byron Shire. Nicholas hired me as a stringer – given my extensive knowledge of string – at about eight dollars an hour and all the paperclips I could eat. In the first financial year I earned $500 and that with the dole pushed me into a higher tax bracket, so the ATO charged me $500 – incentives were splendid for the poor even then. The job entailed converting into English news briefs which came in on deadline day. As my employers realised I was competent enough, I moved on to reporting on events around the Shire, in those days no cake stall too small to write up. I invested in two pairs of colourful board shorts as my official uniform and the more florid pair was admired by Burnum Burnum himself at a book launch in Byron Bay. In 1989 Nick took me to my first council meeting in Brunswick Heads – the councillors used to move their meetings from place to place in those days. Unfortunately The Echo had just published a letter which described councillors as ‘scum’, one of the first litigious irritations in the paper’s history to slip onto the page unnoticed. Nick sought leave from shire president Ian Kingston to apologise publicly and the apology was accepted, not a lawsuit in sight. That was the start of 15 years of council-watching for me, now mostly offloaded to Lesley Patterson. In those days I wrote longhand on paper and gave it to indefatigable typist Tuppy – who is capable of deciphering Fast Buck$’s alien scrawl – to key in. Our office was three adjoining shopfronts in Brunswick

Heads and idlers in the Fingal Street arcade could look through the plate glass to me scribbling next to Donnie working the offset press, its thunder and the heady perfume of ink and solvent spurring me on. A few years later I did a touch typing course and learnt to type with two fingers, much to the horror of my tutor. To this day I plug away at the keyboard with two dextrous digits lubricated by the looming deadline. We then moved to a real office in Mullumbimby, in a building downstairs and across the way from where we are now. It was cramped but it worked. David set up our first network of Apple computers. I shared an office with Nicholas, who talked disconcertingly loudly on the phone. One of the more defining moments for me was reaching down for the phone book and discovering too late that the office cat had defecated messily across its surface. The New Yorker we were not. Nicholas was the larger-than-life gregarious public face of The Echo. David was the Scotty keeping the starship together at warp five. I was somewhere in between, part technician, part writer. For the first two years I made the mistake of being Nick’s de facto personal assistant until I realised that reminders would not ensure he made it to an appointment anyway. It was a hard slog and money was scarce but we had lots of laughs and indulged in lots of non-holistic behaviour. In 1995 we moved to our current office which is sheer luxury by comparison. Nick envied the sofa I installed in my room and I suspect slept on it more than was strictly necessary. I have that room now, with its glorious views of the men’s toilet in McGougans Lane and the scrap meat truck loading up on Mondays. The sofa has been replaced by two desks shared by deputy editor Lesley Patterson, sports editor and journalist Alex McAuley, and entertainment editor Mandy Nolan. Three blondes and a view – what more could an editor ask for? Mandy’s comedic mind and a shared appreciation of Little Britain ensure we all laugh a lot in between considering matters of much weight. Also in 1995 Nicholas appointed me editor while he became the managing editor. As well as writing and laying out pages, I find myself reading hundreds of bits of paper and hundreds of emails each week and making snap decisions as to what makes the cut and what doesn’t. The editor’s mind must travel at speed and consider at speed – whether or not that velocity results in a decent outcome is for you, the reader, to decide. And it is a role which grew larger when Nicholas died tragically in 1996. Noone could replace him, noone would be silly enough to try. Yet his spirit lives on in the wonderful camaraderie among The Echo’s workers and in the paper’s dedication to exploring important issues, tempered on other pages by a touch of larrikin mischief. Twenty years have gone by like lightning yet carry in them what seems like several centuries of experience.

aylee Delaney has always had a strong sense of responsibility. As a child she was always class or school captain and took it upon herself to fight for the under­dog. As an adult, she continues to give 110% of herself to fighting for worthy causes. Why does she do this? ‘Because that is the way I am,’ said Raylee. ‘I see this as a lifestyle choice, not a job. Give me a cause to fight for and I’m like a terrier with a rat.’ Her association with The Beach Hotel has allowed her to make a huge difference to many underdogs over the years, and many local, underfunded, on the ground community services would not have been able to continue their work had she not identified their needs and offered them financial support from the hotel. ‘Working for The Beach Hotel is great,’

TIME LINE 1995

Big rally rejects wards, followed by minister’s decision to overturn Council plan. ICAC told Byron Council like ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Echo’s ninth birthday marked by ‘free newspapers all week’. Kingston wins mayoralty in landslide. Main Arm grandfather Frank Hall dies ‘on the far side of seventy-something’. Rally says no to Fern Beach estate.

1996

Echo moves to new premises and commences internet web site. Craig McGregor sums up Paul Keating. Tucker attempts to remove Council advertising from The Echo. Judge rules against delegated authority decisions made by Eastcott. Cr Malloy’s resignation highlights Council woes. Brunswick bypass gets go ahead. Echo turns ten with glittering Awards night. Byron Council censures Tucker. Backlash over Eastcott departure. Mayor discovers $3million deficit. Farewell to Nicholas Shand, July 22, 1948 – October 29, 1996. Tributes flow in to Echo editor. Tucker, Bennette convicted of assault.

1997

Doctors fear loss of hospital. April 1 edition reveals Chamber of Commerce plans to reignite the Mount Chincogan volcano. Arakwal native title recognised at the Cape. Nude-in draws crowd and media. Demand grows for development moratorium. Inaugural Taste of Byron festival. Paterson Hill battle shapes up. Shit hits fan but Mayor insists on sewage upgrade. Rally opposes Pizza Hut in Byron. Outrage over alleged manipulation of vote for new GM. Police Sgt Adrian McDonald retires. Vic Richens starts his save the butterfly campaign. Echo journalist Carol Page injured when storm hits Durrumbul Jazz Festival.

1998

GM calls public meeting on Council finances. Fast Buck$ wins Council by-election. Former Cr Bill Noonan dies. Byron grieves over four dead in house fire. Les Murray at Writers Festival. Pacific Hwy upgrade routes on display. Cr Fast Buck$ censured by Council for leaking. Residents block developer Chum Vidgin’s wetland clearance. Brunswick Rescue Squad 21 years old. Mullum pool named after Petria Thomas. Byron faces NYE funding crisis. Cr Buck$’s car vandalised.

said Raylee. ‘It’s like being Robin Hood but I don’t have to steal from anyone in the first place!’ It is not just her community work with the hotel for which she is renowned, however, as she has given countless hours to the Northern Horse Action Group (NHAG) of which she is a foundation member. Her love of nature and animals, responsibility towards the environment as well as a keen intelligence prompted her to work on a submission to Byron Shire Council for the upgrade and creation of a bridle path through Byron Shire for use by walkers, cyclists and riders. The submission has been adopted in principle by council and has been so well received that she was invited to speak at the National Tracks and Trails conference in Tasmania recently to showcase the project and discuss the partnership between council and National Parks and Wildlife. ‘This is such a valuable community asset,’ said Raylee. ‘If we don’t act now to conserve it, the opportunity will be gone. This (Byron Shire) is our home; we have a right to keep it the way we want it to be.’

JUNE 6, 2006

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BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

17

A BRIEF HISTORY OF DEBAUCHERY

VOX VOX

POPS POP OPS OPS

Horatio Bitemark

The Club’s association with The Echo goes back to 1642 and the Palace of the Twin Otters near Versailles, where my ancestor Horace, Visconte de Marque De Morsure, was introduced by Louis XIII’s favourite concubine, Mme Emilie Chatelaine, to David Lovejoy’s ancestor Francois, Duc de Joie D’Amour. They immediately took a liking to each other and formed an efficient team in the peasant shooting competition. Of course the Club’s history goes back much further, to 1500BC and a secret Egyptian temple buried upside down in the sands near Luxor. It was there that Amon Ra passed on the arcane knowledge relating to a truly debauched life and the temple priestess Bet Se whipped our founding member, whose name must not be spoken, within an inch of his life with an ox hide six-strapper. But that need not concern us here, gentle reader. We muse only on the Byron branch of the immortal Club, located firstly at Watego’s and then Myocum with its glorious rolling vistas and truffle paddock interlaced with peyote buttons. We muse also on how debauchery came to Byron Shire and the Club’s role in its dissemination. In 1887 the Club’s international president, Dorian Mutetrumpet, sent Aloysius Frillspoon, noted for his skill with velvet-lined handcuffs, by the steamer Rabbitlunch to Cape Byron to set up the branch. In the intervening centuries since its Egyptian foundation the Club had picked up further useful information from the devotees of Pan and the Hermetic Sect of Bulgaria, along with a very profitable share portfolio, and it was Frillspoon’s mission to spread the good work among the Shire’s cedar cutters and reed binders. The first decade was lean, attracting only five members, two of them with gout. It was not until 1912 that debauchery really took hold with the formation of the Tyagarah Ether Association, which admired the Club’s, ahem, principles and its collection of asparagus tongs. By then the Club itself had 23 members and the forerunner of our current dominatrix-oncall, Bizzy Lizzy, was administering harsh discipline and castor oil. The Jazz Age arrived late in Byron Shire but in 1929

LOCAL HERO

Ted Kabbout

brought with it all the requisite decadence. The Club and the younger generation of the day staged the Bachelors and Flappers Midnight Ball at the Federal College of Sybarites and Voluptuaries, at which Miss Celia Flutewrangler astonished all with her Dance of the Seven Watersprites while frying an egg in a skillet to The Happiness Boys’ recording of ‘Since Henry Ford Apologised To Me’. Despite its association with entheogens, we managed to bypass the alternative revolution of the 70s and foster instead the Mullumbimby Spouse Swapping Outbreak of 1979, in which magic mushrooms would have played a larger part had those intoxicated

new wealth, and of course with wealth comes excess. Chaps are lining up for membership but only ten per cent will meet the strict entry requirements. We have Sanders the butler run over the applications with a fine tooth comb: the louder his sniff of disdain the less chance of entry. (I should note for devoted readers that Abbotsleigh gained entry because of his connections with the Belgian royal family, which has a very fine wine cellar.) ‘Sir must be tired by his exertions,’ said Sanders, gliding into the study seemingly on teflon-coated ball bearings. I put down my penwiper and gazed gratefully at the plate Chef had sent up: Braised Lyrebird

MATT CONNOLLY

The Birth of Byron Venus by artist Peter King, commissioned by the Club to grace a wall of its mescalin cellar.

not tried to eat the car keys in the bowl rather than find the partner they belonged to. And so to now. When The Echo expanded its entertainment section to include two taste pages I was invited to write a column by its editor Michael McDonald. We met at a soirée organised by the artist and ropeologist Peter King. McDonald seemed impressed by my grasp of cuisine faux sensuel and I was certainly impressed at his ability to put away the Middle Pocket Satyricon Latex Reserve Cabernet Merlot on offer. My writing assignment reflects the glory days of the Club. Not since the Club-sponsored Belongil Nymphets rogered the entire local council in an underwater boudoir in 1946 has the Byron chapter revelled in such a period of debauchery. The Shire is flooded with

Wings in Pico de Gallo teamed with Prestressed Yam Salad and accompanied by the Coopers Lane Foundation Chardonnay, which hinted at capsicum and lantana cuttings. A moment of ennui passed over me. ‘Do you think it’s all worth it, Sanders dear chap, the debauchery?’ I asked. ‘It is hardly my place to say, Sir,’ he replied. ‘However, might I suggest the world would be a duller place without the human senses being momentarily distracted from a consensus reality which impinges upon a free-flowing consciousness enhanced by entheogenic revelation and oxytocin-inspired ecstasy.’ ‘Fair enough, Sanders, fair enough. I shall then, in the words of the great Tallulah Bankhead, press on.’ And I did.

ack in 1986 when the Disabled Surfers Association (DSA) of Australia was born, Ted Kabbout was 25 years old and a recreational surfer. As he lived near the beach, he and a group of his friends decided to go along to one of the early clinics to see what it was all about. He has never looked back. Twenty years down the track, he is now one of the driving forces behind DSA’s far north coast branch and continues to act as a self appointed advocate for people with disabilities.

they would never have contemplated. People with disabilities often have the least opportunities of anyone and I wanted to help give them a chance to try something new.’

‘A lot of people don’t get given the opportunity to try different things,’ said Ted. ‘When they are, they can achieve all sorts of things

Ted thinks that his tough childhood contributed to his strong sense of social justice, and he has always felt compelled to stand up for disadvantaged people when they are the subject of discrimination. For him, however, working with DSA is not just about what he gives to others, it’s also about what the whole experience gives him. ‘Working with disabled people keeps everything in my life balanced,’ said Ted. ‘It’s taught me not to take life too seriously. I feel very fortunate to have what I’ve got; DSA helps me to keep things in perspective.’

Favourite revolutionary: James Connolly. (Scottish Irish socialist, 1868–1916) Last book read: Charles de Lint’s ‘Forests of the Heart’ Been here: for 10 years since last April. Works: one day at Milk and Honey in Mullum and busking. How does Byron treat its buskers? ‘50/50. Some people are very generous and others ignore you. I have to say that I have never encountered any negative words.’ What would you say about the direction of Byron? ‘With more retail shops coming in it is losing its soul.’

TIME LINE 1999

Don’t drink the water: bacteria warnings issued. Council tackles Y2K bug. Wettest Jan-March for 25 years. Mullum Rotary hits fifty. Farewell to muchloved local chemist Dick Arthur. Club Med officially dead. Government approves A2 route for highway. Five new Councillors elected, with Tom Wilson as mayor. Westpac announces Mullumbimby branch closure. Police violence at Paterson Hill protest. Surfing the future: Byron Shire in the 21st century. Shock horror! National Party MP goes hip. The Monday Meteor hits the streets.

2000

John Howard visits Ocean Shores. Murals removed at dawn from Community Centre. Council given three months by minister to get its act together. John Mant called in to probe planning department. General manager Ray Kent quits. Rally opposes RTA’s ‘Highway to hell’. Santos Health Foods to take old Westpac building. Farewell to Howard Timms. Year ends with an alien invasion of Byron Bay.

2001

The search is on for a new Byron Shire hospital site – and it still hasn’t been built! A new high school for the Brunswick Valley also disappears from view. Local ALP in rukkus over candidate preselection for the federal poll.

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

19

VOX VOX

POPS POP OPS OPS

LARA VISKOVICH Works: L’ultime ‘I grew up around here on and off as we have a holiday house at Watego’s. I love everything here, especially my job. It’s an intimate shop, with great food and it’s authentically French. The customers are very friendly and nice. I like the diversity here, the locals are open minded and environmentally passionate. I love The Echo! It’s a ritual for me every Wednesday. It’s one of the few newspapers with positive stories.

M. LORENA VASCONCELLOS P.

From: Roma, Italy Been here: 1 year Works: Great Northern Hotel Passion: Art and photography What brought you to Byron? I’ve always wanted to live in Australia. The natural beauty and community is so special here. What do you like about Byron? You can get everywhere by foot (in the CBD) which is great being a traveller without a car. Also everyone is so friendly – you always get a hello when walking down the street.

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Works: in office administration Been here: This time, 5 months. Previously worked at the Australian Consulate in Shanghai. Why live here? There’s a sense of community and the extraordinary landscape. What’s The Echo’s weakness? It’s beautifully biased.

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

21

TYAGARAH IS NOT TUSCANY Victoria Cosgrove

The act of cooking rescues and grounds me, calms and soothes me with the familiarity of its rituals and processes. In a strange, new place one of the first things I do, therefore, is to bake something – and so it was that several days after leaving the Big Smoke and coming to live on the Far North Coast I knew that I needed to make muffins. My friend’s well-stocked pantry yielded everything I needed except for the bicarbonate of soda (the packet I found having expired some years previously): a trip to the nearest shop was in order. It was then that I was struck with the full force of my altered circumstances – the nearest shop, I knew, was the Ocean Shores Shopping Centre which meant the Pacific Highway with its thundering semi-trailers and 100kmh speeds – it seemed extraordinary that for one ingredient I was obliged to navigate that degree of difficulty and distance. That was one ingredient that I was able to find, to the many more that city living had accustomed me to take for granted and which were suddenly not around. Bread stands out – bread, the absence of variety and quality – continues to stand out, though I now sometimes privately wonder if the deficiency owes mostly to the fact that this is a region rife with sufferers of gluten intolerance, wheat allergy or coeliac disease – bread a dirty word, almost. There was a period when I began to take notice of a persistent tone in my food-related conversations: nearly a whine. And meanwhile there I was, the hypocrite, swanning around in a place which resembled any paradise I had ever read about or seen depicted in travelogues and enjoying the sort of experiences I had never found, nor even guessed possible, in my city days. Once I started a list I realised its extent. Coffee under a canopy of poinciana, to dive in randomly. The sweetly scruffy faintly feral town of Mullumbimby has the Poinciana Café where you can do just that – on a late Sunday morning with a local jazz band up on the little stage there are few more pleasurable ways of dealing with a hangover, or hooking up with friends, or reading weekend newspapers in selfish solitude. Or coffee at The Pass Cafe in Byron Bay, towel wrapped around your swimsuit still faintly dripping from a previous swim in the transparent water below and where the last mouthful of your muffin may be brazenly stolen by a swiftly swooping

LOCAL HERO

myna bird. Coffee mostly respectable in most places so that the question of where is dictated by mood: there is hinterland where bushwalk and waterfall and rainforest sharpen your senses and appetite, and there are clifftop coastline, gently curving bay, wild expanse of beach and headland to coax forth a seainvigorated hunger. There are meandering country roads to lead you to villages like Newrybar where the wooden verandahs of Harvest Café welcome you in with homely hospitality and mouthwatering menu, and more good coffee. Or Bangalow with its sleepy elegance and timelessness and a main street which is shop after shop of stylishness; whose pub is deemed by many to offer the best tasting and best value food in the Shire; whose Thai restaurant does monthly degustations of contemporary Asian food; whose two serious restaurants, Utopia and Satiate, have managed the successful marriage of sophisticated city glamour with cosy rural charm and, most pertinently, utterly gorgeous food.

At Brunswick Heads there is the fishing co-op where after a short wait you emerge with a piece of freshly cooked catch of the day in a thin coating of crisp crumbs, to carry to nearby Torakina Beach and devour in front of incurious pelicans. There is also the pub and its gracious garden where for the cost of a house wine you may be entertained by live local bands. The Railway Friendly Hotel in Byron Bay bestows the same generosity every night of the week and in addition serves up seriously lovely food at pub prices. There is a golf club in Ocean Shores which calls itself a Country Club and from whose lofty aspect you may lunch on a huge piece of crisply grilled barramundi for $13.50 with the Pacific Ocean as your own majestic waterview; and in the town of Ballina an RSL Club which boasts both pedigreed chef and riverside location.

Up here, you can pretend you are richer than you are. In the city it seems that every step you take costs $20 – yet that same amount of money will buy a picnic for two people, largely purchased from roadside stalls, to share beside a waterfall. At the Growers Market I will bury my nose in a bouquet of mixed lettuces and herbs and bear it away with me in a bag bursting with local tomatoes, sweet potatoes, avocadoes and zucchini: there, together with the free range Alstonville chicken I will roast later on, is dinner. And if feeling glamorous is your desire then there are the daybeds at dish restaurant upon which to loll as you sip an impressively obscure wine and toy with a warmed olive or nine. Less rarefied though still a little glam is The Balcony which will serve you almost anything your heart desires, from morning till late at night. They serve a paella for two which is enough for at least four: a towering mound of fragrant rice laced liberally with seafood. In the unlikely surrounds of a

Brunswick Heads motel there is the surprise of great Greek food – modern and traditional – at FatbellyKat; further into town the pizzas and salads at Sticky Fingers are heavenly, as heavenly as is the prospect of eating them at an outside table any soft summer night. I am these days most mindful of not falling back into the pointlessness and the arrogance of comparisons – comparisons based on the other places I have lived or merely visited. This is not Europe. This is neither Sydney nor Melbourne. Tyagarah will never be Tuscany and nor, I accept, do I actually want it to be. This is a place which has admitted me into its luxuriant folds, and I will continue to seek to honour it and to be uplifted by it. And mostly most beautifully fed within it.

hen Dutch born Gerard met Sydney girl Jenny, he was a captain and she was virtually running a shipping company in the Great Lakes district of North America. They married and settled in Wilsons Creek almost 22 years ago and their combined wealth of experience and wisdom have benefited our community in more ways than can be imagined. The Verroens became members of the Wilsons Creek Bush Fire Brigade, Jen spent five years as either secretary or treasurer of the Chincogan Fiesta Committee, was treasurer of the Historical Society, and she and Gerard managed the Mullumbimby Market for twelve years.

The Verroens

When a troupe of Russian dancers found themselves stranded after their manager absconded with all their money, the Verroens were on hand with donations of food and supplies and transport to fundraising shows. It was the Russian dancers who erected a purpose built snake

TIME LINE

2002

Drink spiking on the rise at local hostelries. First Light catamaran plans for the Bay attract protesters. Greens take seats in Council by-election.

2003

We run April Fools story on dinosaur being found in the path of the highway upgrade. Becton’s proposal for its Byron Bay Beach Resort site come under fire. Chamber of commerce objects to Council’s paid parking trial.

enclosure on the Verroens property that was used for the training of the area’s best snake handlers. Over the years it has not been unusual to see Gerard with a lump under his jumper as he warmed an orphan possum, a clutch of Pacific Bazas squealing for food on the dining room table, a cardboard box full of crested pigeons ‘wook wooking’ as you walk past the den, or a flying fox chattering at dusk in the aviary. People from miles around would travel to the Verroens to deliver rescued and injured wildlife, and when National Parks abolished solitary licences in the late 80s Jen and Gerard became founding members of the Northern Rivers Wildlife Carers as both animal carers and teachers for new carers. Jenny and Gerard quietly embody the meaning of community spirit. All manner of birds, reptiles and mammals, including humans, owe their happiness and good health to them.

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JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

23

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN OLD DOG John Campbell

During an interview for a TV retrospective of the sculptor Henry Moore, a young BBC cognoscente launched into a breathless commentary on one of the great man’s works. ‘Challenges the dominant paradigm... inverts perceptual metaphors... dislocates didacticism.’ He then pointed his microphone at a bemused Moore, who said, ‘I like how the wriggly bit runs into the flat bit.‘ It’s all you need to know about art, really – unless you’re trying to impress a funding body. My brilliant career as an artist kicked off at Casino. It’s not exactly La Rive Gauche, but it’ll forever have a place in my heart. I’d entered a painting in its Beef Week art competition and, blow me down, it won! I fanged the Commie over there for the al fresco awards ceremony. It was squeezed in between the junior whip-cracking and the Miss Beef Week parade. I still dream about Miss Hereford’s thighs and the kids with the whips were world class, too. Instead of a humungous meat tray as my prize, I was delighted to be handed a cheque for a considerable sum of money – for a painter, that is. But it’s a mercurial existence for the artist and you soon learn that pride does indeed come before a fall. A local environment group asked me to contribute a picture as a prize in a raffle. I’m wary of all organisations, but this one was out to save the yellowfooted antichinus. Given that Portnoy, in kittenish bloodlust, had made it his mission to eradicate the dear little creatures, the request seemed not unreasonable. Hoping to assuage my guilt, I donated a canvas from my unremarked-upon fauve period. A week later I saw it at the market, with a stack of household junk and Barbara Cartland paperbacks, being discarded for $120. I slunk away, sure that everybody

LOCAL HERO Chris Wright

‘Portnoy With Strelitzias’ by John Campbell

was laughing at me behind my back. When I turned, like Lot’s wife, for one last grievous look - everybody was laughing at me behind my back. Finally, all these years later, I can publicly admonish the raffle winners. You CRETINOUS BASTARDS! ‘That’s like, really holding a grudge for a long time, Old Man.’ Cat Carer, no slouch at vendettas herself, is clearly impressed by my bile. ‘It goes with the territory,’ I explain. ‘Along with self-pity and jealousy?’ My regrettable example has convinced her that the term ‘art community’ is an oxymoron. My regard for my fellows is Balkan at best. It’s akin to being in a cricket team when your own rare good score is magnified beyond all its worth by the first ball duck of the

ometimes a hero might not be well known, but it is the quiet way they go about doing things that makes them special. Chris Wright is a Mullumbimby Pancha Tanmantra teacher who lives simply, gives generously and is committed to a life of non-violence and examining emotions. He has a university degree, and has worked ‘on the railways, as a factory worker, driving a forklift, maybe 30 or 40 jobs. Worked in an office once… for a few days, couldn’t stand it,’ Chris says. Full of violence and at the end of a stormy relationship, Chris came to Pancha Tanmantra (a Kung Fu martial art form with Balinese traditions) to ‘let the anger out’. What turned the anger into a passionate commitment to helping others find the freedom to feel? ‘To be free of fear in facing your emotions, that’s such a wonderful feeling,’ Chris says, ‘I came to Pancha for healing, but found a huge connection that is still unfolding after 20 years. I’m a bit of an anarchist, I like direct experience over theory, all responsibility and no rules… but you have to face your mind.’ In an area of fancy yoga retreats, expensive courses

handsome star of the batting order. Because it dare not be confessed, the joy is juicier for its illicitness. Other artists’ successes can be a searing test of character. Sadly, I was never any good at examinations. ‘So imagine how much they must hate you.’ Moi? It was a shocking thought. But yes, my CV was burgeoning. Three times hung in the Blake Prize, twice in the Sulman, the Wynne, Country Energy, Fleurieu - I’d even once got the nod from the bluerinse harridans at Mosman. My name must be mud if only it were known! Being a finalist in the Wynne Prize for landscape painting is another rung up the ladder as far as bragging rights go, just below the grail of the Archibald. I simply had to be there for the giving of the gongs.

and esoteric theories he is down to earth, humble and upfront. ‘When I stuff up, I like my students to tell me!’ Rolling a cigarette, he greets a client, takes a telephone call from a student and quietly dispenses some Chinese medicine advice. He drives an old car, is an on-call healer, masseur, acupuncturist, provides a de-facto counselling service for his low income students, runs lifechanging retreats on a shoe-string and has just become a grandfather. ‘By the time I was 35, I should have been an expert in my body… so why did I have a problem with it? Because this gets in the way,’ Chris says, tapping his head. ‘The combination of mind and emotion, that’s what Pancha’s about.’ Chris Wright is a Mullumbimby man with endless patience for his students. He gives generously to those he comes into contact with, and he does it with genuine humility, with little financial reward. And what is the greatest challenge facing a person who wants to change their life? ‘Letting go of their belief system about themself,’ Chris replies, ‘the head is very, very thick, you know!’

Faerie Queene and Cat Carer were driving to Sydney to buy a new second-hand car, so I got a ride with them. It was foolish but only fair that I ask them to join me at the giant piss-up put on by the Art Gallery of NSW. Everybody was there, including Edmund Capon in a beautiful suit (he speaks lovely) and Byron’s own previous Wynne laureate, John Dahlsen (swine!). It was getting late. I’d cornered the voluptuous Indira Naidoo and was about to suggest that she come back to the Y to see my etchings, when Faerie Queene joined us. Loaded with an ample sufficiency of free champagne, looking tired and emotional, she wailed that Cat Carer had done a line of Colombian marching powder in the Ladies’ and disappeared into darkest Darlinghurst with some tattooed spiky-haired gigolo. Kids these days! Indira fled. The night descended into a shambles. Don’t ask me who got the Oscar. Someone entirely undeserving, I’m sure. Six months as an Artist in Residence in Connecticut, where you can’t buy a drink on Sunday, at last liberated me from the ball and chain attitude that says a painter is a cop-out if he wants to turn a buck. The romance that artists are totally consumed by their work, the grog and louche parties and therefore dismissive of commerce has, more than any other factor, entrenched them in the ranks of the colourfully poor. In reality, we hunt red dots like raptors. Only the government’s striving to create a New Serfdom of Australian workers will reprieve us from total alienation. I liked it in the US, something for which Cat Carer has not yet forgiven me. But I missed going to the shop in bare feet, tank water and dirt roads, kamikaze brush-turkeys and carpet-snakes in the roof, the fruitloop healers in the Echo classifieds. I missed Portnoy too, and, though the shire needs more artists like it needs more estate agents, I was glad to come home. Now Cat Carer, otherwise unemployable, has decided to join our ranks. ‘It’s tough out there,’ I warn her. ’You’ll be living from hand to mouth, so ...’ ‘I’d better be ambidextrous?’ She knows all my lines. She can’t draw, so she does installations and I am pleased to say that they challenge the dominant paradigm.

TIME LINE Jan Barham becomes the first Greens mayor in Australia in a hotly contested run against perennial independent Ross Tucker. More talk of new hospital for Byron Shire – yadayadayada. Labor’s Justine Elliot wins the federal seat of Richmond from Nats incumbent Larry Anthony.

The year starts with reflections on the Asian tsunami tragedy in which local woman Moi Vogel dies. A new sculpture festival is staged at Cape Byron and opened by Andrew Denton. Echo stalwart and founder of the Snowy River Echo, Carol Page, dies in her sleep.

2004

2005

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Come in and see wonderful and exciting arrivals for winter at Anna Middleton

Serving local musicians for twenty one years!

OUR WINTER CATALOGUE SALE IS ON NOW We have fantastic specials storewide till the end of June If you’re looking for a bargain now is the time!

Corner Byron Street & Fletcher Street, Byron Bay Phone/fax (02) 6685 4980

South end Woolworths Plaza, Jonson St, Byron Bay 6685 7333

sales@annamiddleton.com.au www.annamiddleton.com

Part of the Echo for 20 years

Part of the local community for 102 Mallams 5 Star Supermarket has fed the Echo drudges, Mallams Variety Store has provided interesting necessities, while Coast Country Liquor Mullumbimby and Brunswick Heads have sold them the liquid refreshments vital to churning out The Echo for 20 years. So blame us.

But we are proud of our record of community service and of employing so many local people including giving hundreds of young people their first work opportunity. Our family tradition in this area stretches back 102 years and we couldn’t have done it without the support of our customers, so THANK YOU... and keep reading our super specials in The Echo each week.

Mallams ads used to feature an Alan Lloyd cartoon. This one, from 1990 is still topical.

Mallams 5 Star Supermarket 6684 2255 Mallams Variety 6684 3442 Mullumbimby Cellars 6684 1488 Brunswick Heads Cellars 6685 1818

JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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PUSHING THE ENVELOPE ALL THE WAY TO THE STARS Lilith Rochas Resident astrologer since 1989

The Brunswick Byron Echo was born twenty years ago on June 11, 1986, to proud parents Nick Shand (Cancer) and David Lovejoy (Aries) of Mullumbimby – its astrogenetic inheritance immediately obvious from its cheeky Cancerian charm and insouciant Aries attitude. A healthy Gemini, baby Echo made its way into the world on the Day of Limit Pushers, sharing its birthdate with underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, comedian Gene Wilder and seventeenth century British poet Ben Jonson, whose notable quote: I do hold it… to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth rendered to the use of man would later be shared whole heartedly by four year old Echo in its 1990 issue dedicated to the herb superb.    June 11 babies are impelled to push the envelope – of society, other people and their own capabilities. Trailblazers who keep going till they break through whatever threshold they’re up against, they’re bop till they drop, compete with abandon types favouring a blaze of glory style. Independent operators who couldn’t knuckle under to the regulations and constraints of conventional organisations, June 11 beings are blessed with tremendous personal panache and dedicated to fun and enjoyment. Though arrogance and intellectual conceit can detract from their more adorable qualities, they remain unfazed either by critics or setbacks. The Echo’s Sun in Gemini and Mercury in the 10th house are the classic aspects for journalists, newspaper people and facility in communicating ideas to the world via the written word. Planetary standouts in The Echo’s chart are Sun, Venus, Jupiter and Uranus – painting the overall portrait of a confident, success-

LOCAL HERO Ben King

ful, original and uninhibited shaker-up of the status quo. While the Sun conjunct Midheaven gives plenty of self assurance, The Echo’s boss planet is Jupiter in the 7th house with its many aspects showing a big picture personality able to communicate persuasively with others and attract beneficial partnerships that bring significant material wealth along with them – the not-too-shabby dowry aspect.  Jupiter in Pisces adds a more soulful flavour – the good Samaritan giving helpful hints, advice and links on the back page. Jupiter conjunct the descendent is versatile, adaptive and always attracting new people and opportunities. Jupiter/Mars sextile is the daring, adventurous swashbuckler, while Jupiter trine Moon brings good

fortune through generous, devoted women. On the seedier side, Jupiter square the Sun suggests ego and exaggeration – square Uranus it signifies conflict with authority and clashes with the establishment. Outspoken from the get go, naughty four year old Echo defamed an NRTV news reader in its TV column, resulting in a long and costly lawsuit. The Echo’s Venus/Jupiter/Moon connections underline its flirtatious nature, while Venus conjunct Mars gives a distinctly passionate flavour and indulgent undercurrent to everything from office politics to readers’ letters. Conjunct the south node it makes a particularly interesting pattern believed to breed magicians. Uranus in the 3rd house of journalism’s responsible for original thinking and quirky, avant garde humour –

Generosity overflowed from the community to accommodate this open house including donations of food and a coolroom to store it. A florist directed a wreath making session, using flowers from the 50 bunches already sent to the family home, for the church, and hundreds of bags were filled with petals for the paddle out.

wit rather than slapstick. While Pluto trine Mercury gives the capacity for penetrating commentary, the karmic planet of fate square the Moon warns that maintaining an Echo boy’s club will always bring difficulties and disruptions without the balance of female energy. Cancer 11th house influences show up in its Cancerian parental input, twenty year Cancerian editorship and the Echo family’s ongoing employment of their offspring. As the Sun trined Mercury in its 1st house of selfexpression and Venus in its 2nd house of home improvements in 1994, the 8 year old Echo leapt into color print exclaiming: Look at bigger, brighter, fabulous tabloid size me! 1996 saw the ten year old Echo move house, get a website and tragically lose its founding editor Nicholas Shand when every planet significantly aspected the Echo’s Chiron in Gemini, a classic astrological picture of the wounded writer. In May 2002, with Venus conjunct the Sun in the teenage Echo’s seventh house of love relationships offering opportunities to increase, expand and improve, outrageous comedienne, writer and ubiquitous goddess Mandy Nolan injected a mega dose of female superpower into the Echo crue – a happy collaboration in print heaven with Uranus trine the Part of Fortune, both sexes liking each other and Mandy and the Echo blokes seeing eye to eye.   With the Sun in its 8th house of partnerships and mergers and the Moon in its 7th house of unions, 2004 saw Eric Beecher – youngest ever editor of the Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald – and Di Gribble and Chong Weng Ho, co-owners of Australia’s leading non-aligned news source crikey.com buy a 20% share in the eighteen year old Echo. Leaving brattish teenagerhood this year, the maturing Echo approaches adult status with transiting Saturn hinting at more well endowed partnerships plus an injection of young blood – and Uranus orchestrating some ingenious resolutions of ongoing problems. Clashes of ideologies continue to spark flashes of brilliance, and creative rebellion remains the glue that binds all the moving parts together. To be continued…

surfers. There was an unforgettable moment when the three-deep guard of honour started thumping their boards as the family made their way into the surf. Later that day around 1500 people spilled out of St Finbarr’s Catholic Church to attend the service. The wake was held at the Red Devils’ football ground after other venues were deemed too small to In the days following BK’s death en King, newsagents sold out of papers, shops accommodate such a large crowd. president of sold out of sympathy cards and florists Lisa Hunt, a favourite singer of Ben the Byron ran out of flowers. The phone rang off and Jenny’s, performed free of charge, and the celebration of Ben’s life Bay Boardriders Club and known as the hook from callers worldwide. carried over till the next day. the godfather of surfing in Byron Bay, The King’s many teenage friends dealt was not only a legend as a surfer but with their grief in various ways also a legend as a man, a father, a including having an assortment of husband, and a friend. custom designed BK t-shirts printed. Myspace.com became a forum to When it became apparent that Ben did not survive a massive heart attack voice feelings and post messages and photos, some even changed their user on a Yamba beach on March 12 this year, his extensive network of friends name to something relative to BK. The graffiti at The Pass mysteriously and family instantly kicked in to changed from Locals Only to BK support the family – wife Jenny, and Rules Only Love! children, Kurt, Maddison and Paris – and to be, in return, supported The long running Ocean and Earth themselves. Byron Bay Easter Classic surf competition was immediately renamed For the ten days leading up to the the Ben King Memorial Classic and funeral the King home became support central. There were at least 50 the planning of an auction to benefit the family swung into action. people at any given time which created an event in itself…

The paddle out attracted over 600

Comments and stories about Ben and why he was so special centred around his generosity, his enthusiasm, the way he treated everyone the same whether he had known them for 30 seconds or 30 years and the fact that no matter how happy you were to see Ben he was always ten times happier to see you. The auction went ahead and was a huge success raising over $80,000 for the King family. Special thanks to Bruce Ericson and Mandy Colby for their input into this story.

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1/35 Banksia Drive Byron Industrial Estate 6685 6722

Tranquil 8 Acres on Creek

B & B – Holiday Letting

With spacious living areas, cathedral ceilings, superb open plan kitchen and entertaining alternatives, this solid 3 bedroom brick home, featuring an ozone inground pool, double carport, wonderful 3 room with kitchen attached studio and small macca crop for interest. Only 17 min to the beach, 15 mins both to Bangalow and Alstonville, “Tarra Ridge” is hidden on 8 north facing acres, with gorgeous meandering creek and elevated valley views is a haven of tranquillity. Great value at $695,000 565 Houghlahan Creek Rd, Pearces Creek

With cashflow opportunity, only 2 minutes easy walk to the beach and shops, this purpose built, architecturally designed beach style bungalow at Suffolk Park is in excellent condition and makes the most of modern living. Approved as a bed and breakfast, this 5 large bedroom home has 2 ensuites plus an additional main bathroom and has been designed for maximum light and privacy. With the elevation of 2 stories, the home catches the soft coastal breezes. You’ll love the stainless steel kitchen, dining and living area opening out to an expansive elevated deck. A 3 vehicle carport and delightful garden and pool, make this just 10 year old home very desirable. Priced to sell at $958,000. Please call for an inspection. 39 Armstrong Street, Suffolk Park.

5 Acres on Lake

Superb Federation on ¼ Acre

Nestled in the hinterland of Byron/Lennox Head this special 5 acre parcel of land bordering Emigrant Lake offers seclusion and privacy but is close to everywhere. Only 12 mins to Lennox Head and 15 mins to Ballina, this home boasts 4 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, flowing living, dining and lounge areas together with a superb north facing entertaining deck overlooking a great, open level playing area with the lake as a backdrop. A substantial double garage and work space, completely separate 3 room elevated studio giving delightful lake and rural views with a well planned garden. Nicely treed, and easy care grounds, makes this master built sandstock brick home very desirable. Price: $998,000 Please call for an inspection. 420 Friday Hut Road, Brooklet

This delightful federation home is nestled onto a bigger than normal block of 1055m2 with well established, easy care gardens, nice tree frontage and privacy not normally offered. The 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom 100 year old homestead has polished timber floors, traditional fireplace, spacious rooms, french doors and high ceilings making this delightful home very appealing. You’ll love the north facing, very private verandah. A carport, single garage together with a nicely appointed self-contained studio. Correctly priced at $758,000. 15 Rifle Range Road, Bangalow

sales@scottharveyrealestate.com.au • www.scottharveyrealestate.com.au

JUNE 6, 2006

BYRON SHIRE ECHO 20TH BIRTHDAY

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THE ECHO: IT’S FEAR

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9 # 3 1

Geoff Williams

An Echo starts as a thought late on a Monday afternoon when a draft decision is made about the size of the following week’s issue. The critical number here is 56 as that is the number of pages our printer can produce in one print run. It is uneconomic to produce a 60 page paper as the incremental increase in printing cost for those 4 extra pages is quite large (the next best size is 64 pages). The number of pages is therefore directly related to advertising revenue, an unfortunate commercial consideration that weighs heavily upon both the editorial staff who would like less ads, and the sales staff who totally agree with them. Next the number of real estate pages, classified pages, service directory, sport pages and the back page are added up and if it is a number like 22 then it will be a 56 page paper because 22 plus 6 pages of Seven makes 28 which is half (the back half actually) of 56. So you see we are not only literate, but also numerate. That leaves us with 22 pages up the front half plus the 6 early pages of Seven. Mandy fills Seven better than she fills her blouse so that’s not a problem. The problem is that the TV Guide takes away 2 pages leaving only 20 pages to fit in all the news, letters, articles and a feature page or two. We need a bigger blouse. But remember we have to make a lot more money to go up 8 pages to 64 pages and that’s scary. In fact it is about now that the fear becomes the main motivator anyway. The editor is in fear as to how he will fill in 20 pages because his deputy is off drinking Theakston’s Old Peculiar Ale in Yorkshire. The advertising manager is in fear how he will get enough ads when his staff have wandered off muttering ‘Just off to see mumble mumble..’ And as the week progresses, the production manager is in fear that all the copy for the ads will come in an hour before press time because advertisers genuinely believe we can print a Tuesday paper on a Wednesday instead of Monday, and the sales staff are reluctant to point this anomaly out to them. For accounts staff Tuesday is the day they fear coming to work at all. There are hundreds of accounts to prepare, check and mail out. And as everyone hates getting bills, the people who send them fear being widely despised so they turn inwards seeking solace in odd and furtive activities. At this stage the sales staff mock them with glee, taunting them with barbs like “we make the money and you only count it”. The editorial staff remain haughtily above this common banter while the reception staff are going mad

explaining to people that due to the fact that they are 24 hours late, no they can’t have an ad in this week’s issue. Almost all of the callers plead for special dispensation, but alas without any success to date. Wednesdays are pay days so motivation levels tend to drop off a bit after the skinny pay chick has delivered the even skinnier envelopes. But also on Wednesdays fear begins to grow as the realisation that some actual advertisements need to be gotten and some actual news needs to be garnered. But from where? Fortunately, people come in asking for ads and we don’t call these ‘sales’ we call them ‘ones that came in and bite you on the bum’. News stories that are submitted on the other hand are called ‘all my own work and pass the Salitage please Sanders’. Thursdays sees the artists (they are called compositors anywhere else but comps don’t wear such odd clothes) wander in, shuffle some paper, spend a lazy three hours selecting a font or just the right shade of apricot. They will pay for this sloth on Saturday though when fear sets in and they have to work furiously to catch up on the mountain of work that instantaneously and miraculously appeared at 5pm on Friday. Unfortunately at about the same time as the wine appeared. Being creative types, their fear at this stage was not getting the work done but finding a glass. Also on Friday the sales staff know what spaces remain available for advertising. The main fear for those in Mullum is if they can find the time for the $4.90 counter lunch; for those in Byron, if they have got $16.70 for a sandwich. The editor by now has realised he has no letters, no stories, no articles and no hope. Fortunately, the wine arrives. Echo dog Arnie discovers the editor’s in-tray thereby saving the day yet again. Monday is mayhem day with the phones ringing so hot we fear burning our fingers. In fear we let them ring. Despite printing details about our deadlines each week, our readers obviously cannot read. The proof reders (let’s see if they are on the ball - Ed) are busy trying to find all 1023 mistakes and woe betide if they only find 1022 of them. (Looks like it’s woe betide Ed). And the production artists have finally settled on the apricot and are hard at it. Tuesday and we wait for the paper to be delivered back from our printers at Ormiston in Brisbane. We fear that it will be (a) full of errors or, worse still (b) late. Our distribution team swings into action, inserting the catalogues, sending bundles to all points where the most important people of all do the last bit and deliver it to your home. Without them, all we do would be nought, and we live in fear that their bikes will break down. So there you have it. Eight days fearful work each week to get this paper out. Hang on… something’s wrong here! David! DAVID!!! Anyone seen Lovejoy?

Faith, Hope and Charity drop in on Byron POST NEO-CONSER VATIVE SYNAESTHE TIC

HOLIDAY EDITION

Thank you to all our lovely advertisers who have supported this 20th Birthday Feature. We trust that our lovely readers will support you too. Alchemia .....................................................10 Anna Middleton............................................24 Bim Bam.......................................................12 Bridglands..................................................... 4 Brunswick Valley Health Centre..........................10 Byron Art Supplies........................................12 Byron Bay First National Real Estate............... 2 Byron Music.................................................24 Byron West Doctors......................................22 Choux Choux.................................................22 Colin Heaney Hot Glass.................................. 8 Freckled Lounge............................................20 Fresca..........................................................12 Hair Free.......................................................18 La Dolce Vita.................................................18 Lotions and Potions.......................................10 Mallams.......................................................24 Michaela’s Hair & Beauty..............................28 Middle Pub...................................................20 Mullum Chiropractic.....................................10

Mullum Health & Beauty...............................10 Mullum Herbal..............................................10 Mullum Hire..................................................16 Nature’s Child................................................ 8 Ocean Shores Glass & Screens...................... 8 Ocean Shores Surf Shop................................16 Orient Express............................................... 6 O Sushi.........................................................18 Red Ginger....................................................22 Red Rose Realty............................................. 4 Rhonda Browning Real Estate......................... 4 Santos Trading..............................................20 Scott Harvey Real Estate................................26 Shikara Design.............................................20 Spirit Personal Training.................................26 Sticks & Stones.............................................16 Supa IGA....................................................... 4 Sushi Wave...................................................22 Tempur.........................................................16 Zentai Futons................................................26

THE BYRON SHIRE ECHO

COLOSSAL

CLASSIFIED ADS: 02 6684 1777 NEWS & DISPLAY ADS: Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax: 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au http://www.echo.net.au VOLUME 16 #30 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 Holiday edition circulation: 18,500 plus 1500 extra copies of Kicks

gig guide • cinema • new years eve program • arts • blues fest info • lots more

L O C A L L Y

O W N E D

&

I N D E P E N D E N T

< page 31-58 > CMYK

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

Ironic Holiday Edition

music@byron.au

BYRON SHIRE ECHO Volume 18 No. 31 DECEMBER 23, 2003

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAIR & BEAUTY 6685 1330 We are proud to be celebrating our first year and are honoured to be sharing our celebration with The Echo for their 20th. Our business has continued to grow thanks to all our Michaela

Jules

satisfied customers helping to spread the word. We’d like

Owner / Beauty Therapist / Makeup Artist

Manager / Beauty Therapist

to thank them for their loyalty and invite new customers to drop in to Michaela’s to discuss their hair and beauty requirements. Our modern yet elegant salon has a happy buzzy vibe as our six professionals go about attending to our clients’ needs. It is a great convenience to have all your hair, nail, beauty and relaxation treatments

Georgia Nail Technician / Makeup Artist / Hair Stylist

administered on the same premises. You will leave feeling

Helen Award Winning Hair Stylist & Colourist

totally pampered from head to toe. So if you’re thinking of coming in to visit us why don’t you take advantage of our June birthday specials. We look forward to seeing you and helping us make our next Anna

year even better.

Tom Therapeutic, Remedial & Hot Stone Massage

Senior Hair Stylist & Colourist

MICHAELA’S BIRTHDAY SPECIALS • Pelactiv AHA Peel ....................................$45 • 1 hour Rejuvenating Facial .....................$45 Includes hand, foot & scalp massage plus FREE lash tint • 1 ¼ hour Aromatherapy or Prenatal Massage ...................................................$45 Includes FREE peppermint foot soak & scrub • 1 ½ hour Deluxe Pedicure.......................$55 Includes blading, foot mask, paraffin wax, varnish

• 1 ½ hour Moisture Infused Body Treatment .................................................$80 Includes full body scrub, full body massage with enriching body butter, ½ hour facial • Full set Acrylic or Gel Nails .................... $45 • Brazilian & Brow Wax ............................$35 FREE HAIR TREATMENT OR BROW WAX WITH ALL CUT & COLOUR SERVICES

2 2 F I N G A L S T R E E T, B R U N S W I C K H E A D S