The casualty of moral outrage

This blog is going to have very little to do with that title, I just liked it as a title. And from that last sentence you would never guess that I spent yesterday at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. There I met up with some old friends, Gordon and Rosemary. Gordon and Rosemary are actually the parents of my best friend from childhood Tamworth days, Pam. I first knew of Pam from our church, where I thought she was a little odd, with her strange clothes and her hair worn very long and straight and pulled completely off her unusual face with a wide black band (those were the 80’s days of big, fluffy hair). Her family had not-long returned from New Guinea, where they were missionaries and her Dad flew small planes on hazardous flights for the Missionary Aviation Fellowship. The first time we visited their house they were still sleeping on the floor (having not yet acquired beds) and there were washed plastic bags hanging on the line (having not yet discovered that plastic bags actually breed in people's kitchens back here).

On my first day at Tamworth High School I found myself in the same class as the girl with the wide head band, the one familiar unusual face in a sea of strangers, and we’ve been fast friends ever since. Later on in High School we’d both stay back after school for the extra classes in 3 Unit English. Reading and writing was just our thing. And Pam got it from her Mum. Rosemary has more literary books, and more interest in literature, than anyone I know.

The Writer’s Festival was most enjoyable. It was just a plain lovely day to be down there on the piers by the harbour, and Gleebooks had a book shop set up to delight any book lover and there were all sorts of interesting things to choose to hear. I was puzzled that the vast majority of people attending were of somewhere around middle-age, perhaps those who’ve now realised the value of reading and reflecting, or actually have more time to do either. We started at a session called "Funnies for Kids", which featured Richard Glover from the ABC and an English children’s writer, Philip Ardagh. It was advertised as a discussion of making reading a joy for children, but that was really just the subtext to a comedy act of them both describing how they came to write books for children and what they wrote about. I shook in my seat or laughed out loud for the entire hour and thought the whole thing was worth it just for the amusement factor. Richard Glover has written a book about two boys, one who has a Dad who tells the worst Dad jokes (and there were hilarious examples of those, even though the definition of a Dad joke is apparently that it is not funny in the first place - and has endless opportunities for repetition) and the other who has a Dad who always mishears song lyrics, and sings regardless (and there were hilarious examples of those too). What Philip Ardagh’s books are about I still don’t really know but he is one very amusing Englishman.

The next session we attended was called "The Narrative Drive and Nonfictional Storytelling", presented by the historian Antony Beevor. This was a lot more academic but quite superb, even to one who has never read his books and is no historian. I now feel quite compelled to go and read Stalingrad, Berlin and anything else he wrote. He spoke fast and well throughout a presentation he has given to writers for the BBC in England and let fly with many great pearls of wisdom, one of which was "intellectual honesty is the first casualty of moral outrage", as a warning to those who over-interpret and don’t let history speak for itself. I was suitably impressed. He invents nothing, yet makes history come alive as story.

Then we had a coffee at Simmer on the Bay just enjoying the sunshine and the water and discussing, and that was most of my Saturday. Last night three girls from church came over for takeaway and we watched "The Holiday". That’s a nice piece of light romantic comedy that toned down my day. And we had roast apples and dark chocolate tim tams for the perfect ending.