Dear Friends The Newsletter of the Friends of the Strathalbyn Community Library

Number 3 February 2006

CONTENTS

Cover Story

GLORIOUS THINGS AT THE GASWORKS String Quartet Page 2

COUNTRY LIVING Magazines

OLD AND NEW GARDENS Trevor Nottle

THE BOOK OF KELLS Trinity College Page 3

A PASSION FOR THEATRE Lyn Kearvell

COMMITTEE MATTERS Page 4

PRESIDENT’S REPORT Judy Ingram Editor: Frank Caspers

T HE WEEKEND OF September 3-4, 2005 was a very busy one in

Strathalbyn with celebrations at the Museum, a Miniature Railway display at the Showgrounds, everyone’s private parties for Fathers’ day, and—our annual Spring Concert at the Gasworks, this year given by a string quartet composed of members of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. We had been concerned about filling the usual 80 seats for this occasion, but before long the queue for admission began to grow, and thick and fast they came at last, until we had an audience of 110. They crowded in on chairs, stairs, even the floor, all enthusiastically anticipating an enjoyable programme. The players were Minas Berberyan, 1st violin; Erna Berberyan, 2nd violin; Michael Robertson, viola; and Cameron Waters, cello. They began with Haydn’s Emperor Quartet, whose second movement is a set of variations on the melody “Austria”, known to many as the tune of the hymn, “Glorious things of thee are spoken”. Someone behind

me could not help singing along with it! Gently, though. After that came Johann Strauss’s Perpetuum Mobile which can go on for ever, but Minas stopped it by standing up to address the audience. Further items were various dances, such as a waltz from Vienna, a Latin-American Tango, and some Czardas in which Minas excelled at impersonating a Hungarian gypsy violinist in some very demanding and excit-ing music. As is our custom after the Spring Concert, refreshments were served in the Gasworks beautifully kept gardens. Fortunately, the ladies who cater for the event are always most generous in the quantity of food supplied, so we were able to accommodate the unusually large crowd. Truly glorious things were heard that Sunday in Bill and Heather Merrill’s beautiful home, and we hope that the

‘Glorious things’ at the Gasworks

GILLIAN MIDDENWAY

A newsletter brings you news, so if the editor in-cludes an article he must, by definition, consider it news. In Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”, a character asks, “What’s the new news at the new court?” The reply, ”There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news”, which he then proceeds to recount. In Dear Friends all news is new, including news as old as five months. This musical event is news which happened after the last edition came out in August, 2005.

The welcoming entrance to the ‘Gasworks’.

COUNTRY LIVING WHEN I WAS IN the library recently I noticed that the place where the magazine Country Living should have rested held a notice advising the public that the magazine was now kept behind the counter. My first thought was what salacious content could there possibly be in such a respectable sounding name that it had to be kept out of sight. Was it in a brown paper bag? Does one ask for it in a whisper? What do we get up to in the country that needs to be on the restricted list? When I voiced my thoughts to the staff I was told that most copies of the magazine in question had been systematically stolen. It was a puzzle to me, and to the staff. One might imagine that a magazine appealing to the youth in our community might be ‘lifted’ by someone young whose sense of morality and good conduct had not yet been fully developed, but that a magazine mostly appealing to, say, respectable middle aged ladies in our midst should ‘walk’ is, you must agree, surprising. The cost of a security system is prohibitive, so we depend on the honesty of our users. Sorry to re-port that a large number of books and magazines are stolen regularly. On a happier note I had time to browse through the books on the trolley and found, among other treasures a first edition of Ian Idriess’s The Desert Column, and V Sackville West’s The Land with a bookmark on which was printed, ‘Practise random acts of kindness and

This piece of book publicity introduces us to Trevor Nottle and his talk, Old and New Gardens, in which we will learn from his wide knowledge of historic gardens, as well as hearing advice on growing our own successful gardens here in contemporary conditions—gardens that can be beautiful

The following quotation is from the back cover of the book “Gardens of the Sun”, by Trevor Not-tle, our next guest speaker at the Strathalbyn Library.

THURSDAY MARCH 9TH

“Old and New Gardens” GILLIAN MIDENWAY

T REVOR NOTTLE has made three gardens of his own in the

Mediterranean climate of Adelaide in South Australia over the last twenty years: an inner city town house garden, a cliff-top seaside garden, and a hilltop suburban garden...His knowledge of plants suited to the regime of cool wet winters and hot dry summers has enhanced the planting of his own gardens and over seventy others. His interest in garden history has added to his store of information the treasure trove of beautiful and drought-hardy plants grown by colonists and settlers in the days before reservoirs and town water supplies were constructed. Travel to California and to the gardens of England and Europe has allowed him opportunities to further develop more ideas and understanding of gardening in warm dry climates and in difficult situations.”

A view of the Merrill’s garden on South Terrace, Strathalbyn, by kind permission.

Come and hear Trevor Nottle at 7.30pm on Thursday 9th March, at the Library, and enjoy supper afterwards while talking gardens with friends.

THE BOOK OF KELLS

L ATE LAST YEAR I spent some time overseas, including my first visit to

Ireland. I have owned for many years the Thames and Hudson publication of The Book of Kells, and while in Dublin I made a visit to see the original in Trinity College. It was in November so I was not subjected to a long queue, and I could spend as long a time as I wished. The original is much darker than the facsimile. The parchment was prematurely darkened from the time it was buried in the earth, without its jewelled protective cover which had been ripped off and stolen. I had always known that there is no gold leaf used in the illumination, but a special yellow, orpiment, a bright opaque paint was used in place of gold. The facsimile does not do justice to the glow that comes from the polished surface of the orpiment. To see this alone justified my visit. FRANK CASPERS

Jesus is arrested on Mount Olivet (Detail)

An illustration from the Book of Kells, an 8th century book of the four Gospels. This image is from the Gospel of Mat-

L YN KEARVELL was born Lyn Muller in Adelaide at the Queen Victoria

Hospital, where all of her mother’s nine children were born. She has eleven brothers and sisters in all, including three from her father’s previous marriage. Lyn spent most of her early years at Plympton Park in Adelaide, attending Forbes Primary School and then Marion High. She worked in the Commonwealth Bank from 1960 to 1968, rising to the position of Ledger Supervisor at the Commonwealth Savings Bank, a high position for a woman back in the 60s. Like a great number of young people at that time, Lyn left Australia to spend two years overseas on a working holiday. On her return she worked for a few years in the Adelaide City Council Parking Fines Office. At the age of 27 she married her husband, Les Kearvell, and they had two children together, Les already having two children from a previous marriage. Following the activities of their children, Lyn and Les were very active at committee level in community life with play groups, kindergarten, and junior primary school. The family moved to Strathalbyn in 1984 and both Lyn and Les became even more active in local community affairs. Les served on the High School Council as well as the Tennis Committee and as the team manager, the Soccer Committees, both Strathalbyn and Association, and again as team manager. He died twelve years ago. Lyn served the Little Athletics as treasurer, recorder and president, the Strathalbyn and District Concert Band as treasurer, the Netball Club as canteen co-ordinator for some seven years, as well as a stint as president. Lyn was also president of the Parents and Friends of the High

COMMITTEE MATTERS CHRISTMAS RAFFLE

Drawn on the 21st of December, and won by Chris Watters, with ticket number W24. MEMBERSHIP FEE

The fee structure to remain at $5 per single and $8 per family. SPENDING

During the last year approximately $1,000 has been spent on large print books; $718 for talking books on CD; $480 for display panels; $2,075 for new shelving for the magazines. SOURCE OF INCOME

The large amounts raised which allow us to help the library so generously come from, in this order: � Book Sales � Laminating � Raffles � Guest Speakers KITS STILL AVAIL-ABLE

Have you thought about checking the energy use in your home? We still have the ‘Energy SA Self Audit Kit’ avail-able to registered borrow-ers as a Do-It-Yourself test for your household energy use. Enquire at the Library. AUDIO BOOKS ON CD Have you checked out the latest audio books on CD?

School for the seven years her children were at the school. Now we come to the present, and to Lyn’s time on the committee of the Friends of the Strathalbyn Community Library. This has been for at least ten years with four of those years as president. [Those figures could be eleven and five, but you get the picture.]

Lyn’s other main committee involvement at present is in Adelaide , since 1997, with the Penguin Club of Australia. For those not familiar with Penguins it is a public speaking club, similar to Rostrum. Lyn is an accredited critic. Lyn, unsurprisingly, enjoys reading, especially science fiction and fantasy, with an emphasis on fantasy. She has a passion for live theatre, both drama and musicals, and enjoys the cinema. She also enjoys the visual arts. Lyn will be very busy in the next few weeks attending as many shows as she can fit in at the Adelaide Festival of Arts and The Fringe Festival. She already has 24 events marked on her calendar. FC

PROFILE

A Passion for Theatre Committee Member LYN KEARVELL

COMMITTEE Members: J Ingram (President), R Ingram, C Griffin (Librarian), J Way, L Davall, G Middenway, L Silverman (Secretary), L Hansen (Council Librarian), B Keen, P McCauley, M Lucas, L Kearvell, H Watson, M Bartlett (Treasurer), J Lewis, L Jones.

As you can see, the committee was re-elected unchanged from last year.

Congratulations, and a big thank you to the committee from all the members for a job well done.

Do you have a contribution?

A Letter to the Editor?

A book review?

A request for a speaker?

A comment on guests?

A criticism of Dear Friends?

Do you want to sack the Editor?

T HIS YEAR the Friends of the Library have been active in many areas. We

have raised funds through raffles for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas. These raffles have been supported by the continuing sales of discarded books on the trolley, and through the regular work of one of our members on the laminating machine. Some of the purchases that have been made during the year include the kitchen shelving, large print books, talking books on CD, a new urn, the banner for the Spring concert, panels, new shelving for the magazines, and the home energy self audit kit (which is available to borrowers.) We have also received the copyette machine for the Argus newsreaders. This was made possible by a generous grant from the Government. Further funds have been raised through the continuing program of speakers and events, for which we thank the organizing committee. Highlights for the year include the night that Brian Simpson spoke about his delightful book on old Strathalbyn, mainly composed of historic excerpts from the Argus. We had an evening with Jane Jolly, as she launched her new children’s book “Glass Tears”. We heard details about the actual writing of that story and its background, and the contribution of the illustrator. In June, Helen Nutt entertained us with stories about the antique and collectors’ world. She also identified various items that were brought in by the audience, some of which were real little treasures.

Hilary Cooper joined us one evening and talked about the little treasures that we could place in shoeboxes for the needy children of Cambodia. “Operation Christmas Child” has spread far and wide since its inception, with thousands of boxes being gathered regularly for distribution. In September, the Berberyan String Quartet came to the Gasworks, and to our delight we had an overflow of people who wanted to enjoy that concert. It was a delightful program, played with spirit, and enjoyed by more than 100 in the audience. Our thanks go to the Merrill’s for their continuing support. In October, we held a ‘thank you to the volunteers’ morning tea on the occasion of the Library’s twentieth birthday. Entertainment was provided by three young musicians on flute, saxophone and violin, followed by a selection of songs sung by the Alexandrina Singers, conducted by Leon Lambert. As always, the Friends is only as productive as its members. We must thank Patricia Macauley for her efforts in co-ordinating the talking newspaper; our readers, deliverers and collectors; the laminators; shelvers; book coverers; phone people; ticket sellers and so on. We also need to acknowledge the wonderful work that Frank Caspers has done with the Newsletter. Here’s to 2006. May the Friends of the Library continue to support our Community and its Library through their constant efforts. November 20, 2005

AGM

President’s Report 2005 JUDY INGRAM

A talk on garden history and contemporary advice concerning our gardens in our environment

given by

Trevor Nottle

“Old and New Gardens”

Thursday 9th March 7.30pm

Supper will be served