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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia 

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Monday, May 17th, 2010

Time Event8:50a Rottnest - Isle of Youth

Rottnest - Isle of Youth is the title of a small 63 page book I rescuedfrom a State Library Service discard sale in about 1993. I rediscoveredit a couple of weeks ago when I was rummaging through my stuff trying to put all my Rottnest related books onto one shelf.

 McM ahon, J.T. (1974). Rot tnest - Isle of youth. Hawthorn Press.

 Melbourne.

The title relates only to the first chapter, which is nine pages of eloquent praise of the island. The rest of the book contains a collectionof short essays about other places and people the author encounteredduring his travels.

I thought I should learn something of the man who wrote this glowingtribute. I initially found an epitaph for John T. McMahon: “He was afailure as a husband and father. He was insane 15 years because of 

liquor, but died sober. May Christ have mercy on his soul. He was nota pilgrim.” Trouble was it was the wrong man, an American inPlymouth USA. The one I wanted was a Irish Catholic priest who wasborn in 1893 and came to Australia in his thirties.

I didn’t discover when the McMahon I was seeking had died, but justin case he didn’t, he’d be 117 by now. However, I gleaned a few bitsand pieces about him from several places on the web. He’d emigratedto Western Australian from Ireland in 1921and become the parishpriest for South Perth. He founded the Newman Society at theUniversity of Western Australia in 1924. Between 1926 and 1928 hestudied for a PhD at the Catholic University of America. Afterreturning to Perth he became the Director of Catholic Education inWestern Australia. He was also influential in the development Catholic

welfare services in Australia.

Here’s a few excerpts from his Rottnest praises:

A Celtic tradition holds that there is an island in the sea where the span

of a man’s life is extended. The Irish call this ‘Tir-na-nog’, the land of 

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youth. Recently, as I visited Rottnest I wondered whether this fabled

island had not been lifted out of its cold green waters in the Atlantic

Ocean and born hither by the ‘wee folk’, indignant of Walt Disney’s visit

to Ireland to recruit them for Hollywood.

Within twenty-four hours one gets that island feeling, so difficult to label

or describe to anyone who has not stayed at Rottnest… Perhaps the

quality of the water in the Basin contributes much to this feeling of 

youthful zest. I challenge the world to produce a better swimming placethan the Basin… Here comes youth, sun kissed, radiantly healthy, and

golden as apricots...

You have not seen Rottnest unless you go to the West End… those

swirling waters creaming over the reefs, shooting up through the Blow

Hole, and mixing colours of foamy whites and rich greens in a seethingwhirlpool…

I recall an evening I spent looking down into Parakeet Bay as the waters

rumbled through the sponge-like rocks which guard this delightful

spot...The sun had set… and the waters of the bay slowly changed from a

golden sheen to sombre purple… leaving the flash of the lighthouse theonly rival to the heavens until another dawn...

At any hour of the day Thompson’s Bay delights one with its blend of 

colours… The sea horses on the outer reefs are racing swiftly with their

manes of spray flowing backwards. What an opportunity is here for surf 

riding! In regular formation the waves race all day…

A holiday in Rottnest can be what you wish, either a recurring round of 

visits and parties, with the spice of an island romance, or a quiet restful

time… At Rottnest you do not lock up anything, and with no locks there

are no thieves...

To have the morning paper almost as early as on the mainland, and the

afternoon paper the same day is to me an unfortunate, althoughinevitable, intrusion on the Rottnest holiday of pre-war days. Then it was

our proud boast that we did not miss the daily papers and did not read the

weekend ones.

Bikes have invaded the island, and the leisurely, chatty walks to the

Basin is (sic)endangered by youth sweeping past on their bikes. After

sundown we used to saunter around the corner of the Administration

offices munching hot pies, but now bikes come in companies, with no

lights, and the happy party is scattered, and a pie or two is dropped on the

roadway…

The daily planes have added a fresh note to the island harmony. In shecomes, low over Government House Flats to alight like a sea gull… This

time I went by air, a delighful flight along the Swan River, over the

mainland beaches with their frills of surf, until ‘The Isle of Girls’ lay

beneath us on the indigo bosom of the Indian Ocean waiting to welcome

us. The Board’s cooperation with the coming and going of the planes is

excellent - a splendid service unsurpassed anywhere that I have been as a

tourist. While sitting in the lorry before going (back) to the airstrip...

A few things have changed on the island since the Monsignor wasthere. Writing styles for one. Nor are there afternoon newspapers anymore - the The Daily News shut down decades ago. But many of hisother sentiments would be recognised by modern visitors, exceptperhaps the bit about not needing to lock up.

The Basin in April 2010

© MMX Paul R. Weaver.

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Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramiowebsite or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and

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