It can be odd the ways in which one's mind plays tricks on us. My mind certainly.
Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of my arrival in Australia as a fresh-faced, eager young migrant. Early morning, Friday 19th November 1999.
Jacaranda season.
"Fresh-faced" may be stretching the truth by a mile or two. I was already forty-two, and I arrived at Sydney airport after a thirty-six hour journey from Edinburgh, courtesy of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (which is no longer an independent Dutch airline but part of a transnational conglomerate -- as is almost everything these days).
So, I was definitely no longer young at the end of the last Millennium. But not yet as old and wise as I now (almost certainly) have become.
And not even in my wildest of imaginings was I "fresh faced". It's called long-haul for a reason.
In my case -- in that November -- a quarter of a century ago -- my long haul was from Edinburgh Turnhouse (given its full name here in case anyone wondered which of the many Edinburgh airports I might have flown from ... there is only one, of course) via Amsterdam's Schipol (previously my favourite airport until I encountered Changi) then Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok (the much more thrilling Kai Tak -- the descent into which I loved -- having closed the previous year) and finally disembarking at Kingsford Smith in what would become my new home: Sydney.
There was an odd thing about those flights. It struck me only after they were completed.
I flew alone. Susi (to whom I was married at the time) stayed in Scotland for a further month to finalise the sale of our house and oversee the removalists).
We -- that's the Royal We and actually means they -- loaded a bunch of our possessions into the Transcendental Transit Van then someone drove the fully laden, modified vehicle into a Maersk shipping container for the six week sea voyage to the Great Southern Land.
There was, apparently, a minor hiccup. When the guys tried to drive the fully-laden TTV into the container it wouldn't fit. The van's roof was too high. Fortunately some quick thinking Maersk person solved the problem by deflating the TTV's tyres. Hey Presto! A perfect fit.
But back to the odd factoid about my flights. Although it's not really about the flights. It's about life as a quadriplegic wheelchair user.
Isn't everything?
As I say, I flew alone. Three flights. Four airports. Thirty-six hours. One quad, paralysed in all four limbs and with no finger function. It probably wouldn't be allowed these days.
Two guys (it was always men) from the ground crew at each airport lifted me into and out of several tiny, wee aisle chairs between my wheelchair and each aircraft's seat. I flew business class (in a time before fully-flat beds) so I could attend to my quad needs without disturbing some innocent traveller stuck in the cheap seats next to me.
I spent the entirety of all the flights sat in my designated seat. But that's not much different from every other person in a 400-seat Boeing 747 cruising at 35,000 feet. I mean, where else could any of them go that I couldn't go? Out for a walk?
I was able to swap the connection of my urine collection system from my leg bag to an overnight bag. I confess I wasn't entirely sure what I intended to do with a two-litre bag full of my piss when I reached Sydney. I imagined, no doubt, I would work out something when we got there because -- us men -- we are -- as you know -- resourceful.
Fortunately, a KLM business class flight attendant saw through my façade. Nincompoop.
Sitting on the runway at Sydney airport (we "passenger assistance" types are always first on and last off) the KLM-uniformed woman leaned over to ask me quietly, "shall I assist you with that, sir?' She was referring to my urine bag. Discretely not pointing at it.
So much for my subtle and cunning (non)-plan.
"It's quite alright, sir," continued the flight attendant. ""My brother is in a wheelchair. Motor cycle accident".
She took it away in an old poly bag. Who knows where?
Resourceful, my arse!
Like I say. Probably wouldn't be allowed these days. Wasn't allowed back then. I don't always fully think through my especially cunning plans.
But here's the odd thing.
My accident happened on 16 June 1984. Because I am unable to dress independently or transfer I have always needed human assistance, usually paid support workers. In the 15 years before my migration flights to Australia I had never been wholly alone for even twenty-four hours. There were always folk coming into my life -- morning and night -- regular as clockwork to assist me into and out of my bed or wheelchair, to shower, to help with whatever a quad required.
I'm not complaining. My good life depends on such assistance.
For the 24 hours or so of the flights from Amsterdam to Sydney I was, however, in an odd way for me, 'alone' -- as in left to my own devices -- for the first time in a decade and a half.
I was just another anonymous traveller making a long haul flight from one place to some other place. Sitting in my numbered seat like 400 hundred other folk, brought food on a tray in accordance with my dietary preferences specified at the time of booking, watching too many movies on a tiny screen simply to pass the time.
Alone, in a sense, for the first time in a long time. Completely ordinary. It was refreshing.
Anyway ...
I was met at the airport by my friends from way, way back -- Jon Simpson and Rosie Birch and by the late John Moxon AM and his wife Margaret, neither of whom I had met in person before.
I had come to Sydney to begin work (on a 457 sponsored worker's visa) as the Executive Officer of the Physical Disability Council of NSW. John chaired the interview panel whose members spoke to me over the phone; them in Sydney, me in a house in Dirleton near Edinburgh with photos of the interview panel members cut out of the PDCN Annual Report for 1997 (by Susi) stuck to my home-office window with Blu Tack.
This was the age before Zoom. You spoke over crackly telephone lines with irritating time delays, annoying feedback loops and echoing voices. Half an hour or so of questions and answers and my life was changed forever.
It seems shallow of me to say that I came to live in Australia for the weather. But if you've spent any time in the land of my birth -- let's say late-October to late February -- you'll know what I mean.
I love Scotland. I miss it, my family and my friends deeply. But I simply did not fancy becoming as old as I am now -- as a quadriplegic wheelchair user -- in the dark, cold, wet and rainy conditions of a Scottish winter. Take last week, for example. I pulled on a polo shirt and pushed myself down to the local shops and back for a doctor's appointment followed by drunken noodles with veggies and tofu at the local Thai restaurant.
Not gonna happen in Scotland, sadly. Not in a million years.
I'm fitter and healthier and warmer. Even in Canberra. But a long way from home.
All of which brings me back to that tree falling in the forest. You know the saying:
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
I've always thought that this was some kind of profound ancient wisdom -- a tenet of Zen Buddhism maybe or a great Sufi proverb. Turns out its origins are more prosaic than either.
It's maybe an 18th Century thought experiment although Wiki (source of most of my knowledge) tells us that the phrase was mistakenly attributed to Bishop Berkley who was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland and died in 1753. Wiki continues ... the earliest published version of the thought experiment can be traced to an American Methodist magazine -- The Chuatauquan -- in 1833 when they asked the question, "If a tree were to fall on an island where there were no human beings would there be any sound?"
An island?
WTF is that fallen tree doing on an island, suddenly? No wonder no one heard it fall.
I mention the possibly soundless (or not) fallen tree for this reason. Today, on the anniversary of my arrival in 'the lucky country', I wondered what I had thought or had to say about coming to Australia as part of a diaspora. Naturally, I turned to my socials.
Nae luck, as we say.
My problem today is that Facebook didn't exist (as Facebook) until January, 2004. More than four years after I landed in Sydney. The ghastly X (which once was the half-decent Twitter) came even later. And it was only last week that I opened my Bluesky account.
That realisation provoked this post-socials thought. If none of these events appeared online, if they've received no comments, no likes and no shares ... did any of it actually happen twenty-five years ago?
I no longer know for sure.
All of which tells us I'm spending way too much time in the house and Spike's garden with just me, the cat and the rambling half-recollections of someone who used to be Dougie Herd.
Tragic in a way. But order will be restored soon. After spell-checking these words I shall post them to my blog before sharing on Facebook, LinkedIn & Bluesky.
As T. S. Eliot wrote (on a different topic)
... all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
It's virtual reality.
The only way to live?
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