Author: riableathman

The words in my poem They Cried for Their Mothers, which appeared in the Iceberger News on 15th April 2021, are an evocation of my personal connections to Gallipoli and explained as follows: My Great, Great Uncle Herbert Hare and his brother Charles ‘I think of all those farm-boys’ landed at Gallipoli with the Mediterranean … Continue reading They Cried for Their Mothers – Explanatory Note

With Melbourne in lockdown and the consequent de-peopling of the city, I have developed a heightened awareness of messaging from strangers, unknowns, equals, about how we are being affected by these isolating times. Like sending a radio beam into the wide expanse of the universe, or putting a message in a bottle and throwing it … Continue reading Covid Days – Messaging

Living and working in Melbourne during the current pandemic lockdown means our vibrant city has effectively ground to a halt. Emptiness is an all-pervading descriptor. I now walk through once-busy arcades and renowned laneways, past eateries and across boulevards and thoroughfares and bear witness to a barren, empty streetscape. I recall the stark, post-apocalyptic images … Continue reading Running on Empty

During these disruptive times, history provides both precedents and hope for what we are experiencing. In 1666 England was wracked by the Great Plague, The Great Fire of London and the destruction of the English Fleet by the Dutch during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. But it was also the year a young Isaac Newton, during … Continue reading Pandemics and Hope

I once worked for Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt, in the days when the Bank was both respected and revered as one of the world’s great commercial banks. In 1993 I was briefly in Deutsche Bank’s New York office, occupying a small work-station in the dealing room on level 85 of the North Tower of … Continue reading Twin Towers

My first camera was my Grandfather’s which was given to me after he passed away in 1981. It was a single-lens reflex camera with screw-mounted lenses and was manufactured in Dresden in the former East Germany and the brand was the legendary Praktica. Given its clumsy bulk, it came to be known jokingly as ‘The … Continue reading It Kinda Clicked