Monthly Archives: August 2007

Ten years on…Diana

Posted by Wendy on August 31, 2007 No comments

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Ten years!. It seems only weeks really since the world woke to the news of that accident. Not in Australia though, we watched the whole thing unfold on TV as it happened because it was during daytime for us. Most of us in Australia were just waking up when the accident occurred at 8.30am Sydney time.

Where were you when itn happened? Where were you when you heard?.

I was reading the morning papers as the accident happened, no way could I have known that those same papers would be reissued later that same day with the news of the car crash. Such a thing was unprecedented in Australia.

About 11.am reports were filtering through on the radio and TV that Diana had been injured in a car crash and that Dodi was dead.  Serious stuff indeed. I had been at the shops that morning and heard it first on the car radio. By the time I had gotten home and turned on the TV the reports had changed gear and things were sounding worse for Diana but still no report of her being killed. Just in a coma; severely concussed.

On the TV there it all was; the tunnel, the flashing lights, the wreckage of the car and the BBC news. That was a sign all was not well, our own news service was replaced by the BBC coverage. James Whittacker was being interviewed.

I sat watching the TV until just after 1pm when my Mum came out of her room where she had been listening to the radio…’There’s reports just coming in that the Princess of Wales is dead’…my Mum was not really a Diana fan but she looked shocked. Almost immediately the wording changed on the TV to ‘Diana reported to have died’. Still disbelief!.

One moment we were being told she was concussed with a broken leg, now we are told she is dead. Then came the confirmation and a whole new topic of conversation for James Whittacker and the BBC news host. That is how I heard about Diana’s death and it was strange that most of the UK was still asleep and unaware of anything.

We are all familiar with the events of the following week and weeks. The funeral and it’s aftermath. The tributes. The two young Princes. How they have grown and how proud Diana would be of them today. This is where we must credit Prince Charles, what a wonderful father he is to them, it is such a shame we were never shown what a great and much loved Dad he is and was while Diana was alive.

There are so many ‘ifs’ and ‘whys’ that could explain how this whole thing could have been avoided, but it seems to have had a kind of inevitability to me. Real ‘tragedy’ involves ‘inevitability’. Maybe if she had worn that seat belt she would still be alive; most probably would have been; but we will never know.

One thing is sure though, maybe Diana – through her death – has taught us more than she ever could have if she had lived. You cannot leave a legacy until you die.

Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.

Expectations and realities

Posted by Wendy on August 30, 2007 No comments

I wrote recently about my son and his decision to leave France and return to Australia. I thought I might go a little more into detail because it is important  to really consider your childrens options when you decide to live in another country. I wish we had given some things alot more thought before we came here, if only we had the benefit of hindsight at the beginning!.

We had assumed that going to school here would not be an issue. Now, many of us have seen those ‘move to France and never regret it’ shows on TV and especially noticed how easily the kids of those familys were accepted into the local schools. They glided into the system and, voila!, the kids were fluent in French within six months and topping their classmates as well.

It ain’t that easy!.

In reality this works if your kids are under 12. Once they are over that age they are attending College and Lycee. Those schools demand a very high degree of French for them to admit a non-French student. William had always been a good student but his French was minimal and absolutely no school in the Perpignan region would touch him. And he was only 16 when we arrived here.  We tried every College, and then Lycee, within a radius of 50 km’s and got the same answer…’no’.

So in effect William’s education stopped when we came to France. In desperation we finally paid a visit to Inspection Academique in Perpignan where the lady informed us we should just sod off back to where we came from. ‘Her’ schools were for French speaking kids only.

What I am saying is this, do not assume that France is the promised land. It is not. I do not know of any other country that refuses a kid education simply because of his/her language skills, but they do in parts of France. We were not prepared for this attitude and it has caused us a lot of grief. Especially for William.

Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.

A familiar story

Posted by Wendy on August 29, 2007 No comments

The recent mysterious disappearance of young Madeline McCann in Portugal back in May has brought to mind a similar mysterious child disappearance, except it was back in 1980 and it was in Australia.

The McCanns have been without their little girl ‘Maddie’ for 3 months now, and it seems the Portuguese police – in charge of the investigation – are no more clued up now than they were back at the beginning. To me, the Portuguese police have been far more concerned with keeping to their ‘protocol’ than they have with actually DOING anything worthwhile. What an inept bunch of keystone cops they are!.

Recently, because the Portugese cannot come up with anything else, the McCanns have been subjected to a vile media campaign hosted by the media in Portugal accusing them of drugging their children; drugging Maddie and also killing her. Unfortunately, the UK press have been just as bad fuelling ignorant and vicious remarks from an equally ignorant and vicious UK public. And the sole reason?…the McCanns don’t ‘behave properly’. They dont scream, howl and wail in front of a voyeuristic public. A voyeuristic public that actually loves this type of thing. 

The McCanns are deeply religious people; they have faith; dignity and hope. And for upholding these values, for not revealing their true agony in public, they are being held in deep suspician. After all, we all know how we would behave if we were in their situation…? We have all had a deeply loved child simply disappear into thin air…? We all know what is best for them to do, even though we have never been through a similar thing…?

This all reminds me of the Azaria Chamberlain case in Australia back in the early 1980′s. A baby girl disappeared from her parents’ tent during the night at Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the only witness was her mother who saw a wild dog – a dingo – leaving the tent with a large object in it’s mouth. That baby girl was never found. No body; no weapon; no motive; no witnesses (except those who heard her screams); and yet this mother was sentenced to jail for murdering her baby two years later. Why?. Because Lindy and Micheal Chamberlain did not ‘play the game’ according to how the media and the public thought they should. They also were deeply religious people; he was a Pastor; they had true faith, yet because they did not scream; howl, wail and thrash around in front of the cameras they were immediately suspicious. The most vicious media campaign was waged against them; and a gullible Australian public bought into it. They did not stand a chance.

In 1982 Lindy Chamberlain; 8 months pregnant; was hauled off to prison for ‘killing’ a baby she never killed, only grieved for. And the major ‘evidence’…? so-called ‘foetal bloodstains’ in their car that were not ‘foetal bloodstains’ at all…it was rust proofing fluid as proved some years later. And the ‘expert’ who found this evidence’?…a British woman brought out from the UK at great expense to ‘nail’ an innocent mother.

Lindy Chamberlain was eventually freed from prison in the late 1980′s but she had to divorce her husband and leave the country to escape the stains left by the media. I would be very bitter if I had been her.

I have a feeling the McCanns are heading the same way.

Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.