It’s over. Our relationship is over. I’m sorry. I can’t go on. I’m blogged out. I thought that after a break, in order to write my father’s biography (two years!), we would be able to get back together again. Remember what I wrote at the end of The Constipated Hippopotamus? ‘I have no intention of giving writing away. Yet.’ I was deluding myself, and you, with that announcement. Also, notice the ominous tone in that word ‘yet’.
Over the last month or so, I’ve been playing around with ideas on how to end our Blog Affair. For a while I thought I would just stop posting. Walk out without saying goodbye. Or leave a note: ‘Good-bye. Won’t be back. Sorry!’ But that seemed a cop-out, inconsiderate, even churlish. You, after all, have done nothing wrong. You deserve an explanation, but I can’t even promise you that.
I do know writers need readers. We thrive on our readers. That’s what you gave me. Just being there as a reader, sharing blogs; posting comments; talking about blogs. There’s quite a number of you. According to statistics, 1,644 subscribers of www.kandoshistory.com and 1.4k followers on Kandos History Facebook. But they’re puffed-up figures of course, to impress. They don’t reflect the monthly readership. Or those serendipitous readers who came upon a single blog through a Google search of Influenza or Rape or Aboriginal or something else. Whoever you were, I am proud and grateful you were there for me.
I usually enter Kandos History from the backdoor (you know – office admin techno) but just now I went through the front door. Looked again at the HOME page that you can see. I pressed BLOG. The latest blog, In the Interests of Truth and Justice (not one of my best) is up the top of the page with an image and an extract to hopefully entice someone like you to read the blog. I start scrolling and as I stop and read and contemplate and remember and read another, it takes a lot longer to get to the last blog than I intended. To tell you the truth I’m impressed. There are 78 blogs all up, the majority about Kandos history. Buildings like Kandos Community Centre; sports like billiards; entertainments like the picture show; businesses like Greek cafes; industries like copper; women like Mrs Goulding; schools like Coomber; churches like the Methodist.
When I started the blog I had in mind Kandos readers but I discovered that many of you are Kandos expats, checking in on your hometown. I also established the Blog to capture Kandos’ history but I soon found myself branching out, attracted to surrounding areas – place-names along the Castlereagh Highway; the old Lue pub and store; Dabee village; the travelling stock route; and more recently lots of Rylstone history. Sometimes I got on my high-horse and campaigned for trees or against racism. I also indulged in my own family history, like the builder of the first government house. I got caught up in celebrations like St Patrick’s Day and inventions like the wool press. Truth is, I wrote about subjects that touched me or impassioned me, and in my teacherish way I wanted to pass on my enthusiasm, curiosity and fascination in history.
Besides my writing, I am also proud of the fact that I upped my tech skills by designing and managing the blog site. I had great mentoring from Solange Kershaw. Then she sent me on my way and I hooked up with you. The first blog was Jock Sneddon a Generous Scot. Again it wasn’t one of my best, and I don’t remember how he got first place. After I tested out a few blogs I felt confident enough to hold a garden party launch, in the back yard of our home in Rodgers Street. My niece Angela Brown (now a Kandos home-owner) expertly launched it. It was an open invitation to the launch but you might have been shy back then (18 December 2017). That’s where I got my first topics, from a sheet I passed around. I wrote blogs using most of the ideas, though ‘Adult Services’ had me confounded – I could find no evidence! My good friend and history-keeper Rose Evans came up with a lot of suggestions. Other topics blew out of conversations like scraps of paper and landed in my Apple Mac. Why don’t you do a SEARCH of the site for any old topic or person and see what comes up.
I don’t know how much you have explored on www.kandoshistory.com For example did you know that if you pressed PUBLICATIONS and then ARTICLES you can check out the 59 monthly articles I wrote for the Mudgee Guardian between 2010 and 2016? More history! On the other hand if you pressed ABOUT KANDOS you might get so excited that you pack your bag and take a trip to a small locality in the Central West of NSW. Download some BROCHURES first. I’ll leave you to check out the rest of the site. A website only holds so much interest. Nevertheless I intend keeping Kandos History on-line till my bank account runs dry. On the other hand there might be another history addict out there who wants to add to it or send it in a different direction. You?
Getting back to why I’m ending the blog and possibly my writing career, to which I’ve assiduously given 15-20 hours per week since 2002. I thought it might be writer’s block or loss of interest or brain decline. But actually I think it’s more likely because I just want to free up my life, while I still have a bit of life in me. This week I went to an 80th birthday for a long-term friend I met at Sydney Uni.
So, with only some regret I sing along to the Everly Brothers:
Bye-bye love
Bye-bye happiness
Hello carefreeness
Wonder if I’m gonna cry.
A group of uni friends now approaching their 80s. Yes, I’m there.
Kandos History 
Have a rest but come back as I really enjoy all your articles you wrote.Look at the reaction you received on Mrs Kearins…Take care.Mary Perrott
LikeLike
What a lovely comment Mary. Thank you.
LikeLike
Thanks you so much for your articles Colleen and I’ll be sorry to see you hang up your typewriter. Lots of intriguing local-history topics, meticulously researched and well written, and I’ve still got so many of them to read! With best wishes for your retirement whatever direction that may take. Vicki Powys.
LikeLike
Vicki I have appreciated you as a reader. Thank you so much.
LikeLike
Hello ,And goodbye! We’ve never met, but I’ll miss you!
LikeLike
Colleen:
What a brilliant way to end an affair! You with – and by – readers/responders!
You’ll be missed – but remembered with much affection.
I’m just back from six days in the Hunters Hill home of friends – just off Pittwater Road down from Victoria road running through Gladesville.
I always think of an address I gave on Australian writing to a bunch of English (ESL?) teachers which I think you in the Catholic Education Office organised – at a College in Ryde – fronting on to Victoria Road.
I also called in on a Marist priest friend in Hunters Hill – in Montbel – aged 96 – his birthday last week – Paul Glynn SM. That sets my mind to people who mean a lot to me – and matters Catholic – keeping in mind I was raised in a fundamentalist Protestant sect – in which I remained till near the end of my 3rd year at Sydney – 1968 – never looking back since – but rather expanding my spiritual vision.
Have I asked you before if you ever knew an early childhood educational officer/lecturer – based in the Catholic College (?) in North Sydney… Mary Trim?
Anyway – thank-you for your work on Kandos – and district – social history and so forth. Congratulations on this retirement.
Jim KABLE
>
LikeLike
Jim I have very much appreciated your thoughtful and encouraging comments to the blogs.
Yes I do remember that CEO event at Ryde. I might even find something about it when I start going through the archives.
Mary Trim doesn’t ring a bell. However I wonder if it was Father Paul Glynn who ran a course at Hunters Hill in the 1980s called “Once a Catholic”. It was life-changing for me in reconciling my early Catholic indoctrination with post-uni scepticism and a desire for spirituality.
LikeLike
Colleen:
I think I asked you about Mary Trim once before. If still living she would be around 100…
I reckon Paul Glynn SM is indeed the man you speak of.
And two days ago – I came across the reference in a letter to you and that Ryde session I addressed – 50 teachers in attendance! Howzat!
Now in Coffs Harbour – by the beach 300 m from the Surf Club. Bridesmaid’s husband has his 70th on Saturday – at the surf club!
Jim K.
>
LikeLike
Thank you very much for all your hard work! It was indeed a labour of love.
thanks and regards,Lina Moffitt0429 315500 My Website Lord Kitchener’s 100 Surgeons WW1 Young Living Aromatherapy & Healthcare Modere Safe Cosmetics, Bathroom & Personal Care Products, Vitamins & MineralsAthletes and Families, 10% off your first order use Promo Code 547596
LikeLike
Thank you Lina. I appreciate your kind words. Colleen
LikeLike
These friends are past approaching and now hitting 82, all the best for the future always enjoyed your articles. We are happily entrenched in a quite coastal life interrupted by ukulele playing Mon am Tuesda am and pm Wed arvos and Frid am so keeping up the musical side of things. Cheers to you both. Tom and Noeline
LikeLike
Well you and Noeline always were a musical pair. I remember those wonderful summer melodic evenings out in the country. Are you playing anywhere near Buff Point where my daughter and grand-daughter live. Let me know any public events over the holidays especially.
LikeLike
Harringt
LikeLike
Dear Col, author and friend, I am in awe of your Blog and other writing achievements. Your Kandos Blog has brought to life fascinating local history. You have told your stories with a twinkle at times and with reverence at others. Always thoroughly researched. Thoroughly! Yet your prose was never wooden. You found nuggets to write about, stories mined as if from a lost archive. Future generations, historians, communities and planners will enjoy the whimsy and the truth in your writer’s voice. Congratulations and thank you. Now go play.
LikeLike
From another (76 year old) blogger/writer and online networker – THANK YOU. I find blogging, networking and reading others’ blogs/writing and commentary is such an interesting process, one in which somehow or other one imagines there is a connection, a friendship of strangers, between the reader (me) and the writer, a community emerges and a fleeting thought/fantasy that maybe we will meet up one day. So, yes, you will be missed. Maybe I will feel the need to take time-out from my daily commitment and make the same decision in the not too distant future. It is a big step. Very best wishes to you. Cheers, Annette
LikeLike
Thank you Annette. It is lovely to connect with another blogger. I didn’t know the time was right until it just was. I like that it feels so right with no regret.
LikeLike
Well done my clever friend. You have left an enduring gift to unknown others who seek to understand their individual, community and national past. Your thoroughly researched articles were a delicious mix of whimsy, surprise, reverence, interpretations and facts. You worked hard, as if down a mine to find gold specs. You crafted them. You made things others could not. You had fun. Wonderful farewell note. I picked you out with your long hair
LikeLike
Thank you dear friend. Those are lovely compliments. Yes I do think I spent a lot of time looking for the gold.
LikeLike
Hello Colleen, I am saddened to hear that the Kandos History Blog has come to an end. As a Kandos expat, the Blog was a link to the town I grew up in. It kept me in touch with stories of people and places from long ago. It brought back memories.
But I understand your need to pull the pin – it happens to us all eventually. It’s time. Thank you for all you have done is seeking out stories of Kandos and the District. You mentioned Jock Sneddon – a generous Scot. Here is something you would not have known.
My family arrived in Kandos in the early 1950s, having moved from an isolated property where we had no neighbours close by and school was by correspondence. Mixing with other children for the first time in my life I naturally caught everything going from coughs and colds to infectious diseases. Towards the end of the year I came down with the mumps and managed to pass the disease onto my mother who became quite ill and took to her bed. Out father, still working, caring for our mother and two youngsters wanted us to have the best possible Christmas but what to do about the Christmas dinner?
Jock and Eva Sneddon were neighbours, living a few doors away. When Mrs Sneddon heard of our predicament she came down in a flash – told my father to kill a ‘chook’ and take it to her place and she would cook Christmas dinner for us all. This she did and we dined on wonderful baked vegetables and chicken, thanks to Mrs Sneddon’s generosity. As I recall she was a very good cook and we were thankful for her kindness to us at a difficult time. I believe Eva Sneddon was as generous in nature as Jock.
Best wishes to you for your future and thank you once again.
Karlyn Robinson
LikeLike
Karlyn what a lovely story about the Sneddons. Thank you. I didn’t ever think I did justice to Jock, it being the first story and I unsure of what a blog should be. You have rounded him off.
LikeLike
Hi Colleen, will miss your blogs, but nothing is forever, can imagine the amount of research and work, enjoy your freedom, take care xx.
LikeLike
Thank you Brian. You know how much I enjoyed it.
LikeLike
Thank you!
Love your writing and appreciate the final clear release as well. As a new member of the community (3yrs) your words helped shape my place in the landscape here with others that came before.
keep well
mark W
LikeLike
Thanks Mark. What a lovely response.
LikeLike