From Melbourne (Mum): 8th October 1981

Melbourne

8.10.81

Dear Alan,

                                We received your note saying you thought some letters might not have reached you. We haven’t had any letters returned to us. Anne, Dad and Pamela have each written a letter just lately to you. I wrote you one on Show Day. If you didn’t receive a letter from any of them would you please tell me. They might have addressed the letters to the new address before you arrived there.

Last week there was an ad in the paper saying about sending parcels for Christmas by sea. I went to find out we had only a few days before the date closed (today). I spent all last night fixing it up so that it won’t come apart. When the parcel arrives keep it until Christmas to open. It will take quiet a while to open because I wanted it to be safe. We didn’t have a lot of time but there a few things for you.

We have been hearing a lot about South Africa the last week because the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting was in Melbourne.  Mr Muldoon from New Zealand doesn’t care what he says and upset a few African leaders. He had to apologize to the Secretary of the Meeting. Mr Muldoon said the Secretary didn’t understand New Zealand’s position because he had just come out of the jungle.  On four corners last Saturday they did a profile of the Sectary General. I think he comes from Zambia but he was educated at Oxford and then did a Master’s degree at Harvard and is married to a white English nurse. Anyhow Mr Muldoon had to explain that he didn’t really mean he had been in the jungle. Mostly the conference went well and Mr Frazier is trying to take all the glory but most people in Melbourne took no notice.

 You said the dentist you are working with is finding it hard to get to Australia. Don’t forget that if all the foreign dentists hadn’t come to Australia you most likely would be working here. Whether that would have been a good thing I don’t know because would you have travelled overseas otherwise. It just depends what you think of the experience of travelling and working in other countries. Could be a good thing or a bad thing.

 

                                Love mum.