Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 24 October 1973
77 Arrested in Green Bans Stoush
Seventy-seven protestors were arrested, including former secretary of the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation, Jack Mundey, and four police and many protestors were injured in a violent clash over the redevelopment of Sydney’s historic Rocks area.
The confrontation is the latest in a long-running struggle by community groups and the BLF to prevent Australia’s oldest buildings and streetscapes being destroyed.
While the federal government supports the preservation of heritage areas, the NSW state government has allowed developers to buy historic properties with no regard for their conservation.
JED
Jed blinked at the bedside clock. Five-thirty am! Who the heck would be pounding on her door at five-thirty on a cold spring morning when the only sensible thing was to keep even your nose under the quilt till the sun had melted winter’s leftover chill?
She flung on her dressing gown, or rather Matilda’s — green silk embroidered with dragons, circa 1936 — muttered, ‘I’ll get it, go back to sleep,’ into Scarlett’s bedroom and stumbled to the back door. She opened it, and the screen door that kept out flies that flew, but not the ones resting on people’s backs. ‘Sam! What’s wrong?’
He grinned at her, the horizon still night-grey behind him. ‘Got you a present. Come on outside.’
‘I don’t understand. It’s not my birthday.’
He laughed, waking the kookaburras. They laughed with him, more annoyed than amused — we are the ones to bring in the dawn, not you. ‘It’s in the back of the ute.’
She stepped outside, still half asleep, the frosty grass crackling under her bare feet, then jumped back.
‘Go get your slippers,’ said Sam mildly.
‘Why does it have to be so early?’
‘You’ll see. We need to wait for the sun to rise.’
Was this some kind of Druid ritual? Sam wasn’t into New Age crystals or astrology. Was he?
She clomped back into her bedroom, thrust her feet into her ugg boots, dashed water on her face and pulled a comb through her hair, then, slightly more awake, padded outside again, where Sam still stood at the back doorstep, excitement almost bubbling off him.
‘Did you say you’d brought me a present?’
‘Yep.’ He gestured at the ute.
Jed stared at the giant transparent bucket on the back of the ute. ‘It looks like a bucket of cattle dung.’
‘It is.’
‘You’ve brought me a bucket of dung and want me to watch the sunrise with it?’ Don’t biodynamic farmers do things with dung and herbs? she wondered vaguely. But that was with the different phases of the moon, not the sun.
‘Got it in one,’ said Sam. He glanced at the horizon. ‘Any minute now . . .’
The sky turned from dim grey to cream then faintly pink. The pink turned to psychedelic red. Jed turned back to the container on the ute as the first flicker of sunlight edged above the horizon’s lip.
‘What is supposed to —?’ She stopped: the bucket had come alive. It buzzed as a million tiny wings confined in the small space began to beat, making a noise so loud and so insistent she almost expected the container to take off into space.
Sam lifted off the lid. Beetles rose in a brown cloud that evaporated into hundreds of tiny flights across her garden and into the paddocks beyond. Two or three sluggards remained, investigating the back of the truck. Jed bent to look at them. ‘They’re just brown beetles.’
‘Dung beetles,’ said Sam with enormous satisfaction. ‘I got them from a bloke I used to be at uni with. He’s at the CSIRO now. These are South African dung beetles. Our native ones are too small to cope with dung from sheep or cattle. These beetles are going to get into every blob of poo around Gibber’s Creek, break it up and bury it before the bushflies can breed. By this time next year you’ll be able to leave the back door open. There won’t be a fly in sight. Well, maybe a few houseflies. But not the sticky bushflies in your eyes.’
‘Dung beetles,’ said Jed wonderingly. ‘Beetles to get rid of my flies.’
‘Exactly.’ He hadn’t pulled his hair back in its usual ponytail. It hung like a halo around his head, winter-grass coloured, backlit by the rising sun. Even the edges of his beard glowed with sunrise. How could you not love a man who brought you dung beetles?
Love, thought Jed. Love of a different flavour. Five years ago she had never tasted love at all. Now it came in a Scarlett flavour, a Nancy flavour, Matilda, Michael and, yes, Nicholas.
But not this flavour. Not the love she felt now for Sam.
And Scarlett was inside. And possibly, probably, looking out the window, watching everything.
‘I think we need to celebrate the beetles,’ said Jed thoughtfully.
‘A cup of coffee?’ Sam asked hopefully. ‘Breakfast?’
‘Too early for breakfast. How about a platypus hunt? Down at the river.’
Sam paused in the act of putting the lid back on the bucket. ‘You think there might be platypuses out now?’
‘I think we need to go and see,’ said Jed. She held out her hand. Sam’s was grubby with dung beetle muck as she took it. But the river would clean that. Such a firm, warm hand.
‘The track’s muddy. You’ll get your uggs mucky. I could sling you over my shoulder.’
‘You could,’ said Jed. ‘But don’t. I’ll get my boots.’ Boots did not go with a green silk dressing gown with embroidered dragons. But then she wouldn’t wear either for long.
The dung beetles sang a contented buzz of sheep droppings as they began to conquer their new manure empire, and the two humans walked hand in hand towards the river.