The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 2

HOME NEWS THE AGE, Tuesday, June 30, 1970 Bellbird, as seen by TDT, as seen by Bellbird, as seen To the uninitiated eye which does not watch Bellbird, not from choice, but because it Is too early the only possible further com Sighs off and one dog barking. Fade Has TDT blown It because they missed the train being held up further along the line? No. WHY ARE LAND PRICES RISING? For fne answer send for free llferofure io: HENRY QEORQE LEAGUE 1 8 George Parade, Melbourne, 3000 Phone 63 4635 BRIEFING iney weren meant to eaten it. plication in yesterdays snooting would have been the arrival of To trv to set across some idea the Postmaster-General armed of what was happening. As pieced with a loud nailer.

togetner trom aitterent jjeilDlra JVli ii ntVil JohnLarkin armchairs they called seats. The engine, R-184, a steam beast, snorting and spanking and hooting too much, was brought up from the Newport Shops under the cover of 4 a.m. The whole vehicle looked like something from an old American Presidential whistle-stop campaign, such was the profusion of flags and decorations. The trouble, initially, was the shooting started half an hour late and that seemed to slow the whole day. At least on time was the arrival of Caesar, the polo pony who was to figure, partly, in the hold-up.

While we all had lunch at the local, Caesar stood around in his trailer, getting used, a bit, to R-184, for whom he obviously did not care. By 1 o'clock we were off up the line. There was some confusion along the way about whether, outside the cameras were working, which caused several dashes very likely will be discontinued not so remote a thought for Healesville where the rail motor makes it about twice a day, hardly continuous. It happened that this was the line's centenary. So to make the point that it was worth keeping, 27 of the people (Bellbird), including Rhoda Wilson, Fiona, Mrs.

Turner and Joe and Marge Baker and 10 extras, donned period costume and rode an old rattler to Tarrawarra, a siding about five miles along the track, between Healesville and Yarra Glen. Old? Yes. Rattler? Unkind. According to- the special guard, who tried to pretend this was just another job, the Yarra was the original parlor car on the Sydney Limited before 1937. when the Spirit started.

Restored by the Australian Railway Historical Society, it' grazes in the Spencer Street yards, a long elegant palace of leadlight windows, brass fittings, deep, private compartments and deeper to windows that didn't open and frantic crowd waving while we outsiders hid our 20th cen-tury in dark corners. Finally, we got to the scene of the robbery. This needs a bit of explaining, too, but what was involved was a mock hold-up, a re-enactment of the old Bellbird bushranger Dancer McGymont (Dancer McGymont?) stopping the train on horseback (Caesar). The only thing was that Gary Gray, playing Emerson, playing Dancer McGymont lost Caesar along the way and had to take the train on foot. Getting there early, he'd practised firing his pistol and frightened the horse away.

After much backing and filling and bail-up and Caesar by now detesting R-184 with its flapping flags and damned whistle, they finished what they had to shoot, almost, and moved up to Yarra Glen to finish up. Just as well they did. The afternoon rail motor to Heales- residents, most of whom seemed to have left their scripts behind them, it seemed: Bellbird was having some sort of celebration. (This was apparent because the station, which was really Healesville, was covered in streamers and flags and stuff. Even the station master's dog was wearing a paper ribbon in what was surely the biggest day in his life.) The station (Bellbird) was supposed to be either falling down or being pulled down.

The station master (Healesville) might have a few words to say about either of these but the fact is the station (Healesville) is old and looks that way. The townspeople (Bellbird) fear that the railway service Even then, Mr. Hulme would have had to work hard to make himself noticed, such was the apparent complexity of the day's business. He might have made it disguised as Ronald Arthur Bipcs, with, of course, the loud hailer as well. For a start, there was the incest.

We'd heard of one Bellbird episode In which the characters actually watched an episode pf Bellbird. Yesterday they seemed to go further. They had the This Day Tonight team there with all their gear covering the Bellbird episode as a part of the episode. (Cut to Peter Couchman standing alone on the station platform as the train leaves. ville was due through at 2.30 and it was now 2.20.

Today? Who knows. As somebody said, Bellbird was in bits everywhere. Caesar settled down with a bit of grass. Next month he goes to Malaysia, sold. He will be ridden in the Sultan of Johore's famous polo tournament.

Judging by the twitchy gleam in his eye yesterday, this will please him after such a day. pillliiiiiiiilH X. PER ANNUM pi READILY AVAILABLE HIGH INCOME RETURN SECURE INVESTMENT MONEY BACK PROMPTLY Homosexuality law It stays as Beastly to the bobby, that's our big hobby Earn 6j net per annum with no deductions with the Provident Building Society. The Provident Building Society lends only on first mortgage, i SLs; loans are insured, ana me Government carries out regular inspections. Any jagg wise investor can take advantage of this rare chance to earn a secure 63 it is, says return, ana yet ne anie to withdraw money at short notice.

So write now to: JOHN PINKNEY Provident Henry ir Building Government will not legalise between consenting male The Victorian homosexuality 475 Collins Street, Melbourne. Ph. 621611 Please send application form and further Information to: Australians are understandably cool toward their constabulary. In the national psyche's tender flesh, the wounds left by convict manacles still suppurate causing us to regard our friendly neighborhood fuzz with extreme reserve. Over the years, the sum-mons-and-handcuff set have labored to improve their public image.

Sadly, their efforts even in the performance of heroic deeds have sunk like lead balloons to the bottom floor of our folklore. Constable 'Col Meggs of Mornington may single-handedly save a family of six from the Rip but all he gets is a medal and 24- again tonight are the objects of a mass loyalty which even Graham Kennedy could not command. Cynics might claim that we tune in to boo the police and cheer the crlms but our motives, I feel, are more complex. Scratch the surface of the average anti-authoritarian and you'll discover, beneath, an insecure person with a deep desire for order. The police shows enable Australians to satisfy that desire in a socially acceptable way.

So long as we remember hour glory in the dailies. For long-term hero-worship we prefer to mill around the fly -specked shrines of Captain Moonlight and Ned Kelly. (To avert historian Ian Jones' wrath, I record that Kelly's shrine was specked by a very superior breed of fly.) Antipodeans, in short, make a national hobby of being beastly to the bobby. It seems, therefore, paradoxical that our antagonism should dissolve whenever we come within blinking distance of a TV set. Those hardy truncheon tableaux, Homicide and Division 4 to be aired Add jpii EBS10O33 cop on our way home, it's perfectly OK in the privacy of our livingrooms, to ad-mjt to fellow-feeling for Inspector Fox, or to mutter the odd under-the-breath bravo for Detective Banner.

But Homicide and Division 4 ofier the viewer something more than mere Unlike most packaged dramas, the shows attempt, within crime formula limits, to depict life as the random, malodorous, often ugly affair it is not as something pomaded, cor-setted and neatly tied up at the ends. The programmes plunge us into a Hogarthian milieu the world of derelicts, prostitutes, hoods and pickpockets which teems at this moment beneath the whitewashed pavements of Melbourne respectability. The Crawfords' gendarme operas bring welcome weekly relief from the computerised antics of American TV's robot people. adults. The Premier (Sir Henry Bolte) last night said that the State law against homosexuality would stand.

"The law against homosexuality will stand just as the present law on abortion will remain. "I am as opposed to the legalising of homosexuality as I am to the introduction of poker machines," he said. Earlier, Sir Henry described poker machines as Sir Henry's statement follows moves towards legalised homosexuality. Fewer arrests to scowl at the point-duty 70 museums in 80 days trouble when they loiter around public toilets, or annoy people who don't want to associate with them," he said. Detective Walters was commenting on a call by the Victorian Humanist Society to legalise homosexuality between consenting males.

The society has called for the repeal of sections of the Crimes Act covering, homosexual acts. Under the Act there is a maximum gaol sentence of 20 years. But recently men prosecuted for homosexual offences have been given fines or bonds. "In many cases except where there are criminal overtones' the cases are adjourned on the undertaking that the offender has psychiatric treatment," Det. Walters said yesterday.

He pointed out that under Victorian law it is not an offence to be a homosexual. Charges can only be laid 'when a person loiters for homosexual purposes or takes part in a homosexual act. Homosexuals march In U.S. P. 4.

There has been a marked drop in the number of men arrested for homosexual offences in Melbourne. And the public seems to be taking a more liberal view of homosexuals, according to the chief of the vice squad (Detective Sergeant Bill Walters). So far this year only five men have been arrested for homosexual offences compared with 23 last year. The offences have all taken place in the St; Kilda area. In 1968 there were 99 arrests and prosecutions.

Only one prosecution this year has been for committing a "gross indecency." The rest have been for loitering for homosexual purposes. Det. Walters said yester day the. reduction in arrests for homosexual offences was partly due to a more liberal outlook by the public. He said police took action against homosexuals if they came to police attention.

"If they stay with their own kind, they don't come to our notice. "But they run into By MAX BEATTIE COPENHAGEN llGlll 15 WHIM nnnnn then remake, settings. "Tes, showmanship if you like," he said. ''We could do much better by Phar Lap show him in a turf setting," he went on. At present the great horse the museum's only attraction to many Interstate visitors stands in a glass case.

Looking at him, one felt he would have liked a grass setting. A Si W7. 77. IT THE GREAT STRAIGHTWAY TO EUROPE W.r.w- r-SAS TRANS-ASIAN EXPRESS. It's a real shortcut daylight way that They will try to halt bay pipeline By JOHN MESSER, our Environment Writer An effort to block the 18-mile methane gas pipeline under Port Phillip Bay will be launched in Mordialloc tomorrow night.

A public meeting has been called by the Port Phillip Conservation Council. It will be held In the Alan McLean Hall, Albert Street. The council hopes the meeting will be the start of a new fight against all causes of damage to the bay. The decision to call the meeting was made after the State Government issued a licence to Esso-Hematite to build the pipeline. The Minister for Mines (Mr.

Balfour) granted the licence on June 11 following the May 30 State election. The president of the Port Phillip Conservation Council (Mr. John Iggul-den) said yesterday that no further notice was required for the firms to go ahead and build the pipeline. "Unless Esso-Hematite are quickly stopped, public areas in Mordialloc will be alienated to private interests, foreshores and beaches will be damaged, and a monstrous 18-mile trench will be ripped across the entire seabed of the bay," he said. Filthy Yarra The convenor of the council's technical subcommittee, Mr.

Geoffrey Goode, said: "No action is being taken to restore our bay. Instead it is being attacked on every side, Eventually the causes of all attacks must be removed. "The filthy Yarra pours effluent into it, as does the Werribee sewage system and all the drains and polluted creeks around Port 1, saves you thousands of miles and many hours. Eniov an overnight rest in i t. BANGKOK Singapore or Bangkok; then refreshed you board the Trans-Asian Express in the morning, and you're in Copenhagen In the afternoon.

IT'S THE ONLY DAYLIGHT FLIGHT TO COPENHAGENTHE GATEWAY TO EUROPE Save 8 hours on the shortest, fastest, o.ne-stop flight Bangkok to Copenhagen. SEE SPECTACULAR VIEWS "If a museum is going to be a live thing in the community, it's got to provide something new and exciting," John Mc-Nolly (above) said fervently. A few minutes and a little coaxing later, he posed beside a giant elephant called Ranee, dead and stuffed for 67 years. John McNally believes in the role of museums generally, and in the National Museum of Victoria particularly. He's its director.

But all is not well at the museum and Mr. McNally is the first to admit it. Back from a world tour in which he saw 70 museums in 80 days, he is now busy preparing a report for the Chief Secretary (Sir Arthur Rylah). But the basic fact is clear. "It's not good enough not for a city of this size," he said yesterday.

He added quickly that the grim old Russell Street building contained much of which he was proud. The basic need, he said, Is for a new building or rather two adjoining buildings, one for display and one for research. He believes the Job could be done for $7 million. Edmonton, Canada, a small city compared with Melbourne, had recently spent $9 million on a new museum, he said. But the director wasn't out to knock his museum.

Merely willing to reflect on Its disabilities. He shudders a little at Ranee who does rather dominate the entrance to the main hall and he Is none too proud of a group of stuffed giraffes, which have stood 40 years and more, a few feet away. But then there's a genuine skull of a sabre toothed tiger and a splendid Tasmanian Zygomaturus fossil and some wonderful Aboriginal bark paintings, made early this century when the Northern Territory people still lived their tribal life to the full. And much more. John McNally wishes he had a better place to show it off, he wants more display staff designers and graphic artists to make, and iLidijau iseie) tiTt cct rft I Vfcw 1 ewtw SMi i 'C-J Mt.

Everest, the Himalayas, Tashkent (your only stop), then the Aral Sea, the Volga, and on to wonderful Copenhagen. NOW 6 FLIGHTS WEEKLY In co-operation with Aeroflot, the Soviet Airline, SAS how offers you 6 flights weekly on the shortcut route to the U.S.S.R., Scandinavia and all Europe. Exciting, Isn't It? See your Travel Agent or SAS. VISIT EXTRA CITIES AT NO EXTRA COSTI The Trmi-Ajlan Express Is really the ihorteit way io short, In fact, It saves you thousands of mllas. This means that on your round world ticket you can Include the following cities et NO EXTRA COST Singapore Hamburg Milan Madrid Amsterdam Bangkok Frankfurt Rome Paris London Copanhagen Zurich Barcelona Brussels MON.

I THUR. I 11.15 am' SVONEV SINGAPORE 'hillio. PI 6.00 pm Australia's biggest business with outstanding promotion opportunities. QUALIFICATIONS The training courses are open to male British subjects who at 31st December 70, are at least 15 years of age and are less than 19 yean of age for Level 1, and less than 28 years for level 2. Applicants for Level 2 training must be qualified to undertake an approved Certificate Course at a recognised Technical Institution.

An entrance examination will be held in all capital cities, and other centres considered necessary, on 12th September, 1970. Subjects are Mathematics (Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry) Science (Physics and Chemistry) Technical information and general test. Standard Is based on work up to 3rd year secondary standard In all States except where it is of 4th year secondary standard. FURTHER INFORMATION For a brochure giving detailed Information, and including application form, oontact your local Post Office or the Recruitment Officer 1st Floor, Cromwell Building, 374 Bnurke Melbourne Vic. 3000.

Telephone 67 7766. NOTE THESE DATES Applications close 30th July, 1970 Entrance Examination 12th September, 1970 Training commences January, 1971. bav. Melbourne's OPPORTUNITY UNLIMITED 4 years specialised training on full pay Training available at Trade level (Level 1) or Sub-professional level (Level 2) depending on qualifications A secure career with excellent opportunities for promotion in the world's most advancing Industry. HUB OF WORLD PROGRESS Telecommunications is the vital, throbbing nerve system that relays the world's Information.

It is made up of telephone and telegraph networks, data transmission facilities, broadcast and television relays, co-axial cable and microwave radio systems. It Is an intricate, technical world and It needs highly-trained, highly-skilled technical staff. You are being given an opportunity to enter this exciting world now, TRAINING THAT MAKES YOU A SPECIALIST And you're paid to do Itl A 4-year course vitally Interesting, challenging and extremely rewarding. Upon graduation from either Level you are well qualified In the field of Telecommunications an Important men In today's scientific world. And you step straight Into a promising, set-for-life career with the Australian Post Office "uur 11.16 am 6.00 pm Stay Over night 8U0176 7.35 am natural asset, is biggest 8U074 10.00 pm TUE.

1.65 am 2,65 am SUN. TUE. THUR. SAT. SYDNEY ttOOam' 11.45am' 11.15 am 12.00am INOATORI A 7.60 pm B.OOpm 7.30 pm StiyOvar StiyOvaf.

StayOvtr- night nlatit njoht WED. SK976 SK972 SK974 SINOAPOP.fi 7,30 am 7.30 am 7.30 am BANOKOK A 6.1llpm 6,05 im Slay Ovtr ntgnt BANGKOK 11.00am 10.00 am 11,00 am TASHKENT A 4,70 pm 470 pm 4.50 pm TASHKENT 6.05 pm 4.05 pm 4,05 pm 8.05 pm COPENHAGEN A 6.00 pm 6.00 pm 6.00 pm 6.00 pm By connecting carrier. right beside us, and we all, of course, care about it. We have Invested many millions to divert the southeastern trunk sewer to the ocean, the piping of oil beneath the bay has been prohibited but such decisions have done nothing to' improve the bay; they have merely stopped It from getting worse." DELHI DELHI KARACHI KARACHI TASHKENT TASHKENT MOSCOW 11.80 am 13.60 pm 6.06 pm 6.06 pm pm 8U073 8.66 pm 9.45 pm 7.00 am 8U0173 AUSTRALIA MOSCOW COPENHAGEN A 8,70 am ,00 am By conrwcllng carrtfr. trA AntlVJ iIJIV i I IJl'Ff General Sates Agents: Wllh.

Wllhetmwn Aoency Pty. Ltd. VMIW UKAIMKS 60 MlrkM St 3000. Tel. 61 3031 An exciting world, a promising future, awaits you now in TELECOMMUNICATIONS with the AUSTRALIAN POST OFFICE Beginners Claites Daffy Morning, Atttrnoon or ironing GIRLS BUSINESSMEN HOUSEWIVES STU0ENTS The anly Typing Courts in tfie Oramatle Raw Talatlilon lairnlnf in Mtltourns.

TELEVISION TYPING CENTRE M) Little Collins St. 61 Slit U1M I.