The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 9

4 -Tf. ti .9 The Sydney Morning Herald, Sat, July 19, ,1975 Life on the never-never Vi lily by any other Ji COLUMN edited Ttt bURISCH I pv.adams; I I I i 'Cures' upset Health food- stores are fearful for their very existence because of stringent newspaper and. magazine advertising controls announced in the NSW Government Gazette yesterday. The' new regulations apply, to medicines and "cures" sold without a prescription, and "prohibit' any statement or implication that such goods are a natural remedy. "What do you do if your tongue is cut out and you can't tell what your products are used for?" asked Mr Bryan King, president of the NSW Health Food Retailers and Traders Association.

"You can't use the words 'pure' and 'cure'," he said. "They have the power to remove. these words from the names of (J cs i 1 ted THE AUSTRALIAN Government is about to take drastic measures the flow of migrants from Australia to Rhodesia. It will also introduce punitive legislation to curtail any activities here that could be favourable to Rhodesia. A substantial number of Austra-t JUns are believed to have migrated (Jo Rhodesia since the former British -colony declared its independence 10 ers ago.

In the year ended, last at least 80 Australian citizens migrated to Rhodesia, according to 4 Rhodesian Government sources. The principal thorn- pricking the Australian Government's conscience is' Rhodesia5 Information Centre at Crows Nest. This has continued to operate in spite of repeated attempts by Australian authorities to put it out of business. For example, the name of the '-icentre was de-registered. It simply re-registered as the Flame Lily Centre (the flame lily is the national.

of Rhodesia) and still refers itself as the Rhodesia Information "We are precluded from pro-, moting migration to Rhodesia," the centre's manager, Mr Roy van der Spuy, said yesterday. "We just give information. The people who ring, us about migration have Often been hit by unemployment or the -high cost of living here. A lot of them complain about the Australian Government." Mr van der Spuy said intending migrants were but in touch with the -nit NimwA but his fear of death and his passion for cigars. While he wants to possess Wendy, it's an asexual passion.

(He just wants his fellow pirates to have a mother.) In this there's an echo of the resolute asexuality of Peter. Pan who cried: "You mustn't touch me, No one must ever touch me!" According to Peter Davies, another Barrie expert, whenever the playwright was attracted by people he at once wanted to own them irrespective of their age or their sex. Thus assuming that Barrie wanted to own the Davieses in 1904, "it is possible to see Peter Pan as the innocent embodiment of this desire, and Captain- Hook' as the guilty one." In the play, neither Peter Pan nor James Hook got his But in real life, Barrie did finally possess the Davieses. First of all, Mr Davies died of cancer, leaving Sylvia and the children in poverty. Barrie was able to step in and lavish luxuries and affection upon them.

A little later, Sylvia Davies also died, leaving Barrie in charge of the five lost boys. But reality soon invaded never-never land. No sooner had the boys stopped playing at pirates with Barrie than they were swept into World War I. George, the eldest, was killed in France, and Peter was invalided home with severe shell shock. As the surviving children had all grown up, Barrie was once again alone.

Although still wealthy and famous, he developed a writer's cramp, both mentally and physically. Unable to work for several years, he suddenly found his right hand clenching into a claw, "a late and uncanny imitation of Captain Hook." In. a world obsessed with youth, where a great percentage of the population abhor the idea of growing old (and to be 30 is seen to be old) the writings of Barrie have some relevance. So many people trying to stay young, to stay Peter Pans. So many older people, trying to be young again.

It's a desperate and pathetic situation. For my own part, I'm now reconciled to aging' process, and find it an interesting form of travel. On thinking back from the vantage point of my 30s to the oppressions of childhood, I wouldn't be a kid again for quids. And the strange thing is I've become almost fond of my ticking crocodile. Phillip Adamt AS A YOUNG CHILD unable to believe in either God or His heaven, I became obsessed with mortality with death.

Because of this obsession I would read, and reread certain passages in books, trying to comprehend what it meant to die. Thus I was haunted by the description of Judy's death in Seven Little Australians: "Judy grew quiet, and still more quiet. She shut her eyes so she could not see the gathering shadows. "Meg's arms were round her, Meg's cheek was on her brow, Nell was holding her hands. Baby her feet, Bunty's lips were on her hair.

Like that they went with her right to the Great Valley, where there are no lights even for stumbling childish feet. "The shadows were cold, and smote upon their hearts; they could feel the wind from the strange waters on their brows; but only she who is about to cross heard the low lapping of the waves. "Just as her feet touched the water there was a figure in the doorway. said a wild voice; and Pip brushed them aside and fell down beside her. 'Judy, Judy, Judy.

"The light flickered back in her eyes. She. kissed him with pale lips once, twice; she gave him both her hands, at her last smile. Then the wind blew over them all, and with, a little shudder, she slipped away." it's an awful example of purple prose, of over-writing. Yet even now, despite my years and my cynicism, I'm still chilled by those metaphors of wind, waves and water.

My childhood reading gave me another metaphor for death that lingered in my memory. The crocodile that followed Captain Hook through the macabre and melancholy pages of Peter Pan. A crocodile that ticked because, as well as gobbling Captain Hook's hand, it had swallowed his clock. Not even the sight of an over-weight woman playing Peter Pan in a Christmas panto the principal boy," was 'Mum's confusing, answer to my inevitable question) destroy my fascination with the character. For I feared growing up for the simple reason that it meant aging and aging meant dying.

And by refusing to grow up, Peter Pan would deepest attachment was to his mother. The resemblance was more than psychological: Barrie never grew to be more than 5ft tall, and he was always extremely (light and youthful in appearance, with a thin, small voice. In photographs taken during his 20s and early 30s he looks like an adolescent boy wearing a false moustache. Although given to romantic crushes on pretty women, he was appar- ently incapable of physical love. His marriage at 34 to an actress in his first hit play was never consummated." It was 10 years after that marriage that Barrie met charming family, the Da-vieses, walking with their children and their nanny in Kensington Gardens.

The tots made friends with Bar-rie's St Bernard, later to become the model for the canine nanny in Peter Pan. Soon Barrie and the Davieses were inseparable, although Mr and Mrs Davies were in two minds about the situation. Mrs Davies became somewhat irritated with Jamie's soulful passion for ber, while Mr Davies re- sented the author's success with his kids. For Barrie's imagination and story-telling soon captivated the Davies children. Barrie developed a private fantasy for the kids and himself all about Kensington Gardens.

The hero was a Peter Pan who had flown from his nursery rather than grow up. Eventually these stories were published as part of a novel called The Little White Bird. Barrie was in bis 40s and the Davies children ranged from six years down. Barrie would take a holiday house near the Davieses in Surrey over Christmas, adding complexities to the- Peter Pan story, inventing games involving, pirates, shipwrecks, Indians and desert islands. He'd take photographs of the children acting out his plots, and illustrated two copies of hand-bound volumes, in this way.

Arthur Davies showed his attitude to the goings-on by promptly losing his copy in the tram. Barrie's identification with' Peter Pan is very obvious. Captain James Hook shares not only his Christian name live forever in Never-Never Land. Now, looking back, I realise that Barrie shared my terror of death, shared my reluctance to grow up. And thanks to some stylish detec-tive work by the English writer Alison Lurie, I've learnt that Barrie was much, much more than a cloying, maudlin, sentimental dramatist.

He was a powerful novelist (his biographical books gave a stunning portrait of artistic corruption) and a genuinely tragic figure. For Peter Pan and Captain Hook turn out to be two parts of a tortured, almost schizophrenic self-portrait. Until the age of six, Barrie was just an ordinary little boy, one of a large and impoverished family. It was his older brother, David Barrie, who seemed destined for greatness. His mother was convinced that he would win a scholarship to Edinburgh University and become a great preacher, "the highest reward on earth that any mother could hope for." But David was killed the day before his 14th birthday.

Stricken by that news, his mother stayed in bed from that day on, at first refusing to eat or to speak. When James's older sister found him crying on the stairs, the sister, now responsible for the children and the chores, told him to go into his mother and remind her that she had "another son." "The room was dark, and when I heard the door shut and no sound come from the bed I was afraid, and I stood still After a time I heard a listless voice saying 'Is -that I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely voice 'No, it's not him, it's just me'." From that point on, Jamie almost lived in the dark room with his mother, trying to take David's place. In the end he succeeded, becoming famous beyond his 'mother's wildest dreams. But at what a price! For James Barrie remained exactly as David had been on the day he died. "He became, and remained for the rest of his long writes Lurie, "a brilliant boy just short of puberty whose The announcement of the regulations yesterday sent minor shock waves echoing throughout the "fringe" medicines business.

The regulations are understood to be based on a code adopted by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 1972. Major manufacturers, represented by the Australian Proprietary Association, agreed voluntarily to adhere to the code. But some smaller companies, unhappy at the restrictions, have not yet followed the recommendations. The new restrictions appear to be much more severe than the present controls on television and radio advertising. But a spokesman for a major drug company said yesterday that new rules for the advertising of -medicines on television and radio from September 1 are so severe that many companies may limit their advertising to newspapers and magazines.

The fortunes of fine-print lawyers in the medicines industry look promising. authorities in Rhodesia, and negotia- Mr van fr Spuy of the Rhodotlan Information Centre altos Mi Homo Lily Centre. the contrary, the Department of Foreign Affairs has requested the Attorney-General's Department to draft a bill urgently to enforce many of the provisions of a 1968 United Nations Security Council resolution which recommended that member countries take all measures to prevent migration to Rhodesia. The Southern Rhodesia Bill is still being drafted, but The Inside Column has learned the main points of the legislation. While not attempting to suppress freedom of speech, the bill imposes lengthy prison sentences for anyone enlisting in the -Rhodesian armed forces or anyone who attempts to recruit for the Rhodesian armed forces.

It will be an offence for any person to attempt to arrange travel for another person from Australia to Rhodesia. It will be an offence to sell, transfer, carry or deliver exports to, or imports from Rhodesia. It will be an offence to advertise to encourage migration to Rhodesia or to promote tourism to Rhodesia. Obstacles will be placed in the path of any person who accepts money to act as an agent of the Rhodesian administration. Most apart from those connected with the Rhodesian armed forces, carry a maximum penalty of $10,000 for corporate bodies and uons were conducted directly between the parties.

He explained that for certain classes of skilled Workers Rhodesia has an assistance scheme under which migrants are refunded 75 per cent of ''their fares after their arrival in Rhodesia. know the' Australian Govern-. ment would not like to see citizens of Australia going to Rhodesia, but "there is not much they can do about ft," he said. One problem Australian authorities is that no -airline will accept a booking direct to Rhodesia -trom Australia. i Thus, any intending migrants would leave here bound either for South Africa or Malawi via Europe.

-I -They would enter Rhodesia either from South Africa or Malawi. But the Australian Government has not abandoned its efforts to pro-Rhodeslan activities. On Widespread rumours that the NSW Government is about to impose a new tax on clubs in its Budget and give the revenue to local auuiorities are causing headaches for the NSW Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer, Mr Ruddock. "It's not on," he said yesterday. "I would sav that the State Government tor individuals.

The Rhodesia Information Centre. has had a nrettv whaeV nut of alias the Flame Lily Centre, seems the clubs and to give local authorities to be heading for a bad) time. a whack too Is just not rdtiAY the end of the for The Rail Way. Not cause I was running out of tarn, but simply because column was estaousned le weeks ago to make a Pint. Hth the help of fellow- THE tnZtiT Sydnoy Herald, gmuters, I think that point been made.

Broadly, the ocroadway Sydney diary was intended to phasise community con- RAIL WAY (Epilogue to a commuter's daily diary) over the state oi inter services in Sydney. This onvilopo effort by em comtpomfant Minltoly on the light lino. fti very easy for govern- nts and their officials to ice excuses for the dis- of Sydney's rail- iys. But the main excuse "lhe railways never naa If I can build houses, doing my own ads should ifflcient money to keep up is only part or le story. Of course, the claim is fu.

Ask Milton Morris, I ho never lacked ideas for lorovine public transport in be a cinch! Pr timely information on when they can hope, to get where they're going. That requires polite efficiency from the commission's staff, from the top dogs in head office to the newest recruit wielding a broom at Penrith, Parramatta or Pymble. From tomorrow, many commuters will be giving the Transport Commission a second chance. Tomorrow's reversion to the old timetables ends the fiasco which began in May with radical schedules that were simply beyond the capacity of the rommission'j eiulment and Ami; The Rail Vay ha alv-ays been it heralds the return of workable schedules by removing the cobwebs which have decorated the commission's logo on this column. Next week 'will show whether that optimism Is justified or not.

riages, wrong information (or no information at all) such complaints were received in droves from commuters on all Sydney lines. Like Mr Ross Hall, of Eastwood, who spent 75 minutes being shunted from station to station between Wynyard and Strathfield one night he then had to go on to Granville. Or Mrs Marcia Klrsten, of Pqint Clare, shunted between platforms at Hornsby while on her way from Gosford to the City; she eventually caught an express, but wondered whatever happened to 100 or so travellers left lamenting, waiting for an all-stations train. There was Miss Eleanor Sangster, of Marrickville, who wrote of trains that changed destination in midnight and of trains that stopped for half-hour intervals en route with no explanation to passengers. Mr I.

A. Cooper, of Chatswood, wrote of the transport commission's ex-, cedent coup in arranging for a train breakdown at Central in the peak hour on a cold, wet night Mrs Barbara Godden, of Beecroft, told how she had had to resign from an interesting job because she was fed up with the daily struggle of getting to and from work in overcrowded, delayed trains. And so on. and on. The point I hope came through loud and clear to the commission Is straightforward enough.

Many people, those who have to use the train, those who choose to use it, are willing to accept the fact that problems will occur from time to time on the but-run service. But when things do go wrong, passengers expect, and have a right to expect, to be told why they will be delayed, to be given accurate, fSW, but always lacked tne herewithal to turn ideas ito reality. Only with the advent of he" 'Labor Government in has the massive imount of money needed to replace antiquated rolling itock begun to become available. But the railway service is Now that I'm doing ny own advertising, I thought I should look the part. So 'I bought a BtHHHiH denim jacket and grew my.

hair a bit, just like a real advertising man. Mytyping needs improvement but it's not bad or a builder, which brings me to the' -point; building houses. than modern, rouing stock. A recurring theme in letters telephone calls to The Kali. Way invoiveo me management skills or lack of them of the Public Transport Commission.

Dreary and Ill-lit platforms, surly staff, filthy car- Worldly words innocent music lou can add bedrooms, bathrooms, and change the plan to suit yourself or a favourite tree on your -block. We have many plans for you to choose from, and you can-add your own individuality to any. Even things like an open fireplace if you like. I could rave on and on, but there's nothing like seeing for yourself So grab the phone ring the number below. I reckon that's not a bad ad even if I say so myself.

IPettiLSevitt RECORDS ISm the first to admit i that we're not in the mid'le of a tuilding boom like we WBBe a few years back. In fact, quite a few com-' panles have been nailed to the wall. Only the good strong ones have survived. Well, we're very much alive and kicking and building homes. In fact, we have 27 builders licensed to build our houses from Townsville to Adelaide.

And there's still no safer investment than bricks and mortar-. We've seen houses, we built-four or five years -ago, more than double in value. Right now is a good time to build. Land prices are deflated, and there '0 tage of good tradesmen or materials. Which means we catt probably build your house in about half the time it would have taken' twelve-months ago.

Our Multi-Plan system means you can start modestly if you like, and then build on in BBisiUKS modules as the kids arrive, or your Mother in Law or something. By! ROGER COVELL CARL 'ORFF, whose 80th birthday this month is marked here by the release of a brilliant new recording, of perennially popular Catainiji Burana (CBS SBR 235 has been widely, characterised as a musical "primitive." Stravinsky once went so far as to describe his style as neo-Neander-. tM-fc Di. wa9 -nothing i ENQUIRIES! Ludwig and Peter- Schreier) of Orffs recent De tempo-rum fine comoedia (Play for the end of time) presents us with an interesting ritual it was first staged at Salz- burg 1973 set up to austere and often seemingly, mechanical declaration patterns. One of the most dramatic' moments, among all the crashing and thumping, chanting and muttering, is.

of the' speaker's soft, repeated "God knows; God alone knows." Orff views God's final solu- I tion to the human problem as likely to be merciful" rather than vengeful; The work ends as serenely as a sixteenth century ricencare with four viols (misleadingly referred to as a "Viola quartet" in the English titling) claying in canon. The canon seems as though it could go on for ever but comes to a stop with the gentle suddenness of a pressed control button. Is that how timijt ends? choirs rarely match the splendour of the orchestras with, which they are recorded. The Cleveland Orchestra chorus is musically disciplined but undernourished in tone. Orchestrally and in overall vividness Of recording, the CBS disc sets high standards.

The baritone (Peter Binder) and tenor- (Kenneth- Riegel) soloists are among the best' I have' heard in the work; the soprano (Judith Blegen) has spirit, musicianship and, unfortunately! a strongly developed vibrato. A more- particular reason for- the extensive margin in popularity that Carmina. maintains over Orffs other comparable work is its richer invention. To put it less abstractly: it has more' and better melody and more interesting alternations of rhythm and tempo. Karajan's recording (DGG 2350 432) with the Cologne Radio orchestra, choir and soloists (including Christa compulsive in his choice was a turning away from the saturated, purple-stained textures of "expressionism." His eclectic borrowings were passed through a filter which allowed them force, humour and playfulness but not the conventional accents of.

passion. The general appeal of mina Burana, then, probably resides in its union, of sensually 'experienced, even world-weary words with music of conspicuous (if arti-. ficial) innocence. It is not the music of desire but of a youthful excitement which precedes the knowledge of desire. Up to now, I think' it is true to say, the best Carmina Burana recording has been the DGG version conducted by lochum.

The new recording, on which Michael Tilson. Thomas directs the Cleveland Orchestra and its associated singers, does not surpass the older disc chojIy. American Sydney Metropolitan Area, Bowralr Bathurst, Blue Mountains and Gosford, Rob Telford or Paul Kelly, Property Development Sty 692 Pacific Highway, CHATSWOOD, Phones 412.2333 or 412.2466 I I.Atn1.e nhnut uiiiniuiuicu wi wfiw -r prffs selection of the ele-nonta nf rhnnt. dance and vocal decoration of his Car-Thev derived from an exceptionally vell-(develoned knowledge of the Ireiiioter historical past of European music and the PS0036KH international varieties ttraditional music What yfs instinctive or.