Polishing tarnished ideals

Featured in

  • Published 20160802
  • ISBN: 978-1-925355-53-6
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

IN 1976 MY Aunty Pam, who had returned from her job as a nurse on the volcanic island of Karkar just off Madang in Papua New Guinea and was by then matron of the health centre in the Aboriginal settlement of Cherbourg in southern Queensland, bought my three brothers and me a Montreal Olympic Games T-shirt each. We wouldn’t take them off. The Olympic Games were a few weeks away. We remembered, from 1972, Shane Gould and Mark Spitz; Kip Keino and Lasse Viren.

We believed in the Olympic Games. We were athletes too. We’d competed in Little Athletics, striving to beat our best times and distances and heights whenever we donned the colours of the Red Devils club, and in school athletics where we did our very best for Oakey Primary and Oakey High. Perhaps one day we’d be off to the Olympics ourselves.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

John Harms

John Harms is a Melbourne-based writer. His books include Play On (Text, 2003), and Life As I Know It (MUP, 2016). He is the...

More from this edition

The stands

PoetryWaverley. You were my Saturday crèche when I was too young to see over the fence on the wing. My Tuesday night series teen...

Matchbox memories

MemoirIT SOMEHOW SEEMED right, one golf day, that we ended up banging on about the Brisbane Rugby League competition of the 1970s, because the...

Golden girls

ReportageWho would have thought it possible a generation ago – young women spending the day, every day, wrestling? Who could have imagined that a gate at the entrance of Balali would welcome all visitors in the name of these girls who have brought glory to the village? That this would be possible in a state that has been in the news for all the wrong reasons – including female foeticide, honour killings and rape?

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.