• Fay Howe (Daisy Coyle) and the cast of Lighthouse Girl. Photo supplied
LIGHTHOUSE GIRL builds from a slow murmur to a tempest of blood, fury and pathos that had the audience in tears.
Based on the real life story of 15-year-old Fay Howe, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Dianne Wolfer’s book is set on Albany’s Breaksea Island at the outbreak of World War One.
“It speaks the universal truth of what it is to be humanly small in the face of gargantuan conflict,” Hellie Turner, who adapted the book for stage, says.
Lighthouse keeper Robert Howe (Benj D’Addario), old Joe Taylor, (Murray Dowsett), and Fay are the only residents on the small island, where supplies arrive, weather permitting, once a month.
It’s a lonely life for a young girl, played with sweet simplicity by Daisy Coyle.
She’s a whiz at semaphore and morse code, and as dozens of war ships gather off Albany, preparing to head off to war, she communicates with the soldiers, sending their last minute messages back to loved ones.
Also on board are the fictional characters Charlie (Giuseppe Rotondella) and Jim (Will McNeill), a couple of young mates who lie about their age to enlist, thinking war would be a great lark. Directed by Stuart Halusz Lighthouse Girl is on at the State Theatre until May 14.
• Andrew Ryan and venue manager Larry Murray in the revamped Rosemount Hotel. Photo supplied
FOLLOWING a revamp of the historic Rosemount Hotel in North Perth, the famous circular bar is no more.
But don’t worry, the hotel is now set to become one of Perth’s premier live band venues, with new bar areas, mezzanine viewing platforms and an upgraded PA.
“It will be a renaissance the likes of which Perth has never seen,” Cool Perth Nights director, Andrew Ryan says.
“What excites me most is the optimal experience now offered to local, national and international musicians.”
Renovations uncovered heritage features that had been hidden for decades, including huge timber and iron roof beams.
THE moment you step into this Mount Lawley home you will be in awe at the drop-dead gorgeous domed ceiling and the art deco splendour.
There’s another domed ceiling in the lounge room and plenty of decorative ceilings elsewhere, including the generous dining room, where a bank of windows cast mellow light.
In these days of renovations and make-overs it’s rare to find so many original art deco features remaining, and to quote the agent: “If this house was a car it would be a 1930s Duisenberg, frozen in time from the set of the Great Gatsby.”
All the frippery of the period can be found in this lovely Grosvenor Road home, including rich jarrah floors, super high ceilings and deep skirting, along with frosted-glass french doors, and cute peaked windows.
The main bedroom is a generous space, with a beautiful lead light bay window.
And the bathroom is original, including a lovely terrazzo floor, deep bath, separate shower and a free-standing porcelain sink.
This three-bedroom home is a veritable time capsule, and while the huge kitchen boasts a fancy six-burner Bosch stove, the curved cabinetry is pure 1930s.
Light spills delightfully into this domestic zone, thanks to three large windows.
The third bedroom is at the rear of the home, fronted by a small sun room, making it just the spot for a teenage pad.
There’s space to entertain mates in the sun room and a rear entry so they don’t trample dirty footprints through the home.
Set on 326sqm there’s not a lot of garden, but a spacious front verandah, with a lovely terrazzo floor, is a delightfully sheltered area to enjoy the outdoors.
Located just off the Beaufort Street strip, a swag of cafes and shops are within walking distance and the Perth CBD is a nine minute drive away – 10 if you’re a keen cyclist.
by JENNY D’ANGER
128 Grosvenor Road, Mount Lawley Sale by open negotiation Pam Herron 0413 610 660 Jon Adams 0413 610 662 Beaufort Realty 9227 0887
• Example of a treatment plan using SRS to treat a brain lesion.
IT’S a persistent belief that the only treatment for brain cancer is to go under the knife, but Dr Chris Harper and his team have been effectively treating hard-to-reach metastatic brain tumours and other lesions with “stereotactic radiosurgery”.
There are no incisions, and no heavy doses of radiation in stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), which sends several low-intensity beams of radiation directly to the site needing treatment.
These beams add up to deliver a therapeutic dose to the problem area, while leaving surrounding tissues relatively unaffected.
SRS is an alternative for patients unable to undergo surgery, or when the tumour or abnormality is in an area that is difficult to operate on for fear of damaging surrounding parts of the brain. It’s also very low impact: “The benefit is your hair doesn’t fall out, it’s a one-day procedure done as an outpatient, and the side effects are minimal,” Dr Harper says.
The technique was originally designed to treat small, well-defined intracranial targets and is most suited when the cancer is under control elsewhere in the body but is stubbornly difficult to budge in the brain.
“There’s a significant number of cases where chemotherapy or other treatments have controlled the cancer inside the body, but these treatments are not getting into the brain,” Dr Harper says.
SRS is also very successful at treating other conditions like benign lesions on the acoustic nerve that can cause deafness. Traditional treatment involved surgery, with the associated anaesthetic and recovery time, but SRS has shown great effectiveness in treating these tumours with minimal impact.
Strokes
Arteriovenous malformations — abnormal connections between the arteries and veins that can lead to strokes — can also be treated by SRS.
Dr Harper says there’s a lot of marketing hype around name-brand machines, but it’s much like the difference between a Mercedes and a Porsche; they do the same thing as long as the driver knows what they’re doing.
“People shouldn’t get hung up on the salesmanship,” he says. Patients sometimes ask if they should travel to Sydney for the branded Gamma Knife® but the equipment available in Perth has identical functions.
“Effectively it doesn’t matter which device you use, so you don’t need to go overseas or to Sydney to use a particular device … you can achieve the exact same thing using a machine known as a linear accelerator.”
Dr Harper says patients are relieved when they find out how simple the SRS is. After an initial meeting with the doctor and about a week of careful planning and computer modelling to target the right area, the procedure itself takes about an hour.
VOLUNTEERS who built a community garden in Morley fear Bayswater council will kick them out when their peppercorn lease expires next month.
The council is considering giving the “underutilised” old kindy site to another group or selling it.
Pat Lim, 84, is chair of Bayswater City Community Safety Watch and Garden Education Inc.
Despite her advanced years she spends most of her free time at the Brand Place garden, cleaning, weeding, watering, and helping volunteers and dole workers who tend dozens of beds filled with veggies.
She’s personally donated about $20,000 and spent hundreds of hours getting it up and running, but fears “the dream has gone down the gurgler”.
• A Bayswater council report says there’s not much of a community garden at the old Morley kindy site and the land should be sold or given away, but Pat Lim and Greg Smith disagree. Photo by David Bell
A tour of the site shows plenty of thriving greenery, but a report from Bayswater council staff says “although plans have been in place for the development of a community garden … there has been little progress towards this.
It says there has been “limited evidence of community involvement to date associated with the site”, there’s few members and it’s not financially viable.
Ms Lim says they have around 57 members and the report was “biased to the hilt” and a slap in the face to all the community groups, schools, volunteers and local businesses who put in so much work.
Donated
She submitted a list of 48 actions she’d taken to improve the site, including the hundreds of garden pots, baskets and garden beds she’d donated and the two new toilets she’d had installed in the kindy.
Ms Lim says that once the garden is established she wants to get more of the community involved, but they can’t commit unless they know they’ll be around for the long haul.
Friend and green warrior Greg Smith has seen his share of council reports as a town planner and says the latest was “designed to kill off the community garden … it is an unbalanced, unobjective assessment”.
At a Bayswater committee meeting last Wednesday, councillors Dan Bull, Chris Cornish and Sally Palmer voted to leave the community garden be.
Councillors Stephanie Coates, Catherine Ehrhardt, John Rifici and mayor Barry McKenna voted to hold a workshop to discuss their options.
Mr Smith reckons they’re just kicking the can down the road to delay the decision and the workshop’s an illusory consultation.
Ms Lim fears it’s a fait accompli and they’ll have to remove their upgrades and hand the key’s back within a matter of weeks.
“It’s devastating,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking. It’s nonsensical. You just can’t find the right words.”
“I’m hopping mad, but I’m not going to let the anger overwhelm my joy for life.”
LABOR’S honoured an election pledge to contribute $1.5million to help buy the Carter family’s wetlands block in Bayswater.
The local council’s also contributing $1.5m to buy the block, which was partially cleared last year as part of preliminary development works on the D’Orazio family-owned site, situated next to Skipper’s Row.
• Labor Maylands MP Lisa Baker and Labor planning minister Rita Saffioti at the wetlands in Maylands.
Deborah Bowie from the No Houses in Wetlands campaign says the saga’s “almost” resolved, thanking “the thousands of people who support the campaign”.
They now want to ensure that no cul de sacs are allowed to be built on the wetlands.
The partial clearing undertaken last year was to build two culs de sac on the Carter block.
AROUND 1200 people headed down to Shearn Memorial Park last Saturday to celebrate the Maylands Green Day.
Bayswater council put on the day of food and forest-friendly fun to encourage people to look after their environment, embrace natural spaces in their neighbourhoods and learn how to live more sustainably.
• Warming up trees: Elizabeth Cooper, Karen Leaning, Dani Sleader and Lyn Corrin show some love for greenery by knitting woollen scarves for trees. Photo by Max Laurent
“In today’s digital world maintaining a connection to the natural world and promoting environmental awareness is becoming increasingly important,” said Bayswater mayor Barry McKenna.
He says he hopes the day “will encourage families to discover their local parks and gardens”.
Update: The motion narrowly passed with Crs Ehrhardt, Dan Bull, Stephanie Coates, Barry McKenna, and John Rifici supporting it, with no-votes from Chris Cornish, Brent Fleeton, Sally Palmer and Michelle Sutherland.
BAYSWATER councillor Catherine Ehrhardt wants her colleagues to “publicly support marriage equality irrespective of sex or gender identity”
She’s tabled a motion calling for the city to “recognise that civil marriage makes a positive contribution to families and communities” and that they “acknowledge that many people in the municipality are disadvantaged by the current law and social exclusion.”
Cr Ehrhardt also wants the city to write to all WA MPs, senators and the prime minister, asking that a parliamentary conscience vote to change the Marriage Act be held.
“The passing of actual legislation for marriage equality is a federal issue, no bones about it, but the responsibility for lobbying and support needed to make that happen belongs to all of us, especially local government,” Cr Ehrhardt told the Voice.
• Bayswater Cr Catherine Ehrhardt.
“Shortly after being elected I had members of the community approach me including people from Marriage Equality Australia.
“There’s so many people in my community affected by this, and it’s beyond a joke that the federal government hasn’t done anything.
“What I’m trying to do is encourage a respectful debate and free vote, because it’s the least that we can do for our residents and ratepayers.”
But ahead of the vote, Cr Brent Fleeton put out a statement on Facebook saying the motion is “so far outside the realm of what a local government is in place to deal with.”
“It’s not relevant if you agree with same-sex marriage or not, the question my colleagues need to figure out is: what does our local council exist for?
“I don’t believe we are here to collect rates (which pay for our salary and costs for running these meetings) to debate federal government issues.
“We are here for the basics: roads, rubbish, local parks and gardens.”
Cr Fleeton, a Liberal party staffer, says “if this trend continues I might get in on the action and move a motion soon to ask my colleagues to endorse the findings from the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, or to ask for their support to declare that Bayswater council formally recognises the State of Israel has the right to exist”.
Cr Ehrhardt says local government does have a role to play in leadership on these issues: “In November last year we wrote to WALGA supporting a state-wide ban on plastic bags.”
“In 2015 we declared ourselves a refugee friendly zone.
“If we can do that for plastic bags and refugees, why can’t we stand up for marriage equality on behalf of our residents and ratepayers?”
The vote was to take place at the Bayswater council meeting on Wednesday night after the Voice went to print.
MOUNT LAWLEY senior high school will induct ex-prisoner of war Arthur Leggett OAM into their “Lawley Legends” society.
The Lawley Legend status is usually reserved for school alumni who’ve “excelled in their field or made a significant contribution to society since they left school” but also acknowledges people who’s supported the school over a lengthy period.
Mr Leggett was a signaller who was captured in Crete in early 1941.
• Arthur Leggett OAM and school chaplain Andrew Paul.
He spent nearly four years working in coal mines in northern Poland, before being forced on a death march in the winter of 1944/1945 across the Czechoslovakian Alps to Bavaria in starvation conditions.
He wasn’t a MLSHS student himself (born 1918, it wasn’t around when he was a youngen, having been founded in 1955) but he’s long had a connection with the school, educating students and contributing to their Anzac Day assembly for more than 10 years and the annual service at the ex-POW memorial at Kings Park for more than 20 years.
A poet and author, he’s being inducted as a Lawley Legend Friday May 5 “for his character, good humour, his sacrifice as a prisoner of war and his dedication to keeping alive the memory of his fallen comrades with generations of MLSHS students.”
THE Spirit of the Streets Choir will celebrate its 10th birthday with a huge show at Perth Concert Hall.
The not-for-profit group is an inclusive choir, inviting people who’ve experienced social disadvantage, isolation and other personal issues.
Bernard Carney and Big Issue vendors formed the choir in 2007.
They started life as “the Big Issue Choir”, made up from the homeless and unemployed, but soon other disadvantaged people joined and one of the long-termers came up with “Spirit of the Streets” as their membership diversified.
• The Spirit of the Streets choir in action.
The first time they performed at Perth Concert Hall in 2008 it was a sell-out show, and they’re heading back to the venue to mark their 10th birthday.
This time round they’ll be joined by the Burundi Peace Choir (a Perth-based gospel group that was formed in a refugee camp in Tanzania), Harry’s Anonymous (a recovery group living a drug and alcohol free-lifestyle), Starlight Hotel from Freo, and WA Deaf Arts members who’ll be singing the songs in Auslan.
It’s part of “Sing or Health” week, which aims to unite the state with a song called “Pass The Song Along” and spread the word about the health benefits of singing — from the heart and lungs getting a workout to improvements in self-esteem and brain function.
There’s info at singforhealth.org.au and tickets to the May 6 show can be purchased at perthconcerthall.com.au.
Perth Voice Interactive 