Boot, Shoes & Seeds - The Life Of Peter Field.

The history of Australia in the 50 year period leading up to Federation in 1901 is one characterized by exploration, rapid transition and economic development. Emerging from its fraught period as a penal colony, after its occupation by the British, Australia entered an era of entrepreneurialism whereby the convict population - having served their period of incarceration - were now free to rebuild their lives and, perhaps, take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the nascent industrialization that was taking place. Similarly, a wave of British immigration keen to take advantage of those same opportunities, saw many free settlers arrive on Australian shores with hopes of a better life in the far away colony. 

One of these free settlers, is the subject of a compelling book by retired Adelaide consultant Dr John Field. 

Boots, Shoes and Seeds is a meticulously researched history of the life of Peter Field, a Queensland entrepreneur and businessman who lived and thrived in the latter part of the 19th century and whose legacy still informs much of how business is conducted - even today.

Boots, Shoes and Seeds (image credit: Dr. John Field).

From the liner notes;

Orphaned at 15 months and consigned to an English workhouse: this was Peter Field’s bleak start in life. But he made the most of his opportunities, and with a sense of adventure, set out for Australia. 

There, with energy, hard work and entrepreneurial skill, Peter built up a prosperous boot manufacturing business in Toowoomba with retail stores throughout southern Queensland. 

He survived insolvency in the 1890s depression and contributed generously to the local community and the Church of England.

In retirement, Peter and his wife, Sarah, established one of the most popular guesthouses in Toowoomba, which ran successfully for 30 years.

Peter’s story, told by his great-grandson, is richly enhanced with over 100 photographs, maps and figures.

Boots, Shoes and Seeds is a thoroughly researched document and the attention to detail is impressive. Dr. Field, in putting together a lasting tribute to his great grandfather, has composed an engaging and, at times, inspiring portrait of a man who came from the most crushing of circumstances in Victorian England, but who persevered and prevailed at a time when many of his contemporaries struggled. 

19th century Toowoomba is recreated in detail and it is easy to place oneself in this emerging regional city at a time that would otherwise be lost to history. It is worth noting that Toowoomba's reputation as a welcoming City - particularly to immigrants - had its roots in this very period when people like Peter Field ventured there from far away England and it is an observation I kept coming back to in my reading of the book. 

Boots, Shoes and Seeds is an important account of Australian and Queensland history and one that historians should add as an essential addition to their collection. It is also a loving tribute by an ancestor that will assume a special place in one particular family's history.

Dr. John Field (image supplied by the author).

Dr John Field was, for more than 45 years, a consultant statistician and data analyst, firstly with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and then in his own business.  He worked in many diverse areas including tropical agriculture, the environment, medicine and health, insurance, electricity distribution, viticulture and wine-making.

For the last decade John has been involved in family history research and since retiring in 2014 has been researching the life of his great-grandfather, Peter Field.

He lives in Adelaide with his wife, Rosie.  They have three adult children.

Purchase Boots, Shoes and Seeds here. 

Contact Dr. John Field here. 

DFA. 

The Recipient - Coming May 1st 2016.

Pre-Order Now From The Book Depository.

Rachel.

How does a person imprint so comprehensively on someone that they almost haunt you, even when you have never met them? 

Back when I first started my website Dean from Australia, one of the first pieces I wrote was a love letter to the seemingly lost Pink Floyd backing vocalist Rachel Fury. That first post and its subsequent iteration "Oh Beautiful Fury" - which I reposted with additional information (and have since added more as new information comes to hand) - have become the most viewed posts at my site, racking up some 30,000 page views since I published them back in 2010 and 2011 respectively. In reality, it's probably not that impressive a number - but it is to me. It seems that I tapped into a world wide community of Rachel Fury devotees who were just as captivated by her as I am. Dozens of commentors to that original piece shared anecdotes, memories of seeing her live with Pink Floyd and asking the same questions that I was. 

What happened to Rachel Fury?

For the uninitiated readers here who are slightly creeped out right about now, let me recap.

Rachel Fury (image credit: Pink Floyd Music, copyright © 1987).

Rachel Fury was a backing vocalist on Pink Floyd's "Delicate Sound of Thunder" world tour which traversed the globe between 1987 and 1989. A U.S. segment of the tour was captured over five nights in August 1988 and became the double live album and film "Delicate Sound of Thunder" and it became a best seller. I first saw this concert video in 1990, as I recounted in my original piece, when my father purchased a copy and brought it home. We played it on our home stereo system one weekend night. Dad was something of a home theater aficionado - back in the days before decent systems and we got to see the concert in crisp stereo sound that lifted the roof off the house.

Rachel Fury began her career roughly 16 years earlier in 1971 as Rachel Brennock (her birth name), appearing in various British TV shows and films such as Mr Horatio Knibbles (1971) and Robin Hood Junior (1975). During this period, Brennock was building a career as a serious singer and In 1972, under the name "Weeny Bopper", Brennock recorded the single "David, Donny and Michael", a Pye Records release intended to capitalise on weenybopper enthusiasm for David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, and Michael Jackson. 

By 1978, having worked diligently within the British industry, Rachel Brennock was an established London session singer, known for a "sassy 'Ronettes' sound." Perhaps her most notable performance from that period was (allegedly) on the Buggles classic "Video Killed The Radio Star". In a 2009 interview with now defunct website Pop Junkie TV, former Typically Tropical (remember the one hit wonder "Barbados" anyone?) band member Geraint Hughes, Hughes describes Brennock as a superior vocalist who impressed everyone she met with her talent. It is also during this time that another Pink Floyd alum, Sam Brown and Rachel Brennock crossed paths though whether they performed together is impossible to know.

Rachel Fury (date unknown/courtesy Col Hancock).

Rachel Fury (date unknown/courtesy Col Hancock).

 Rachel Fury, Alan St. Clair, Howard Devoto circa 1983. (image credit Alan St. Clair).

I covered Rachel's - now Rachel Fury - early 80's period with Alan St. Clair and Howard Devoto of The Lover Speaks in my original 2011 post which, admittedly, was pretty sparse. Her movements through the New Wave era saw her travel widely in the U.S. and she continued to garner significant plaudits for her vocal talent. There was a collaboration with noted British singer/songwriter Phil Saatchi on an 1987 album called Wheel Of Fortune in which Rachel co-wrote a track called When We Dream. Around this time, she had come to the notice of Pink Floyd's personnel and this led to her signing with the band for the Momentary Lapse of Reason album and the Delicate Sound of Thunder tour. 

From the moment I saw her on screen in that concert, I was struck dumb - not in the least because, as a 15 year old, I saw her as something of a goddess! But perhaps more significantly it was because of her vocal performance - most notably on the Richard Wright penned track "Great Gig In The Sky". This song, which came from Pink Floyd's 1973 Dark Side Of The Moon, is particularly awe inspiring because it features no words. Rather, it is characterized by three verses of insanely powerful vocals in the form of ethereal wails and cries.

Rachel Fury (image credit: Pink Floyd Music, copyright © 1987).

The live performance required a powerful interpretation of the original composition. In the hands of the three backing singers Rachel Fury, Durga McBroom and Margaret Taylor, it was elevated to something of a religious experience. It was Fury whose stewardship of the first 'verse' of the song struck something deep in me when I first witnessed it. Of the three vocalists, hers was the most powerful, the most passionate, requiring an insane amount of discipline to traverse the wide vocal range. It was an utterly captivating performance. Her duet with David Gilmour on "Comfortably Numb" is equally so and I said in my original piece that there is an undeniable chemistry between the two and perhaps a flirtatious one, as evidenced in their interaction on the track "Money" which is performed with such a playfulness by the whole band. 

Rachel Fury  with David Gilmour (image credit: Pink Floyd Music, copyright © 1987).

Of all the backing vocalists who toured with Pink Floyd, Rachel Fury is undoubtedly the most mysterious. And this is simply because at the conclusion of the DSOT tour in 1989 she, quite literally, disappeared. Pink Floyd returned to the studio to record a follow up album "The Division Bell" and when they announced their subsequent "Pulse" world tour in the mid 90's, I specifically looked for Rachel's name in the line-up. She wasn't there. In fact the only returning backing vocalist for that tour was Durga McBroom and accompanying her was noted singer songwriter Sam Brown, whose single "You Better Stop" did great business in the early 90's and noted British session singer Claudia Fontaine. 

Where was Rachel? What had happened to her?

The question kicked around in my consciousness for a while but it eventually faded. In those pre-internet days, any hope of finding any useful information was impossible and even with the advent of the web, accurate information was still impossible to come by. For years, I treasured my double cassette edition of the Delicate Sound of Thunder tour recording and remained enamored by Rachel's voice. When I came to write the original 2010/11 pieces, information was still sparse though a few sources of information - that checked out - allowed me to sketch a tribute of sorts to this magnificent singer. 

 

Rachel Fury  (image credit: Pink Floyd Music, copyright © 1987).

Post 1990, there is precious little about Rachel Fury as a singer. I received some unconfirmed information back in 2010 suggesting that she had dropped out of the music business altogether, was living in London and was active in the animal rights community.  

It seems striking to me that a singer whose talent was undeniable, who had diligently built a respected profile throughout the late 70's and early 80's, collaborating with some serious talent and contributing to some important music - culminating in the Pink Floyd tour, could simply 'drop out'. What happened to her? Was it simply a case of having had enough after, essentially, 20 years of performing or was it something else. Her disappearance, from my vantage point seems so sudden - so final. It is a view shared by many who have visited my original post over the past 6 years. 

Rachel Fury  (image credit: Pink Floyd Music, copyright © 1987).

I wax and wane with my musical predilections and I haven't listened to the DSOT for several years. However, it was my 6 year old daughter, who accidentally tapped onto a YouTube clip of the DSOT "Great Gig" performance last week. And it has stirred up my fascination with Rachel Fury all over again. I'm pondering the same questions. I'm captivated by her beauty and her voice and hence I am revisiting her here. 

Where for art thou Rachel...

DFA.

Dean's new collection of reflective essays - including a revised & updated version of "Oh Beautiful Fury" is available now in print and digital from Amazon. 

At The Fringe with Alice Fraser's The Resistance.

Melbourne based comedian Alice Fraser first came to my attention in 2015 when she featured on Wil Anderson's Wilosophy podcast. Over the course of a couple of hours Wil and Alice explored her life growing up in a Buddhist household in Sydney and how the influence of her paternal Jewish and maternal Catholic family informed and shaped her as-yet-to-be-fully-explored philosophy on life and how she fits into it. I was immediately taken by how Alice recalled the important people in her life, not the least of which was her grandmother - a Holocaust survivor - and I was equally moved by her experience of growing up with a chronically ill mother (who had M.S. and later cancer) and how her family had journeyed through that experience. 

Alice's appearance on Wilosophy lead me in the direction of her own podcast, "Tea With Alice", a weekly conversational in which Alice interviews her contemporaries, often in relaxed settings - be it her Melbourne flat, or a local cafe or even a back garden - the centerpiece of which is a nice cup of tea, of their own choosing. Each episode is a conversation about life and where each guest is in it. Sometimes comedic, often reflective and always satisfying, I always come away from an episode feeling as though I have learned something. Additionally, I find myself shedding previous orthodoxies of thought around beliefs and opinions I have held and I see things from different perspectives. 

That, to me is a powerful thing.

Alice Fraser - The Resistance (image credit; Alice Fraser).

Last night, I got to spend an hour watching Alice Fraser perform her new show "The Resistance" for the Adelaide Fringe. Going into the show, I had a little bit of an idea of what to expect from the conversations Alice has had around her comedy on her podcast but I didn't seek out her previous material because I wanted to watch her show with a fresh set of eyes. 

The Resistance starts subtly, with a warm introduction that brings the audience into her sphere and encourages them to be a participant rather than an observer. Alice regaled the audience with song either played on a stubby little electric piano or strummed deftly on a banjo. And then Alice dropped an observation about the association between comedy and tragedy. It was a subtle one but it intrigued me.

  

Alice Fraser (image credit; Alice Fraser).

Over the course of the first half of the show, Alice took us on a conversational walk through her growing up in Sydney. It centered around her Jewish grandmother - an apparently wonderful and horrible woman who owned a block of flats in Sydney and who referred to a group of locals with varying degrees of derision and affection. Alice recalls one instance where a group of gays found themselves homeless after a fire burnt their house down. Her grandmother observed that the faggots were now homeless, but I must make them a lasagna! She apparently proceeded to house them until they were able to get back on their feet. 

Alice then recalls three key characters from the block of flats, a bi-polar Chilean gardener, an illiterate Hungarian woman who always wore a head scarf and twenty dresses and an Indian woman who donned luxurious, brightly colored dresses and espoused the need to make oneself attractive to men - but who always wore a veil to hide her face. How her grandmother and these three figures informed Alice's childhood and adolescence is hilariously sweet and breathtakingly inappropriate all at the same time and there wasn't a moment in that first half where the audience wasn't laughing or chuckling or appreciating the irony of these characters. 

And then the show took a turn. 

I'm unsure as to how much I should reveal here so, in respect to Alice, I'll keep it brief. The turn that came punched me in the gut. 

Alice's grandmother. The Chilean gardener. The illiterate Hungarian woman. The Indian woman. All of them came to circle in each others orbit through circumstances that are achingly powerful and emotionally bitter sweet. All of them had resisted in some way and it is this Resistance that salvaged them from particularly dark experiences in their lives. At one point, you could have heard a pin drop from the audience as Alice Fraser revealed to us all the powerful notion that the link between comedy and tragedy is such a small one - and indeed, even within tragedy, there lies comedy. And sometimes comedy is the only thing that preserves our sanity. 

At the conclusion, I felt privileged to be able to meet Alice briefly and thank her for such a wonderful performance and I left the theater feeling as though I'd learnt something about being human.

See. This. Show.     

Alice Fraser is an award winning writer, broadcaster, performer and comedian.

She's also an ex academic, ex-corporate ex-Lawyer and terrible banjo player (her words - not mine!).

Alice returned from her debut Edinburgh Fringe run last year with her critically acclaimed solo show Savage, which received four and five star reviews, as well as packed out audiences in Edinburgh after a run at the Sydney Comedy Store. Her weekly podcast "Tea With Alice" welcomes an eclectic group of like minds, artists, comedians and writers to discuss life over a cup of tea. Alice also contributes regularly to SBS Comedy.

Book tickets to The Resistance here. 

Visit Alice Fraser here. 

Tweet with Alice Fraser here. 

DFA.