VALE: BILL SULLIVAN

It is with immense sadness I advise of the passing away of my dear family friend Bill Sullivan.

Bill was always my driving force in the 'Philippine Railway Historical Society', he was always a very supportive friend and no more generous and kind hearted man has ever graced the planet.

A proper memorial will soon be written - for the moment I am just to upset to even think.

RIP - Bill, our great loss is heavens great gain.

Brad

~~ KAPAMILYA FIESTA 2010 ~~
Pt 2

As the evening wore on, the doors were opened for people to flood the hall in anticipation of a great evenings entertainment, with a mixture of local entertainers and some well known celebrities from back in the Philippines.

Dennis Padilla opened the show with a couple of hours endless promoting of ABS-CBN and other companies, seperate by brief periods of entertainment and competitions that lead to more advertising.

Derek Ramsay also starred on the night, along with his extremely stunning girlfriend Angelica.

Cynthia, Rajin (yawning) and Latrell (looks already asleep) watch the evenings entertainment.

Our mate Bernie during a competition with Dennis Padilla during one of the competitions.

But most important of the evening, from the aswangs personal opinion, was Ms Angelica Panganiban. One of the cutest that the Philippines has to offer, she sung, was funny and even tried her best to imitate Aussie's.

The night was complete.

~~ KAPAMILYA FILIPINO FIESTA ~~

Part 1

Starting a little late in the day at 4pm, it was a reluctant 'Aussie Aswang' that dragged his arse parts off the couch and across the suburbs to Randwick Racecourse for the ABS-CBN organised Kapamilya Fiesta.
Despite our early arrival, the queue for the main entertainment was already huge. Not to surprising with the delicious Angelica Panganiban making up part of the all star lineup, that also included Derek Ramsey (Angelica's boyfriend and natural enemy of anyone who wished they were :-) ), Gabby Conception and some somewhat lesser known names, at least to me.

Outside from the main entertainment, which really was mostly a 4 hour advertisment for ABS-CBN and any other company that forked out some pesos to put it on, were a number of stalls selling everything from Pepsi to Balikbayan boxes.
Twas here that you started bumping into nearly all the Filipino community you have ever known, the good, the bad and the pondscum. Within four hours, with a few notable exceptions, I had managed to catch up with a vast cross section of people from my last 14 years in the community. In most cases this was welcome.

Surprisingly, attendance of the fiesta was a very easy affair.

Free and easy parking at the racecourse had us dumping the car and inside within minutes. None of the usual bollocking around that goes with events like this.

Good lord - you would think it was a U2 concert.

Head over to the happy people on the registration desk and sign in to have your chance to drool over Angelica - or indeed Derek and Gabby if so inclined.

The queue for the toilet, following excessive consumption of chicken sticks and Siopao, was pretty hard going.

This lovely attendee must have been expecting rain.

Tin Tin was wondering what all the commotion was about, but was more than satisfield with her latest toy.

Yes, well you don't just come to see the food.

Our mate, and fellow store owner, Maurice is extremely busy serving on the Pasalubong stand.

Catching up with Mr GoTalk, the keeper of well priced and quality phone cards.

Hopefully that plug is worth some freebies.

The LBC stand who were substanially more helpful than there customer service help line :-)

Maurice with another load of frozen goodies.

Coming in Part 2 - Later this week.

Our mate Bernie on stage, some of the entertainers (if the photos have come out), and quite possibly another cutie or two.

~~ NEW Philippine Airlines A380 Leaves America ~~

Heading for Manila and its new life.

Class 1 Green in 1975 - Spot the Aussie Aswang

~~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY SANS SOUCI ~~

PUBLIC SCHOOL

Besides a couple of brief visits last year for #2 son, I have not been to my old public school at Sans Souci since I last left in 1980. Although I had often wanted to go back and remember those old days, the opportunity never arose until last Saturday.



Twas on this day that the school was to have its 125th anniversary and, with thanks to the wonders of Facebook, numerous old school friends arranged to meet up at the west end of the playground, all of whom I had not seen for over three decades.



What better way to start than at my childhood home in Poplar Street, the plan being to retrace the same path to school that I used many hundreds of times in the 70s.


The old house has changed a fair bit, the garage looking like it has been brought foward, the fish pond and waterfall long gone, along with the old cherry tree I used to play under and gardens in the middle of the grass where a large frog regularly hid.

The rest of the street, excepting one rebuilt house and one or two renos, remained just the same as it did back then. After all these years it came as quite a surprise that more rebuilds had not occured.
One original house near Jamison Lane was for sale and, for a brief moment, I dreamed of returning home to Poplar Street - at east until the reality of cost sunk in.

As I approach the school crossing on Rocky Point Road I start having all the memories roll in.

Many was the morning I stood here with David Verrell (near neighbour) trying to get a few trucks to blow their horns while I was enroute to school.
Today you would be more likely to attract a raised finger than a quick toot on the horn, but in those days people were more civilized and after a few trucks we would move on for our day of class.

One thing that changes is your perspective of size. This is where we went to kindergarden and, at least to a five year old, this area looked huge and scary.

Nowdays it looks so small in comparison and, although it did pass the swinging of the cat test, and such trial with a large dog would surely be messy.
My #2 son Scott is seen playing around in the same location I did at his same age.

A pretty bloody great moment.

Two of my closest mates at primary school reunited 32 years later, although looking somewhat more the worse for wear after this extended time.

Scott Whichelo to my left and Gary Milne to my right.

David Kirkland, seen here with Gary and Scott, for many years has been the only Sans Souci contact I have had.

David was the SSPS 'Doctor Who Fanclub' President during my time there. I still remember meetings, in the library I think, where we would get photocopies of all things Doctor Who.

A small part of a 70s classroom gather in the old timber shed at the west end of the school.

Twas a stinking hot day and the shade of the building a welcome relief.

With the heat becoming something of an issue, and the whinging kids even more so, we headed to the old school hall to view the historical display set up within.

While our group found photos of ourselves pretty easily, one 83 year old lady made our find pale into insignificance - seeing a shot of herself in a class photograph.

An old friend to many, Mr Cane lazes around during the celebrations.

Sans Souci Pubic School memorabilia.

School building, much as it was when we were there.

The time capsule we buried was now under the gardens to the left of the flag.

For some reason the school was unable to find it, this being a huge disappointment for our years as it was the major event of the day.

The old demountable classrooms where I am pretty sure we had religion classes.

However today they are used for art and Greek classes.

Here came another one of those long forgotten memories, this time that of my sneaking into a friends religion class. Can't remember the religion, or even which friend, but the teacher never got wise to it.


The front of the kindergarden part of the school where the terrible, terrible news that Santa was not real was revealed to me. I still believe until I went home and the whole horrid lie was exposed by my parents.

Much time was spent around this old sand pit as a youngster, so it stands to reason that while Gary and myself were walking around it, many different memoried came to the fore.

Besides the obvious building of sand castles, I remember these black and orange flying insects that used to be in abundance here and caught by the kids - who subsequently tortured them in many a different way. We called them pumpkin bugs, their real name still unknown to me now.

Then Gary brought up how we would rub stones together to get a powder which, when dampened, could be used as a sort of paint.

Oh Ohhhhhhhhh - Incoming Bad Memory

While walking around the back of the primary school, which admitedly was actually blocked off and not really supposed to be accessed, we were spotted by none other than the current principle of the school who came down to inform us, 32 years later, that we were being naughty again :-)

Thankfully we were spared detention and/or reactivation of the earlier shown cane once it become apparent our reasons for being there.

Sadly it all came to an end far to soon, a mixture of heat, no time capsule, no entry into our old classrooms and the reality of our current lives meaning many of us had to go. Although, unlike 1980, we have all mentioned a desire to catch up in the future one way or another and swap more stories of those 'easier days'.

--------------------------------------------------------

In Memoriam - Leanne Thrum

One of our own time who never got to experience all life had to offer.

Three decades on and your class mates still remember you.

~~ 2010 PHILIPPINE FIESTA KULTURA ~~

Fairfield Showground

Manila Sunset had a stall at last weekends 22nd Philippine

Fiesta at Farifield Showground.

A very busy, but fun day was had by all of us, as we enjoyed all the usual socialising, hot foods and entertainment that has become a trademark of this event.

Ning and TinTin at the stand.

Kristine Keneally was one of the special guests.

L-R: 2009 Miss Philippine-Australia, NSW Premier Kristine Keneally, Manny Castillo (Organiser-PASC)

Hot food a plenty. Adobo, Kalderita, fried chicken.

Go Talk

Even the stand owners need to eat.

Customers check out the stand.

L-R: Conrad Isip (Mega-Rhythm Productions), Ronnie (Manila Sunset), Bernie, Grandma, Ning (Manila Sunset), Pia (Quezon City) and MrX (Injured Moreton Hire employee)

More customers!

~~ 2010 MISS PHILIPPINE-AUSTRALIA CONTEST ~~

Last years winner (left) with Miss Charity Queen.