Table of contents for Jan-19 in Readers Digest Australia

1940s The nurse beckoned to one of a group of expectant fathers at the hospital and announced, “You have a fine son.” Another man immediately rushed up and complained, “What’s the idea? I was here before he was!” SOUTHERN TELEPHONE NEWS, RD NOVEMBER 1947 A housewife was looking over the new maid’s references. “Do you think you will settle down here?” she asked. “You seem to have left a good many places.” The girl smiled confidently. “Yes ma’am,” she replied. “But I didn’t leave any of them voluntarily.” TIT-BITS, RD APRIL 1948 It had been a terrible season for the local football team, and a friend was trying to cheer up the coach. “At least you’ve taught the boys good sportsmanship,” he comforted. “They’re certainly good losers.” “Good!” growled the…

To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it. CONFUCIUS, CHINESE PHILOSOPHER, RD SEPTEMBER 1946 The fundamental reason that women do not achieve so greatly as men do is that women have no wives. Until such a time as science or economics correct this blunder of nature, we shall remain, I fear, the inferior sex. PROF MARJORIE NICHOLSON, UNIVERSITY DEAN, RD SEPTEMBER 1946 Before you flare up at anyone’s faults, take time to count to ten – of your own. SPRINGFIELD UNION & REPUBLICAN, RD SEPTEMBER 1946 Manual labour to my father was not only good and decent for its own sake, but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one’s thoughts, a contention which I have since proved on many occasions. To scrub a floor…

From the wheelhouse of the MV Nessodden, 24-year-old Steve Pickering stared moodily at the pewter-coloured Coral Sea stretching to the horizon on all sides. For nearly two weeks in September 1994, the tall, dark-haired skipper and his crew – Rachel Walsh, his 25-year-old girlfriend, and Kurt Thomson, 17 – had trawled the tepid waters 180 kilometres southeast of Cairns on Queensland’s far north coast. Despite working long hours in tropical heat, they had deposited only 2000 kilograms of crayfish in the trawler’s freezer, not enough to break even on the trip. Steve had laboured on fishing boats along the Queensland coast for seven years, earning a reputation as a reliable crewman. This was his first skippering job on the 80-tonne Nessodden and he had been anxious to prove his worth…

A familiar and glamorous sight in Grand Central Station on Sunday evenings is the horde of beautiful college girls gaily rushing back from New York weekends. These lissome figures have always inspired so much romantic imagination in me that I was dismayed recently to learn that some of them get lessons in looking the way they do. One famous New England college, I discovered, has a course in ‘social postures’, which includes practising walking rapidly on high heels while carrying a suitcase. So many teachers taught me how to be serious. If only more had taught me how to be frivolous Well, I thought, why not lessons in posture? I’ve noticed that people who have outward posture usually have inward posture. And I’m forced to admit that of all the…

What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other? GEORGE ELIOT, ENGLISH WRITER, RD FEBRUARY 1969 I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continued becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, PLAYWRIGHT, RD OCTOBER 1966 Marriage should combat without respite that monster which devours everything – habit. HONORÉ DE BALZAC, FRENCH WRITER, RD OCTOBER 1967 The most interesting people are those about whom we continue to know the least – not because they surround themselves with mystery, but because some unconscious dignity in them forbids intrusion, and modesty…

As we drove through the foothills of the Alps, two small boys stopped us on the outskirts of Verona. They were selling wild strawberries, scarlet berries that looked delicious against the green leaves lining the wicker baskets. “Don’t buy,” warned Luigi, our cautious driver. “You will get fruit much better in Verona. Besides, these boys…” He shrugged his shoulders to convey his disapproval of their shabby appearance. One boy wore a worn jersey and cut-off khaki pants, the other a shortened army tunic gathered in loose folds about his skinny frame. Yet, gazing at the two little figures, with their brown skin, tangled hair and dark earnest eyes, we felt ourselves strangely attracted. My companion spoke to the boys and discovered that they were brothers. Nicola, the elder, was 13;…

Looking back on my childhood, my fondest memory is of sitting in the kitchen to watch my mother cook. We were then living in Ipoh, Malaya. There was a depression going on after the [Second World] War. Dad was newly demobilised and struggled to make a living with his small wine shop. I was then almost six years old. My parents, my sister and two brothers and I all lived huddled together in a shabby wooden hut. Mum, who had lived a comfortable, well-to-do life, had now to worry about our daily bread. Our kitchen was crude indeed. An earthen stove blackened by smoke forever greeted us with its round mouth. In one corner of the kitchen were stacked bundles of firewood. Every evening, Mum would sit on a low…

When in treacherous waters t he mariner trusts the reliable beam of the lighthouse to guide his passage. My dependable beacon was my father’s handkerchief. He didn’t care for fancy French silk or Italian lace and had no need for those with elaborately embroidered initials. Dad preferred plain white cotton, the best buy from the local shops. The uses of Dad’s handkerchief were innumerable. It was a white flag hanging from the car window when the old station wagon overheated on holidays, filled with five squabbling kids, a dog, a cat and worn-out parents. The handkerchief, ever ready for backseat disasters, sponged up melted ice cream and oozing egg salad sandwiches. Amazing that a simple piece of cloth can evoke so many memories. It bound the wound of my favourite…

Going steady, as I remember it in the North Carolina town where I was fetched up, was pretty much for grown folks. It meant that a girl was spoke for – object, matrimony. Thirty-five years ago, when I first began to look at girls with alarm, young males considered going steady ridiculous. We thought a boy who’d get trapped like that was making an old fool of himself. How times have changed! Today little boys and girls of 12, as well as big boys and girls of 16, go steady as nonchalantly as we used to stick pigtails in ink wells. They have implacable rules about it too. Their rites and ceremonies constitute a protocol as formal as a minuet. Around my house, thickly populated by teenage people, some mine,…

I had no idea that dating etiquette in the 195Os was so complicated. ‘The Curious Custom of Going Steady’ looks at the delicate intricacies of this most serious business, and lays down the challenge to think about what we treasure in relationships today. ELEANOR WATSON, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR I love ‘From Street Kids to Royal Knights’ because it is about believing in yourself. It shows how self-confidence beats negativity from others and proves that no matter what, or how little, is expected from you by society, no one can dismiss you or your abilities if you have faith in yourself. MICHAEL CRAWFORD, DIGITAL EDITOR I read ‘Three Days to See’ a few months ago and it is still with me. I’ve taken up Helen Keller’s challenge and I’m (very easily) marvelling…

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound. Now and then, I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I asked a friend, who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied. How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass…

Can you name the Seven Dwarfs? If you say Doc, Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Grumpy and Happy, you have shown what an enduring hold this beloved film has on people. For the dwarfs had no names in the Grimm brothers’ 19th century fairytale. The film in which Walt Disney named them celebrated its golden anniversary last Christmas [1987], and Snow White now has her own star on the Hollywood ‘Walk of Fame’. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of the most popular films in history. An estimated 500 million movie goers have seen it since its 1937 première. Last year it was reissued for the seventh time – and it became the first film to ever be shown simultaneously in more than 60 countries (including the USSR and…

Joan Crawford was the definitive Hollywood star of all time, and enjoyed it. She once walked out of New York City’s famous ‘21’ Club, looked up at the sunny sky and told her chauffeur she was going to walk. “But, Madame,” he warned, “you’ll be mobbed.” “Well,” she replied, “I should certainly hope so.” JACK O’BRIEN, RD OCTOBER 1977 “Murderer! Coward! Liar!” a stranger once wrote to Winston Churchill, enclosing savagely sarcastic verses. “I am very sorry to receive your letter with the evidence it gives of your distress of mind,” replied Mr Churchill. “The fact that you do me the greatest injustice does not deprive you of my sympathy, since you have obviously suffered so much.” HOWARD PHILIP IN THE PSYCHOLOGIST, RD AUGUST 1940 As an air raid warden,…

1940s Shortly before sailing for the Netherlands, I stopped at a chemist in New York to buy some bubble gum. It was still scarce at the time and I bought all their small stock. “Going to have a party?” asked the assistant. “No,” I said, “I’m taking it to my friends’ children in Holland. It’s still unknown there.” As I turned to leave I overheard the assistant remark to another, “See that guy? He’s taking bubble gum to Holland; he’s going to civilise Europe!” F.K. WILLEKES-MACDONALD, RD NOVEMBER 1947 Needing some clothes cleaned in a hurry, I searched the small town in which I was visiting until I found a sign which read: “Cleaning and Pressing, 24-Hour-Service.” After explaining my needs I said, “I’ll be back for my suit tomorrow.”…

I met Bosco in the remote wilderness near Mt Robson in western Canada. At the end of a long day of backpacking, I had made a lean-to in a clearing beside a stream and was preparing to catch supper. Then I looked up and there he was, an enormous black bear, slowly circling the clearing within 30 yards. He wasn’t Bosco to me yet, and I viewed his presence with trepidation. My provisions were vulnerable if he was in a piratical mood, since I was unarmed. However, I decided to go about my fishing. The bear came along. I’ve lived with wild creatures for 30 years, respecting their first fear – fast movements. I let him see the reason for my actions in every slow, deliberate move I made. Soon…

Our world is filled with sounds we never hear. The human auditor y range is limited to begin with: if we could hear sounds lower than 20 vibrations per second, we would be driven mad by the rumblings and creakings of our muscles, intestines and heartbeats; every step we took would sound like an explosion. But even within our auditory range, we select, focus on, and pay attention to only a few sounds – and blot out the rest. We are so assaulted by sound that we continually ‘turn off’. But in the process, we shut out the glorious symphony of sound in which the living world is bathed. Everything becomes more real when it’s heard as well as seen. It is, in fact, quite hard to really know a…

Anger is a symptom, a way of cloaking and expressing feelings too awful to experience directly – hurt, bitterness, grief and, most of all, fear. JOAN RIVERS, RD July 1993 Golf is a good walk spoiled. MARK TWAIN, RD December 1948 I HAVE NOTHING TO DECLARE BUT MY GENIUS. OSCAR WILDE, TO CUSTOMS OFFICIALS UPON ARRIVING IN THE US, RD March 1934 THEY WILL TELL YOU TO PROVE YOU ARE RIGHT; I TELL YOU TO TRY TO PROVE YOU ARE WRONG. LOUIS PASTEUR, RD March 1948 WHAT I SAY IS, IF A MAN REALLY LIKES POTATOES, HE MUST BE A PRETTY DECENT SORT OF FELLOW. A . A . MILNE , RD July 1993 When you stretch the truth, watch out for…

Richard Bastow, of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, says he’d rather work with elephants than with chorus girls. “Elephants are more attentive, they don’t argue with you and they don’t expect you to take them out to dinner after the show.” EARL WILSON, RD JULY 1976 1970s Each desk in the office had its ‘In’ and ‘Out’ baskets. On one desk, however, the baskets were marked ‘Easy come’ and ‘Easy go’. That desk belonged to the boss’s son. JOE RYAN, RD JULY 1976 My brother Dave, a law student, announced that he had acquired a holiday job as a petroleum transfer engineer. It sounded great – until we found that his position was at a local service station. CLIFF BOWEN, RD NOVEMBER 1976 One weekend I developed…

Houdini, the famous magician, was never too busy to compose a love letter to his wife, and from 1913 to the time of his death he wrote one of these letters every single day – many of them long compositions, none casual lines. If he was at home, he would hide them about the house; and for six months after his death Mrs Houdini continued at intervals to find these letters. THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE, RD FEBRUARY 1938 Comedy actress Joan Blondell, who often played the wisecracking blonde, describes her method of using a timer to get out of the dumps: “I set the timer for six-and-a-half minutes to be lonely and 22 minutes to feel sorry for myself. And then when the bell rings I take a shower or a…

“I vividly remember the terrifying explosions of the biggest fire of my life, and seeing a little hand amidst it all. A voice screamed, “Help me!” I ran into the fire and found a girl with terrified eyes, like saucers. Following protocol I should never have gone in, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d left her alone to die. She was looking into my eyes with a desperate hope. There’s a fireman’s code that you don’t get involved emotionally with people from incidents. But this one was different. It was incredible we were both alive. When Shirley was well enough, we had a big celebration with her whole family. They presented me with a jade pendant that they had cut in two: one half for Shirley and…

BY NUMBER 57419 IT IS NIGHT AND I CAN’T SLEEP. A sliver of light from outside my cell throws hideous patterns on the walls. Faint noises of the free world beyond the prison reach my ears. I want to cry out, to tear the bars loose. Then my gaze falls on a frayed little magazine which a neighbour had tossed over just before ‘lights out’. And in the Reader’s Digest I find relief from my wild thoughts. On the cover and inside pages there will often be found in some fellow con’s handwriting, ‘Read and Pass On’ To many of the 4000 men here, your magazine means as much as it has meant to me during the past eight years. Locked in the cells from 4.30pm to 7am, they must…

I remember the days when I was Walter Mikac, the pharmacist, involved in amateur theatre productions, who sat on the school council and golfed on Wednesdays, whose wife and children were part of a small community in an idyllic setting in Tasmania. I’m alone these days. I sold our house and my pharmacy. I have bought another house in Melbourne and I am trying to start another life. But the one thing I don’t have is the thing I want most. My family: Nanette, the wonderful woman who shared 13 years of my life, and my two extraordinary children, Alannah, 6, and Madeline, 3. I’ll never forget the day I first saw Nanette. I was working at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne. Her curly brown ringlets, blue eyes and smile…

Our son has left for university and our spoilt daughter has gone overseas. Even Mother seldom visits now that her grandchildren are no longer around. In less than one short month, our once boisterous home has become so very quiet and desolate. I miss my children so much that I keep in touch with them on the computer whenever I can, showing I care and to keep up my nagging. At first it was only through email messages. On several occasions I got on to the website of our son’s university to learn about his life there, and was pleasantly surprised to see his greetings on the bulletin board service: “Hi, Mum! So you’re on the net as well!” Since then I have been visiting the websites regularly hoping to…

At Admiralty Arch in London, a bobby is holding back traffic, extending the right of way for a sprightly horse-drawn carriage whose maroon door panels display the royal arms. Inside the carriage are some worn red-leather cases – the Queen’s boxes, containing top-secret reports and memoranda flown in daily from all over the world. At Buckingham Palace a Queen’s messenger descends with the boxes – one of them a top priority Foreign Office box – and carries them through nearly half a mile of corridors to a room on the second floor of the palace. This famous room is the Queen’s ‘office’. About 99 per cent living room, it is spacious and handsome, with a subtle colour scheme of green and oyster grey, against which the light reflects a rich…

She lay in a 12-foot pool of blood – a young woman in a nurse’s uniform, her arms above her head as if in surrender. Julie Green, 24, had just come off night duty at Wigan’s Royal Albert Edward Infirmary when she met her end, some time before 10am on that Thursday, October 31, 1991. An empty pill canister lay by her right hand, a rolled-up scrap of paper by her left. Nearby on the storeroom’s concrete floor was a two-pound lump hammer, heavily bloodstained. Detective Superintendent Norman Collinson of Greater Manchester Police paused in the storeroom doorway. A white-haired 47-year-old veteran of some 50 murder enquiries, he methodically scanned the room: a wide workbench along one side, piles of building materials on the other. There was no sign of…

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honours, the men it remembers. JOHN F. KENNEDY, RD JUNE 1986 Progress means noise. Indeed, we could pinpoint the date when modern civilization was born if we could discover when man first said, “Turn that thing down!” BILL VAUGHAN, RD JULY 1978 Parents who expect or want their children to “appreciate” what they have done for them usually find that the children feel resentful or rebellious when they grow older. A noted psychoanalyst points out that the love of the parents goes to the children – and the love of the children goes to their children. A parent should try to rear a child not so much to be a dutiful child as…

Pope John XXIII once took a dismayed glance at his own full frame and bulging ears, to conclude gaily: “O Lord, this man is going to be a disaster on television.” NEWSWEEK, RD JUNE 1964 When paying a visit to George Bernard Shaw, a caller expressed surprise that the author had no flowers in his home. “I thought,” he said, “you were fond of flowers.” “I am,” Shaw retorted. “I’m very fond of children, too, but I don’t cut off their heads and stick them in pots around the house.” BLANCHE PATCH, THIRTY YEARS WITH G.B.S., RD AUGUST 1953 The late Queen Mary visited a hospital ward one day and paused at the bed of a little girl. She asked the child where she lived and the child said…

We call our home Hollyhock Hill. It is on a gentle southern slope where myriads of these old-fashioned flowers stand like great multicoloured candlesticks lighting the back garden from May to September. I like to wander among them, smell their summery odour, feel the delicate tissue of their petals, and observe the fat bumblebees at work. It is one of my stations for meditation. Here and in other well-loved places – an old stump beneath a canopy of apple-tree branches, a bench beside a grey weathered shed – I think, ask questions and supply durable, homemade answers. Why are all floating things – a leaf, a silken, unanchored spiderweb, a bit of thistledown – so graceful? Is it because they have surrendered their will to a power greater than their…

A whoosh of a flame startled teacher Bill Hall as he walked into his classroom. Whirling around, he saw 15-year-old Jose Tavarez holding a lighter to a spray can of deodorant. “Make beuno blowtorch,” the Puerto Rican teenager was explaining to a classmate. Confiscating the can, Hall also broke up an arm-wrestling bout between a Pakistani and an Ecuadorian boy and gestured to Sze Wai Chen, newly arrived from Hong Kong, to put away his Chinese newspaper. Sze Wai, age 13, pointed to the chess set Hall was carrying: “How say English?” “Do you play?” Hall asked. Sze Wai shook his head no. Hall wondered if the student had understood the question. Recently transferred to J.H.S. 99, a junior high school in New York City’s East Harlem, Hall taught English…

“Let’s go, Mum!” Shirley Young begged her mother. It was Thursday, August 9, 1990 – late-night shopping at Manukau City Shopping Centre in South Auckland. One of the highlights of the week for the 12-year-old Maori girl was to spend a few hours at New Zealand’s biggest mall with her aunt and cousin. Her mother Gaylene, a single parent struggling to improve her job prospects, appreciated having a few hours by herself to catch up on her studies. Gaylene threw on a woollen cardigan against the evening chill and drove the trio to the mall in her sister’s white Cortina, stopping at the kerb on busy Wiri Station Road to drop them off. As Shirley headed across the car park to join the throng of shoppers she suddenly realised she…

Kind words can be easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. MOTHER TERESA, RD February 1987 You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it. RO B I N WI LLIAM S , RD September 2002 EVERY PERSON IS A FOOL IN SOMEBODY’S OPINION. SPANISH PROVERB, RD July 1998 A fashion ten years before its time is indecent. Ten years after its time it is hideous. After a century it becomes romantic. JAMES LAVER, RD April 1965 THE SOONER I NEVER SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN, THE BETTER IT WILL BE FOR BOTH OF US WHEN WE MEET. IRISH SAYING, RD July 1939 As a nation we are dedicated to keeping physically fit – and parking…