Michael Randall

ID 0:02

This is a Vision Australia radio podcast.

Kate Cooper 0:18

On Vision Australia radio. Welcome to our conversations on the work and experiences of emerging writers. I'm Kate Cooper, and our guest today is Michael Randall, author of the popular blog, Mickey tails, English teacher and Curriculum Manager, football and cricket enthusiast and keen observer of city and country life in South Australia. We spoke with Michael on this program in June 2023 and he has very kindly agreed to join us again with more of his Mickeytales. Welcome to the program, Michael. When we met last year, you spoke about growing up in country, South Australia and going to school in Kapunda. 

You read us a very entertaining story about playing in the local football club as a lad, and then read us a really moving story about your community gathering together after the fire in the 147 year old {?Aringa] building at Kapunda High School, your old school, Kapunda high is very dear to you. And listeners may remember that in 2022 the school building was extensively damaged by fire. A major restoration project is now underway with the aim of restoring this historic building. Shortly after the fire, you wrote a beautiful tribute to the school and the memories it holds for you. Would you revisit for us how important Kapunda is to you, its place in your memories and what it means to you now?

Michael Randall 1:49

Thanks, Kate, and thanks for inviting me back in. It's great to be here. Kapunda is where I learnt so much, although I didn't know it at the time, I learned about family, of course, hopefully, how to be a friend, how to be curious, how to work in a team, how to get and hold a job. I worked. My first job was for a local butcher after school. I'd go in there for an hour and help to clean up, and had to deal with all the things that come with butchering, and all for the princely sum of $2 an hour, but it was great. I learned about interacting with adults, and it was mostly men in the butcher shop, not surprisingly, and it was a pretty physical job, but I learned to converse with older people and hold my own. And so that was a really great experience. 

Growing up in Kapunda, I learned about place, and it was, it was a safe environment, and I was encouraged in in gentle, often, I think, wordless ways. I also learned, growing up there, about dealing with disappointment. And when I was 18, I, because of my age, I had to play senior football and not under age football, and that was my friends. And as a senior footballer, we won two games all year, and that was pretty miserable. And all my younger friends got to play in a senior colts Premiership. 

Kate:

Don't you love this ancient language? 

Michael:

I was three weeks too old and I was a premature baby, so there's all sorts of ironies at play for me, and at that point, my age never mattered to me so much as it did then, even though I was a modest sportsman, it was a loss for me, but it's given me a story, and one that I often recite with Kapunda friends, and I guess as well that it shows how lucky I am that this is the most disappointing episode from my childhood. Ironically, of course, and I'm sure this is true for many people. 

When I left home and got my first teaching job on the West Coast, I was 500 kilometres away from home, and that's when I really, I think, learned to appreciate it, and learned about how well regarded it is, and that the Barros is a great place. But of course, I had to leave home to discover that so I now, and I know I'm fortunate here too. I see home as a place of great warmth and deep comfort, and going back to Kapunda is always a pilgrimage of sorts for me, and I get very excited when I arrive on the southern side of town and cross the river, light and monk my way into the town proper. 

Oddly enough, I've got no interest in living there again. That's not something I've ever seriously entertained. But visiting is terrific. It's great and it's affirming. And I always get something out of going to the place and seeing the people that live there. And of course, I'm really fortunate that its place in my heart was secured, because it's the place where I met my wife, Claire when we were 13. So I'm doubly blessed. 

Kate: 

That is a lovely story. And Michael, would you tell us where the restoration of the oringa building at Kapunda High School is up to now? 

Michael:  5:00

So it's been a bit of a process, as these things often are, and there was lots of planning, I understand, and all sorts of decisions that had to be taken. And partly because it's it is a heritage building, and that means that there are certain requirements there that have to be met. But anyhow, the real restoration work got underway in July of this year. The plan, as I understand it, is to have it done by July of 2026 - it's great, I think, in that there are students, Kapunda High students, who are involved in the restoration through what's called the Heritage Trades Program. 

So kids are involved in things that are lost, arts in a way, like stone masonry and working with lime, mortar and a whole host of things I don't really understand, but I think that's great. And it seems to me like the project is largely been framed as an opportunity and not just a loss. So I think that's really good. And from my perspective, I'm sure that when it's finished. Hopefully in July of 2026 the town will be made whole again. I think it's the most important building in Kapunda. 

Kate:

And how fantastic to have the kids involved, because not only are they developing skills, but that then gives them the lifelong relationship with the building that you've enjoyed. 

Michael: 

I think so. I think so. So, yeah, I look forward to seeing the progress, and every time I got there, do a drive by and just see how it's going. It's it's very much a building site at the moment, with all of that means, but yeah, hopefully in a couple of short years, it'll be be back and functioning. 

Kate:

That's a really encouraging story. Thank you, Michael. You've published your blog, Mickeytales, for a number of years now, and we spoke last year about when you first started writing. Would you remind us of your earliest memories of writing, and also what inspired you to start your Mickeytales blog? 

Michael:

Thanks for that, Kate. That's a really good question, and I've been thinking about that for a couple of days, and something I hadn't considered popped into my head, which was when I reckon I was in about years five and six at Kapunda primary, I think about once a month they'd be in the assembly hall at school. There'd be basically skits that the students would put on, and this would be Friday afternoon on the stage. I think, for years five, six and seven students and I got involved in that with some friends, and we we wrote some skits, and not surprisingly, they were mostly parodies of things that we saw on TV, like the Paul Hogan show or or stuff like that. Probably the contemporary, well, not so contemporary equivalent is... Red Faces on Hey Hey It's Saturday, so it's a bit like that. 

But I remember being involved, and we'd write these skits beforehand, and it gave me, I think, a sense of what it was like to have an audience and to enjoy an audience and to perform, and it was really fun for whatever reason. I didn't get many opportunities after that in drama as such, maybe I didn't seek them out, or for whatever reason, but then writing gave me some similar chances that I pursued. I started my blog about a decade ago. I had been writing on and off since I was a kid, and I'd stumbled across the footy Almanac and started publishing there, and I'm really grateful for that. 

It's... been terrific, and it's... taught me a lot and been really encouraging, but it's a pretty broad church in a way, and not everything I write, I reckon, suits that audience, and I think some of the more intimate pieces I write are best for my own blog. For example, I just recently wrote a sequence of two stories that are about the 40 year anniversary since some friends and I went to Sydney for a holiday, and I think that that's not something that most of the footy almanac people would be terribly interested in. 

So given that I wanted to start my own blog and wanted to curate all of my work on that, and I thought too that publishing too often is not a great thing. You know, you can have too much of anything. And I thought maybe a piece every three or four weeks on the footy almanac site would be enough, but I wanted to write more, and I wanted to really to house it somewhere, so I started my own blog. I guess I was a bit interested in I was curious, but it was a practical matter as well. 

Kate:

That's terrific. Michael, to me, your tales are a fine chronicle of our generation, things that I hadn't thought about for years come back to me as I read them. I'm especially taken with your reflections at the end of discarded boots, our old car and Hotel California, and the part that begins with the words the past is seldom still. I love that. Would you read that tale for us now?

Michael: 9:43

Nostalgia and detachment are constantly at war. For me, the former wins more than it should, but sometimes disinterest rears up, ironically like a startled horse, and I'll make an utterly sensible decision... in July of 1993 I bought a pair of boots and trudged about in them for decades across continents. I wore them to work. I wore them to the footy. I wore them everywhere during recent years, when they began to require frequent repairs, I determined that new soles and patched holes in the leather toes were just steps to guarantee the immortality of my beloved boots, I'd be buried in them.

But one day last September, I drove to an op shop on the Broadway, flipped open the collection bin lid and deposited my boots. They'd become heavy to wear and almost curmudgeonly. I now saw them through different eyes. Suddenly, we were done, and surgical detachment triumphed. I didn't stare at them wistfully, shed alone some tear, or even have a rush of cinematic vision showing 30 years of life's high and low lights of me and my boots. I then made my way to the kiosk where I looked at the beach and sipped the cappuccino and relished the cheerful afternoon breeze.

Claire's car is also in its third decade, no mere toilet. It's a treat to pilot, compact, nippy and gently joyous. It zips along Anzac highway like a nimble faune having done 435,000 kilometres, I've been wondering about the time it'll need replacement. Looking online at the cost of similar vehicles, we may need to up the insurance for it seems to be worth more than I thought. Evaluating the Rav4 condition has triggered some introspection and a rediscovery of personal values on longevity and utility, but I hope we can celebrate the half a million milestone when it should get a signed telegram from the king, or at least someone in the palace who can use a pen.

I now feel refurbished sentimentality for this precious Motor and its unswerving everydayness it could star in its own little golden book on Boxing Day, the transformative power of objects again, grabbed me by the airport. I drove past a sprawling discount shopping center sat fat and foolish cars were parked chaotically in the creek bed, nose to tail on the verges, and if I checked likely on top of each other too. Instead, I went to Mr. V's record store on Semaphore Road. He offers no festive discounts. Exploring vinyl albums is a sentimental experience. I am returned to being a teenager, and these artifacts lead to a wholly immersive bliss. While I enjoy flicking through the modern releases, I find a deeper delight at the 70s and 80s selection where my younger self forever lives. 

Rationing this indulgence, I ponder purchasing one of these, The Boys Light Up - Australian Crawl... Straight in a Gay, Gay World by Skyhooks, or Placed Without a Postcard by Midnight Oil. Rather, I zoom across the Pacific and by Hotel California. It's unstoppably captivating, and I've always surrendered to its narrative power. Kapunda's a long way from the Hollywood and Beverly Hills settings of these songs, but my connection is strong as steel.

Listening is a cheerfully simple analog experience. With a crackle the needle descends on the Eagles, and I'm again in a boxy Kingswood patrolling the homely streets of Kapunda. It's the clumsy sway of the last dance at high school socials, formals or proms. To some of you, it's the boyish allure of American cityscapes. What to finally make of dumping my boots refreshed appreciation for Claire's car and the untarnished radiance of an adolescent record. The past is seldom still, but sometimes rushes at us like a rampaging ball and leaves me standing in its dust, bewildered. I'm caught between nostalgia's gilded cage and reality sharpening edges, but I always was.

Kate:  14:20

Thank you Michael. On Vision Australia Radio, you're listening to our conversation program Emerging Writers. Our guest today is Michael Randall, author of the popular blog Mickeytales. Michael, within each of the more than 20 categories in your Mickeytales blog, you've written dozens of tales on people and places, family, travel, music, sport and mystery pubs, just to mention a few. You're a keen football fan and have shared many of your experiences and reflections in your blog. Would you read for us now the last moment of the 2024 Grand Final?

Michael  15:03

Norwood swarms forward and with the brutal bump at half back, flashy nugget Mitch O'Neill flattens Dr Chris Curran. It's ferocious, but Ill disciplined, and the umpire's whistle arrests this menacing surge for long agonised seconds, the gentlemanly Tiger is on the ground before he enacts the biblical instruction, physician heal thyself rises and takes his well deserved free kick in the Sir Edwin Smith stand we exhale. Hunter window streams around the eastern flank, adjacent to the scoreboard and kicks somewhat optimistically for goal, begging the ball to go through and confirm our seventh flag. We hold our breath. 

Glory sours to deflation as it sails mockingly across the goal front and out on the fall, despair. Nord claims the ball and re launches down the Western wing. We again swing psychologically from the elated promise of attack to the gloomy duty of defense. Reigning Jack Odie medalist Lockie Hosey had no first half possessions, but we all knew this would change, likely in spectacular style. It did, imposing himself late, he slots two goals, and then with an athletic leap at the point of the pack, he grabs a rousing mark. It lifts the tiger faithful, the final score of the season is this kick for goal, but it wobbles off the woodwork. 

Is there a more theatrical moment in footy than the Sharon crashing into the goal post? The narrative possibilities are multiple. The scoring side claims what could be a telling single point addition, but the ball is given to the opposition, who steal it forwards like surprised thieves. Minor reward is placed by the torment of major risk. There's a menacing wave of red and blue as Norbert again flows through the center square. Bannon low launches the ball long and high like an American football kick. It achieves good hang time beneath the river bank stand and both teams run onto it. 

We're now inside the final minute, and the execution of his disposal seems more prayerful than geographic precision. We need someone to scramble back and intercept this indiscriminate bomb. We're five points up and in what could be the concluding gesture of his 191 game career Max proud materialises miraculously by this goal square to rescue us again with superior anticipation, he ministers customary relief. Norward is thwarted. Time stretches cruelly, advancing at a glacial pace. The ball is on the member's wing, a desperate red leg kick, but Will Chandler smothers it. There's an appreciative roar for this startling defensive action during which the ball is arrested before it commences its trajectory on all fours. 

Chandler leaps up and across at the kick, and there is a near catastrophic but selfless beauty in his diving at a violently swinging boot. In that brief space and moment, danger and Grace co exist, but only one can prevail. It's Grace. The siren sounds.

Kate  18:30

That's brilliant. Really did feel like I was there. Michael, you're not just an Australian rules football fan, though your blog site tells us that you also have four shares in the North London based wheeled stone Football Club, which, according to its website, is a true fan owned club, and 20th in the National League as we speak. Would you tell us the story of how you came to be a shareholder in this English soccer club? 

Michael: 

Thanks, Kate. Well, I taught about 20 years ago in the UK in a place called St Albans, which is just north of London, and I remember the end of my first week there, a colleague named Barry invited me down to the pub, and I went along, and we became really good friends after that. And he had been a lifelong is a lifelong fan of wheeled stone football club. It's where he grew up in North London, which happens to be near the famous Harrow School. So I went along to the football a few times with him. And it's important to note that it is football. It's not soccer that I learned very quickly. That's not the term that's used over there. 

And I like that, that wheel stone, they weren't glamorous. They were a local football team. They're a bit like kapanda or Glen Earl footy clubs. As a bit of a side note, I follow the crows, but in a way, they're everywhere, and they sort of know where, where do they belong, what's their geographic base. So I really like that about worldstone, and I went along a few times across a couple of seas. And I remember particularly the end of, I think it was the 2004 season. The final game of the year was at Salisbury in the shadows of the famous cathedral out in Wiltshire. 

So a car load of us headed off from North London bright and early. We stopped in one of the the wallop villages in Hampshire. You may have heard of Nether wallop over wallop and middle wallop. And we went to, I think it was middle Wallop, and went to the the George Inn. We had some some lunch there, and then continued on to Salisbury. And it was a pretty grim match. It was a bumpy pitch, and in the last minute, worldstone gold, they lost, but everyone around me, all the wheelstone fans were jubilant, and this was a little surprising to me, because they had been beaten, but more importantly, they had avoided relegation, and they'd avoided relegation by a solitary goal. That goal they just, in fact, kicked. 

So they were all elated, and at that moment, I got a really deep insight into how English football works, and the whole notion of being promoted and relegated, and it's really interesting. And of course, it means that there's all sorts of ways to win and lose, and while they had lost the last game of the year, they'd actually won because they stayed up, as they say. And it's a contrast to me in that in Australian football and our football, we generally remember the premiers, but that's really about it. There's, there's a limited sense of the narratives that are available. 

And across that weekend after worldstone survived by a solitary goal, my friend Barry texted me probably four or five times with just variations upon the the idea of just one goal, just one goal. He's a Catholic, but this was him at his most prayerful, grateful best. So that was a really interesting time. And the following Christmas was when I was coming back to Australia and and Barry told me a while before that that he was getting me a farewell gift. And I thought, well, that that'd be lovely. That's really nice. He's probably going to get me a wheel stone scarf or a beanie or a t shirt or something. 

And I remember we were in the pub, oddly enough, and he handed me an envelope, and I thought, well, this is interesting. So I opened it, and in it was a certificate. And on the certificate, it was a formal document, it announced that I was now the proud owner of four shares in the worldstone Football Club, and so that was great. I, until very recently, used to get the annual report of the club in the post sent to me, and so I was just really pleased it was such a great English thing to be involved in. And I still follow their fortunes. 

And yes, they're a bit precariously placed at the moment because their 20th however, I have noted that for the first time in their history, they're into the second round of the FA Cup. So they'd be all very excited over in North London about that, I'm sure. And it all means that I've got this connection to this, this corner of London, and I hope one day to see them play again and go along with Barry and stand on the terraces and... enjoy will my team.

Kate:

That's brilliant. That is such a good story. Michael, we spoke last year about your mystery pub adventures, and your blog tells us that you also arrange mystery day excursions with your wife, Claire, a cheery cemetery story combines some local history with very gentle reflections on life. I love the ending. Would you read that to us now?

Michael: 

In her eternal breezy way, Claire says The cemetery is such an interesting place to go, she doesn't know what's about to happen. And I feel a pocket sized spasm of panic. I veer into the left lane so we can go to the first destination of our mystery day. Feeling happy with my insightful planning, I'm taking us to the west terrace cemetery. And mystery day works best when there's an intact sense of mystery, which, of course, has now entirely vanished given my wife's casual, prophetic remark about her continuing curiosity surrounding graveyards. 

I've never been to this cemetery, and knowing Claire's interest in the stories of the everyday people, we select a self guided walking tour that points us towards headstones offering tragic and triumphant narratives. I open the website on my phone, and off we stroll. How many of us are at our very best on Saturdays, just before lunch, our afternoon stretches out with the enthralling promise of carefree hours. As we make our way through the city and punctuate the day with conversations that leap joyously between our past, present and future, the cemetery sprawls in every direction. So it truly is a necropolis. 

Pleasingly, we're alone, a bustling Memorial Park serves nobody well. The digital map directs us to road two, path 10, site 26 West. It's a modest grave for Maria Gandhi. The plaque is informative. Born in Hampshire. She became known to Colonel William Light, Clare. And I then recall year 12 Australian history at Kapunda High. I have a vague notion. Didn't he spend time in prison? Remember Mr. Cripps telling us about him. Claire nods as the rain begins. Has there ever been a film seen in a cemetery or a funeral and it doesn't rain? 

No, it wasn't Colonel Light. It was someone else. Light surveyed the city. You're thinking of the guy who had the idea for the colony of South Australia. This is why Clare achieved the perfect 100 in matric Australian history, and I didn't. I now have a belated flash that's right. Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, Wakefield, Maria Gandhi accompanied Colonel Light to Adelaide, became his housekeeper and carer, and according to the day's idle talk, much more than this. After Light's death, she married his physician, George Mayo, and had four children with him before tuberculosis claimed her. She was 36.

There we were, beneath the swirling July rain, nattering about South Australia's colonial past and our high school days right in the heart of our warm and encasing present. Now, there are narratives all around but mostly I thought of ours. I've nearly finished reading Be Mine, the final release in my favourite series, the Frank Bascom novels by Richard Ford the storyteller, takes his dying son on a sad, harrowing and strangely humorous road trip to Mount Rushmore and mindful of life's delicacy, more than once, mentions how there is no was there is only is scurrying back through the drizzle to the car. 

Claire suddenly announces, Look. She then gives a happy sigh. We stop. On top of a gray headstone is Claire's favourite bird, a magpie. From its mouth hangs a clump of twiggy, leafy matter. He's proud to show us his familial efforts. He's building a nest. And so in this vast acreage dedicated to the city's dead, we see a sign of eager, irrepressible life and nature's renewal. Holding hands we walk on, and the rain slows.

Kate:  27:42

That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much, Michael. If our listeners want to follow your stories, Would you remind us how they can do so?

Michael: 

Sure, they can just go to mickeytales.com ... and they'll they'll find me there. So thank you, Kate. 

Kate: 

I've thoroughly enjoyed our catchup today and hearing more of your Mickeytales. Thank you. Our guest on emerging writers today was Michael Randall, author of the popular blog Mickeytales, English teacher and curriculum manager, football and cricket enthusiast and keen observer of city and country life in South Australia. 

This program can be heard at the same time each week here on Vision Australia radio, VA radio, on digital, online at varadio.org, and also on Vision Australia Radio podcasts - where you can catch up on earlier episodes, including our June 2023 conversations with Michael Randall. Thanks for listening to this vision, Australia radio podcast. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform. Visit varadio.org for more.

ID  29:05

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