STAFFORD BETTRIDGE – Documentary and Film
Corals here were extensively mined for lime as fertiliser for the cane industry back in the pre WW2 era. Subsequent to the war artificial fertiliser, Nitro-Phos became abundant and cheap, but as more land was given over to cane water quality became an issue that is still neglected.
... hardy pilgrims visit the scant remains of a reef that had thrived for possibly 6,000 years. No more; I saw mangroves taking root; in years to come it will be a mudflat with a line of trees; no one will ever believe that there was ever a reef there at all.
This gallery has many hands and feet of children, parts of it are faded and parts are weathered away which make me think it predates the 1870s, which was literally 'The End' of 40,000 years - the period of genocide.
I could see Dunk Island and the Percy Islands out in the shining blue of the Coral Sea. To the south there was Clump Point and in the north past the rocky headland was Garners Beach; it was panoramic.
This house featured in Home Beautiful; the pictures of my daughter and I probably mark some kind of high water mark in my life; I still had my strength; I felt promise, optimism, respected, sadly, it wasn’t to be.
The Massy Huts were erected on thin slabs of hand mixed concrete that are still there forty-five years later. There was a big Mess Hall and an Ablution Block with canvas showers on ropes and thunderbox toilets.
I was very proud of it; not simply my workmanship, but the conception; it fitted and appeared as natural in it’s location as if it had been built that way in 1870. I planted a multitude of trees.
I spent a few days location scouting when I sold the Limited Rights to my short script. Scouting conjures up all kinds of ideas; I found scenes for films I hadn't even thought of writing, or wished I could write.
A missing finger indicates death of a child. On a cave wall in The Basin a whole line of hands show missing fingers; these are among the last hand stencils made, still sparkling fresh after 150 years.
When I was sixteen we got a tandem drive Diamond Reo but what sorted the ‘men from the boys’ on this truck was it’s quadruplex transmission. A Quad box was two gearboxes in tandem.
