Not Just Sport: On McLeod Nine

 

 

Mention the word McLeod and a few names pop into the head.

 

Of course, Aussie football fans will think Andrew.

 

Is Andrew McLeod the greatest player to have played for the Adelaide Football Club? His stats would suggest that he is. Presently holding the club’s game record (340), Andrew was 5 times an All-Australian team member (once as Captain) and was so instrumental in their two premierships in 1997 and 1998, that he was awarded the Norm Smith Medal for best on ground in both Grand Finals.

 

 

 

 

 

TV watchers might think McLeod’s Daughters.

 

Was McLeod’s Daughters the best Australian drama television series produced? After all it ran from 2001 to 2009 (eight seasons) and there are rumours of remakes and a film. Starring Lisa Chappell and Bridie Carter as two sisters reunited after twenty years of separation and thrust into a working relationship when they inherit their family’s cattle station in South Australia. Most filming took place on location at Kingsford House, a locality just over the hill from our home in the Barossa Valley.

 

Leanne and Stefan Ahrens (Ahrens Engineering) bought Kingsford House in 2009 (the same year that I taught their daughter Ellen in a Year 5/6 class) and have turned it into a 5-star luxury retreat.

 

 

 

 

 

Stef and Leanne are just terrific people, so generous with their talent and time, and I well remember our class being invited to their home where the children enjoyed their swimming pool, while Leanne and Stef made them slushies (iced drinks).

 

Over the last weekend, Marley and I spent time with another McLeod … Heidi.

 

Up until now you might well have said ‘Heidi who?’ But Heidi McLeod might well have written one of the best novels published this year.

 

Heidi came across diaries and letters written by her grandfather Walter Wilfred ‘Wilf’ Fritsch from his internment camp in Ruhleben, Germany, during World War 1. Wilf had travelled to Germany to study for the ministry but when the war broke out, he was considered an alien and confined (aka imprisoned) together with over 5000 others at a converted local German trotting track and stables.

 

Heidi is a talented novelist and has beautifully recorded a slice of history that was otherwise little known.

 

So, what has this all got to do with sport?

 

The internment camp was quite different to prison (and worse concentration) camps which proliferated in World War II. Although conditions were extremely tough, food scarce, punishment severe and the weather often bitter, when the English internees entered Wilf’s camp, they introduced school and university level classes, musicals, recitals, Shakespearean plays and sporting events. Their Ruhleben Athletics Carnival began with bagpipes and fanfares; and the inner trotting track hosted all manner of athletic events, including some of the more novel kind like sack races. Once finished, the rugby season began with fierce rivalry between nationalities.

 

 

 

 

Furthermore, the editor of Heidi’s book is none other than IJH (Ian Hauser), who travelled south to expertly launch ‘Wilf’ at Immanuel College in Adelaide last Sunday. To make this even more Almanac-cy, last Saturday IJH was joined by JTH (John Harms) as we all chatted and watched the Tanunda Magpies lose the local grudge match to the Nuriootpa Tigers.

 

Writers put an enormous amount of energy, time, and emotion into these projects. They bare their souls publicly. It’s a great buzz and Heidi is presently floating on McCloud Nine. She deserves to stay there …

 

Buy the book by clicking HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

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