RITV Summer Series – With gratitude to the Almanac community, particularly the Barossa chapter

 

 

RITV and Murray (image courtesy of RITV)

 

With gratitude to the Almanac community, particularly the Barossa chapter

 

The drive back to the Barossa after Fay Harms’ funeral Monday week ago was several things: the journey itself, from Mount Barker in the stunning Adelaide Hills, to Mount Pleasant, to Eden Valley, to Williamstown, to Angaston, then to Nuriootpa, truly is a beautiful part of Australia.

Very much a minor point: as my father used to say if we were somewhere and he had forgotten something: “Well, we left in such a rush!”. I did leave my wallet on the kitchen bench, meaning no stop at our favourite Angaston butcher, nor a stop at an Eden Valley cellar door I have been eyeing off, Poonawatta.

Next time!

Significantly, the one hour and twenty minutes or so in the car enabled some reflection. Hearing about the faithful, family and service oriented, church community filled life of Concordia College, Toowoomba old scholar Fay Dorothy Harms reminded me of parts of my own upbringing.

My parents passed away in 2019 and 2020. Reading their eulogies was challenging, particularly my mother’s in 2020.

To provide a finalist in the understatement of the decade short list: life in 2023 and 2024 has been rather different for my wife Heidi and I to say the very least. After 32 years in Brisbane, we moved to the beautiful Barossa Valley last January. Many, many people have asked, and continue to ask, the obvious question: ‘Why?’

 Essentially, for Heidi’s work, as a Primary School Principal. It was a huge decision, one made after much talking, prayer, listing pros and cons, talking with our daughters, as well as the consumption of some (much?!) Barossa wine as we sat on the lounge room floor that weekend in late 2022, grappling with the question: ‘What are we going to do?’

A key point in the move was ‘what was I going to do for work?’ After fifteen great years at one of the great schools in Queensland, Brisbane Boys’ College, in 2022 I had returned to St Peters Lutheran College, the College my parents attended as boarders in the 1950s, as well as the place where I met John Harms in the early 1990s.

I felt that in a work sense, I was going home. I still have my mother’s 1959 school hat band. I would wear it, pinned around my wrist, at the bigger sports events that year.

Rather ironically, my last day of ‘work’ for St Peters on December 12, 2022, was on the Mile End athletics track in Adelaide, at the national schools (teams) athletics final. St Peters won the national title that day. My next journey to South Australia, in early 2023, would be a one-way ticket!

The St Peters Head of Sport Shaun Nodwell was very proactive and collegial around building me a jigsaw of coaching, coordinating roles as well as some teaching and relief teaching to keep me very occupied from Monday to Saturday. A desk in ‘Sports House’, deliberately named ‘house’ so students could feel ‘at home’ in that space, topped things off. Life back at St Peters, where I’d previously worked for sixteeen years before my ‘BBC chapter’ was pretty darn good! Dean Boxall would stride with purpose into Sports House some days before the after school swim session, then walk straight to the fridge in the hope of finding chocolate.

 

 

I have been a contract teacher-relief teacher in both Tanunda and Gawler since living in the Barossa. … very different to the leafy inner-western suburbs of Brisbane in several respects. I coached at the University of Queensland athletics club for those decades in Brisbane. My fiftieth birthday celebration was held at the UQ rugby club, overlooking the athletics track. It seemed a fitting venue, as I’d spent a large portion of my life at that track.

In Brisbane, my community, much of my tribe, consisted of the like-minded people I worked with – the other Directors of Sport at Brisbane Boys’ College, the staff in St Peters Sports House, the coaches I coached with at UQ, the other athletics people I knew through either school athletics, or club athletics, or through Queensland athletics with teams at national championships.

On New Years’ Eve 2022, a friend suggested to me I should start a podcast. Without even really thinking, my immediate response was: ‘I guess living in the Barossa, I could call myself ‘Rabbit in the Vineyard?!’

Starting afresh in South Australia was challenging, and in some ways, is still challenging.

The change of pace, less traffic, different weather, significantly fewer people, and while I am still in contact with many of ‘my Brisbane tribe’, to quote Dennis Denuto in ‘The Castle’, the vibe was very different to my ‘before school coaching-school day-after school coaching-UQ coaching-(at night) paper work for coaching/other’ routine that I had thrived on for a long time.

As I drove through the picturesque countryside earlier this month, I reflected on the Almanac community and the significant role my Rabbit in the Vineyard persona has played in providing me with fulfilment, purpose, encouragement and enjoyment over the past two years.

As I read email upon my return, after placing the wallet in its rightful place in my backpack, there was a thank you note from Ian Hauser, who had clearly spotted my shiny head (difficult to miss!) on the live stream.

‘Thanks for being there for John, RITV, thanks for representing the Almanac.’

Reconnecting with John Harms early last year, often at the Tanunda Club, was such a great introduction to day-to-day Barossa life. I would see John’s children at school last year. After 21 years teaching in Lutheran schools, after attending the same Lutheran School in Toowoomba as John’s mum, after having heard, from a very young age, my parents and other family members talk about their life-shaping experiences at St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, at the end of 2023 in the Barossa Valley, my time in Lutheran education seemed to end. It was both a very difficult and quite emotional time.

Heidi and I have joined St Petri Lutheran Church, the church where we were married on 7 January 1995. I have started to serve in the St Petri community in several different ways, and through the encouragement of the Reverend Adrian Kitson, I am going to learn the ropes of liturgy reading and lay preaching.

 

 

Living in a place is very different to visiting a place. I had visited the Barossa on an at least annual basis since 1994. My father-in-law still lives in another picturesque part of the Barossa, Vine Vale.

 

 

I have also had the good fortune to meet Andy Thurlow, and his lovely wife Marlene. Recently, I was able to hear some of Andy’s story, as well as listen to Marlene read a section of his novel Painting Martha. I also learned that Kieran Modra once won the national schools pole vault championship. What an incredible accomplishment!

The words Andy wrote in his books that Saturday morning was a reminder of the power of encouragement, as well as the richness of connection:

In Kieran’s book The Way I See It, Andy wrote ‘Dear Russel, love your writing! Hope this story inspires you, God bless and love, Andy’.

In the novel Painting Martha: ‘All the best and great getting to know you, and in A Singular and Outrageous Blessing – the Story of Rolph and Margaret Mayer, ‘thank you for your support and encouragement’.

Andy’s messages were concise, personal and encouraging.

The encouragement, for me for so long during those decades in Queensland, the majority probably came when I was coaching, building teams, meeting students’ grateful and respectful parents, and working with like-minded colleagues who became, and remain loyal friends.

Without realising so much last year, Rabbit in the Vineyard has provided me encouragement and fulfilment, which in a significant time of transition for a man in his late fifties, has been important for my well-being.

As I drove back to the Barossa the other Monday, wallet-less, and with just enough fuel for the journey, these points of gratitude became very clear.

Just as I said to my great friend and former Brisbane Boys’ College comrade Dave Marriott when we caught up in Warwick, Queensland on NRL Grand Final afternoon: ‘Life is very different now, life is good, still getting used to the changes, but life is good’. Dave and I agreed – we had spent fifteen wonderful years at the coalface there in leafy Toowong, and for me, my (school) career peaked somewhere in that time, again without fully realising as much at the time.

 

 

I thank everyone who has read my writing, particularly those who aren’t NRL fans, or Rabbitohs fans.

Thank you, John Harms.

For me, living here in the beautiful Barossa, with my wonderful wife, and Murray the energetic golden retriever, having just spoken to my daughters back in Brisbane via Facetime, knowing we will catch up at the end of next week when I am back in Brisvegas as coach of the South Australian schools’ athletics team, I still have so much to be very grateful for.

 

R.I.T.V.
28/11/24

 

Barossa Red Wine of the Week:

Grant Burge Barossa Ink Shiraz

A thank you gift from the Trinity College, Gawler athletics team.

 

Russel Hansen, South Sydney football club diamond member 6199, lives in Nuriootpa, Barossa Valley, South Australia. His golden retriever, Murray, is named after the South Sydney captain. Twitter/X: @Rabbit in the Vineyard @Russel_Hansen

 

 

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