NEW YEAR'S EVE - Goodbye to 2024 and hello 2025
Hi
Happy New Year to all.
Dear friends invited us to the Queensland Pops Orchestra New Year's Eve concert in Brisbane. After some detours due to flooded roads and a train ride into the Brisbane CBD we made it to QPAC.
Below is a link to the QPAC website showing all the performers for this year's NYE concert - also celebrating 40 years for the Queensland Pops Orchestra. As you will note, there was a very wide variety of music styles and amazing talents, all presented in a bright and celebratory tone - didjeridoo, bagpipes, Scottish dancers, Celtic music, harmonising singers, pop music to some of the great classical pieces.
We went to the early 5:00pm performance. As we emerged from the concert hall the early round of fire works lit up the sky.
After another train and car ride and we were back home in Yarraman just in time to see the new year in - a reasonably respectable hour considering we aren't as young as we used to be.
What a wonderful way to see out 2024 and welcome in 2025!
Recently, I came across this inspirational quote by Eric Butterworth, which I found encouraging - Don't just go through life, grow through life.
During 2024, I read of the persistent and long suffering efforts of William Wilberforce and others to abolish firstly slave trading and then slave ownership. This was finally achieved in 1833/34. For many decades those with financial interests in slavery had blocked efforts to bring an end to this evil business.
But that was not the end of this sad story. The passing of acts in London's Westminster Parliament had a direct impact in the Scottish Highlands and Isles.
As a part of the abolishment of slavery, the slave owners were very generously compensated for the loss of their slaves - who were at that time seen as nothing more than assets, counted with the sheep and cattle. Accordingly, the slaves did not receive a penny.
A Colonel John Gordon was among those 'compensated'. He was a lowland Scot who had made a lot of money from his plantations in the West Indies. Cashed up with this 'compensation' money, he came to the Scottish Highlands and Isles in 1838 and bought large tracts of land. Although he was already a very rich man, he proved to be a mean and brutal landlord. Many of his tenants were forcibly emigrated to Canada and Australia, often dying on the journey or arriving in an appalling condition. It was in this context, that some of my ancestors came to Australia.
In those days most lowland Scots (and the English) viewed the Gaelic speaking people from the Highlands and the Isles as primitive, barbaric, troublesome and treacherous. Isn't it alarming how quickly some humans can demonise others who are just a little different? Which then often develops a life of its own, resulting in people in positions of power feeling justified in treating fellow humans in the most appalling ways.
Slavery may now be officially illegal in many countries however slavery takes many forms and is still with us today.
Blessings to you in 2025 as you seek to bring a little more love, joy and peace into our troubled world.
Travel well
Bryan and Nance.
Comments