Over the past three years I have become aware that my interest in literature is enhanced according to the degree of connection which I can make from personal experience. There is nothing new in that, except that no one had ever really pointed it out to me. I realise that E.M. Forster did his best, but 1 never understood that he was speaking directly to me!

On January 26th in 1982 my sister-in-law had Australian citizenship conferred upon her in a ceremony at the Tamworth (northern New South Wales) City Council Chambers. The ceremony was intriguing to me on a number of levels (including the Oath of Allegiance), but apart from the exhortation that she should switch Rugby loyalties from France to Australia she was given a symbol of her new status which I found rather appropriate. It was a potted wattle seedling.