A novel based on a true story of scandal and cover-up

My new novel, based on the true story of Florence Martha "Florrie" Cox, has now been published. It is available as a paperback and Kindle ebook on Amazon and an ebook on Smashwords. 

Ignorance is not bliss

Florence Martha " Florrie" Cox was born into a deeply religious family in Melbourne, Australia, in November 1887. She had an unremarkable life until she married a Baptist missionary sent to India. Were it not for the author coming across a lost family group photo, almost nothing would have been known about how Florrie was innocently caught up in a scandal that led to a cover-up by the Baptist Church and the Supreme Court of Victoria. The author uses fiction, based on knowledge and plausibility, to explore the unusual events that engulfed Florrie and those around her.

Some events have been combined or imagined for dramatic and interpretive purposes. 

Of necessity, most of  the dialogue is imagined, but the author believes it is consistent 

with the personalities of the characters and events that took place in India and Australia.

FREE READ ON MY WEBSITE OF THE OPENING CHAPTER

contact: books"at"preddonlee.com

Available from Amazon and Smashwords

Do you die or pass on?

Over my decades as a journalist, then as a writer of books and screenplays, I became fascinated by the use of euphemisms - particularly by people who cannot bring themselves to use the word “died”.

A death is upsetting for the overwhelming majority of a deceased person’s close family and friends, but I can't understand what is at all offensive about "died". We will all die at some time. We might wish to be immortal, but using euphemisms such as "pass", "passed", "passed on", "gone to be with our Lord", "gone to their reward", "present with the Lord", "promoted to glory" or even "gone to a better place" can't disguise the truth.

I recently came across news of a distant relative that had me scratching my head: “Born into an eternal life” and giving a date. It took me minutes to realise that I was being informed that this person had died. Another head-scratcher was spotted in an Australian rural newspaper: "Mr Johnson was bereaved of his mother". That's an interesting way of saying that his mother had died.

Many of those who prefer the euphemisms are members of various religions, but Christianity's King James Bible is certainly not averse to using "died". Indeed, a quick scan shows that it is used 189 times. It even states that Jesus Christ died.

There is nothing inconsistent in using "died" and believing that there is an afterlife. Death is a medical event that must come before a soul or spirit - if such a thing exists - goes on to Heaven or Hell or some other agreeable place, or rejoins previously-deceased family members.

My mother was an enthusiastic Christian who rarely missed church on a Sunday, and although she made careful plans for her funeral and thanksgiving service, she never once to my knowledge used a euphemism to describe what would happen at the end of her life. I also don’t recall her ever suggesting that she was going to rejoin my churchgoing father who had died decades before her.

An aunt who was an equally committed Christian was adamant that she would "die". She would have been very upset had she known that the funeral director changed her newspaper death notices from "died" to "passed on".

Out of curiosity I began looking at death notices in two British newspapers, the conservative  Daily Telegraph and the liberal Guardian, to see how many used “died” or a euphemism or avoided both. In the snapshot of about a week, the majority used “died”, rather than a euphemism. But there was also a significant number that avoided both, leaving it obvious what had happened because the notices were in the Deaths column. The Telegraph score: 23 died, 5 passed away, and 6 used neither. The Guardian had 27 died, 8 passed away and 10 mentioned neither.

It is not just religious believers who prefer to skirt around our departure from this existence. The administrator of a Facebook group to which I belong insists on using "passed on" because it seems to him to be a kinder word than "died". I disagree. There are a great many non-believers who find this not just wrong but bordering on the offensive.

I know that at some time - not too soon, I hope - I will die. As a happy atheist, my death will be beginning of what some might euphemistically term "eternal sleep", but it would be an illogical conceit on my part to believe that I have a soul that will continue in another form. If anything is passed on, it will, perhaps, be through my writing over the years and memories held by my close friends and my descendants. There is, of course, no guarantee that all of this will be flattering.

*****

A Q&A comment from musician Midge Ure, Guardian, September 2, 2023: What happens when we die? "Other people get sad."

How some of us got driving licences in the old days

From time to time I hear from relatives and friends in my birthplace, Australia, about the expense and involved process for their children to get a driving licence. There are P (for Provisional) plates, 120 hours of supervised driving over months, driving logbooks, a very tough theory test, and substantial test fees. And that's just a most basic summary.

How different from when I got my driving licence in rural Victoria in the late1950s...

Our first family car was a second-hand Vauxhall sedan, bought by my mother, Rena, after the death of my father, John S. Richardson. I have no idea how she got a licence, but she would never have won any driving prizes. As for my licence, I think it was awarded by Snr. Const. Pat Nally, father of my old schoolmate, Ian Nally. 

There was an old registration number plate nailed to a tree in the local police station driveway. Before setting out on the driving test, the hopefuls had to prove their eyesight by reading the number plate from the entrance to the driveway. Those who were unsure about their eyesight would turn up early, sneak up to the licence plate and memorise it. 

As for proving that you could drive, that was easy. In my case, Snr. Const. Nally sat in the back seat of our Vauxhall and instructed me to drive to what was known as the "low bridge" over the local river, the Avoca. At the bridge's lowest point, I was instructed to turn off the engine, put on the handbrake, turn the engine back on, and do what was called a "handbrake start" up the other steep side of the bridge, without stalling and rolling back down the bridge. We then returned to the police station where I was issued with a free driver's licence without further examination or restriction. I don't recall having to do a theory test; it was simply assumed that I understood the rules of the road, such as they were. The most important thing when seeking a driving licence was to avoid terrifying the policeman whose job it was to conduct the test.

With the passage of time I have forgotten who taught me to drive. It certainly wasn't a professional driving instructor because there were none in the town, nor in many towns and cities in Australia. I think I was given basic instruction by a couple of visiting uncles. All motor vehicles back then were manual, and I remember the most difficult part of driving was learning the skill of double-declutching when having to return the engine from second to first gear. 

Driving on Australian roads at that time could be quite dangerous, even though speeds were not particularly high. There were no seat belts, no speed cameras, and no breathalysers. Drinking and driving was very common, and drivers had to be in a considerable state of intoxication and driving in a spectacularly erratic manner before finding themselves before the courts. If drivers did get booked for speeding, it was because the local copper didn't have much to do and decided to follow someone considered to be driving too fast and book them on the basis of the speedo on the policeman's own car.

I've not enjoyed driving in Australia on my many trips back there. This is chiefly because Aussie drivers can be dangerously aggressive. There is none of the politeness seen on most roads in the UK. I don't know why this is so, but I suspect that a prime reason is that the speed restrictions are often all over the place and immensely frustrating. Anyone travelling along many a main road in Melbourne, for example, will encounter ever-changing speed limits, some of them changing according to the  time of day. Most Australian drivers accept speeding fines as an significant part of their life on the roads. 

One thing I do agree with, though, is the random breath testing, which has brought about a dramatic drop in drink driving in Australia. I have been breath tested just twice in my life -- both times in Australia. On one occasion I was in a city and had just enjoyed a dinner with some friends at a pub. Fortunately, I'd had just one glass of very low alcohol beer, so I was okay. The other occasion was on a very quiet bush road at 10am. When I asked the copper why they were carrying out random tests at that time of the day on a little-used road he replied "You'd be surprised, Sir, how many drivers are over the limit at this time of the day and don't think they will be caught."

================

I did wonder if getting my driving licence was not as easy as I remembered, so I went onto the website for the town where I grew up and asked if anyone had similar experiences. There were lot of responses recounting similar stories. Here are a few:

My driving test was the same but when we got back to the station, the Sergeant gave me a Car, Motorcycle, Tractor and a small truck license......Why??? Because he’d seen me driving them all and thought I should have them. I had heard of others that got the same..... We didn’t have to do the vision test but a group of us young blokes got dragged down to the wreckers to see a bad accident with blood and bits all over the car. It made us slow down a bit. I can still remember the sight, not very nice but it worked.

I drove around for no more than 20 minutes, did a handbrake start on the sloping road up to the station, reversed out of an angle park outside State Savings Bank and read the number of the house opposite the Police Station. 1967.

The policeman was slightly intoxicated, only had civvies on, he put his police hat up the back window of the car, for good looks, a quick drive around the block, back to the police station, no questions asked and I got handed my licence. That certainly wouldn't happen today.

The day I turned 18 in 1983, Dad took me down to the cop shop in Mum’s yellow Ford Laser. After driving around the town for 5 minutes with the cop more interested in the Fleetwood Mac cassette we were playing, I had my licence. 

Remember my friend who I will not name she went for her license in an automatic car. And yes she had to do a hand break start at the low water bridge which she near reversed off the bridge. The copper at the time said you need a little more practise at that but she got her license.