© John Godl

Few foods have become as synonymous with Australian culture as Aeroplane Jelly, a simple yet delicious desert treat which has been perennially popular with generations of adults and children, an iconic product like Vegemite or Fosters Lager.

Aeroplane Jelly was invented by Adolphus Appleroth (1886-1952), ‘born Adolphus Herbert Frederick Norman Appleroth in Melbourne, third surviving child of William Appleroth, a Russian-born driver and wife Emma, daughter of a Melbourne wine merchant.

The family moved to Sydney where Bert began work in 1902 as a messenger boy at the Lipton’s Tea agency. He then took a job as a tram conductor.

He began experimenting with mixtures of gelatine and sugar in the bath in his parents’ home at Paddington, and hawked the jelly crystals that he produced door-to-door, using trams as transport.

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I guess we are losing what once could be considered an inherent value in land travel. The value of the journey is being devalued by the life-is-a-race philosophy. The journey is seen as an encumbrance between the start and finish. Speed, we are continually warned, when we take to the highways, is a killer. And our appreciation of a journey across land is dying with each new fast car that rumbles off the assembly line. We no longer take time to enjoy the distance travelled. If we take a break, it is usually an enforced one, hopefully to ensure our safe completion of the journey. As a child, the most common form of transport was by foot. We knew our territory intimately and this knowledge made us more aware of the details of the landscape in which we belonged. We knew the many characters who peopled our area. We knew its unique features, its colours, its distinctive sounds and smells. We were more attuned to change in the landscape. We had a sense of place.

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© Jim Low 2003
MP3:

Lyrics

They used to ride in sulkies
And walk the dusty ground
Reflecting on the countryside around
Now they drive their cars from A to B
There’s never a thought for what they see
They say they don’t have time
They say they don’t have time
No, they don’t have time.

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© John Godl

Few movies in Australian cinematic history have stood the test of time to become as celebrated as ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, let alone generated the international cult film status Peter Weir’s 1975 classic has achieved.

Based on a novel of the same name written by Joan Lindsay (1896-1984) it details the complex, interwoven lives of teachers and students at Appleyard College, a posh turn of the century girls’ boarding school which is turned upside down by the baffling disappearance of three girls and a teacher during a St Valentines Day picnic in the shadow of the enigmatic Hanging Rock. The event sends shockwaves of suspicion and anxiety through the local community, who are unable to come to terms with events due to the mysterious nature of the disappearances preventing closure. First published in 1967 by F. W. Cheshire Ltd, it was a critical success in its own right and has never been out of print since, selling well over half a million copies world wide to date.

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