Helen Morgan http://www.helenmorgan.net snapperup of unconsidered trifles Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:05:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Tea bags and wheelchairs http://www.helenmorgan.net/2011/05/26/tea-bags-and-wheelchairs/ http://www.helenmorgan.net/2011/05/26/tea-bags-and-wheelchairs/#comments Thu, 26 May 2011 08:00:57 +0000 Helen Morgan http://www.helenmorgan.net/?p=161 Oh dear, oh dear. I have twice this week been asked (at my gym and another weekly activity I participate in) to keep my tea bag labels/tags for a research project which will, upon receipt of certain (undefined) numbers of tea bag tags, donate wheelchairs to people who need them.

Is it because I am a slightly bitter cynic that I don’t believe this? Would a slightly bitter cynic actually keep four tags before deciding to put on her research hat?

It struck a chord with me, because during the research for my book on stamps, Blue Mauritius, I came across similar stories dating back to the nineteenth century, which promised to build a hospital/ward for sick children if the [insert your local hospital here] could get a million stamps (or variations of this theme). Just search the wonderful Trove database of digitised Australian newspapers on million stamps hospital and you’ll see ample evidence of this, back to at least the 1890s.

This current tea bag thing sounds similar. Sure enough, a Google search on tea bag label tag wheelchair turns up a scan in Google News from the Connecticut Sunday Herald, dated 15 October 1972, ‘Tea Bag Mystery’, reading:

Can’t get any confirmation on those reports concerning a drive to collect tea bag tags for wheelchairs. Readers tell us many in town collecting the tags with the understanding it will help the handicapped. Rehabilitation Center knows nothing about it nor do the local hospitals. Sounds like the old cigarette package drive that fooled so many people a few years back.

So that’s almost forty years ago, referring to another even older scam, with antecedents pre-1900.

The only other thing of note I found was a comment on an article about raising funds for wheelchairs through Rotary, dated 15 May 2011, asking ‘Our Croquet Club is collecting tea bag labels for the purpose of buying wheelchairs, how does this work, where do the labels go, and how many are needed to buy a chair. Our contact says they are collect at Dandenong hospital, more info please.’ It seems a few other people/groups have collected tea bag tags over the years, but right now there is nothing concrete on the web to verify this collecting drive in Melbourne, Australia.

Fascinating, don’t you think?

]]> http://www.helenmorgan.net/2011/05/26/tea-bags-and-wheelchairs/feed/ 28 The Man and the Woman and the Edison Phonograph http://www.helenmorgan.net/2010/06/28/the-man-and-the-woman-and-the-edison-phonograph/ http://www.helenmorgan.net/2010/06/28/the-man-and-the-woman-and-the-edison-phonograph/#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:48:43 +0000 Helen Morgan http://www.helenmorgan.net/?p=157 A song performed and filmed at the National Folk Festival, Canberra, April 2010. My boss, Gavan McCarthy, plays the double bass in it, and sent the link around at work. It moved me, ergo, I share.

You can read more about Fanny Cochrane Smith here and listen to her singing, recorded in 1903 here – “the first and last recordings of Tasmanian Aboriginal songs and language”.

]]> http://www.helenmorgan.net/2010/06/28/the-man-and-the-woman-and-the-edison-phonograph/feed/ 0 Vale Phillip Law http://www.helenmorgan.net/2010/03/01/vale-phillip-law/ http://www.helenmorgan.net/2010/03/01/vale-phillip-law/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:08:48 +0000 Helen Morgan http://www.helenmorgan.net/?p=136 April babies, Dr Law and Iris

Dr Phillip Law died yesterday, at the age of 97, in Melbourne. I had known him since 1999, when I first started working on the arrangement and description of his records at his home in Canterbury. I should write more about this, but right now I’d just like to remember him.

When he moved from Canterbury to Balwyn Manor, we kept in touch, and a few times we went out together for morning tea – we both absolutely loved the passionfruit kisses (sponge, real cream and passionfruit icing) at the cafe close by.

I went to visit him regarding further work on his papers in March 2008 and took Iris, my then 11 month old daughter. She was in to everything of course, knocking over wine bottles and curious about it all. I thought that perhaps Dr Law, not having had children of his own, might find her annoying. But he didn’t. He thought she was wonderful and loved her curiousity. He held her for this photograph, and said it had been the first time he’d held a baby in a very long time, and I know it gave us all pleasure. If she grows up to be half as curious as Phillip Law, she’ll be lucky, like him.

Vale Phillip Law.

Media

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