BIBLE QUOTE
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
PROVERBS 4:7 NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)
Musicians Albert and Sarah Corrick had been married for some years, building up a respectable business at their academy of music in Christchurch. They had also managed to raise seven musically talented children who became part of a travelling show.
It began in 1897 with just some instrumental pieces interspersed with singing performances but soon grew into a show featuring dancing, comedy skits, poetry readings and audience participation.
But in 1901 they added a new element to their show. Sarah and Albert’s only son Leonard, 14, had discovered a passion, which had led to him using a “magic lantern” to project photos onto a screen.
He soon moved on from still images to the Edison motion picture projector. The family had invested in the hi-tech gadget, buying a store of films that could be shown with it, but Leonard turned film producer, making his own movies. They presented the silent movies with their own added sound effects and live musical accompaniment.
The Corrick Family travelled the world for several years with their multimedia variety show, building up a store of over 130 films, before settling in Tasmania.
Their films have now been restored and digitised by the Australian National Film and Sound Archive and a selection will be premiered today at the annual Ten Days on the Island festival in Burnie. They are also available to view online at http://bit.ly/thecorrickfamily
The patriarch of the Corrick clan, Albert was born in Somerset in England in 1849. His family moved to NZ in
1862, where he later became a music teacher and a church organist. He married piano teacher and accomplished contralto Sarah Calvert.
The couple imparted their love of music to their children, all eight of them — Emily, or Gertie (born in 1878), Alice (1880), Amy (1882), Ethel (1884), Leonard (1886), Ruby Elizabeth (1888), Jessie (1892), and Elsie (1894).
Australians dubbed the troupe “The Marvellous Corricks”, which soon became their official name.
They played their last show, a charity benefit in Launceston, in 1932.
Elsie, the last remaining member of the family, died in 1974.
JOHN William Wheeler was born at Cremorne, NSW, on Anzac Day 1948.
His grandfather, Gallipoli veteran William Guard, toasted his new grandson with a rum, but not until after the march.
Perhaps it was auspicious, because when his parents Roy and Enid moved to Canberra, Wheeler was inspired to apply for the 1966 cadet entry to the Royal Military College, Duntroon, from Lyneham High School.
If there was a template for the ideal cadet, John Wheeler was the model. His family home in Ainslie was a few blocks from the Australian War Memorial, and about the same distance again to Duntroon.
He had a younger sister, whose circle of school friends always enhanced the popularity of a local cadet. He had represented the ACT at rugby, adding further to his classmates’ social and sporting opportunities.
John and Roy restored vintage cars as a hobby, so John had easy access to a car when other cadets were not yet permitted to own one.
His Model A Ford may have been obvious and unsuited to Canberra’s winters, but the Hudson Super Wasp was marginally less ostentatious.
Given its close proximity, the Wheeler family home was a sanctuary for John’s classmates seeking to escape, however briefly, D u n t r o o n ’ s rigid confines. The 1969 g r a d u a t i n g class had a difficult final year after media allegations of systemic basta tardisation of junior cadets by senior classmen.
Several cadets were severely punished, and the class graduated under a cloud. Although some cadets deserved censure, the class was unfairly targeted as a whole. John Wheeler had demonstrated through his quiet generosity of spirit there was another way to initiate junior cadets into Duntroon’s regimen, and he was among those who other cadets felt deserved better.
Wheeler graduated into infantry and was posted to 3RAR at Woodside, South Australia, to prepare for service in Vietnam.
Before leaving for Vietnam, John Wheeler was best man at his sister Ruth’s wedding to a fellow graduate, Frank Ellis, at the Duntroon Chapel.
On February 25, 1971 the battalion returned to Phuoc Tuy Province for its second Vietnam tour.
Five days later, on March 2, 1971, Lieutenant John Wheeler, aged 22, was killed during a contact on the battalion’s perimeter.
He is commemorated on plaques at the Australian War Memorial, Lyneham High School and Duntroon.
A Canberra street is named after him.
Even after 50 years, the world is a poorer place for his lost opportunities.