Name one movie that:

1. Made you laugh
   The Golden Child when it first came out. I’ve seen little bits of it since, that I’m sure were funny at the time. They’re not anymore.
2. Made you cry
   The Notebook. OK, there, I admit it. I just wish I could think of something more ‘manly’ to put here. I can’t even remember why. I’m certain I never told Fatima. Hope she doesn’t read this.
3. You loved when you were a kid
   The Boy who could Fly was the Cottee’s free kids movie one year.
4. You’ve seen more than once
   Love Actually, and I could watch it again
   Monsters Inc. is an all-time favorite I can’t wait to watch with Jack
   Wayne’s World is the movie I saw most at cinemas. I think I ended up seeing it 5 times with different people.
5. You loved but were embarrassed to admit it
   Titanic was Matt’s answer, so I feel like I’m just steeling answers now. But I loved it all bar the last few minutes when she drops the diamond off the back of the boat.
6. You hated
   Natural Born Killers was the third movie in a marathon I went to the cinema to see. It was the most stupid movie ever and I walked out about 20 minutes in
7. Scared you
   I don’t tend to watch movies that scare me. Though the Saw series certainly got my heart rate pumping. Maybe that’s what the question means
8. Bored you
   Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. There, I said it, it was an incredibly boring excuse for heavy violence wrapped in the guise of ‘realism’.
9. Made you happy
   The Lion King just to add another movie as I’ve already mentioned Love Actually and Monsters Inc.
10. Made you miserable
    Blood Diamond and Hotel Rwanda are both ‘issue’ movies that should leave you miserable.
11. You weren’t brave enough to see
    I don’t think there’s anything I’d say I wasn’t ‘brave’ enough to see because it would scare me too much so I’m going to either pass, or agree with Matt re Narnia II
12. One character you’ve fallen in love with
    Sully from Monsters Inc.
13. The last movie you saw
    Intacto on Foxtel was just brilliant. Just came across it one night and was immediately drawn in.
14. The next movie you hope to see
    There’s so many movies that look good that I’d like to see, but I’ll go with The Counterfeiters.

Later in the service he’d don a bald wig and would hobble in as the old Carey in his last days looking back on his life. On more than one occasion he had to deal with people wanting to help the ‘old man’ out to his car — even though they could see it was a bald wig and they’d seen him minutes before as a young man!

He had plans up his sleeve to do other characters too: John Wesley was one. However Dad left this ‘mortal coil’ before he had time to put plan into action.

However, he did have time to write a script for a Richard Johnson performance. Richard Johnson was Australia’s first ever minister. He arrived, with his wife Mary on the First Fleet on January 26th, 1788. Dad had spoken to the minister of a church in Sydney that has a service each year to commemorate Richard Johnson, and they’d spoken about Dad performing the piece this year. After Dad passed away, June contacted the minister to let him know that Dad wouldn’t be making it. But also mentioned that the script was available.

I preferred, however, not to just hand over the script to someone else to read in whatever way they wanted. I felt the best thing for Dad’s legacy, for me and for the rest of the family was to have one of us read it. Dad had some notes on various things he wanted — like the sound of a kookaburra and ship noises. So I’ve spent the time working on this recording.

The performance is set on the evening of January 26th, 1788. Right now, here in Australia it is the evening of January 26th, 2008 — exactly 220 years later. Recording this for Dad has been a real privilege and has been a great blessing to me. I hope you get something from listening.

You can download the audio (5m 30s, 1934kb mp3) or the script (29kb odt). The mp3 here is low quality. If you’d like a CD quality file, please feel free to ask.

Script © 2007 Jack Measham, recording © 2008 Rick Measham. All rights reserved. This recording and script must not be played or performed in any public place without permission, however licenses will be granted freely on request.

• Belleville Train
• Belleville Train 1
• Belleville Train 3