THE MALONEY SCRAPBOOK

ON WITH THE SHOW, UNCLE DOUG! (Written 11 February 2022 by Warren Maloney) "Uncle" Doug Elliott was born today in 1917. If you ever met him in Theatre, TV, or Politics or down Puckle Street, you had an Uncle Doug story. One I love was at the Northcote Plaza Theatre in 1948, when my Aunt Joan was the "leading boy" in the Christmas Pantomime. One difficulty she had was that she was almost 9 months pregnant, but the black tights and specially fitted jerkin and performing mainly rear-stage helped. Then Nature called and she had to leave the stage hurriedly and mid-song. Doug, who was stage managing, stepped out and did a 12 minutes impromptu singing and comedy routine until Joan could return. It was so good and loved by the audience, Doug reprised it every show until Christmas.

 BEFORE COVID AND NOW (30 January 2022) Have you noticed (of course you have) how we have changed our language so much because of Covid. Our news services now say "lives lost" instead of "deaths". We total "hospitalisations" and "ICUs". We are "vaxxed" and "boosted" and "masked up". "Stay safe" is an acceptable closing farewell and even a nod is an acceptable greeting from a distance of "at least 1.5 metres". We are told to "learn to live with it". And we speculate on what each "new variant" will be called!   But it is also more than that. We understand the "lost lives" in a different way!   Our former neighbour, Russell, died of Covid 2 weeks ago. He was 67. Russell had owned the Miners Cottage at 76 Duke Street Daylesford for over 30 years. He rented it out on the tourist weekend market (bring your own sheets & towels type of self-contained) and used it as a pri