Rocky Cape Christian Community

Using cray pots made of tea tree scrub, our neighbours along the
Northwest Coast of Tasmania continue to bring in a profitable harvest.

Alvin Fleming, a local fisherman, long retired from his years at sea, got his name "The Whistler of St. Helens" while working for Jim Lintos on his 34-foot boat, the "Lorna L" down the east coast of this island. It happened, they tell me, during the 1950s when Alvin was still in his twenties, unmarried, right after Australian crayfish began to bring high prices in markets overseas. (Before this, they were so plentiful that area farmers would go down to the beach, dragging a dead wallaby in the water until it hung full of crays, then pull up their catch to feed it to the pigs.)
 
St. Helens, at that time, still had only a small wharf and with so many people starting to haul in the crayfish, it made a lot of trouble. The fishermen and local timber companies quarrelled for space on the wharf to load and unload their cargoes.
 
Some of the trouble began with a law made four hundred years ago. After British fishermen helped to turn back the "invincible Spanish Armada," Queen Elizabeth I decreed that fishing vessels would have right of way on all British wharves for all time. Australian fishermen still remember that law and like to quote it, but the timber companies have long scoffed at it. "That law is a mediaeval legend," they maintain, "and could not possibly hold weight in Australia today." But the night that Alvin and his boss came in just after high tide to unload their boat at St. Helens, it seemed like it might start a riot.
 
Ted Spirling, one of the main timber merchants of the region, stood on the wharf counting stacks of palings (fence boards) to be loaded onto a schooner bound for Victoria, the Alma Doepel, when with a loud crash the first cray pot landed beside him. Alvin had began to unload the Lorna L, and with a bit of hurrying, he and Jim hoped to get out to sea before the tide fell. Ted, not known for his patience, got angry. Not only had he lost his count, he and his men had just cleared off a heap of other cray pots and fishing gear that had gotten piled onto their timber during the day. Another boat load of pots was too much.
 
Ted ignored Alvin (only an employee) and marched down onto the boat to take it out on Jim.
 
Jim, in a hurry and in no mood to talk, made a few nasty remarks and kept on working. This made Ted even angrier. From here and there, all around the timber piles and heaps of pots on the wharf men appeared. Other fishermen stopped what they were doing and came over. Even the crew from the Alma Doepel left off stacking timber and came to watch.
 
At first Alvin grinned and just kept on unloading the boat. But when he saw the looks on the faces of those that came (everyone had gotten really tired of stumbling over one another's cargo on the wharf) he sobered down. Some of the timber stackers carried belaying pins. Others picked up sharpened fence pickets and battens from the piles. When the fishermen saw this they picked up their pointed bait sticks. Seeing the crowd gathering and hearing the noise of the shouting, Sergeant Kelly from the police station came running down. With sixty or more men involved, and more showing up all the time, it didn't look good. Then, suddenly, all heads turned. What was that?
 
From amidships on the Lorna L came some of the loveliest, strongest and most musical whistling any of the men had ever heard. There stood young Alvin, whistling a Scottish Air. Everyone stopped and stared.
 
From this tune, Alvin moved right on into a lively Irish one, without pausing for breath in between. (About half of the men on the wharf were Scottish or English, the other half Irish.) Sergeant Kelly began to beat time with his baton, and by the time Alvin had moved on to the melody of Waltzing Matilda (one of Australia's most popular pioneering songs) a good number of the men had joined in singing. When he stopped everyone cheered and whistled and Sergeant Kelly motioned for silence.  He thanked Alvin, and all the men for their forbearance in a tough situation. "We have already petitioned the authorities for a larger wharf," he told them, "and if you can just hold out a bit longer, if we can manage to work around one another in peace, it will all turn out the best."
 
Within a year from that event the new wharf was done, while "The Whistler of St. Helens" had his name and reputation for good.
 
Men of the world, you say? Surely not every conflict will get resolved with a merry tune. . . .
 
Perhaps not. But it is always stupid and wrong to fight over things we cannot agree on. And all of us always gain from choosing a better way.
 
If Scottish Airs and Irish tunes will not do it for you sober-minded Christians in conflict, what about the music of heaven? We do well to consider how much difference our "big issues" will make in a million years from now.
 
Peter
 
Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au