“You must definitely have the octopus”, I told my next door neighbours who were seated a few tables away from us at the new Greek restaurant which opened this week in our part of Crown Street, Surry Hills. Like me, they had a curiosity about the what was on offer from the Ouzo Taverna.
The serve was large, tasty, and we even toyed with the idea of ordering a second helping. We also tried a salad (a little disappointing), some lamb (very good), and some vegetable-based fritters (good). Though we toyed with the idea of having a desert, we lost interest as the service later in the evening was a little slow.
Instead, we wandered a few doors up the road, and had coffee and cake at Kürtősh, a cafe with a Hungarian name, though you would never really say it was a “Hungarian Cafe”. Very yummy, and a terrific way for a Friday night catch up with a good friend who I’ve known for many, many years.
How good does this look? We had just been to see a play at nearby Belvoir Street Theatre, and decided we “couldn’t go home” without a bit of desert. We explained this to the waiter, and somehow, in their really busy restaurant, still managed to get a really good table. As we talked over the play, we also listened in to the conversation of a nearby couple who were clearly on a first or second date. It was painful to listen to the small-talk as they posed trivial questions to each other. “Though later in life I might regret being single now, I just don’t think I could go through that again”, I told Sue. “I’m sure it’s much easier to go out to a bar get drunk, bring someone home and find out the next morning they’ve pretty much moved in. Well, it worked last time”, I added. Meanwhile, Sue had the gelato and I had a donut-like desert served with what appeared to be warm nutella. Yummo. Highly recommended.
There’s a terrific episode of “The Simpsons” where the family travels with Apu to India, and where Homer keeps repeating the line “are we in India yet?”.
Chuckling to myself, I kept saying the line over and over in my head, because it now makes sense completely. It’s a long way to India. In the world of airline food, the flight is “two full meals and two snacks” long. Though it was supposed to be almost 13 hours long, we made it in 12.
“Would you like the vegetarian or the non-vegetarian?”, I was asked by the flight attendant on the Air India flight from Sydney to Delhi. Coming from a meat-eating culture, it surprised me. I was half-expecting the standard “beef and rice” or “chicken and rice” that you’re generally offered on international airlines, these days, but of course beef and India don’t mix. I chose meat both times, chicken curry and rice for lunch, and then a chicken tikka dish for dinner. In both cases, the meals were delicious.
When we booked Air India several months ago, we had no idea what to expect. But since the return price to Spain (which included a stop-over in Delhi) was so incredibly cheap ($990 return), I would have been happy sitting on the wing. As I’ve researched the airline over the last few months, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at what I’ve read. And I’m pleasantly surprised by the flight. It’s nothing flash, but it’s also not terrible. The flight was good, with friendly service, comfortable seats, a reasonable entertainment system, and best of all, there were a few free seats. In fact when we took off, I had three seats to myself. Eventually, someone in a neighbouring seat came and joined me in one of the other seats. But even so, I was able to stretch out and relax.
I slept for a bit. I listened to some music, and to a Spanish language course, and feel reasonably confident that I can order coffee, beer, white wine, red wine, and ask for the bill. That’s all I’m gonna need, right?
So, am I in India yet? No, not yet. Not really. As part of the flight deal, there’s an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn Express, located within the airport, the other side of security. The reviews online range from “worst hotel ever” to “great for a stopover”. Looking at the profiles and demographics who described it was the “worst hotel ever” were probably the same people in Shirley Valentine on the Greek island who insisted on “British food”. My room is clean, has a view of international check-in, and the internet’s pretty good. They say they have a “bar” which I went to earlier, but it’s actually just the breakfast room. I giggled slightly, recognising the look of disappointment on the faces of the people who came in expecting something a little more sophisticated. Anyway, I’m back in my room, and I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep ahead of tomorrow’s flight to Madrid.
Being home for Easter is an opportunity to catch up with family, both the living and the dead. And today we visited a few cemeteries around the area, including Memorial Garden at South Gundurimba, about fifteen minutes drive from Lismore. It’s a small cemetery “in the middle of nowhere” with not many graves at all. It’s also on the back road between Lismore and Grafton, and so I guess many people pass it on the road without even realising it’s there.
Winifred Atwell memorial at South Gundurimba near Lismore, NSW, Australia
The cemetery’s most famous resident is Winifred Atwell, a Trinidad-born pianist who was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s with a series of boogie woogie and ragtime hits. According to Wikipedia, “She was the first black person to have a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart, and still the only female instrumentalist to do so.”
A recent article in the local newspaper, The Northern Star describes her connection with the area and why she came to be buried on the North Coast right next to her husband whose own death preceded hers by six years.
Ms Atwell and her husband, Lew Levisohn, had lived on Sydney’s Northern Beaches for many years after emigrating here and becoming Australian citizens. “But on a drive (around the Northern Rivers) they spotted the tiny Lismore Memorial Garden Cemetery, South Gundurimba, and fell in love with its beauty and tranquillity. “It is quite a thing for such an iconic entertainer to be buried at a little cemetery in the middle of nowhere.” The couple also had a longstanding friendship with a now deceased Catholic priest Father Jim Carney, who was serving at Coraki when Mr Levisohn died, said Ms Preston. It was reported that Father Carney had been kind to the couple in Mr Levisohn’s final days and it was Ms Atwell’s wish that he be buried by Father Carney near to his parish and that she be buried beside her beloved husband when the time came.
Winifred Atwell grave at South Gundurimba near Lismore, NSW, Australia
Although I’m not what you would call a great fan of Winifred Atwell, I do remember with certain fondness seeing (as a child) her performances on television programs like “The Two Ronnies” and “The Mike Walsh Show”.
And I hope, Harold who I know through ABBAMAIL and ABBA Village and who has a wonderful story of having met Winifred Atwell enjoys, at last, seeing her grave and having it confirmed she is buried next to her late husband. I also thought it was interesting to see fresh flowers on both their graves, and to also see the small memorial to a great talent who died almost thirty years ago.
PS : September 2022
Sometime in the last year or two, the grave has had an appropriate “upgrade”.
PPS. My uncle Oswald (Ossie) Ianna is also buried there, and my aunty Edna will also be there one day.
When you become an amputee, you are immediately introduced to a revolving door of medical professionals: specialists, physiotherapists, and prosthetists. While these experts are incredibly skilled, there is a unique, almost unspoken connection that occurs when you meet a professional who truly “gets it” because they have walked in your shoes—literally.
In an episode of The Limb Shift podcast, I sat down with Jeremy McGrath, a man whose journey from a terrified child to a Paralympic athlete and professional Occupational Therapist (OT) offers a profound look at the “lived experience” of limb loss.
A Difficult Choice and the Journey to Recovery
Jeremy’s story began with a difficult choice. Born with a limb difference, doctors initially suggested amputation when he was very young, but the idea was terrifying. As Jeremy recalled:
“The doctors brought it up again to me. Probably I was about seven or eight or nine. I was pretty young and pretty, pretty horrified at the idea of it. Um, got pretty emotional. Didn’t want to do anything like that.”
However, the medical team explained that as he grew, his leg would continue growing and make his prosthetics “more unshapely heavy,” subsequently limiting his ability to run and remain active. By the time he was fourteen, having given up sport, Jeremy reached a turning point. He realised that delaying the surgery would only make things harder once he hit major life milestones like his Higher School Certificate (HSC), university, and his career.
“I just decided if I have to get this done and I want to kind of live a healthy lifestyle and not limit myself and get back to running and fitness, I just made that decision. I have to do it,” he explained. He placed himself on a waiting list and underwent the amputation at age fifteen.
The immediate aftermath brought a fresh set of physical and social challenges. Jeremy changed schools at the same time, spending three to four months on crutches while navigating an entirely new environment. Because his pre-amputation prosthetic relied on heavy strapping all the way up to his hip, his right quadriceps lacked strength, requiring rigorous pre- and post-operative physiotherapy.
Furthermore, the physical adaptation to the new socket was a slow, painful process. As Jeremy noted, “The swelling was really large and took a long time for that swelling to come down, so had quite a bit of pain in the shoe first adapting to that, um, that socket or that prosthetic.” It took a full twelve months before he could properly return to sport and fitness.
The Psychological Shift and Finding Rowing
While the physical recovery required immense patience, the psychological adjustment was an entirely different hurdle. During his teenage years, Jeremy battled deep insecurities and actively avoided drawing attention to his limb difference.
“Going through high school, I didn’t want my personality or everyone to just look at and identify me through my legs. So I actually wore through the whole of high school long pants. I didn’t like to really bring too much attention to it. Um, so yeah, I was a little bit insecure. Definitely.”
Before his surgery, Jeremy had spent ten years playing soccer, using his heavily strapped leg to “belt the soccer ball.” Post-amputation, he found that kicking a soccer ball with a prosthetic was vastly different: “Sometimes I would kick the ball and my leg would go flying further than the ball.”
Losing that athletic outlet left him adrift until his final year of high school in 2012. Watching the London Games reminded him of attending the Sydney 2000 Olympics as a six-year-old, where he had harboured early dreams of competing at the Paralympics.
Searching for an accessible sport, he looked into rowing, mistakenly believing it was strictly an upper-body discipline. He soon discovered that rowing is actually predominantly a lower-body sport driven by the initial leg drive. “I might not have chosen rowing if I knew that at the time, but I loved the sport,” Jeremy admitted.
Fascinated by the water and embraced by a supportive local club, his rise was meteoric. Training six to seven times a week and waking up at 4:00 am, he made his first World Championships in Amsterdam in 2014—just two years after picking up an oar—and ultimately competed at the Rio Paralympics in 2016.
At the 2014 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, Jeremy McGrath competed with Kathleen Murdoch (prefers to be known at Kate). Together, they won the silver medal in the Legs, Trunk and Arms Mixed Double Scull (LTAMix2x) event.
For Jeremy, the true value of the Paralympic journey was not just the elite competition, but the profound psychological transformation it catalyzed:
“The main thing I got out of that whole experience was… the confidence, the fitness, being able to feel confident in my body and myself again, even if I didn’t make the Paralympics. I think growing and building all that and growing as a person was probably more influential on my life than necessarily the Paralympics.”
This newfound confidence completely changed how he carried himself; the teenager who once hid behind long pants completely abandoned them, choosing instead to wear shorts exclusively.
Landing in Allied Health
Jeremy’s career path was heavily influenced by a compassionate professional at Westmead Children’s Hospital during his adolescence. He recalled a physiotherapist “who not only was a great physio, but she really was a support for myself and my mother… I really felt cared for by her.”
Though he originally intended to pursue physiotherapy, he narrowly missed out on entry and “landed” in Occupational Therapy, initially planning to transfer after a year. However, once he discovered the holistic nature of OT, he fell in love with it.
While physiotherapy targets specific physical functions, OT evaluates daily living occupations in their entirety—from morning routines and parental duties to employment, leisure, and mental health. “I felt like, oh, this is a real opportunity where I can help people with more than just build up their physical strength, but be able to get back to doing things,” Jeremy shared, noting how perfectly it aligned with his own life philosophy of refusing to be held back.
Now a practicing clinician, Jeremy utilizes his personal history to break down barriers with his clients. Within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) space, his background gives him a distinct advantage in establishing rapport:
“I think a lot of my clients, uh, when they find out that I, um, not just work in the NDIS but am a participant in the NDIS, I think they, they take that on board as, oh, this person not just knows about OT, but actually knows what it’s like to be in my shoes, um, and to have walked in them. So I think it really helps me build that rapport and understanding with clients.”
The Reality of Practice vs. Personal Habits
As an OT, Jeremy’s day-to-day expertise involves executing functional assessments, modifying homes, and prescribing assistive technology. This ranges from minor items like reachers to major mobility aids such as lift chairs, scooters, and hoists. Yet, despite nearly a decade in the field, Jeremy remains incredibly candid about his own shortcomings and the enduring pressure of maintaining a “stoic” persona.
Now in his early thirties and noticing the onset of back soreness, he has begun evaluating his own home for fall hazards, yet admitted that he does not always follow his own clinical advice:
“I think I’m very aware of falls, risks and how easy it is to fall. And even right now, I do have some falls in the shower. Even though I am pretty fit, I can balance one leg really well. Um, I don’t necessarily follow the best practices all the time that I tell my clients to follow, but, um, I think, um, you just need to be open and understanding of how serious falls can be.”
He acknowledged that being a young man makes it incredibly easy to default to silence rather than reaching out. “Being a man, being a young man, I think I like to be pretty stoic and not ask for help. Yeah. I think if my wife is here right now, she would agree with me that often I don’t ask for help when I probably do need it,” he confessed, highlighting that coming to terms with vulnerability is a lifelong, unfolding process.
Advice for the Journey Ahead
Reflecting on the fifteen years that have passed since his amputation, Jeremy emphasizes that the absolute hardest part of his journey was keeping his struggles internalized. For anyone currently facing limb loss or navigating a major physical transition, his advice centers on breaking the cycle of isolation.
“Once again, I’m going to come back to being that stoic man. You often keep a lot of thoughts and challenges to yourself… But the more open you can be to the close people in your life, the more that these people can come and help. And you’re never in this by yourself. You know, um, even just in if it’s not just your therapist and, uh, your medical team around you, but your support networks or your family members, your friends, uh, all these people want to help you. Um, and people can only help if you’re, you know, brave enough to have those chats and let them know what you’re actually feeling and thinking and experiencing.”
Jeremy’s full, insightful story will feature in The Limb Shift podcast later in the year.
Executive Suite At the age of forty, I’ve recently started wearing a suit to work. Working in a “creative industry”, I’ve always tended to dress for comfort. Even over the last couple of years working in management, I’ve tended to dress nicely, but never regularly wearing a suit.
And then a few months ago, I had to wear a suit to work one day. The result was a range of really positive comments of how good I looked, how much it made me “look the part”, and how it made me look thinner. And so I’ve been doing it ever since.
But rather than spend a fortune on new shirts and ties, I went to a fantastic second hand store on the corner of Broadway and Glebe Point Road and bought a whole bunch of both for a total of less than $20. Good value, eh? Even better value than the famous Marj Simpson Chanel suit. The woman behind the counter had also told a colleague another woman had recently bought a whole new wardrobe for work for a total of less than $250. How many other middle managers have done the same?
Despite the second hand clothing, which I’ve openly discussed with some colleagues, people DO tend to take me a little more seriously and people DO tend to respond more favourably to what I have to say. Odd, isn’t it?
This photograph of me was snapped the other day, part of a much larger photograph taken at Parramatta Westfield. I kinda like it because it isn’t posed, it’s quite natural, and I guess for the first time it gave me a chance to see what I look like in the workplace now.
