FROM THE EDITOR

 

Welcome to the Winter edition of Croquet Australia - and welcome to our new correspondent from South Australia, Ian Rick. Ian joins Johanna Lowe from Queensland and Elaine Roomes from Tasmania as our State Correspondents; it would be great to fill the vacant positions in other States. It's an opportunity for each State to 'strut its stuff' to a National readership.

In this edition I have pleasure in announcing the 2008 Photography competition - 2007's effort demonstrated to the judges that there are many talented 'snappers' in the croquet world, so we're looking for a bumper crop of photos in all categories.

There is an additional category this year - that of "Croquet History." You will realise that the winners probably will not be those who took the photograph, so you may ask, why such a category?

I'm amazed at just how little Australian croquet history - including photographs - there is out there in the public domain. A search of Australian libraries found only two books that fall into this category, namely Joyce Ridley's History of Croquet in Victoria, 1866-1980, published in 1980 and Max Hooper's Croquet History: Mainly Australia, especially New South Wales, published in 1991. These two books demonstrate the wealth of cultural history that croquet's contributed to the Australian footprint, from playing on private lawns in aid of charities to Club games on lawns in public parks, from a 'game for women and controlled by women,' to competitions where men and women contest the game against each other, from local pennant matches to international competitions. But these two books are limited to their focus, and therefore there's a huge gap in the history of croquet in Australia. There may be other books in private collections - if there are, I'd love to borrow (every care taken) if you are prepared to lend.

I'm also sure that many Clubs have written their own histories - for instance, East Brisbane published theirs to celebrate their centenary - East Brisbane Croquet Club: 100 years (Rechner, Judy Gail (2006). But again, these usually have a very small print run and, while they promote well to their own area, do not have any huge impact on the public overall.

This competition is therefore an opportunity to showcase Croquet History Past through photographs. I am sure that there are, buried away in Club archives and private collections, many photographs of interest - from one photograph, even if it just a group of people staring glassy-eyed at the camera, quite a lot can be deduced . the era it was taken, type of clothing worn, whether male or female oriented, just to name several. Add to it a list of names, where it was taken and why, and immediately you have a small completed square, just waiting to be slotted into the overall Australian croquet patchwork quilt.

So please, do go through your archives, scan those you feel are of significant croquet interest and enter them in the competition . and that doesn't exclude clubs that may not have been established for many years. Your history is yet another square in that quilt that maps the path from 'then' through to 'now.'

One of the problems of charting history through photographs is the lack of information kept . that may be an extremely good photograph in your archives, but why was it taken and who are they? Sometimes a bit of research will find some answers, but more often not. With the event of digital cameras, there's the probability that so many photographs will not even make it into the relevant archives, because a copy wasn't printed for that purpose. So, if you act as photographer for a croquet event, please do remember to print copies, write a description of those in each photograph (names and clubs for instance) and then pass it on to your club archivist. Who knows, that photograph might just be a key focus of croquet history at some time in the future.

This issue also celebrates a number of Club birthdays and other significant events, all which demonstrate that the sport of croquet is alive and well . we simply don't crow as much as we should. Therefore, in future editions, I'd like to include a section on Club profiles - which is the oldest club, the youngest, the most isolated, the largest, the smallest, the club that wins grant applications regularly, the club that has a special reason for its existence? The article needs to be about 500 words, and please include a photograph. An example is actually in this issue, submitted by Rich River, for which I thank Judy. I look forward to hearing from you in the coming months.

Max Hooper wrote in his book: "Croquet used to be a game for young adults, which brought unmarried men and women together. Later it became a game for mainly middle aged people, and later still a game for people who were too old for other sports. For some years, it was purely female. It is now a game for both sexes and for probably a wider age group than ever before. For a long time it was an upper class, but in this century class distinctions were carefully eliminated." This quote demonstrates the flexibility of the game of croquet, and it was with much interest that I read of clubs in South Australia working with young people in schools. I am sure this is happening in other States as well, so maybe it is time for the croquet pendulum to swing to the younger age groups? Or maybe is it just filling in the gaps of the description of croquet as being suitable for all ages, 'from nine to ninety?"

Please keep up all your contributions, and of course, please do send in all your croquet photographs.

Carolyn Ribone, Editor