Jonathan tells of Mike Whitney's recent visits.

 
 
 
 We both love to laugh a lot and here we share a joke.
 
 
IÕm a real cricket fanatic, IÕve been following the cricket for as long as I can remember but I never dreamt I would personally meet a test cricketer.  So meeting Mike was an incredible thrill for me, and what made it more special is that we found we had more than cricket in common.  Mike also has a great interest in and knowledge of aircraft - another passion of mine, so we could talk for hours and hours.  It was also a bonus that he like me also enjoys a good enthusiastic discussion.  MikeÕs a great guy to share time with.  I asked him some questions about cricket and of course, especially about bowling.
 
Mike explaining some of the finer points of bowling.
 
 

I showed him some of my treasures, my friends bring back pieces of rock from the places they visit overseas.  I'm very fortunate for I have rocks and fossils from Antarctica, and from other less pristine places on earth.  I have collected small pieces of ancient history in the form of old coins (my oldest is a Roman coin) and pieces of ancient walls and fragments of pottery.   I love sharing these treasures with people for they make us aware of our history and give us a feeling of continuity and of our inheritance from both the natural and ancestral world.  However, two of my most valued treasures, which I showed Mike, are from modern history, two pieces of the Berlin Wall.  One from the west side and one from the east side (complete with the autograph of a guard from the east side).  It is so powerful to hold pieces of this wall in ones hand - a wall that artificially divided a nation and cost so many lives.  I am sure Mike understood how I felt about these small pieces of what was such a major problem  for a nation for so long.
 

I'm telling Mike about a small piece of obsidian, its recent and very ancient past.
 

Another of my treasures I showed Mike was a small piece of obsidian which came from a mine site in a very ancient Mayan settlement.  Some time ago I had thoroughly enjoyed watching a program on TV about this Mayan settlement - it was fascinating.  Then only this year my friend Grant came with this piece of obsidian for me, complete with its history all typed out.   Mike found it fascinating also.

 
Yet thereÕs even more to our meeting than all of that;  Mike shared with me something that seems too personal to share.  It must have been the absolute high point of his cricketing career to take 11 wickets in the one test match, 4 in the first and 7 in the second innings in the 1991/2 test against India in Perth.  The two balls which delivered those wickets must hold so many memories for Mike.  Yet he was so kind and generous to share that high point in his career with me - he gave me the ball he used to bowl out the 4 wickets in the first innings.  This is an overwhelmingly precious and personal gift for him to give me and such a treasure for me to have.  Words are too poor to describe the feelings that went through my mind when he gave the ball to me for I felt he was giving me something too precious to give.  It all seemed too highly emotional to be real, it  was as though I was dreaming and didnÕt want to be woken up.  One thing I am presuming it means, is that my meeting with Mike on that day was just the beginning of a friendship.

 

Mike gives me his cricket ball, I'm sure he had never held a test cricket ball wrapped in an oven bag before.
Oven bags are very useful to seal objects that have an odour - as they are transparent it is great,
the only draw back is the rustle.
 
Before Mike left he played a joke on me - what a surprise another white hooded person who was not a member of the Ku Klux Klan!  I must say Mike didn't leave his hood on for very long and no wonder, it would have been very hot in that hood without the positive pressure flow of air.
 
 
 

Mike visited me again on my 18th birthday

 
Mike with Stan in the forest for the singing of "How Great Thou Art".
 

My 18th birthday party it seems was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone including me.  About 80 of my friends came to have dinner in the rainforest listen to Stan Kornell, a violinist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra play my favourite music and sing and talk etc.  Stan was a complete and wonderfully precious surprise, all my friends kept it completely quiet.  The first I knew of it was when I heard the beautiful notes of the first bar of Pachelbel Kanon, then I was asked to switch on the lights to the forest - there standing behind the waterfall of the frog pond surrounded by tree ferns, was Stan.  The sound of Pachelbel Kanon to the accompaniment of the running water of the waterfall - the sound the sight it was enchantment.  Then Stan was joined by Mike and we all sang one of my favourite hymns, "How Great Thou Art".

Singing "How Great Thou Art" - the camera man filming RB Films is centre of screen.
 

A midwinter's night in a suburban rainforest with the magic of a beautifully played violin recital of one of the world's best loved pieces of music, then the joy of singing all together made the night one that all my friends claim to be most moving and most memorable and beyond all uniquely joyous.
 

From my window, the rainforest at night.
 

It sure was great fun and IÕve not seen so many people together since I last played my violin at a concert at the Sydney Conservatorium.  I was so pleased Mike could be at my party to share that wonderful occasion with me and my friends.
 

 
Thanks Mike!
 
 
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