Sir – I spent my childhood and growing up years in Alice Springs and have visited the town I used to love and regard as “My Heart” More than 20 times since leaving back in the mid sixties. Most of those visits were on business but a couple were to visit old friends and recapture that “Alice feeling”.
Despite what I read about the Alice it will always be “My Heart” to me. I also lived in Darwin for 10 years and found Darwin to lack any soul at all. Full of wannabes and nobodies really.
When I was young, we from the Alice used to hate those from Darwin, and, as it turns out I believe we were right to feel that way.
Alice used to have a feel to it that I cannot capture in words but I must tell you that, every time I visit Alice, the first thing I do after settling my accommodation etc. is take a drive up Anzac Hill and look around the town and remember how small the area I lived in really was. Yet, I loved it so much. That was because of the people I knew then and the freedom the surrounding country provided all.
The Alice will forever hold such fond memories that nothing that happens there can ever disturb or change.
Yet, following the changing face of the town via your newspaper, online, I feel that the Alice I knew has gone. All I read is about grog, politics, murder, fighting, “bad” Police who do an impossible job. There were about 1500 residents when I first went there as a young child and over 5000 when I left as a mid teenager. Yet I felt that whole time like I knew the people and what was going on all the time.
Now, what is there for people? I read shopkeepers in Todd Mall are being openly harassed by kids who commit crime, apparently and the murders which were once a rarity seem to be commonplace now. Grog of course.
Don’t get me wrong, I did more than my share of drinking. After all, growing up in Alice teaches you that is the main recreation, and it is the same all over Australia.
I drank a lot for a long time but was always a happy drunk. I was always amusing fellow drinkers and myself mainly of course but never once did I feel a need to harm anyone, let alone fight.
But there came a night, in Darwin where I did become violent. And was lucky to come out of it unscathed. From the next morning, 6 January 2001, I stopped drinking. Just like that. It’s easy when you decide you want to. I had motivation, violence has never been something I look for or participate in.
The point of this letter is to suggest to you, the people of Alice Springs, that the obvious solution to changing the town I loved back to being more like it should be, is to all stop drinking and rid the town of booze altogether.
You think it’s a good thing when Indigenous communities do it, don’t you? So why not the entire town. From personal experience I can say you won’t miss it at all and the peace it brings to your life is just amazing. You just decide to stop.
There is no craving or “withdrawal” at all. Except in your head which is filled with such stories. If it’s a good thing for Communities is it not likely to be good for your, and my, town as well?
If you haven’t noticed, the removal and restrictions on drinking are already there and increasing in much the same way as anti smoking started and succeeded. I used to smoke too but gave that up in an instant, about seven years ago.
Have not missed either and feel much better today than I have for a long, long time. As Molly Meldrum said: “Do yourself a favour.”
Ross Chippendale
Brisbane