Often sisters living together in the old family home. The Misses Masteron, Griffin, Mangan, Allsop, Barry, Hogan and others.

  With the wisdom of age, in the last number of years I have realised that they were unmarried because their sweethearts, boyfriends or that special man they never met were lying buried on the other side of the world. 

These women never experienced that special relationship that can only be found in a marriage, they never held a child or grandchild of their own in their arms and when they died there was no one left behind to mourn them.

Throughout Australia these women were legion, perhaps sixty to eighty thousand. and in a way WWI took their lives  Their names are unknown, no bugle call rings out nor a minutes silence are held in in their memory.

One day, as a Nation, we should do something in memory of these women.  

In the Maitland state electorate there are estimated to be 1,300 people living with dementia, which is expected to increase to an estimated 1,800 people by 2025 and 3,700 by 2056.

The number of people with dementia in Australia has soared to more than 400,000 - that’s one new case every six minutes – with an estimated cost to the community of more than $14 billion this year alone. 

Dementia is one of the major chronic diseases of this century. It is already the second leading cause of death in Australia and we know that the impact is far reaching.

Despite the social and economic impact, we still do not have a fully funded national strategy to provide better care and outcomes for people living with dementia now, nor are we taking risk reduction seriously.

The time for action is now. If we don’t do something, the cost will continue to grow to unsustainable levels.

I refer to Cr Bob Geoghegan’s letter of 31 March 2017 and reference to the word “masquerading”.

This, in my opinion, has never been a word or act known to the French or the English and, in the second place, it may be quite indecent.

In 1393, the wife of Charles VI of France held a masquerade ball to honour the third re-marriage of one of her Court Ladies. The King was to be among the dancers. 

 At the time, the re-marriage of a widow was an occasion which was apt to be mocked and a masquerade ball might take place with “all sorts of licence, disguises, disorders, and loud blaring of discordant music and clanging of cymbals”. 

As it happened, the dancers of the ball were dressed as wood savages and flax costumes sewn on them “so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot”.  Apparently as well the dancers were tied together with chains, and they howled like wolves and cussed terribly.  

Teasing the audience, the dancers dared them to guess their identities. The King’s brother, drunk and otherwise late to the ball, approached the dancers and held a lit torch close to one of their masks.  A spark from the torch fell and all the dancers quickly caught on fire.

It is said that the King’s 15-year old aunt threw her skirt over the King to protect him, but four of the dancers were burned alive, with “their flaming genitals dropping to the floor ... releasing a stream of blood”.

“Masquerading” hardly seems an encouragement.