Hasbeen,

Not the LCC but the Church of England Conference Centre, where I was officially the Maintenance Fitter but 90% of my time was spent in the Mining Museum, where I was Tour Guide, stamping battery operator, machinery restorer and blacksmith; duties that I shared with the Manager of the conference centre.

The conference centre is now the Bathurst Goldfields Education and Function Centre.

I didn't even know they existed Is Mise. The only times I have been back to Bathurst since 1953 was to race, or for that reunion. They kept us so busy at that, there was no time to wander around town, or the mountain.

I even used to stay out at the Perthville pub for racing weekends, it was quieter than town.

I loved Bathurst both as a kid, playing cowboy down the river, rounding up the stock people had put out on the river for a bit of free grazing, & for Mount Panorama. I don't think there is anything quite like the drive across the top of the mountain in a quick car.

What a sad, simplistic piece of writing.

Vallianatos is another in the long-line of well-fed first world authors who write about how wonderful it was in the days before the industrial revolution. The days when no matter how intelligent or gifted you were, as a peasant you were doomed to a short hard life full of hunger, injury and disease. They really were wonderful times.

I don't know why it is that some people have a hankering for other people to spend their lives hand-weeding. Anyone who has had to put in days of hand-weeding on small acreages knows they would rather be doing something else.

That is not to say that modern agriculture cannot be improved, it surely can. But forcing people to be peasants again is not an improvement. The advances will come from the careful use of new technologies as can be seen with the adoption of Bt cotton in Australia.