Legacy, Cambodia and cars

Legacy Militaria Auction…..now that explains my lack of blogging. Just after the planning week and conference for a reunion of 7RAR, my Vietnam Alma Mater, I had to catch up on work for the Cambodia project as the Professor running the Asian end came to Australia to see us. Much planning and spreadsheets in between evening dinners as we went firm on plans to set up a village in Kampot Cambodia as a pepper plantation with housing, wells, irrigation and farmyard animals to feed 20 families. I penned this article for a local church newsletter this week – it explains what we are trying to achieve.

Kampot Cambodia. A long way from Brisbane but close to the heart of a group of locals intent on changing the lives of people in poverty stricken Cambodia. After the ravages of Pol Pot, Cambodia is in dire straights and needs help .During a conversation between three men In Hanoi two years ago they resolved to stop talking about it and actually do something. Kampot, the name of a town and a province about 150 kilometres SW of Phnom Penh, is home to Cambodia’s pepper culture. Kampot pepper is renowned as one of the world’s finest and in Colonial days a French Chef in Paris wouldn’t dare offer diners a meal without Kampot Pepper. Pol Pot put an end to this very successful industry and it is the return of pepper cultivation that the group see as offering hope for the locals. Prof. Adrie P. van Gelderen, an associate professor at Hanoi University believes that ” Education is the answer to structural and sustainable improvement of people’s living standards” He was one of the originators of the scheme along with Brian O’Reilly from Nudgee College. The plan involves purchasing 22 hetares of land (already achieved), building local architecture housing, digging wells and planting a small pepper plantation. The Cambodians will be selected from dispossessed local family units and it is planned to have 20 such families involved within five years. The mothers will be given a small plot of land to grow food, pigs and chickens will be provided along with fencing to secure them while the men will be paid local labour rates to develop the plantation and plant and tend other fruit trees for cash crops. It is envisaged the project will eventuate in the parents becoming sufficiently secure so as to encourage them to send their children to the local school. While Professor Van Gelederen is handling the Asian end of setting up a local NGO in Kampot the Australian end, all recruited by Brian O’Reilly, travelled to Kampot last December at their own expense to see first-hand the magnitude of the problem. Other than a second hand utility and a small salary for a Cambodian Project Manager all funds will go to the housing and plantation infrastructure. There will be no Toyota 100 Series vehicles or western salaries involved in the project. In the hills around Kampot, where Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge made their last stand against the Vietnamese; where previously they had summarily executed all the Village elders, the teachers, the beauracrats and trades people, there now exists some hope for the future and it’s people from our own community in North Brisbane that will make it happen Kev Gillett TAIGUM

When that was all settled I had to start a three week stint at Legacy helping with catalogueing, photographing, valueing and maintaining a database for some 400 lots whilst building a web page to make it available to our interstate and international bidders. The website is here Go visit and peruse. You can download a catalogue and over the next two days all pics should be posted. Bid on some history (phone and email bids available) and help the War Widows and their kids. Legacy still has over 100,000 widows on their books. Whilst at Legacy today I had to sort out computer problems but all I wanted to was play with my new car. Ah yes…new car. I drive a Series II V8 Discovery and of late have been thinking of changing the V8 for a Discovery deisel. (I must have noticed the fuel bill) I took one for a test drive and was disappointed -moving from a 4.0 li V8 to a 2.6 li TD5 deisel does that to a man. I missed the flick of the right toe that pushed the 180 hp driven two tonne vehicle past all but the fastest traffic and I definitely missed the fact that the whole exercise was smooth and exhilerating. My long suffering wife took one look at my face and remarked…” We’re not getting a deisel, are we? No comment but the next day I heard of a good vehicle in a car yard nearby and went and looked at it. A 2001 V8 Range Rover (I’m moving a long way from the deisel). It looked great and drove well but it was relatively cheap so I presumed something was wrong with it. I took it the people who have looked after my Land Rovers for years and got them to give it a pre- purchase check over. Nothing wrong with it….I did the deal. I see the car as a means of winding up Greenies and all those who believe the Gospel of the Later Day Alarmists. You know the type…Tim Flannery, for example, who believes I should be walking to work or at most driving a Prius. Others suggest the sea rises will force me into a boat but I don’t believe that either. Some research indicates the Range Rover is one of the most prolific of all vehicles in manufacture of CO2. It continually rapes Mother Earth with it’s fuel sonsumption and if I concentrate I can terrify Greenies as I pass them on the highway. In fact the vehicle is so bad that the company who make then have a Carbon-offset programme. The vehicle behind is a 1966 Series Two Land Rover that has all the anti-green qualities of it’s big brother minus power, comfort, accessories and youth. My wife said it was one or the other so the old Landie is up for sale. I’m glad she didn’t say it’s me or the car….I just hate hard decisions!