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11 SEPTEMBER, 2024
Epic makes fiery return Actor and acadmic Felix Nobis will bring to life the Old English epic Beowulf in a one-man show set to be staged at Footscray’s Waterside Metal Art as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. It’s been the project of a lifetime for Nobis, who first translated the poem, considered the beginning of the English literary canon, at the age of 28, and turned it into a one-man performance that toured the world. He recently completed re-translating some sections, making for an updated show. Full story page 2
Actor and acadmic Felix Nobis . (AAP Image/ Joel Carrett)
Peter’s postcard passion By Cade Lucas With the advent of smartphones and social media, the practice of sending postcards overseas has largely been consigned to a bygone era. But for the past 18 months, Newport man Peter Ramadge has been staging a one man postcard revival, sending thousands overseas and helping many others do the same. His motivation for bringing back this retro form of international correspondence? The war in Ukraine. “When Putin invaded Ukraine, I thought he was just sabre rattling,” said Mr Ramadge of his reaction to the Russian dictator’s invasion launched in February 2022.
“And I don’t know why, I’ve got no connection to Ukraine, but I was personally insulted by what he did, so I ordered a Ukrainian flag and put that on the front of the house and it will remain there until the war is over.” Not content with flying the Ukrainian flag, Mr Ramadge wanted to send personal messages of encouragement to soldiers defending their homeland too, but after his initial attempts went nowhere, it was a suggestion from his housemate that he try Postcrossing, an online postcard platform, that finally got things moving. “I joined (Postcrossing) and in January 2023 I put up a post saying I wanted to send lots of cards to Ukranians,” Mr Ramadge recalled.
“I got a response from Tamara saying I run Postcards from the Front and this is what we do. I thought this is perfect.” Tamara is Tamara Levit, a Ukranian woman Mr Ramadge has never met, but who has helped him funnel thousands of well-wishing postcards from Australia to Ukranian defenders (he prefers defenders to soldiers are many are not professionally trained troops but civilians who’ve taken up arms). “Tamara gets them from where she is and distributes them to the front line,” Mr Ramadge said, adding that unsurprisingly, the correspondence was mostly one way. “We don’t get a lot of feedback but we get occasional photos from Tamara,” he said.
“The front lines are pretty damn dangerous and the guys who deliver the cards, I take my hat off to those blokes.” And despite the lack of response, Mr Ramadge is no doubt that the postcards are greatly appreciated by those who receive them. “They make a huge difference. According to Tamara lots of defenders carry cards in their top pockets.” Now running Postcards from the Front Australia, Mr Ramadge has sent more than 14,000 postcards to Ukraine since March 2023, with an average of between 500 and 600 cards being sourced from across Australia each month. Continued Page 12
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