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The Advertiser
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
He was the pencil-nosed puppet who ruled kids prime-time telly
It's only when you start describing some of the shows you grew up with that you realise how surreal they all sound. And isn't this what makes them great? A puppet with a pencil for a nose, who lives on the moon and comes down every afternoon in a creaky, patched-up rocket to draw pictures? A family of blue heelers living an ordinary suburban existence in Brisbane? A pair of walking, talking bananas, wearing, yes, pyjamas? A dad and his three kids living in a lighthouse and having supernatural adventures most weeks of the year? A young boy and his trusty pet kangaroo? The list goes on. And they all, in their own ways, hit the spot of comfort and safety. That warm embrace we all felt, at some stage in our early lives, of afternoon telly - after school, before the news, snack in hand and little else to distract us. It's no surprise that a major new exhibition at the National Museum of Australia focused on Mr Squiggle, the aforementioned pencil-nosed puppet, is set to be a crowd-pleaser. Think of all of the adults mired in the highs and lows of parenting. Why, we wonder, can't our kids just be happy with something as simple, innocent and ingenious as Mr Squiggle? Created in the earliest days of Australian television by a young cartoonist named Norman Hetherington, Mr Squiggle had a basic premise that would remain the same for the next 40 years. Children would write in with a "squiggle", and Mr Squiggle - a marionette operated from above by Hetherington himself - would turn them into recognisable drawings with his pencil nose. Quite often, the picture would be upside down, and Mr Squiggle would ask his human companion to flip it the right way, revealing the picture. Viewers can date themselves by the companion they most remember - Miss Gina, then Miss Pat, then Miss Sue, then Miss Jane (my era for sure) then, after they dropped the "miss", Roxanne and finally, Rebecca Hetherington, Norman's daughter. It's Rebecca who's behind the show; she had the solemn task, after Hetherington died aged 89 in 2010, of deciding what to do with his vast collection of work. In his home studio, which remained intact, he had kept every drawing, sketch, script, letter and puppet he'd ever been involved in, as well as stage designs, set decorations and costumes. "Years ago, when dad was still alive, I didn't really think that anyone would be necessarily interested in them," she says. "So I actually thought, oh, it's going to be me and a storage unit for the rest of forever." But with both her parents gone, and with no rush to pack up the family home, she had the luxury of time to consider the collection, and ensure it remained intact. "I could unpack it in my head, and I started talking to different institutions, just to find out what the process was," she says. "But obviously no one, except for the museum, could really look at the whole collection. "He really kept all his creative output. It really told such a great story that it was a shame to break it up." Last year, the museum took into its collection more than 800 objects from the Hetherington archive, one of its most significant acquisitions. The exhibition takes in Hetherington's life and career, which intersected with several historical touchpoints in Australia, and includes about 300 items on display. But there's no question that the main event is the quaint little fellow in stripey tights and a calico smock. Displayed in a glass case alongside his co-stars the grumpy Blackboard and his trusty little rocket, Mr Squiggle (there was only ever one version of the puppet) will be getting a hero's welcome every day of the week, as people make a beeline for him. Sophie Jensen, the National Museum of Australia's deputy director and chief curator, well remembers the first time she encountered Mr Squiggle in the flesh, so to speak. It was several years ago, as part of the years-long conversation between Rebecca Hetherington and the museum, that Jensen finally visited the studio. It was an eerie wonderland, filled with drawings and tools and fabric. Puppets hung from the ceiling, many covered in cloth to protect them. "Rebecca inevitably said, 'Do you want to see Mr. Squiggle? And in my heart, I was thinking, I'm really just more excited to see Blackboard, because I love Blackboard," she says. It's worth noting that Jensen is one of the most senior figures in her trade - a museum curator with decades of experience. She's also a grown adult with the fondest possible memories of Miss Jane and Bill Steamshovel, and the rest of the gang. This was the ultimate celebrity experience. "Rebecca hung him on the stand, and she pulled up his calico. And, you think, 'Oh, my goodness, that's Mr. Squiggle, that's amazing'. "But it wasn't. It was just this puppet," she says. "And then Rebecca just tweaked one little thread, and he moved his head. And literally, my heart stopped ... it was him, come to life." The show is about the life and work of Norman Hetherington, but it's also a masterclass in history, good fortune, Australia's creative landscape, and the joys of just giving it a go. Born and bred in Sydney, Hetherington enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1942 and was quickly identified as someone with a gift for entertaining. He was then transferred to the 2nd Division Concert Party - which was later known as no. 4 Detachment, 1st Australian Army Entertainment Unit - when his lightning sketch and performing abilities were recognised. He served with the First Australian Army Entertainment Unit throughout the war, performing shows, capturing scenes in watercolours, and making quick sketches of his fellow officers, to great effect. "It's a really important part of military life, the morale of the troops," Jensen says. "They [the entertainment unit] were there to ensure that people were entertained, that there was a warmth and humanity, in fact, to their military experience." Rebecca says her father was diffident about his experience - he had a "good war", through sheer good fortune, but still saw things he wouldn't talk about until many years later. He also lived through the Depression, which taught him resilience, and gave him a creative outlook when it came to making do. After the war, he discovered the art of puppetry and became involved in the dawn of television. "His lifespan constantly intersected with some very interesting times," Rebecca says. "I also say about him that it's all very well having good fortune, but if you don't meet it with hard work and perseverance, it's wasted." She remembers her father constantly working. Mr Squiggle was a family affair; he created the puppets and performed all the voices, his wife Margaret wrote the scripts, and Rebecca was his final onscreen companion. But he always had multiple projects on the go - books, new characters and public campaigns. "He never stopped thinking about what he could do to entertain people. He was wildly imaginative but always with a great sense of purpose and direction," she says. Jensen, who has led a large team of conservators in bringing together the visual narrative of an extraordinary life, says Norman Hetherington was "utterly, relentlessly creative". "I still get amazed when I think that he sold his first cartoon to the Bulletin at 16," she says. "He was, even at that stage, really quite a creative talent in terms of his ability to be able to think, 'I want to be a cartoonist. That's my dream', and he was actively working in that space. "So the collection has to trace his whole creative arc, and it creates, at that same time, an arc of the Australian creative industries." It is, she says, an exhibition for the many adults who grew up in simpler times, when a puppet with a pencil for a nose was considered entertainment royalty. And it's a chance for the children of today to rediscover him, and try their hand at the art of the squiggle. Rebecca says her father would be amazed, and bewildered, by the exhibition - its scope, and innovation, and especially the interactive drawing wall where visitors can make their own squiggle, projected onto a massive screen. "He would just be shaking his head and looking around and loving it," she says. "That is one thing I'm sorry that he hasn't had the enjoyment of, meeting and working with people like Sophie and the conservators ... he would be really interested in their expertise." Most of all, she says, he'd want people to understand that his whole life and career had been about giving things a go and having fun. "When you say it's about Norman Hetherington, yes, it is. But I really hope that people walk out with a sense of, you can really do anything you want. "Why not be a cartoonist? Why not pick up and start drawing? Why not take up that watercolour class I was thinking about doing? "What's holding me back?" It's only when you start describing some of the shows you grew up with that you realise how surreal they all sound. And isn't this what makes them great? A puppet with a pencil for a nose, who lives on the moon and comes down every afternoon in a creaky, patched-up rocket to draw pictures? A family of blue heelers living an ordinary suburban existence in Brisbane? A pair of walking, talking bananas, wearing, yes, pyjamas? A dad and his three kids living in a lighthouse and having supernatural adventures most weeks of the year? A young boy and his trusty pet kangaroo? The list goes on. And they all, in their own ways, hit the spot of comfort and safety. That warm embrace we all felt, at some stage in our early lives, of afternoon telly - after school, before the news, snack in hand and little else to distract us. It's no surprise that a major new exhibition at the National Museum of Australia focused on Mr Squiggle, the aforementioned pencil-nosed puppet, is set to be a crowd-pleaser. Think of all of the adults mired in the highs and lows of parenting. Why, we wonder, can't our kids just be happy with something as simple, innocent and ingenious as Mr Squiggle? Created in the earliest days of Australian television by a young cartoonist named Norman Hetherington, Mr Squiggle had a basic premise that would remain the same for the next 40 years. Children would write in with a "squiggle", and Mr Squiggle - a marionette operated from above by Hetherington himself - would turn them into recognisable drawings with his pencil nose. Quite often, the picture would be upside down, and Mr Squiggle would ask his human companion to flip it the right way, revealing the picture. Viewers can date themselves by the companion they most remember - Miss Gina, then Miss Pat, then Miss Sue, then Miss Jane (my era for sure) then, after they dropped the "miss", Roxanne and finally, Rebecca Hetherington, Norman's daughter. It's Rebecca who's behind the show; she had the solemn task, after Hetherington died aged 89 in 2010, of deciding what to do with his vast collection of work. In his home studio, which remained intact, he had kept every drawing, sketch, script, letter and puppet he'd ever been involved in, as well as stage designs, set decorations and costumes. "Years ago, when dad was still alive, I didn't really think that anyone would be necessarily interested in them," she says. "So I actually thought, oh, it's going to be me and a storage unit for the rest of forever." But with both her parents gone, and with no rush to pack up the family home, she had the luxury of time to consider the collection, and ensure it remained intact. "I could unpack it in my head, and I started talking to different institutions, just to find out what the process was," she says. "But obviously no one, except for the museum, could really look at the whole collection. "He really kept all his creative output. It really told such a great story that it was a shame to break it up." Last year, the museum took into its collection more than 800 objects from the Hetherington archive, one of its most significant acquisitions. The exhibition takes in Hetherington's life and career, which intersected with several historical touchpoints in Australia, and includes about 300 items on display. But there's no question that the main event is the quaint little fellow in stripey tights and a calico smock. Displayed in a glass case alongside his co-stars the grumpy Blackboard and his trusty little rocket, Mr Squiggle (there was only ever one version of the puppet) will be getting a hero's welcome every day of the week, as people make a beeline for him. Sophie Jensen, the National Museum of Australia's deputy director and chief curator, well remembers the first time she encountered Mr Squiggle in the flesh, so to speak. It was several years ago, as part of the years-long conversation between Rebecca Hetherington and the museum, that Jensen finally visited the studio. It was an eerie wonderland, filled with drawings and tools and fabric. Puppets hung from the ceiling, many covered in cloth to protect them. "Rebecca inevitably said, 'Do you want to see Mr. Squiggle? And in my heart, I was thinking, I'm really just more excited to see Blackboard, because I love Blackboard," she says. It's worth noting that Jensen is one of the most senior figures in her trade - a museum curator with decades of experience. She's also a grown adult with the fondest possible memories of Miss Jane and Bill Steamshovel, and the rest of the gang. This was the ultimate celebrity experience. "Rebecca hung him on the stand, and she pulled up his calico. And, you think, 'Oh, my goodness, that's Mr. Squiggle, that's amazing'. "But it wasn't. It was just this puppet," she says. "And then Rebecca just tweaked one little thread, and he moved his head. And literally, my heart stopped ... it was him, come to life." The show is about the life and work of Norman Hetherington, but it's also a masterclass in history, good fortune, Australia's creative landscape, and the joys of just giving it a go. Born and bred in Sydney, Hetherington enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1942 and was quickly identified as someone with a gift for entertaining. He was then transferred to the 2nd Division Concert Party - which was later known as no. 4 Detachment, 1st Australian Army Entertainment Unit - when his lightning sketch and performing abilities were recognised. He served with the First Australian Army Entertainment Unit throughout the war, performing shows, capturing scenes in watercolours, and making quick sketches of his fellow officers, to great effect. "It's a really important part of military life, the morale of the troops," Jensen says. "They [the entertainment unit] were there to ensure that people were entertained, that there was a warmth and humanity, in fact, to their military experience." Rebecca says her father was diffident about his experience - he had a "good war", through sheer good fortune, but still saw things he wouldn't talk about until many years later. He also lived through the Depression, which taught him resilience, and gave him a creative outlook when it came to making do. After the war, he discovered the art of puppetry and became involved in the dawn of television. "His lifespan constantly intersected with some very interesting times," Rebecca says. "I also say about him that it's all very well having good fortune, but if you don't meet it with hard work and perseverance, it's wasted." She remembers her father constantly working. Mr Squiggle was a family affair; he created the puppets and performed all the voices, his wife Margaret wrote the scripts, and Rebecca was his final onscreen companion. But he always had multiple projects on the go - books, new characters and public campaigns. "He never stopped thinking about what he could do to entertain people. He was wildly imaginative but always with a great sense of purpose and direction," she says. Jensen, who has led a large team of conservators in bringing together the visual narrative of an extraordinary life, says Norman Hetherington was "utterly, relentlessly creative". "I still get amazed when I think that he sold his first cartoon to the Bulletin at 16," she says. "He was, even at that stage, really quite a creative talent in terms of his ability to be able to think, 'I want to be a cartoonist. That's my dream', and he was actively working in that space. "So the collection has to trace his whole creative arc, and it creates, at that same time, an arc of the Australian creative industries." It is, she says, an exhibition for the many adults who grew up in simpler times, when a puppet with a pencil for a nose was considered entertainment royalty. And it's a chance for the children of today to rediscover him, and try their hand at the art of the squiggle. Rebecca says her father would be amazed, and bewildered, by the exhibition - its scope, and innovation, and especially the interactive drawing wall where visitors can make their own squiggle, projected onto a massive screen. "He would just be shaking his head and looking around and loving it," she says. "That is one thing I'm sorry that he hasn't had the enjoyment of, meeting and working with people like Sophie and the conservators ... he would be really interested in their expertise." Most of all, she says, he'd want people to understand that his whole life and career had been about giving things a go and having fun. "When you say it's about Norman Hetherington, yes, it is. But I really hope that people walk out with a sense of, you can really do anything you want. "Why not be a cartoonist? Why not pick up and start drawing? Why not take up that watercolour class I was thinking about doing? "What's holding me back?" It's only when you start describing some of the shows you grew up with that you realise how surreal they all sound. And isn't this what makes them great? A puppet with a pencil for a nose, who lives on the moon and comes down every afternoon in a creaky, patched-up rocket to draw pictures? A family of blue heelers living an ordinary suburban existence in Brisbane? A pair of walking, talking bananas, wearing, yes, pyjamas? A dad and his three kids living in a lighthouse and having supernatural adventures most weeks of the year? A young boy and his trusty pet kangaroo? The list goes on. And they all, in their own ways, hit the spot of comfort and safety. That warm embrace we all felt, at some stage in our early lives, of afternoon telly - after school, before the news, snack in hand and little else to distract us. It's no surprise that a major new exhibition at the National Museum of Australia focused on Mr Squiggle, the aforementioned pencil-nosed puppet, is set to be a crowd-pleaser. Think of all of the adults mired in the highs and lows of parenting. Why, we wonder, can't our kids just be happy with something as simple, innocent and ingenious as Mr Squiggle? Created in the earliest days of Australian television by a young cartoonist named Norman Hetherington, Mr Squiggle had a basic premise that would remain the same for the next 40 years. Children would write in with a "squiggle", and Mr Squiggle - a marionette operated from above by Hetherington himself - would turn them into recognisable drawings with his pencil nose. Quite often, the picture would be upside down, and Mr Squiggle would ask his human companion to flip it the right way, revealing the picture. Viewers can date themselves by the companion they most remember - Miss Gina, then Miss Pat, then Miss Sue, then Miss Jane (my era for sure) then, after they dropped the "miss", Roxanne and finally, Rebecca Hetherington, Norman's daughter. It's Rebecca who's behind the show; she had the solemn task, after Hetherington died aged 89 in 2010, of deciding what to do with his vast collection of work. In his home studio, which remained intact, he had kept every drawing, sketch, script, letter and puppet he'd ever been involved in, as well as stage designs, set decorations and costumes. "Years ago, when dad was still alive, I didn't really think that anyone would be necessarily interested in them," she says. "So I actually thought, oh, it's going to be me and a storage unit for the rest of forever." But with both her parents gone, and with no rush to pack up the family home, she had the luxury of time to consider the collection, and ensure it remained intact. "I could unpack it in my head, and I started talking to different institutions, just to find out what the process was," she says. "But obviously no one, except for the museum, could really look at the whole collection. "He really kept all his creative output. It really told such a great story that it was a shame to break it up." Last year, the museum took into its collection more than 800 objects from the Hetherington archive, one of its most significant acquisitions. The exhibition takes in Hetherington's life and career, which intersected with several historical touchpoints in Australia, and includes about 300 items on display. But there's no question that the main event is the quaint little fellow in stripey tights and a calico smock. Displayed in a glass case alongside his co-stars the grumpy Blackboard and his trusty little rocket, Mr Squiggle (there was only ever one version of the puppet) will be getting a hero's welcome every day of the week, as people make a beeline for him. Sophie Jensen, the National Museum of Australia's deputy director and chief curator, well remembers the first time she encountered Mr Squiggle in the flesh, so to speak. It was several years ago, as part of the years-long conversation between Rebecca Hetherington and the museum, that Jensen finally visited the studio. It was an eerie wonderland, filled with drawings and tools and fabric. Puppets hung from the ceiling, many covered in cloth to protect them. "Rebecca inevitably said, 'Do you want to see Mr. Squiggle? And in my heart, I was thinking, I'm really just more excited to see Blackboard, because I love Blackboard," she says. It's worth noting that Jensen is one of the most senior figures in her trade - a museum curator with decades of experience. She's also a grown adult with the fondest possible memories of Miss Jane and Bill Steamshovel, and the rest of the gang. This was the ultimate celebrity experience. "Rebecca hung him on the stand, and she pulled up his calico. And, you think, 'Oh, my goodness, that's Mr. Squiggle, that's amazing'. "But it wasn't. It was just this puppet," she says. "And then Rebecca just tweaked one little thread, and he moved his head. And literally, my heart stopped ... it was him, come to life." The show is about the life and work of Norman Hetherington, but it's also a masterclass in history, good fortune, Australia's creative landscape, and the joys of just giving it a go. Born and bred in Sydney, Hetherington enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1942 and was quickly identified as someone with a gift for entertaining. He was then transferred to the 2nd Division Concert Party - which was later known as no. 4 Detachment, 1st Australian Army Entertainment Unit - when his lightning sketch and performing abilities were recognised. He served with the First Australian Army Entertainment Unit throughout the war, performing shows, capturing scenes in watercolours, and making quick sketches of his fellow officers, to great effect. "It's a really important part of military life, the morale of the troops," Jensen says. "They [the entertainment unit] were there to ensure that people were entertained, that there was a warmth and humanity, in fact, to their military experience." Rebecca says her father was diffident about his experience - he had a "good war", through sheer good fortune, but still saw things he wouldn't talk about until many years later. He also lived through the Depression, which taught him resilience, and gave him a creative outlook when it came to making do. After the war, he discovered the art of puppetry and became involved in the dawn of television. "His lifespan constantly intersected with some very interesting times," Rebecca says. "I also say about him that it's all very well having good fortune, but if you don't meet it with hard work and perseverance, it's wasted." She remembers her father constantly working. Mr Squiggle was a family affair; he created the puppets and performed all the voices, his wife Margaret wrote the scripts, and Rebecca was his final onscreen companion. But he always had multiple projects on the go - books, new characters and public campaigns. "He never stopped thinking about what he could do to entertain people. He was wildly imaginative but always with a great sense of purpose and direction," she says. Jensen, who has led a large team of conservators in bringing together the visual narrative of an extraordinary life, says Norman Hetherington was "utterly, relentlessly creative". "I still get amazed when I think that he sold his first cartoon to the Bulletin at 16," she says. "He was, even at that stage, really quite a creative talent in terms of his ability to be able to think, 'I want to be a cartoonist. That's my dream', and he was actively working in that space. "So the collection has to trace his whole creative arc, and it creates, at that same time, an arc of the Australian creative industries." It is, she says, an exhibition for the many adults who grew up in simpler times, when a puppet with a pencil for a nose was considered entertainment royalty. And it's a chance for the children of today to rediscover him, and try their hand at the art of the squiggle. Rebecca says her father would be amazed, and bewildered, by the exhibition - its scope, and innovation, and especially the interactive drawing wall where visitors can make their own squiggle, projected onto a massive screen. "He would just be shaking his head and looking around and loving it," she says. "That is one thing I'm sorry that he hasn't had the enjoyment of, meeting and working with people like Sophie and the conservators ... he would be really interested in their expertise." Most of all, she says, he'd want people to understand that his whole life and career had been about giving things a go and having fun. "When you say it's about Norman Hetherington, yes, it is. But I really hope that people walk out with a sense of, you can really do anything you want. "Why not be a cartoonist? Why not pick up and start drawing? Why not take up that watercolour class I was thinking about doing? "What's holding me back?" It's only when you start describing some of the shows you grew up with that you realise how surreal they all sound. And isn't this what makes them great? A puppet with a pencil for a nose, who lives on the moon and comes down every afternoon in a creaky, patched-up rocket to draw pictures? A family of blue heelers living an ordinary suburban existence in Brisbane? A pair of walking, talking bananas, wearing, yes, pyjamas? A dad and his three kids living in a lighthouse and having supernatural adventures most weeks of the year? A young boy and his trusty pet kangaroo? The list goes on. And they all, in their own ways, hit the spot of comfort and safety. That warm embrace we all felt, at some stage in our early lives, of afternoon telly - after school, before the news, snack in hand and little else to distract us. It's no surprise that a major new exhibition at the National Museum of Australia focused on Mr Squiggle, the aforementioned pencil-nosed puppet, is set to be a crowd-pleaser. Think of all of the adults mired in the highs and lows of parenting. Why, we wonder, can't our kids just be happy with something as simple, innocent and ingenious as Mr Squiggle? Created in the earliest days of Australian television by a young cartoonist named Norman Hetherington, Mr Squiggle had a basic premise that would remain the same for the next 40 years. Children would write in with a "squiggle", and Mr Squiggle - a marionette operated from above by Hetherington himself - would turn them into recognisable drawings with his pencil nose. Quite often, the picture would be upside down, and Mr Squiggle would ask his human companion to flip it the right way, revealing the picture. Viewers can date themselves by the companion they most remember - Miss Gina, then Miss Pat, then Miss Sue, then Miss Jane (my era for sure) then, after they dropped the "miss", Roxanne and finally, Rebecca Hetherington, Norman's daughter. It's Rebecca who's behind the show; she had the solemn task, after Hetherington died aged 89 in 2010, of deciding what to do with his vast collection of work. In his home studio, which remained intact, he had kept every drawing, sketch, script, letter and puppet he'd ever been involved in, as well as stage designs, set decorations and costumes. "Years ago, when dad was still alive, I didn't really think that anyone would be necessarily interested in them," she says. "So I actually thought, oh, it's going to be me and a storage unit for the rest of forever." But with both her parents gone, and with no rush to pack up the family home, she had the luxury of time to consider the collection, and ensure it remained intact. "I could unpack it in my head, and I started talking to different institutions, just to find out what the process was," she says. "But obviously no one, except for the museum, could really look at the whole collection. "He really kept all his creative output. It really told such a great story that it was a shame to break it up." Last year, the museum took into its collection more than 800 objects from the Hetherington archive, one of its most significant acquisitions. The exhibition takes in Hetherington's life and career, which intersected with several historical touchpoints in Australia, and includes about 300 items on display. But there's no question that the main event is the quaint little fellow in stripey tights and a calico smock. Displayed in a glass case alongside his co-stars the grumpy Blackboard and his trusty little rocket, Mr Squiggle (there was only ever one version of the puppet) will be getting a hero's welcome every day of the week, as people make a beeline for him. Sophie Jensen, the National Museum of Australia's deputy director and chief curator, well remembers the first time she encountered Mr Squiggle in the flesh, so to speak. It was several years ago, as part of the years-long conversation between Rebecca Hetherington and the museum, that Jensen finally visited the studio. It was an eerie wonderland, filled with drawings and tools and fabric. Puppets hung from the ceiling, many covered in cloth to protect them. "Rebecca inevitably said, 'Do you want to see Mr. Squiggle? And in my heart, I was thinking, I'm really just more excited to see Blackboard, because I love Blackboard," she says. It's worth noting that Jensen is one of the most senior figures in her trade - a museum curator with decades of experience. She's also a grown adult with the fondest possible memories of Miss Jane and Bill Steamshovel, and the rest of the gang. This was the ultimate celebrity experience. "Rebecca hung him on the stand, and she pulled up his calico. And, you think, 'Oh, my goodness, that's Mr. Squiggle, that's amazing'. "But it wasn't. It was just this puppet," she says. "And then Rebecca just tweaked one little thread, and he moved his head. And literally, my heart stopped ... it was him, come to life." The show is about the life and work of Norman Hetherington, but it's also a masterclass in history, good fortune, Australia's creative landscape, and the joys of just giving it a go. Born and bred in Sydney, Hetherington enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1942 and was quickly identified as someone with a gift for entertaining. He was then transferred to the 2nd Division Concert Party - which was later known as no. 4 Detachment, 1st Australian Army Entertainment Unit - when his lightning sketch and performing abilities were recognised. He served with the First Australian Army Entertainment Unit throughout the war, performing shows, capturing scenes in watercolours, and making quick sketches of his fellow officers, to great effect. "It's a really important part of military life, the morale of the troops," Jensen says. "They [the entertainment unit] were there to ensure that people were entertained, that there was a warmth and humanity, in fact, to their military experience." Rebecca says her father was diffident about his experience - he had a "good war", through sheer good fortune, but still saw things he wouldn't talk about until many years later. He also lived through the Depression, which taught him resilience, and gave him a creative outlook when it came to making do. After the war, he discovered the art of puppetry and became involved in the dawn of television. "His lifespan constantly intersected with some very interesting times," Rebecca says. "I also say about him that it's all very well having good fortune, but if you don't meet it with hard work and perseverance, it's wasted." She remembers her father constantly working. Mr Squiggle was a family affair; he created the puppets and performed all the voices, his wife Margaret wrote the scripts, and Rebecca was his final onscreen companion. But he always had multiple projects on the go - books, new characters and public campaigns. "He never stopped thinking about what he could do to entertain people. He was wildly imaginative but always with a great sense of purpose and direction," she says. Jensen, who has led a large team of conservators in bringing together the visual narrative of an extraordinary life, says Norman Hetherington was "utterly, relentlessly creative". "I still get amazed when I think that he sold his first cartoon to the Bulletin at 16," she says. "He was, even at that stage, really quite a creative talent in terms of his ability to be able to think, 'I want to be a cartoonist. That's my dream', and he was actively working in that space. "So the collection has to trace his whole creative arc, and it creates, at that same time, an arc of the Australian creative industries." It is, she says, an exhibition for the many adults who grew up in simpler times, when a puppet with a pencil for a nose was considered entertainment royalty. And it's a chance for the children of today to rediscover him, and try their hand at the art of the squiggle. Rebecca says her father would be amazed, and bewildered, by the exhibition - its scope, and innovation, and especially the interactive drawing wall where visitors can make their own squiggle, projected onto a massive screen. "He would just be shaking his head and looking around and loving it," she says. "That is one thing I'm sorry that he hasn't had the enjoyment of, meeting and working with people like Sophie and the conservators ... he would be really interested in their expertise." Most of all, she says, he'd want people to understand that his whole life and career had been about giving things a go and having fun. "When you say it's about Norman Hetherington, yes, it is. But I really hope that people walk out with a sense of, you can really do anything you want. "Why not be a cartoonist? Why not pick up and start drawing? Why not take up that watercolour class I was thinking about doing? "What's holding me back?"
The Age
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The blue-haired man from the moon celebrated for 40 years on television
The squiggle lives. For 40 years Norman Hetherington was known for his creation, Mr Squiggle, a blue-haired man from the moon who used his pencil nose to turn a child's squiggle into a giggle. From 1959 to 1999 on ABC television, Mr Squiggle, a puppet made, voiced and operated by Hetherington, transformed 10,000 children's drawings into what they saw as masterpieces. 'It's a duck that wants to be a ballet dancer,' he said of one. Very often they were drawn upside down. Now the next generation can have a squiggle. A new exhibition, Mr Squiggle and Friends, The Creative World of Norman Hetherington opening at the National Museum of Australia on Friday includes an interactive screen where a new generation can turn an original squiggle into a drawing of their own. It includes nearly 300 objects from the Hetherington collection of more than 800 items, including hundreds of puppets, and was curated by museum deputy director Dr Sophie Jensen. Jensen said that as a unique piece of Australian history, it was hard to imagine another television program that had touched as many people as Mr Squiggle. 'It doesn't matter who you talk to,' she said, someone will have been on the show, watched it or knew someone who was on it. 'It's part of its magic. You only get that with a show that was on the air for 40 years, that covers generations. And 1959 to 1999 was a pretty remarkable stretch in Australian life.
Sydney Morning Herald
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The blue-haired man from the moon celebrated for 40 years on television
The squiggle lives. For 40 years Norman Hetherington was known for his creation, Mr Squiggle, a blue-haired man from the moon who used his pencil nose to turn a child's squiggle into a giggle. From 1959 to 1999 on ABC television, Mr Squiggle, a puppet made, voiced and operated by Hetherington, transformed 10,000 children's drawings into what they saw as masterpieces. 'It's a duck that wants to be a ballet dancer,' he said of one. Very often they were drawn upside down. Now the next generation can have a squiggle. A new exhibition, Mr Squiggle and Friends, The Creative World of Norman Hetherington opening at the National Museum of Australia on Friday includes an interactive screen where a new generation can turn an original squiggle into a drawing of their own. It includes nearly 300 objects from the Hetherington collection of more than 800 items, including hundreds of puppets, and was curated by museum deputy director Dr Sophie Jensen. Jensen said that as a unique piece of Australian history, it was hard to imagine another television program that had touched as many people as Mr Squiggle. 'It doesn't matter who you talk to,' she said, someone will have been on the show, watched it or knew someone who was on it. 'It's part of its magic. You only get that with a show that was on the air for 40 years, that covers generations. And 1959 to 1999 was a pretty remarkable stretch in Australian life.
The Advertiser
20-06-2025
- Health
- The Advertiser
Too many of us are not as lucky as me. And that's extremely risky
My GP bulk bills me. My status has been grandmothered. It's a bloody miracle and I'm grateful. I'd personally like to thank former prime minister Gough Whitlam. Medibank, the forerunner to Medicare, was his brainchild. It began in July 1975. But after the Whitlam government was dismissed, the Fraser government buggered it up. Levies on incomes unless you were privately insured. Nine years later, former prime minister Bob Hawke (the National Museum of Australia calls him Robert. Way too formal) established Medicare. He said: "With this historic initiative, all Australians now have a new, simpler and fairer health insurance system." Well, kind of. Stephen Duckett, the absolute full-bottle on Medicare over decades, tells me that bulk-billing is crucial. We had a peak five years ago and it's been downhill from there. "There are good grounds not to have out-of-pocket payments for GPs. And right now, it's a lottery," he says. Duckett's right. When you front up at your GP, you don't automatically know whether you will be in the lucky group to be bulk billed. "You might be asking when you front up," he says. But it's the uncertainty, the possible embarrassment of signing up to pay money you don't have. He commends any government's attempt to get practices to be 100 per cent bulk-billing because then patients get 100 per cent certainty. And getting that 100 per cent certainty about your healthcare matters. Too many of us are not that lucky. News this week that Canberrans are now paying out an average of just over $62 in out-of-pocket fees to see their GPs is unnerving. If you don't have the sixty-odd bucks, you don't go. And that's extremely risky. British research shows us (and Australian research backs it up) that continuity of care is associated with higher life expectancy. If you don't get that care, you die. Well, we all die - but without regular contact with a regular GP, you have a shorter life expectancy. Good access, lower cost, the necessary number of GPs per head of population - these are all associated with longer lives. The cost of visiting the GP is putting many of us off from getting essential health care. Late last year, the ABS reported a rise in the number of people who reported not visiting the GP because of cost-of-living pressures. In the financial year ending June 22, 3.5 per cent of people either put off or didn't see a GP when they needed to because of the cost. Three years later, that number had risen to 8.8 per cent. In February, the gentle warming-up period of the election before everyone got stroppy and out of control, Labor pledged $8.5 billion for Medicare, so all of us would have access to bulk billing by 2030. The plan, according to Labor, would produce patient savings of up to $859 million a year by 2030. It's Medicare's 41st birthday and this investment, if the bulk billing strategy works, is a huge birthday gift to those of us who benefit from universal health care. That is, all of us. In 1984, the annual GP bulk-billing rate was 51 per cent. It hit a 40-year high of 94 per cent in April 2020, under a Coalition government. Of course, some of that was due to special COVID items. Don't want to go back there if COVID is what it takes. But what can we do to make sure our GPs are protected too? They need to be properly remunerated for what is often grinding work with long hours. Good thing I never ended up as a GP. Imagine having to be patient with patients for hours at a time. Having to be kind to the miserable. Just doing that with your own kids is quite enough, let alone with anyone else's. Now we also have to get to work on specialist fees. I've written elsewhere about the insanity of those fees. This week, the Grattan Institute revealed more than one in five Australians who saw a specialist in 2023 was charged an extreme fee at least once. It also said one in 10 Australians who saw a psychiatrist ended up paying $400 in out-of-pocket costs for their initial consultation alone. It also had a list of recommendations. My vengeful self enjoyed some of those, such as stripping Medicare rebates from specialists charging excessive fees, more than others. And I love the idea of the Medical Cost Finder website, designed so people can compare out-of-pocket fees doctors charge for specialist procedures. But last year it was revealed that five years after the site launched, just 20 doctors out of the 36,000 specialists nationwide provided their fees for listing. MORE JENNA PRICE: There are some useful bits, though. For example, your first specialist appointment will see you pay just under $200, and on average, $117 out of pocket. The rest is paid by Medicare. That's across the country. The most expensive is the ACT where the typical specialist fee is $285. Patients will find themselves two hundred bucks out of pocket. I am not entirely sure how the government will sort this out but we urgently need an overhaul of what we pay for our health. Jim Chalmers is talking tax reform and maybe we need some kind of a sliding scale for people whose super balances are above $3 million, more than he's proposing right now. Universities have a part to play too. Maybe they should let more students into medical schools. Maybe free tuition but then bond students to rural and regional areas for 10 years? Are specialist colleges acting in the best interests of Australians? Or in their own financial best interest? I dunno. But whatever we are doing isn't working. May the government's plans work - and once GPs are sorted, let's start working on the rest of the health industry. My GP bulk bills me. My status has been grandmothered. It's a bloody miracle and I'm grateful. I'd personally like to thank former prime minister Gough Whitlam. Medibank, the forerunner to Medicare, was his brainchild. It began in July 1975. But after the Whitlam government was dismissed, the Fraser government buggered it up. Levies on incomes unless you were privately insured. Nine years later, former prime minister Bob Hawke (the National Museum of Australia calls him Robert. Way too formal) established Medicare. He said: "With this historic initiative, all Australians now have a new, simpler and fairer health insurance system." Well, kind of. Stephen Duckett, the absolute full-bottle on Medicare over decades, tells me that bulk-billing is crucial. We had a peak five years ago and it's been downhill from there. "There are good grounds not to have out-of-pocket payments for GPs. And right now, it's a lottery," he says. Duckett's right. When you front up at your GP, you don't automatically know whether you will be in the lucky group to be bulk billed. "You might be asking when you front up," he says. But it's the uncertainty, the possible embarrassment of signing up to pay money you don't have. He commends any government's attempt to get practices to be 100 per cent bulk-billing because then patients get 100 per cent certainty. And getting that 100 per cent certainty about your healthcare matters. Too many of us are not that lucky. News this week that Canberrans are now paying out an average of just over $62 in out-of-pocket fees to see their GPs is unnerving. If you don't have the sixty-odd bucks, you don't go. And that's extremely risky. British research shows us (and Australian research backs it up) that continuity of care is associated with higher life expectancy. If you don't get that care, you die. Well, we all die - but without regular contact with a regular GP, you have a shorter life expectancy. Good access, lower cost, the necessary number of GPs per head of population - these are all associated with longer lives. The cost of visiting the GP is putting many of us off from getting essential health care. Late last year, the ABS reported a rise in the number of people who reported not visiting the GP because of cost-of-living pressures. In the financial year ending June 22, 3.5 per cent of people either put off or didn't see a GP when they needed to because of the cost. Three years later, that number had risen to 8.8 per cent. In February, the gentle warming-up period of the election before everyone got stroppy and out of control, Labor pledged $8.5 billion for Medicare, so all of us would have access to bulk billing by 2030. The plan, according to Labor, would produce patient savings of up to $859 million a year by 2030. It's Medicare's 41st birthday and this investment, if the bulk billing strategy works, is a huge birthday gift to those of us who benefit from universal health care. That is, all of us. In 1984, the annual GP bulk-billing rate was 51 per cent. It hit a 40-year high of 94 per cent in April 2020, under a Coalition government. Of course, some of that was due to special COVID items. Don't want to go back there if COVID is what it takes. But what can we do to make sure our GPs are protected too? They need to be properly remunerated for what is often grinding work with long hours. Good thing I never ended up as a GP. Imagine having to be patient with patients for hours at a time. Having to be kind to the miserable. Just doing that with your own kids is quite enough, let alone with anyone else's. Now we also have to get to work on specialist fees. I've written elsewhere about the insanity of those fees. This week, the Grattan Institute revealed more than one in five Australians who saw a specialist in 2023 was charged an extreme fee at least once. It also said one in 10 Australians who saw a psychiatrist ended up paying $400 in out-of-pocket costs for their initial consultation alone. It also had a list of recommendations. My vengeful self enjoyed some of those, such as stripping Medicare rebates from specialists charging excessive fees, more than others. And I love the idea of the Medical Cost Finder website, designed so people can compare out-of-pocket fees doctors charge for specialist procedures. But last year it was revealed that five years after the site launched, just 20 doctors out of the 36,000 specialists nationwide provided their fees for listing. MORE JENNA PRICE: There are some useful bits, though. For example, your first specialist appointment will see you pay just under $200, and on average, $117 out of pocket. The rest is paid by Medicare. That's across the country. The most expensive is the ACT where the typical specialist fee is $285. Patients will find themselves two hundred bucks out of pocket. I am not entirely sure how the government will sort this out but we urgently need an overhaul of what we pay for our health. Jim Chalmers is talking tax reform and maybe we need some kind of a sliding scale for people whose super balances are above $3 million, more than he's proposing right now. Universities have a part to play too. Maybe they should let more students into medical schools. Maybe free tuition but then bond students to rural and regional areas for 10 years? Are specialist colleges acting in the best interests of Australians? Or in their own financial best interest? I dunno. But whatever we are doing isn't working. May the government's plans work - and once GPs are sorted, let's start working on the rest of the health industry. My GP bulk bills me. My status has been grandmothered. It's a bloody miracle and I'm grateful. I'd personally like to thank former prime minister Gough Whitlam. Medibank, the forerunner to Medicare, was his brainchild. It began in July 1975. But after the Whitlam government was dismissed, the Fraser government buggered it up. Levies on incomes unless you were privately insured. Nine years later, former prime minister Bob Hawke (the National Museum of Australia calls him Robert. Way too formal) established Medicare. He said: "With this historic initiative, all Australians now have a new, simpler and fairer health insurance system." Well, kind of. Stephen Duckett, the absolute full-bottle on Medicare over decades, tells me that bulk-billing is crucial. We had a peak five years ago and it's been downhill from there. "There are good grounds not to have out-of-pocket payments for GPs. And right now, it's a lottery," he says. Duckett's right. When you front up at your GP, you don't automatically know whether you will be in the lucky group to be bulk billed. "You might be asking when you front up," he says. But it's the uncertainty, the possible embarrassment of signing up to pay money you don't have. He commends any government's attempt to get practices to be 100 per cent bulk-billing because then patients get 100 per cent certainty. And getting that 100 per cent certainty about your healthcare matters. Too many of us are not that lucky. News this week that Canberrans are now paying out an average of just over $62 in out-of-pocket fees to see their GPs is unnerving. If you don't have the sixty-odd bucks, you don't go. And that's extremely risky. British research shows us (and Australian research backs it up) that continuity of care is associated with higher life expectancy. If you don't get that care, you die. Well, we all die - but without regular contact with a regular GP, you have a shorter life expectancy. Good access, lower cost, the necessary number of GPs per head of population - these are all associated with longer lives. The cost of visiting the GP is putting many of us off from getting essential health care. Late last year, the ABS reported a rise in the number of people who reported not visiting the GP because of cost-of-living pressures. In the financial year ending June 22, 3.5 per cent of people either put off or didn't see a GP when they needed to because of the cost. Three years later, that number had risen to 8.8 per cent. In February, the gentle warming-up period of the election before everyone got stroppy and out of control, Labor pledged $8.5 billion for Medicare, so all of us would have access to bulk billing by 2030. The plan, according to Labor, would produce patient savings of up to $859 million a year by 2030. It's Medicare's 41st birthday and this investment, if the bulk billing strategy works, is a huge birthday gift to those of us who benefit from universal health care. That is, all of us. In 1984, the annual GP bulk-billing rate was 51 per cent. It hit a 40-year high of 94 per cent in April 2020, under a Coalition government. Of course, some of that was due to special COVID items. Don't want to go back there if COVID is what it takes. But what can we do to make sure our GPs are protected too? They need to be properly remunerated for what is often grinding work with long hours. Good thing I never ended up as a GP. Imagine having to be patient with patients for hours at a time. Having to be kind to the miserable. Just doing that with your own kids is quite enough, let alone with anyone else's. Now we also have to get to work on specialist fees. I've written elsewhere about the insanity of those fees. This week, the Grattan Institute revealed more than one in five Australians who saw a specialist in 2023 was charged an extreme fee at least once. It also said one in 10 Australians who saw a psychiatrist ended up paying $400 in out-of-pocket costs for their initial consultation alone. It also had a list of recommendations. My vengeful self enjoyed some of those, such as stripping Medicare rebates from specialists charging excessive fees, more than others. And I love the idea of the Medical Cost Finder website, designed so people can compare out-of-pocket fees doctors charge for specialist procedures. But last year it was revealed that five years after the site launched, just 20 doctors out of the 36,000 specialists nationwide provided their fees for listing. MORE JENNA PRICE: There are some useful bits, though. For example, your first specialist appointment will see you pay just under $200, and on average, $117 out of pocket. The rest is paid by Medicare. That's across the country. The most expensive is the ACT where the typical specialist fee is $285. Patients will find themselves two hundred bucks out of pocket. I am not entirely sure how the government will sort this out but we urgently need an overhaul of what we pay for our health. Jim Chalmers is talking tax reform and maybe we need some kind of a sliding scale for people whose super balances are above $3 million, more than he's proposing right now. Universities have a part to play too. Maybe they should let more students into medical schools. Maybe free tuition but then bond students to rural and regional areas for 10 years? Are specialist colleges acting in the best interests of Australians? Or in their own financial best interest? I dunno. But whatever we are doing isn't working. May the government's plans work - and once GPs are sorted, let's start working on the rest of the health industry. My GP bulk bills me. My status has been grandmothered. It's a bloody miracle and I'm grateful. I'd personally like to thank former prime minister Gough Whitlam. Medibank, the forerunner to Medicare, was his brainchild. It began in July 1975. But after the Whitlam government was dismissed, the Fraser government buggered it up. Levies on incomes unless you were privately insured. Nine years later, former prime minister Bob Hawke (the National Museum of Australia calls him Robert. Way too formal) established Medicare. He said: "With this historic initiative, all Australians now have a new, simpler and fairer health insurance system." Well, kind of. Stephen Duckett, the absolute full-bottle on Medicare over decades, tells me that bulk-billing is crucial. We had a peak five years ago and it's been downhill from there. "There are good grounds not to have out-of-pocket payments for GPs. And right now, it's a lottery," he says. Duckett's right. When you front up at your GP, you don't automatically know whether you will be in the lucky group to be bulk billed. "You might be asking when you front up," he says. But it's the uncertainty, the possible embarrassment of signing up to pay money you don't have. He commends any government's attempt to get practices to be 100 per cent bulk-billing because then patients get 100 per cent certainty. And getting that 100 per cent certainty about your healthcare matters. Too many of us are not that lucky. News this week that Canberrans are now paying out an average of just over $62 in out-of-pocket fees to see their GPs is unnerving. If you don't have the sixty-odd bucks, you don't go. And that's extremely risky. British research shows us (and Australian research backs it up) that continuity of care is associated with higher life expectancy. If you don't get that care, you die. Well, we all die - but without regular contact with a regular GP, you have a shorter life expectancy. Good access, lower cost, the necessary number of GPs per head of population - these are all associated with longer lives. The cost of visiting the GP is putting many of us off from getting essential health care. Late last year, the ABS reported a rise in the number of people who reported not visiting the GP because of cost-of-living pressures. In the financial year ending June 22, 3.5 per cent of people either put off or didn't see a GP when they needed to because of the cost. Three years later, that number had risen to 8.8 per cent. In February, the gentle warming-up period of the election before everyone got stroppy and out of control, Labor pledged $8.5 billion for Medicare, so all of us would have access to bulk billing by 2030. The plan, according to Labor, would produce patient savings of up to $859 million a year by 2030. It's Medicare's 41st birthday and this investment, if the bulk billing strategy works, is a huge birthday gift to those of us who benefit from universal health care. That is, all of us. In 1984, the annual GP bulk-billing rate was 51 per cent. It hit a 40-year high of 94 per cent in April 2020, under a Coalition government. Of course, some of that was due to special COVID items. Don't want to go back there if COVID is what it takes. But what can we do to make sure our GPs are protected too? They need to be properly remunerated for what is often grinding work with long hours. Good thing I never ended up as a GP. Imagine having to be patient with patients for hours at a time. Having to be kind to the miserable. Just doing that with your own kids is quite enough, let alone with anyone else's. Now we also have to get to work on specialist fees. I've written elsewhere about the insanity of those fees. This week, the Grattan Institute revealed more than one in five Australians who saw a specialist in 2023 was charged an extreme fee at least once. It also said one in 10 Australians who saw a psychiatrist ended up paying $400 in out-of-pocket costs for their initial consultation alone. It also had a list of recommendations. My vengeful self enjoyed some of those, such as stripping Medicare rebates from specialists charging excessive fees, more than others. And I love the idea of the Medical Cost Finder website, designed so people can compare out-of-pocket fees doctors charge for specialist procedures. But last year it was revealed that five years after the site launched, just 20 doctors out of the 36,000 specialists nationwide provided their fees for listing. MORE JENNA PRICE: There are some useful bits, though. For example, your first specialist appointment will see you pay just under $200, and on average, $117 out of pocket. The rest is paid by Medicare. That's across the country. The most expensive is the ACT where the typical specialist fee is $285. Patients will find themselves two hundred bucks out of pocket. I am not entirely sure how the government will sort this out but we urgently need an overhaul of what we pay for our health. Jim Chalmers is talking tax reform and maybe we need some kind of a sliding scale for people whose super balances are above $3 million, more than he's proposing right now. Universities have a part to play too. Maybe they should let more students into medical schools. Maybe free tuition but then bond students to rural and regional areas for 10 years? Are specialist colleges acting in the best interests of Australians? Or in their own financial best interest? I dunno. But whatever we are doing isn't working. May the government's plans work - and once GPs are sorted, let's start working on the rest of the health industry.
West Australian
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- West Australian
Historic road trip 100 years in the making is coming through the South West as Bubsie rolls through town
A historic road trip 100 years in the making is coming through the South West this month. A replica of the first ever car to circumnavigate Australia is making its way through the region on the historic anniversary of the epic road trip. The replica of the original car — a 5-horsepower 1923 Citroen 5CV nicknamed Bubsie — will be passing through several towns on its journey across the State stopping in at Manjimup, Busselton, Bunbury and Harvey before travelling north to Mandurah and beyond. Manjimup event co-ordinator Ross Craig said it was an amazing achievement for the original drivers in 1925, before any of the country roads had bitumen. 'I can't imagine coming up with the idea to be the very first to drive around anywhere, let alone Australia,' he said. Mr Craig said the car coming through town was a replica of the original Bubsie, which remains in a climate-controlled bubble within the National Museum of Australia. 'There's going to be a display set up and one of the guys that is actually travelling with it will give a detailed sort of description of the original trek,' he said. 'We're going to put out a free sausage sizzle between 12pm and 2pm and there's going to be a coffee van there with coffee and treats for people. 'It's just a little way of saying these guys just did something awesome, and let's recognise their incredible feat.' Bubsie will be on display at the Manjimup Farmers Market from 12-4pm on May 25, at the Busselton foreshore from 9am to 12pm on May 27, on Uduc Road in Harvey from 10am to 3pm on May 29 before finally visiting Bunbury on May 30 and 31. Bubsie's journey can be followed on Right Around Australia's website.
