Magic Minute Wild Horses Took Me Away! By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // I was perilously perched on a branch 3 meters above Peter the baker’s son, leading Dolly, a massive white Clydesdale horse directly beneath me. “Don’t worry, she’s quiet and knows what to d0,” he said reassuringly. Each day it was Peter’s task
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Magic Minute Help Was On The Way By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // MAGIC MINUTE // Our coachload of weary travellers had just arrived at our camping ground after a gruelling day in Northern Sweden – when disaster struck! The main gate was padlocked! They began to panic, “What are we going to do?!” “Don’t
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Magic Minute Emergency Teacher’s Baptism of Fire! By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // My first stint as a mature-age, year 7 emergency teacher would be a cinch! After all, being a camping tour leader for years I knew how to handle young people. As I approached my classroom, I discerned a bit of a hubbub;
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Magic Minute The Honest Feedback By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // The honest feedback I received from a trusted friend really affected me! I’d spent years compiling everything I’d learned about overcoming public speaking fear into this hefty draft and all I got from him was: “It’s pretty big… a lot of good things in
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Magic Minute Marvelous Smellbourne and The Collingwood Football Club By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // In the early 1900s, some of Marvellous Melbourne’s waterways were really open sewers, like the smelly, Reilly Street Drain, which emptied into the Merrie Creek near where the legendary Aussie Rules, Collingwood Football Club was born. While compiling the club’s
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Magic Minute What’s in a Name and a Sandwich By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // Legend has it that the name ‘Sandwich’ came about by John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, wanting slices of meat between two bits of bread brought to him so he wouldn’t interrupt his gambling session! But ‘sandwich’ can mean
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Magic Minute “Good Morning” and The Unexpected By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // “Good morning” I said, as a pensive, middle-aged lady strolled by me on our walking track. She went on a little and stopped. Her reply threw me: “Thank you so much for your warm “Good morning,” she kindly said. “But my morning
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Magic Minute A Choking Baby’s Hands of Fate By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // “Mrs. Smale! Mrs. Smale! My baby’s choking!” screamed our distraught neighbour, storming into our front yard, holding her semi-conscious toddler in her arms. His face now purple, our quirky 1950s mother could see this little boy was about to die, and
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Magic Minute When a Bully Meets Their Match By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // I was around nine and just turned onto the 3 m high embankment that went across the swamplands to our home when the worst possible thing happened! Breaker Brown, the school bully, appeared from nowhere and grabbed the seat of my
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Magic Minute Awakening to What They See By Laurie Smale MAGIC MINUTE // I kept a straight face but froze inside. As coach-leader of my first under 35s camping-tour, one of my young cohorts said, “Have you got any Monty Python tapes?” Everyone looked at me assuming I did, for they were all the rage
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