We Saw A UFO! Jees It Was Exciting

Little did I know growing up that there was more than just crust and mantel lying under the dense forest that carpeted our mountains. Could it be that our soaring escarpments and corrugated gorges so ‘magnificent’, as Charles Darwin exalted, was assigned UNESCO listed World Heritage protection for a wholly different reason to saving cute cuddly Koala Bears and the Giant Dragonfly?  Were we made a place of global significance just and only because our wilderness was impenetrable and remote and stretched every which way forever? Is UNESCO behind a cover up of something so huge and secretive and sinister, that many a person has disappeared in the bush, searching to unveil the truth?

This month on March 22, 1976, my family and I spot an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). It was so obviously not like anything we had ever seen before that my rational, agnostic father went so far as to register our experience formally with the Richmond Air Force Base, which was responsible for documenting Blue Mountains UFO sightings back then, as the military was during the Machiavellian decades of the Cold War. We were not the only people to spot UFO’s in the Blue Mountains. Our very own radio station, 2KA, reported sightings regularly. So many were seen that there is actually a Blue Mountains UFO Research Centre and Research Club which has recorded hundreds of sighting since the 1950’s. 

Turns out, our mountains are a global UFO hotspot, a place where whole aircraft have mysteriously vanished, from where campers, bushwalkers, and soldiers have never returned, and where many an alien abduction has taken place. Some abductees have even survived to tell the tale.

Triangle. By Mex and Heather Gilroy

It all happens in the Blue Mountains Triangle, a Bermuda type vortex that spreads: from north of the Mountains through the Gulgong district; East to the Denman, Singleton and the Branxton-Maitland regions; southward to Goulburn; and northwards along the western side of the Southern Highlands, through to the Mulgoa-Penrith area.  

Excited mountain folk have described seeing brightly glowing blue and green saucer-type airships, hexagonal forms, glowing red or green objects following them, saucer nests in forest clearings, large circular swamp pools, depressions of crushed reeds, ionized blue glows, balls of glowing white light, football shaped craft, flashing strong beams of lights, silvery egg shapes, domed metallic objects, eerie orange blinding glows, a force, and a “giant-size upturned saucer with a row of windows around its base, standing upon three tripod-type legs with large square plates at their base, and silver in colour”. They also reported hearing humming and whirring sounds, underground vibrations and excavation type noises while feeling faint frequency emissions and infrasonic sound that subsequently caused abnormal behaviour patterns including 'double vision, sleep paralysis, phobia, lethargy and nausea'.

Kanangra Walls. Photo: NSW National Parks

In this Triangle and sometimes out of it, UFOs and aliens have been encountered around Narrow Neck Plateau, Oberon, Denman , Putty Road (especially between Windsor and Singleton), Ruined Castle, Mount Solitary, Wild Dog Mountains, Lake Burragorang, Echo Point Cliffs, Wollongambie, Kanangra Walls,  the National Parks of Kanangra Boyd, Wollemi, and Kurrajong, Kings Tableland, Warragamba township, Cowra, Murphey’s Glen and the Valleys of Grosse, Kedumba,  Burrajong, Jaimeson, Megalong, and Hartley.  Some of these places are so synonymously onomatopoeic with the likelihood of bumping into a UFO there, that they were surely named by aliens themselves! 

The Blue Mountains UFO Centre has documented many extraterrestrial experiences, like this one:

“In November 1973, Mrs Janice Warren and her daughter Paula, while holidaying with friends on a farm located about half way between Gulgong and Mudgee, were out walking in the hills one afternoon, when they saw through trees, a large silvery egg-shaped object resting on the ground in an open area. The two women approached the strange object wondering what it really was. “We stood within 12 feet of the ‘big egg’ discussing it for barely a couple of minutes before it began emitting a throb, throb, throbbing noise which, beginning at a low volume, rose in intensity”.

And at Ruined Castle campers reported:
“Strange white glowing humanoid figures’ were seen moving about in the forest depths…... One young couple asleep in their tent on another night, were woken up by a bright, silvery glow that enveloped their two-man tent. Thinking it to be the torches of other campers that might have made their way along the Ruined Castle track in the dark, the couple emerged to see a 1.8m tall, human-like glowing form”… "It immediately strode up to the woman, appeared to grasp her with both its arms, then pass right through her. At this point she fainted, while before her shocked male companion the human-light form appeared to fade away to nothing!"

Other campers had a similar experience at Ruined Castle:

"The time was around 9am, when, partly hidden in the trees in a gully below the forest track, they spotted a large metallic silver object. Climbing down through the ferns and vines, they realised that it was a dome shaped object about 8-10m high and at least 20m in width, and that it had crushed trees and foliage as it came to rest on the forest floor. They experienced a ‘memory blank’ which completely blanked out their knowledge of everything that happened to them between the time that they saw the craft until they reached the top of the Plateau. Looking at their watches upon reaching the Plateau, they found that their walk from the spot where they had seen the craft had taken them 1 hour and 20 minutes".

It is sooo annoying when aliens do that! Zapping our memories so we don’t recall anything, then magically disappearing “like globes being switched off’, and staying disappeared with no trace at all when you turn up with friends, family, and authorities to prove where the UFO and the aliens were. Just to be laughed at. Obviously aliens are inconsiderate, or they wouldn’t humiliate us UFO spotters the way they do.

These close encounters had nothing to do with the hallucinogenic drugs, homebrews and serapax, that had exploded into the Mountains by the 70’s, or anyone’s rich, vivid and mischievous imagination, or even anything to do with the military base everyone was reporting UFO sightings to, since they told us what we were seeing was either the planet Venus, meteorites, weather balloons, marsh gas, migrating ducks, or satellites - and who would 

Burragorang. Photo: NSW National Parks

disbelieve the military? The underground construction noise heard by so many in the Burragorang region were just earth burps, of course, and the mysterious lights of an entire "phantom city” seen out on the far end of Kings Tableland late at night were obviously just the big fat butts of Blue Mountain Fire Flies – pretty enormous butts, HUGE, like our Giant Dragon Flies - the third biggest in the world - and lots of them. There must have been lots, to look like a distant lit up city.

The real truth is that since way before I was a schoolgirl, aliens have been living  “under the cover” of our quartzite landscape so tectonically rolled and folded and rolled and folded, that the resulting shale, siltstone and mudstone puffed up like a giant croissant, providing perfect hiding places for extraterrestrials who based themselves right here –in the bowels of the Blue Mountains Triangle. While we going to school worrying about what testosterone charged boys might do to us, there were much worse and creepier things being done to our fellow mountain folk by not just one race of aliens, but several of them!

If only I’d have known earlier. I wouldn’t have gone to Russia in the future with the hopes of being sent into space through one of their visionary post Perestroika civilian space programs.  I’d have taken myself to Narrow Neck Plateau and just stood there, arms high and outstretched, beckoning to be kidnapped by beings from another planet and taken into space. Surely at least one alien wouldn’t have resisted a lone female hanging out on the perfect UFO landing ledge all by herself, like the goat tethered to a wooden pick in Tsavo, sacrificed to trap man eating lions in the film, the Ghost and the Darkness? After all, it happened to some Aborigines who were “camping in the north of the Triangle in 1951 when a huge saucer descended upon the group while they were sitting at their campfire having dinner, and sucked them all up through a big hole underneath it, then flew away with them”. So why not me?

Narrow Neck Plateau. Photo: Peter Woodard

Alas, I had no inkling of was going on under my very feet as I went to school every day and back. But some people did, because our Blue Mountains Triangle is in fact our very own Area 51, where evil scientists and military hegemons bent on ruling the world are busy working on the “development of a space exploration and military technology far beyond our present-day knowledge…" where "an incredible operation is going on in which NASA is involved alongside US military, together with Australian scientists and military….. an operation also involving thousands of other personnel and their families, living in an incredibly vast, underground world with its own self-sufficient colonies, or rather towns and other, more city-like habitation centres with their own economy, ruled over by a leader whose very name is not mentioned above ground. All this is watched over from above by the FBI, CIA and our own ASIO; undercover representatives of which live in the Sydney district as well as on the Blue Mountains”.

Oh my goodness! Eat your hearts out Surfies! We didn’t have sandy beaches and rolling waves, long blond hair, peeling noses, suntans and surf boards, but we had VIP aliens, and the CIA!  UFOlogists knew this was going on not just because they said so, but because campers staying out at the far end of Narrow Neck claimed to have heard loud drilling and machinery noise grinding away beneath them, and blasting sounds coming from somewhere below cliffs, and because campers have seen Australian and US military personnel stalking the bush, and have stumbled across barbed wire fences guarded by men in camouflage, and they have even been chased away and fired upon by them.

But this isn't all. A top secret space shuttle program has been in operation for years! Our Blue Mountains UFOlogists believe there is "a monstrous space station containing not only living quarters for scientists and other workers, but equipped with everything necessary to construct and launch spacecraft to the Moon and Mars, with building materials transported to this giant space station regularly from the Blue Mountains". We can’t see the space station though, because our fantabulous Australian military use 'time window travel' to zip intergalactically in and out in amazingly short periods of time – none of this seven month, one way ticket to Mars business.

 

                                                          Real UFO in the Blue Mountains

We Blue Mountaineers were the chosen ones. Superior aliens shared this ultra sophisticated science with us because we Aussies once sent out a friendly enquiry to the universe: “Gaday Mate, where the bloody hell are you?”  “Here we bloody well are”, said the Aliens, “In the Blue Mountains”!! This is why we keep importing more people to Australia than the Department of Immigration lets on, because we are actually dispatching them  - rather than ourselves, just incase something goes wrong – "to our invisible outer space ships, then further afield into outer space colonies".

And why wouldn’t we believe this? The military are always up to no good, conspiring away to develop the latest nasty thing to destroy humanity en masse - like the atom bomb, kept secret for years until it turned up in Hiroshima and Nagasaki one day. Apparently this alien technology will be super useful in the very near future as we hurtle towards the end of the world when humans are 10 billion on earth and we have run out of food and resources - and phosphate rock - and the culling begins: “Time itself could be manipulated by placing military bases in another time zone, making them invisible to an enemy" say our UFOlogists.

This top secret underground advanced space technology base is so top secret that when I asked Media Operations at the Australian Department of Defense Force, in writing, if the Burrajong Valley was ever a no fly zone; if there are any joint US-Australian bases in the Blue Mountains; do Australian special forces conduct military training in the mountains, by themselves or with a US counterpart; is there a "Top Secret Underground Advanced Space Technology Base, being operated jointly by the Australian and American governments”; and just what was General Douglas MacArthur doing in the Blue Mountains anyway, loitering in the Hydro Majestic Hotel pretending to be an American tourist? I got this response: “As per our email dated February 27, 2015 the Air Force is not responsible for the investigation and reporting of UFO sightings, please contact the National Archives of Australia for further information/assistance”. I guess they didn't take me seriously. Or they are hiding something.......Something like this:

Real US 'Flying Saucer

There used to be museum dedicated to UFO sightings in Katoomba – the Echo Point Museum. On display were newspaper reports, illustrations and photos of local sightings of UFOs, and even of Yowies, so that when visitors stood at Echo Point Lookout and gazed out onto the low hanging clouds and mist enshrouded mountains, it wouldn’t have been hard to imagine a giant flying saucer emerging from its vaporous valleys and zipping off into the horizon. 

Photo: NSW Department of Environment

Although the Blue Mountains UFO Society still documents the occasional sighting, UFO’s are hardly seen anymore, much like our green tree frogs and bumble bees. We must have scared the aliens off by the speed at which Sydney spread out west, cementing fertile food producing flood plains all the way up to mountain foothills. 

It’s no coincidence that UFO visitations have subsided since their Cold War hey days. Russian sightings for example had everything to do with military tests: the Russian military even encouraged public belief in UFO’s until they realised that what people were describing was what their war weapon actually looked like, and that they might be giving away military secrets to their enemies. Science, knowledge, information and technology has developed rapidly and has largely triumphed over superstition, lack of knowledge, and conspiracy theories via the thorough investigation of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) since the first recorded sighting of a UFO in the United States in 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington, while flying his small plane. He said the crescent shaped objects moved “like saucers skipping on water.” The next day’s newspaper described them as saucer-shaped, which is how the ‘flying saucer’ was born. 

A year later Project Sign was established to investigate UFO sightings. After all, God created man; the Bible said nothing about creating aliens as well. So surely it was Russians, or some other enemy, sending strange looking objects around the globe. Project Sign became Project Grudge which in 1952 became Project Blue Book, the longest running enquiry into UFO’s in the USA. It compiled reports of more than 12,000 sightings of events up to 1969, each of which was ultimately classified as identified - with a known astronomical, atmospheric, or human-caused explanation -  or unidentified, which made up about 6% of all sightings.  But the world, especially the US, Canada, and Australia, had become obsessed with UFO’s, prompting the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to establish their own enquiry. The Robertson Report also concluded that 90% of the sightings could be easily attributed to astronomical and meteorological phenomena, like bright planets and stars, meteors, auroras, ion clouds, or to such earthly objects as aircraft, balloons, birds, and searchlights. They too decided there was no evidence to support the ETH. Keeping parts of the Report classified for 27 years however did little to dispel conspiracy theories.

A second committee was set up in 1966 at the request of the American Air Force, to have another look at more curious material gathered by the Project Blue Book. Their Condon Report, an investigation overseen by 37 scientists, also came to the same conclusion as previous investigations. Since ETH has been debunked, so too has alien abductions. The sense of having been kidnapped by something not human is probably 'sleep paralysis', a state during which sleepers experience temporary immobility and a belief that they are being watched. Some scientists and engineers  have not given up hope though. In the US, the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and the Mutual UFO Network, continue to investigate the phenomenon in the US, while the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues in a scientific manner at various universities and institutes around the world. In Australia UFO research and reporting is maintained by passionate and undeterred volunteers covering 'hot spots' around the country.

When I tried to track down our 1976 UFO report with the Richmond Air Force Base I was advised that the documents had been transferred to the Australian National Archives, which has been unable to locate the report at the time of publication of this post. They assure me however, that they are still searching. Back then, Richmond Air Force personnel told us we had seen a satellite. Dad felt foolish and had a good giggle. But I was not convinced. I knew what I saw, and I knew, deep down in my imaginative 14 year old heart, that the aliens were out there ….. somewhere…..

Right under us, as it turned out.

                               Video: Documentary Aliens Exist On The Moon The Truth Exposed 2015

The World in March 1976 - Argentina's Dirty War

This month in March1976 in the ‘Silver’ country of Argentina, a woman is arrested and exiled just 8 months after she, Isabela Peron, became the world’s first woman head of state. The last 114 years of Argentina is a cautionary tale: in 1908 it was the 7th wealthiest country in the world, ahead of Australia. Buenos Aires, its capital, was considered the most elegant European of cities on the right side of the global map. By the 1980’s, following decade after decade of military right wing rule, and more than ten years of horrific torture, terrorism and utter barbarism - with a helping hand from Uncle Sam and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - Argentina was reduced to a near developing nation, billions of dollars in debt and still rioting today over the escalating cost of living.

Australia has lot in common with Argentina, apart from starting with the letter A. It’s the 8^th largest country in the world (Australia is 6^th). Like Australia, Argentina is rich in natural resources. The majority of its' highly literate population – thanks to free and secular education - lives on the coast. It is a country built by immigrants of European decent mostly, with a similar ethnic profile to Australia. Its’ once thriving arts, science and technology sectors, and diverse economy with a high manufacturing base, made Argentina a cultural and economic hub in Latin America.

Magellanic Penguin

Coati

Like Australia, Argentina is breathtakingly beautiful with Megdiverse Country status, giving it the responsibility of looking after a lot of very special and unique plants and animals, for the benefit of not just themselves, but the rest of the planet, for ever. Argentina covers 15 continental

zones, 3 oceanic zones and the Antarctic region. It is home to 9,000 vascular plant species (30% endemics) 2,380 vertebrate species of which there are 38 endemic species of mammals, and 19 endemic  species of birds. From this total, 529 species of vertebrates and at least 240 plants are threatened or face extinction by the usual: human over population and greed destroying their habitat, deforestation and toxic contamination by human industrial activities. 

Although the Spanish first arrived 1502, Argentina wasn’t established as a formal Spanish colony until 1776 after which a 43 year struggle for independence, and an extended civil war ensued between Centralists and Federalists, finally ending in 1861.  From then on, a massive wave of European immigration, second only to the United States, turned the Argentina into one of the wealthiest nations in the world; among the top five exporters of wheat and beef.

Argentina might have been rich by the turn of the 20th Century, but the majority of its population was poor, with few rights. It wasn’t until male universal  suffrage was introduced in 1912 that parties formed to challenge the status quo with the Radical Civic Union winning the 1916 election, enacting inaugural social, economic and agricultural reform. Fourteen years later of too much sharing for the likes of the ruling class, Felix Uburu seized back power in the first of many military coups that would characterise and cripple modern Argentina for the rest of the century. There were so many coups its almost comical, were the consequences not so tragic.

On the back of a 1943 Coup rose Juan Domingo Peron, a socially minded man who, during his tenure as Minister for Welfare, enacted laws in favour of workers, making him immensely popular among them. Too popular: he was arbitrarily jailed for being so appreciated but was released shortly after by a mass demonstration of the type Latin America does so well, and he went on to become El Presidente. Peron nationalised strategic industries and services, improved wages and working conditions, paid the full external debt and almost secured full employment. Embellished accounts of history judge his success more through the influence his famous wife Eva of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” fame, which is how I first heard of her at 15 years of age, through this beautiful, sorrowful song about a country and a young dying woman, both in pain. 

                                            Video: Julie Convington's "Dont Cry for Me Argentina

Evita, as she was known, successfully pushed for the right of women to vote, and prompted social reforms on a scale never seen in Argentina before say her historians. Others, who have documented Juan Peron’s life, insist on pointing out that Juan Peron was doing the women he married a favour and giving them respectability by marrying them. However, Juan Peron is the only Argentine President accompanied by the First Lady ( Eva) in an official portrait, and photos of them together clearly indicate affection and synergy. Evita tragically died of cervical cancer at the age of 33, seven years into the Peron Presidency and just before another election. Peron was re-elected but he lost the allure and hold on the Argentine population that Evita had because not everyone loved Juan Peron. His acts and policies often seemed contradictory –right and left at the same time. He wanted both the USSR and the US as friends and neither as enemy – his 'Third Way'. While Argentina was open door to Nazi criminals after World War2, Peron also oversaw the development of the largest colony of Jews in all Latin America. He was disconcerting ideologues left and right because he wasn’t particularly ideological. But he was consistent about one thing – getting rid of the opposition on any side.

Plaza de Mayo. Failed Coup Attempt

Peron's policies aroused extreme hatred among the economic elite who didn’t appreciate improved working conditions of the poor, preferring to treat their workers as servants, calling them “little black heads” and “greasy” ( as in under their laboring nails). Giving the poor majority the right to vote was called a "zoological flood". Upper-class students chanted "No to cheap shoe dictatorship”. While Evita was dying of cancer, walls were graffiti with "Long live cancer!" When the Catholic church refused to Canonise Evita, Juan Peron threatened the separation of church and state, and ended religious instruction in schools. He also planned to legalise divorce and prostitution. In June 1955, Perón had two Catholic priests deported to Italy, triggering an attempted assassination by the Argentinian Navy which dropped bombs that killed 350 people, but not Juan Peron.  

The Argentine Revolution

Peron resigned the next day and exiled eventually to Spain. While in exile, his over thrower, Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, banned Peronism and all its manifestations, forcing Peronists underground. Several Coups later, during which Peronism was proscribed then repealed then banned again, a new military dictatorship put in place the repressive Argentine Revolution of 1966, that lasted until 1973. All the while Peron was plotting his return, unbeknownst to most of Argentina, and during which Peron met his third wife to be, Isabel. She was of lower-middle-class origins. Like Evita, she had limited high school education, as most women did in those days, which makes their rise to the top seat all that more remarkable. Isabel was a nightclub dancer. She wasn’t Evita, who had become the highest paid radio actor in Argentina, co owned the radio station she performed on, and was financially independent by the time she met Juan Peron, but Isabel was 35 years younger than Juan Peron and he needed a go between. Isabel flew from Spain to Latin America and anywhere else required on his behalf, laying the groundwork for his return to the Presidency, eventually becoming his Vice Presidential running mate as he won the 1973 election, 27 years after his first Presidency. But Juan Peron was very ill by then and died of a series of heart attacks a year later. Isabelle was sworn in in secret the day after Juan Peron passed away.


The world’s first female La Presidente wasn’t as adored as Evita but the public stood beside her for a while as long as she maintained Peron’s social market economy and economic nationalism. Isabel had a personal assistant, Jose Lopez Rega, a declared fascist with an interest in the occult, as did Isabel apparently. Without Juan Peron, Isabel began to rely on Rega who ensured that like Juan Peron, and other presidents before him, opposition was purged. Only he took the purging to another level. Rega was the founder the Argentine Anti Communist Party (The Triple A), a death squad accused of perpetrating 1,500 crimes in the 1970’s. Under advice from Rega, Isabel enacted new anti terrorism laws, the first of a series of measures that eroded constitutional rights for the purpose of 'combating leftist violence'. A State of Siege was declared on 6 November 1975. Newspapers and TV stations were banned or closed. 

Once the terror regime was in place, in swooped the American dominated loan shark, the International Monetary Fund, with a 290 million predatory loan. IMF loan conditions included cutting jobs in the pubic sector: 100,000 to 200,000 jobs were lost in 1976. Half of Argentina was sold to private companies – all the State assets Juan Peron had nationalised - the proceeds of which were not re-invested into the economy, but rather found their way into offshore bank accounts.

A  country that was so rich, the envy of the world, had been  deindustrialsied; its productive capacity destroyed. Consumer prices doubled in just a couple of months. Unemployment rose by 58% and became endemic. The budget into education went from 20% to 6% - can't have people schooled enough to understand what was being done to them. The Peso was so devalued inflation went over 700%. An incredible speculation game began which saw foreign companies empty the coffers of Argentine banks by borrowing dollars, exchanging them against an overvalued peso but with guaranteed interest in a months time at an inflated exchange rate, amounting to up to 45% a year interest. Proceeds found their way to Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Sixty seven percent of export revenues were going to service the IMF debt – a debt that was once zero and still very modest before the IMF put a noose around the nations' neck. While Argentinians were starving to near death, they were forced to export more food than ever in their history to reimburse their now ballooned 54 billion debt, competing against heavily subsidised European and American exports. Rioting Argentinians brandished slogans like “enough of lies, unemployment, hunger, misery, and the IMF!” ( Susan George, A Fate Worse than Debt).

Following mass protests and strikes, the now hated José López Rega ran away to Spain, as Argentina’s sudden new Ambassador. His Triple A extremists had assassinated civilians in public places on yachts, in buses and banks, in restaurants and parking lots. Over 700 lives were wasted in political violence during Isabel Peron’s  first 15 months in office, of which more than half were leftist opposition, the other half mostly security forces. By March 1976 when the Argentine government  was about to be overthrown again, civilians made up fully half of the 1,358 deaths.




In March 1976, 'Operation Aries' arrested Isabelle Peron, charging her with corruption, deposing her and facilitating her exile to Spain. The Military issued this statement:


“People are advised that as of today, the country is under the operational control of the Joint Chiefs General of the Armed Forces. We recommend all inhabitants the strict compliance of the provisions and directives emanating from the military, security or police authorities, and to be extremely careful to avoid individual or group actions and attitudes that may require drastic intervention from the operating personnel”. It was signed: General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier Orlando Ramon Agosti.

The new “National Reorganisation Process” that followed became known as The Dirty War. While it began under Juan Peron, it went on to brutally 'reorganise' Argentinian society unlike ever before. Martial law remained in place. The majority of Peronist officials in the national, provincial, and municipal governments were arrested. Hundreds of students, workers, unionists, and political activists were abducted from their homes, workplaces or from the street in broad daylight, as much as in the stealth of night, many to be tossed alive from military airplanes into the mouth of the Plata River. This went on 7 years resulting the 'disappearances  of between around 9,300 and 30,000 persons, depending on sources. 

Mayo Pyramid covered with the names of The Disappeared

How timid was the Malcolm Frazer/Sir John Kerr’s Coup D’état in Australia just a few months earlier? Nobody was murdered en masse. No one was 'disappeared'. Aussies weren’t taken into torture chambers, and battered to death just because they wanted no fault divorce. Woman weren’t raped, their genitals electrocuted because they wanted to work or study and earn a bit more money. There were no armed murderous soldiers on our streets targeting anyone with a brain. Our Mum’s didn’t wave our Dad’s off to work wondering if they might come back or not at the end of the day.

What happened in Argentina happened in various shades of blood to the rest of Latin America the past 40 years because Latin American military elite were well trained and handsomely funded by the USA. The key 1976 Argentinean coup leaders, Emilio Massera, and General Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo, were trained at the USA's School of the Americas, otherwise know as the "School of Assassins”, which former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, called the “biggest base for destabilisation in Latin America.” Renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for SecurityCooperation” in 2011, the School of the America’s has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers in "counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics". Graduates have “left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned” against their own people. "Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, 'disappeared', massacred, and forced into refuge by those trained at the "School of Assassins". Supposedly to keep communism at Bay in Latin America, or socialism - its all the same thing to the School of the Americas, and the powerful American Military Industrial complex that supports it, and the development of foreign markets.

Argentina’s ruling elite was not so innocent however. The masterminds of the Argentine "Dirty War", working in tandem with the USA, exported their "model of mass repression" to build up capacity among the death squads that brutalised and terrorised countries in Central America like Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. This, along with a historical national tendency to the right, may account for the difficulty the nation has in coming to terms with what it did. Some judicial and academic circles have compared the Dirty War with the Holocaust, calling it a genocide.

Nor is Isabel Peron to be so easily excused. She continued to serve as official head of the Peronist Justicialist Party from her base in Spain until her resignation in February 1985. She was pardoned from charges of corruption during one of those non military coup periods, returning only twice to Argentina since her exile. In January 2007 she was arrested in Spain for war crimes related to her signing the 1975 decree calling the Armed Forces to "annihilate subversive elements." Spanish authorities refused to extradite her.

It is ironic that at the very time death squads were depriving Argentine people their right to life, freedom of speech, religion, voting, enough food, education, health and shelter, the International Bill of Human Rights, the declaration of which Argentina voted in favour of in 1948, also came into force in March 1976. 

In other worldly news: the largest observed, a 1.774 kg stony meteorite, falls in Jilin, China; the first female cadets are accepted to West Point Military Academy in the USA; Israel kills 6 Palestinians protesting land confiscation; and Queen Elizabeth 11 sends out the first royal email, from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment.


Australia in March 1976

Making history this month is Cyclone Colin, which hits the south Queensland coast at 93 kph, forcing the suspension of shipping services into Brisbane. That's almost perfect kite flying winds compared the sorts of cyclones that hit Queensland these days. The top song of the month is the masterpiece, Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen, from their album A Night at the Opera. Written by Freddie Mercury, it was the most expensive singles ever made back then, and went on to be one one of the greatest selling singles of all time. 

Video: Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody

March Diary 1976

After embarrassing myself last month by drinking too much at a party, this month I continue my fall from grace, bringing shame to myself and family as I stood by watching someone else shoplift. I learnt the lesson that watching a crime and doing nothing is the same thing as doing the crime in the eyes of everyone but my obstinate self. Even though Dad resorts to belting this fact into me, I remain defiant over my innocence. Coming from a small community where news spreads around the school before the bus has even arrived, all my friends are banned from fraternising with me.

Monday March 1 - Guess what everybody is calling me now? Sarah

Dear Diary

Guess what everybody is calling me now? Sarah. Cause there was a movie on last night called Sarah about a teenage chick who is an alcoholic. Colin especially kept calling me that. Geoff is going with Wendy though she's a good kid. Diane is going with Bret. Chris asked me again to go with him. Steve said Gaday Petra twice. I found out bloody O'Donnel was telling everyone that he nearly screwed me . That lying b-----d! 

Tuesday March 2 - He reckons that O'Donnel said he undid my bra about 3 times

Dear Diary 

Well today I said to Jason, "I've got something to say to you" and he said, "What" and I said, "I'll tell you later". At recess he came up to me and said, "What did you want to tell me?" I said, "I don't think  I'll tell you now", cause everyone else was there. Jo said, "It's something you've been saying". He said, "It's been Boyde". I said, "No it's not". He said, "Get Forked" and walked off. Later I asked Chris if he said anything and he reckons that O'Donnel said he undid my bra about 3 times. What a load of cow poo! Talked to Steve again. Geoff said he would stick up for me. He's nice. I really like him. Stephen was being extra friendly. He's nice too. Mark Hudson reckons Adrian's going to ask me. Christ. Anyway. FROM PETRA (love hearts)

Wednesday March 3 - -Got to go to Speech Nigh to get an award for coming 1st in 14 years athletics.

Dear Diary

Talked to Steve again and Colin came and tickled me half to death and then he kept staring at me. He hates me. I asked Sue Smith why she hates me, and she said she doesn't anymore; it was only cause she was jealous I was talking to Steve. She likes Graham Stanton now. Megan Taylor is being extra friendly. Scabbed money for 2 packets of chips, 1 donut , 5 cents worth of jelly babies, 1 snake. Not bad I suppose.  Wrote Glenda a love note from a secret admirer. Jees it was funny. You should have seen how excited she was. Got a letter from Debbie. Wrote a great Magna Carta back. School is boring. Seeya.

PS. Got to go to Speech Night to get an award for coming 1st in 14 years athletics. Really Cool.

Thursday March 4 -Well nothing much happened today, Its raining and its absolutely miserable. Steve wasn't at school.

Friday March 5 - Dad told him I was in bed when I was standing right next to him

Dear Dairy

Steve was at school today. Talked to him. When bell went to go home, walked past him and he said hello. Someone rang for me last night and Dad told him I was in bed when I was standing right next to him. Had a massive fight with Mum because I put some clothes in her room and now I'm not allowed to go to Penrith Show. Dam.

Saturday March 6 - Well I've disgraced myself and my family.

Dear Diary 

I've disgraced myself and my family. I'm thoroughly disgusted in myself. I wish I was dead. I think I might commit suicide. The easiest way out. And I didn't even do anything. Well, I talked Mum into letting me go to the show, but now I wish I hadn't. Disaster strikes. Got on the bus and got off at Penrith. We walked through the plaza to go and see Milton who I later saw with some chick on his way to the show. Anyway, (at Farmers) this girl (who always seems to tag along at the last moment) was looking at earrings and then she nicked one pair, then two, then three. Then she nicked some eye shadow and a brush and some mascara and some other stuff which I didn't see her take. (I, incidentally didn't touch or nick any of it). I was just looking at the stuff. Then she walked away and this lady came after her  and told her to come with her. Then the bitch called me and roped me in when I didn't do anything and she wasn't even after me, only the other girl. And the bitch roped ME in. That wasn't fair. Anyway we had to follow her to this room where she went through this girl's and my bags and she found a whole stack of stuff in the other girl's bag and NOT IN MINE . We had to go through all this rigmarole about names and addresses of parents, and all this and then we had to sign all these sheets. THEN she rung Dad and told him I HAD BEEN PULLED UP FOR SHOPLIFTING!!!!!!!  I was ballen my eyes out and trying to talk to Dad. I wanted to ring him myself but that bitchful lady wanted the pleasure of doing it. We had to sign these papers under the title of "Signature of Juvenille". Then the hack goes, "This is just a warning. If you ever do this again - are you listing to me ? - if you ever do this again, the Police will be bought in and you'll be sent to a Juvenille Court and you'll have a criminal record just like any other criminal"

Dad blew me up naturally, and I don't blame him. I said, "I suppose I'm grounded". He said, "Yes you're grounded right now". So I had to wait for the shop to close and then for Mum and Dad to have a beer with Mrs Priestly. While they were doing that I saw Mitchel, Grant, Jim, Milton, Niel,  and all them and a whole stack of kids. Oh yeah, the other girl stole $50 worth of stuff! Mum wouldn't even talk to me. I gave all my money to JB just in case they wanted my money. Then we went to Penrith Show  but I had to stay by mother's side every single moment, and she kept calling me if ever I talked to somebody. God it was bloody embarrassing. Then JB spent $2.00 of my money. How dare she! But she bought me this Virgo poster. Jees it was sweet. I met up with Wendy and Geoff and Sue and Perri and Snow. I was on the Cha Cha and guess who was there? Steve Podmmore and Merve. I waved to them. Later I was having a go on the money hoopla and Steve then came up  and was watching me. I told them about this morning. Geoff and all them were swearing their heads off at the other girl. Oh yeah, I also saw Brett and Diana and Wain Patick and Sharon. They know too. I also saw Derek Cluff and Dianne and Eddie, and Robo and Ian Stanton and Cananah and everyone else. I went on a lot of rides and spent $7.12 Pretty bad hey. Specially when I didn't enjoy it. I was a fraction of an inch away from winning $20.00 and a watch. Then as we were leaving I saw that lady from Farmers and gave her a filthy look. She was with her husband and told him. The worst is yet to come - facing my parents and their punishment.

Sunday March 7 - Well did nothing today. Weeded the garden. Parents haven't said anything about Saturday yet. Hopefully they won't but I doubt it.

Monday March 8 - Well the whole school knows about it

Dear Diary 

Well the whole school knows about it. Bloody Sharon told Mrs Taylor and so now its gonna go around the neighbourhood. Mrs Baily knows. Colin came up to me this morning and asked me all about it but being friendly. He thought it it was it was this other chick. Everybody kept calling me a naughty girl. I was talking to Brett and he goes, "Oh yeah, naughty girl", so someone must have told him to say that. Probably Boyd. All Jason's lot turned around and stared at me. So they probably know too. Shit. I wish I was dead. The other girl's Mum took the other girl down to see the people at Farmers. Then she saw Dad. Christ! I bet the other girl tried to put the blame on me. Then at lunch someone  came up and said not to worry about it. CHRIST! If she hadn't have tagged along at the last moment, none of this would have happened. All I wanted to do was see Milton but no she had steal something. Glenda keeps sticking her nose into things.

Tuesday March 9 - Her Mum told her she wasn't to go out with me anymore

Jees it was bad today. The other girl told her Mum it was all my fault and her Mum told her she wasn't to go out with me anymore (when no-body bloody invited her). JB's not allowed to go out with me again, and neither is Sharon and Glenda. Shit. All because of that bloody girl. God I'm a fool to even be with her. Chris asked me for an answer and I said, "I don't know". So he wrote me two notes saying, "What do you want to know about me? How big my c--k is?" and the other was about experience, and all this. This guy had to go to court so he got his hair cut. I told Steve and Merve and all them about it and they were swearing at the other girl, and they went up and stirred her. Wain and Brett gave me this joke thing in an envelop about alcoholics anonymous. Jees it was funny. Jees Colin looks good in his tie. Real good looking. So does Steven.

Wednesday March 10 - He gave me the strap and called me a bitch

Last night Dad started thumping me across the head because Mum told Dad it was more the other girl's fault than it was mine. So he gave me the strap and called me a bitch. They bought my food into my room but I didn't touch it. Then bloody Dad made me write a note to Farmers saying 

"Dear Sir,

On Saturday I was detained by a security officer for shoplifting. I'm sorry it happened and I really truly regret it. I've never done it before and it will never happen again. 

Yours Sincerely 

Petra Campbell.

Today Dad got a letter saying:

"Dear Mr Campbell"

I consider it my city to inform you that at 10.45 am, 6th March on Saturday, a boy/girl stating she was your daughter, Petrol ( notice the spelling) was intercepted leaving this store in possession of goods for which no payment was made. The goods valued at $5.43 were taken from the boy/girl and have been returned to to the department conceded. 

K.D Creets. 

Shit A. What a load of bull---t. I was caught with nothing which totalled up to nothing.The bloody pigs. Anyway, Dad told me not to try and communicate with them again until I admit I was just as much to blame as the other girl was and this morning Mum sent Jenny just to check if there was anything suspicious in my bag. So tonight I apologised to Dad. Christ, its not bloody fair. Why me? I went to Jason's gang today and talked to them but they were laughing at something so I left. After netball training Beetle, Hunt, and Flea waited for me but Mum picked me up and blew her stack at me. Then we stopped off at Cathy's and found out some things of Cathy. She's not going with Dave anymore and Craig isn't gong with Longard anymore. At the pool Colin was flirting with Michelle Wilson and Steve was flirting with Cathy Scott.

Thursday March 11 - Nice triangle

Dear Diary

   

                                    Video: Maxine Nightingale. Right Back Where We Started From

At 8th period, Steve came up to me and put his arm around me. At lunch he was leaning against the wall by himself and I asked him what was wrong. He said, "Nothing", I'm just bored". Jees he's beautiful. Chris at woodwork said "I've got a problem", I sad, "What". He said, "I like this other chick. I like you better but you're not going to go with me". When I asked who it was he said Bernadette Morris. Nice triangle. Bernadette wants to go with Glen Couchman, Glen wants to go with Glenda and Glenda wants to go with  Glen and Chris wants to go with me, but I wasn't sure so he wants to go with Bernadette. Right back where we started from ( that's the song that's on now). So I told Chris to go with Bernadette. I'm a good Sam.  Eleen someone or rather told me that David Robson likes me. I asked how she knew and she said cause at the show, he kept saying, "Where's that Petra chick" I wondered how come he always seemed to be near me today.

Friday March 12 - Deb found out about that shoplifting bizzo

Dear Dairy

Jees Steve's beautiful. All at recess and before school he was always talking to Emma. He really likes her, you can tell. It's just the way he looks. I wish he liked me. He said "Ga'day Petra" at lunch. Glenda still isn't going with Glen. This kid rang and reckoned he was Roby Parker but everything he said he described himself just as the school creep. We talked for 2 and a half hours. He said, "I'll be dreaming of you". At first he said he didn't know me, but I knew he did, and later he said he did. He must be the school creep. Then Deb rang but I wasn't allowed to  talk cause of Roby or whoever he is. So later I rang Debbie and we talked for about an hour. Then Roby rang again. Deb found out about that shoplifting bizzo. Chris told her. Jees he found out quick enough. Oh I forgot to tell you. JB's got a horse called Zeppy. That's all she talks about now. Jees she's funny. Bloody Lynette Howel and Sharon and Blenda found out I like Steve and the fat arse is telling him. God I luv Steve.

Saturday March 13 -I umpired today and played my first game today

Dear Diary,

Well I umpired today and played my first game today. We won 24-5. We played pretty good. Roby or whatever his name is rang again 3 times but I don't think that his name either. Everything he says sounds like the school creep. Yugh. That pig. He's ringing me thinking I don't know who he is. Well I'll find out. Steve rang too.

Sunday March 14 - He gives me the creeps

Dear Diary

                                                     Video: The Dunwich Horror Trailer

That kid rang again twice but I told him my parents were out. Then I said they just told me to get off the phone. The Jenny went and shouted, "Petra, Mum and Dad night be trying to ring!". God. He got cut too. Serves himself right, pretending he's somebody else. He gives me the creeps. Bloody Mum wouldn't let me watch the Dunwich Horror when I've been wanting to watch it for a long time. Jees that s--ts me. Seeya

Monday March 15 - Steve doesn't like me because I'm immature. 

Dear Diary

Debbie's back. She's being a real stuck up snob. At recess I went up to  Diana and Brett, and Chris was there.  He shouted, "Petra, hows Steve Podmore?" and I walked away (really cranky). He shits me up the wall. Bloody Debbie can't keep anything to herself. She thinks she's tough cause she's going with Dixon. You should have heard her today. "Oh Chris will bash you up. You've had it," and all this. Then she came over and said, "What's up" I said "What do you bloody reckon" Chris goes "I'm sorry Petra" and I said, "I'm bloody sure you are". Later Debbie said he apologised and he meant it. I said, "So he should". Then she told me that Dixon told her that Steve doesn't like me because I'm immature. That's the third person - Jason, Colin, Steve. I don't know what I do to be immature. I hate myself. The school creep rang again, twice, but my sister said I wasn't in. He kept calling me. Emma was with Steve. He looked beautiful today.

Tuesday March 16 - I'll never wash my bum again.

Dear Diary

Guess what I found out. Stephen went to Christine O'Grady's party on Saturday and guess who he paired up with? How did you guess! Emma. She was with him all lunch. I think she's going with him. Oh I hope not. It's not fair. Every time I like someone, there is always someone else interfering. I got two water bombs chucked at me. One hit my boob and the other hit my back. Wain and Brett were twisting my arms and Steve hit my bum real hard. I'll never wash my bum again. God I'd stink then wouldn't I. Bret told me to get lost. I said, "You don't like me do you?" He said, "I didn't say that" and all this. Everyone was swapping Mad Bombers.  God it was funny. Jason's been away for nearly 3 weeks- wagging. Oh well that's about all I have to say. Oh yeah, the school creep rang again. I said, "Look, I know who you are". He goes, "Oh, I wasn't at school the last days". I said, "Bull, you weren't. If that's how low you stoop, just stop ringing", and I hung up.

Wednesday March 17 - Everyone was stirring me about being a pisspot again.

Dear Diary

You know what I found out today! That Steve used to like. I was talking to Wendy and Megan, and I said, "I used to like Steve and I still do". They said, "He used to like you". I said "When?". They said, "Oh last week, and before". I said, "What did I do?". They went "Nothing, it just faded away". Shit. I wish he still liked me. I also found out he asked Emma, but she said no. God she's an idiot. I would. He was mucking around with me at the pool and at school he asked me if I was going to the pool. Everyone was stirring me about being a pisspot again. I caught the Mount Riverview bus on the way home. Me, Colin, Wendy and Megan were on the back seat. Megan hit Colin and he got the shits. Then I had to get off and Chris and Colin were pining me down and wouldn't let me  go. I was shouting and everything. God it was funny.  That's a really good bus. I wouldn't mind catching it all the time. I wish I could. I wish Steve would like me. Seeys. 

Thursday March 18 - I heard about you shoplifting

Dear Diary

Everyone kept strangling me today and Colin kept saying, "Is that your randy spot" and tickled me on the neck back. Colin kept saying, "naughty girl' and all this and he dared me to go all the way on Wednesday. Jason waved and said "gaday Petra". Then he goes "I heard about you shoplifting". I said, "You can't talk" he goes "Ooooh". Steve was with Emma all lunch. Jees that poos me. I wish he still liked me. I wondered why he kept coming up to me and talking to me. Jees I wish he liked me. Seeya.

Friday March 19 - "Well don't say bye then"

Dear Diary

At lunch I was fighting with Bret and Steve came up and grabbed me. I talked to him and said, "What have you been doing with yourself lately?" ( As if I didn't know) and he said, "Plenty". I said, "Well you look happier than you used to be" and he said, "I've got reason to be" (Ema). I said, "You're not going to tell me are you". He said, "no". I said, "I think I know anyway" and we talked about crosses and all this. I said, "well seeya later" but I wasn't looking at him. He said, 'Well don't say bye then" Then I said, "bye". Then at lunch he said something about my legs but he wouldn't tell me what. I saw Steve at his bus stop and at 8th period I said Ga'day to him. Jees he's absolutely beautiful. Sue and Tania came for about half an hour cause they were on their way sailing. Jees I wish it was me Steve liked and not Emma. Why does somebody always get in my way? It's not fair.

Saturday March 20 - I umpired today - 2 games in a row. Then I played.

Dear Diary

I umpired today - 2 games in a row. Then I played. Anyway Geoff Higgins came and sat down and watched me umpire and he raved on about the dance and told me I should have gone. Then he said "You'll have to go to the next one". We played the Viscounts and we beat them 9-6. Pretty shocking eh. I was throwing really bad goals. So Mrs Goetze will probably put Andre in as Goal Attack now. Chris and Eddie were there and Chris goes, "You're a hopeless Goal Shooter". I said, "Well you get on here then you great smart ass". Mrs Boardman was there. Steve Franklin rang and Dad said I could only talk for 5 minutes. Jees he shits me. Told me that the school creep did ring and told me about the dance and then I had to go. Seeya.

Sunday March 21 - I'm getting locked away like its nobody's business.

Dear Diary

Didn't do much today. Washed the cars and that's about it. Mum and Dad went to play Golf. Yeah. Peace at last. Seeya. Oh yeah. I'm not allowed to see Rocky Horror Show at the nighttime. Do you know why? Because when I saw Tommy I was alone with 3 boys! Friends mind you. God what does he think I am! It's not bloody fair. I'm getting locked away like its nobody's business. I wish I COULD JUST MOVE OUT - NOW. PARENTS MAKE ME SICK. I WISH I WAS DEAD. By the way Dad, you promised me you wouldn't read it again, remember!

Monday March 22 - Guess What! We saw UFO's!Jees it was exciting.

Dear Diary

Colin came up to me and said, "I can't wait till Wednesday. Are you still going to rape me?". I said, "If I feel like it". He babbled on. Then we were talking about me doing Alcoholics in Health and having to phone Alcoholics Anonymous, and Bedoe comes in and goes, "Look, I know its nice but there's a teacher waiting for you". Steve talked to me and put his hand around my neck which is supposed to be my randy spot. Jees he's beautiful. Guess what! We saw UFO's which looked like  stars and they were going real fast. So Dad rang the Air Force and he had to fill out all these sheets about UFO sightings and all this. Jees it was exciting. I'm not allowed to have  desert boots unless I buy them myself which I am going to do tomorrow. Everybody's allowed to have them but my parents have to kick up a fuss. Jees they shit me. Ill ask Mum again, even to go halves. Seeya.

Tuesday March 23 - For your information, Chris said boys like girls with broad shoulders so they can hug them

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I said to Debbie, "Jees I've got skinny arms, you must have fat arms". She goes, "Well if you don't mind me sayings you've got hobby knees". I said, "Oh I'm so sorry I don't such beautiful knees like you". And she goes, "For your information, Chris said boys like girls with broad shoulders so they can hug them". Anyway, she told Chris to come up to me this morning along with O'Donnel, and he goes, "Jees you're a scrag Petra". I said, "Well you're not much better Dixon". He goes, "How dare you abuse Debbie" ( and Debbie's going "oh, Chris, Chris") Then he kicks me, and I hit him back. Then when we had to go to this medical thing, JB said, "I've got hobby knees" and Debbie looked at her and I said, "Don't worry Debbie, you don't have bobby knees". She goes, "You deserved that Petra". Then our bloody History teacher, Carey, got me all cranky. Then bloody Mum started fighting with me again as soon as I walked in the door and now 'm not getting my pocket money. She just doesn't want to give me any. I'm shitted up to my eyebrows. I'm just fed up. Seeya.

Wednesday March 24 - Dad even said he thinks I'll get myself pregnant! Thanks a lot.

Dear Dairy

At the pool Steve pulled my costume ties down. Umah. But I had my shorts on thank goodness. On the bus he stuffed apples down my top . Jees he's beautiful. He's always with Emma though so she must going with him. Went the bush way to the pool with Steve, Colin, Geoff, Bret, Wain and a stack of other guys. Caught Mt Riverview bus to netball training and Colin kept asking if I was going to rape him. As I was getting off the bus, Colin and Dixon grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. Funniness. Wain wrote these apology notes to me for stirring me about my hair all the time, and I got real cut. Colin asked Michelle Wilson to go with him! Dad talked to Mr Dixon and he told Dad that I drank everything that was shoved at me. The PIG. How could he? Anyway, that's not true. Dad even said he thinks I'll get myself pregnant! Thanks a lot. I'm allowed to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  I think. I hope. Seeya.

Thursday March 25 - He wanted to know why I got into trouble on Saturday

Went to Penrith and got some desert boots finally. Mum was willing to pay $10.00 for a pair of slacks but they were too small, so I found another pair and because I went away, she wouldn't buy them for me. She ALWAYS does that. I even offered to pay the rest. Saw Wendy, Perri and Megan and they pointed me out to this absolutely beautiful guy. He had longish blond hair, and was really good looking. He came up and talked to me. I met this other guy who came up and talked to me. He said he'll go to the pictures on Saturday cause I was going there. He also wanted me to try some slacks on - embarrassment. Talked to Milton. He was packing at the register we went through. He wanted to know why I got into trouble on Saturday. I wouldn't tell him.

Friday March 26 - I wish I knew who wrote that note. It was a nasty one too!

Today I got stir note from someone. I can't quite work out who wrote it. Boyde came up and told me that Bret wanted me. Bret goes, "Is that a note?". Then everyone came around to read it. I went to the kid who gave me the note and he said it was Goeff, who came up behind me. I hit him twice real hard across the face. He reckoned Jason gave it to him to give to me, and so did everyone else and so I got a bit suspicious. First of all it was signed AA. But that was crossed out and Jason didn't know anything about it, and he walked across the oval and smiled at me. I called him a poof. Debbie asked Chris and he said he knew nothing about it, and said it was probably Wain or Brett or Colin, cause they're all writing notes. Then Steve came up and said, "Are you cut Petra?" I said, "What about?" and he goes, "wham" ( in the air as is if hitting someone real hard). I said, "Did you hear about that?" He said, "yes" Then he goes, "never mind", and taps me on the face. Gees he's beautiful! I wish he liked me instead of Emma! I wish I knew who wrote that note. It was a nasty one too! Seeya.

Saturday March 27 and Saturday March 28 - They had a carton of Moselle and were drinking it.

Dear Diary,

Well at netball today, guess who was tree - Jason! God. And Bret, Wain, Steve L and Geoff.  They watched me umpire too. I found out who wrote the letter. Boyde. Boy has he had it. Anyway, Jason watched me play - embarrassment. They had a carton of Moselle and were drinking it. I went up and said, "sprung" and they gave me some. Brett goes, "saw you score that goal. Pretty strong". Jason goes "Strong". Then after that we all went down to The Jellybean and played  the jukebox and darts etc. Then we caught the train home and Geoff and Wain walked home with us. I introduced Mum to Wain, and Wain made a phone call to to his Mum. Geoff had his sunglasses on. God it was funny, and he asked me what my double bed was for. He got suspicious. They hung around for a while

and talked and then went up to Sharons. Went and saw Rocky Horror Picture Show again last night. Guess who was there - Robert Gollege. I didn't think he'd come (he saw it last night he told me). He came up to me at interval and asked me to sit with them up the back. I was with Deb and Chris. He came up again and asked me to sit with him. Debbie was urging me to and Chris was going on and on. Then he was saying "play hard to get" but I didn't go. I should have. Oh well. I probably won't see him again. He's nice though.  Got offered a job at the theatre - in two years! Brett and Wain rung up and asked me to tell Sharon to ring them. We talked for a while. Yesterday Steve Franken rang and the school creep goes, "Hang on Steve wants to talk to you" Ugh. He's ok to talk to but God he's a creep. Oh well. Jees I had fun yesterday. Somehow I think I should hang out with Robert. Seeya.

Monday March 29 - Do you know what Colin called your hair? Steel wool

Dear Diary

Today I was absolutely and truly in a shitty mood. I went up to Colin, shoved this kid out of the way, and went and belted him across the face and walked away. He was telling everyone he was going to hit me back but he never did. Then someone told me that my name was Peta, including Steve. He yelled, "Gaday Peta" and waved. (when he was with Emma). At 8th period he goes, "Gaday Peta". I'm going to call you Peta from now on cause I don't believe in changing names. Merve goes "Do you know what Colin called your hair?Steel wool". I said, "It probably is". Steve goes, "why?" I said, "why don't you ask him". Then he started tapping me on the shoulder and asking me to turn around, and when I didn't he hit me on the shoulder and asked me to turn around. He goes, "You're a bad girl Petra" Geoff goes, "Whats up Petra". I said "f----n nothen" and raced into the room ballen. Then I raced to of the room to wash my face, and who the hell was there ? Boyde. He went to hit me, but he didn't. seeya

Tuesday March 30 - If I had the guts I'd throw myself out the window. But I haven't got the guts

Dear Diary

Nothing happened today. Steve came up an asked me if I was cut. I said no (sarcastically). He said something  then he asked me if I would buy a ticket. Then he goes, "Seeya Peta" (pooh!!) Then I past him on the staircase and he goes, "Gaday Petra". I said, "How come you aren't calling me Peta anymore?" and he goes, "Oh, Gaday Peta"! Boyd shits me up the wall. Just had a massive fight with with him about my bloody homework cause that stupid History teacher - Carey - gives us so much dam homework its not funny. God she s---s me. If I had the guts I'd throw myself out the window. That would show them. But I haven't got the guts. It would be just like me to go and kill myself. Seeya.

Wednesday March 31 - That's all they want. They're all the same. Every single one of them.

Dear Diary

I was late for class. I passed Steve. He ran up behind me and grabbed my belt. I turned around and he said, "Gaday Petra". I said, "Hi". He asked me if I wanted to buy a ticket. I said I haven't any money. He said, "You must have money" and he felt my pockets. He said, "How come you're always broke?" I said, "Cause I never get paid' He said, "I wouldn't let them get away with that". I said, "Yeah I know but I can't  very well stop them". Then he said something which was supposed to be a joke so I laughed, and I said I'd bring some to school tomorrow. Then a school teacher came and told us to go to class. He's beautiful. Colin and Chris sat next to me on the bus today. Before Chris told me to, "piss off"  and on the bus he actually apologised very nicely. Would you believe it. Then Colin wouldn't let me get off the bus until I apologised. But I told him he's the one who should apologise, and I'm not going to. So he let me go.  Jenny Challneor was taking to Craig Stratten and he told her he liked me. When he reckoned he wasn't going to get something out of me. God that bloody sits me. That's all they want. They're all the same. Every single one of them. Except for beautiful Steve.

Written By Petra Campbell

Web: www.petramcampbell.com

Email: kpmm@ozemail.com.au

Twitter: @petraau

Facebook:www.facebook.com/petra.campbell.31