Saying Goodbye to Ararat
After they decided not to proceed to America Gordon sent for the crate of personal effects they had forwarded to USA six months ahead of their original departure date.
“Oh, won’t it be lovely to have some of our own things again,” Beverley sounded excited. “It didn’t seem right to replace them when we knew we’d get them back some day, but I have missed the pressure cooker and some of the kitchen gadgets.”
“I’ve certainly missed my books and typewriter,” Gordon broke in. “I hated constantly borrowing from someone else. I’ll go to Melbourne next week and get the crate out of bond and brought up here. They’ll charge the earth, I guess.”
“But it will be lovely to have china that matches and enough saucepans to prepare a meal without juggling food from pot to pot.”
“Bless you,” Gordon smiled at her. “You do a great job, with whatever you have.”
By the time the crate arrived their excitement had reached a high point. Gordon borrowed a hammer and carefully levered up the wooden lid and Beverley tore at the packing paper.
“Ooh, smell the mothballs.” She pulled out blankets and bed linens, deeply creased and wrinkled, but usable. “We must be careful now, Gordon. I remember that our dinner set is packed here under the bed linen.” She reached for a crushed cardboard carton and even as she touched it the clink of its shattered contents made her bite her lips. “I think some of it’s broken.”
That was an understatement. Gordon took one look and pushed the carton aside. He delved into the crate and brought out saucepans, badly dented out of shape. Beverley shook her head.
“Here’s the typewriter.” Gordon’s hands trembled with eagerness as he carefully pulled the padding and wrappings off the machine. Alas, the precious typewriter was buckled in the middle. With a sigh he set it on top of the carton of broken crockery.
The deeper they delved into the box the more depressed they became. Every item was bent, battered, broken or in some way rendered useless.
Fortunately the books, though flattened and musty smelling, were readable. They were the only items that provided any joy. Even the winter clothes so carefully folded and so eagerly awaited now looked old fashioned. Beverley held a favourite skirt against her waist and swallowed hard as she observed. “I’ve put on weight. This will never fit me now.”
“Let’s send it all to the tip.” Gordon put an arm around his tearful wife: “We’ll begin all over again, Beverley.”
The remainder of the year flew by. In November Gordon published a provocative pamphlet titled “Re-thinking Restoration,” in which he challenged some long accepted theology. This was Number 128 of a series released by the Federal Literature Committee of the Australian Churches of Christ, and carried the warning that the “Opinions expressed in this series are the author’s own.”
On Sunday December 5, fourteen new members of the Ararat Church of Christ took charge of a special Thanksgiving Service, in which Gordon preached a stirring sermon giving God the glory for all the success that had attended his efforts in Ararat.
On the 14th he acted as one of the University Examination invigilators. Some of the exam papers disappeared and the Department had to set new ones, but apart from that excitement everything proceeded smoothly and Gordon chalked up yet another experience.
Then Chris Fisher got into the act and peppered the local newspaper with eulogistic articles bearing such headlines as:
DYNAMIC YOUNG MINISTER LEAVES THIS MONTH, YOUTH LOSES GREAT FRIEND,
and his piece de resistance:
A MAN WHO MADE FRIENDS EVERYWHERE.
“During Mr Moyes’ ministry in Ararat…the Sunday School and Youth Work has trebled….Finances at the Ararat Church of Christ have increased 150%... While in Ararat Mr Moyes spoke to an average of 1,000 people each week through clubs, Sunday Schools and religious instruction in State and High Schools. He has addressed more than 60 community groups, from Rotary to the Penguin Club, from the CWA to the ex Nurses’ Association, as well as speaking at civic functions and ceremonies.”
Tucked in among all the tributes he paid to his friend, Chris inserted the simple announcement “Mr J. E. Paver, who is the minister of the Montrose Church of Christ, will be Ararat’s new minister.”
After a flurry of farewell functions and goodbyes the Moyes moved into the Cheltenham manse and commenced their Cheltenham ministry on January 16, 1966.
For more than a century the tall tower of the gleaming white Church of Christ overlooked the sleepy little market-garden community of Cheltenham. A butcher, a baker, an undertaker, a post office, a bank, four churches, and a few shops and businesses made up the community which was still largely dependent on nearby market-gardens for its existence.
Everyone in the district knew everyone else and all resented the obvious fact that Melbourne city’s tentacles were reaching out and clutching at their fields. Soon Cheltenham would be squeezed into the mould of an outer-city suburb. Already the day and night noise from incessant traffic bombarded the manse on the corner of Nepean Highway and Chesterville Street.
Noise was not the only thing that worried the new occupants. During their first week—apart from a polite visit from a few of the church officials—no one else had come near them.
Chris Fisher saw to it that Moyes had a newsworthy departure from Ararat. In the entire district only someone who was blind or illiterate could have failed to know that the local Church of Christ minister had changed parishes.
The arrival in Cheltenham of that same minister was so totally different that Gordon felt his ego shrinking. No one, press or public, knew or cared that a “DYNAMIC YOUNG MINISTER” had arrived in their town. For two days he pondered the situation and then he visited Graham Hilbig, the local Church of Christ secretary, and asked whether the newspaper had been notified of the Moyes’ arrival.
“No. It’s no use.” Graham snorted. “You won’t get anything in the Moorabbin Standard. The editor’s a Greek chap, anti-Australian and anti-Christian, says he’s an atheist. About the only thing he’s interested in is sport. I heard he was a wrestler once.”
“What’s his name?”
“George Coote.”
At first hearing the name meant nothing to Gordon. But as he drove back to the manse he probed his memory for clues. George Coote. George Coote. Ah, slowly it came back to him. While he was growing up in Box Hill his mother thought that he should learn the art of self-defence. Accordingly she sent him to Melbourne YMCA to take weekly lessons in boxing and wrestling.
Gordon particularly enjoyed the wrestling. Boxing didn’t need much in the way of brain-power, but wrestling was fast, clean and skilful, attributes that he admired and could develop.
At that time George Coote was a contemporary hero of this sport, He had been a member of the Australian Team in the Melbourne 1956 Olympics, and Gordon greatly admired him.
Aha, he said to himself, now I’ve got that all sorted out, there’s no harm in trying. Immediately he reached home he sat down and wrote a letter to Mr Coote.
“Dear Mr Coote: I have just arrived here as Minister of the Cheltenham Church of Christ and I am most anxious to establish a good working relationship with “The Moorabbin Standard News.” Since my arrival I have heard you described as a new Australian, an atheist, a wrestler and a whole lot of other things. At least I recognized the wrestler bit. I remember you from the 1956 Olympics. I was so proud of your achievement.
“When I was a youngster I learned Greco-Roman wrestling at the YMCA in Melbourne and I’ve always felt that wrestlers are among the fastest, most intelligent and cleanest sportsmen.
“I cannot believe that you have a total set against having any Church information printed in your newspaper. Obviously we pastors are not doing this correctly. Would it be possible for us to have lunch together, so you can tell me what we must do to have articles published in `The Moorabbin Standard News?’ Yours sincerely, Gordon Moyes.”
To his surprise two days later he received a reply in the form of a telephone call. Mr Coote was pleased to be remembered as a wrestler and he invited Gordon to meet him for lunch in the public bar of the Cheltenham Arms Hotel the following Tuesday.
After only a momentary hesitation Gordon agreed. He had misgivings about the venue, but he felt that the newspaper editor was putting him to some kind of test.
Promptly at noon the next Tuesday Gordon entered the hotel and marched self-consciously up to the bar to order steak and chips and a glass of lemon squash. Then he looked around for the editor. Over at a corner table sat a swarthy gentleman with a shock of curly black hair, and shoulders that looked almost as wide as he was tall. He must be George Coote.
Feeling a little as David must have felt when he approached Goliath, Gordon walked toward the table. George Coote leapt to his feet and held out his hand.
“Ah, Mr Moyes.” He glanced at Gordon’s lemon squash. “I see you’re not into beer.”
Gordon’s eyes rested on Mr Coote’s meal set out on the table—steak, chips and lemon squash. “I see you’re not into beer, either.”
They both laughed and from then on conversation flowed easily. Soon Gordon found the reason that no church news was ever printed in the Moorabbin Standard was not because of bias.
“The churches never give me anything worth printing.” George Coote glared fiercely at Gordon. “They use a sheet of butchers’ paper and scrawl out a bit of tripe about special services or a Sunday School concert. Just trying to get free advertising, that’s what they’re doing. That sort of stuff is not news. And the way they write—it’d take me a week to decipher the scrawl—and they’ve obviously never heard of spelling or grammar.”
Gordon nodded and chose his words with care. “So you would publish Christian news if it was properly presented.”
“Of course I would.”
“Then you tell me how it should be presented and the kind of news you want and I’ll see what I can do.” Gordon took out his pen and reached for a paper serviette on which to write. “Fire away.”
George Coote leaned back in his chair. “First of all it must be typed double-spaced, on good quality paper with wide margins and—”
By the time Gordon had jotted down all the editor’s requirements his steak and chips were greasy cold, but he didn’t care. He sensed that this meeting marked the beginning of a long and profitable friendship.
After carefully following all the rules, Gordon took his first news effort to George Coote personally and sought his approval. It was published. He tried again—and again. Occasionally the editor made a suggestion but in most cases Gordon’s news items were printed without any red-pencilling.
Within two years George Coote was not only publishing everything that Gordon presented but he was asking for more.
“What do you know about Easter?” he abruptly demanded one day when he met Gordon. “I don’t believe in God so I don’t write Christian editorials. But some people criticize the newspaper because of that.”
“I’ll write you an Easter editorial if you let me do one about Christmas too,” Gordon parried.
“All right.”
These articles were printed without question and gradually Gordon added Mothers’ Day, Queen’s Birthday, Australia Day and many other subjects that had previously been ignored.
In time George Coote became editor-in-chief of 18 other suburban newspapers and he used Gordon’s editorials and articles in each one of them. Newspapers in other states picked up and printed some of Gordon’s writings and excerpts reached radio and TV. His newspaper columns were syndicated across Australia for 20 years, many of them through a network operated by Chris Fisher when he became a newspaper proprietor.
As a writer, Gordon received another boost when Randall T. Pitman, one of Australia’s great classical scholars retired after 50 years of writing a continuing column in “The Australian Christian.” Now all those years of studying Greek came into their own when the new editor asked Gordon to take the column. Each week he wrote a scholarly article on a significant New Testament Greek word and its theological insight.
And it all began when he remembered the name of a childhood wrestling hero.
