She had to sign children away from their parents

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• There are zombies in your retreat centre

  In brief: At Jhana Grove a visiting child tells him there are zombies — retreatants doing very slow walking meditation.

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  zombie meditation I called it zombie meditation because it was a retreat being held at my retreat center in chag grve and a little kid went to visit with his parents and he came back to me I BR I BR I br there are zombies in your retreat center cuz they were doing what you can see outside now

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• The boy who spat on the classroom floor

  In brief: A school friend teaches at a tough comprehensive in Wandsworth around the time of the Brixton riots. A boy spits on the floor in front of…

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  I recall one of my old school friends. He became a teacher, a school teacher, and he chose one of the worst schools in the whole of England. It was in Wandsworth, Wandsworth Comprehensive School, I think it was. Actually I shouldn't say it's the worst school because the teachers were very motivated. They had some tough kids in that school. That was a suburb of London next to Brixton and it was at that time they had the big Brixton riots in the south of London. So they had some very tough kids in this school. He told the story once that his class of kids came into the classroom one day and one of the kids spat on his feet, on his shoes. Actually, not on his shoes, just on the floor just in front, just after walking in. So he was quite firm, he said, 'Clean that up.' And the kid said, 'Eff off.' Now what would you do as a teacher you know, if somebody did that and swore at you. So he said, 'Go straight to the deputy principal,' who was the disciplinarian. So he sent the kid to the deputy principal. About a half an hour, an hour later, the deputy principal came into the classroom with his arm around this boy. The deputy principal had time to find out what was happening with this kid and found out the night before the father had viciously beaten his mother and she was hospitalised. The police had been around. The whole family had been separated. Here was like a young 11 or 12 year-old who probably hardly slept that night who just witnessed his father and mother, who he depends upon, the mother he loved dearly, just viciously beaten and sent to hospital. He said, 'Now you understand why he did that.'

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• The Pinjarra girl who fed the tiger snake

  In brief: Elder in a Pinjarra home recalls: a little girl takes a saucer of milk under the stumped house each morning for a tiger snake. Mother…

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  old people's home in Pinara and because they didn't get any visitors and seeing a monk in there was great you know this old old uh people and one of them told me this wonderful story I don't know how many years ago this would have been maybe 60 or 70 years ago when he saw this he was a young man at the time and this was about 30 years ago. He told me this story and he was you know in the old people's home now so maybe even older but he said that in that area in Pinter one of his friends you know living in one of these simple old houses and saw a um uh he had a daughter maybe four or five years of age and the daughter would ask the mother for a source of milk every morning and the mother you know they thought milk was going to be very healthy for the kid and asking for something We give the daughter a saucer of milk. Now why not a glass? She said no a saucer please. So after a while mom being very busy decided you know what's why does she want a saucer? Why does she drink it you know in the kitchen? Why does she take it outside? And so she followed her little five or six year old daughter and saw the five or sixyear-old daughter place the saucer of milk just on the foot of the house. you know, the the houses on stumps, raised on stumps, just and call out to whatever was living underneath the house. And a big tiger snake came out. And of course, the daughter was only a maybe a foot away from the tiger snake. And the mother freaked out because the tiger snakes were deadly, as many of you know, and her daughter was so close. And the daughter was feeding this tiger snake every day with a saucer of milk. And so she froze and waited for the snake to drink the milk and then slither away and told her her husband the next that evening. And the husband said, "I'll look after this. No need to do anything. Just give our daughter the source of milk tomorrow." Which she did. And so the little girl, five or six years of age, it went outside the house, put the source of milk down, and called out to its friend, the tiger snake. And the tiger snake slithered out. And just before it drank the milk, its head was blasted off by her father's gun, killed right in front of the girl. From that day on, the girl refused to eat. There's nothing they could do to make it to eat. And this old man said, you know, he called it she started ftting. Never heard that word in that context before. Was ftting and ftting. Eventually, she had to be admitted into the local hospital. But even the local hospital couldn't help her and she died in the hospital. Just so much sadness. so much trauma of seeing this snake killed right in front of her. And this old digger said the father might as well shot her daughter's head off at the time

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• She sat on the stone stairs when thunder came

  In brief: A London Blitz survivor, years later, stops whatever she is doing at every thunderstorm and sits on the stone stairs — the safest place…

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  Every time there was a thunderstorm over that part of London and the lightning bmed and cracked, it would bring back the memories of that episode during the Second World War. And whatever she was doing, she would stop and go and sit on the stairs. It was a second story flat she was living in. She would sit there because she was taught as a young woman that was the safest place in the house in wooden houses. The stairs were made of uh mostly um stone. They were tougher. So that's where she would sit. And after the thunderstorm had passed, she come back and join us. That was her way of dealing with it. It may not be the standard way but that was the way which worked for her

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