The May 25 Edition

Sometimes, just as we’re preparing to send an issue of Good Weekend to print, I realise there are gossamer threads tying a number of the stories together. Often, that’s just coincidence; occasionally, though, it says something about the moment in which we’re living. David Leser’s paean to the Bondi Icebergs pool (and the documentary film Ian Darling has made about it) is at heart a story about how an eclectic bunch of swimmers get through the seasons of life by showing up daily to swim laps – and talk, laugh and drink coffee together. Elsewhere in the issue, Melissa Fyfe takes a peek into the lives of a group of Melburnians who’ve survived marriage bust-ups and the other side-swipes of life, thanks to the friendship and dark humour of their pithily named Unsatisfactory Spouses Club. And Victoria Laurie’s story about Ken Wyatt, Australia’s first Indigenous minister for Aboriginal Affairs, underlines the destructive power of excluding people from a community – of othering. To finally read in historic government files what his family members endured brought home to Wyatt the need for change – and for compensation. – Editor, Katrina Strickland