Rickshaws in "House of Love"

 

House of Love by Susan Terry

This one was another find, slightly wrecked but only $1.00 from an op shop. Didn't get through all of it, but repaired its cover so for now its a keeper.

Another one I've read recently. Both Round the Bend and House of love deal with minor religions, in the case of House of Love its Hoa Hao Buddhism.

Susan Terry. Cool hat!

Some ....

Pics... and

 ....excerpts

from the book.

And a few more pics which I

managed to

find on the

internet.

Hi

There are a few formal and informal Book Swap Libraries around our suburb and neighbouring suburbs, and I frequent them to look for books I want to collect or read or pass on to my wife, Mum or Dad or anyone else. Sofar I collect books by Spike Milligan, Sun Books, Virago Books, Nevil Shute, Kerry Greenwood, Arthur Upfield, and surfing and bike books. Whew! 

One is in our local resource and recovery centre, but that's closed due to covid  Anyway, my recumbent bike is quite good for sidling up to the libraries fitted into front fences. 

So anyway, a few weeks ago I picked up a copy of the 1966 book "House of Love", "Life in a Vietnamese Hospital" by  Australian Nurse Susan Terry, written during her one year tour of duty to Vietnam, near Saigon, during the Vietnam War. So not a picnic. Anyway, possibly not my usual fare, but it had pictures of rickshaws, cyclos and bikes in it.

So I had another look at it a few days ago, and thought hang on, these rickshaws look different, and they were a sort of bicycle with trailer rather than an all in one rickshaw vehicle.  Then I looked at Chasing Rickshaws by Wheeler and I'Anson , and they weren't there, or in The Rickshaws of Bangladesh by Gallagher either. Finally I found some similar machines on Getty Images.

So these Cyclo trailers are actually closer to the original human-pulled rickshaws than the current Vietnam delta cyclo, one of which my family owned for a while. They seem to have been pulled by bicycles or motorcycles. Around in the mid 60's, they had died out by the end of the century. There are advantages and disadvantages to the cycle  / trailer combo vs. complete cyclo machine, but the cyclo seems to have won out. By way of contrast, you see both caravans and motorhomes on Australian roads.

The cover of my copy of House of Love is completely wrecked and I plan to reconstitute it, probably with some extra rickshaw pictures.

Update October 4, 2021

On Saturday I took the book over to Mum and Dad's, as the book's author was most likely one of their contemporaries. I showed it to my 90 year old dad and he said he'd like to read it, he said he knew most of the doctors listed in the back of the book (Dad was a dermatologist, Mum a nurse).

We also discussed my bike book and he had been reading it and said he was halfway through. The chapter by Nell Sudano, he had been reading as written by Neil Sudano, so said he was greatly surprised to read about Neil's menopause, and then had to read the name again a bit more carefully. Oh!

As well as House of Love, I handed over Sue Grafton's "T is for Trespass" which was another one from a roadside book library, and we discussed the various letters and book titles in the series.

Anyway, finished reading House of Love now, I need to get on with the recovering and then I will pass it on to Dad next week.

 

Regards

Steve Nurse