Local Kiama resident and retired teacher Nola Tucker has been a major contributor of letters written to the Sydney Morning Herald, including Column 8. She averaged eight contributions each year for decades.

Nola describes Column 8 as “the fun bit of SMH”. She started this pursuit back in the 1960s, with her first letter relating to the Indonesian control of New Guinea.

Nola’s next letter came during John Howard’s time as Prime Minister and the introduction of the GST in the late nineties – meaty stuff! That ended up in the SMH book of published letters.

Then in 2013 along came Tony Abbott, who Nola describes as “a letter writer's dream.”

Nola is also good friends with Joan Brown who lives in Orange. Joan contacted Nola a few years ago and they still correspond, mostly about their letters. Nola said “Recently SMH published Joan’s 500th letter (since the 1990s) and there was a lot about her achievement last week in the Herald.”

Nola Tucker

Another local and prolific writer of letters to the Herald is Greg Martin Vale, a well-known Kiama artist. Nola says, “Not only is Greg a wonderful artist, but he also writes very good letters to the Herald, mostly on Arts subjects, and they are always very perceptive.”

The Bugle met with Greg, who is not one to ‘sit and stew’. He revealed that his motivation is really about social commentary; to “hold up a mirror” to the things he perceives as “madness”. 

He’s not politically motivated, but rather his letter-writing pursuits over the last 20 years was really to “get things off his chest.” Greg says, “By writing these letters, I am able to ‘exorcise’ the negative thoughts.”

In one such letter in the Herald’s Opinion column on 16 Feb 2023, Greg commented on what he described as the ‘ludicrous’ practice of ‘gay conversion therapy’, which is apparently still a thing in 2023. He makes the valid point that “No course of therapy would ever convince one to change.” He says, “You either like oysters or you don’t,” and suggests, “Let’s accept people as they are and move on.” Hear hear!

Greg writes about a wide range of topics, i.e. the experience of going to a movie theatre, as opposed to watching movies on the TV in the loungeroom, or architecture (his passion), theatre or art living on to reflect and nourish our lives, or the devastating effects of gambling addiction. He has had more than 80 articles published.  

The Bugle commends our locals ‘with an opinion’ and invites others with something to say to let us know what it is. We will soon be starting an ‘Opinion column’. Watch this space.