Action Learning in Practice 4th Edition Mike Pedler

Action Learning in Practice 4th Edition Mike Pedler
download pdf
https://ebookultra.com/download/action-learning-in-practice-4th-edition-
mike-pedler/
Visit ebookultra.com today to download the complete set of
ebook or textbook!

Here are some recommended products for you. Click the link to
download, or explore more at ebookultra.com
Multiple Intelligences in Practice enhancing self esteem
and learning in the classroom Mike Fleetham
https://ebookultra.com/download/multiple-intelligences-in-practice-
enhancing-self-esteem-and-learning-in-the-classroom-mike-fleetham/
Git in Practice 1st Edition Mike Mcquaid
https://ebookultra.com/download/git-in-practice-1st-edition-mike-
mcquaid/
Automated Machine Learning in Action 1st Edition Qingquan
Song
https://ebookultra.com/download/automated-machine-learning-in-
action-1st-edition-qingquan-song/
How Assessment Supports Learning Learning Oriented
Assessment in Action 1st Edition David Carless
https://ebookultra.com/download/how-assessment-supports-learning-
learning-oriented-assessment-in-action-1st-edition-david-carless/

Teaching and Learning Through Reflective Practice A
Practical Guide for Positive Action 2nd Edition Tony Ghaye
https://ebookultra.com/download/teaching-and-learning-through-
reflective-practice-a-practical-guide-for-positive-action-2nd-edition-
tony-ghaye/
A Spanish Learning Grammar Second Edition Mike Thacker
https://ebookultra.com/download/a-spanish-learning-grammar-second-
edition-mike-thacker/
Informed systems organizational design for learning in
action 1st Edition Somerville
https://ebookultra.com/download/informed-systems-organizational-
design-for-learning-in-action-1st-edition-somerville/
Learning in Landscapes of Practice Boundaries Identity and
Knowledgeability in Practice Based Learning 1st Edition
Etienne Wenger-Trayner
https://ebookultra.com/download/learning-in-landscapes-of-practice-
boundaries-identity-and-knowledgeability-in-practice-based-
learning-1st-edition-etienne-wenger-trayner/
Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action 4th Edition
Tim Bond
https://ebookultra.com/download/standards-and-ethics-for-counselling-
in-action-4th-edition-tim-bond/

Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Mike Pedler
ISBN(s): 9781409418412, 1409418413
Edition: 4
File Details: PDF, 3.64 MB
Year: 2011
Language: english

Action Learning in Practice
Edited by
Mike Pedler
4th Edition

This page has been left blank intentionally

Action Learning
in Practice
Edited by
Mike Pedler
Henley Business School, UK

IV
© Mike Pedler and the contributors 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Mike Pedler has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the editor of this work.
Published by
Gower Publishing Limited Gower Publishing Company
Wey Court East Suite 420
Union Road 101 Cherry Street
Farnham Burlington
Surrey VT 05401-4405
GU9 7PT USA
England
www.gowerpublishing.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Action learning in practice. – 4th ed. 1. Active learning. 2. Organizational learning.
3. Executives – Training of.
I. Pedler, Mike (Mike John), 1944–
658.4’07’1245–dc22
ISBN 9781409418412 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409418429 (ebk)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Action learning in practice / [edited by] Mike Pedler. – 4th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-1841-2 (hbk. : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4094-1842-9
(ebook) 1. Executives – Training of. 2. Organizational change – Study and teaching.
I. Pedler, Mike (Mike John), 1944–
HD30.4.A3 2011
658.4’07124–dc23
2011018047

Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Notes on Contributors xiii
The State of the Artxxi
Mike Pedler
PART 1 Origins
Introduction to Part 1 3
Chapter 1 Action Learning: Its Origins and Nature 5
Reg Revans
Chapter 2 The Enterprise as a Learning System 15
Reg Revans
Chapter 3 The Power of Action Learning 21
bob garratt
Chapter 4 Minding our Ps and Qs 35
John Morris
Chapter 5 Continuity in Action Learning 45
Jean Lawrence
Chapter 6 David Casey on the Role of the Set Adviser 55
Ddavid Casey
Chapter 7 Digging Deeper: Foundations of Revans’ Gold Standard of
Action Learning 71
Verna J. Willis
Chapter 8 Ad Fontes – Reg Revans: Some Early Sources of His Personal
Growth and Values 81
Yury Boshyk
Chapter 9 Getting Started: An Action Manual 93
David Pearce

vi A cti o n Lear nin g in Pract ice
Part 2 Varieties
Chapter 10 Self-Managed Action Learning 113
Tom Bourner
Chapter 11 Action Reflection Learning 125
Lennart Rohlin
Chapter 12 Business-Driven Action Learning Today 141
Yury Boshyk
Chapter 13 Virtual Action Learning 153
Mollie Goodman and Jean-Anne Stewart
Chapter 14 Critical Action Learning 163
Kiran Trehan
Chapter 15 The Practice and Politics of Living Inquiry 173
Judi Marshall
Chapter 16 The Varieties of Action Learning in Practice: A Rose by Any
Other Name? 183
Judy O’Neil and Victoria J. Marsick
part 3 Applications
Chapter 17 Leadership 199
Richard Thorpe
Chapter 18 Developing Facilitative Leaders: Action Learning Facilitator
Training as Leadership Development 211
Katie Venner
Chapter 19 Action Learning in SME Development 221
Lisa Anderson, Jeff Gold and Allan Gibb
Chapter 20 Addressing Systemic Issues in Public Services 233
Clare Rigg
Chapter 21 Action Learning for Organization Development in South Korea 249
Yonjoo Cho and Hyeon-Cheol Bong

vii
Contents
Chapter 22 Facilitation and the Affective Domain 261
Ian McGill and Anne Brockbank
Chapter 23 Learning to be an Action Learning Facilitator:
Three Approaches 273
Christine Abbott and Tom Boydell
Chapter 24 Action Learning and Organization Development 285
John Edmonstone
Chapter 25 Network Learning in an Austrian Hospital – Revisited 297
Otmar Donnenberg
Chapter 26 Action Learning and Social Capital 313
Mike Pedler and Margaret Attwood
Chapter 27 Action Learning around the World 325
Michael J. Marquardt
Part 4 Questions
Chapter 28 Action learning: A Pragmatic and Moral Philosophy 343
John Burgoyne
Chapter 29 Practical Knowing: The Philosophy and Methodology of
Action Learning Research 357
David Coghlan
Chapter 30 The Action Modalities: Action Learning’s Good Company 369
Joe Raelin
Chapter 31 Action in Action Learning 381
Roland Yeo and Jeff Gold
Chapter 32 Learning in Action or Learning Inaction? Emotion and
Politics in Action Learning 391
Russ Vince
Chapter 33 Reflective Practice: Origins and Interpretations 403
Michael Reynolds
Chapter 34 Adult Learning Theories and the Practice of Action Learning 415
Deborah Waddill and Michael Marquardt

viii A cti o n Lear nin g in Pract ice
Chapter 35 Evaluating Action Learning: A Perspective Informed by
Critical Realism, Network and Complex Adaptive Systems
Theory427
John Burgoyne
Index439

List of Figures
Figure I.1 Three types of problem xxiii
Figure 3.1 The crucial formula for the survival of an organism 24
Figure 3.2 Diagram of the typical amount of risk taken by a manager 26
Figure 3.3 The two worlds of the organization and the integration mechanism 26
Figure 3.4 The organizational hierarchy 27
Figure 3.5 Operational and strategic learning loops 28
Figure 3.6 Action-fixated cycle of learning 31
Figure 3.7 Action learning cycle 31
Figure 3.8 Projects and participants in the project set 31
Figure 3.9 The job/organization matrix 32
Figure 4.1 The Good Company model 42
Figure 9.1 The action learning decision process 95
Figure 9.2 The learning matrix 96
Figure 9.3 Deciding the type of action learning programme 97
Figure 9.4 The set 99
Figure 9.5 Action learning web 106
Figure 10.1 Conclusions about the values and beliefs that underpin
action learning 118
Figure 11.1 The Actor strategy for change and development 126
Figure 11.2 An Action Reflection Learning perspective on human beings 127
Figure 11.3 The learning actor model 128
Figure 11.4 The both-and principle in design of learning interventions 130
Figure 11.5 Action Reflection Learning, a summary highlighting the
learning dimension 131
Figure 11.6 Some dimensions in the paradigmatic shift (as perceived in 1994) 133
Figure 11.7 The context of leadership 134
Figure 11.8 Adapted from Rhinesmith 1993 135
Figure 12.1 What is Business-Driven Action Learning today? 143
Figure 12.2 Example of voluntary and fluid self-organization by Business
Challenge teams working on the Business Challenge 147
Figure 12.3 Business-Driven Action Learning and its component parts 150
Figure 16.1 Formal and informal learning 184

x A cti o n Lear nin g in Pract ice
Figure 16.2 Schools of action learning 185
Figure 16.3 Action learning pyramid 190
Figure 17.1 A comparison of the conceptual building blocks of
entrepreneurship and leadership (Perrin, 1991) 203
Figure 19.1 Modes of learning and reflection 225
Figure 20.1 Members of the Public Service Leadership Alliance: national
leadership bodies in England (2009) 234
Figure 25.1 Elements of the ‘learning care’ hospital management
development programme 299
Figure 25.2 Project topics in the ‘learning care’ hospital management
development programme 300
Figure 25.3 The four basic approaches of ‘flexible coaching’ 306
Figure 25.4 Three-fold goal orientation of action learning 310
Figure 28.1 Critical realism and action learning 346
Figure 28.2 World as open system with emergent properties 347
Figure 28.3 The map is not the territory 351
Figure 28.4 Trajectories in the recent multiple development of action learning 351
Figure 29.1 The DNA of an action learning dissertation 365
Figure 31.1 Continuum of actions 382
Figure 31.2 Vygotsky’s action triangle 387
Figure 33.1 Experience – experience revisited 404
Figure 34.1 Elements of action learning 418
Figure 35.1 The Kirkpatrick evaluation model 428
Figure 35.2 Cause and effect in a simple world 429
Figure 35.3 Cause and effect in a complex world 430
Figure 35.4 Levels of the vertical ontology and emergence from the
physical to the social 432

List of Tables
Table 13.1 Varieties of Virtual Action Learning 154
Table 21.1 Two types of action learning 250
Table 21.2 Profile of case companies 252
Table 21.3 Differences of case companies’ action learning practices 255
Table 22.1 Contrasting roles of facilitator and coach 263
Table 23.1 Three approaches to development as an action learning facilitator 274
Table 26.1 Processes of social capital formation and possible indicators 321
Table 29.1 Philosophy of action learning research 364
Table 32.1 The organization of ‘learning inaction’ 399

Notes on Contributors
Christine Abbott is Co-Director of the Centre for Action Learning Facilitation and an
independent action learning facilitator. Her background is in the health and social care
sector where she has worked in a number of senior management roles. More recently she
has been engaged in action learning facilitation in the private sector in Europe, Morocco,
Syria, China, USA and South America. Christine co-wrote the action learning qualification
standards for the UK Qualification and Curriculum Framework and has developed
and delivered facilitator training in the UK social care sector and local government.
Christine, a former chairman, is a Director and Trustee of the Institute for Leadership and
Management. She is working towards a PhD at York University, researching the impact of
action learning in global organizations.
christine@c-alf.org (or cabbott0@gmail.com)
Lisa Anderson is Senior Lecturer in Management Education at the University of
Liverpool Management School where she leads the online MBA and DBA (by Critical
Action Learning) programmes. Lisa has been facilitating and researching action learning
for over ten years with groups of postgraduate students and with sets comprised of
owner–managers of small businesses. She has a particular interest in the nature of critical
reflection in action learning and in evaluating its impact both on individuals and small
businesses.
l.anderson@liverpool.ac.uk
Margaret Attwood is a Director of Action Learning for Service Improvement and
a Non Executive Director of the Dimensions Group, a large charity serving people
with learning disabilities and autism throughout England and Wales. She also chairs
Dimensions Community Enterprises – a growing social enterprise organization, providing
employment and training. Her consultancy work ranges from action learning and self-
managed learning, to work with management teams and boards, single organization
development and whole system approaches across organization boundaries, fostering
partnerships and improving service delivery through collaboration and the strengthening
of innovation.
Hyeon-Cheol Bong is a Professor of the Department of Business Administration at
Chonbuk National University in South Korea and Chairperson of the Korean Action
Learning Association, which has about 700 members and has operated actively since 2005.
His research interest is focused on action learning and human resource development. His
activities as a consultant and learning coach include facilitation of action learning teams,
design and implementation of action learning programmes as well as training learning.
coaches. hcbong@hanmail.net

xiv A cti o n Lear nin g in Pract ice
Yury Boshyk is an adviser, educator and author. He is Chairman of the Global Executive
Learning Network (www.GEL-net.com) and the annual Global Forum on Executive
Development and Business Driven Action Learning (www.globalforumactionlearning.
com). He was formerly Professor at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. He received his doctorate
from the University of Oxford and his MSc from the London School of Economics. He is
the editor of Business Driven Action Learning: Global Best Practices (2000); Action Learning
Worldwide: Experiences of Leadership and Organizational Development (2002); Action Learning:
History and Evolution (2010) and Action Learning and Its Applications (2010), the last two
with Robert L. Dilworth. He is presently working on a biography of Reg Revans, and
Accelerating Business Results, a guide to Business Driven Action Learning.
Yury@gel-net.com
Tom Bourner is Emeritus Professor of Personal and Professional Development at
the University of Brighton. He discovered action learning in the mid-1980s when he
was much influenced by the first edition of this book. After that, most of what he did
professionally was influenced by action learning and the values that support it. Until he
retired from full-time work he was Head of Research in the Business School and led the
Management Development Research Unit. He is still an active researcher and scholar with
continuing interests in action learning, reflective learning, identifying talents/strengths,
service learning, developing students’ powers of learning and developing the idea of the
fully-functioning university.
tom.bourner@ntlworld.com
Tom Boydell is Joint Managing Director of Inter-Logics and specializes in using
action learning and coaching processes in leadership, management and organization
development within public services and commercial sectors in the UK and overseas. He
has authored and co-authored over 40 books including the best-selling A Manager’s Guide
to Self-development (5th Edition, 2006).
tom@inter-logics.net
Anne Brockbank is a learning and development consultant and her activities include
action learning and executive coaching. She is co-author with Ian McGill of Facilitating
Reflective Learning in Higher Education published in 1998 by the Open University Press,
with a second edition in 2007. She is co-author with Ian McGill of The Action Learning
Handbook (2004) and Facilitating Reflective Learning through Mentoring and Coaching (2006)
A second edition is in preparation for Kogan Page.
A.Brockbank@mailbox.ulcc.ac.uk
www.BrockbankMcGill.co.uk
John Burgoyne is Professor of Management Learning in the Department of Management
Learning and Leadership at Lancaster University Management School. He is also an
Associate at Ashridge Management College and Henley Business School. In addition he is
a Trustee of Brathay Trust, an outdoor development charity, and a fellow of the Leadership
Foundation and the British Academy of Management. His interests are management,
leadership and organization development and the evaluation of initiatives in these areas.
He has been interested in the learning organization since the late 1980s and is currently
working on network theory as applied to all these areas.

xv
David Casey (1931–2005) was a schoolteacher at St. Benedicts, Ealing, a research scientist
at Berger Paints, a manager at Reed International and, from 1972, a freelance consultant.
He met Reg Revans in a pub on the Tottenham Court Road in 1969 and worked with
action learning in the GEC Programmes and later with chief executive sets at Ashridge
College. His 1977 book (with David Pearce) More than Management Development: Action
Learning at GEC was seminal for many early practitioners. He wrote in the 1997 edition
of this book that ‘he was changing from a consultant who does the odd bit of painting in
watercolour to a watercolour artist who does the odd bit of consulting’.
Yonjoo Cho is an Assistant Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana
University at Bloomington, USA. She has worked as a human resources professional for
more than ten years in South Korea, in both the business and academic sectors. Her latest
position was MBA Director and Visiting Professor at KAIST Business School. Based on
her experience as an external facilitator in large companies in South Korea, she conducts
research on organizational learning and action learning.
choyonj@indiana.edu
David Coghlan is Professor of Organization Development at the School of Business, Trinity
College Dublin, Ireland and is a Fellow of the College. He has published over 70 articles and book
chapters. Recent co-authored books include: Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization
(Sage, 1st Edition, 2001, 2nd Edition, 2005 and 3rd Edition 2010) and Collaborative Strategic
Improvement through Network Action Learning (Edward Elgar, 2011). He is co-editor of the four-
volume set, Fundamentals of Organization Development (Sage, 2010). He is on the editorial
reviews boards of Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and Action Research. He is currently Co-
Editor of the Accounts of Practice section of Action Learning: Research and Practice.
dcoghlan@tcd.ie
Otmar Donnenberg is Austrian by origin and became an independent OD-consultant in
1987, focusing on learning strategies of change and working on projects in the Netherlands,
Germany and Austria, chiefly in industry and health care. In 1999 he published Action Learning:
A Handbook, a reader in the German language, offering a combined view on Action Learning,
Action Science and the Critical Pedagogy of Paulo Freire. At present he is concentrating on
coaching for change and is engaged in the field of community currencies as an essential
means to establish favourable conditions for urgently needed social development.
otmar@donnenberg.nl
www.donnenberg.nl
John Edmonstone tries to walk the line between practice and theory in the fields of
action learning, clinical leadership and coaching. He runs a consultancy based in North
Yorkshire working largely with the UK National Health Service and he also holds a
number of part-time academic appointments. His action learning work is largely with
clinical leaders and managers. He is author of The Action Learner’s Toolkit (Gower, 2003).
Bob Garratt is a ‘pracademic’ who consults on board and top team development,
strategic thinking and organizational change through action learning processes. He
is Visiting Professor in Corporate Governance at Cass Business School, London, and

xvi A cti o n Lear nin g in Pract ice
Professor Extraordinaire at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa,
where he chairs the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa. His books include The
Fish Rots From The Head (3rd Edition); Thin on Top; The Learning Organisation.
www.garrattlearningservices.com
Allan Gibb is Professor Emeritus at the University of Durham. He has a lifelong interest
in small business development and entrepreneurial research, policy and practice.
enterprise@allangibb.com
JeffGoldisProfessorofOrganisationLearningatLeedsBusinessSchool,LeedsMetropolitan
University and a Fellow of the Northern Leadership Academy. He is a founding member
of the School’s HRD and Leadership Research Unit. He is also the co-author of Human
Resource Management: Theory and Practice (Palgrave, 2007) (with John Bratton), Leadership
and Management Development (CIPD, 2010) (with Alan Mumford and Richard Thorpe) and
co-editor of Human Resource Development: Theory and Practice (Palgrave) (with Paul Iles,
Rick Holden, Jim Stewart and Julie Beardwell) and The Gower Handbook of Leadership and
Management Development (Gower) (with Alan Mumford and Richard Thorpe).
j.gold@leedsmet.ac.uk
Mollie Goodman has been in academic and professional book publishing most of her
working life, taking time out to train as an executive business coach, and doing a Masters in
the adaptation of informal learning approaches, particularly action learning, coaching and
mentoring, to virtual environments, to support learning within an organizational culture.
She now works for ‘the book experts’ who help individuals to write, publish and distribute
their own books and to maximize the Internet and social media to develop their businesses.
m.goodman380@btinternet.com
http://pentacorbookdesign.co.uk
Jean Lawrence (1924–2010) was a Managing Partner (with John Morris) in the
Development Consortium, a management consultancy specializing in action learning and
organizational change. She had long associations with both Henley Management College
and Templeton College, Oxford and was previously a production manager at Cadburys and
a staff member at the Manchester Business School where she and John Morris employed
action learning ideas in joint development activities with partner organizations.
Michael Marquardt is Professor of Human Resource Development and International
Affairs at George Washington University. He also serves as President of the World Institute
for Action Learning (www.wial.org). He is the author of 24 books and over 100 professional
articles in the fields of action learning, leadership, globalization and organizational
change. Over one million copies of his publications have been sold in nearly a dozen
languages worldwide. His writings and accomplishments in action learning have earned
him honorary doctoral degrees from universities in Asia, Europe and North America.
marquard@gwu.edu.
Judi Marshall is Professor of Leadership and Learning in the Department of Management
Learning and Leadership at Lancaster University Management School, which she joined
in 2008. She had previously been a core member of the Centre for Action Research in

xvii
Professional Practice at the University of Bath’s School of Management. Judi currently works
on a range of leadership for sustainability activities, including Lancaster’s MA in Leadership
for Sustainability. Her interests also include inquiry as life practice, action research, women
in management, systemic change, the gendering of corporate responsibility and ‘responsible
careers’. She always seeks to integrate inquiry, research, practice and life.
judi.marshall@lancaster.ac.uk
Victoria Marsick is a Professor of Adult Learning and Leadership at Columbia University,
Teachers College. She holds a Ph.D. in Adult Education from the University of California,
Berkeley, and an M.P.A. in International Public Administration from Syracuse University. She
co-directs the J.M. Huber Institute for Learning in Organizations, dedicated to advancing the
state of knowledge and practice for learning and change in organizations. She is also a founding
member of Partners for Learning and Leadership, a group that works with organizations to
design, develop and implement strategic learning interventions. She has written extensively
on informal learning, action learning, team learning and organizational learning culture,
often in collaboration with Martha Gephart, Judy O’Neil, and/or Karen Watkins.
Ian McGill is a learning and development consultant. He facilitates action learning sets,
as well as enjoying friends, Spain and life in North London. His academic career and work
as a senior manager in central and local government led directly to his interest in and
writing on action learning and coaching. As well as The Action Learning Handbook, co-
authored with Anne Brockbank, a number of his books have related to action learning such
as Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education. He is currently preparing a publication
which will enable coaches to facilitate action learning.
ian.mcgill@mailbox.ulcc.ac
www.brockbankmcgill.co.uk
John Morris (1923–2005), the first chair in management development in Britain, was a
founding academic at the Manchester Business School. As a Professor he maintained his
role was learning as much as he could from practising managers and telling others what
he had learned. For his pioneering work in project-based learning he was awarded The
Burnham Medal from The British Institute of Management. He left Manchester Business
School in 1982 to work as a consultant in action learning and organizational change,
finishing a distinguished career as a Visiting Professor with the Revans Centre for Action
Learning and Research at Salford University.
Judy O’NeilisPresidentoftheconsultingfirmPartnersforLearningandLeadership,Inc.which
specializes in action technologies including action learning. She holds an EdD and MA in Adult
Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, New York and is on the adjunct faculty
at Teachers College. Her publications include Understanding Action Learning (2007) co-authored
with Victoria J. Marsick. Her clients have included Covidien, the Government of Bermuda,
Nielsen Media, Berlex Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Fidelity Investments,
PSEG, RR Donnelley, ATT, Ernst and Young, Norwest, and New York Transit Authority.
jaoneil@aol.com www.partnersforlearning.com
David Pearce first worked with Reg Revans on the GEC Senior Management Development
Programme in the mid 1970s, which was captured in More than Management Development

xviii A cti o n Lear nin g in Pract ice
– Action Learning at GEC, edited by Casey and Pearce. All sorts of action learning
experiences followed – a highlight was Action Learning for Chief Executives at Ashridge
Business School. Recently he was involved with Robin Ladkin of Ashridge Consulting in
the project to develop the management abilities of Welsh farming families. Managed by
Menter a Busnes, this programme is ongoing with more than 2,000 participants in more
than 175 sets: see Seeds For Change – Action Learning for Innovation edited by Pearce and
Williams (also available in Welsh).
Mike Pedler works, researches and writes on leadership, action learning, the learning
organization and network organizing. He is Emeritus Professor at Henley Business School,
University of Reading and co-edits the journal Action Learning: Research and Practice. He
first edited this book in 1983.
mikepedler@phonecoop.coop
Joe Raelin is an internationally-recognized scholar in the fields of work-based learning
and leadership. He holds the Asa. S. Knowles Chair of Practice-Oriented Education at
Northeastern University in Boston, USA, and is also Professor in the College of Business
Administration. He is the author of well over 100 articles and many books, including his
well-known Creating Leaderful Organizations and its accompanying Leaderful Fieldbook, as
well as Work-Based Learning: Bridging Knowledge and Action in the Workplace.
j.raelin@neu.edu
http://www.northeastern.edu/poe/about/raelin.htm
Reg Revans (1907–2003) was the founder of the action learning idea, although he
always attributed the essence of it to ancient wisdom. He was successively an Olympic
athlete for Britain (1928), a researcher in nuclear physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in
Cambridge (1928–1935), an educational reformer with Essex County Council (1935–45),
Professor of Management in Manchester (1955–65), and an independent researcher and
consultant thereafter. Politically a Liberal, he was a life-long pacifist and was involved in
the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In a tribute, David Casey wrote that Revans had
‘shifted forever some of the world’s assumptions about how managers learn’.
Michael Reynolds is Emeritus Professor of Management Learning at Lancaster
University. He has been director of full-time and part-time postgraduate programmes and
the doctoral programme in the Department of Management Learning and is currently
Director of the Doctoral Programme in e-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning in
the Department of Educational Research. His research interests are in student experiences
of experiential and participative learning designs, the application of critical perspectives
to pedagogy and in students’ experience of difference. He is co-editor with Russ Vince
(University of Bath) of Organizing Reflection (2004) and the Handbook of Experiential
Learning and Management Education (2007).
m.reynolds@lancaster.ac.uk
Clare Rigg is based at the Institute of Technology, Tralee, where she leads an action
learning-based MBA programme. She has worked with practitioners from all sectors
integrating action learning into management and leadership development programmes,
and is particularly interested in the fostering of inter-agency and cross-disciplinary

xix
working through collaborative learning. She has co-authored three books and numerous
chapters and articles on action learning, critical action learning, management learning
and HRD. She i currently co-editor of the Account of Practice section of the journal Action
Learning: Research and Practice.
clare.rigg@staff.ittralee.ie
Lennart Rohlin is the founder of MiL Institute (www.milinstitute.se) and the Action
Reflection Learning (ARL™) concept for ‘earning while learning’ and to ‘make strategy
happen’. He has had appointments at universities and business schools in Sweden, Finland
and the USA, and he has co-founded international institutions for executive education and
action research. He has written and edited about 50 books in the business and management
areas. He is the owner/president of MiLgårdarna – conference sites designed exclusively for
innovative professional meetings (www.milgardarna.se). Lennart has been world champion
in fencing and he lives in Lund, Sweden, with his two children, Mikaela and Melvin.
lennart.rohlin@milgardarna.se
Jean-Anne Stewart is responsible for corporate MBA programmes for a wide variety of
internationalclientsatHenleyBusinessSchool.Shespecializesinfacilitationandleadership
development and has led several European and UK research projects, particularly focused
on facilitation, action learning, third sector leadership and leadership development
and evaluation. Prior to joining Henley, she worked at British Airways developing their
internal facilitation and change capability programme.
jean-anne.stewart@henley.com
Richard Thorpe is Professor of Management Development at Leeds University Business
School. His interests include management learning and development and leadership. His
early industrial experiences inform the way his ethos has developed. Common themes
are: a strong commitment to process methodologies and a focus on action in all its
forms; and interest in and commitment to the development of doctoral students and
the development of capacity within the sector; a commitment to collaborative working
on projects of mutual interest. He is a fellow of the British Academy of Management and
Chair of the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.
Kiran Trehan is Professor in Management Learning and Leadership at Birmingham
University, prior to this Kiran was Director of HRD and Consulting at Lancaster
University Management School. Kiran is co-editor of Action Learning: Research and
Practice – the first international journal dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and
practice through action learning research and practice. Kiran’s key research interests are
in the field of action learning and action research, she is a key contributor to debates
on the distinctiveness of critical action learning, and how it can be applied in a variety of
organizational and policy domains.
K.trehan@lancaster.ac.uk
Katie Venner is an independent action learning facilitator and Senior Associate at Action
Learning Associates. Her background is in the cultural sector where she has worked in a
number of different roles. With colleagues at Action Learning Associates she developed
the Leadership Facilitation Skills course for the Government-funded Cultural Leadership

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:

90
91
that will spring up where old withered grass has been
burnt, when the rains come, settlers selfishly set fire to
it, if the wind is not blowing towards their homesteads,
reckless of the loss of life and property they may cause
—it is impossible to say how far beyond. That night and
day (as I guessed at the time, and as I learnt
afterwards) were a dreadful night and day for my
Wonga-Wonga friends. Mr. Lawson, and Sydney, and the
tutor, and the boys, and a good many of the men too,
sat up all night. The women and girls went to bed, but
they couldn’t go to sleep, the air was so stiflingly close
and smoky, and it was so startling when they looked out
of their bed-room windows to see the flames leaping
redder and redder out of the brooding and rolling
smoke-clouds. The moon was up, but her light—made
bloody by the lurid atmosphere through which it
seemed to have to force its way—only gave a still more
uncanny look to the landscape.
Poor Miss Smith was half wild with fear, and Mrs.
Lawson and her girls, although they did not show their
fear so much, were really more frightened at heart,
perhaps, because they understood better what their fate
would be if from one quarter or another a roaring bush-
fire rushed down right upon them. Not much breakfast
was eaten at Wonga-Wonga next morning: haggard,
pale faces looked anxiously across the table at one
another.
Thicker and thicker the smoke rolled in; the heat every
moment grew hotter. The head-station sheep were still
in their hurdles, gasping for breath. What was the good
of sending them out into the burning bush, even if the
shepherds would have gone with them? The men stood
about watching the fires, and wondering what was to
become of them. They would have made a rush for

92
Jerry’s Town, and Mr. Lawson would have sent all his
womenfolk thither too, but the bush was on fire
between the station and the township. Harry and
Donald, of course, were scared like other people, but—
boys are such queer little animals—in the midst of their
fright they could not help feeling pleased that they
would have no school that day, and so they half enjoyed
the general consternation.
The hot wind was blowing directly from the north,
driving the roaring, crackling flames and the suffocating
smoke before it. If it had kept in that quarter, the
house, and huts, and outbuildings at Wonga-Wonga
would have been in great danger, since the broad road
of destruction which the fierce fire was eating through
the bush would have passed within a furlong or two of
the house, and that and its belongings might easily
have been gobbled up with a side-lick or two of the
bush-fire’s forked tongues. But when the wind veered
about half a point towards the northwest, the Wonga-
Wonga people thought it was all up with them. The
rushing fire was now steering straight at them like an
inevitable express train. The blinding, throat-tickling,
lung-clogging smoke-clouds rolled in denser and denser.
In spite of the sunlight, the grey clouds spat out pink,
and russet, and golden flame plainer and plainer. Flocks
of wild cockatoos flew wildly screaming overhead,
making the already scared tame cockatoo grovel like a
reptile as they flew by. Singed kangaroos and wallabies
bounded over the garden fence. Dingoes, looking more
cowardly than ever, but cowed into tameness, put their
tails between their legs and slunk into the barn. Snakes
wriggled along half roasted. Mobs of horses and cattle
went by like a whirlwind and an earthquake in a mad
stampede. Poor stupid sheep, their small brains quite
addled by terror, ran hither and thither purposelessly,

stood stock-still to let the flames catch them, or plunged
right into the flames. It was an awful time; but so long
as the merest chance of life remains, it is the best
policy, and our duty to Him who gave us our lives, to do
our best to save them, if they can be saved without
disgrace.

93
“THE RUSHING FIRE WAS NOW STEERING STRAIGHT AT THEM.”
Mr. Lawson and Sydney spirited up the men, most of
whom were “astonied” like the sheep. They thought that

94
95
a doom was coming down on them which it was
hopeless to fight against, and so were inclined to hang
down their arms helplessly. To the astonishment of all,
John Jones—the “sheep,” as his fellows were fond of
calling him—behaved more pluckily than any of the
other men. Besides his own life, he had his wife’s and
his children’s to battle for; he was conscientiously
devoted to his master’s interests; and moreover, he
seemed pleased at getting a chance of proving that,
though he couldn’t sit a buck-jumper, he could play the
man better than those who jeered at his clumsy, timid
horsemanship, when he and they had to confront a
common peril on equal terms.
On roared and rushed the fire. Where there was scrub
the earth seemed to be belching smoke. In the bush the
giant boles of the gum trees stood up, grimly showing
through their winding-sheets of smoke, and holding
flags of flame in their gaunt arms. If any water had
been left in the creek, the inhabitants of Wonga-Wonga
would have plunged into it, even if they had run the risk
of drowning in it. But there was not enough water left in
the creek to wet the sole of the foot. On and on, with a
roar and a crackle like that of huge crunched bones, as
the trees toppled over into the under-smoke, came the
fire from the north-west; and in the opposite direction,
and on both sides, the bush was also on fire.
Mrs. Laws on gathered her girls, and Miss Smith, and
Mrs. Jones and her little ones, and the other woman
servant, about her in the keeping-room, and there, in a
voice clear, though it trembled, she prayed, in the midst
of a chorus of wails and sobs, for resignation, and
preparation for the apparently certain fate, and yet for
help to her husband and her boys and the men, who
had mustered to give the inhabitants of Wonga-Wonga

96
their last chance. In the line of the on-rushing fire there
was a dried-up maize-paddock, which, if it once fairly
caught, would bring the fire right down upon the station
buildings. If that could be kept unburnt, the fire might
just possibly pass them by.
Harry and Donald, I heard afterwards from Mr. Lawson,
were just as brave as Sydney (and that was a good deal
for Mr. Lawson to say, since he was very proud of
Sydney) in this “beating-out” business. Fence-rails had
hardly been torn down for weapons to fight against the
fire, before the sapless crop caught. Men and boys (Mr.
Lawson, Sydney, Harry, Donald, the tutor, and John
Jones, in the van) rushed at the flames, mowing right
and left, and striking down, like Highlanders with their
broadswords. Donald had Highland blood in him, and
wielded his timber claymore so courageously, and yet so
coolly, that those who saw him felt half inclined to cheer
him, in the very face of the quickly crackling flames that
were changing, as if by magic, the withered maize into
red ashes. Harry was as courageous as Donald, but he
was not as cool. He would have been smothered in the
smoke into which he had heedlessly plunged, if Sydney
had not dashed in to bring him out. Tall men as well as
Harry were struck down by the heat of the fire and the
heat of the sun combined. John Jones got a sunstroke
that knocked him down as a butcher knocks down an
ox. The horsebreaker took hold of poor John’s head,
and the tutor took hold of poor John’s legs, and
between them they dragged him off the blazing heap of
maize-stalks on which he had fallen face downwards.
Mr. Lawson, who had a great respect for honest John,
rushed up then, and stopped beating-out for a minute
or two, to carry him as far as possible out of harm’s way
—if any place at such a time could be called out of
harm’s way. Then Mr. Lawson rushed back again,

97
98
99
slashing away and giving the “seventh cut” with his
wooden broadsword, as if he wanted to make up for
lost time, and after him, up to the thickest of the fire,
dashed Sydney, and Donald, and Harry, still giddy from
the smoke he had swallowed.
The men, too, fought the flames with almost desperate
daring, but, in spite of what any one could do, they
gained on the paddock. More than half of it had been
consumed when the wind slanted to the N.E. farther
and more suddenly than it had veered to the N.W. The
fire went by the head-station buildings, gobbling up an
outlying hut or two, and many a rod of fencing; but the
house and most of the huts, the barn, store, wool-shed,
c., were only blistered.
Mr. Lawson, nevertheless, was a good deal poorer at
night than he had been when the morning dawned
through the ominous banks and wreaths of smoke; but
when he gathered all his people together in the evening
to return thanks to the good God for their great
deliverance, he felt happier, perhaps, than he had ever
felt before in his life. The house verandah was the place
of common worship. The air was still stiflingly close, and
poor little “salamander” Harry fainted as he leaned his
scorched face against one of the half-charred verandah-
posts. Sydney carried him to bed, and heroic Harry had
to submit to the indignity—fortunately without being
conscious of it—of being “tucked in” and kissed, not
only by “dear mamma and the girls”—theirs he would
have considered, perhaps, rather over-fussy, but still
legitimate attentions—but also by Miss Smith and Mrs.
Jones.

100
VII.
AN AUSTRALIAN FLOOD.
A few days after the great bush-fire I told you about in
my last chapter, Harry and Donald came to spend a
week or two with a friend of Mr. Lawson’s who lived just
outside Jerry’s Town. The hut that was used for school-
room at Wonga-Wonga had come to grief in the fire, not
a bit of it being left standing, except the blackened brick
chimney. The tutor was laid up, owing to his unwonted
exertions at the fire, and it was thought that a little
change would do the boys no harm. Accordingly, their
saddle-bags were bulged out with changes of raiment
(“creases” are not thought so much of in the Bush as
they would be by Belgravian swells), and Harry and
Donald cantered into Jerry’s Town on Cornstalk and
Flora M‘Ivor.
The first week they were in the township the weather
was as hot as ever. Although the doors and windows
were all wide open, we gasped for breath at church;
and though the clergyman’s surplice looked cool, his
face was so red that you could not help fancying that he
wanted to pray and preach in unbuttoned shirt-sleeves.
If he had been obliged to wear a thick black gown, I
think he would have been suffocated. But when the
boys’ second Sunday in Jerry’s Town came, a good bit of
Jerry’s Town was under water, Jerry’s Flats were an
inland sea, and some of the worshippers who had hung
up their horses on the churchyard rails the Sunday

101
before had had to take refuge in the township with
scarcely a shirt or a gown that they could call their own.
On the Wednesday night after that first Sunday we had
gone to bed as late as we could in Jerry’s Town, outside
the bed-clothes, and with as little covering of any kind
as was practicable. After tossing and tumbling about,
and getting up every now and then to light pipes to
“cool ourselves,” and drive away the humming,
bloodthirsty mosquitoes, we had at last fallen asleep at
the fag end of the “small hours” of Thursday morning.
When we awoke, with a chill on, the rain was coming
down as if it did not like its own business, but wanted to
get it over, and let sunlight reign and roast once more.
It had knocked off shingles, and was pouring into rooms
in gallons. Imagine a shower-bath without a perforated
bottom—the whole of the mysteriously upheld water
coming down bodily the instant the string is touched—
and then, if you imagine also that the shower-bath is
constantly refilled for a week or so, and that you are
obliged to stand under it all the time, you will get some
faint notion of the suddenness and force of Australian
rain. More “annual inches” of rain, I have read, fall in
sunny Australia than in soppy Ireland, and therefore,
when the Australians have learnt—perhaps from the
Chinamen, whom they tried hard to keep out of their
country, but to whom they are grudgingly grateful now
for “summer cabbage,” c., that they could not get from
any British-blooded market-gardener—when they have
learnt, I say, to wisely manage and husband their
bountiful water supply, by damming rivers, and draining
what would otherwise be flooded country into
reservoirs, Australia will become, in many a part where
it is now barren, one of the most fertile lands that the
sun shines on. With such a reserve fund of water to use
up, the hot Australian sunbeams will be a boon instead

103
of a bane. In my time, however (and, according to the
Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Argus, things
are not very different now), up-country Australia
periodically suffered from a fast from water or a feast of
it—the feast, in some respects, being even worse than
the fast.
We were glad at first to hear, and see, and smell, and
feel the rain, but when it steadily poured on we began
to feel alarmed. Part of Jerry’s Town stood on a little
rise, but more than half of it was nearly on a level with
Jerry’s Flats; and those, according to black fellows’
tradition, had once been the bottom of a lake. There
was good reason, therefore, to feel anxious when the
rain kept coming down in an almost unbroken mass,
and we could tell, from the rapid way in which the
Kakadua and the creek rose, that up the country, too,
the rain was falling in the same wholesale fashion. The
people who lived in the huts on the Flats, and who had
pitched their farmhouses along the river-banks for the
sake of the rich alluvial soil, had still more reason to be
anxious. By Thursday night there were great sheets of
water, constantly getting closer to one another, out
upon the Flats; the ferry-punt at the mouth of the creek
had been swept away; and the muddy flood was
washing up into the town. Mark Tapley would have
found it hard work to be jolly on that Thursday night, if
he had been in Jerry’s Town. The flooded-out people
from the lower part of the township and the outlying
huts came crowding up, like half-drowned rats, to
shelter in the church or the Court House, the police-
barracks or the inns, or wherever else they could find
refuge; and the waters came after them at a rate that
made it doubtful whether they had not merely
postponed their doom. Dim lights twinkling far off over
the waste of dimly-seen waters were only comforting for

105
106
a minute. How long—you thought the next minute—will
they be able to go on burning? In spite of the rush of
the down-pouring rain, the wail of the wind, and the
roar of the ever-rising flood, we heard every now and
then the crack of an alarm gun, and fancied at any rate
that we heard a wild “cooey” for help or a wilder
woman’s scream.
Just as dawn broke on Friday the new bridge across the
Kakadua went with a crash. (The flood had risen as high
as the flooring, and eddied across it, the night before.)
The swollen river dashed the big trees it had pulled up
like radishes against the bridge like battering-rams. The
middle of the roadway caved in; down dropped the
arches above the roadway, taking suicidal “headers;” on
rushed the heavily-laden river; and in a few minutes a
momentary glimpse of a truncated bankside pile was all
that was to be seen of the fine bridge which “the hon.
member for the Kakadua” had made the Colonial
Treasurer pay for in his “Budget.” The remembrance
that they had not paid for it themselves comforted the
Jerry’s Towners a little when the bridge was whirled
away, but it had scarcely ceased to be visible before
they began to denounce the Government for
squandering the “people’s money” on scamped work like
that, and the hon. member for Kakadua sank as rapidly
in the opinion of his Jerry’s Town constituents as the
Kakadua rose before their eyes. He was a “duffer,” after
all, they said, and only shammed to look after the
“estimates.”
But that was no time to go into politics. More than half
of Jerry’s Town was under water; and Jerry’s Flats were
a huge lake, with here and there a clump of trees, or a
single tree-top, a chimney, a roof, a yard or two of
fencing, or a tiny island of higher ground, showing

108
above the troubled water. Dead horses, bullocks, sheep,
pigs, poultry, and bush beasts and birds, little trees, big
trees, rafts of branches and brushwood, great mats of
withered grass and weeds, rushes and reeds, large
clods of red earth, harness, furniture, bark roofs, slab
and weather-board sides and fronts of huts and houses,
verandah-posts, stray stacks, and wrecks of all kind,
were everywhere tossing and jostling; but in the current
of the river they were hurried on in such a grinding
bumping mass that, even if the water had not run so
rapidly, it would have been a most perilous task to pull a
boat across the stream. A boat or two did manage to
cross it, however, thanks to bold clever steering,
although they were whisked along like chips for a mile
or so before they could get out of the current. Every
boat left unswamped in Jerry’s Town was out soon after
daybreak on that Friday morning. The police-boat got
away first, and it was queer to see it steering between
the roofs that alone marked out the lower end of
George Street, pulling right over the pound at the
bottom of Pitt Street, and then giving a spurt into the
open water across the drowned butcher’s paddock. All
the boats had adventures that, I think, would interest
you but, of course, you guess that Harry and Donald
formed part of a rescue party, and therefore I will tell
you their adventures, as I heard them, partly from the
boys, and partly from the men they went with.
Harry and Donald had begun to despair of getting
afloat, because, of course, when crews were made up,
stronger arms than boys’ were picked, and the boats
had no room for outward-bound passengers, every inch
of room being needed for the poor people they were
going to rescue. But the Doctor had a ramshackle old
four-oared tub, in which he sometimes pottered about
in the creek by himself. It was rowing under difficulties,

109
for the Doctor found it hard work to lug the heavy old
literal “torpid” along, and every now and then he had to
stop pulling, and set to work at baling. For some reason,
however, the Doctor was very proud of his tub; and, the
instant the creek began to rise, he had her hauled up
his garden, which sloped down to the creek, and laid up
in ordinary in his verandah.
There she was lying when the boys came upon two
men, who were looking at her somewhat disconsolately.
One was the landlord of the “General Bourke,” and the
other was the Jerry’s Town shoemaker.
“I doubt if she’d float, Tommy,” said the landlord; “and
besides, she hain’t got ne’er a rudder.”
“Oh, we could stuff summat in here and there,”
answered the shoemaker, “an’ we could steer her better
with a oar, an’ some little cove will be game to bale.”
Harry and Donald at once offered their services, but just
then the Doctor came out.
“I’m willing to risk the boat,” he said, “but I must pull
stroke.”
“No, Doctor, you must stay ashore,” replied the landlord
with a grin. “There’s plenty as can pull a oar your
fashion, but you’re the only one than can do doctor’s
work. An’ it ain’t so much about risking the boat, as
risking the lives of them as goes in her. Hows’ever, one
o’ these young coves from Wonga-Wonga will do to
bale, an’ then we only want two to pull and another to
steer—that’s three; an’ surely there must be three men
besides yourself, Doctor, in Jerry’s Town game enough
to jine us, though it ain’t much better than a sieve.”

110
111
112
But such was the reputation of the Doctor’s tub that the
three were not forthcoming. Harry and Donald,
however, were more eager than ever to embark.
“Do you know anything about a boat, boys?” asked
Boniface solemnly, as if he was putting a question out of
the Catechism.
“I should think we did,” answered Harry, “a precious
sight more than a good many of your Jerry’s Town
loafers; we’ve got a boat of our own at Wonga-Wonga.”
“Ay, but can you do anything in her?”
“We can pull her, and steer her, and sail her,” answered
Harry, proudly; “I’m not bad in a boat, and Donald is
better.”
Boniface scratched his head for a minute in perplexity,
and then said,
“Tommy and me will risk it, Doctor. We’ll cobble her up a
bit, an’ one on ’em can bale, an’ t’other try his hand at
steerin’, an’ p’r’aps, at a pinch, both on ’em can pull a
bit. Lawson ain’t a bad sort. He won’t mind us takin’ his
boys, will he, Tommy? Anyhow, I don’t like to see
anything that calls itself a boat a-doin’ nothing, an’ them
poor critturs squealin’ out yonder—good customers o’
mine some on ’em is, ain’t they, Tommy? So you come
along, young gentlemen, if you’re willin’, an’ we’ll bring
you back as sound as a roach, if you’ll be sure to mind
what I tell ye.”
The boys were sharp enough to see that “Dutch
courage” had something to do with the landlord’s
heroism, and with Tommy’s too; but they could see also
that the men could tell well enough what they were

about; so, as soon as the boat had been hastily caulked
with an old hat or two, and dragged and pushed down
the few yards that then separated her from the water,
off the four started. In spite of all they could do,
however, their craft floundered about in a very tublike
fashion, and was nearly wrecked at starting against a
hut flooded up to the bark eaves. The water eddied
round this hut, and banged the boat up against it, and
then, as soon as she was got off again, she ran foul of a
floating Chinese hog, so swollen that it looked like a
little hippopotamus; and next she was caught in a float
of driftwood, and she had to run the gauntlet between
all kinds of snags and sawyers. But at last she got away
into more open water, and all four pulled with a will over
the muddy, scummy waves towards a roof on which
they fancied they could see some people clustered. It
was the roof of a little farmhouse, and when the boat’s
crew reached it, they found the farmer clinging to the
chimney, and waving his shirt as a signal of distress (he
had cooeyed! until he had cracked his voice and was
almost black in the face). His wife was crouching at his
feet, doing her best to shelter her youngest girl against
the still heavy rain, and the other poor little children
were huddled on the roof-ridge, like a row of draggle-
tailed roosting fowls. It was hard work to get the boat
alongside without staving her in, and still harder to get
all the family on board without capsizing her; but all at
length were safely embarked, and then the farmer said:

113
“THEY FOUND THE FARMER CLINGING TO THE CHIMNEY.”
“There’s a poor thing out yonder with a kid—can’t we
take her?” He pointed to a woman in her night-dress, up

114
to her shoulders in water, on the top of an old
honeysuckle, and holding her baby above the flood in
her poor aching arms. But there was no room in the
boat.
“We must come for her next trip,” said Boniface.
“The tree will be gone before then,” cried Donald; “we’ll
stay on the roof here—won’t we, Harry?—and then you
can come back for us when you’ve got the rest ashore.”
“No, that won’t do, will it, Tommy?” said the landlord;
but the boys were quite positive, and said it was a
currish thing to leave the woman there, and that they
would make a fuss about it, if the boat didn’t go for her.
Then the farmer said that, if anybody ought to stay, he
supposed he ought to; but he didn’t seem very willing
to stay, and his wife cried, and said that he ought to
think of his children, if he didn’t care for her; and the
boys settled matters by scrambling on to the roof.
“It warn’t my doin’s, mind,” growled Boniface, as the
boat pulled off for the honeysuckle. The poor woman
and her baby were saved, and only just in time. A few
minutes after they were taken off, the tree flung up its
roots as a diving duck flings up its feet. It was weary,
dreary work for the boys to cling to the chimney,
watching the boat pulling for the town, and waiting for
it to come back for them. After all, it was not the
landlord and the shoemaker who rescued them.
Boniface and Tommy had worked off their “Dutch
courage” in the first trip, and, besides, the Doctor’s tub
would certainly have foundered if she had tried to make
another. But the police-sergeant had heard the story,
and he had helped to capture Warrigal in his private-
trooper days, and had a great respect for Harry.

115
116
117
“We’ll go first for that game young Trojan,” he said to
his men; and the farmer volunteered to take one
policeman’s place in the boat, that there might be no
mistake about the house. Harry’s heart, and Donald’s
too, gave a great leap of joy when they saw the police-
boat steering as straight as it could for them, over the
brown waters, through the grey rain. But, pleased as
they were at getting on board the boat, they could think
of others. They told the sergeant that they thought they
had seen a fire and some people far away on a bit of
dry ground.
“I’m out of my reckoning, now,” said Harry; “but Donald
thinks it must be the top of Macpherson’s Hill, on the
Cornwallis Road; anyhow, Macpherson’s inn has gone.”
“Give way, lads,” cried the sergeant; and he steered the
long police-boat towards the spot his young passengers
had pointed out. It was a long hard pull, and the boat
took up other passengers before she got to the end of
it. She took off a man from a shea-oak, and a woman
and two children he had lashed to branches higher up.
The man had been made quite stupid by the terrible
time he had had. It was as much as two policemen
could do to drag him off the branch to which he clung,
and then he tumbled into the boat like a sack of sand.
When the poor scratching, screaming woman was got
into it, she had to be tied again, because she had gone
mad. About half a mile farther on, the boat came to a
hut flooded up to the eaves; and “Whisht!” cried Donald
(as if the rain and wind and chopping waves would mind
him), “there’s a body in there.”
Nobody else had heard anything to show it, but the
sergeant steered the boat alongside the roof, and then
they all heard thumps against it, and muffled shouts of

118
“Holy murther! Hooroo! Bad luck to ye!” They pulled the
sheets of sodden bark off, and pulled out an old Irish
shepherd, who had been bumping up against the
rafters, astride upon a box, with a rum-bottle in his fist,
like the publican’s Bacchus on his barrel.
The water shoaled as the boat neared the top of
Macpherson’s Hill. On the sloppy ground a score or two
of men, women, and children had congregated and had
managed to light a fire. They had two or three
pannikins and some bottles and quart pots amongst
them, and were drinking and handing one another tea
and grog in a strange, stupefiedly tranquil fashion.
There were snakes on the little island also, but they
were too scared to bite; and drenched native cats, and
quail, and bush-rats, and swamp-parrots, and
bandicoots, and diamond-sparrows, and lizards, and
spiders, and scorpions, and green and yellow frogs, and
centipedes, and praying Mantises, were muddled up in a
very miserable “happy family.”
As soon as the people on the little island saw that the
boat grounded within a couple of yards of its brink, they
woke up from their trance, and rushed into the water,
clamorously demanding that either themselves, or
somebody they cared for more than they did for
themselves, should be carried off first. The sergeant had
to make his men back water, and threaten to carry
nobody, before he could quiet the poor bewildered
creatures, made drunk by sudden hope. Then they,
together with the Irish shepherd, were carried over by
instalments to a point of undrowned land nearer than
what remained above water of Jerry’s Town (Harry and
Donald meanwhile staying on the island, and tucking
into the tea and stale damper given them, for they were
as hungry and thirsty as hunters). Then the boat at last

119
120
came back, and carried them to Jerry’s Town, with the
man and woman, and two scared shivering little children
that had been taken off the shea-oak.
The rain did not cease until the following Thursday, and
although, when it did cease, the flood went down
almost as rapidly as it had risen, a fearful amount of
damage had been done on and about Jerry’s Flats.
Several lives had been lost. Scores of acres had been
washed away bodily, or smothered in white sand.
Houses, huts, sheds, fences, had utterly vanished. The
flooded buildings that had stood out the flood looked
like sewers when the waters went down. A good many
of the “cockatoo settlers” were temporarily ruined, and
had to petition the Government, through the hon.
member for the Kakadua, for seed-corn; living, and re-
making some kind of a home meanwhile, on the alms
they got from the relief committees. But on the other
hand, some of the river-side farms were made richer
than ever by the shiploads of fat soil that had been left
on them, and it was like magic to see how rapidly the
bush, that had been as dry as a calcined bone a few
days before, became green again when the sun shone
out once more.
“A nice climate yours is, isn’t it?” I said to Harry, when
we were talking over our flood adventures.
“Look at the country now,” he retorted, triumphantly.
“You couldn’t beat that in slow old England, where it’s
always dribbling. It does rain here when it does rain,
and then it’s over.”
“Hech, lad! we should be nane the waur o’ a little mair
equal division,” commentated the more cautiously
patriotic Donald, who talked mongrel Scotch when he

121
became philosophical. “It wasna sae gey fine when we
grippit the lum out yonder.”

VIII.
A BUSH GRAVE.
One day Harry and Donald had been sent a good way
from home to drive in a small mob of cattle, to swell the
large one which Mr. Lawson was mustering at Wonga-
Wonga for another overland trip to Port Phillip. The
shortest cut to where they expected to find the cattle
was over a high ridge—so high that on the crest there
were very few trees, and those very little ones,
sheltering in hollows like sentries in their boxes. In
winter snow lies on the ridge, but it was not winter
then, and the boys and their horses both thought the air
deliciously cool, and the short grass and tiny Alpine
herbs deliciously green, when they had scrambled up
the rugged mountain-track, and stood panting on the
top. A great ocean of dark wood, with here and there a
shoal-like patch of flat or clearing, spread on all sides
beneath them. Of course, the cattle were not to be
driven home that way, but to be headed round a spur of
the ridge that ran into the plain at its foot seven or eight
miles off. An easy gully there ran through the range of
hills. As the boys went down the ridge, however, they
saw a mob of cattle, wild cattle, some turned, and some
born so. The “Rooshians” stood stock-still for a minute,
looking at the intruders with red angry eyes, as if they
meditated a charge; but the boys cracked their
stockwhips, and then off went the Rooshians, shaking
the ground as they thundered along. The boys saw a
little mob of wild horses, too—descended from stray

124
tame ones, like the American mustangs. Only one of
these, a mare, seemed ever to have been even
nominally tame. There was just a trace of a brand on
her off flank; but the rest apparently had never had
their skins scarred by a branding-iron, or their hoofs
singed or cramped with a shoe. There were three or
four mares in the mob, and a stallion, and a score or so
of foals of different sizes. They were all as plump as
plums, and yet they galloped off like the wind, with their
long tails sweeping the ground, and their great curly
manes tossing like waves about their necks and eyes.
A little farther down the boys came to a hollow full of
kangaroo-grass, and a mob of mouse-coloured, deer-
eyed kangaroo were camped in it. Some were nibbling
the spiky brown grass, with their fore feet folded under
them like hill sheep. Some were patting one another,
and tumbling one another over like kittens. Others were
watching in a ring two “old men” that were fighting.
One of the boxers was a nearly grey “old man,” with a
regular Roman nose; the other was darker and younger,
but nearly as tall, and so he did not intend to let old
Roman-nose cock over him any more. The old does
were looking on as if they hoped their contemporary
would win, but the darkie seemed the favourite of the
young “flying does.” The two bucks stood up to each
other, and hit out at each other, and tried to get each
other’s head “into chancery” in prize-ring style; but
sometimes they jabbered at each other, just like two
Whitechapel vixens, and they gave nasty kicks at each
other’s bellies, too, with their sharp-clawed hind feet.
They were so taken up with their fight that they let the
boys watch it for nearly five minutes. When they found
out, however, that they were being watched, they
parted sulkily, and hopped off to “have it out”
somewhere else, as fighting schoolboys slope when they

126
see a master coming, or fighting street-boys when they
see a policeman. After them hopped the rest of the
mob, and Harry and Donald gave chase to one of the
does. She had come back to pick up her “Joey.” The
little fellow jumped into her pouch head foremost like a
harlequin, and then up came his bright eyes and cocked
ears above the edge of the pocket, and away Mrs.
Kangaroo went with her baby. She tried hard to carry
him off safe, but the boys had got an advantage over
her at starting, and threatened to head her off from the
rest of the mob. Into her apron-pocket went Mrs.
Kangaroo’s fore paw, and out came poor little Master
Kangaroo. The mother was safe then, but it would have
been easy to capture the fat, half-stunned baby. The
boys, however, did not wish to encumber themselves
with a pet, and, besides, they could not help pitying
both the baby and his mamma. So they turned their
horses’ heads, and presently, when they looked back,
they saw the doe watching them, and then bounding to
pick up once more the Joey she had “dinged.”
By-and-bye the boys came to the head of a fern-tree
gully, and plunged into its moist, warm, dim, luxuriant
jungle, overshadowed by gigantic trees. Even what they
call the “dwarf” tea tree ran up there to more than one
hundred feet. They rode under blackwood trees, twenty
feet round at the ground, and without a branch on the
straight bole for eighty feet, beech trees two hundred
feet high, and gum trees with tops twice as high as
theirs. Huge creepers draped and interlaced those
monsters. Some of the fern trees were more than fifty
feet high, and above the feathery fans of the little ferns
great stag-horns spread their antlers, and nest-ferns
drooped their six-foot fronds. There were fragrant
sassafras trees, too, in the gully, and the gigantic lily
pierced the jungle with its long spear-shaft.

127
As the boys were forcing their way through it on their
horses, with many a scratch and damp smack in the
face from the swinging boughs, they came suddenly
upon a little square of broken-down, almost smothered
fencing. Inside there was more jungle, but a rough
wooden cross showed them that they were looking at a
bush grave. Initials and a date had been rudely carved
upon the cross, but an A and 8 were all that could be
made out of them. The boys had never heard of any
one buried there, and it made them very serious at first
to find a forgotten grave in that lonely place. They got
off their horses, and took off their hats, and stood
looking at the grave for some minutes in silence. Then
they mounted again, and rode on, feeling, until they got
out of the gully, as if they had been at a funeral. They
had other things to think about when they rode into the
sunshine again. They had the cattle to look up, and a
camping-place to pick, because they were not going
back to Wonga-Wonga until next day. But when they sat
by their fire in the evening, with the weird night-wind
moaning in the bush and sighing through the scrub
around them, their thoughts went back to the bush
grave.

“A ROUGH WOODEN CROSS SHOWED THEM A BUSH GRAVE.”
“We may die some day like that, Donald,” said Harry,
“without a soul to know where we’re buried. It seems

128
129
dreary somehow, don’t it?”
“Somebody maun hae kenned where that puir fellow
was buried,” answered logical Donald, “because he
couldna hae buried himsel’, and put that cross up, and
cut his name on’t.”
“Ah, perhaps the other fellow murdered him,” cried
Harry. “And yet he’d hardly have put the cross up, if he
had. No, I expect there were two of them out going to
take up new country, just as you and me may be out
some day, and one of ’em died. It must have been
dreary work for the other chap then, and perhaps he
died all by himself, and nobody knows what became of
him.”
When the boys got back to Wonga-Wonga with their
cattle, they made inquiries about the grave in the fern-
tree gully, but no one else on the station had either
seen it or heard of it before. Old Cranky, the men said,
was the only one likely to know anything about it. The
old man happened to come to Wonga-Wonga three days
afterwards, and Harry at once began to question him
about the grave. At first Old Cranky seemed not to
understand what he was being asked—then a half-sly,
half-frightened look came into his face, and he said that
he knew every foot of the Bush for many a mile
anywhere thereabouts, and he was sure there wasn’t a
grave in it. Then he said he had never been in that
gully; and then he said, Oh yes, he had, and there was
a grave in it years back—he remembered now—why, it
was an old mate of his—they had been lagged together
and had cut away together, because the cove was such
a Tartar, and Squinny had knocked up, and it was he
who had buried him there, and put up a cross to keep

130
131
the devil off. He remembered it now as if it had all
happened yesterday.
“And is it up yet?” the old man went on. “My word! a A
and a 8? Oh, the A was for Andrew—that was Squinny’s
name—Andrew Wilson. Didn’t you see ne’er a W? I mind
the knife slipped, an’ I cut my finger makin’ it. 8? Let’s
see—it was 18, summut 8, or was it 17? when I buried
Squinny.”
And then Old Cranky burst out laughing, and said that
he had been gammoning Harry all through—he knew
nought about the grave, and didn’t believe there was
one. Harry had been spinning him a yarn, and so he had
spun Harry one to be quits.
All this was very queer, but Old Cranky was so very
queer that Harry didn’t think much of it, coming from
him. But when Harry told Donald about it, Donald
looked very suspicious, and said,
“Anyhow, when we’ve a chance, we’ll go and see
whether there is a W on the cross. Where is Old
Cranky?”
“I left him yarning away in the horsebreaker’s hut,”
answered Harry; but when the boys strolled down
there, they found that Old Cranky had left the station
without coming up as usual to the house. Two days
afterwards he came back, and as soon as he saw Harry
he called out,
“There, I knowed I was right. I’ve been all through yon
gully, and there’s no more a grave in it than there is in
the back o’ your hand. You goo an’ look again—I’ll goo
with you, if ye like.”

132
But when the boys did go back to the gully, it was
without Old Cranky. They were not exactly afraid of him,
but still they preferred the old snake-charmer’s room to
his company in such a place. They thought they could
ride almost straight to the grave, but from top to
bottom, and from side to side, they rode through and
through the gully without finding again the broken fence
and crumbling cross.
“We couldn’t have been dreaming, Donald, could we?”
asked Harry.
“Nay, lad,” answered Donald, “but we shouldna hae let
that auld scoon’rel get the start of us. We’ll not see him
at Wonga-Wonga again, in a hurry, I’m thinkin’.”
But Old Cranky did turn up again there in a few weeks’
time, and chuckled greatly when he heard of the boys’
unsuccessful hunt. That was his last visit to Wonga-
Wonga. A short time afterwards he was found dead in
the Bush, with his dogs standing over him, and his tame
snakes wriggling about him. He had died of old age
merely, and was buried in the Bush in which he had
spent the greater part of his life. Old Cranky had been
the “oldest inhabitant” in that part of the colony; and
when he was gone, people began to rake up old stories
of the old convict times in which he had figured. One
day a settler, to whose father Old Cranky had been
assigned, was dining at Wonga-Wonga, and telling us
what he remembered of the old lag.
“Had your father one Wilson?” asked Donald.
“Well, really, he had so many, and it’s so long ago, that I
can’t remember,” said the gentleman.

Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade
Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and
personal growth!
ebookultra.com

Action Learning in Practice 4th Edition Mike Pedler

More Related Content

Similar to Action Learning in Practice 4th Edition Mike Pedler (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Action Learning in Practice 4th Edition Mike Pedler