Tag Archives: wedding at Kapunda

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Dutton Park at Dawn — What Had Happened Over There

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Between the golf course’s pine trees, I could see the vast trotting track complex. I thought about what had happened over there. For me it was never about horses — trotting, cantering or otherwise. I continued to run along the fairway.

The trots used to happen on Tuesday nights. Officially, it was a harness racing club, although everyone called it the trots. It was a significant industry for Kapunda, and I remember going there with Dad when I was in primary school. He worked behind the bar. It was run by George Hutton, the Sir John Franklin hotel publican.

I knew the four Hutton boys and played cricket with the blonde twins. With his deceptive swing bowling, Craig took a hat trick one afternoon at Lyndoch. George’s mountainous frame and fierce face always encouraged my best manners and best attempts at invisibility.

A roller-skating disco happened one Friday night on the asphalt inside the betting ring. It was the winter of 1979. Lots of kids were there. I had never put on a pair of skates — roller, ice or otherwise. Mum dropped me off in the green Ford Falcon. The DJ was moustachioed Tarlee farmer, Tony Clarke.

For me roller-skating was staggering about going clunk, clunk, clunk and lunging desperately for the safe harbour of a pole or bookie’s stall. I had no idea how to start and less idea how to stop. I was not alone. I spent most of the night instigating or receiving collisions.

There was a game of spin the bottle. I won. Arms flailing like a drowning man, I wobbled over to Tony Clarke and his turntables to collect my prize. The fifteen minutes which followed were a highlight of my brief life. I instantly found a minor celebrity — at least among Kapunda High kids.

Yes, dear reader, I had won Racey’s new single Some Girls. You know, the UK pop band. That’s right. It was their follow-up to Lay Your Love On Me. I think my fame lasted longer than Racey’s despite lyrics like these:

Some girls will
Some girls won’t
Some girls need a lot of loving
And, uh, some girls don’t.

Waiting in the carpark to be collected, the black vinyl single was handed around like a diamond. Year 9 and even Year 10 girls I would normally never dare speak to were impressed, saying things like, ‘You’re so lucky’, ‘This is really cool,’ and ‘How fantastic are you?’ Actually, I made the last one up. But I was sure this record would change my life.

Sliding into the green Ford Falcon a few minutes later, my fame dissolved into the night sky above the trotting track.

*

In the misty morning, I slip back through the golf club fence and pause by the footy clubrooms. Although I know what’s behind the windows, I gaze through them, before finding a veranda bench.

Footy clubrooms are about so much more than footy. They enter our lives through the game, but over time they become places for so much more. For many, they’ve become a kind of church. I wondered about the equivalent buildings in other countries. Village halls, school gymnasiums, even pubs.

I remembered my cousin Boogly’s 21st one July evening, and driving back from the West Coast for Paul O’Reilley’s, too. There were others.

At Boogly’s there was a table by the door groaning with cards and gifts. Lots of wine and spirits bottles. I was inspecting them when somebody pointed at a small plastic item and smirked, ‘I got him this.’ Boogly was on a government-initiated sabbatical from driving but would soon be back behind the wheel. Giggling, I replied, ‘That’s funny.’ The gift in question was a set of plastic P plates.

Paul and Sharee White’s wedding reception was held there in the early 1990s. Driving back to Kimba on Sunday, I remember going through Yacka and despairing that I still had over four hundred kilometres to go. Maybe that final glass of shiraz was a mistake. I nearly had a yak in Yacka.

The oval was still deserted although the rain had ceased. Looking up to the trotting track with its vast bumpy interior, a succession of jumps had been set up for the Horses in Action. This was the second day of the Kapunda Show.

In June I had gone to the footy club for the funeral of my dear Uncle Des Ryan. Trucks were a big part of his life, and they were on this day too. We all stood outside watching and listening as a prime mover slowly rumbled off for his final drive.

There were speeches and stories that made us laugh and cry. Cousins I hadn’t seen in years were there. Hands were shaken and hugs were offered. It was a funeral, of course. It was also a reunion.

*

When Claire and I planned our wedding reception the only choice was the Kapunda Football Club. We spent the Friday organising fairy lights and table decorations. As the wind picked up, we wondered how the ceremony weather might go on the Kapunda High School lawns. Saturday was blustery and there was early, slashing rain.

After the photos, Claire and I arrived at the footy club around dusk. I remember the welcoming cheer not for its volume but rather the enveloping warmth and triumph. There was music and dancing, speeches and pizza. The clubrooms were largely as I remembered them as a little kid. I was glad they hadn’t changed much.

Ours was a wedding reception many decades in the making. From the moment we met at thirteen during a Kapunda Primary School fete. Claire’s speech was exquisite. It concluded:

Michael Craig Randall, whether it was as young sweethearts, or as the best of friends, I have loved you. But we just had to wait. And we waited well. With faith, love and grace in our hearts.

Dutton Park was the theatre of so much of my young life, my Kapunda life. It had borne quiet witness to our unfolding lives. In its caring, if sometimes rowdy way, the village had done its duty. I smiled at all of this. It was great to be home.

Standing up from the bench, I glanced one last time at the distant scoreboard and jogged back to our sleeping cabin.

If you missed part one, here it is! https://mickeytales.com/2026/11/08/dutton-park-at-dawn/

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Where the Light Found Us

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You wear an elegant, off-the-shoulder sequined dress—sparkling, even in monochrome. In your left hand is a small bouquet of white roses. Your right hand rests gently on mine.

We are gazing at each other with affection, both smiling softly—it’s a candid and heartfelt demonstration of connection.

The setting is outdoors, beside Kapunda’s duck pond. In the background gum trees contemplate while the island’s soft, weeping branches add to the serene, almost dreamlike atmosphere. Late afternoon light filtering through bathes everything in tranquil reverence.

As kids, how many times had you and I walked, rode or driven here? It was always evocative but I dared not imagine it as a setting for such a photograph.

You exude warmth, elegance, and joy. Even in the black-and-white image, you are catching the autumnal light. Your hair is styled in soft waves, loosely pinned back with a natural, graceful finish that frames your face with an artful, effortless beauty. As you look up at me, beside you, you have a luminous smile and your expression is one of affection and contentment. Your face, as well-known to me as my own thoughts, is wholly familiar but somehow brand-new.

With this, my world is remade.

Your posture—relaxed, leaning slightly into our embrace—conveys ease and deep correlation to this instant. The sparkle of the dress, paired with the tenderness in your eyes, contributes an almost cinematic glow. There’s an attractive balance of glamour and surrender in your appearance, making the scene striking.

We had a timeless and profound minute—the photo’s composition accentuates love and natural beauty.

Your face is turned slightly toward me, and you’re looking with a warm, affectionate smile. There’s a calm confidence in your gaze—you look truly content and immersed. You are muse and memory, myth and moment.

For this moment, my life had been a faltering, often uncertain rehearsal.

On this day of orchestration and meticulous planning and staging it is an improvised tableau. A reverential moment at a childhood location. Late afternoon you and I drove past and were drawn to this poignant place. An intermezzo between the ceremony and the reception. It is a place that catches the magical narrative of our wedding.

And here, in this quiet place, is where the light found us.

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We’re Submerged in Sunlight

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After the insistent, whipping squalls and sullen clouds, our fretful phone calls and the unending wiping down of the rows of plastic chairs, we’re submerged in sunlight. It streams through our hair as we amble back down the aisle beneath the soft serenity.

I love how we’re laughing at someone off-stage. It’s a mystery starring an unseen, comedic protagonist. Is Lukey saying something brash? Or is JB making a quirky quip? Can you remember? Will we ever know?

I’m in the middle of a guffaw and you’re on the edge of chuckling. It’s an affirmation, the reassurance of our world’s axis spinning as it should, a sunny instant in an impeccable day.

Kapunda High, our joyous, kindly school, is in the background watching approvingly, nodding in wise appreciation having stood witness to our teenage lives and then from both near and afar, our adulthood. A mere twelve months after this special occasion the beloved building, Eringa, was devoured by those diabolical flames and we impatiently await its reconstruction.

See the fluttering flower petals caught delicately in your curled, tumbling hair, as it cascades onto your dress: impossibly pretty, bold and deeply considered, the turquoise an exquisite, arresting hue.

With hands clasped, we’re hitched triumphantly, at ease and brightly expectant, stepping into our afternoon.

4

Five Scenes from Our Wedding

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The weather presented us a story that will, doubtless, enjoy regular airings over the decades. Standing alone on the croquet lawn as yet another squally shower progressed from mist to rain, I wrestled with what to do: brave it or ring the Kapunda boys to put up some marquees? Shelter might be functional, but it’d ruin the aesthetic and checking the BOM radar for the dozenth time that hour I could see more dark clouds racing our way.

Yet again I changed my mind. As family arrived a hundred chairs were dried off and with the last row done the rain slashed across the school again. Crippled by indecision I reluctantly rang you, interrupting your preparations and feminine fun. But your voice was calming in its reassurance.

Mere minutes before our ceremony the clouds fled and while it was gusty and bracing the April sun shone upon us and that lavish lawn as if it had sisu, the Finnish concept of resilience and determination.

*

After hours, months, years of anticipation an occasion can suddenly rush upon you and despite all the expectation and longing it shocks with its realness now that you’re finally living it and are right in the magical moment. I was initially a little anxious when I saw the first guests’ cars pull up outside Kapunda High on dusty West Terrace and felt blissfully powerless as our time finally arrived.

Then Lisa Mitchell’s “Providence” soared across the afternoon and launched our narrative, while you made your graceful way, and I decided to wait and not strain or move onto tippy-toes. Our guests stood and some lurched into the grassy aisle. Camera, heads, hair. I could not see you. I remained on our rug between the plinths.

Then you emerge as if in a cascading, serene dream. Smiling, singular, focussed. Hair tousled and tumbling, cheekbones perfectly formed, eyes flashing.

Your dress is shimmering, shapely and a vision of painterly elegance. I surrender to this, and to you.

*

It was as if the town and each citizen we encountered had been bewitched and a golden hour descended, just for us. There could have been a clandestine operation and Kapunda was now our private movie set. As the photographers captured us in our intermingling blue attire we moved about from Dutton Park where we danced by the iron gates to the Main Street murals to the mine chimney and above us and about us the late afternoon light was enchanted and invested with unhurried kindness.

*

Hand-in-hand and entering through the Dutton Park doors was a triumph. You imagined it flawlessly and then realised it with cinematic style. The candles, the balloons, the rustic beauty. Our friends and family were assembled for the evening in an event that was firstly about us but also allowed for old connections to be remade and renewed. The sound was raw and welcoming, a rush of affirmation and liquid joy. It was a twilight sea of warmth.

*

And finally in the midnight stillness, we walked back to our accommodation at the School of Mines through Dutton Park’s lingering jubilance, under the gates, past the dark homes, over the disused railway line near the Duck Pond, across from the playground and swimming pool, next to the Institute and museum, around the quiet library corner, under the Rawady’s veranda and to our front door.

The geography and place are so unremarkable, and so familiar but now re-contextualise as a private paradise, and as we stroll and reflect upon our perfect day, these bear hushed witness to our love.  

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Claire’s wedding speech, to me

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A few months ago, Michael and I wrote our will together.

My old will, written decades before, was on the table. Michael leaned over to take a peek, and cheekily asked if his name was there. I was excited to show him that indeed, it was. Right there in my will I’d written and signed more than twenty years ago were the words:

“to be left special mementos in the event of my death, my dear friend, Michael Craig Randall”.

It was a memorable moment for us both, for here was yet more evidence of the deep bond we’ve shared since we first met. In many ways, it’s hard for us to convey the continuity of our love, when, for so many years, we were apart. We hear about twins separated at birth, later to be reunited as adults. Finally, everything makes sense for them and their hearts find peace. Or maybe I can explain it as an undercurrent. Gentle, but constant, and despite our having climbed into different boats many years ago, it kept pace with us over time. Or as a shape shifter, our love taking on different forms and shapes over the years.

However it is best described, our story is one of patience, respect, hope and courage. One of grief, second chances, triumph and unforetold magic. One of ancient and enduring love on an enormous scale. Today, Michael and I have been telling you our story in many different forms; through the songs we’ve chosen, the ceremony we pieced together over shared bottles of wine, the speeches, our photos and of course the venues that we chose for our wedding. Our lives have been intertwined both inescapably and intentionally, since we first met in 1979 resulting in a shared history that spans six decades.

So let’s start there, with our first decade together, the 1970’s. We didn’t know it then, but in the dying part of this decade, our course was set in unstoppable motion. We were 13 year-old kids together, meeting for the very first time at your little disco at Kapunda Primary School. There was us sitting on the floor of my room at our family home just down the road in Crase Street, where you told me that a book in my bookcase was “profound”. I had to wait until you had gone home to look up the meaning of “profound” in the dictionary. Already then you were a fine wordsmith.

Then came the 80’s. This was the decade of high school’s happy days. You were working after school at Boo Menzels’ butcher shop, cleaning up animal guts and I was working across the road at Rawady’s deli, bagging up mixed lollies. You’d often come in on Saturdays in your cricket whites, and, if you were lucky, I’d put extra ice cream in your milkshake. But most profoundly (see, I know how to use that word now!) there was our memorable Year 12 together (right where we were married just a few hours ago) where we would argue with our friend Trish, about Paul McCarthy, our beloved history teacher, and who he liked the best. (……………………………………)

The 80s continued with parties at the nearby duck pond, dunkings at the Kapunda swimming pool, hot vodka-infused days at Adelaide oval one dayers, and afternoons watching each other play netball and footy right here at Dutton Park. There were the commutes together to Salisbury teachers college, rural youth camps, and night time visits to the local St John’s Cemetery to find ghosts (although never one to mess with the paranormal, you refused to come out of the car!). Michael and I have always been proud that our birthdays are only one week apart and in this decade we celebrated our 18th birthdays together and, as the 80’s ended, our 21sts.  

Along came the 90’s. Champagne on the salt pans of Lake Gilles in Kimba and a joyously happy summer together. But the universe had different ideas for us during this decade – our working lives began and the world beckoned. We both trod different paths, but we stayed deeply bonded as friends and continued to share in each other’s joys and sorrows. There were dinners, coffees, movies and our 30th birthdays. Our bond of friendship remained strong while we travelled the world. There were letters, cards and phonecalls, whether they were from a pub in England, the Boomerang bar in Singapore, a hotel room in California or a phone box in Turkey.

The 2000’s brought a decade of significant life events for us. On that terrible day, September 11th 2001 we sought each other out to spend the afternoon together to try and make sense of that crazy moment in world history. During this decade we celebrated our 40th birthdays and the births of our wonderful children. You shed tears with me at the funerals of my mum, my dad and my eldest sister Fran.

The decade of the “twenty teens” saw countless pub dinners, shared laughter and fringe shows with Trish and our MC, Kerry. There were barbecues, drinks and significantly our 50th birthdays when Trish and I made you a world class video on the lawn of our high school, right where we were married today, that was premiered at your party.

And then…..finally, in the twilight part of the twenty teens, the world righted itself, the universe smiled upon us and decided it was time to offer us a new beginning –  together. 

And so now we come to this decade – the 2020’s, and our wedding day. A scarcely dared dream; when finally it’s our time to have a shared life, where we get to call each other from Aisle 7 in Bunnings to discuss the colour of shelving supports or push pins vs thumb tacks. So everyday, so ordinary yet for us, extraordinary.  I know, I get that you will be surprised to learn that in this decade we get to celebrate our shared 60th birthday party, and our retirement together! 

If mum and dad and Fran, my eldest sister, were here today, they would have been filled with happiness and be cheering us on. Mum and dad knew you so well. Dad would have loved sharing a beer with you, together bemoaning the AFL management, and singing the praises of the SANFL. Mum would have served you your own stash of homemade biscuits so you wouldn’t need to sneak them from the top of the fridge, like you used to. And Fran would have made us a wedding cake. How I wish they could experience our joy today and see the warm, engaging and quality person that you have become, and how proud of you I am.

There are four people we would like to single out to say thank you to: our four children – Francie, HP, Max and Alex. All four have embraced us, and our love and our marriage. I am ever so thankful for their loving support and am proud to say that Michael and I have children who are insightful, generous and open hearted. To Max, Alex, HP and Francie, my deeply heartfelt thanks. 

And now Michael, of course to you….

Michael, I’ve known you at nearly every stage of your life. As a boy, as a teen, as a young man and now as an approaching senior! I’ve watched you blossom from an inarticulate and awkward boy to a self-crafted, clever and insightful man. I love you for your boyish charm, your ability to find beauty in the everyday, your tenderness, your mindfulness, your forgiveness. I love you for your wish to see the best in people. Your wit, comedic timing and playful smile. Your openness to learn from others. You are an inspirational, dedicated teacher, a keeper and writer of the finest literature and have the best Michael Caine and Arnie accents in Glenelg North. I love you for your expansive, unwavering and boundless love for me.  

Michael Craig Randall, whether it was as young sweethearts, or as the best of friends, I have loved you. But we just had to wait. And we waited well. With faith, love and grace in our hearts.

And now, at last, I get to love you as my husband. You are every dream inside my soul and I love you completely.