EDITORIAL

This is a slightly different Ozwords from the numbers edited by Fred Ludowyk since 1996. At about the time that the last Ozwords was being printed Fred went into John James Memorial Hospital in Canberra for a fairly routine, though serious, bowel operation. The operation went well, but three days later he developed a condition called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). This life-threatening condition resulted in a stint of almost eight weeks in intensive care, and another four weeks in a general ward.

As a result, some of your letters and emails may have been unanswered, although members of the Centre have tried to attend to them. Fred has not been up to working on this number of Ozwords, but he will be back for the next one. The Aussie Words section is taken from some material he had been preparing for future numbers of Ozwords. For this number we have expanded the Mailbag section to two pages.

Bruce Moore