No, not Bill Hayden who was dumped as leader by the Labor Party just before the 1983 election that ‘a drovers dog could have won‘.
It was Matthew Hayden, cricketer, cook, and surfer who was dumped on a sand bank while surfing on Minjeribah (Straddie) last Saturday (6 Oct 2018).
Newspapers in India (where he is a cricketing legend) report that: “on Saturday that he ‘dodged a bullet’ and came off second best with a ‘Straddie back bank’ and that it was ‘game over for a few days‘. – IndiaToday in 8 Oct 2018
Indian cricket lovers call Hayden ‘Tiger‘. We saw him once at Point Lookout being pulled out by a jet ski to ride huge swells coming into Cylinder and Deadman’s Beaches. Some people like to live on the edge, Matthew Hayden is one of them. When he got out of the water he took off his wet-suit beside our car … he is a very big man.
Hayden wrote on Instagram:
“Fractured C6, torn C5, C4 ligaments safe to say I truly have dodged a bullet,” he wrote referring to injuries to his cervical vertebrae.
“Just wanted to say a big thank you to all our mates on Straddie (Stradbroke Island) who have been so supportive.
“Thank you everyone. On the road to recovery.”
Let’s hope that, unlike his namesake, Matthew Hayden does not turn to god as a result of this near death experience.
- Point Lookout on Minjerribah
Hayden is probably too much a hedonist, yoga may be as close as he gets to a spiritual experience.
The other Hayden, Bill, gave this as reason for taking up religion:
” … the pivotal moment to revive (my) religious beliefs came during a hospital visit to see Sister of Mercy Angela Mary Doyle, a prominent Brisbane nun whom he had admired for years.”
“Ironically, Mr Hayden said the message that Christianity was a religion not of rules, but of love came to him while reading a book on Shia Islam by academic Malise Ruthven.” – in the Catholic Leader September 18, 2018.
So Matthew Hayden is worshiped by Hindu cricket-lovers as a tiger and a life long atheist, former Labor leader & Governor General becomes a Catholic. It is a very strange world we live in.
So I asked an 88-year-old Irish friend, Evie, why would 85-year-old Bill Hayden ask to be baptised a Catholic? Evie replied: ‘Silly old fool, he’s got the wind up.’
I remember Bill Hayden of accusing the democratic rights contingent of being a bunch of ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ at the 1978 May Day rally in the Exhibition Grounds. This was clearly nonsense as Bill Hayden, then federal opposition leader, took no part in arguably the longest campaign of political defiance in Australian history (1977-1979) involving over 3,000 arrests (including two federal MPs, George Georges and Tom Uren).
Ian Curr
October 2018
Reference
Former atheist and political leader Bill Hayden baptised at age 85 at St Mary’s Church, Ipswich
