A short time before I wrote this poem, I had seen something on the TV news where a very young child was killed in a car accident, where the person who had caused the accident was driving with a significant quantity of alcohol in their system. 

At the time, we were only slightly removed from the concept of "one for the road" - while the breathalyser had been invented in 1958, it took 10 years to be introduced in NSW, and only in cases of an accident or driving offence. In 1976 , Victoria became one of the first places in the world to introduce Random Breath Testing, in spite of fierce opposition from hotels and clubs (obviously) and the  Australian Law Reform Commission, who worried about invasion of rights (not so obviously - didn't the innocent victims have rights?) It resulted in a relatively quick drop in the death toll, as had compulsory seatbelts in 1972. Had it been implemented in NSW, the child whose death I saw reported on TV might now be over 45. But that didn't happen until 1982.

I have no memory of the child's name, or even if it was reported at the time. For the poem, I plucked two names out of the air, Josephine Michelle, just because it "scanned right", and some random birth/death dates. Josephine was the name of a friend that I knew from Allunorc, and I would regularly give her a lift either to or from Cronulla or later on to a drop in centre in Redfern. Having written the poem, I had to ask her what her second name was - using the first name was a bit personal, but had her second name been Michelle, it would have been far too creepy to use. I would have felt like I was jinxing her, and I definitely didn't want her dead. Fortunately, she had a different second name, and I the explained about what I had written and checked that she was Ok about her first name appearing where it was. I was pleased that she appeared comfortable with that.

It's the only poem I can think of where I was filled with blind anger at the driver. I don't know what should happen to such people - there's a drug called disulfiram (Antabuse) that physically makes you very sick if you drink in conjunction with taking the drug. It can sometimes be a useful adjunct in treating alcoholism, but has problems if you have other health issues like diabetes. If you take too much alcohol while you are taking disulfiram, it can kill you. The angry part of me thinks that people who drink and drive and then commit manslaughter by having an accident should (1) not be allowed to drive again ever, and (2) be medicated with some sort of under-skin release mechanism for disulfiram so they don't drink again either. Ever. It would probably be considered over harsh, but 46 years after that news report, I still have little sympathy for people who drink (or use other drugs) and drive and get caught, and none at all for those who kill people while doing so.

Nothing much to report about style, and not enough changes to be worth posting the original. I changed Alcohol excess to Alcohol ingestion, and Personal Privacy to Personal choice.