R01 2001 words Smear and innuendo By Robert English 30: Tax avoidance and a Big Mac The Premier was sitting out on his back patio watching the rain. It hadn't been a particularly good week for him, but then again, not many were. Frank had taken the car shortly after six. Before he'd left, the Premier had told him that he was a dead man. Frank had said that he doubted that. The Premier then said that he had no option but to des+troy him. Frank had just smiled and said quietly: "We'll see." The next day he had to fly to Canberra. He wondered whether Daphne would still go after all that had happened. He hoped not. He wanted peace. He wanted a rest. He wanted strength to face what he knew was going to be the most difficult week of his career. And he knew that the Prime Minister was going to jump all over him for week+end sport merely on the basis that his popularity in the latest poll had dropped to 1.8 percent. He picked up his glass of sherry and sighed. He wondered how long dinner would be. He was hungry and his wife had been on the phone for almost an hour. He knew that she was talk+ing to that ratbag Everton-Phillip, whom she considered to be the best accountant/lawyer in the country. He knew that he was telling her that his Trust Deed was nothing more than a legal fiction and that the situ+ation would be very grave indeed once he disclosed its fraud to the tax people and that she needn't worry any more because he could stitch up the Premier with just one phone call, and his beloved Patricia would end up getting everything if she left it all up to him. He knew this be+cause he'd had his own phone tapped, here at the house, and was thus cognizant of their scheming which had been going on for almost a year. He also played squash with Everton-Phillip's senior partner who for+tunately owed him a few favours because of some liquidation mis+demeanours he'd been involved in and which remained uninvestigated, and in return he had provided the Premier with a copy of the young fool's file and all his diary notes. And to top all this off, that ratbag friend of hers, Penelope Thrush, who'd had a secret crush on him since their teens, still thought that she could ingratiate herself by giving him a blow by blow description of their conversation at dinner earlier in the week, whereby he was brought right up to date on George's plans and ambitions. Even without this latest information he had long ago signed fresh trust documents, all above board, and activated them into his latest tax situation with the intent of pleading ignorance of the other scheme and perhaps suggesting that his wife, who was a co-beneficiary, had gone her own way on the advice of a young and ambitious crook who saw his opportunity to gain her favours by manipulating his pro+fessional skills in a most unethical way. He felt that George, once the chips were down, would relinquish all her financial demands rather than face the ignominy*ignomy of a criminal investigation, flimsy as the evidence might well be. When she finally appeared and lied about who'd been on the phone, he mentioned that they might think about dinner and George suggested he could perhaps go out and get himself a Big Mac, and he felt that this was not right and proper treatment for the top man in the State, and duly pointed this out, and she merely asked would he mind getting her one too, and he got angry and mentioned her fetish for whips, leather and domination and her unrequited love for Margaret Thatcher and why hadn't she told him all this before they were married, and she pointed out that this was none of his business, and he told her that he was considering submitting a complete file on her secret activity to the Chief Walloper of the Vice Squad, and she picked up the sherry bottle and smacked him in the face with it, and as he fell off the chair, the last thought he had before losing consciousness, was that he was going to have one helluve black eye when he met up with the Prime Minister the following morning. 31: The Speech Writer Dennis Penwick was a closet homosexual. He was also the speech writer for the Leader of the Opposition who had given him the task of preparing a speech which the L.O. knew he'd have to make during question time after the Government snipers had raised the question of his alleged presence at the Touch of Arse. The L.O. had also asked him to pepper it with as many cliches as possible, as these always went over well with the less perceptive readers of the afternoon tabloids. Thus on this particular Friday night, Dennis was dutifully listing cliches from a notebook containing more than 200 that could be adapted to almost any occasion. His first three were: Smear and innuendo A plethora of lies Scurrilous attack These could easily be slotted into any opening harangue. So often had they been used by almost everybody, that they had little more than cosmetic effect. However, they were necessary to give the impression that a straight bat was being used by a determined opener. Dennis selected three more: A Pandora's box As hard as a honeymooner's prick Out of all proportion He looked at his second selection and wondered why he'd includ+ed it there. It was for use more at stag parties or Rotarian lunches. He scratched it out feeling that its inclusion was nothing more than a Freudian slip. Malicious gossip Strenuously denied Put in its right perspective All these cliches would be a sound foundation for the opening defence. Now he felt he must move on to the attack: Will not tolerate Watch them run for cover Like rats deserting a sinking ship Good solid stuff. But how about a few whizz-bangers for a headline? Depraved and sordid minds Sewer rat tactics Nothing above the navel And for a big finale: Jackboot tactics The end of democracy I feel sorry for the lot of you if that's all you can come up with. Dennis slapped the book shut. Having completed the artery sys+tem of the speech, he would wait until the next day before building up the flesh and bones around it. His mother called from the kitchen asking if he'd like some cocoa before bed. He shouted back that he wasn't going to bed but was going out. She was at the door in seconds. "Where to?" she demanded. Although her son was 42 years old, she never failed to get anxious when he'd announced that he was going out at night. None of your business, you old fat-whacked hag, he'd wanted to say. Instead he said: "Oh, just down to Saul's place to play some records and watch a bit of T.V..." "He's gay," his mother shouted. Dennis straightened up and faced her, his nostrils flaring. "It's alright for you to stand there, with complete household im+munity, and cast those aspersions at my friends ... but everybody knows that this is just smear and innuendo and ..." "He's a Craven A!" his mother interrupted. "You just can't help yourself can you, with your plethora of pan+dora's boxes ..." "What on earth are you talking about, Dennis?" "... and your sewer-level rat-like navels, like a sea-green incorruptible with below-the-belt attacks of scurril and gossipy maliciousness..." "Dennis, are you practising your speeches again?" "... And it will bring you down, you fag-hater... you honey+mooner's prick..." "Dennis!" His mother was pale. "... And if that's all you can come up with ... well my God, I feel sorry for the likes of you ..." He pushed past her, fuming with rage, and made for the front door. She turned, now even paler, and jumped as he slammed it hard. "Den+nis!" But he was gone into the night. 32: Death at the Cross It was after midnight on a cool autumn evening. There was an air of expectancy amongst the surging crowd at the Cross because it was already the weekend. Armies of drunken men and women sauntered, walked, ran, pushed and shoved, lifting wallets, vomiting in garbage bins, buying and selling drugs, stopping to look, to buy, to chat up, to fall in love for a couple of hours, and generally to have a good time. The bars were still open and would be for another five hours. Plenty of time to get some last minute action, and if you didn't, you could punch someone up or jump on a car bonnet or, as last resort, rip a couple of seats out of the train on the way home. The Chief Secretary and his friend the Minister for Planning and Environment were enjoying pancakes and coffee at their favourite late-night restaurant, one flight up overlooking Darlinghurst Road. They had been to the Opera. "I still think there's a big argument for sub-titles," George Miller said. "Do you really, George?" The Minister was applying more lemon and honey to his already overloaded pancake. "Don't you think that would lessen the authenticity a trifle?" They both looked down and across the street where three leather-coated youths were bashing a street-walker. Apparently there was some dispute about the price. "What's the use of listening to a mob of bastards sing their little hearts out for a couple of hours and you don't even know what they're saying?" The unfortunate prostitute fell to the ground. One of the youths stomped her face with his motorcycle boot. "You're supposed to know the story-line, George. And if you don't, there's a short resume in the programme..." He slipped the rolled pancake into his mouth and washed it down with a generous mouthful of port. "Well, tomorrow night, me and a few of the boys are going to the demolition derby at the Showground ... and you sure don't need sub+titles there, eh?" The Minister winced. Why did he put up with this philistine? The Chief Secretary, who didn't miss much, saw the Minister wince out of the corner of his eye. Why did he put up with this pretentious shit? They both turned towards the commotion at the top of Darling+hurst Road. A car had been set on fire and a crowd was gathering. "And what's on your plate at the moment, George?" The Minister wasn't really interested, but he desperately wanted to change the subject. "Well, as you know, I'm chairing the drug committee ... we wind up the whole thing next week." "Made any progress?" The conversation was interrupted by the blast from the car explod+ing. Petrol sprayed in all directions and some of the onlookers caught fire. "Yes, I've got some pretty radical submissions for the Govern+ment ... but there's likely to be a bit of opposition, even though we'll save close to three and a half billion nation-wide ..." "Sounds promising..." The Minister was more interested in the burning figures running down the street, screaming in panic. One of them dived into the gutter to receive the sideways gush of water from a street-cleaning tanker. A few of the others followed suit. "You see," Miller continued, "we're proposing that all heroin ad+dicts gradually and systematically be eliminated." "Interesting," the minister murmured, devouring another crepe and not really believing the madman opposite. "You mean..." "Yes, killed off... You see it's no use keeping them around be+cause figures show that only five in 100 ever get truly rehabilitated. The other 95 spend the rest of their comparatively*compartively short and ugly lives either committing crimes or in gaol, both of which directly or indirect+ly cost the taxpayer millions and millions of dollars. They don't con+tribute anything, nobody likes them, they have no future and they are a murderous drain on the economy. So why keep them alive?" R02 2001 words Pushed from the wings By Ross Fitzgerald 4 The Recruit `Hop in the car, lad. We'll go somewhere quiet for lunch.' Grafton didn't demur at being called lad. After all, Mr Horton had been his biology teacher. He didn't look any older than Grafton remem+bered him at school - thin, erect, thick black glasses, curly hair. Grafton wondered why Mr Horton, not the principal, had met him, and why he'd come all the way out to Tullamarine. `Are there still catacombs under the school?' Grafton had to stop himself consciously from saying `Sir'. During the war Forest Hill High had been taken over by American Intelligence. `We've been keeping tabs on you lad,' said the master, ignoring Grafton's question. `You've done remarkably well in the last few years. Even though you were hopeless at science, in many ways you're a credit to the School.' Mr Horton had a goitre on the throat, a slight tremor of the hands. His eyes were, as ever, hypnotic. In class, when Mr Horton commanded, Grafton had always obeyed. Complaining about the standard of present-day road users, the master drove direct to the Naval and Military Club in Little Collins Street. Grafton was glad he'd worn his wedding suit and a tie. Without asking, Mr Horton ordered a carafe of wine for himself and a freshly-squeezed orange juice for Grafton. A stern portrait of Sir William Slim clutching a riding crop looked down on their table for two. Over roast beef, horse radish sauce and gravy, with two potatoes each, followed by hot apple pie and custard, the teacher talked while Grafton listened. Lithe Mr Horton, Grafton noticed with chagrin, wolfed down his food. It hardly seemed fair! `"Function never purpose" you used to say,' Grafton recalled. Mr Horton smiled warmly. `I'm glad you remember, lad. A limb has a function not a purpose. Like human beings.' Grafton checked himself from saying that he remembered but didn't agree. He was about to mention teleology when Mr Horton bent over and took him by the arm. `Education is shot to pieces.' There were tears in his eyes. `Ours is the only school in Victoria where a bright poor boy can get a quality education. And now,' he said severely, `the Socialist Left want to put an end to that. They want to stop us being selective, from picking the cream. They're biding their time - but legisla+tion will be passed within the year. `Radicals, blacks, women.' The master thumped the table with his fork. `The country's in chaos. There are even ten women teachers at School.' Grafton shook his head in disbelief. `What's worse, they're here to stay - it's the thin edge of the wedge.' Over coffee and more wine for himself, Mr Horton preached Anglo-Saxon racial superiority and evolution by natural selection. His views were still the same: `Men and the white races are superior in intelligence to blacks and women. That's a fact. Eysenck's right, but it's still not fashionable to believe him. There are actual differ+ences in brain structure. Read E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology,' he added, as if talking to a Fourth Form class. `Aborigines are primitive palaeolithic savages. That's what they are.' There wasn't a trace of anger in his voice. `They're savages. They can do things I can't do,' he patiently explained. `Live in the desert while Burke and Wills starved to death. They are perfectly adapted to a nomadic existence, but they are not fit to live in advanced technological society. Why can't people see that? Yet the Federal Government pours in money and mining royalties. Some of those poor black beggars get $40,000 each in the Northern Terri+tory. And land grants! They've got no concept of ownership, yet soon someone in the "Nigger's Gazette" - the Melbourne Age - will suggest we give them the top half of Australia. That's democracy at work.' Mr Horton topped up his glass. `Tony Bubcock is right - they should all be sterilized. In world history, democracy is a freak condition. A freak and pathological condition,' he emphasized, nursing his drink. `If this country is to have any hope, we need firm government. Preferably a dictatorship. By those intent on upholding standards.' Mr Horton clearly meant what he said. `The masses aren't fit for decision-making. To believe the reverse is insane. `The blacks are like the masses. Some people have evolved as slaves. Yet in our system they're gaining control. Even though she's a woman, that's one of the things Thatcher understands. That's why she's been returned for a third term. All the masses are fit for is to be made into catfood. People can't see that either.' He shook his head. `They don't understand about excellence. The world's falling apart. Instead of keeping cretins on welfare, so they can kill good people by driving drunk, their brains should be put in paraldehyde and wired up to a central computer that will simulate rape scenes or high-speed motor chases or whatever stimulates their prole+tarian fancies. They want to be happy,' he continued with disdain. `Well let them be happy. Then those of us who are concerned about excellence can get on with the job.' It seemed a novel idea. Grafton wondered why Mr Horton would keep their brains at all. No doubt he had his reasons. The biology master leant forward. `Forest Hill is the best High School in Australia.' Grafton looked around the long grey dining room. The only other occupants were two elderly men huddled together at the far end. `Thirty per cent of teachers in your Matric year are now at tertiary institutions. Thirty per cent,' Mr Horton emphasized. `I could have gone myself, if I hadn't chosen to stay.' `I've always wondered why you didn't leave,' responded Grafton, deferentially. `I had more important work to do, Everest.' The master looked him straight in the eye. `I still do. You know, Everest,' he said very loudly, `you'd be nothing without the School. Nothing. A lot of teachers put in a great deal of work on you: Mr Warnock - he's dead. Mr Dumbrell - he's a Reader at Monash. And myself. Myself most of all.' `I know that, sir,' said Grafton, accepting a second helping of pie and custard. `I'm very grateful.' `Gratitude, Everest, needs to be demonstrated by action.' `I'm not sure what you ...?' `Aren't you concerned,' the master exclaimed even more loudly, `about the state of this country? About the blacks and radicals? About the general lack of tone? I know you are,' he said. `I've read your PhD. Your syntax is beautiful. Mr Fox would be proud of you.' He lit a cigarette, sucked in deeply. `I'll come straight to the point. There's work for you to do. Important work.' Grafton tried to question him, but Mr Horton motioned silence. Sir William Slim looked frowningly down. Grafton obeyed. `I'm going to tell you a secret.' Mr Horton lifted his fork. `But let it be clearly understood, the secret is inviolable. Do you under+stand?' His fat body trembling, Grafton said he did. `I usually recruit while they're still at school,' Mr Horton continued. `I've kept a dossier on every boy we've taught. Know their strengths and weaknesses. Good points. Bad points. Although you were promis+ing, you were unstable; too easily influenced. Disliked facts. No good at maths. And you used to drink too much.' Mr Horton wagged a long finger. `You drank at school: with David Pelthem, in the catacombs, beneath the principal's office. David killed himself, poor lad. Took an overdose two years after he left school in Fourth Form. Died the very day you were doing your Matric exams in the Exhibition Buildings.' Mr Horton shook his head, grieving. `Pretty boy. You and he were very close.' `I didn't know you knew,' Grafton said wistfully. `But now you've steadied down. Finished your PHD. Got married. Appear on the media. How long is it since you stopped drinking?' `Nine years,' answered Grafton proudly. `One day at a time.' `That's the main reason I've changed my mind,' confided Mr Horton. `Your sobriety has tipped the balance. Any children on the way?' he added. `We're hoping to start a family soon,' said Grafton anxiously. `Well don't try too hard,' advised Mr Horton, putting down his fork. `If you want my advice, just act as if nothing was going to happen. And it will.' `What were my good points?' Grafton asked, eagerly changing the subject. `They're still the same. One - you're persistent, like a dog with a bone. And two - you're loyal. Loyalty is most important,' the master said sagely. `That's why I know you'll do what I ask.' Grafton reached for a mint chocolate. `What do I have to do?' `Just as you're told.' Mr Horton gazed at him directly. His large gold fillings flashed as he smiled. `But what about Bowen?' `You'll keep your lectureship. It's where you're needed now. In the long term, lad, there's no future in universities, you must know that. Tertiary education is shot to pieces. But for the moment your position is important to us. There's going to be trouble at the Free-Enterprise World Symposium. You predicted so yourself - on TV,' he continued with a smile. `If I may say so, that was fortuitous.' `But I believe it,' said Grafton. `Boss Hagan and the Queensland People's Party are fascists. He's an awful, repulsive man.' `Boss Hagan,' said Mr Horton, quaffing another glass of red, `is an idiot. He's expendable. What's more, he's playing right into the hands of the Left. He's not a conservative's bootlace. He's a right-wing populist. A man of the masses. Excellence means nothing to him. In the whole scheme of things Premier Hagan doesn't count. `The real danger,' Mr Horton said earnestly, `lies in the Inter+national White Left. Marxists and Trotskyites will try to use the Blacks. To manipulate the Aborigines for their own insidious ends. Your university is riddled with radical Leftists. It's a cauldron. Whereas the Symposium is a symbol - of development and our unfettered free-enterprise way of life. Apart from Tony Bubcock and Sir Brian Boyce, the bauxite magnate, there'll be many heads of sympathetic states present - Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the Seychelles, Swaziland, Korea, Kuwait. And of course, to open the conference the King and his handsome young Queen will be there. `If there's going to be trouble, and there will be,' the master emphasized, `we want to direct it - in the right way; if necessary reinforce and accentuate it. FEWS takes place at the El Dorado indoor Con+ference Centre. It's right next to Bowen. After FEWS Bowen gets to keep the entire complex - for renting. That and the proposed sub+sidy from Bubcock's mining multinational will save the University. The official opening's to be at the King Charles III Memorial Stadium, also right next door. So we need you at Bowen, to stay in place, to make contact. `Since 1959,' Mr Horton confided, `we've established a network of concerned Old Boys. And installed them in key positions. The Head of the Atomic Energy Commission ...' `Sir Peter ...?' said Grafton, amazed. `That's right. And the Director of ASIO - though he's of little use now. Plus the Commonwealth Ombudsman. I recruited them all in Fifth Form. Queensland has two contacts - both very powerful. One is in Government. The other ...' Checking himself, Mr Horton poured another glass of wine. `Your immediate control will be through the Office of National Assessments. Despite all the fuss, it's where real intelligence power lies since the Hope Report. Barry Ian, the new Director-General, is a friend of mine.' `And an Old Boy?' Grafton asked in awe. `And an Old Boy,' responded Mr Horton. `Sometime after you return to Queensland your contact will make himself known. I think you'll be surprised when he does.' Grafton, surprised enough already, thought of a hitch: `But if I don't get tenure, I won't be at Bowen. The federal bureaucrats want to unload as many academics as they can. R03 2018 words No sweat, not to worry, she'll be jake By Patsy Rowe CHAPTER THREE YER BLOODY INSURED, AREN'T YER? I was on my way out to the portable loo one hot September morning when I became aware of the fact that I could smell it from the front terrace. It occurred to me that probably all the neighbours could too, so I hopped in the car and drove to the supermarket. When I got back, I went out armed with a bucket of dis+infectant and soapy water, a hanging "sweet smell" thing to purify the air, toilet paper (I was really sick of the newspaper we'd been having up to date) soap, paper hand-towels and a plastic nail-brush. I was surprised when the builder told me that the men objected to the changes. "I just had a dekko at the loo, Patsy - bit lairy isn't it?" "What on earth do you mean `lairy'? It's simply clean!" "Yeah well, I'll give yer the drum Patsy, the boys reckon yer havin' a shot at 'em." "A shot at them - whatever do you mean by that? I have to use the toilet too you know, Charlie, and it's been quite unpleasant especially now that the weather's getting warmer. Tell the boys it's all the more reason for them not to take the newspaper in there to read. If they find it so `lairy' they can just pop in and out quickly." We didn't discuss the toilet any more after that, but since the lock on the door was broken, most of the men made a point of singing loudly or whistling while they were in there, so I wouldn't walk in on them. They seemed to be a modest lot. The following day, as I waited for the whistling to stop so I could use the loo, I noticed a truck backing up the drive. There was a mop of curly hair hanging out of the driver's window. I ran towards the truck... "Excuse me, oh, excuse me, please!" The truck kept backing towards the house. The painter who was up on the ladder putting the finishing touches to the made-to- measure drainpipes stopped working, and looked down the drive. "Cripes, 'es pretty close on the left there, isn't he?" "He's pretty close everywhere," I remarked. As I spoke, there was a crunch as the back of the truck went into the side of the portable loo; my floral hand-towels and matching toilet paper shot skywards. The truck still kept coming relentlessly backwards. "Excuse me, hello there, excuse me..." I was shouting above the noise of the engines and the beeping of the revers+ing horn, but I had to jump sideways as the corner of the truck hit the house with such force that the painter toppled to the ground. So did the paint. All over the bricks. People appeared from everywhere and there was a lot of yelling and cursing. I couldn't believe that this man had really hit the house - all that work, and only just finished minutes before. The paint wasn't even dry. The driver got down from the truck and sauntered around to the back where I was standing. "Excuse me, but couldn't you see me standing here, signal+ling you to stop?" I asked. "Yeah, sure I saw yuh. What do you think I am, some kind of prize mug that can't drive 'is truck 'imself. I tell yuh, lady, the day I gotta let some woman tell me how to drive me truck's the day I give the bloody game away." "Well," I said, giving him one of my teacher looks, "it could well be that day is here." Everyone had stopped yelling. It was very quiet. The driver took a comb from his top pocket and started running it through his hair. "Anyway, keep yer shirt on lady, yer bloody insured, aren't yer?" This matter of being insured was frequently brought to my attention by the men. Whenever they broke something, they would always remind me, "Not to worry luv, yer insurance'll cover it." One morning, Peter, the apprentice plumber, was installing the elaborate porcelain, hand-painted basin which had arrived from France six months earlier but had only just been cleared by customs. "Tell yer wot," he informed me jovially, "it's a bloody bot+tler Patsy. I've never seen nothing like it." I was flattered. "Yes, you're right. It is lovely isn't it. There are porcelain taps to match, you know." "Go on, I reckon that'll set yer back a bit." "Yes, by the time I bought all the accessories, it was a lot of money. But, you only build a house once, and I think they're all worth it." "I reckon," he agreed warmly. Ten minutes later I heard a crash. I hurried into the guest bathroom to see the porcelain basin neatly divided in two. "Whatever happened? How did it break?" "Jeez, Patsy, the hole for the tap fittings wasn't big enough and I didn't reckon it was worth shaving it out with the rasp like I did the other one or I'd be here all day, so I thought I'd just sort of chip it a bit bigger yer know. Whole thing just went. But yer insured aren't yer...?" Despite the disaster, I couldn't help having a soft spot for young Peter. One of his problems was that he could never seem to find the right tool. Every morning followed the same pattern. He'd rummage through his army disposal box, mumbling to himself, pull out a basin spanner, put it back, sigh; pick up a shifting spanner, look at it, sigh again. It seemed that the tool he wanted was never there. One morning, I could contain myself no longer. "Good heavens, Peter, what's the matter?" "I need my pipe bender. I must have left it up at the Turramurra job where I was yesterday." "Isn't that thing there a pipe bender?" "Yeah, but I need a 12 mm. That's a 20 mm." "Is there nothing else you can use instead?" "Not really." "Peter, I don't want to appear critical, but it seems to me that you never have what you need." He looked so downcast, I felt mean. "Look, I'll tell you what we'll do. Why don't we make a list of the jobs you're doing here tomorrow and make sure you've got all the tools you'll need." Squatting on the floor of the laundry, we went through his tool box together. From time to time he'd whoop. "Me multi+grips! I've been lookin' for them little fellas for weeks!" We emptied the box, and found that the bottom was rusty, so I lined it with some leftover Contact to make it easier for him to keep clean. "A good workman is only as good as his tools," I told him, quoting my father's words to me. "You won't know yourself when we've finished, Peter." It turned out that it wasn't really his tool box, but a spare one the boss kept, which he'd lent Peter after his had been "swiped" up on the Turramurra job. Peter was saving up to get engaged to Coral, his seventeen year old girl-friend, and didn't want to part with precious savings right now for a new one. A lot of the tools were dirty, so I wiped each one clean before handing it to Peter, who put it neatly in the right row. We made some name tags with a Dymo and stuck them beside each tool so he knew where it belonged. Actually, he had just about everything he ever seemed to be looking for - it was really a matter of laying his hands on it. I typed a list of tools for him to paste inside the lid of his box, so that he could refer to it and know in an instant what he had. Peter was delighted. Even so, next morning, I could hear him from the bathroom, mumbling to himself again. "Don't tell me you can't find something in that beautifully clean box of yours!" "Someone's taken me footprints!" I looked at the list inside the lid. It did seem that the footprints were missing. "Who was using Peter's box yesterday?" I called out, "and didn't put his footprints back again?" A chorus of "Not me's" echoed through the empty rooms. "Well, somebody has - they didn't just walk off. It's bad enough borrowing Peter's tools but you could at least put them back. It's not fair. Poor Peter can never find anything!" It was Morning Tea Time though, so the mystery of the missing footprints was shelved for the moment. This was to be our first day of sitting down to Morning Tea together properly. Up till now, Morning Tea had been quite disorganized, with all the men stopping work at different times. Dino, the Italian tiler, a jaunty little fellow who was in a constant state of excitement, liked to have his coffee at 7.30 a.m. as soon as he arrived on the job. Mr San Fillipo, the cabinet-maker, who was Dino's cousin, liked to stop at eight when he immersed himself in the thickest salami sandwich I've ever seen. Jock, the soccer-playing Scot, never knocked off before 8.30 for his cup of tea, while Klaus and Kurt, the blonde brothers from Cologne, preferred to break about nine. At first, it didn't seem to matter if they all had their Morning Tea in this staggered fashion, but I soon saw problems. One morning, there was a heated argument between Kurt and Didier, the French plumber from Marseilles. Didier wanted a section of timber cut out so he could install some copper pipes; Kurt had just sat down for Morning Tea and told Didier he'd have to wait. Didier couldn't go on with anything else until this was done, and since he'd already had his Morning Tea he was furious at having to cool French heels for half an hour. Seeing this, I suggested it might be more efficient if we sat down and had Morning Tea together. We could choose a time which suited everybody. I thought nine o'clock seemed ap+propriate, as by then everybody was on the job and had, hopefully, done a couple of hours work. I was pleased that this seemed to meet with general approval because it gave me an opportunity to go round and discuss everyone's plans for the day; and, of course, what tools would be needed. "Now, Dino, how are you off today for cement? Plenty of sand? Did you find what you were looking for yesterday to do the corners with? It's broken - well, why don't I get you another one this morning when I'm up at Lumby's?" One of the reasons I preferred to do the shopping myself was that I was able to buy things at the best price. I opened an account at Lumby's, and told the manager I was Site Supervisor on Lot 101, and would be interested in buying at "trade" - this made quite a difference to the account at the end of the month, apart from knowing exactly what had been bought so that I could question wastage. "Peter, you can't possibly be out of cotter-pins already! I bought two dozen on Monday." "I know. But I haven't got any left." "Well, I sincerely hope you're not using my cotter-pins on another job. I can't think what else could have happened to them. Try to remember now. What could you have used them on?" "I reckon I left them up on the Turramurra job." I sighed and he looked suitably chastened. "Well. Never mind. Let's forget it now, but I think you should keep bits and pieces like that in separate jars, and label them Lot 101 or something, when you're working on so many different jobs." Next day I noticed, he had several small jam jars. They were labelled, "Patsy". Not that Peter was the only one who seemed to have problems with the right equipment. Frequently, the men didn't know where their tools were, or indeed, if they even owned whatever itwas they were looking for! R05 2007 words Growing up catholic. An infinitely funny guide for the faithful, the fallen and everyone in-between. By Gabrielle Lord, Mary Jane Frances, Carolina Meara, Jeffrey Allen, Joseph Stone, Maureen Anne Teresa Kelly, Richard Glen, Michael Door CATHOLICS AND PUBLICS Publics are unfortunate children who have not been given the gift of the Faith. It is hard to say whether or not they are at fault, or whether they are simply victims of the crass ignorance of their parents. They are more to be pitied, really. They are rude and swear at their teachers, and attend State schools. Occasionally, a public becomes an honorary Cath+olic and is permitted to attend a Catholic school. This is often the case with Jewish children (who are never real publics in the true meaning of the word anyway) and Greek or Russian Orthodox child+ren. Sometimes the parent of a public, alarmed at the recent attempted murders at the State school, will enrol their child, but as a general rule of thumb, publics attend public schools. In an attempt to emulate the Catholic school system, certain publics got together and formed the GPS schools. Sometimes they win the Head of the River and they have been known to do quite well in other areas of sport. But they are hopeless at handball and this is why the great GPS sporting events always omit this difficult Catholic sport. One of the ways to tell an old Catholic schoolboy is to look at his wrists. Old scar tissue there indicates eleven years of handball. Female publics chew gum in public and wear very short tunics. They pull their belts in far too tight and have long red nails. Catholic school girls should remember that there is always an Old Girl on the train ready to report them if they should ever display these characteristics. This is why a change in the school uniform is always so welcome. That cranky woman in the corner of the carriage might well have been the head of a convent school in '36 but if the uniforms have changed twenty-seven times since then you're reasonably safe. Some publics become very rich and then they often tempt Catholic girls to marry them. To avoid this sort of thing, it is best that you keep right out of their way, otherwise you might end up in a family with a Mixed Marriage. TIPS FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOL-LEAVERS After you leave school, you may hear of something called the Reformation. Be on the safe side and ask a priest about it. Basically, it came about because of the rebel and heretic, Martin Luther, and the sins of Henry the Eighth against the Sixth and Ninth com+mandments. This is why Cath+olics have the Pope and why the Pope doesn't even have one wife. Any questions you might have concerning history, philosophy or science should always be discussed with a Catholic adviser. Similar prudence should be used if you ever see a Bible. When forced to take secular, external Exams: • Always refer to Catholics as "Papists" or "Roman Cath+olics" not "we" or "us". • Call the Pope "the Pope" and not "Our Holy Father". • Refer to the English, the Dutch, the Germans, etc. as "the English", "the Dutch" and "the Germans", etc. Do not lump them all together as "the heretics" or "the Protes+tant forces". • Protestants will often try to embarrass innocent Catholics by bringing up the matter of the Inquisition. Do not be alarmed. Allude to Marx and the necessity for a thorough going-over of an institution every once in a while. (It's quite okay to do this; you are permitted to use one enemy to confound another.) • Remember to use your initial only if your first name is Kilian, Polycarp or Aquina. • Do not write "Ad majorem gloriam Dei" across the top of every page. God will understand. • Pray to St Jude, hope of the hopeless, if there is a heavy weighting given to the topic of the Reformation or the Inquisition on the exam paper. A novena beforehand should have prevented this from happening in the first place. NUNS Tiny First Graders dressed in tunics and regulation white shirts have little idea of what they are getting into. Known to terrify even the bravest child, from day one nuns are a complete mystery. Some even have men's names. But they are a fact of life for chil+dren of the cloth. Nuns practised behaviour modification ages before it became trendy. Quickly, Sister's students learned to follow her instructions, and thus the path to Heaven, on threats of swats from the ruler for so much as a sideways glance. The good nuns, who jingled their rosary beads to let you know they were coming back into the class+room so they wouldn't catch you misbehaving, were few and far between. Early in the school year, good girls and boys learn that God or Sister, or both, is always watch+ing, so they do what they're told and nothing else. They quickly learn it is a venial sin to draw a picture of Sister Gabriella with her eyes crossed. Minor infrac+tions such as these can be cleared up with a visit to the confessional, a good Act of Contrition, and collecting more money for Black Babies than anyone else in the class. The prize, a little Pellegrini madonna, is a bonus. THE SPIRITUAL BOUQUET What is a Spiritual Bouquet? A Spiritual Bouquet is a transferable gift-voucher of a spiritual nature, made up of masses, prayers, rosaries and other works of devotion. The benefits accrued by these pious activities are automatically trans+ferred to the recipient of the Spiritual Bouquet in much the same manner as the piles of gold ingots are moved around Fort Knox, from one country's pile to another's during international monetary transactions. But the treasures are infinitely more valu+able than mere metal and the Spiritual Bouquet makes a good, inexpensive gift if you've spent all your pocket money on fun parlours or cigarettes. A typical Spiritual Bouquet might be as follows: For your intentions, I have offered up 3876 ejaculations (aspirations) 562 Hail Marys 746 Glory be's 198 Our Fathers 74 rosaries 69 masses Ejaculations are short prayers such as "Jesus, Mary and Joseph". They are often known as aspirations and this means the same thing. When you add up all the indulgences that these prayers attract, you'll realise that what you're giving the recipient is an early release from Purgatory similar to the government's early release plans for model prisoners. The invoking of the Holy Name alone is worth three hundred days. Try remembering this next time you have a severe fright. That way, instead of being guilty of blasphemy, you can add another three hundred days to your time out of Purgatory. When you have tallied up all the devotions, it is usual to make a pretty little card decorated with drawings of angels, lilies and other heavenly motifs. Roses are also very popular. You should have the boxed set of Derwent coloured pencils for this exercise, with gold and silver coloured pencils for the angels' halos and the dewdrops on the heavenly flowers. Lakeland colours will do at a pinch. A generous Spiritual Bouquet given to an aunt for Christmas can often result in the desired boxed Derwent set next year. While we're on the subject of indulgences, let's clear up two troublesome misconceptions that cause confusion for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and having done so, they can be completely forgotten, as they both invariably are. First, indulgences. A three hundred day's indulgence does not refer to time off a sentence to Purgatory. What it amounts to, is this: A long time ago, the fathers of the Church, concerned at the number of wailing penitents crawling up the steps of Chartres Cathedral on their knees and beating themselves with whips (the usual sort of penance after Confession in those days) decided to improve traffic flow here and at other religious centres. (Kids have it easy these days. Just imagine having do do one of the old sorts of penance instead of a few quick prayers. Your mother would know what you'd been up to if you had to stand in the Devonshire tunnel for a year and collect alms.) So what the Church fathers did was to make up a standard, not unlike the gold standard briefly referred to above. Instead of, say, begging outside an inn for a year, they worked out that certain prayers were the spiritual equivalent of such a penance. This cleared congestion around cathedrals and inns and probably reduced the number of beggars around in earlier times. No doubt, too, it improved the economy as men and women were able to stay in the workforce instead of travelling to the Holy Land on their hands and knees. The problem with this change was that no one really believed that a single rosary was the spiritual equivalent of a real, old-fashioned penance, such as scourging yourself for three years at the cross roads, and so this "time off Purgatory" confusion has persisted. The other troublesome misconception refers to the Immaculate Conception. This does not, as is widely believed, refer to the conception of Jesus, but to the Blessed Virgin's unique status as the only human conceived without Original Sin on her soul. This is all explained quite clearly in the Green Catechism as a "singular privilege" and in no way estab+lishes a precedent just because your name is Mary or you see an angel. These two important facts should be forgotten as soon as possible as they are by good Catholics everywhere. FIRST HOLY COMMUNION Nuns tell you it's the happiest day of your life. Parents beam at you proudly, momen+tarily forgetting that you broke the lamp playing indoor basketball last week. Greeting cards, often containing money, arrive in the mail for you. The cause of all the merri+ment? Your First Holy Com+munion. Heart, soul and body have undergone intense preparation for this sacred event. For weeks, cate+chism class has consisted of pre-Communion drills, to the extent that you can pronounce "transub+stantiation" and almost under+stand what it means. Father has been visiting your Third Grade classroom, simulating what will happen on The Big Day. As each name is called, a child walks slowly up to the front of the class+room, hands praying reverently, fingertip to fingertip, and head bowed slightly. Then Father places an unconsecrated host on the child's outstretched tongue. After a brief pause and thoughtful Sign of the Cross, the recipient shuffles back to her seat. By the day the Day of Days arrives, your class is well rehearsed, yet someone always faints or vomits because of all the excitement. Parents act under+standingly, but they're usually annoyed because they've gone to all the trouble of dressing you up. Girls look like little brides of Christ outfitted in pristine dresses and veils, clutching shiny new rosaries, prayer books and pocket+books. Little boys in white suits look like page boys at a wedding. In the eyes of teachers, parents and relatives, however, on their First Communion Day, all little boys and girls are angels. DO-IT-YOURSELF PLAY MASS KIT Catholic children, like any others, need diversions on rainy days. There is no better way to keep youngsters amused, while at the same time instilling tradi+tional Catholic values, than by playing Mass. Parents should not be concerned that Play Mass is sacrilegious. Thousands of priests started out this way. MATERIALS NEEDED FOR PLAY MASS Bath towels (St Mark's brand preferred) become colourful priestly vestments. Usually, the eldest male child plays the priest. He wraps a bath towel around his waist and drapes another over his back, securing it in front with a big safety pin. Younger siblings, male or female, attend as altar boys. They may also wear towels, although this is optional. A card table is easily trans+formed into the altar. Cover with a sheet and decorate with Sick-Visit crucifix set, a Missal, and salad-dressing cruets. A shoe box covered with a hand towel makes a fine tabernacle. R08 2011 words The true believers By Peter Bowler Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. Ambrose Bierce Such notable clergymen as the Reverend Laurence Sterne and Father John of Inverkeithing would have heartily endorsed Bierce's sentiments. And they are but the vanguard of the host of rebel priests and clergy who come tumbling out of the following pages - the eccentric, the unruly, the wayward, the bawdy, the roguish, the downright criminal. Lovable characters, some of them. Others `mad, bad and dangerous to know'. None of them fitting the mould of the decent respectable man of the cloth that we know today. The brutal popes of the dark ages, the worldly popes of the Renaissance, the rough-and-tumble debauchery of the English clergy in Elizabethan times, the eighteenth-century country parsons whose behaviour verged on the lunatic, the up-to-date rascality of the twentieth-century cult leaders ... it hardly fits the accepted picture of the sober, righteous man of God, walking demurely in the way of the Lord. Here is the human side of religion; the imp of the perverse, thumbing its nose at solemnity and rectitude from its seat within their very portals. What can have induced these professional purveyors of virtue to dabble in the competing product? Can it be that they were not ... True Believers? The Scandal of the Priests of Khnum The dubious distinction of being perhaps the earliest criminal priest on record goes to Penanouqi, the leader of the priests of Khnum at a temple not far from the present site of Aswan, in twelfth century BC Egypt. The details come from a judicial record from the reign of Rameses V (1165-1150 BC). The god Khnum, otherwise known as the Great Ram of the Cataract, was believed to be the guardian of the huge underground reservoirs from which the floodwaters of the Nile were supposed to gush forth at the right time each year. The particular temple of Khnum at which Penanouqi served was located on an island in the Nile, and at the time local trade was undergoing a downturn. However, the temple of Khnum possessed riches derived over the years from the gifts of pharaohs and the offerings of passing merchants. Penanouqi decided to profit from these riches. Acquiring a band of followers from among the temple priests and the local boatmen, partly by bribery and partly by threats of violence, he first of all took the sacred animals from the temple and sold them for a good price to some other priests and some army officers in the neighbourhood. Flushed with success, he seduced two married women, and then proceeded to appropriate for his own ends more of the temple's riches - a valuable amulet, and a precious casket, together with its contents. To ensure loyalty among his followers, he singled out a few malcontents and had their ears cut off and their eyes gouged out. Then, just to keep himself in practice, he stole twenty sacrificial oxen and set a number of buildings on fire. His priestly followers, not wanting Penanouqi to have all the fun, seized a treasure belonging to the goddess Anouqis, and propitiated with a percentage of the takings a temple scribe who was starting to protest at the goings on. Alas, at this point the judicial record breaks off. We know that Penanouqi was caught, but not what happened to him. Some Interesting Popes John XII: His life was such that during his papacy the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel. Died of a stroke while in the act of adultery. John X: Strangled in the bed of his mistress, Theodora, the wife of the Senator Theophylactus. John XI: Illegitimate son of Pope Sergius III. Noted for his drunkenness and debauchery. Stephen VII: Illegitimate son of a priest. Stephen had the body of his predecessor exhumed, displayed before a Roman synod, deprived of two of its fingers, and thrown into the Tiber. Shortly after this, Stephen was strangled. Sergius III: Said to have put his two predecessors to death. Benedict IX: Described by the Catholic Encylopedia as `a disgrace to the Chair of Peter'. Led a dissolute life, and actually sold the office of Pope so that he could afford to marry. Alexander VI: Bought the papacy. In his younger days had been infamous for `misconduct in Sienna which had been so notorious as to shock the whole town and court', and he `continued as Pope the manner of life that had disgraced his cardinalate' (Catholic Encyclopedia). Bestowed many favours on members of his own family, most notably his children Caezar and Lucrezia Borgia. Several of his enemies were mysteriously murdered. Said to have died as a result of drinking by mistake a cup of poisoned wine that he had prepared for another. John VIII: Murdered by the priest Gregorius, who offered him a cup of warm wine, laced with arsenic, on a cold evening. When the arsenic was slow to take effect, Gregorius smashed the Pope's skull with a hammer. Sylvester II: Known as the `magician pope' because of his interest in Moslem science which was then more advanced than Christian science, and because of the legend of his pact with the devil. Sylvester was poisoned. It is possible that his poisoner was the widow of the rebel Crescentius, whose beheaded body had been hung at Castel Sant' Angelo by the Emperor Otto III and whose widow had already poisoned Otto in revenge. (The best known legend of Sylvester was that he bargained with the devil to obtain the papacy, on the understanding that he would die if he ever said Mass at Jerusalem. One day he was saying Mass in a particular chapel at the Vatican when he discovered that the chapel was named Jerusalem. End of Sylvester.) The Clergy in Sixteenth-Century England In 1559, Queen Elizabeth I was obliged to issue a decree `that the clergy shall not haunt ale-houses or taverns, or spend their time idly at dice, cards, tables, or any other unlawful game'. In 1571, the House of Commons, in addressing the Queen, said that `great numbers are admitted ministers that are infamous in their lives and conversation'. In the same year, Bishop Grindal was obliged to give an order that no unmarried clergyman `should keep any woman in his house under sixty years of age, excepting she was his mother, aunt, sister or niece'. In 1579, according to Neal, `in the county of Cornwall, there were a hundred and forty clergymen, not one of which was capable of preaching a sermon'. In 1584, a group of citizens in Essex presented a petition to the council in which they complained that the clergy were `the basest of all sorts ... rioters, dicers, drunkards and of offensive lives'. In the same year, the Lords of the Council addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in which they said that a great number of curates were `notoriously unfit; most for lack of learning - many chargeable with great and enormous faults, as drunkenness, filthiness of life, gaming at cards, haunting of ale-houses'. Cardinal del Monte Has a Night Out In an avviso published in Rome in 1560, the following news item appears. His Holiness last Monday, about noon, sent for Cardinal del Monte to come to the Palazzo. It seems that he has been roaming the streets at night like a vagabond and getting into fights with people. On Friday night he not only got into a fight with a gang of boys but later on, in the house of the courtesan Martuccia, he had a fight with Signor Giacomo Malatesta, who pretended not to know who he was and beat him with a stick, and also beat the courtesan. Cardinal del Monte was fined three abbeys. And Him a Man of the Cloth! The modern image of a clergyman - more especially, perhaps, an Anglican clergyman - is of a quiet, dignified, often diffident, always law-abiding citizen. But the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England, when curacies and bishoprics were sold, bartered and inherited as often as earned, saw some remarkable exceptions to the rule. Men such as: Dr Lancelot Blackburne, Archbishop of York, who had formerly been a buccaneer and who was said to have maintained a seraglio while in office. A later Bishop of Norwich was believed to be his illegitimate son. The Bishop of Raphoe, a part-time highwayman, who was shot on Hounslow Heath one night while practising his part-time profession. Dr Dodd, who was hanged for forgery. Rev. James Hackman, who was hanged for shooting Lord Sandwich's mistress. Rev. Thomas Hunter, who was hanged for murdering his pupils. The Bishop of Ely, who was a notorious purloiner of other people's books. Himself a distinguished collector of incunabula, he found it hard to resist the temptation to add to his collection by whatever method presented itself. Jackson recounts the story of a gentleman who, calling on a friend, found him busily hiding his best books, and upon asking the reason, was given the answer: `Don't you know, the Bishop of Ely dines with me today.' The Bishop of Ely's weakness affected many other men of the cloth, and not only in England. Giambattista Pamfili, before he became Pope Innocent X and the subject of a famous Velasquez portrait, had a reputation similar to that of the Bishop of Ely. There is a story of his attending upon Cardinal Barberini when the latter went to visit the unique library of Montier. The future Pope slipped a small but rare volume into his pocket, but when Montier noticed its absence before the party left, Barberini ordered that the doors be closed and that all present be searched. In the ensuing scuffle, the book fell out of Pamfili's pocket. It is said that this incident was the cause of Innocent X's subsequent persecution of the Barberini family. Mind you, the Bishop of Ely and Pope Innocent X were babes in the wood compared with Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, who carried off whole libraries from the towns and estates whose power they had broken, and, above all, as compared with Don Vincente, a monk of the Convent of Pobla, in Aragon, who murdered several book collectors and students in order to obtain their most precious books. Some of the early British clergy, whilst not quite as reprehensible as the highwaymen, rakes and cut-throats mentioned above, were nonetheless unusual by modern standards. For example: Bishop Crichton of Dunkald, who was also Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal to James V, was described in Keith's Catalogue as `a man nobly disposed, very hospitable, and a magnificent housekeeper, but in matters of religion not much skilled'. Spottiswood, in his History of Scotland, reports Bishop Crichton as having `said to one of his vicars that he thanked God he knew neither the Old nor the New Testament, and yet had prospered well enough all his dayes'. Benefit of Clergy In twelfth-century Britain, the church's struggle to exempt itself as far as possible from the civil jurisdiction led to the introduction of the so-called `benefit of clergy'. A `clerk' (i.e. a member of the clergy) could claim benefit of clergy if charged with an offence, and this meant that he could not be tried by the secular courts but would be tried instead by the ecclesiastical authorities. In practice, benefit of clergy soon became a good way for wrongdoers to evade punishment. In the first place, the term `clerk' came to be defined as meaning anyone who could read. In the second place, the ecclesiastical authorities very rarely exacted any serious punishment upon offenders. For many years, even murder was an offence for which benefit of clergy would be claimed. William of Newberry reported that literally hundreds of murderers got off scot-free in this fashion. There were some limits to benefit of clergy, however. People who were defined as `clerks' merely because they could read, but were not ordained priests, could only claim the benefit for a first offence. R09 2025 words Battler's block By Sandy Thorne Battler had been stuck under the Dodge's bonnet for over half an hour and, like a bloke exercising trotters in a gig, he was getting sick of the view. His head throbbed where he'd hit it and was stinging where the chook had clawed his temple; his knuckles were barked from wrenching around in the engine in a bad temper. He was so hungry he could have eaten the backside out of a rag doll; he was out of smokes and to top it all off, his old man was still having a shot at him. He'd never had such a good time! Mackenzie, after sending off the women, then helped change the staked wheel and had been treated to a fine sample of the old chap's sarcasm. "No, no - I'11 be right lad. Dulcie the wonder dog will fix it or is she helping him with his truck?" The battler's friend was tempted to reply, "No, she's gone with the women to make some sandwiches," but held the joke back until the old man had cooled off a bit. Like an old stockhorse, he was on his toes, spoiling for a chance to blow some steam, and his son was on guard, equally ready to leap into a rip- roaring barney if one got going. For once, Hamish sensed that diplomacy was required more than wit to defuse the situation. Battler had been in strife with his father for as long as he could remember, although, if anyone could ever make the old man admit it, he was the favourite. He had the energy and tenacity that the others lacked to enable them to be achievers in their own right. The other boys lived the lives of a successful grazier's sons, content to live under their father's financial protection on the family property and becoming part of an established estate and accepted it all as their birthright and the natural order of things. Battler was his only offspring with the inclination and the guts to make it on his own. As a little boy he had spent hours running around the burrs in the horse paddock, after cunning ponies that tried every trick in the book to evade capture. After finally cornering them, he would repeatedly pick himself up out of the dust and the burrs and climb back on every time they sent him into orbit. Battler had always kept trying long after the others had given up. When the bank had forced him to walk off his first property during the worst wool recession in history, he would not succumb to misfortune and adversity. While his partner and twin brother Norman had given up trying to make it on his own and sworn never again to have anything to do with sheep ("groundlice" as he scathingly called them), "as long as his arse pointed south," Battler took his sheep onto the stock+routes for three hard years, and never lost faith in the return of the wool market. Norman had gone on to manage a cattle property, declaring that his brother had "shit for brains". "Haven't you learnt your lesson yet?" he'd sneered. "Anyone with half a brain'll tell you there's only one thing sillier than a sheep these days, and that's the bloke who has anything to do with 'em. Cattle are the future now." "No, they're the good thing at the moment and that's all," countered the sheepman. "They'll drop just like they always have, and then everyone who's sold all their sheep'll be whingeing and wanting a bloody government subsidy to get them out of strife. With sheep you've got two ways out - you can wear 'em or eat 'em. All you can do with cattle is eat the bastards. There's only a few molls, poofters 'n weirdos who wear leather pants. Wool will come back, when people realise synthetics aren't as good." His stubborn faith in the future of wool-growing had kept him going during all the hard times on the stockroutes - in all the cold and rainy or hot and dusty seasons, sleeping in a swag, seeing his wife and children deprived of the roof over their head they could have had if he had gone to work in town or back to his father's property "Longshot", at Gulargambone. But while his father admired these qualities and, in turn, Battler had enormous respect for him, it was this tenacious streak which caused the inevitable fric+tion and barneys between them whenever they were within cooee of each other, because the old man was equally as stubborn. He and Mackenzie walked back to see how Battler was progressing under the old Dodge's bonnet. Mackenzie judged it was time for a joke. "We're from the NRMA, sir. Do you require some assistance?" "Yeah. Grab that can of petrol, pour it over the bastard, and chuck a match on it, will you, then wring that flamin' rooster's neck and turf him on the fire. He's driving me round the twist and I'm bloody starving." "You must need a good drench, boy. It can't be lunch time yet." Although he was wearing a watch, Battler didn't volunteer the time to his father, because he knew there would be hell to pay once he realised he was going to miss his favourite serial Blue Hills. Un+fortunately, Mackenzie was too far away to catch his wink or a kick in the shins and piped up, "Well, it's ten past one." The old man's bushy grey eyebrows almost met in the middle as his face exploded in shock and fury. "What! Ten past one! For God's sake, we're going to miss Blue Hills! Where's a flamin' wireless? Got one in your car Mackenzie? Well, leave that bloody wreck. Let's get up to the house, quickly!" As he scurried to his truck, Battler stopped him short. "Forget it Dad! By the time you get there, it'll be finished." "Stone the flamin' crows! Now I'11 have to wait 'til Monday to find out whether they're going to put in the dam or not, and whether Jack'll be silly enough to go through with marrying that bitch Fleur! Hell, wouldn't this rot your bloody socks!" "Don't get your bowels in a twist, Dad. Even Jack wouldn't be stupid enough to marry her. He'll have come to his senses by Monday and called it off. Granny'll sort the drongo out - she knows Fleur's just a tart after his property. She'll talk to him." "Look, Granny's so worried about that dam flood+ing their valley, she might shut up for a bit of peace and quiet!" Mackenzie was restraining himself from laughing at the intensity of the conversation. It was hilarious to see the straight, highly intelligent old bloke so concerned with the characters of a soap opera. He couldn't resist a joke. "Look, Pat, why don't I drive back into Black Stump later, ring the ABC in Sydney and ask them to play it again over the weekend?" Instead of laughing, the older man replied thought+fully, "No, no use. I've tried that before. The bludgers won't be in that, and what's worse, when you ask them if they'll at least let you know what happened, they won't even flaming well tell you. They reckon they don't listen to it! Hah! They'd expect you to believe anything. They think a man's a mug because he lives in the bush." "Well, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind being in Kings Cross or Bondi right now, instead of here," laughed Hamish, his bushy ginger beard bobbing. "Yeah, well this just tops the day off, I s'pose," said the old man thoughtfully. "The women will have listened to it on the car radio. They'll let us know what happened Dad. I think this old girl is a tow job up to the house. We can't leave it here with all these flamin' animals on board. Bugger 'em - wish we'd left 'em back at Longshot - flamin' squealing flamin' pigs, crapping chooks..." As he paused, glancing distastefully at the drop+pings streaked down his shirt, the big dairy cow tethered up on the back of the Dodge let forth a stream not unlike Niagara Falls, the radius of the spray easily encompassing the bushman leaning against the truck. "And piddling cows!" said Hamish, slapping his thigh as he laughed at the expression on Battler's face. The brindle milker stared apologetically at her new owner as she slowly lowered her tail. He finally had to laugh, too, as he wiped the drops off the back of his neck, wincing when he rubbed the deep scratch from his earlier run-in with the chooks. "Well, that must be it! What else could happen to a bloke in one day!" "Things could be worse mate. That could have been an elephant up on the truck then. You might have drowned! I'm buggered if I'd give you mouth-to-mouth." "Me either!" Paddy O'Brien agreed. "Well, at least I've had my shower for the day - save a bit of water up at the house," Battler grinned. In the homestead kitchen, Deidre O'Brien had cleared out the ash-box of the huge old cast-iron range, built a fire with wood gathered by the children, and put the billy on. With sheets of newspapers spread over the big wooden table, Dawn Mackenzie was making up sandwiches out of the food they had brought in Eskies. The children were running riot, taking their grandmother on a grand tour of the ram+bling homestead. They ran ahead of her along the long wooden verandahs of each wing, running into all the rooms and through the French doors onto the opposite side verandah, calling, "Look in here, Grandma!" then racing down it and suddenly appear+ing behind her, yelling, "Here we are, Grandma!" They savoured the delicious game in between argu+ing over who would have each bedroom. The woman alternately laughed with them and dabbed at mois+tened eyes. At last her grandchildren had a home. Two of them, five-year-old Paddy and three-year- old Richard, had only known camping on the back of an old truck, while to the older two, twins Brendan and Belle, a house and furniture was only a vague memory. The "long paddock", as bushmen call the stock+route, had been their home, their entire world revolv+ing around chasing enough feed to keep the sheep alive. Like a lot of country women, Ada O'Brien thought her son was perfect and hadn't given her town-bred daughter-in-law credit for having the guts and fortitude necessary to stick out life as a drover's wife. But the softly- spoken girl from Dubbo had proved her wrong, and had made the best of a bad situation for three long years, camping out in all weath+ers, washing by hand, sewing every item of clothing they all wore by hand, making decent meals out of next to nothing over an open fire, teaching corres+pondence school and the Bible to the children and being her husband's friend and helpmate. Deidre O'Brien was Superwoman, one of the unsung heroines of the outback, although she would have laughed off the title. She had married a larrikin from the bush, a rodeo- rider, and she had married him for better or for worse. Like most country women, Ada O'Brien found her husband's and son's chauvinistic attitudes not only acceptable, but normal. Just as she had rushed about dressing herself and six children to go to town while her husband always sat in the car blowing the horn to hurry her up, she found it quite normal whenever she visited her son out on the stockroute for him to relax and yarn with his father, while Dee, pregnant or not, bustled about doing all the chores around the camp. "She's got her work cut out for her getting this place back into shape and keeping it that way," she mused, never considering that the seven-month preg+nant woman should get a helping hand from her man. The vast homestead had been built during the 1870s when there had always been plenty of staff to clean it and keep the garden in order. R10 2012 words The killer koala: humourous Australian bush stories By Kenneth Cook I was hunting butterflies in Cape York Peninsula when I came as near as I ever want to come to the violent death of a human being. The butterflies and any other insects I could find were for a friend of mine who collected them commercially. I was paid a small sum for the specimens I sent south, so small that I calculated that if I charged my running expenses against the project, each specimen would be costing me about $20. But it gave me an excuse for wandering around the bush. As the first question everyone asks you up north is, `What do you do?', it was more acceptable to say, `Collect insects', than, `Write books'. Not much more respectable, just slightly more. I was camped in a clump of pandanus about fifty kilometres out of Weipa one morning when I heard the sound of a motor. About a quarter of an hour later, a four-wheel-drive police vehicle came down the track. The driver swung over towards me as soon as he saw my camp. There was nothing remarkable in that - everybody stops to talk to everybody on the Peninsula. Three men climbed out of the police vehicle. The first was a tall, good-looking policeman aged about thirty, neatly dressed in his bush uniform of shorts and shirt and wide-brimmed hat; the other two were about the same age but dressed in rough bush clothes and looking shifty. One of these was very well built and tough-looking with black bushy hair, a black beard and brutal brown eyes. The other was thin, almost bald, more or less clean-shaven, with brutal watery blue eyes. `G'day,' said the policeman. `G'day,' I said. `G day, g'day,' said the two civilians. `G day', I said. There followed the inevitable long, contemplative pause. `Warm,' said the policeman. `Yes,' I said. Then added hastily, `Yeah.' `For this time of the year,' added the policeman in explanation. `Yeah,' I said. Another quite long pause. Then the policeman got down to business, obviously embarrassed by his own unseemly haste. `Seen a fellow around on foot the last couple of days?' `Saw a Murri over the beach the day before yesterday.' I regretted this as soon as I said it because it then occurred to me that the policeman was on a manhunt and I didn't want to be an informer, at least until I knew what the man was being hunted for. `No,' said the policeman, `a white bloke.' `On foot?' I said. You never saw a white man on foot out there. `Yeah,' said the policeman, `probably.' `No. I haven't seen any whites, on foot or otherwise. What`s he done?' `Nothing. Just lost. What you doing up here?' `Catching insects.' `Oh.' (Long pause.) `Getting plenty?' `Yeah.' `Good.' Another pause. `Seen any crocodiles?' `Yeah. Quite a few.' `In the creeks, you mean? Little fellas?' `Well, one was about six feet long,' I said defensively. `Yeah, but freshwater. Haven't seen a big estuarine croc?' `No. But I haven't been near the sea much.' `Oh, they go overland. You want to watch it while you're camping.' `They ever grab anybody?' The policeman plucked a straw of grass and began chewing it. `We think this bloke we're looking for might have been taken by one,' he said. `He was camped with his mates here,' he nodded towards the two civilians, `and went off for a stroll by himself. Didn't come back. No sign of him since. ' `Where was all this?' `About half an hour up the track from here. Anyway, if you see him, let him know we were looking for him, will you?' `Sure'. They drove off and I continued hunting insects, keeping a wary eye out for crocodiles. I had always thought they stuck to the water or very close to it, and only attacked swimmers or drinking cattle. The idea of a crocodile roaming around in the scrub seemed as unlikely as it was disturbing. I thought the policeman might have been pulling my leg. Queenslanders are like that. Late that afternoon the policeman, whose name was Jack, called at my camp again. The civilians weren't with him. `Did you find him?' I asked. `No. You seen anyone?' `No. ' Jack squatted on one haunch in the manner of those who live north of the Tropic of Capricorn. I tried to imitate him but found it very uncomfort+able and settled for sitting on the ground. `Found his clothes,' said Jack. `His clothes?' `Yeah. Shoes, socks, shirt, pants and hat, all neatly stacked against a tree. Must have taken them off and put them there himself.' `Why?' `Probably wanted to cool off in a creek. There's a bit of a creek there. Enough water to sit in.' `What do you think then?' `Croc might have got him.' The thought lay heavily between us for a few moments. `'Course, it might not have,' added Jack. `What else, then?' Jack thought. `He might have wanted to blow through. Disappear. Make people think a croc had got him, or he had got lost or something.' `Why would he want to do that?' Jack shrugged. `People often do. Might have been on the run, or just wanted to get away from a wife or something. Happens a lot. Bloke always seems to turn up, though. Get charged if they do.' `What with?' `Public nuisance. Can't have blokes like meself tearing around looking for people if they're not lost or dead.' `No. I suppose not.' `'Course,' said Jack reflectively, `he might've been knocked off. Thought that yesterday. Not so sure now.' `Who might have knocked him off?" `His mates,' said Jack, looking surprised that I would ask so obvious a question. I thought about the `mates'' brutal-eyes. `Why?' He shrugged again. `People do. Might have had a row over money, or a woman or something. It happens.' `What are they doing up here?' Jack shrugged again. `They reckon they're fishing. I think they're prob+ably poaching.' `Poaching what?' `Crocs. Protected, you know. Skins worth a hell of a lot of money.' `But you don't think they ... knocked off ... their mate now, eh?' `No. Clothes were too neatly stacked. Those two wouldn't have got them off him as neatly as that if he was dead. Anyway, they're not bright enough to lay a false trail like that. No, I reckon a croc got him.' `Well there's not much you can do about that, is there?' `Probably have to get the croc.' `How?' `Oh, trail around until I find it. It'd be a pretty big one.' `But what's the point?' `Get the body back. If it's not digested. Besides, have to kill the croc.' `Why? Particularly if they're protected? I mean, any big crocodile is dangerous, isn't it? This one's not more dangerous because it's killed a man.' `No. But we always kill 'em if they take somebody If we can.' That seemed to me like killing a tree because it dropped a branch on somebody, but I didn't pursue the argument. `Anyway,' said Jack, `he might have just got himself lost and be still wandering around, or he might have shot through.' `So what are your plans?' `Going back to get instructions from the boss,' he said, standing up. `Be seeing you. If you happen to see him, don't forget to tell him I'm looking for him. You'll know him because he'll have no clothes on, prob+ably. Be seeing you. `See you.' He dropped in again next morning, ostensibly to ask again whether I had seen the missing man, but really because he just liked dropping in. I had more or less worked the area dry for specimens, but I was interested in hanging around to find out what had happened. `My boss reckons the setup's a bit crook,' he said. `I've got to keep nosing about until I find out what did happen to the bastard.' `Does your ... boss ... think it was a crocodile?' `Should be more signs if it was, he says. Fair enough. You see, the creek near where his clothes were was pretty small - you could step over it. If he was sitting in there and the croc got him, you'd expect to find some blood and stuff on the banks - but it might have all been washed away. Then if the croc got him on dry land, there should be some traces around - until the ants clean it up, of course. It's a pity he wasn't wearing his clothes. Always something left when a stiff's been wearing clothes.' `Do many people get taken by crocodiles, then?' `Nah. Few of the Murri kids, old people. No, people die lots of ways out here and then the dogs and the birds and the ants and the pigs clean 'em up pretty quickly - often don't even find bones, but you usually get a bit of clothing. Now we got all this bloke's clothing, but it looks as though he took everything off himself. Even his wristwatch was in the pocket of his pants.' `How exactly would a crocodile get him on dry land, or even in a little creek? Surely he'd hear it coming.' `Nah. They can move like a galloping horse for a short distance. Seen one jump out of the water over on the coast once and run after a bloody great cow. She didn't have a chance. She caught wind of him all right and started to gallop away, but he ran her down, grabbed her by the back leg and dragged her into the water. Ever seen the big lizards run? Croc's as fast as that. Only for a short distance, though.' He rolled himself a cigarette. `Bloody awful animals, crocs. The big ones. I don't know why they're protected. I nearly walked into one last year. That's another way they get you - they just lie doggo and you walk into them and bang! you're gone. This one I struck wasn't hungry. He just stood up on his hind legs and bellowed at me, like a bull. Frightened buggery out of me.' `What'd you do?' `Blew his guts out. Makes 'em easy to kill when they rear up like that. Belly's the softest part. You can bounce a .303 off their backs if you hit 'em at any sort of angle.' You never know how much to believe of what anybody tells you about animals up north. I've heard dozens of stories about snakes chasing and catching a man on a motorcycle, buffaloes that charged and wrecked cars, pigs of unbelievable size and ferocity disembowelling horses. However, my policeman seemed to know all about crocodiles. `Should hear a bull croc when they're mating. Horrible sound. He bel+lows all the time. It's not like an ordinary mating. The bull bails up a few females in a creek and just rapes 'em. Rough as buggery, they are. `Course, the female's just as bad. They lay their eggs and then hang around for a long while and God help anything that goes near that nest. Then they just bugger off and leave 'em. The baby croc comes out of the shell snapping and growling and hissing like a young dragon. Nasty brutes. Anyhow ...' He stood up and tossed his cigarette butt into the ashes of the campfire. `I suppose I'd better get along and see if I can find this one. "The body or the bloke," my boss said.' He came back again about mid-afternoon and because I felt that I had got to know him well by then, I offered him a beer. He accepted and rolled a cigarette, lit it, drank some of his beer and squatted on his haunch. `No luck?' I said. `Yes, well, sort of.' `Did you find him?' `Found his legs.' There seemed to be a sudden stillness in the pandanus clump as the three laconic words emerged with shocking force. It took me several moments to accept that this was reality and then all I managed to do was repeat his words. R11 2002 words The Raymond Connection Brother Bill By Geoffrey Bingham WHEN it comes to birds I am quite helpless, and, as my wife says, `Hopeless.' This condition has been mine since I was a small boy. I had a brother - Francis - who built a large aviary, and kept birds. They were budgies and finches and made quite a noise. It is this noise which planted itself in my strongly associative mind and memory, and I grow a bit weak when I hear the cries and chatterings and whistlings which issue from any aviary. In fact, any conver+sation I am having, or any rumination visiting me, is ig+nored whilst I peer and stare towards the centre of bird cries. From time to time, the obsession has come upon me. I think I am due for the blue ribbon for having built aviaries in so many places, not only in this vast continent, but also overseas. On top of this, I have dreamed wildly of the vast and lofty aviaries I could build, even ones in which forty-foot high trees are covered with bird-wire, and domestic birds lived as though in the wild. Generally I am too shy to talk about these things, but an event has happened in my life which impels me to break bird-silence and tell the story. With this is a bit of softness that comes to you when you are moving towards seventy years - in terms of age. I notice older people become almost maudlin about gardens - flowers, shrubs and vegetables. They also show signs of softness in the head or brain about pets. Dogs suddenly become precious to them, cats become indispensable, and even fish become little individuals all on their own. Especially, however, parrots and other birds as+sume significant identities. If you think about it, older folk either revert to their childhood affections, or they become childish in a way that children are childish. That is about the sum of the matter. I sometimes assure myself that if the bird that flew in - willy-nilly - had not been Bill, then I would not have suc+cumbed to so much parrot interest, or, as my wife would say, `Obsession.' But then Bill was - and is - a long-billed corella. To be precise, he is Cacatua Tenuirostris. I have learned a lot about LBCs in my bird books, but nothing which would have prepared me for the advent of Bill himself. At this point, I suppose I ought to describe to you what a long-billed corella looks like. The good (modern) book on parrots says that he is .375 metres in length, including his 130 mm tail. He is a reasonably large white parrot who is sometimes called a white cockatoo. He does not have a yel+low crest like the sulphur-crested cockatoo, but he does have yellow under his wings. He has orange scarlet around his eyes, across his forehead and on the foreneck, which gives him the appearance of having had his throat cut a bit. He has large grey eye-rings. His eyes are most unusual. Brown in colour, they fix you with their stare. No other parrot has quite the same look. It is that superior look, almost of hauteur, which tells you he knows all about you. Such is a regular long- billed corella. I heard this harsh cry, and when I looked up, a fierce pair of our territory magpies were hurling themselves at the white offender. They knew Bill had no right in our six acres of bushland. Not only had they pegged out their territory, but they knew that LBCs do not normally inhabit the Adelaide Hills. Parrots in plenty do that, parrots such as Adelaide rosellas, green grass parrots, and even - from time to time - little corellas, who are related to the long-billed variety of the same name. So they were attacking Bill, and he was warning them off with harsh parrot cries. Because of this they were a trifle wary. One thing they did do, and that was let him alight on the gutter of our two-storey house. That was when I saw him - against the light and the sky of a summer mid-morning. It was the way he cocked his head on one side, and looked down at me - gamin-like - that entranced me. I immediately wanted to know Bill. I called him `Bill' in my mind. `Pretty cocky,' I said, and if parrots can be scornful, he was, at that stupid statement. Anyone knows a long-billed corella is not pretty. He might be called `handsome' (though I doubt it), but he is not pretty. He is - well, he is just a long-billed corella, the tough guy and gamin of all the parrot species. Nobody had warned me against Bill's ilk. Later I heard of a man who possessed such a parrot, and it chattered away day-long, had a great dialogue and repertoire, plus a whole stack of antics, and this man became deeply attached to his bird. In fact - if I have the matter correctly - he built a busi+ness around that feathered friend, and the business was a pet shop, mainly featuring birds. The bird was famous, and the shop-owner lived in the reflection of its glory. One night a covetous fanatic broke in through the plate-glass window and stole the bird, and the man gave up his business. He even offered to buy back his own bird, but - no response. Somewhere, at this very moment, there is an idolatrous possessor of the stolen bird, whose eyes are glued to the par+rot in its cage, and who is babbling away like a buffoon, so caught is he in his LBC addiction. I myself am warned by this event, and by no means will give you my home address or even my phone number, for fear you or someone else will steal my beloved Bill. To get back to the gutter: Bill was cocking his eye down at me, so I rushed off and hastily gathered up budgie seed and a few spare crusts. Then I laid these out in inviting fashion below. His eyesight was telescopic, and to my enormous re+lief he flew down, and stood staring at me from a distance. I had to back away some metres before he would come to the food. When I did, he walked cautiously, and with a certain amount of birdly hauteur, towards the grain and crusts. He thought the whole matter through, after which he scattered the seed in a lordly sort of way and took up a crust. That should have told me that he was a domesticated par+rot, but then I knew little about parrots. When I was a boy my Irish grandfather kept parrots - large exotic birds like giant macaws - and they were so large and I was so small, that I have always had an awe of such creatures. Bill, of course, was not overly large, but there was just something about him, and I watched with fascination. After a time, he took a crust up to the roof guttering. He stripped it into pieces. Some he ate, some he dropped. I could only look at him helplessly, and after a time I decided I had better get back to my vegetable gardening. Now that was just what the LBC wanted of me. He fol+lowed me to the garden. To my trembling delight he even followed me along the rows where I was planting seed. When I went into my summer house (that is, my plastic-covered igloo, my hot-house), he had the curiosity and temerity to try to see what I was doing. LBCs are like that, I have discovered. They have an insatiable curiosity, and this is about the only thing they have which can prove their un+doing. Curiosity can catch a parrot! I would be lying if I said I caught him, there and then, in the hot-house. Oh, no! It took more than a day, I can tell you. In fact, I was near heart-failure more times than I care to tell. One cause of that was that my plastic-covered hot-house igloo is a delicate thing, and just one parrot with a sharp, long and pointed upper mandible such as Bill pos+sesses, could do dreadful havoc in a little time. When he would alight on to the hot-house I would go hot and cold. Just a claw or two through that plastic sheeting would be enough to make `Kaput!' Strangely enough, no damage was done. But Bill loved to forage in my vegetable garden. He liked carrots, or, rather, rooting them up. Later I learned that his bill was not over+grown - I was going to take him to a vet to have it cut down! - but that he had been given that bill to dig up yams and roots. Well, he was doing that. Most of all, he liked strawberries. Ah! Strawberries! When he was not doing wild flights across the hills, giving his strange harsh cry and irritating magpies galore, he would be seated high on the hot-house, staring down at the straw+berries. Strangely enough, he did not eat them. But when I began picking them, he did the closest thing to scrounging that I have known a bird to do. He would cock his eyes at the strawberries, give me a look in a gleaming eye, and almost say, `What about a few strawberries, mate?' One day I was in the hot-house, planting out young tomato seedlings. Curious Bill made his way to the door-opening and poked his head inside. He waddled in, swagger+ing slightly, and began systematically to either snip off the seedlings at earth level or yank them from the soil. Indig+nation stirred in me. Then I had an idea. I picked a half-punnet of strawberries. I strewed them around halfway down the hot-house. I beat a retreat and closed the eastern door behind me. The western door, of course, was open. I watched Bill. Sure enough, his passion for strawberries overcame his psittaciformian caution, and he began eating them. I crept westwards slyly and slowly, and shut the door. I then went for my big net and a small cage. I guess I trembled a bit as I approached him, and he, for his part, seemed surprised. It was a quick operation, and in a flash I had secured Cacatua Tenuirostris. I savoured that triumph with unholy delight. Capturing a threat to your strawberries and your plastic hot- house may seem a small matter, but let me tell you it wasn't. There were phone calls to and from the National Parks and Wildlife people. We chatted long over the phone about Bill, his threat to our property, and the fact that he was a domesticated creature. Finally I was issued with a Rescue Permit, and Bill was validly mine. He was mine under legal permit and licence. He, of course, knew nothing about this. Strangely enough, he did not seem to resent the new cage. In fact, it was as though he was relieved to be in captivity. Not that he did not try to undo the catch and little things like that. He was always busy looking over his cage, but he settled in. It soon became clear that Bill was a domesticated bird. Whilst my awe of parrots continued, he took the thing rather nonchalantly and entertained me and the team of men and women we have at our place. He could spring, jump, walk and waddle. He could even do a sort of nodding walk in which his body would go forward whilst he did a kind of slow march. It was most ceremonious, and, from what I could gather, was a form of skiting. He loved it, and so did we. But it was his talking repertoire that would get us in fits of laughter. He talked only when it suited him. It was a kind of rumi+native chatting away to himself. R13 2009 words Hardy's People By Frank Hardy The Funny Side of Fiery Fred A few years ago, I met Keith Miller in the Steyne Hotel, Manly, and said I wanted to earn an honest dollar creating a book of cricket yarns. Keith, as good a fellow as you'd meet in a day's walk, told me he'd like to collaborate in such a project, but reckoned that the only man in the cricket world for the job was Fiery Freddie Trueman. In London soon afterwards, I had a job finding the old Fred, but eventually met him for the first time, appropriately enough at Lords cricket ground. Fred was on air as a BBC commentator. And it was funny; Fred, who turned out to be no lover of Geoffrey Boycott, reacted with less than usual enthusiasm when Boycott reached a record number of centuries. Every+body seemed wildly enthusiastic, except Fred, who merely said in subdued tones - "He's doon it!" We breasted a bar at lunchtime, and Freddie agreed to work on a humorous cricket book with me. I asked about Boycott and Fred replied: "We'll leave him out of the book; what he's done to cricket isn't funny." I never did find out the reason for Fred's apparent hostility towards Boycott, but Freddy himself lived up to his reputation as humorous cricket folklorist and outrageous wit. I've often wondered why men become legends in their own lifetime, when others, of apparently equal ability, do not. I believe it is because they capture the imagination of ordinary people by taking the same attitude as them. This applied to Athol George Mulley as a jockey and to Fred Trueman as a fast bowler. It was all clear at the first meeting I had with Trueman. A devil-may-care attitude to authority, self-assurance about his own ability without being arrogant, and a humourous turn of phrase which flowed naturally. Later, I spent a week living at Fred's house in Yorkshire. We would gather at Peter Parfitt's pub with Neil Hawke and other former professional cricketers. They talked shop and I've never laughed so much in my life. One afternoon, while Peter was busy serving at the bar, Freddie said to me: "Peter was a good left-hand bat, but he had a bad habit of standing on the stumps with his heel when he went for a hook-shot! Ohh-aye! He did it on the Melbourne Cricket Ground one day in a Test against Australia and one of the bails fell off. "Everyone was watching the ball, see, so nobody noticed, not even the umpire. And there was a photo on the front page of a newspaper the next day, showing Peter putting the bail back on! But no one had noticed it. He went on to make a 100!" On another occasion, over dinner at Fred's house, he told another story about Peter's bad habit, which is well worth repeating. There was great rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire, and they were playing in Lancashire. One of the umpires thought Peter was a cunning, tricky devil, so he watched him like a hawk, didn't he? Ooh-aye! A strong wind was blowing. Peter Parfitt went for a hook+shot, tapped the base of one of the stumps with his heel, and a bail fell off! Everyone was watching the ball hurtle to the boundary- except the lousy Lancashire umpire! Peter decided to trick him. "The wind blew the bail off," he said to the umpire, quick as a flash. "It's a very windy day." The cunning Lancashire umpire replied, "Yes, it's very windy. Thou'd better be careful walking back to the pavilion, or it'll blow yer cap off. I'm giving you out for standing on the wicket!" Fred Trueman reckoned that the rivalry between York+shire and Lancashire in those days was so great that a certain Lancashire captain invented a prayer to be used in every match against Yorkshire. He'd arrive at the ground before everyone else, kneel down in the shower and say The Lancashire Lord's Prayer: "Dear Lord - Thou'd be the best judge of a cricket match in all the world. And today, if Yorkshire is the best team, they will win; if Lancashire is the best team, we will win; if the teams are equal, the game will be drawn; if it rains cats and dogs, the game will be abandoned. But if Thou will keep tha' bloody nose out of it, Lancashire will win by an innings! Amen!" Fred was often in trouble with the Marylebone Cricket Club during his long career. He got into a lot of trouble during one tour of India and the MCC often fined him large sums. Fred denies the apocryphal story which had him saying to a Maharajah at a dinner: "Pass the sugar, Gunga Din," but he admits he stepped out of line quite a few times. He shrugged off the heavy fines and suspensions with typical wit: "They fined me so often that when I got back to England, I owed the Marylebone Cricket Club money and me wife wanted to know where I'd been all winter!" Using a tape recorder in the pub over dinner, and at Fred's famous stand-up comic performances, I got down about 16 of Fred's yarns, wrote the same number myself about Australian cricket and we made up a few stories together. One night late, I asked Fred if he'd ever struck what we call in Australia a "fluker". Ooh-aye! Fred had struck a few all right, hadn't he! So we bounced one-liners about fluking lucky batsmen between our pipes and beer glasses. After an hour, we had a story called The Fluker. It's too long to relate here (you'll have to buy the bloody book to get the details), but some idea of it's flavour can be gleaned from Fred's remark that he struck a Lancashire fluker who had the "play and miss" shot down to a fine art. My meetings with Fred Trueman were a sheer delight, and we wrote a book to prove that cricket, like grand opera, is funniest at its most serious moments. Hardyarn My favourite yarn of Fred Trueman's concerns none other than Douglas Jardine, of bodyline infamy, him-sodding-self. Yorkshire were playing Cambridge. There had been some rain and the wicket was a Sticky Dog. A certain Yorkshire bowler worked as a miner during the winter, and hated all amateur cricketers, - the Fancy Caps, as he called them Yorkshire won the toss and sent Cambridge in to bat. The conditions suited the bowler (we'll say it was Mick Cowan), and he got two Cambridge wickets very quickly and cheaply. Cambridge were two for 27, and Mick had two for 11. And who should Mick Cowan see coming in to bat, but the future amateur captain of England himself - Douglas Snobbynose Jardine! Mick wants his wicket bad! Douglas Jardine walks to the wicket in all his glory, wearing an expensive Viyella shirt, a Fancy Cap, silk batting gloves and handmade boots. Mick reckoned he had 500 quid's worth of clothes on! One of the fieldsmen asked Mick: "Where's he going, then?" "I don't know," Mick Cowan replied, "but he smells nice!" Douglas Jardine went to a lot of trouble taking block, had a good look around to see if any of the Yorkshire tykes had moved in the meantime, then checked his bat with the umpire again. "Let's get on wi' t'game, then," Mick demanded. And when Jardine was ready, he bowled a leg break that sent the off-stump tumbling over. Jardine, the future amateur captain of England, looked at the wicket in disbelief. He'd been bowled first ball by a common miner, who'd never even played for England! But, being a gentleman, he walked towards the pavilion with his bat under his arm, taking off one of his gloves. As he walked past Mick Cowan he said condescendingly: "Well bowled, Cowan! That was a good ball!" And Mick Cowan replied: "Aye, but it were wasted on thee!" Truthful Jones on Raffles There I am in the Carringbush Hotel, Collingwood, drinking with the flies. And I'm there for a good reason: some people bought a run-down pub near the railway line - and changed its name to the Carringbush Hotel. What did they pay me who invented the word Carringbush in Power Without Glory? One free counter lunch! That's what! So I hang about the pub, occasionally dropping hints that some sort of honorarium should be paid for the use of the name. But my hints fall on stony ground - like the seed in the Bible. I'm just about to get maudlin about the injustice of the world. Well, can you blame me? There's a Carringbush library, a Carringbush racehorse, a Carringbush architects' office, and the odd fish shop or boutique - all called bloody Carringbush. Then, I tell myself, it's a great honour, really, to have invented a name and have it pass into the language of my home city, when who should walk in but Truthful Jones himself. "What are you doing here?" he asks. "I might ask you the same question. Last time we met you were up at Billinudgel ..." After admitting the fact, Truthful says he's come to Melbourne to set up a raffle business, to suss out suitable pubs. "I thought raffles had gone out of fashion," says I . "Not in Marvellous Melbourne, they haven't," Truthful says. "In fact, I ran the only fair dinkum raffle in Melbourne. Did I ever tell you about it?" "No, I don't think you did. Have a drink and bash me ear." "It happened during the '30s Depression years. Things was crook with me at the time and I was no Robinson Crusoe, I can tell you. Funny thing about a depression. The silvertails always say the unemployed don't want to work, then comes a war and there's no more unemployed. Now where do them unemployed get to? Killed in the war, I s'pose." "You could be right at that - but get on with your story." "You're a bit niggly today," comments Truthful Jones slyly. "Could it be that you failed to copyright the name Carringbush and never got a brass razoo for all these places called after it?" He downed his beer without removing the glass from his lips and waxed philosophical: " Buying raffle tickets is a bad habit to get into, like paying your income tax and backing racehorses - once you start, you can't stop. I've run a few raffles in my time, and I know what I'm talking about." "Oh, I don't know. A lot of honest raffles are run, I reckon." "Well, every man's entitled to his own opinion - but opinions are funny things - a man who gets wrong opinions either ends up in jail or in Parliament." "You'd better tell me about that raffle ... what was it again?" "The only fair dinkum raffle ever run in Melbourne. I ran it myself, so I ought to know ... There was a bloke next door to me who kept chooks. Out at Preston it was. "I used to keep looking over the fence at them fowls, clucking and pecking away, and I used to say to meself: `Them chooks are eating their heads off in there while human beings are starving. It isn't right. Them chooks ought to be raffled.' "So one night, I dives over the fence and grabs two big black chooks. Orphingtons they were. You wouldn't credit the noise a chook can make when it knows it's going to be raffled - fit to wake their owner up. At last, I get hold of 'em and put 'em in a bag under the bed." "And what has stealing two chooks got to do with a fair dinkum raffle?" "Coming to that - not a bad drop of beer this - well, next day was Saturday and I went down to the pub. And I've got these two chooks in a spud bag with their heads stickin' out of two holes. R14 2000 words Aussie bush yarns By Neil Hulm R14a Gypsy The Punter According to Doug, Gypsy was a good punter with a bad memory, but could remain poker faced for many hours, and really expected all concerned to believe his statements. After the races had finished, Doug met Gyp+sy at the local hotel. Doug asked Gypsy how he had fared with the bookies. Gypsy said, "Won a 'hunned', Doug." Doug replied, "Well done, old mate," then moved off to have a few beers with the chaps he had entered the bar with. A couple of hours later Doug was moving around a little in the bar and heard Gypsy telling a chap, "I won a couple of `hunned' today, mate." About ten o'clock Gypsy was getting a little the worse for wear and started moving about, hav+ing a chat to different people. He had a cigarette in one hand and a ten ounce glass of beer in the other and was at this stage, spilling more than he was drinking. He was getting close to Doug, so Doug thought that he would get in first, "You had a good day, eh mate?" Gypsy slurred, "Won five `hunned' Dougie, five `hunned'. Hey Dougie, could you lend me fifty 'til next week?" R14b The Chinaman's Snake In the hut, beside a huge vegie garden, lived a young Chinese couple. In the back of the hut was an old stove, still in use, in which wood was used for fuel. At this particular time the stove was quite cold as there wasn't any fire alight. Jimmy the Chinaman spotted a brown snake rearing up from behind the stove. He gave a shriek, told his wife to watch the snake, while he raced up to the local pub to get help. He finally got the message across that there was a snake in the hut. Amidst the yells, some wit mentioned something about a snake calling in for a Chinese meal. As Bluey lived between the Pub and Jimmy's place he volunteered to "Soon fix that snake, Jimmy my boy!" Bluey called at his own house, picked up his double barrelled shotgun and shortly afterwards entered the hut. Bluey had a look about; the Chinese lady kept pointing to the back of the stove, so finally Bluey understood where the snake was last seen. "We'll light a fire in the stove," quoted Bluey, "That'll fetch the villain out." Next came a screech from Jimmy, who was standing about 20 yards away from the front of the hut. "Light a fire, Mrs." So Jimmy's wife lit a fire. Meanwhile, Bluey, who had consumed a few too many beers, was standing near the stove, with the shotgun hanging slackly in his arm, peering over the top of the stove. The stove warmed up; the snake came out fast. Jimmy's wife screeched and pointed. Both barrels exploded and blew the old stove to pieces. A great cloud of ash and dust filled half the room. The snake slithered out the front door, around the side of the hut and disappeared into long grass. Bluey and Jimmy then went back to the local for a `nerve steadier', while Jimmy's wife was once again left to guard the camp. R14c Down To Earth Douglas, a young chap in his mid thirties, en+joyed the odd ale. As times moved on, the breathalyser began operations in our home town, Lavington. This, of course, put quite a scare into a large number of the locals; as it did in many other towns. Douglas, like the rest of us, worked on his own ideas how to beat this latest invention. As he lived approximately three kilometres from the `local' he decided - too far to walk; too costly to hire a taxi, and he did like a yarn with the boys. So Douglas bought a shining two wheel push bike. To give you an idea on Douglas' build, he was about 5'6" in height and weighed roughly fif+teen stone. The very same afternoon that he purchased his bike, he set off, whistling away, down to the Boomerang, where he joined the boys for a yarn and a few ales. A couple of hours soon ticked away. Douglas decided to peddle off home. He bought six bottles of Carlton Draught; these were handed to him in a half size beer box. Although the bottles are loose, they fit quite neatly into this box. Douglas strapped the box onto the carryall above the back mudgard, mounted his machine, crossed the road and then took off for home, riding along the edge of the bitumen. He had ridden about one kilometre up the road when he started to run out of puff. At the same time he heard a commotion behind him and looked around to find a semi trailer appearing to be cutting him very short on roadway. Douglas steered sharply towards the gutter, hit a pot-hole and of course lost control. After all the wobbling and crashing came to an end, the bot+tles had skidded onto the highway and Douglas was on the footpath with the bike perched on top of him. He jumped up, elbows and knees skinned and bleeding, the semi was disappearing around a corner, some cars were running over a few bottles, while others were swerving to dodge the re+mainder. When the traffic eased down Douglas sauntered over the roadway and gathered his six bottles. Quite amazingly none of these were broken. R14d The Painted Snake Bill and Mary had been married for about 12 months. As usual, for a Saturday afternoon, Bill went up to the `local' for a few ales and a yarn to the boys. After a few hours a 'phone call came through for Bill. Mary was on the other end. "Bill", said Mary, "There is a big brown snake on the veran+dah!" From Bill, "Don't be telling me about it, get the shotgun and shoot it." Mary said, "No, I haven't shot a snake before." Bill interrupted with, "Shoot it." Then put the 'phone down and turned around to the boys, "Woman's got to learn to kill a snake, a man could be a hundred miles away." On the verandah was one snake, also five new one gallon tins of paint of different colours. The paint had been bought by Bill in the morning and lined hurriedly up against the wall. Bill arrived home much later, also very chirpy. By this time the house lights were out and Mary was in bed. Bill called out, "How'd you get along with old `Joe Blake' love?" Quietly from Mary, "Missed it". "Ha, Ha," laughed Bill, "How could anyone miss an old snake with a shotgun?" No answer. Next morning, Bill a little seedy, sauntered out to shift his tins of paint to the back shed. There were five paint tins blown to pieces, paint splattered over the verandah and high up the wall; and of course, no snake. R14e Foxy? Donnie told his yarn at The Holbrook Hotel, after travelling through the bush from Tumbarum+ba. As fox skins were worth about $40 each that winter, Donnie would at most times have his shotgun in his car, for, "You never know from where a fox will spring." He stopped his car beside a rough, bracken covered gully, got his fox whistle and shotgun from the car and selected a position where he stood very still, and blew the whistle. He then realized that he had only one cartridge in the gun and did not have any more in the car. Of course, if a fox did trot up, that shouldn't cause any pro+blem. However, a few minutes later along came two foxes, but about ten yards apart. Donnie waited patiently, hoping that the foxes would brush close together, so that he would have a chance of shooting both. A few seconds ticked by and the foxes were getting very close to Donnie, but still a long way apart. According to Donnie there was only one thing left to do; "I gave them the old `swoosh shot' and I got them both!!" R14f Yap-Yap During 1955, when the Snowy Mountains Scheme was in full swing, Eddie, a chap who had been working there for quite a few years teamed up with two immigrants from Hungary, named Frank and Steve. Steve had been caring for a mongrel fox terrier type dog that was running around the camp at Guthega, where they were sta+tioned. One Sunday they decided to go down along the Snowy River to do a bit of fishing, and of course, Steve had to take the dog. They pulled up at a small clearing by the river, which was to be their base for the day. Eddie and Frank went their various ways along the river, while Steve stayed on and got a fire going and prepared a snack. The dog took off into the bush, hunting for anything that moved. In a short time Steve could hear the dog, "Yap-yap, yap-yap", then the dog came out of the bush, yapping away and following a strange looking reptile, that was racing straight towards the camp. Steve, not knowing anything about a goanna, or even knowing what it was, stood there with his mouth open, perhaps wonder+ing why it was heading towards him. The next event was to be one that Steve would never forget, for the goanna clawed its way to the top of his head in a few short seconds. The dog was yapping away madly and as blood was roll+ing down Steve's face and arms from the claws of the enraged goanna, Steve gave a terrified yell. Ed+die heard the commotion, raced over and caught the dog, then threw it into the river. The goanna jumped down and strutted off with head and tail high in the air. As soon as the dog got out of the river, it yap yapped after the goanna again, but by this time the goanna had found safety in a tall tree. Apart from being shaken up and having for+ty one stitches inserted where the goanna had rip+ped him, Steve was quite all right. R14g Travelling Man As youngsters, we lived for many years along the Mannus Creek, on our property "Kalua". There were a number of sad occasions during these years, but luckily the fun and thrills outnumbered these. During the 1940's the Forestry Commission built some huts for their workmen. These were situated about half a mile upstream from our home and roughly a hundred yards from the bank of the creek. To get across the creek the men used a raft which consisted of three x 44 gallon drums wired together. This was attached by a wire to a cable which was firmly secured to a solid post on either side of the creek. On one occasion the creek was flooded, and too dangerous to enter, even on a strong swimming horse. One of the workmen, Les Henderson had to raft across to handle a chore of some kind on the opposite side. About half way across, the wire holding the raft to the cable broke and away went Les on the raft. There were a couple of blokes running along the edge of the creek, yelling instructions to Les, while another ran back to the camp for a rope; but it was only a few minutes before Les disappeared around a bend in the creek and on his way into big trouble. A few hundred yards further downstream was a tunnel, where the water turned really rough, creating whirl pools and charging amongst rocks into much lower country. Another chap, walking along the creek, spotted this strange outfit, and as Les got a little closer, despite his fears, he didn't lose his sense of humour, for he called out as he went by, "Is this the way to Mildura?" However, the current tossed Les and the raft out of the main stream into shallow water and Les got out soaking wet, but laughing away in his usual manner.