Old Days, Old Ways

by Alex Nicol

  Stand by your glasses, steady

  This world is a world of lies

  The best men are dead already

  Let’s drink to the next man to die.

  ‘We’d belt that out, banging our glasses on the bar. Goebbels would have been proud of us,’ he admitted.

  I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise as he said it.

  Philip rose through the ranks of the RAAF, eventually commanding his own base; like many who served in that war, he developed a hatred for his enemy. ‘I hated them with an unreasonable loathing’ is the way he described it. And he saw things that fuelled that hatred.

  As a relatively senior officer, he was present when some of the Japanese prisoners of war were released. He recalled seeing a party of Dutch nuns, each of them with their own small child, the consequence of rape.

  Following the Japanese retreat at Balikpapan, he came face to face with the evidence of atrocities. There was a personal element to his animosity when he learned that Bill Newton, a ruckman with whom he’d played in the Old Melburnians football team, had been beheaded for refusing to trample on the Union Jack. ‘It would have made no difference to the outcome of the war if he had. It wasn’t even his flag,’ Philip mused. ‘But it meant a lot to Bill.’

  Perhaps because of his legal training, Philip became involved with the war crimes trials. He witnessed the hanging of three Japanese officers, and delivered to trial Colonel Suga, the commandant of the Kuching prison camp, who was accused of crucifying two women and leaving them to bleed to death over a couple of days. ‘I volunteered for his firing squad,’ Philip said.

  At war’s end, he described himself as ‘half-mad’. He vowed never to take orders from anyone ever again, and contemplated life somewhere in the bush, away from everything. His wife encouraged him back to the bar, and slowly, like so many ex-servicemen and women, he rejoined society.

  Philip Opas had been a keen athlete. ‘Above average, but never a champion’ was how he described himself. Back in Australia after the war he was active in sports administration, and this brought about what he described as his metamorphosis.

  In 1956 Melbourne hosted the Olympic Games, and Philip managed the pre-Games athletic training for a number of countries for a month. Among those athletes was the Japanese contingent. He told me that he approached the secretary-general of the Australian Olympic Federation, Edgar Tanner, and told him, ‘Look, I can’t regard these persons as people. What do I do? Become a hypocrite and shake hands with them, or refuse and create an international incident?’

  Sir Edgar Tanner had been a POW for three years, and replied that he had more reason to hate them than Philip did. But he intended to be a hypocrite and shake hands.

  In the event, Philip shook hands with the Japanese team manager. After just three or four days, he asked himself, ‘How can I hate these lovely boys and girls?’ He laughed as he recalled that ‘the Australian team gave me much more trouble than they did’.

  Philip’s wartime experiences held one more twist for him. He’d received the surrender of a Japanese officer, Major Saito, who’d handed over to him his sword. Philip had no right to claim it, but he had smuggled the sword back to Australia. Later, he regretted this.

  By 1970 Philip was a senior legal officer with the Australian company Conzinc Riotinto, which had an office in Tokyo. Philip found that he had something in common with the Japanese manager: they’d both flown in the Pacific. The Japanese laughingly described himself as a ‘failed kamikaze’.

  Philip sought his new friend’s help in returning the sword—but how to find the major? Saito is a very common Japanese name. The Japanese manager surprised Philip by removing a wooden plug from the handle of the sword to reveal its history inscribed on the haft. He suggested that Philip bring the sword with him the next time he visited Tokyo.

  That visit took place when the company was involved in negotiations with the Japanese over the development of the Bougainville copper mine, and Philip recalled that ‘negotiations were not going well. The US had applied a tariff barrier on imports and the Japanese were cutting all contracts back by 10 per cent.’

  In the midst of these negotiations, Philip received an invitation to appear on television. He assumed that this would be in an attempt to locate a relative of Major Saito, but instead, after a short briefing, he was ushered into a large studio to be greeted by ‘500 schoolkids, who, when I came in, rose and sang “Waltzing Matilda”, and then a young woman was introduced. She was the major’s granddaughter, the only surviving member of the family. The only memento they had of the old man was a photo of him with that sword and a little urn of his ashes. In front of a national television audience I formally handed over the sword, and it obviously meant a lot to her.’

  And the gesture had wider implications: back at the negotiating table he found that things went much better.

  Philip believed that handing back that sword had, for him, ‘closed the circle on the Second World War’.

  THEY’RE GROWING WHEAT AT MOUNT HOPE

  They’re sowing a wheat crop at Mount Hope. That was the story—and if it were true, then it really was a story.

  There are optimists in this world, there are super-optimists, and then there’s the bloke who named Mount Hope. What he was hoping for is anyone’s guess. In that country it could only have been gold.

  The locals will tell you that the time Noah had to move his livestock they got half an inch of rain. That’s unkind, but the average rainfall is a bit less than four and a half inches a year. It’s not what you’d call prime wheat country.

  Mount Hope is north of Hillston and south of Cobar in the west of New South Wales. It’s just about the edge of the mallee country, but not even the hardiest of the mallee cockies had pushed this far west to sow wheat.

  Traditionally, farmers in ‘safe’ country operated a mixed farming business, using grain and either lamb or wool production as a hedge. If the crop failed, there’s always the wool—that was the philosophy. But wool had been on the nose for too long, and some very unlikely country was now seeing the plough. But Mount Hope?

  It took me a couple of tries to raise the would-be farmer on the phone, but when I got through he assured me it was true. He was sowing the crop right now, and I could come and have a look if I liked.

  I checked. There was a pub in Mount Hope, so accommodation wouldn’t be a problem. I was on my way to the farming story of the year.

  The received wisdom of the time was: ‘If you can get the land cheap enough, you’ll make a go of wheat.’ It was all about scale of production. Get a big crop in, the argument went, and chances were that in an ordinary year you’d at least get seed back. If you struck one good year in four you’d be in profit.

  I thought about that as I headed west. It seemed a logical argument, but it didn’t take into account what might happen to the country in a bad year, when you’d get no cover at all.

  I’ve always been interested in the history of this country. I knew that in Henry Lawson’s day you could find plenty of references to fattening bullocks on the country around Bourke, and I’d even learned that a hill just outside of Cobar had once been a dairy—a dairy!

  I was driving through this country in a bad year—you could flog a flea across the paddocks. What had happened to that dairy and those fat bullocks? The answer was, of course, rabbits. In their plague proportions they’d eaten the country out, and the grass that had fed those bullocks had been replaced by scrub. This is fragile country, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I was busting to meet the bloke sowing wheat at Mount Hope.

  The first owner of the pub at Mount Hope should be ashamed of himself. How could anyone have so little imagination as to call an iconic bush pub the Royal Hotel? The pub turned out to be a single-storey building with a bar, and that was about it. There was a verandah down the side; I was to get to know that verandah very well.

  I approached the bar and introduced myself—I was the bloke who’d rung to arrange accommodation, and to get d
irections to my would-be farmer’s place.

  The first shock was to learn that the pub didn’t offer accommodation but ‘there was a couch out on the verandah. You could unroll your swag there.’ That was me for the night. If only I’d brought a swag … And so far as directions to my would-be farmer went, all I had to do was follow the road until I came to a dirt track leading off into the mallee scrub. Nothing to it.

  Give a true bushman a bit of wire and, with a bullocky twitch, he’ll build you anything you like. My would-be wheat farmer was a true bushman. I had expected to find him in a worked-up paddock—he was, after all, sowing wheat. No.

  His basic farming implement was a Caterpillar D8, the sort of heavy bulldozer that was usually used in this part of the country for tank sinking, and he was making it work.

  Hitched to the D8 was a plough, hitched to the plough was a cultivator, hitched to the cultivator was a combine seeder, and hitched to the combine was a covering harrows. He was ploughing the country, cultivating it and sowing all in one pass. I couldn’t wait to see him turn a corner.

  The size and shape of the paddock was the next surprise. He was working country that had been cleared of mallee scrub but he wasn’t sowing the whole lot.

  ‘No,’ he told me with a perfectly straight face. ‘I just drive in that direction for a quarter of an hour, and then I turn around and come back.’

  That’s the way you sow a wheat crop at Mount Hope.

  With that story safe in the recorder, I headed back to the Royal and my couch for the night. There was one more unique experience in store for me.

  The locals had come to town for a celebration. Thinking back, I’m pretty sure that the occasion was the retirement of the local postmaster or postmistress. They were leaving the district, and a send-off was in order.

  They were a great, friendly bunch, and the night progressed and progressed, and then I saw something I doubt you’d see anywhere else in the world. The publican wished the retiree well and announced that he was going to bed—goodnight. He took the big money out of the till behind the bar and left the premises. The party continued.

  As drinks were required, someone would wander behind the bar, pour the drinks, collect the necessary cash, ring up the amount and pop it in the till. And that was still going on when I pulled stumps and headed for that couch on the verandah.

  These days, I note, the Royal is the only visible business in town, and the surrounding mallee scrub is prized for the preservation of malleefowl and red-lored whistler. The wheat crop didn’t make it.

  COUNTRY FOOTBALL’S GONE TO BUGGERY

  I picked up this story in a little town in the Victorian Mallee. I’d gone into a pub to ask for directions and come face to face with club memorabilia. The pub obviously sponsored the town team. There were pictures everywhere, but pride of place was given to an old jumper in a glass frame. The jumper was so caked in mud that you could only guess at its colour. There had to be a story there.

  ‘That’s from the 1956 grand final,’ the old bloke behind the bar told me. ‘You remember—the wet year.’

  It turned out that back when football was played by men, the big rivals in the local league were the town team, the Blues, and a team from the local mission, the Boomerangs—or Rangs, as they were known. The Rangs had won back-to-back grand finals, and the townies were determined that ’56 would be their year. They’d gone undefeated all season, while the Rangs had finished fourth and fought their way through the semis to make the big one.

  The Rangs were led by their centre half-forward, a massive bloke who, the barman assured me, ‘coulda got a game anywhere. The big teams in Melbourne was chasin’ him but he wouldn’t leave. Didn’t want to have to play in boots.’

  It seemed that this big bloke always played in bare feet. There were unkind people who suggested that this was because you couldn’t find boots that would fit him.

  ‘He had a bloody good grip on Australia, that’s for certain,’ my informant told me.

  Came grand final day and it was ‘raining an inch a minute’, I was told. ‘Something you don’t see too often around here. Well, comes time for the teams to run through the banners, and the Rangs are a couple short. They ask for an extra ten minutes to round up a team, and the captain of the Blues, a nice bloke, agrees. Two skinny fourteen-year-olds turn up, pull on the boots and the game’s away.

  ‘Like I said, it’s rainin’ an inch a minute, so it’s wet-weather footy, not pretty but tough. Long story short, the Blues are in front in the last quarter but the Rangs are comin’ hard. The crowd’s off its head. Never seen a game like it. Rain still beltin’ down so hard you can’t make out who’s who on the paddock.

  ‘The Rangs kick one, and that gets ’em to within a point, but there’s only seconds to go. If they’re gonna win, the ball’s gotta come straight outta the centre, someone’s gotta take a big mark and then kick a goal.

  ‘The Blues have packed the backline, but out comes the ball—and the big bloke from the Rangs goes up and takes a screamer. The siren sounds. Now, if he kicks this the Rangs win, if he kicks a point it’s a draw, and if he misses the Blues have got it. No one in the crowd’s breathin’. It’s dead quiet.

  ‘He turns round to have a look, and you can hardly see the goals, it’s rainin’ that hard. Well, he puts the ball down and starts to scoop up a big turkey nest of mud. He’s gonna place-kick it. Nobody’s done a place kick for years.

  ‘Back he goes. He wipes the mud off his big, broad, bare foot and runs in five steps. Smack! You could hear the sound all over the ground. Well, the ball flies through the air. The Blues have got their ruckman in the goal square but it’s no use—the ball sails over the top of ’is head. The ump waves the two flags and the Rangs have won back-to-back-to-back.

  ‘The boys are back here cryin’ in their beer, and they get to arguing about that kick. I mean, with rain all day, that ball’s gotta be as heavy as lead, and he musta kicked it 50 yards.

  ‘Someone says they should measure the kick, so everyone’s back down the ground with a tape measure. The turkey’s nest’s still there, of course, so they can measure from that—but, bugger me, there’s the ball still sittin’ on the mound. He hasn’t kicked it at all. But 50 yards, two feet, nine inches away, between the big sticks, is a little mallee root. He’s grubbed ’er out and kicked ’er that far with his bare foot. That’s his jumper up there.

  ‘Ah, country footy’s gone to buggery these days.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to acknowledge my debt to Neil Inall, a champion of regional broadcasting, a true friend and the inspiration behind the program All Ways on Sunday. It was Neil’s enthusiasm that led to the pilot for the program and Graham White’s foresight that turned what could have been just another half-hour radio program into what it became.

  We could say that the program was a happy accident, something that turned up at the right time in the right place, but that would be selling Graham short. He realised the great opportunity we had to record the voices of Australia at a time of rapid change. Before oral history became a ‘buzz’ word, Graham recognised the power of radio to capture the unique voice of the country. It was he who supported the move to have a national radio program broadcast from a regional station. It had never been done before and it gave the program the flexibility it needed to rove to so many parts of the country. I need particularly to thank Graham for the courage he showed in supporting me during the early days of the program when I was truly terrible. Thank heavens I learned.

  All Ways on Sunday would not have been possible without the network of rural reporters across the country whose contributions to the program gave it its flavour and of course to the many hundreds of people who contributed their stories. The program was a hungry beast and without their continuing support it could never have continued. To all those listeners who welcomed me into their homes on Sunday morning, thank you. It was a privilege I treasure.

  I learned my craft at 2CR in Orange and owe a debt to so ma
ny people there. I’ve written about some of them in this book, but they and literally hundreds of the station’s regular listeners became family. The station welcomed me twice, once as a raw rural trainee and much later as its manager. There I was blessed with some of the most talented broadcasters you’re ever likely to meet. Their light may have been hidden under the bushel of regional radio but they had the talent to match any of their high-flying capital-city counterparts. Together we had great pride in the station and a true dedication to serve the people in 2CR country. The station motto was ‘I’m proud to own 2CR’ and we meant it with all our hearts.

  I’ve been urged many times to write some of the stories I collected in All Ways on Sunday but I resisted until Craig Alexander, a young actor I’d worked with, encouraged me to re-tell some of them in a one-man show. I thought I was past it but his encouragement got me onto the stage one last time. Richard Walsh, my publisher at Allen & Unwin, read the script for that show and encouraged me to further efforts. I need to thank them both for what became a very pleasant experience.

  Despite what some of my former colleagues will tell you, I don’t adhere to the adage ‘never let the facts get in the way of a good story’, but none of the stories told in All Ways on Sunday were saved—what we have here is the memory of an eighty-year-old brain. If I’ve blurred some of the facts please forgive me.

  PHOTO CREDITS

  Internal images courtesy of: ABC Central West/Melanie Pearce (p. 3, 2CR transmitter at Cumnock; p. 5, Laurie Mulhall), Charles Bayliss/National Library of Australia (p. 43, Dunlop Station), Neil Inall (p. 75, Graham White and Neil Inall), unknown (p. 82, Holtermann nugget), Charles Mountford/State Library of South Australia (p. 136, Bob Buck), State Library of Western Australia (p. 145, Gloucester Tree), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (p. 197, Ruth Cracknell and Alex Nicol), Fairfax Media/National Library of Australia (p. 203, Randwick Racecourse), Alex Nicol (p. 217, 2CR T-shirt with logo by Stephen Nicol), unknown (p. 242, Alex Nicol shearing), unknown (p. 258, Alex Nicol in the 2CR studio).