Once a Pommie Swagman
Nick Thomas
Published by Classic Author and Publishing Services Pty Ltd
First published 2014
JoJo publishing
‘Yarra’s Edge’
2203/80 Lorimer Street
Docklands VIC 3008
Australia
Email: [email protected] or visit www.classic-jojo.com
© Nick Thomas
All rights reserved. No part of this printed or video publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
JoJo Publishing Imprint
Editor: Anne van Alkemade
Designer / typesetter: Chameleon Print Design
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Thomas, Nick, author.
Title: Once a pommie swagman / Nick Thomas; editor, Anne van Alkemade.
ISBN: 978-0-9925900-0-0 (eBook)
Subjects: Thomas, Nick.
Men—Australia—Biography.
Hitchhiking—Australia—Biography.
Swagmen—Australia—Biography.
British—Australia—Biography.
Australia—Social life and customs—1945-1965—Biography.
Other Authors/Contributors: Van Alkemade, Anne, editor.
Dewey Number: 920.710994
Digital edition distributed by
Port Campbell Press
www.portcampbellpress.com.au
Conversion by Winking Billy
CONTENTS
As it was
(1) Uncle Alf, Mr Archer and mad bastards
(2) Sugar babies
(3) Meanderings, memories and mateship
(4) Molinari’s Cafe
(5) Milk bar days and wayward ways
(6) Jerky Joe and Kangaroo Point
(7) Grandfather, mountain retreats, Mr Willard and bloody Gympie
(8) Auntie Marge and Constable Waring
(9) Mrs Hayes
(10) The Proserpine show: Jimmy Sharman and Carol
(11) Dunny carters, public bars and Mr Personality.
(12) Magnetic Island
(13) The Flinders Highway
(14) Julia Creek
(15) J & J Bourke & Co.
(16) William Forsyth Remington Fellows
(17) God Save the Queen! Davey Crockett, and John and Emma Richards
(18) The Golambino Bros.
(19) The cherry orchard, and Danny and Ronnie
(20) Sons and mothers
This book is dedicated to the memory of Reg Hillier; the only man from the Northern Territory to be killed in combat during the Vietnam war. I was there the day he died.
While not claiming to be a personal mate, to us younger soldiers in the small community of an infantry company at War, Reg was a reassuring mentor; composed, courageous, and much respected by officers and men alike.
We all lost much more than a mate that day. Lest we forget.
—Nick Thomas
AS IT WAS
Few countries can have changed as dramatically as Australia since 1961. The population was only just over ten million; steam trains plied the major routes; agriculture was the major industry and in many outer suburbs of Sydney the dunny cart came once a week to take away your unmentionables. Businessmen were highly affronted if they couldn’t park their cars right outside their Pitt Street offices; the Opera House was a hole in the ground; Brisbane International Airport was a collection of unsightly tin huts — much like Brisbane itself in fact — Perth was a sleepy country town and Cairns a mangrove swamp.
Socially, too, the country was unrecognisable. Aborigines were not allowed to vote. God Save the Queen was sung with gusto in picture theatres. Obesity was a rare genetic disorder; drugs were something you got from the chemist; people addressed each other as Mr and Mrs, and women were not allowed into the public bars of hotels. Eating out was a special treat and churches were the only places allowed to open on Sundays, when even mowing the lawn was frowned upon by some.
But since the mid-fifties these and many other seemingly entrenched conventions had been increasingly challenged.
Not haunted by the traumas of war and Depression — or so readily influenced by the church — the young were rebelling. The pillars of social behaviour from previous generations — sexual probity, obedient acquiescence to authority and parental control — all came under siege. It was not a planned or organised rebellion, more a subconscious one stoked by Elvis, the novelty of take-away food, Col Joy, stovepipe pants, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. However, this rebellion was confined mainly to the cities. In the country, attitudes remained very much as they had always been: hard-working, conservative and religious. In 1961 the city/country divide was a chasm, the outback truly was ‘outback’ and few city people ventured there. Many country children had never seen the sea, there was no television and the goings-on in ‘the big smoke’ were as remote and irrelevant as events in China.
Vast stretches of the major highways were little more than tracks, often devoid of traffic for hours; sometimes days at a time; even the great east coast highways — the Pacific and the Bruce — hard as that might be to imagine. Bridges were washed away and towns cut off when it rained, and if you broke down you could be stuck for weeks. Outside cities public transport was virtually non-existent and over-taking lanes and dual carriage ways were called ‘the other side of the road’. Hitchhiking was recognised and encouraged as a legitimate form of transport and the original backpackers the ‘swagmen’ were a common sight west of the ranges, although overseas tourists were like wombats in Tunisia; rarely seen.
Today swagmen, even hitchhikers, have become endangered species, hounded to the brink of extinction by the three bastions of progress: laws, rules and regulations. In 1961 there were no speed cameras, no breathalysers and most cars weren’t even fitted with seat belts, never mind it being a punishable offence not to wear them. Farmers would stop to pick up even the drunkest or most rancid swagman, knowing they could chuck him in the back of the ute with the dogs. Interstate truck drivers would screech to a halt the moment they saw a hitchhiker, glad of the company to help keep them awake. You could travel in the back of a semi-trailer without the police batting an eye, you could ride pillion on a motorcycle without wearing a helmet, and, outside cities, people could drive as fast as they wanted with little or no fear of being stopped. Driving at one hundred miles an hour and more was not uncommon on country roads, despite their terrible condition and very few people were pulled up because their tyres were worn, their vehicle not registered or their insurance lapsed.
Day-to-day living was also more relaxed in the country. People were more trusting and more welcoming and strangers were viewed with curiosity rather than suspicion. Few people locked their cars on the high street when they went shopping, hotel residence doors were left unlocked all night, guards were not too bothered if you jumped on a freight train, and shoplifting and graffiti were virtually unheard of. Above all there was not the myriad by-laws and council policies dictating where we can and cannot smoke, swim, eat, sleep, play ball games, park cars, pitch tents, light fires, hose gardens or ride push-bikes. All this, coupled with a relatively benign climate, no man-eating animals, a fertile, vast, fantastic countryside and a welfare system that ensured nobody starved, meant that in 1961, good or bad, right or wrong, no country in the world — not even the much touted USA — was more attractive, more hospitable or better suited to life on the open road than Australia.
In essence there were three types who took to the roads. The
first group was the original fair-dinkum swagmen, homeless vagabonds who not only carried all their worldly possessions on their backs but, for some, the psychological baggage of war, disaster or personal tragedy that so often derails life. In the main, the swaggies were unsociable loners who kept themselves to themselves. Sometimes they might find employment on a farm or cattle station, and sometimes they might get drunk for weeks on end. Some were real characters, others complete bums, but almost all of them were scornful, occasionally resentful of the two other upstart groups that were increasingly invading their patch.
Itinerant workers, who may or may not have their own transport but still lived fairly rough for most of the year, followed the seasonal work up and down the country as they had done since the Depression. Many were married with families to feed; paying the mortgage was their holy grail no matter the cost to family life caused by long separations.
The third group was the newly emancipated young from the cities. Whether idle surfers intent only on catching the next wave, or wayward youths looking for excitement or just something to do, few in this group had particular goals or aims other than not being prepared to enslave themselves to the soulless nine-to-five grind their fathers had been forced to endure all their lives. Life had to be better than that! The problem was most of them were spectacularly ill-prepared for the nomadic, transient lifestyle they set out on; meaning they were rarely comfortable, frequently hungry, often delinquent and occasionally stupid. Only one thing was common to these three groups; they were almost exclusively male; some no more than boys.
ONE
Uncle Alf, Mr Archer and mad bastards
As it happened, Glen had been born a Pom too and both of us were sixteen when we first set off in 1961, although I could have passed for fourteen physically and mentally. Glen, being a little taller, at least looked more or less his age, even if he didn’t act it. He also sounded like a Pom; his family had emigrated to Australia when he was ten and Lancashire accents are firmly embedded by that age. I was only two when we arrived, so could say “Hooroo,” “Strewth” and “Ow ya goin’ mate,” as unselfconsciously as Chips Rafferty.
My father died three months previously; a lengthy and unpleasant death. Glen’s father was still alive but it should have been him that was dead, so unpleasant was his life. My dad had been a really lovely bloke, whereas Glen’s was a violent alcoholic and many a day Glen had come to school bearing the marks of his father’s anger the night before. The “six o’clock swill” was the main culprit. His dad worked in the city and went straight to the pub when he got off the train every evening. Dinner time became trauma time and if Glen could absent himself from that meal, he did.
The decision to hitchhike north was taken with all the meticulous consideration and planning that rudderless teenagers are noted for; three minutes probably … might have been five. A few of us were on my back veranda in Epping; Lloyd Price blaring out “Cause you got … personality; walk and personality; smile and personality; charm and …” . It was a cool, mid-May afternoon. Winter was in the air and we’d been grappling with the eternal dilemmas of youth: boredom and lack of money; neither of which we’d been remotely successful at solving.
Then Jimmy Mickleton suddenly announced that Ray Harvey’s uncle had made a fortune cutting sugar cane in Ballina the year before.
“… went up there in June, came back in September and bought a house.”
“Bullshit!”
“It’s not bullshit! Eight quid a ton they pay, and if you’re any good you can cut five ton a day!” Jimmy claimed defiantly.
“Forty quid a day!” Glen whispered in awe. Amazing what we believe when we want to, but they did reckon it was warmer up that way.
Glen’s mum was not too happy when he called to say he was “going away for a bit”, but he hung up before she could talk him out of it. I was much luckier. My stepmother had returned to England for a few months after my dad died, and my sister had moved into a flat so I had no such problems. Mind you, we were a bit organised; we both had a swag, canvas kit bags stuffed with a few extra pairs of undies, shirts and trousers, a beach towel, and of course our duffle jackets; couldn’t have a shower without them on in the winter. We also had a tin opener, two packets of Marlboro each, four tins of sausages and beans, a bag of broken biscuits and a packet of Marella Jubes. To top it off, Glen had ninepence and I had one and six, enough to buy a bag of chips and a milkshake. What more could we possibly need? We’d be in Ballina by the morning and quids in the next day.
“Where youse off to?” the truck driver yelled.
“Ballina!” we yelled back, clambering up and into the cab, the engine rearing up between the driver’s and the only slightly larger passenger’s seat like a big heater. We squeezed in and the driver gave us a reassuring grin. There was something uncle-like about him, warm and cosy, like the truck. “You’re in luck,” he bellowed. “Got to be in Brisbane for breakfast or I’ll miss out on me bonus.” We roared off up Pennant Hills Road, gears crunching.
The truck was a Bedford Commer, or Commer knocker as they were known. “Reliable as my bowels,” the driver yelled, noticing our concern as the engine shrieked in protest at being asked to climb the first of the steep, winding hills of the Gosford road. The descent down to the Hawkesbury River Bridge was a relief to the ears, if not the nervous system; miles meant money, and when he could, he let the old truck have her head. We just hung on and enjoyed the thrill.
His name was Alf, and although conversation was limited to the moments when the engine was quieter, we chatted away like long-lost buddies. He wanted to know all about us, and when we’d exhausted our short lives he told us a bit about his. He owned the truck himself, it transpired, was married with two kids and lived in Albury-Wodonga, a handy base for the Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane run he did several times a month. “Hitchhiked about the country meself for a while just after the war; got back and couldn’t settle, so I just took off, did a bit of this and a bit of that, a bit like you two are planning I guess, although I never cut sugar cane,” and saying this, he glanced at us with a slightly quizzical look. “How old are you?”
By now I was used to being asked this question, not that it bothered me particularly; in fact, looking younger than my age had its advantages. When I was fourteen I played half the season for the under-twelve cricket team until someone discovered. It caused a bit of a ruckus and the teacher was severely reprimanded. I had a great time, though, and scored buckets of runs. Alf didn’t comment when we told him, just smiled again and shook his head with wonder.
“What!” we chimed in sensitive chorus.
“Oh, nothing, nothing. I was just picturing two sixteen-year-old Poms cutting sugar cane, that’s all.”
It was gone midnight when we pulled up outside a roadside café near Karuah and, despite the dexy tablets we’d taken, Glen and I were entering that soporific state where your head keeps flopping to one side, waking you up with a start. Soon after we’d crossed the Hawkesbury River Alf reached around behind his seat and pulled out a large jar of little white pills. “Want one?” he grinned. “Help keep you awake.” We thought they were sweets and took the proffered pill without giving it a thought. “Don’t suck it, swallow it,” he advised. For the next three hours we were like hyperactive ten-year-olds on Tartrazine, singing at the tops of our voices, jumping up and down in our seats and laughing uproariously at things that didn’t deserve a frown.
He bought us a huge meal, a chocolate milkshake and a packet of cigarettes each, and Glen and I grinned at each other with boyish delight; good stuff, this hitchhiking. It was half way up the steep hill out of Bulahdelah that the Commer’s engine first began to sound anything but reliable. “Bloody fuel pump,” Alf cursed with a resigned air. Somehow or other he managed to coax another hour or so out of her before the old girl finally coughed and spluttered and came to a standstill a few miles from Kempsey. It didn’t take long for our big heater to lose its effectiveness, but, like the good uncle he was, Alf looked aft
er us; he built a fire and gave us two thick blankets and a canvas sheet to lay on the ground. We slept like little boys. When we woke in the morning he had already made a billy of tea. During the night he’d apparently waved down another truck and help was on its way. We sat about, warming our hands on our enamel mugs — Alf ’s mugs, that was.
Suddenly he almost spat his tea out. “For Christ’s sake! How long has that been there?” and he flicked the tin of beans off the fire, spitting on his fingertips. Who would have thought putting a hole in a can would have been so important! Almost as important as having a spoon, we discovered. Good old Alf. It was amazing what he seemed to have in that cab. “Bloody Poms!” He shook his head in wonder and although it was said light-heartedly, with no hint of malice, there was an element of the mockery, the disdain, even the outright contempt with which the English were viewed by many Australians, especially old soldiers. Of course at school and by other kids on the streets I was used to being taunted occasionally about being a Pom, but there were three people in particular in my childhood whose fervent depth of feeling on the subject left a lasting impression on me. I was nine when I first encountered Mr Archer.
“What in tarnation are you doing, Pommie boy!” he’d thunder from across the playground. “Nothing, sir.”
“Well, cut it out! Hear me! And if I catch you at it again, you’ll swing! Get my drift, Pommie boy!”
Getting Mr Archer’s ‘drift’ was not difficult. He was the deputy head of Epping Primary School, chief disciplinarian, sixth form teacher and sports master. A garrulous man who brooked no nonsense, he had served in Tobruk and New Guinea and wore his medals with pride even when he didn’t have them on. His prejudices and opinions were also unashamed and in your face, as they were across the nation in those days. If truth is the first casualty of war, civility is surely the second.
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