by Mark Bennett
At the same time Taffy had moved out of Wilson Street in Ballarat East, moving back into his stepfather’s house; the two of them had finally made up after around two years of arguing with each other. Taffy’s stepfather owned and operated one of the largest nurseries in Ballarat. Taffy was still very close to my family, and still worked part-time at the Sturt Street butchers. Taffy now had a girlfriend, Linda, and they had been seeing each other for around six months or more. He’d also just gotten his car license, and as I had a couple of cars at the time I sold Taffy his first car: a Ford Falcon station wagon. Dale was still at my parents’ house on Wilson Street.
Around two weeks after the big fight at the night out at Hot Gossip, the boys and I decided to go out camping out on a property just outside of Ballarat. Taffy drove the Ford Falcon to the camp site, fifty minutes out from Ballarat; it was a farm that had a river running through the middle of the property. The farmer had let the boys and I go camping on his grounds before, and didn’t mind as long as we looked after the property. The farm was huge, and the river wasn’t far off the same size of the Yarra River.
We set up the camp site and built up a fire before we went fishing, and got out some of the dirt bikes for a ride around the farm. There would be always a few of us that would get out to this camp site, drinking piss and getting on the pipe, letting the farmer know ahead of time before showing up in our carloads — it’s not like we would get in his way, the farm must have been at least a couple of thousand acres large.
On the second night that we were all camping there, we were all pretty hammered. Taffy was up to something — he always was. Taffy had made a spit out of wire from one the fences around the farm. All the boys were sitting around the campfire having a beer and cooking chops and potatoes on the bonfire. We all were wondering what Taffy was up to, driving around the property in the Falcon. It was dusk; the day had been around forty degrees, and the night would be hot as well. We had spent the day swimming in the river, setting up a rope to jump into the water, and having fun on the dirt bikes.
Taffy was blind drunk and stoned, driving his new car around the property. He got back to the camp site, dropping the spit he had made out of the barbed wire fence, and then took off in the Ford Falcon again; the boys and I had just said to each other, “What the fuck is he up to?” Taffy was driving around like there was no tomorrow; we all looked up and now the farmer was chasing him in his four-wheel drive. Taffy flew past us in the Ford Falcon, just missing the boys at the camp site and heading towards Woza, who was down on the riverbank checking his rod. Taffy lost control of the car and drove over a small cliff, literally flying over Woza’s head and into the water.
We found out that Taffy had been on the top paddock of the farm where he had chased and grabbed two lambs, cutting their throats and putting them in the back of his station wagon. The farmer had been checking his livestock, and went after Taffy. We couldn’t believe it; the boys and I were laughing our heads off. The car was a wreck and floating downstream in the water, with the two dead lambs still in the back.
The farmer wasn’t too happy; he kicked all of us off the property, and we were never allowed back on the farm again. It took some time to clean up the camp site, tie the bikes back on the utes and the trailer and get everything together; it was just on dark, which made it a lot harder to tidy up. Luckily for Taffy he wasn’t hurt in the incident, although he’d lost the station wagon, still floating downstream.
A few months passed since being kicked off the property, and Taffy mentioned to a few of the boys that he wanted to hitchhike to Perth; not just for a trip but as a cheap way to move there. It came up in conversation a few times when the boys were having a session; he wanted to start a fresh life in Perth and reconnect with some family he had there, saying he was tired of Ballarat and wanted a change. He’d had the idea for a while but felt he was finally going to go through with it.
We threw a barbeque party for Taffy to send him off in late 1995. He wanted to travel via the Nullarbor Plain. He packed his backpack and took off by himself, breaking up with his girlfriend before leaving — there were rumours he had another major falling out with his foster family before he left. Taffy was twenty-three years of age when he left for Perth, with little more than some food and dope in his backpack. A few of the boys had said that Taffy wasn’t thinking straight at the time when he took off, blaming the dope.
Taffy made his way to the Nullarbor Plain — the never-never land. After weeks of hitchhiking through the desert, Taffy reached a pub on the edge of the Nullarbor and had a few beers and joints, staying at the pub until stumps.
After the pub had closed, Taffy had made his way onto the highway which ran straight past the pub. He was blind drunk and stoned off his head; he fell asleep on the highway. He was run over by a semi-trailer and died instantly.
Around a week or so later, I was at the shop in Sturt Street when I received a call from Taffy’s stepfather, sharing what had happened to Taffy. At the time of his death there had been no lights along the highway; the driver had said that it was pitch-black, and by the time he saw Taffy it was too late.
The family in Ballarat and the police all looked into Taffy’s death, but it was clear that it was an accident. The truck driver was in shock and retired after the accident with Taffy. The family had transported Taffy’s body back to Ballarat for the funeral and the wake. It was only about nine days since we had thrown a barbeque for Taffy; after that barbeque Taffy and I had gone and had a few more beers at the Sturt Street butchers.
Once the family had Taffy’s body back from Perth, the funeral was held at North Ballarat where many friends and family attended. The wake was at the stepfather’s nursery in Ballarat.
Chapter 8
Football
Around ten months after Taffy had passed away, I had left Lucy and moved out of the house at Latrobe Street. I had also left the butcher shop on Sturt Street and went back to my parents’ house for a couple of weeks. I soon decided to move back to Melbourne, for work and football commitments. At the same time Dale bought another house out at Snake Valley, and left the Wilson Street house. I stayed with my parents for a few more weeks, and then moved back in with my sister and brother-in-law at Roxburgh Park. I wanted to play football in Melbourne and also had a job opportunity with a close friend of the family in Melbourne, who owned many butchers’ shops around Victoria.
I started work at Broadmeadows Town Centre, on Pascoe Vale Road. One of my uncles had been the supervisor for the company for over thirty years. I was offered the job while I was living in Ballarat. I specialised in poultry and added homemade gourmet products to the line while I worked at the butcher’s there. It was around 1996 when I took on the challenge. The company was a large meat and poultry operation and one of the best in Victoria. I had learnt a lot over the years in butchering, and also from the company — I’d like to think the company learnt a lot from me as well. The owner knew that I was experienced in these products, and things were progressing rapidly at the time — if any butcher shop didn’t move with the times they would be left behind, as gourmet and value meals were taking over the trade. Quick and easy meals were the next big thing in the meat and poultry game, and most shops had to compete with the supermarkets for survival. Smaller shops were closing down as the supermarkets expanded their value range.
The job was handy for me — I lived just up the road, in Roxburgh Park, and had grown up in nearby Broadmeadows so I knew a lot of my customers and ended up serving a lot of family and friends. I was also keen to start up footy again. Prior to moving to Ballarat I was approached by a few football clubs in Melbourne: Jacana, Glenroy, Hadfield and even Werribee to name a few. I had a secure job to start with, and took a new offer from Hadfield to play for their team. I couldn’t help but remember the missed opportunity to train with Carlton back in 1990 — my brother Basil had been injured at the same time, so I had to put looking after his Ballarat shop first.
The products I had introduced to the but
chers were a big success, with plenty of shoppers buying my homemade products. We were in a great location, based in the middle of Broadmeadows Town Centre. While I was working at the shopping centre I had run into a lot of my old friends that had grown up in Broadmeadows, Jacana and Glenroy. I even got a spot on the Footy Show once, meeting Eddie McGuire and the rest of the TV crew.
I was now at the age of twenty-four, playing football for Hadfield Football Club and keeping busy at the shop. If I wasn’t injured — unfortunately, I was known for injuries — I was still getting out to different nightclubs around Melbourne and keeping busy with parties and barbeques on the weekend as well as my footy commitments.
One of the family friends I served weekly was Lorraine — or Nana, as I called her. Lorraine had been our next-door neighbour when I was younger and the family lived on Graham Street in Broadmeadows. She was 85 years of age about now. Unfortunately, Lorraine had multiple sclerosis, but she always popped over to say hello and buy her weekly meat from me. I would serve Lorraine every time she was at our butchers, taking her meat out to her, and walking her out of the shop.
I hadn’t seen Lorraine for ages, since the family had left Graham Street — we had lived next door to each other for about fourteen years, and she classed me as her grandchild. I was always in her house as a young child. All the neighbours in our pocket of Broadmeadows would rotate with each other on who would host the next party; Lorraine’s family and our family arguably threw the best parties in the neighbourhood. Half of Broadmeadows would attend our parties. Lorraine had lived on Graham Street for over sixty years with her husband Terry — she was probably one of the first people in the area.
The last time I saw Lorraine — I didn’t know it would be the last time, of course — was at the butchers at Broadmeadows Town Centre when she brought her regular stock of meat. I loaded up Lorraine’s meat on the wheelchair and she gave me a peck on the cheek like always. She mentioned she didn’t feel very well, and I told her to get home and get some rest. She seemed a little distraught on the day. Lorraine left the shopping centre, and made her way down to Jacana Station, a five minute walk from her house on Graham Street. Lorraine wheeled herself to the overpass on the Jacana Bridge, where the new Western Ring Road ran underneath. She somehow managed to lift herself out of the wheelchair and onto the handrails, throwing herself over and onto the highway below, into oncoming traffic.
I heard the news from Di, another very close friend of the family and of Lorraine’s, who owned a business at the shopping centre. I couldn’t believe it.
The family held the funeral in Melbourne. Lorraine had three sons and one daughter, all around fifty to sixty years of age at the time of her death, There was a very big gathering at the funeral; the wake was held at Graham Street. Many from around Broadmeadows turned up to pay their last respects to the friends and family, and to give Lorraine an appropriate farewell.
It took me weeks to accept her death — I was one of the last ones to see Lorraine. I had classed Lorraine as my Nana.
At the shop, I also served the wife of my old football coach from Broadmeadows, Allan. I hadn’t seen Allan since the big move from Melbourne. I still remembered seeing him in the hospital in Coburg in 1979, when I was eight years old and recovering for the operation on my nose and ears. Allan had coached the under nines at the Broadmeadows Football Club, known as the Broadmeadows Bandits. Two weeks before that operation, Ray Chuck Bennett had been gunned down at the courtroom.
Both Allan and I came back to the club hard and we had a great year, making it into the Grand Final — however, that was the same Grand Final I started the huge melee, which resulted in Broadmeadows Football Club being kicked out of the league in 1980. I had attended school with Allan’s son at Campmeadows Primary School, and had played footy with him at Broadmeadows. I was pretty close to the family.
Allan’s wife, Mary, always popped in to buy meat from me at the butchers in the Broadmeadows shopping centre. She said to me that Allan was home, on his death bed. She said to me that Allan wanted to pop in and see me at the butcher shop. One day, he made it over. Allan dragged himself out of bed and came to the shopping centre with his wife, sitting down in front of Di’s coffee shop. I walked out of the shop after selling Mary her weekly meat, and said hello to my old coach, shaking his hand. We spoke about the hospital and our footy days, when the club was banned from the competition. He seemed happy to talk about the old times. The family still lived on the same street in Broadmeadows, for over thirty years by that point.
Allan had died shortly after. He was very crook from old age, and passed away in his sleep at home. I admired Allan, to make that kind of effort just to come in and say hello. I couldn’t help but think of him on the old days on the football field, with him calling the footy the hot potato and spurring us on.
Many people connected to the football club turned up to pay their last respects to Allan and his family at the funeral. It’s weird how things unfold in life; how I had been in hospital at the same time as him, and how we saw each other again and reconnected many years later. He was an amazing old man.
I was well and truly settled in Melbourne and reconnected with my mates from school and the local area. We went to AFL games all the time — I had followed North Melbourne Football Club since I was a young boy. A few old mates from Ballarat were around as well. Many of the boys popped in to buy their meat at the butchers for their family dinners — most of them were married by this stage.
That year, North Melbourne made the Grand Final, to play against the Sydney Swans. A very good friend of mine that I went to school with at Campmeadows, Noop, also followed North Melbourne and we were both excited.
I had known Noop and the whole family since we were kids; he lived in Jacana, and played football for the local club. While I was working at the Broadmeadows shopping centre, Noop would pop in on many occasions with his girlfriend Donya to buy their weekly meat; sometimes I’d see his cousins Shaun and Billy as well, who I’d also gone to school with at Campmeadows. When the Grand Final had come around, Noop and I took the opportunity and made arrangements to attend the match. We tried everywhere to get tickets, but we had left it too late.
On the day, Noop, Donya and I decided to catch the train in to the MCG, because the three of us were drinking and didn’t want to take the risk of driving drunk — plus, it would be hell trying to find a car park. Our one last chance to buy tickets, and they were going to cost us an arm and a leg, was to buy them from a scalper at the ground on the day. We took the chance and eventually got two tickets outside the MCG, although they certainly weren’t cheap. There was a capacity crowd at the MCG to watch the Grand Final match between North Melbourne and Sydney — we were lucky to get in. We got tickets in the standing area behind the goals, with access to the all the food stands and also to the beer, which was handy for us.
North Melbourne had a brilliant year to make it to the Grand Final. The noise from the crowd was like an earthquake, and it felt like the ground was shaking just from the roar of the supporters. The feeling was amazing — to be there, and to see your own team run out onto the ground to fight for the premiership.
We hit the piss as soon as we got in to the ground, and by the end of the game we were blind drunk. We had reason to celebrate: North Melbourne won the Grand Final, beating Sydney by 43 points.
After the game, Noop, Donya and I went out with a few other boys from Broadmeadows we had met up with earlier in the day. We hired a horse and cart, which was parked out front of the MCG — by the time we left the stadium we were blind drunk and having a ball. We made our way to the Redback Hotel on Flemington Road; on the way one of the boys had fallen out of the cart on Flemington Road, but managed to jump straight back in. We were wild by this point. Once we got to the Redback Hotel, we celebrated the Grand Final long into the early hours of Sunday morning. It was a huge weekend, but things were back to normal by the Monday with everyone back at work.
The following week, Noop popped into t
he shop to buy his weekly meat with his girlfriend Donya, as he did every week. Noop had been at a couple of mates’ houses playing up, as he did — he had been on the dope and still in celebration mode.
A few days later, Donya came to the butcher shop and told me some bad news. Noop had been driving his car down behind the Broadmeadows Shopping Centre, when he lost control going around a corner and hit a power pole on Dimboola Road. Noop, twenty-eight years of age, had died at the scene.
I couldn’t believe it. It was only a week since we had gone to the footy and seen North Melbourne win the premiership. We had played football together and went to primary school together; after Donya had told me the bad news that Noop had died, I had to sit down and have a coffee, as I was in complete shock.
There were rumours that Noop had actually driven the car into the power pole in Dimboola Road deliberately; the police that investigated the accident assumed that Noop had hit the pole to kill himself. I wasn’t totally sure myself, but this was a little too consistent with many of the people that I had known over the years who had committed suicide. All I could conclude was that the boys must have smoked a little too much dope — it was a common link.
His funeral and wake was only for close friends and family; his cousins came down from Yarrawonga for the service and to pay their respects to the rest of the family. His death was accepted as an accident.
Chapter 9
No Game
After I had been back in Melbourne for around two and a half years, working at the butchers at Broadmeadows Shopping Centre full time, I had managed to save enough money to purchase my own property in Glenroy. I bought the house as a rental investment, and leased the house to my mate’s sister’s friend — the worst mistake that I have ever made. Graham and Toni, with their little boy, were my first tenants. They never paid rent and I had constant trouble with them. After months of strife, I ordered them out. The day Graham had to move out, I went down to the house with the police; they had served a warrant for Graham to vacant the property, and when the case had been taken to court I won easily. When we arrived at the property in the evening there were other police officers and ambulances everywhere in the street — Beatty Avenue was lit up like Luna Park. The police I had arrived with had no idea what was going on. We pulled up at the house to learn that Graham had hanged himself in the backyard on a tree. I was escorted to the property; the police were trying to cut Graham down from the tree, but it was clearly too late. I didn’t tell many people about the incident.