Terminus Hotel, Morgan, South Australia

The Terminus Hotel, at Morgan on the Murray River, South Australia

I rock up to the bar of the Terminus Hotel with a message from a mate.

His name’s Tony and he’s a water man - a bloke whose enthusiasm for boats, especially wooden sailing boats, knows no plimsoll line. A few months earlier he was sailing his new toy (read ‘obsession’) up the Murray with his son, Tim, and as they were mooring at Morgan the young fella stood on something nasty and slashed his foot. Badly.

They wrapped it up (no doubt a bit of gaffer tape was involved) and headed into the pub, a pub they’d never been to before. They were told the town was doctorless on a Saturday – the closest medical help was at the Waikerie Base Hospital 40kms away.

And getting there?

“Not a problem”, said the Publican, “take my ute. There’s no keys, just turn the lock and it’ll start. Oh, and the windows don't work, the levers are buggered but it’ll get you there. Help yourself, it’s out the back”

They got young Tim to the hospital and a few hours later, bandaged and on crutches in the 45C heat, they slid back into the windowless HZ Holden for the ride back to Morgan and the pub.

So Tony had told me, “when you get to the Terminus at Morgan just tell Phil who owns the place, ‘thanks’ again from me.” At that stage I had no idea, I’d come across Phil in a different pub in a different place.

Three years before, on a seriously foul night on the southern coast of Victoria, the publican at the joint I was kipping decided the blow was too foul to even leave my bike out in the weather so we parked it in the front bar of his Royal Hotel at Portland. I wrote about this night in my book, Pub Yarns, the Pub, the Whole Pub and Nothing but the Pub.

A few nights before I got to Morgan a bloke in another pub higher up the Murray was leafing through a copy of my book.

When he saw the yarn on the Portland Royal he pointed to a shot of the bloke behind the bar and said, “he’s running the Terminus at Morgan now.”

“Really? You sure? Is his name, Phil?”

“Yep, that’s him. Same fella.”

Phil at the bar of the Terminus Hotel, Morgan.

Turns out that about five years ago down on the stormy Victorian coast, Phil and his partner were looking for a get-away-from-the-sea change and bought themselves a place a few kilometres out of Morgan in south aussie.

It was intended to be some sort of holiday slash retirement home for them both.

But then in 2016 they fast-forwarded their plans, cashed in their chips in western Victoria and moved into their place near the Murray.

He went to work on the Brenda Park Vineyards just south of town.*

Phil started using a local bloke, Brian, as the courier to service the needs of the vineyard.

Meanwhile the fella running the Terminus Hotel in Morgan was hating it. He’d only had it a year. It was his first pub and it wasn't what he’d dreamed of. So six months after Phil’d signed on at the vineyards he put the bloke out of his misery and bought the pub.

He set about employing locals and ramping up the food and the service. And he gave Brian the contract to courier in all his booze from out of town.

Now Brian’d recently had an addition to his household. In 2012 his mother had passed away and the following year his dad, Alwyn, then aged 88 had sold the family home south of Adelaide and joined him at this place some 13kms out from Morgan.

Seemed like a good plan but Alwyn, now into his 90’s was getting bored shitless out in the sticks on his own all day whilst his son did his courier work so Brian figured he might bring him into town and leave him in Phil’s capable for a few hours.

Grand-daddy day care. Prize winning concept!

So anyway, when I front up it’s Saturday arvo and the place is pretty busy.  At the bar there’re 7 stools and six of ‘em ar taken.

The walls are filled with old photos of old carts, men in hats, barges and floods. Plus a bit of bourbon paraphernalia. Life on the river.

Phil’s behind the bar and he’s not expecting a blow-in face he knows. But he says “g’day”, gives me a look, and then a side glance as he’s pulling my beer and another as he’s bringing it back. He knows he knows me but he doesn't know from where.

I put him out of his misery: “Last time you poured me a drink we ended up parking my bike in the bar for the night,” and the penny drops.

I give him the news from Tony and between keeping all the glasses filled and doing the takeaways I catch up on all his news. The bar’s one long counter with a short end, sort of like a long reversed L shape and I’m at the foot.

In the middle, right beside the taps sits an old bloke delicately devouring a fish n chips lunch. It’s obvious he’s treated reverentially by the staff and by the locals. This, it turns out, is Alwyn. Ninety three year old Alwyn, known by all around here simply as ‘Dad’.

I wait until he’s had his fill of dinner:  pure old school, he lines up his knife and fork at the centre of his plate although he’s not near polished off it all.

And then I head over.

Now the bar stools at the Terminus are all the same – standard black round tops.

Except for one.

Dad’s.

His is the only one with a back, and on the back are written the words: “Mr Brian”.

A special chair for a special man.

If you come here for a drink you’re welcome to sit in Dad’s chair but if you’re perched  in it come 11 o’clock any morning, don't go getting comfortable.

“Dad comes in at the same time every day and if anyone’s in his seat around quarter to eleven, they’ll be asked to move, either by me or one of the regulars,” Phil tells me.

“It's his stool and it’s always in the same position at the bar. No-one else here has their own seat, but Dad has his – that’s how it is.”

In a quiet, gentle voice Dad says he’s happy to share his story and invites me to park on the spare stool beside him.

“I worked as a baker all my life until my knees gave out when I was 60 so I’m a long time retired. I’ve got 6 children all up and too many grandkids to count but when my wife passed away I just wasn't comfortable staying in our home so the family decided I should sell it and move out here.

I wasn't a pub person back in Adelaide but when I did have a drop it was West End.  Brian thought it’d be an idea to bring me into town while he was working because I do like a bit of company. At the start I used to share my time between both pubs but since Phil’s taken over here I haven’t strayed. And I changed to drinking XXXX. Schooners.

Brownyn, who’s working the bar with dad, Phil clears the plate without saying a word. In no time flat she’s back and pushes a plastic container across the bar: Dad’s doggy bag of left lunch. His dinner will be his tea tonight.

I interrupt Dad’s train. “When was the last time you had to tell ‘em what you wanted to drink or eat?”

He smiles his soft smile. “I ask for my dinner because I don't always have the same thing but the food is good here and the helpings are big so I usually can’t finish it . They know I don't like wasting any so they always give me the leftovers in a little box. But the beer? Maybe the first day I came here I asked for a schooner of XXXX but I don't think I’ve ever had to ask since. They all know what I like.”

Alwyn, just call him, "Dad" in his spot and on his stool at the Terminus Hotel, Morgan.

Then I ask about getting here from out of town.

“If Brian can’t bring me in, we always find a neighbour who can help out and I’m here around 11 every morning. I always have a meal but the number of drinks depends on how I feel.

Pretty soon Phil decided I needed my own seat with a back so he got me this and put my name on the back. That made me feel very special and this really is my second home now.”

 Always this seat, always this position and always schooners of XXXX. No more new tricks for this old dog.

“And I’m never bored in here. Always someone to chat to, always someone with news of the town or from Adelaide.

It’s like family here now for me.  Everyone’s just so friendly. And it’s not just for me.  Locals and visitors, everyone’s treated the same.

Yeah, he’s turned this into a lovely place.”

As Dad talks some of the other drinkers head out, every one with a big “See ya later!” and theyire soon replaced by others. Some come in on their own. Others in pairs or triples – locals, regular visitors and one-off blow-ins like me.

One bloke comes in wanting to bludge a rice cooker for a family do. Not a problem! Phil heads to the kitchen and gets it for him.

One thing is very obvious, just like it is in most pubs where the publican is hands-on, committed and connected: Despite there being plentiful tables and chairs throughout the room, everybody heads for the stools at the bar.  Not because you don't have to get up to get another round, not because it’s easier to watch the single television but simply because the bar is the hearth. A place where all are immediately welcomed and excepted, where all are equals.

A bar like this is the encapsulation of Aussie egalitarianism where all people, no matter how diverse all fit together and fit in together.

I look around and Dad’s still in the middle of the noisy throng nursing his beer, serenity and calm writ large. And I realize that when other locals and regulars reach a certain stage, Phil, the bloke who’ll sling you anything from a rice cooker to his car, will one day, without them asking organise another stool with a back, maybe even get their name on it.

And the other locals will make sure that it’s free when the owner turns up for a drink he won’t have to order.