Nothing but the Pub

                    Late on December 29th 1929 when a train pulled in to the station at the pub-less Mallee town of Patchewollock a car load of out-of-town plain-clothed narks was waiting in the shadows. They watched as a stack of crates of beer was unloaded from one of the railway wagons and when it was all done one of the D’s headed over and ‘chased’ the bloke in charge for 5 bottles of Melbourne Bitter and handed him a ten bob note.   Took the beers back to the car, and then returned with his civvied mates, busted Thomas Holland for sly grog selling and confiscated the town’s delivery of 1070 bottles of beer and 19 bottles of wine. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too!   A decade later even the local cops had changed their tune and admitted that sly-grogging was an out of control social menace and that the workers of the area deserved personal irrigation as much as did their crops. The local ...

Searching for Larrikins The Courthouse Hotel at Jamieson on the Upper Goulburn River, Vic.           “I shambled after (them) …. because the only people who interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn …..'             Three months after I first read and was inspired by this quote, and the rest of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”, I hitchhiked from Sydney to Perth and back in 11 days for a bet. I made it with a bit under 6 hours to spare.             It was 1964, vast stretches including all the Nullabor were unsealed.           And I was 13 years old.            In the almost exactly 47 years since (the trip was 11 days because that’s how long the June school ho...