Nothing but the Pub

Echuca, The Star Hotel It’s just on ten in the morning and at the Star Hotel and there’s an expansive bloke running around like a blue arsed, carrying on half a dozen conversations at once, advising staff on special arrangements, taking calls on his mobile and shaking hands with some early starters.  His name’s Paul Jarman and he’s got ten minutes to spare,   “if we’re lucky’. Paul was ‘born into hospitality’, probably, I’m guess about 50 odd years ago.   His father ran the pub down in Rochester but in his twenties Paul headed overseas, working in Paris and London before coming back to Echuca at the turn of the century to raise his kids. A self-described, ‘river man’, he’s done the full length of the Murray in a tinny. It took him just over three years off and on and he managed a drink, he guesses in “98% of the pubs”. The trip convinced him of his connection to the river and the pubs convinced him of his desire to own one. In 2009 along wi...

Here’s a story about a pub. Well, the remnants of what was once a pub. Actually change that to the remnants of a Wine Shanty In fact, best not to risk the ire of the probably pedantic ghost of its long time owner and give it the full regal moniker on which she insisted. Mrs Alexander, who ran the place between Holbrook and Jingellic for near half a century would promptly admonish anyone who within her earshot demeaned her house by referring to it as a ‘shanty’. Rather, it was the “Lankey’s Creek Wine Palace” and she would be ever so   thankful if it were referred to as such! She was a stickler for proper behaviour and courtesy was Barbara Isabelle Alexander, and she had no truck with any lack of respect or innuendo about her morals and class. One summer afternoon at the end of December 1919, this woman, who’s husband was absent, allegedly at the War, and who lived with her sister, had a visit from an old friend who was invited to stay for a cuppa...

So anyway, if you’re on the mid-NSW coast and you head west up the Macleay River from Kempsey, (and why wouldn't you?) the first place you’re going to want to stop is Willawarrin. And when you do maybe force yourself to ride past the pub on your right and pull up just short of the general store on the left and check out the Anzac Memorial. There’s a new one being slowly erected behind it but take a moment to read and count the names of the locals who fought in both world wars. Look around at the town and try to get a grip on just how a tiny place like this gave so many men to service of their country. Back in September 1949 my mum was 8 months pregnant with her first child when my father told her he had to go up the bush for a few days.   Dad was pretty devoted so she knew it was important.   A week earlier the worst floods ever recorded had devastated this same Macleay Valley wiping out entire communities and washing away thousands of catt...