You’ve Gotta Knock About Son
appeared some twenty minutes later with a billy of barely warm water. ‘What happened? demanded Harry. ‘Couldn’t you even get it to boil?’ ‘Oh, that bit was easy’, Colin replied. ‘It took about ten minutes running flat out though, and when it boiled, I discovered that you’d forgotten to give me your tea. Now I must have been over a mile away, so there wasn’t much point in running all the way back as well!’ I found out later that he’d been hiding under a cool tree about 100 yards away. Now talking of dry sandwiches, the ones that we got from the hostel were pretty bloody ordinary, even when we picked them up. After about five hours being humped around in the sun, the outside slices were curled up and as hard as the hobs. Not only that, but they consisted of salami or sauerkraut every day. So off I went to the manager/cook. ‘How about a variety of Australian tucker’, I said. ‘Like what?’ he responded. ‘Well, for example, like vegemite, peanut butter or cheese.’ Well, for the next several months, Colin and I got vegemite, peanut butter and cheese every day. My mate stopped thanking me at about the end of the first week. I suppose when you’re about eighteen, life is just a bowl of cherries. We enjoyed our time in Scone. We had a lot of fun with the Italians – they liked to drink, eat, sing and box. We helped them with their English, and also learned a little Italian. The local girls wouldn’t have much to do with them, so they tended to congregate in groups a bit. One night there was a small group from our hostel at the pictures, and I went across to talk to them in the foyer at interval. One remarked on my shoes and asked what the sole was made of. I shrugged and lifted one foot up and turned it upwards to inspect the sole. Just then he farted loudly and backed off from me, just as every one in the foyer turned around to look at the only person present, standing on one leg! The mid fifties was a time of immense change, even in sleepy little towns like Scone. Despite my best endeavours to become an accomplished (I thought) ballroom dancer, I was quickly finding myself obsolete on Saturday nights – Rock and Roll had arrived. The Bill Halley film, ‘Rock around the Clock’ came to town and every one was dancing in the aisles during the screening. Just a few months earlier, you’d have been asked to leave for dropping your jaffas on the floor! A local lad and a couple of his girl-friends who were really ‘in the groove’ took me aside and convinced me to get a crew cut in preparation for a sort of flat top with that stupid Tony Curtis bit hanging down the front. Only then would they take us to the good dances in Muswellbrook and Newcastle. Only then would they teach me the basics of rock n roll. TV was in its infancy at that time, and it was quite common to see groups of people huddled on the footpath outside electrical goods stores watching the programs 22