The View From Connor's Hill (26 page)

My 30-yard kick was pathetic, and shortly afterwards I was told to come off the ground. This was just as well, I guess, because after I'd kicked the ball, I believe I asked the bloke playing on me who I was. I have to admit I was feeling a bit groggy, but to come off the ground in the Omeo League, you had to be almost dead. Then one of our runners turned up and told me to get off, or he would kick my arse. I wearily turned, and plodded for the boundary. Yet again I had to be turned in the right direction, as I was heading for the opposition's bench.

Then there was a miracle. Like Moses parting the sea — with a staff that had his name etched on the side — it was a moment that men would be prepared to die for: the Ensie women cheered me off the ground, while even some of the Creek girls clapped quietly. Wow and strike me lucky; suddenly I was pain-free, and stood taller. However, my nose, unbeknown to the adoring crowd until I lifted my head
,
was pouring blood like a tap. The mountain women noticed this, and it made them cheer even louder.

Up until this stage in my life, regardless of my rugged ironbark looks and charm, I wasn't having much luck in the field of pulling chicks. Then, like Newton and his falling apple or Archimedes in his bathtub, I had a revelation: the gateway to a woman's heart is to play a
bone-crunching sport
. It was so easy to impress those fair damsels if you were seen to be suffering pain. I could have walked off that ground with two broken legs.

As I sat on the bench, I saw three girls heading in my direction. I adopted a smirk normally reserved for film stars. The girls gathered with adoring looks, and for what seemed like ages — probably 30 seconds — the applause from the Ensie supporters came freely. Many looked in my direction, saying things like ‘On ya, mate' and making other familiar heroic mutterings. Suddenly, I realised I'd made it. What exactly I'd made I'm not sure, but I just knew I'd made it. I was a footballer; a local hero, maybe.

As the game went on, the three girls came really close and just looked at me. Then one of them — Susie — hinted that I was
a bit of alright
. Later, the runner reckoned that it meant she wanted to
'ave it off with me
, whatever that meant.

At half-time, Jim, the coach, wanted me to go back on. But just as we were due to trot back out, I vomited all over the floor. Consequently, I donned a dressing gown, had a bucket handed to me, and sat on the players' bench. When you did that, it meant you were finished for the day.

I went home after the game, my head spinning from the pain as well as the attention the girls had bestowed on me. I told my younger brother what Susie had said, and he replied, ‘Gawd you're a drip. It means she wants to marry ya, ya dill.'

Cripes, that was a worry. Marriage was a big step. Then, to make matters worse, Mum put her head around the door. ‘There's a girl, Susie, just phoned. She's coming down with her mum to see if you're alright.'

Now, this was a serious worry; I certainly wasn't ready to go steady and then to get hitched at the tender age of seventeen. No way was I going to let this Susie get her claws into me. Meanwhile, Bob and the rest of the family were ecstatic. Knowing I was very shy and had been a disaster in the courting field, they couldn't wait for Susie to turn up. I needed a plan. Therefore, ever the master of evasion or lateral thinking — thinking without lying down, that is — I decided to do a runner, and took off like a startled wood duck to the Tambo River.

Sprinting along the bank, I could see that there was a fair bit of low bush I could hide in, and even some big trees I could climb up. But then, on second thoughts, as sure as eggs, I reckoned I would be found in those places. I left the river and headed for the main road. It looked the best option. Quickly, I found a culvert under the road … perfect. I crawled up inside. It was dark, wet, and smelly. A car arrived some 20 minutes later, and I heard Susie's mum shouting from the window.

My parents would have been horrified — Dad would be in full muttering mode very quickly. In the past, I'd heard him describe Susie's mum as ‘a bit wet', ‘loose', and ‘as thick as a brick' (whatever that meant), so he wouldn't have been impressed. The car doors slammed. Then, as I would have expected, everybody ran around giggling and shouting. I could hear things like, ‘Susie's here, lover boy' and, finally, Bob saying, ‘I think the bugger's cleared off.'

They headed down towards the river, and I stayed put. After some time, the shouting jibes stopped, and threats took the place of the merriment. But I stayed put.

It was dark when I emerged from the culvert and snuck home. I didn't go inside; I just attended to my chores. Susie and her mum had left in disgust, and the dogs weren't happy about the late feed — I usually fed them just on dusk. Then it was difficult to find the milker's calf in the dark as a light fog had already descended. Finally, with all my chores completed, I went inside. That took courage. I copped a lot of smart-arse comments and snide remarks, but that was how my family handled awkward situations. I put up with the rubbishing but, believe me, it was better than getting married.

Unfortunately, the incident was the highlight of the week when it came to local rumour and hearsay. The local gossips apparently had a ball. Worse was to come. Over the next week, I vomited regularly and had a splitting headache. Naturally, I lined up for footy the following Saturday against Benambra. Looking back, I probably had concussion; but, in those days, smelling salts cured any footy injuries except for multiple broken bones and missing teeth — that required a sniff of the salts and a dash of the cheapest brandy donated from Cossie's Pub.

The next Saturday at the footy, Susie was there. I didn't see her on arrival, but word got round. I hadn't forgotten the culvert incident, but I hoped that Susie had moved on, as it were. However, within five minutes of being on the ground, above all the local cheers and abuse I heard a very high-pitched voice: ‘You're a weak-kneed chicken, Heard,' bellowed Susie.

‘Yeah!' echoed her squealing mates. They kept up this and similar insults all day. No, I didn't get decked or thumped that day; I managed to get very few kicks, and my efforts resulted in a lot of attention from the opposition footballers, and no cheering from the females. Consequently, although what I am about to say may seem obvious to the average, well-bred Aussie male, to army officers, politicians, and those from other countries, my advice is: gauge the amount of battering you want to receive on the footy field. Whether you get a kick or not is irrelevant. If you want to pull the chicks, get flattened. Remember, they only go stupid over pain … it took me quite a while to recover from that heavy knock.

Benambra, as I mentioned earlier, was a cold bugger of a place in the winter. After a couple of seasons, I was enjoying playing with Ensay, and I always looked forward to playing against Benambra, even though they were ‘above the Gap'. They seemed less savage than the Omeo blokes and perhaps a tad simpler. However, I hated the weather that seemed to pervade that place for eight months of the year. Most days, before the game started, kids would run onto the ground and lift all the dry, frozen cow-pads, leaving the wet or fresh ones. True to form, the Benambra blokes would run onto the ground in sleeveless sweaters. They were either tough or stupid — the latter sounds the most logical.

On one particular day, the game had been going about ten minutes when Big Pete, our rather well-built centre half-back, accidentally ran into a goal post and it snapped off at ground level. A well-meaning Benambra supporter named King slowly strolled over and volunteered to hold the post in position. Admittedly, it was a big post — probably fifteen feet tall and eight inches through at the bottom. Although this appeared a kindly, well-meaning act, in fact it enabled this bloody Benambra supporter bastard to win the game for them single-handed. Let me explain: as the game progressed, every time his team had a shot for goal, King would lean the post outwards to their advantage so that the opening would almost double in size. The umpire, even though he was aware of this foul deed, ignored the bastard. Yes, the ump knew his life would have been in danger from those inbred bushranger mongrels up there in and around Benambra if he'd opened his mouth. It's a well-known fact that the high altitude that one experiences growing up in areas like Benambra causes both intellectual stunting and cannibalism (Bob often muttered about this at home).

Nevertheless, Ensay were playing well, and perhaps our side could have overcome the distinct advantage Benambra had with the broader opening to their goal. But during the next quarter, bloody King would do the opposite when our team kicked towards its goal: he lent the post inwards, to the point where it was almost impossible to score a major, and we lost.

The ump was shouted free grog and a feed after the game that night by the victorious Benambra mob.

chapter fifteen

‘You'll pay for this ...'

BY MY SECOND YEAR AT THE FARM IN ENSAY
,
I HAD WELL AND
truly settled in, and I loved the job and my life generally. I became involved around the area in many activities, the first of which was with the Scouts. I recall one day after a footy game, Tom Cook came up to me and said that the Scouts needed another leader, and I was their man. Although it appeared I had little or no choice, I wandered down to the Scout Hall on the Friday night, liked what I saw, and attended every Friday night for the next three years. The kids were great — typical country larrikins, full of life, and always into mischief. We regularly went on camps, and these kids were at home in the bush.

The Scout Hall was very old and tiny. Most nights, we would have about ten or twelve kids, and the hall would be at capacity. Apart from school, it was the only thing available for boys around Ensay when it came to entertainment. Every boy attended. The scoutmaster was Big Pete.

As the year wore on, I became increasingly involved in community activities. By 1963, I was on the cricket club committee, the grounds committee, and the football social club committee … we put on a hilarious pantomime that same year. Like all locals, I'd been involved in fighting bushfires; they'd been bad that summer. However, perhaps the most intriguing of all my community involvements came about when an enterprising farmer formed a small group of volunteers to run movies. After organising the equipment, we had to have training, and then work as team, learning to overcome problems immediately — or face the wrath of an engrossed crowd — and, at times, see a bit of the show. It was a first-rate idea, and now we had our own movies at Ensay every other Saturday night in the Ensay Hall. However, the biggest problem I found when operating the projector was that I often became absorbed in the movie that was showing. Yes, I know, you've worked it out already … like the nose on your face, you could have guessed I would blow it one night, and I did. Without a doubt, it was the highlight of my brief career as a projectionist.

It all began one night when, with the lights turned off in the Ensay Hall, the show got underway. I was in charge of the first projector. As usual, there would be a lot of coughing, shuffling, and grunting in the hall during this initial period. The first film was always a short clip of Her Majesty the Queen riding side-saddle along a crowded London street. I'd set this up earlier. Everyone in the hall would stand — this was serious stuff. Up in the projectionist's room, after I had the Queen jogging off down the street, still on her horse, I turned my attention to the other projector, ready to flick it into action following the two-minute royal homage. I didn't notice that my shirt-tail had hooked in the projector as I turned.

The first indication of something going wrong was from coughs inside the hall and someone sprinting up the stairs to our little projection room. Turning, I looked through the small, square hole in the wall that enabled the operator to watch the screen. Oh dear. The Queen was jerking up and down in a way that looked like either she or her horse was having an epileptic fit. Worse, Her Royal Highness suddenly froze, buckled, and then distorted before melting in front of the entire audience … there were gasps, small squeals, a little laughter, and many tuts. Finally, the screen only showed folds of black smoke. I had murdered Her Majesty.

Actually, the reel had jammed … poor monarch. There was panic in the tiny room, and it took fifteen minutes to repair the projector. I wonder how many kids had nightmares that night. It's strange but, after that small incident, I was relieved of my projector duties, and instead was asked to work in the hall canteen selling sweets before the movies and at intervals.

I HAD ALSO TURNED EIGHTEEN
in 1963. This meant I could get my driver's licence and use the family car. Owning my own car was out of the question; in fact, most young men of my age simply couldn't afford one. However, I did upgrade to other modes of transport during those early years at Ensay. This came about gradually. As mentioned earlier, when I first started work on the farm I rode Sandy Mac. To put it plainly, he was a slack horse. The boss referred to him as ‘docile'. To his credit, I always thought that this horse was on a mission: he wanted an early retirement.

Almost six months to the day that I'd started work at Ensay, I made a decision. It was after a tiring, Monday stroll to work with this damn horse demanding a snack every fifteen minutes. It was time to modernise; to speed things up a bit. So I pensioned off Sandy Mac, a good kid's horse, and I got some wheels.

Updating to a gleaming, second-hand pushbike was thrilling. It hummed along the partially sealed road, and I used less energy pedalling it than I did when riding Sandy Mac. The bike was a 28-inch fixed-wheel Malvern Star. Thirty minutes was all that it took to get to work on Monday mornings; then 20 minutes to come home on Friday afternoons. Going to work was very hard at first. The journey included a long, uphill drudge that made my calf muscles twitch with protest. Connor's Hill added the extra ten minutes to the journey. It wasn't steep, but it was a steadily increasing climb, about a mile and a half long. The hill led you up, out of the Tambo Valley, and into the Ensay area. There were times when I considered dropping off Rover, my dog, and making him run beside the bike. But after I gathered a rhythm by counting to myself, Rover would sit quietly on the bar between the seat and the handlebars, listening to the transistor radio.