Email to:Mrs Brown…You’ve Got A Lovely Larder
MANY years ago, I crept back to Australia from London…..mad as a buzzard after a disastrous attempt to exhume what I’d believed to be a deeply significant romance……
I could have sat around apportioning blame but that is NOT my way.
Instead, I placed my faith in geography, quickly securing what was advertised as a three-month (MORE if you like it) reporting position on the organ of record in the lead smelting capital of the world, Port Pirie.
cr: yewenyi: flickr
I drove my small sedan into Port Pirie feeling free and confident. Why wouldn’t I? Prestigious position, accommodation provided….
Here I am! Made it! New life! HANG ON!
Why are the windows of my executive suite smashed and why is the front door blowing in the wind? DON’T GET NERVY. Better take a look inside….Dirty carpet, dirty bed, dirty pictures on the wall…..power points smoking and sparking, stalactites and stalagmites of mould throwing up interesting shadows AND neighbours obviously brought very low by Tourette’s Syndrome.
***** You, No, you go **** yourself. You’re a ******* idiot. ****You. Some ****wit’s moved in next door. ****’em ( You get the ******* picture?)
After a long night (I slept with a mascara wand under my pillow ready to poke the eyes out of maniacs entering the executive suite unannouced) I fought my way through the rusted car bodies, burnt out fridges and two ravenous alsatian/rottweiler mongrels tearing up the backyard.
Soon enough, I presenting myself to Ken, the Managing Director of The Port Pirie Recorder.
Hello Ken, how much do you play for THAT dive?
Forty dollars a week Miss Ross – everything in order?
NO Ken (Gee, you’re a little guy, there’s NOT much of you…) NOTHING is in order. Now just give me that forty dollars and I’ll subsidise my own digs….
I was to learn though that executive rentals in Port Pirie were impossible to secure. And so it was I ended up at Mrs Brown’s boarding house on Eighth Avenue (between Seventh and Ninth Avenue), West Pirie.
Mrs Brown’s rates for lodgings and food were very reasonable. Back then, West Pirie housed above-ground cement pools of tailings left from when Port Pirie treated uranium from the nearby Radium Hill. Security around the deadly dams was tight: One cyclone fence and one sign: At Least TRY And Stop Your Kids Swimming In The Radioactive Waste.
Anyway, there I was ensconced in a cosy cottage on Radioactive Avenue…….
Mrs Brown was a gentle soul whose life project was to see how far she could push the limits of lard. We enjoyed lard pancakes fried in three inches of lard, crumbed lamb chops done in a stove top vat of perpetual lard (you just scrape the bad bits off KJ and top it up…) and even lard-based patty cakes.
Our biggest lard fest was Wednesdays - Dallas and Cyril night.
Cyril, who arrived huffing and puffing on his push bike, was Mrs Brown’s long-term boyfriend. We watched Dallas with trays of lard treats on our knees. Cyril always stayed over. Sensible. It would have been dangerous for a man of his age to peddle home with four kilos of lard setting in his stomach.
I liked it at Mrs Browns.
But then the outside world came crashing in, rendering us all shell-shocked…….
Firstly, Mrs Brown nearly wrote herself (and her her much-loved Ford Escort) off when she ploughed into a vehicle while dreaming of what she’d do with lard that night.
She spent several days in teary state, propped up in bed wearing a fetching mauve and hot pink knitted bed jacket. THEN, when recovery was imminent, I had to break the news (don’t forget I was working as a reporter) that fire had swept through the motor vehicle repairer’s premises, destroying the Ford Escort. KAPUT!
Mrs Brown folded. She knew that bad things always happened in threes – she’d had two shocks in quick succession and was just waiting, waiting for the third. I could do nothing. Cyril was at a loss. Mrs Brown was too terrified to do anything, go anywhere. She’d figured out that by staying in bed, she could at least TRY to avoid the Trifecta-Of-Doom.
With the lard queen cowering in bed, I took over the cooking. I still respect the power of solid fats.
Mrs Brown was still not herself by the time I drove out of Port Pirie with my lead, yellowcake and cholesterol levels ALL through the roof. Dear Cyril stood by his sweetheart: You just gotta pull yaself together love, you just gotta……
The last I saw of Mrs Brown was though my rear vision mirror as I drove slowly along Radioactive Avenue enroute to Leeton. She was in her nightie and bed jacket, waving and throwing air kisses.
I don’t know what happened next……..
*********************************************************************
Alrightee! Away we go…….tell us about lovely people you’ve met in unexpected situations. Has anyone stayed in an old-fashioned boarding house….(you must be getting on!) Have you arrived in a place all on your lonesome…….AND things are NOT quite what you imagined? Did you freak out or grow up? Have you been to Port Pirie – it’s an unusual place, isn’t it (I liked it but maybe you didn’t) What makes for a COSY living situation. Why do we under-rate the power of COSY? And if there’s anything happening in your neck of the woods, we NEED to know……we do…yes we do…….
BONUS! The Ginger Man has a dream:
Australia’s first ever National Pom Pom Festival.
Cr: janed42:flickr
*******The excitement is unfolding in the comments section**********
******ALL commenters go for it!! Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo – just ignore it.
Prawn Cutlet Award
July 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
That’s all very well KJ….but if you were an ape with a brain as powerful as a human’s would you blog?
The Lonely Scholar,
What a preposterous post! The answer is: OF COURSE NOT! I would spend all of my time trying to hide from public view the disgusting cluster of genitalia on my back…..KJ.
July 12th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I am organizing the National Pom Pom Festival from the Fat Lamb Hotel.
Ideas please.
TGM – FANTASTIC!
I would love to see this category – the best representation of Poms Poms by artists working in lard.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Before it was deemed appropriate for young people to share flats, those coming to Leeton for work HAD to board with locals – often widows with a couple of spare rooms AND a good eye for cash in hand.
They also were the self-appointed guardians of the morals of their lodgers.
Many boarders married quickly after arriving in town. I suspect that was better than hiding boyfriends under beds and having undies’ drawers rifled through while you were at work.
Dear Ex-Leetonite,
Our house was the weekend refuge for some boarders-in-bondage. We gave ‘em a good time and sent them back rejuvenated to the widows. Come Friday, it’ll be all right…….KJ.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Dear KJ,
During my first year of teacher training, I wasn’t fortunate enough to live on campus.
I boarded in a private and very Catholic home of a widow commited to raising the moral standards of the 1970’s young.
I found it easier to comply than to have a really good time doing what came naturally.
For 12 months I attended YCW (Young Christian Workers) functions, Mass on Sundays and actually studied.
I also became a Godmother twice. Didn’t know the mothers. The mothers didn’t know the fathers.
The widow knew the only pathway to heaven was for the bubs to be baptised.
For years I was afraid of answering the door…….just in case there was someone on the other side whose religious upbringing I had promised to guide.
Dear Megsy,
Someone HAD to finally blow the whistle on the obscene trade of Godmothers which continued in Australia right up until the early nineties. Thank you. KJ.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:35 am
TGM,
Don’t know about Pom Poms.
Perhaps docked lambs’ tails would make splendid tassels.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
God, there’s a lot to learn…..
…….I’m going east with my family on school holidays.
I might be out of touch for some time. But please don’t be concerned, especially about the blog.
Folk have been asking me about it saying things like…I kind of like it but it’s SO in house and then when I tell them a post wouldn’t ******** kill them they say: Oh my God, what would I write?
And I say: Write a ******* shopping list if you want – it’s just a bunch of weirdos…..they can’t even cook!
I hope that was OK with you KJ.
Anyhow, if my friends and family don’t get it together (it IS Masterchef finals week!) just keep in mind that I’m studying Strunk Junior The Elements of Style and reading Paths to Paradise on the Liberation from Work in preparation for my return. Then I’m all yours.
Dear Greek and loving it,
It’s very much okay with me….VERY much. Saw MasterChef for the very first time last night. Greek dish nominated for the challenge. The core ingredient was goat which (by all accounts) is very difficult to manage. I can’t think why……I really can’t…….KJ.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Dear Meg,
A great idea but one small difficulty – docked lamb tail soup is a principal source of nutrition for visitors to the Pom Pom Festival.
Two-dollars a bucket……
July 13th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Listen!
Genitalia on the back……
It’s NEVER bothered me…….
July 13th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Except at the beach…….
The Dude,
Can you appraise the women of Australia of your favourite coastal playground? KJ.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Hello again Greek and loving it,
Forgot to mention that MasterChef Judge George (who I must say could work on his table manners) noted last night that pinenuts were the traditional Greek viagra – handed out freely at Symposia.
Next time, Radio National has a seminar (eg: Why Blogging Has No Future: And The Future Is Now) I’m going to put little tupperware containers of pinenuts all over the desks.
Should be intriguing…….
July 13th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Oh, for Christ’s sake!
Are you even aware that the Greek Symposium was men and boys only? Yes, it will be very interesting to WATCH!
Proof that you people at Radio National know nothing about Greek culture.
As for editing out my *****. What the ****?
Greek and loving it,
NOW, don’t get on your high horse……
Of course, I know that Symposia were single-sex gatherings. My comments stand.
As for the ****, I do that because hundreds of thousands of people accessing this site do so from their workplaces – government departments, church offices, NASA headquarters…….
If a site is littered with cheap expletives, those people automatically get blocked out.
So Greek and love it, **** you. KJ.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
THE DERELICT SHOPFRONT NEAR THE FAT LAMB HOTEL
The main street has been renamed Pom Pom Plaza (formerly Ben Hall Boulevarde).
July 14th, 2009 at 8:15 am
bread
milk
yoghurt
eggs
coffee
tomatoes
mushrooms
WOOL – ASSORTED COLOURS.
*Check V-Line bus schedule.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Dear Missy KJ,
Greetings from the people of China.
I Mr FukU2 bring great news of your Dr Who. We his landlord now. No worries.
We look after him very carefully. We got him in a real nice place. He…how you say? Very comfy.
OK, OK he little bit homesick, but we pipe through PA to his room good old Aussie tune,
like Mr. Peter Allen’s: WHEN MY BABY GO TO RIO…….
The whole wing join in!
Still, you know your Dr Who he very naughty boy – so we have to look after him pretty damn good.
Your Rev Kev and Mr Smithy (He spy too? He go missing a lot – Where he go, When he go?)
They keep quiet. Rev Kev, he understand Chinese way.
So NO need for any more talk there, Eh?
Next time you come Shanghai, I Mr FukU2 give you real good time – we go karaoke and sing together fraternally:
WHEN MY BABY GO TO RIO.
Mr FukU2,
You think you’re smart but let me tell you, when our The Rev Kev gets mad, he gets VERY mad! He’s gonna call you from a telephone box outside the lodge and he’s gonna talk (in Mandarin) what we call TURKEY. There’s another Mr Allen song you should get lined up: It lives in all our hearts and it’s called: I STILL CALL AUSTRALIA HOME….KJ.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Gee – my Nan was an excellent old-fashioned Leeton pom pom maker. She made each of us cousins a beanie, complete with pom pom, in the club colours of our favourite Sydney rugby league team (from shaky memory, and in order of birth – Manly, Manly, Wests, Easts, Cronulla, St George (I think), Manly.)
She also had a boarder who became more or less a part of the family and who still comes out of the woodwork at family functions (mostly funerals these days, sadly).
My late grandfather, normally a very mild-mannered type of man, had a habit of occasionally rounding on the unsuspecting lodger and giving him a lengthy and torrid earful about his shortcomings, laced heavily with the word bludger.
This despite Mr Spare Room being in full-time employment and boasting exemplary personal habits. I think it was the sideburns and panel van that got under the old boy’s skin.
I myself thought Mr Spare Room a most intriguing and exotic personage because he was the only person I knew who smoked Black And Whites.
Dera Roma Street – So you’ll be joining Megsy and TGM on Pom Pom Boulevarde? Sounds like your nan’s creations could make up a whole float for the Pom Pom Parade.
On the matter of that troublesome word BLUDGER….In Hec’s hands, it could mean only two things: I LIKE YOU A LOT or I DON’T LIKE YOU AT ALL. I think your Pop liked Mr Spare Room a lot. KJ.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Oh.
Greek and loving it,
I enjoyed speaking my mind to you, I really did. Like so many women, I spend most of my life being NICE – the pressure builds up and POW!
Now, when you say that you and your family are heading ‘east’ for holidays, what exactly do you mean? East Anglia, China….Bondi? East is a very big place. KJ.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Look I’m sorry but I can’t tell you. That would be too much information.
But what I can tell you that this country is known for its parasitic worms that crawl into your ears while you’re asleep. What am I saying? I should be packing socks and vaginal lubricant!
Good grief Greek and loving it, GOOD GRIEF! Lord Howe Island – not so much a country but Australia’s last outpost of DREAD. KJ.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Roma Street,
Your eye for detail is extraordinary……..
Do you live in a place where the horizon is far, far away?
A home where even a giant Oleander bush can’t hide the approach of someone coming from a very long way off? (Just a thought)
I’m on study leave at present and God does my bicycle seat feel good.
The Lonely Scholar, you are aware that even REGULATION size Oleander bushes can kill a person at 50 paces? KJ.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
They were right – IT does send you blind.
In The Valleys of Coolness, The Cataracts are falling……
I have to look on the bright side. I’ll enjoy feeling my way through crowds.
Dear poor ole The Magnet,
You will. You really will! What fantastic spirit in the face of adversity….we can all learn something from you. (Mr Kendall would be proud)
BELL-BIRDS….
By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling……
*Do you dictate your posts? KJ.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:27 am
IN THE DERELICT SHOPFRONT NEAR THE FAT LAMB HOTEL
Of all the Pom Pom Festivals – of all the Fat Lamb Jamborees – SHE had to parachute in here….
Honeysuckle Weeks (’Samantha’), Foyle’s driver….
Trim, taut, marathon runner.
Hair neat under the cap.
Thought you might need a little help, Sir. Car standing by.
Sir?
********************
TGM (Sir!)
And is Miss Honeysuckle Weeks boarding with a local widow?
*****Honeysuckle Weeks on her Foyle’s War character: ‘Sam’s knickers would have put Bridget Jones to shame…..’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-558740/Honeysuckle-wonderful-Foyles-War-wishes-Sam–knickers–sexier.html#ixzz0LHOUSoQ7&C
KJ (Sir!)
July 15th, 2009 at 10:55 am
SAMANTHA!!!!!
NO V-LINE BUS FOR HER.
I SUPPOSE MY JOB WILL BE TO SIT THE FIVE SUPER PUPPIES!
Dear Megsy,
YES! All the right-thinking women of Australia (pom pom afficionados or not) are behind you on this one. I can’t see Miss Honeysuckle Weeks helping out on the docked lamb tail soup stall or joining the local pom pom circle which (I’ve just heard) is frantically working 24-hours-a-day to make the world’s biggest pom pom. It’s going to the size of 10 wading pools. Unbelievable! Yes Siree Miss Honeysuckle, Yes Siree! KJ.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
KJ – Yes indeed – bludger. I can’t recall my Pop ever using it in any ironic or affectionate sense, but neither can I remember him using any other term of abuse or disapprobation in the 40-odd years that I knew him.
If you got on my grandfather’s wick, you weren’t a bastard, a goose, a peanut or a tool.
You were a bludger.
This applied whether you were Nick Greiner, Councillor Maguire, Miracle Malcolm Johnston, Malcolm Reilly, my uncle’s heavily pomaded brother-in-law or the bloke who lived in his spare room.
Lonely Scholar – places where the horizon is far, far away give me the screaming fantods.
As do places where everybody you meet in the street has known you since before you could walk.
So, I live in a place where the horizon is wet but a well-struck torpedo punt’s carry from my favourite gelato joint.
Dear Roma Street,
I’m devastated! I thought you were crazy about Leeton…..KJ.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Forgive me Roma Street.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
KJ – I suspect I’m a bit like you and some others on here. I live where I live and in part of my mind I live in the Leeton of 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.
I know you like to look at the Leeton real estate ads and run over a couple of ‘what ifs’ in your mind, and so do I.
We’ve probably all toyed with going back. Some people I went to school with who shook the dust off their shoes and swore they’d never set foot in the joint again are indeed back and living it large in the MIA.
I don’t know whether I’ve had a better or a worse life for not staying.
Or whether I’m a better or a worse person.
I’d like to have had two lives so I could find out the answer. I do know that when I was a 17-year-old kid and catching the bus out of town, I did think that was my Leeton experience done and dusted.
What turned out to be one of the biggest of the many surprises of adult life is that I find myself thinking about the place (and missing it, at least a little, sometimes a lot) every day of my life.
Well put, Roma Street, well put…….
You’re right – ‘Home’ is where you live now BUT (hot dammit!) it’s also a postcode of the mind. And like it or lump it, if you grew up in a small inland town you had experiences and (even language and humour) that was NOT better (just different) to city bred folk.
In more contemporary times (internet, people generally having access to much the same movies, theatre and yes, even food) the city/country divide has broken down. But it was certainly there when I was a kid – with a shockin’ ‘bowl’ hair cut – in Leeton.
So…like you, there’s the postcode 2705 in my mind….and there’s the living, breathing, seething town.
I ‘visit’ both regularly. I THINK I know where the fantasy stops and reality kicks in. Somewhere around Yanco!
PS: You can still get a neat little tex brick joint (WITH air-con AND in the prestigious LEETON TOWN CIRCLE) at a bloody good price…..KJ.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
THE DERELICT SHOPFRONT NEAR THE FAT LAMB HOTEL
Dear Outraged Megsy and other women of Australia,
Honeysuckle (if you watched the last episode) got down and dirty in a potato field to help the boys at the front. Other gals sneered at her for coming from a posh school, but Sam soldiered on.
The locals here think she’s great.
Can’t stop now….
Car is waiting, Sir!
July 15th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Heightism? The ABC TV program, Short And Male, highlighted the problem of vertically challenged men and how they are treated like muck from childhood onwards.
China has led the way in banning employment discrimination against short men.
Well, I think we need an Army of Under The Tabletop Men.
Already, we are doing well in Espionage…….
Under The Table Top Man
July 16th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Walk short like a man,
Think short like a man,
Fight short like a man,
Love hard like a man,
Be a hero like, like, like……
Under The Table Top Man.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I am looking for the grave of a Leeton man, James William Ross, who died in the early 1960’s.
He was General-Secretary of the Catholic organisation, The Knights Of The Southern Cross.
I would love to also have a picture of Mr Ross.
The Researcher,
We’ll see what happens. (James William Ross is NO relation to me…) KJ.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Assuming that I haven’t tumbled into some in-joke that passed me by from an earlier thread, and that this is a serious request, I’m wondering if James William Ross might be related to prominent Griffith cricket and sporting identity William (Bill) Ross.
Bill was – and probably still is – heavily involved in sport around the MIA and ended up reading the local sports news on MTN-9 (although I think the local news bulletin has since been axed). In any case, he wouldn’t be hard to track down in Griffith.
Unless Bill from Griffsy is a rello of yours, KJ?
Dear Roma Street,
I know it’s hard to believe but our little community is indeed in receipt of A SERIOUS REQUEST. We should all feel very grown up. I haven’t got any rellos in Griffsy. Nor Yoogali. Thanks for this. KJ.
July 16th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Sorry TGM (Sir!)
As part of the ‘the women of Australia’, I don’t care if Honeysuckle/Sam was digging up truffles…….
Stuck up is stuck up.
July 17th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Any chance of a picture of Honeysuckle Weeks?
Carnt see it would do any harm.
Poor Ole Carnt,
Watch those double-demerit-dementia points! I’ll put the pics up AGAIN so you see for yourself what the fuss is all about.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-558740/Honeysuckle-wonderful-Foyles-War-wishes-Sam–knickers–sexier.html#ixzz0LHOUSoQ7&C
KJ.
July 17th, 2009 at 8:39 am
THE DERELICT SHOPFRONT NEAR THE FAT LAMB HOTEL
Car ready, Sir!
Brekkie (nee Festina), the Five Super Puppies and Fingo, the half dingo-fox, in the back….where is Samantha (Miss Honeysuckle Weeks) driving us?
To a place near you?
Sky not so good SIR! (Mr Aeroplane Jim has told me so).
Thank you Samantha. No Messerschmidts up there now, pleased to say.
Thank you SIR! – sorry about the hockey sticks in the front seat.
July 17th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Ja, it is the Deborah Kerr Syndrome….obviously.
Professor Schwarzenheim,
Where you been – in a hot tub in Vienna?
You’re wrong! The women of Australia just don’t want the tiresome blow-in Honeysuckle Weeks swooning over Fingo, taking over the National Pom Pom Festival and ingratiating herself to TGM. KJ.
July 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Thank you Roma Street…
Interesting. Often there are mistakes made about where people come from or where they’re buried.
I’ll check this out……
July 17th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
No worries, The Researcher. As well as mistakes being made about where people come from, there is also (or was in the mid part of the 20th century) a ton of migration between towns and districts in the Riverina. I say this as someone whose own ancestors arrived in Leeton via joints like Colleambally, Hay, West Wyalong and Coolamon, among towns and hamlets.
July 19th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Apropos none of the above, I just want to go on record before the final, on a blog of public record, as saying that I think MasterChef is rigged, and that Poh will not win.
Dear Roma Street,
I think they WILL give it to Poh…..because:
*She looks great on telly (and I can already see her swingin’ the pans on her OWN show).
*Tonight, she will show Australia that she produce a good prawn cutlet AS WELL as turning out her zany wares.
*The other contender, Mrs-NO-Packet-Cakes-If-Ya-Love-Ya Family – will fall apart in spectacular fashion and go crazy with the whizz (all stage directed of course!).
STOP PRESS: Roma Street 1, KJ, 0