Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

well tanks be to ya young fella for that warm welcome - it was a few years now that i was walkin along the banks of the Liffey in the glorious sunshine of Dublin. The pubs were full to the gunnels and all I could hear was the lilt of those colleens sittin alongside and they don't talk slow do they those Dubliners, music to me ears. What a more peaceful world it was too. well young fella I was just lookin at me world clocks and sees ya 1.30am over there right now - you must be getting ready for the w/end revelry!

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

We was headin for the castle with the blarney stone affair [no true story this - cross me heart etc] and strangely enough stopped in a lovely quaint pub on the way [ arh but aren't they all] and the place was quite empty at lunch time which I thought was rather strange. Anyhow we bumped into a fella with his young daughter in a perambulator and got talkin to him as ya do and he told us either he or his wife was a local doctor I think it was her? - and so he was out for stroll and bumped into the pub. Anyways we got chattin and told him we woz headin for the blarney stone - well he had this quizzical look about him that was just beggin the next question - wot? wot? - well he said in a hushed tone

" I'm local see even though I do look like a carribean indian and wot folklore I have heard is that some of the local boyscouts regularly climb up to the stone which is right atop of the castle and pee all over it just to get it toned up so to speak in readiness for the next days tourists - which was us!
I can't prove it mind you but that's the local rumour. Well we went with the other 100 tourists queued outside queued up the windy old stone stairs and finally got to the top - perilous it was - we had to lay down on a stone then put the head through an aperture and kiss another over hanging stone and all the time I was thinking is someone taking the piss about this??

https://www.google.com/search?q=pict...V03UOCEmKiOJcM

that's me in the red jumper - he got hold of me jumper and said "nice jumper" I thought he said "ready to jump" and nearly took off!

heh daya need a Phd to post pics here?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

heh daya need a Phd to post pics here?

No, the only licence required in here is a poetic one.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

You have to be careful, sticking your head through stuff.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

oh you can put rude pics on then? but don't open the pc before 7.30pm?

there was a young man with a trunk
who seemed to be terrible drunk
though they pulled and they shoved
he seemed terribly stuffed
and he screamed 'heh get ya hands off you 'orrible punk"

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

well here's our version of postman Pat

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

now you will notice in this ozzie version which is permissible for children the swagman aka [postman bill] is sitting under the tree not doing silly things and sticking his head in it? He then jumps up and grabs a jumbuk aka kanga and sticks him in his tuckerbag aka [school satchel] humanely and still alive. Then along comes a squatter [aka farmer] and the troopers [aka cops] and stole the bloody kanga off of the swagman – lot of history wrapped up in that one spittie aka spitfire – ozzie history 101


ps: think I've got the hang of the utubes - taste quite nice too!

pps: moral of the tale - never leave ya arse exposed whilst noddying a tree trunk?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Hello bret, and welcome to the mad-house. Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

R Mar was born in Oz; Perth WA to be precise.
My grandad survived the horrors of WW1 and emigrated from the UK to join other family members in a farming venture as part of a Government Soldier-Settler scheme in 1919.
He sent for his fiance, my granny, in 1922. She had the banns read on the boat on the way over, and they were wed in Perth the day after she landed in Freemantle.

When the depression hit, the farm could no longer support three families so my grandad brought his family back to England when R Mar was eleven. Had he not done so, I would not have become me.

I always meant to visit Oz and see if I could find the old homestead, but sadly I think I have left it too late due to failing health.


Nice jumper. I see you like subtle colours.


We've had a couple of daytrips to Dublin, including a visit to the most holy place that is the Guinness brewery.
You might catch me kissing a bottle of stout, but never some bacteria infected piece of rock.


Now then, cowboys and myths. There used to be a US TV show called Alias Smith and Jones about a couple of outlaws by the name of Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry. The myth was that they weren't all that bad: chaps who were trying to reform and had never hurt anyone in their lives.

The truth was that the real Kid Curry was a nasty piece of work who had murdered several lawmen and civilians before taking his own life to avoid capture after being shot and wounded by one of his robbery victims.

In the old days of cinema, the villain always wore a black hat and the hero a white one. I would like it to be known that I do indeed own, and sometimes wear a white hat in order to protect the solar panel that is the top of my bald head.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Well thank you FC for that warm welcome and plethora of stories across the boards! - Yes I have spent some time in Perth a windy city at times the tall buildings and now narrow central roads cause wind tunnels! - I think it has been called windy city but the same would apply to Sydney and Melbourne etc.

Fremantle is different and a quaint seaport with lovely old hostelry without the horses and carts. Yes i have been thrown out of many a pub there - accidentally in most cases. Hard to find good cigar purveyors these days but there is a good one in Fremantle run by a Japanese gentleman - I think he likes selling torpedoes!

old homesteads sometimes don't survive too long here because of the intense sun and those creatures that live in wooden structures and eat them from inside? buildings [wooden] can seem to be very well preserved and sound and then you lean on one and down it goes! - if you knew the exact location I could hire a hot air balloon and fly around and look for it ?

you would fit in very well with our rural populations - they all were hats - usually of course the famed Akubra. I once had an almost brand new one but my head kept swelling - probably because of my increasing self- confidence which often gets me into trouble - so it became too tight and interfered with the blood flows to my ears so I gave it to one of my grandaughters and have never seen her wear it although they are of course extremely popular with the female horsy crowd out here as well as rural girls in gneneral.

I feel like I am writing the foreward to a travel book here but I have been to many places all across oz - so do ask questions and I'll make every effort to make up the answers!!

The was a young fellow from Perth - oh never mind tell you that one next time. We've got some one with a roo lose in the top paddock and have to deal with it immediately!!

sez ya later !

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Thanks for the kind offer.

My Mum left Oz in 1937, but went back in the early eighties and found her old home. The walls were still standing and as was the timber frame roof, minus a few sheets of corrugated iron.

It was made of mud-and-cement blocks. Grandad made them by hand and granny set them on racks to dry. I have photos of her and R Mar standing next to a pile.

The farm was called Elberton after the village in England where grandad came from, and was up in the wheat belt near Carnama. It was eventually bought out to become part of a much larger farm complex, but still called Eleberton Farms.

Mum and her nephew who she met up with over there were parked outside the farm entrance looking at the name above the gate when the farmer came out in his Ute and asked if he could help. Mum showed him the pics of the old homestead and was told, it's a few miles thataway.
He took mum and her nephew back to the farm to meet his missus, then drove them over to the old house that grandad had built.

The story of farm and some photos are included in a book about the pioneers, called Westward to the Sea

I've got photos of the place when new, and when my Mum visited as well for comparison.


I sent copies of photos from around the farm to the Carnama Historic society, including a pic of a stump-jump plough pulled by a team of six horses, as well as grandad driving a tractor.

I also sent several souvenirs picked up from the boats my family travelled on between England and Australia to the Museum Victoria in Canberra.

Here's R Mar aged about six or seven going off to school on her horse, Topsy. I think the school was several miles away in a place called Billeroo.



I'm related to the original owners of the Margaret River Hotel, and sent the current owners some photos I was given of the place being built.