Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

would ya be meaning this one the national anthem of OZ?



I must admit I have been in a lot of pubs in OZ over me time - purely for research porpoises as I'm doin a Phduck - in the topic. And despite a lot of sleazy new ones that look like the backend of a star bangled tap dancer there are hundreds of the old ones still left standing - me good mate S and I always met on a sat arvo - and he always wanted to go to the same pub which I thought was boring - so insisted we tried a different one each week - and we did much to his annoyance cos he fancied the barmaid in the first one we went to. but I loved the contrasts - we did see a few old ones fall by the way side as the town either swelled out to swanky or reduced to ya on the wrong side of the railway lines now. but I'll see if i can find a few good photos of the best for ya - just to wet ya whistle?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Ah, bucket handles is the specialist subject today then is it?

I'm surprised there wasn't a plethora of metal handle-less buckets when I was growing up. Every builder and DIY handyperson had a metal bucket half-handle about them, bent and shaped, smoothing off pointing between bricks for the use of.

I never saw a bricky without one.

Bricklaying. Now that's one of the Black Arts, along with rendering and plastering (especially ceiling plastering).

I have tried, and I have failed. I am not a bad DIYer. I can build a decent wall from concrete blocks, or make things from wood, or bend red hot iron on my grandad's anvil, but plastering is beyond my ken.
Respect to the Great Wizards who can perform such magic.



The variety of pubs. Well that's a good thing, as is the variety of hard and soft drinks available.
A couple of chaps started meeting up on a Tuesday evening after they retired at one particular pub. As more left work for good, the numbers on a Tuesday evening swelled, so it was only deemed fair to visit pubs in and around the great city of Bristol so everyone had a chance to meet up at pups easier to get to than others.

I got permission to join the chaps when I retired, although I usually had to catch a train because I live too far away for my bladder to survive by bus without being emptied at least once.
Still, a return ticket once a week was cheap enough, and as long as the pub was within a thirty minute walk of the city station, I was seriously up for it.

Some pubs we will visit many times during a year, some occasionally, and a few get crossed off the list after one visit. A pub that charges twice the amount than some of the others gets an exit vote from the chaps.

There are about fifty of us now on the weekly contact list, but numbers depend on whether people are free on the night, or can get to the chosen location. Numbers therefore varied from four at the lowest to about twenty on a good day.

Subjects discussed vary and ebb and flow and change, so buckets and bucket handles would not be out of place with our lot.

The main fuel that drove us during our employ were the insults and the banter, and this is continued with great gusto at every meeting. I loved my job, but the good natured chatter is the only thing I miss.

It's been beer and video insults for the last year, but some of the chaps have started to venture without so sadly that has stopped. I hope to rejoin my friends when restrictions ease further, and all our household has the protection of two vaccines plus three weeks. I had my second one last week, and my Lovely Cousin will get hers tomorrow.

How about you bret? Have you had any jabs yet?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

yes first one second one in July unless they call me for a second; I got a lift back from me wandering to base camp just for a few months - but were we iz would ya believe we have nay had one case of covid ever - I have been able to breeze about the area ; do me shoppin and sit chatting out in the sunshine of woolworths without a worry at all l no masks nuttin! but the price ya pay is living in bush towns which not everyone in the world wants to do. This is been a worldwide catastrophe and we as a word have not really handle it that well - the great intergalactic meeting in the sky would "tut tut" at earth and say laggin behind the times not up to intergalactic standards they have let the side down.

we of course are next to south sea asia and been trying to help some of the islanders - we've had no calls from others like cambodia etc and poor old India is in a bit of a mess - we do what we can but can't neglect our own - we maintain high standards of health as much as possible to match the western world imo

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Great post Fruity, I too miss all the banter with the lads I worked with, although not many of us in a workshop they sounded like a barrack of soldiers when they got going.
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You must be psychic Spitty, God’s me judge the name of that old local was called “The Quarry House”, it was built back in the late 1800’s near an old slate quarry, no shortage of slates there, knocked down now like so many other great pubs over here.
Plenty of posh watering holes though, folks drinking and paying for water in a pub is hard for me to comprehend, an old Guinness man like me is almost ashamed to ask for a pint in such places. There’s only 2 pubs left in my area now, there used to be 9.
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“I remember that with one jab of a needle in the Punjab….” who sang that?
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Thank you kindly for playing that tune Bret, it brought back a flood of happy memories of Joe my Father’s brother and my favourite of all the Uncles.

My older brother and me spent most of our childhood in the granny’s house as my Mother had to work on account of Dad being in Hospital for years with TB.

1957, Joe must have been in his late thirties and I was about twelve, and one Saturday night he came home with some mates and had the new 78 Slim Dusty record clutched to his breast as if it was pressed in 18ct. gold (the disc not his breast)

A great hooley followed and we was all up till the wee hours playing it over and over again, by morning the brother and me knew every word by heart, I still love it today, great lyrics don’t you think.

The pub with no beer was a real pub I believe.

The granny and the unmarried aunt never drank but they loved when Joe brought his mates home some Saturday nights, they fussed over the young men and danced to the traditional music, happy memories of happy people.

Them old hooleys used to be great, singing, dancing, story telling and fierce craic, but folks don't have them any more.

So it’s farewell to the traditional hooley, the wake will be next to go, not many folks have them now, just a few prayers then dump ya in the ground without giving your friends and kin a good night to remember you by, ah well such is progress.
If my lot don’t have a good wake when I’m gone I’ll come back to haunt them all.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

well thanks for ya tips by the was Jem - here's a link for a pub with no beer the real one - I could have posted a pic but there were so many of them and ya can see them on the link anyway ya lazy baswards!!

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+...6AB9dAHjTY7YGM


any feed backs I would deloited to pass onta the drunken owners!

and Jem I'm so sorry so many people are dying over there must be summat ya puttin in the guiness heh? - when over here were you would expect it not to happen the outback is changing rapidly - we now have machines that pick grapes instead of foreigners - and many farms have gone super high tech with equipment etc - finally they are beginning to understand the land not destroy it. but we have a program out here The Back Roads - well worth catchin shows the real ozzie outback towns and the wonderful people in them I pass through them regular like! hurroo

and many a hooley and bit of craic to you too - I'm achin to get back to dublin at least one more time

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

well whilst I was doing some research on pubs I had acquainted and haven't recently I came across a footie website which had a thread of "watering holes of Western Australia through the ages" - could not believe me ears or the written word - 98% of the watering holes I regularly frequented have gone - blastered away or turned into nightclubs etc - why - social family changes and drink and driving laws. It is now not deemed proper for the man of the house to go out drinkin regular with his mates and of course the drink/drivin laws speak for themselves - ergo - drastic sales drop and ruin!

I shall have to go away and have a drink just to compose meself! hic hic!

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Thanks for the link Bret, by all means compose yourself and have another drink while you ponder all those lovely boozers you visited on your travels.
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We’ve all had plenty of time to think back on our lives during the series of lockdowns, and as everyone in the forum is over 50 we all have lots of memories, be they good or bad.

I vaguely remember my first years, born in late 1945 in a tenement room in town, we moved out to a corporation estate (called a council estate in the UK I believe) in late 1949, we didn’t know ourselves with our own house and front with back gardens, the grey tenement buildings and the equally grey lane in which they stood were soon forgotten.

The buildings in the lane were pulled down in the 1960’s and there’s a shelter there now for down and outs.

There were more taller tenements behind ours and I heard a story about a young boy being left in the house all evening to mind his six other siblings while the parents were out drinking, also that the boy was often beaten up by his father.

The RSPCC were called to investigate reports from neighbours and a very young and enthusiastic officer knocked on the scruffy door of number 16 where the family lived.
The boy in question slowly opened the door by about eight inches.

“Yeah! watta ya want?”
“Is your father in son?”
“No he’s not”
“Well is your mother in then?”
“No she’s not”
“Where are they?”
“Down in the boozer”
“What time will they be home?”
“12 o’clock when they’re thrown out of it”

The officer reckoned he would would have to be gentle and careful with this frail young lad dressed in rags, so he smiled and asked.

“What is your name son?”
“Tom”
“Tell me Tom do you go to school?”
“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t”
“I see, does your dad ever take you out for walks or to play football in the park, things like that?”
“No never, but he took me out in a boat to the island in Dublin bay last week and I swam all the way back”
“That’s fantastic Tom!, so you love to swim do you?”
“Yeah, it’s alright once ya get outta the sack”

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

oh Jem you are naughty but I do like you! yes did the council estate thingy too once - back and front garden - me Da loved flowers and the front was majestic - wouldn't touch the back at all - all we had was a 10ftx7foot scratchy lawn and the rest soil and weeds!

It was a lovely village really - 6000 popn -mostly in the new council estate and a few left from the old village but we sorta melded well. should have stayed perhaps and bought the place but how would I feel now heh? you know looking back now - they were the most carefree days of my life.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I tried saving some photos of the pubs I once knew and loved but they all have copyright thingys and they won't upload on any other carrier? god there only photos fgs. if I went and clicked them myself they couldn't do anything about it o worlds gone crazy. Could do a pub crawl with me camera?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Good idea, I'm sorry I didn't take snaps of all the pubs I was in, most of them are gone now.

We had a journalist here who worked for a national Sunday newspaper, he wrote a page every week and called it “Pub Spy”.

A different pub was visited every week and yerman was always incognito, he then wrote up what he thought of the place and featured photos of the premises inside and out.

He was widely read as you can imagine in a land of pint guzzlers as it was back in the 70’s. the publicans were terrified of him in case he’d give them a bad write up.
Nothing as bad for a pubs reputation as saying their pints were 'slop', a word pub spy was fond of using, once that appeared in the write up it was downhill for that particular establishment from then on, the competition was fierce with so many public houses in the country that time.

Needless to say there were many opportunists who took advantage of this, pretending to be the ‘pub spy’, but that’s another story for another day.

In the end he was financially ‘got at’ and stopped criticising the pubs, his page became dull and predictable, then he and his page faded into obscurity, everyone has his price as Al Capone used to say.