Childhood memories of a professional ratbag (Part Two)

yes I decided to make this part two. I know it is boring and routinely predictable, but if you don't like it, tough. It's my blog and I'll do it my way.

I remember things about living in Cohuna that seem now so remote and in a different world. The attitude of the town copper would never be allowed today. Senior Sergeant Stan Weeks was a purpose built small town copper. He knew everything that was going on, he knew what was happening and who was making it happen, and he exercised enormous discretion in the meeting out of justice. But he was never unfair or biased. He just didnt like booking people. In his own words "to much bloody paperwork". In reality of course, it mean that the offender got a second chance to go through life without a record, but if you re-offended, then you got hit hard.

He made it his business to be down the street after school one day and called me over. So up I trotted, "Yes Mr Weeks?" He had me down at his house every night for an hour after school cutting his firewood. And then going home and trying to explain to Mum why I was late home from school without giving the game away. But to this day, only he and I know why I was cutting his wood. That made a special bond between Stan and I and I have been very proud to have him as my friend.

This was the same copper who told us, when we had reached more advanced years and started building cars that if we got one of our parents to tow the cars out to the sandpits on the island and tow them home again, he wouldn't see anything. Fortunately, one of the mates' fathers had an old Buick straight 8 and he towed us out and back. We slid those cars round in the sandpits as if there was no tomorrow, indeed sometimes I wonder why there was a tomorrow for us. But it taught us basic mechanics and it taught us also how to drive. Handbrake turns, J turns, slide control, use of a gearbox, it all came from those sessions out in the sandpits. Maybe it should be included in driver training today. His funeral was the biggest ever seen in Cohuna. There were over 1500 mourners present, including the Chief Commissioner.

There was beauty there as well as fun, growing up in the country. I used to ride the pushbike out to Mount Hope and sit up on suicide rock just on sunset. it was about 18 or 19 miles out of town, and the rock overlooked quite a large area of paddock. The brolgas used to dance there of an evening in flocks of up to 200 or so. It was a long and usually cold ride home afterwards, but I never minded it. I was warmed inside by the memory of what I had just been allowed to see. It was a magnificent spectacle and one that is almost gone now, certainly from that location. The birds just aren't there any more. But I was involved in that, I was a part of it. I never took anyone else with me, it was too private and delicate to be shared.

Standing at a friend's farm gate with Dad talking about school late one summers evening. We weren't really talking about anything, just being together watching a magnificent sunset. A flight of swans went over the coloured clouds, with an occaisional honk as one got out of line. They always fly in a V formation so that each bird rides on the wash of the bird in front, rather like a surfer rides a wave. They take it in turns to lead the V so that one bird doesn't have to do all the work. They looked so beautiful silouhetted against the reds and oranges and purples of the clouds. No details, just the black shapes flying home. I looked at Dad and we both cried.

I remember also the excitement of the snakeman coming up. The Commonwealth Serum Laboratories were doing a lot of research into snake bite antidotes at that time under Struan Sutherland and one of their men used to come up and catch various snakes and milk them. He was a keen Scout leader and would come to the meeting of the Cohuna troop to talk about the work. Some of us used to go out with him on his field trips, taking him to good snake spots, handing him his equipment and generally getting in his way. We must have been a terrible trial to him, we were messing about with lethal animals, but he not only tolerated us, he seemed to welcome us into his world. No one ever got bitten on these trips and they went on for quite a few years until the Laboratory aquired its own breeding facilities. This, like Stan Weeks, would never be allowed nowadays. Occupational Health and Safety would have a fit and the insurance companies would be up in the air like a startled pigeon.

I might write Part three one day. but I might call it part four instead