Lloyd Brand

A point is case is how he arranged one of our English exams (3rd year, I think). He bundled us all into the school bus and proceeded to drop us off at various locations in the surrounding countryside outside the town. One on top of the hill The Flying Dutchman, another at the Million Gallon Tank and so on. I was dropped off at the old Racecourse. We were told the object of our exam was to just write. To allow our surroundings to dictate our imagination and write whatever came into our minds.
Well by this time, the racecourse was in a state of disrepair, broken fences and track railing, the grand stand forlorn looking, the race calling tower, rickety but still standing. That was where I placed myself, on top of the tower, book on lap, pen in hand and began to let the loneliness and desolation of my surrounding take hold. I began by recalling the days when the Annual Gymkhana’s were held there, describing the noise of the kids as they played, running and laughing through the throngs of adults. The smell of the beer shed, the aroma of the barbeque, the smell of horses. The hustle and bustle as the bookies took bets and the sudden silence as the races were announced. I described the frenzy of the spectators as they drowned out the race caller as the horses neared the finish line. “You bloody ripper”, “Stupid bloody nag, couldn’t win a race to the shithouse” etc etc. It was all there, I could see, smell and hear it, just as it was all those years ago. The echoes of the past and the taste of dust all too palpable. Sitting there in the memory of days past, a cloud came over, and the sky darkened, the mood then changed and a sudden feeling of desperation and hopeless overtook me. The tower became a camp watch tower, the dust raised the voices of the dead, and I was transported back into the German prison camps of the Second World War. I could hear the screams, the smell of death assaulted my nostrils, the unbearable weight of suffering in the faces that were looking up at me from behind their barbed wire enclosures. An unbearable weight descended upon me, and I felt myself shaking and realised I had tears streaming down my face as I was writing, when the atmosphere began to change once again. This time there was nothing, the eerie silence broken only by the mournful howling of the wind, the dust forming spirals as the wind picked it up. The countryside seemed void of all living things, no animals stirred, no birds in flight, all life had vanished, it was the end of the world. Nuclear war had happened, the Earth was poisoned, and the voices of millions of souls could be heard above the wind. A mournful sound, a frightening sound, and I sat transfixed until the wind stirred up some more and the tower began to wobble, and my train of thought was broken, and all I could think of was to get down before the bloody thing collapsed.
A couple of hours later Tony Cerny picked us all up and back to class we went, where we had to rewrite our work for the exam. A few days later, he comes into class and begins handing out the essays, Mary, good, Peter, excellent, and so on until everyone but myself had been given their essays. Tony then goes on to say he has not given mine back because (here we go I thought he hates it), well because he says it is one of the best stories he has read from a student in a long time. He gave me an A-, as I had not paragraphed my essay, but had written it as a continuous narrative, segueing from image to image. He then proceeded to read it out to the class. I was chuffed, as this was one of the rare occasions where Tony gave me some words of encouragement rather than a clip around the ear. He asked if I could produce something of this standard, why couldn’t I do it all the time? He even asked if he could keep the essay, I could only nod my assent. One of my proudest days at school.

Putting the drum kit together was an effort in ingenuity in itself, as the school only had an old bass and snare drum that were occasionally brought out of retirement for assembly. Who remembers the morning assemblies when we would all patriotically sing, “God save The Queen” ?...
So after scrounging around for a foot pedal and a cymbal, we were finally ready to begin practice. The few practice sessions we had at the school went down reasonably well. The girls were amazing, Sheree as lead singer was great, and Valerie and Anna complimented her famously as backup singers. Stan and Leo naturals on guitar, and I just muddled along trying to keep a semblance of a beat on the drums.
All was coming along swimmingly until one fateful night we decide to have a session at my place in Fourth Street. The first couple of songs went down well, then we decided to do a cover of Eric Burdon and the Animals hit, “House of The Rising Sun”. Who would do the vocals we all asked, no-one came forward, so with all the bravado of a teenage youth, I stepped up to the plate. The first few intro bars sounded great, the moment of truth, I opened and got as far as “There is a house…” and everything stopped, Stan, Leo and the girls decided there and then, that if I ever opened my mouth again they would disband the group. Neighbours front, back and to the sides shouted out, “kill the cat…”, “who’s being murdered” and such.
You all remember the fortnightly newsletter “The Topics”, well they put out a petition for all to sign banning me from ever singing again, I think the whole bloody town and some neighbouring stations signed it. Got a hell of a ribbing at school for weeks after. God, I was so bad I even banned myself from singing. But all in all, when it came to the night of the Social, we managed to put a reasonable show together.
True story, just ask Stan Bogucki.
Years later I discovered Tom Waits...

A Night to Remember

Once or twice a year in the old town, the whole township would gather together in the Cinema hall and throw the biggest and best dances ever.
The sides of the Cinema were set up with long tables, places set with reservation tags, people bringing in their esky’s and setting up their kegs.
Everyone done up in their finest, the atmosphere electric with excitement in anticipation of a great night of music, dancing, fun and most of all, drinking (a favourite pastime) and unwinding.
Once everyone settled in, the band would strike up its first song, and people in their ones and twos would tentatively approach the dance floor.
I recall some of the band members, there was Mark Andrews as lead male vocalist, Billy Davies on drums, Peter Bould and Peter McGowan on lead and rhythm guitar, Sheree Ward as female backup and lead singer. They were the darlings of the music scene in Leigh creek, and they were bloody good by all standards of the day.
A few hours in, and once the booze loosened a few inhibitions, most everyone was up on the dance floor strutting their stuff.
Some pretty good moves in those days…
Anyway this one time, the band played a set of old Rock & Roll numbers, people went wild, everyone up and swinging like crazy. I think they started to play Rock Around the Clock, when onto the floor walked Bill and Dot Davies, and started to rock and roll. Man, they blitzed it. That was how to dance, the whole hall just moved aside and everyone stood in rapt attention as Bill and Dot swept the floor with their amazing routine.
What an ovation and reception they received when they finished.
Brilliant. Turns out Bill and Dot were dance champions back in the old country in their youth, and it certainly showed in the performance they gave us that night.
A night to remember indeed……….

The Dingo

Back when I was in high school a few of us got together and decided to go on a week-end camping trip. I know there was Glen Davies, myself, maybe Breyton Ward, I think Gary Fisher, Eddie Nicholls and one or two others. So come Friday after school we all got together and headed west, Gary had a rucksack with supplies, I carried a few rabbit traps, Eddie his shanghai. After tramping along for a few hours we decided to set up camp on the banks of a creek, nice spot with plenty of shade, and I set out and found a few warrens and set my traps. It was getting dark, so we got a fire going, and Gary cooked up a feast of tin food, and we all tucked in. Yep, nothing could beat this. After a while we set out our sleeping bags around the fire and settled in for the night. Next day I checked my traps, two rabbits, skinned and cleaned them and hung them up for later and re-set the traps then we messed around playing war games in the scrub with dry mud clods as ammunition, laughing and hooting as we recklessly threw ourselves to the ground, oblivious to any danger that may have been lurking in the grass and bushes. We explored a bit, Eddie brought down couple of pigeons with his shanghai. Nightfall was approaching once again, so this time we had pigeon, rabbit and tin food, what a veritable feast we had. Replete and content we settled into the night, chatting about boy stuff, relaxing in our bags near the fire, when in the distance we hear a faint howling sound.

“What was that?”
”Dunno”.
“Must be a fox caught in the traps” I said,
“Na, that’s no fox”.
A second howl, this time closer.
“Shit”, someone cried, “that’s getting closer”,
“Dingo”,
“Shit”.

We all huddled closer to the fire trying not to sound frightened, when out of the blue the most terrifying howl we ever heard came from the edge of the darkness, just out of the range of the fire’s light.

“Jesus, what was that!”
“Where’s the 22?”
“Who’s going to have a look?”
“Not me”,
“No way”.
“On the count of three we all jump up and shout loudly”, someone suggested.

So, 1, 2, 3, and before we could leap to our defence, a great roar of laughter erupted from the darkness, and then my brother Russell and Ronnie Kehr come rolling into view, tears of laughter streaming down their face.
They thought it was the best joke of all time. They knew we were going camping, and roughly where we were heading, so they drove out and snuck up on us. The joke didn’t go down too well with one or two of the boys, but we all ended up having a laugh once our fear subsided and our nerves settled down.
Good thing the 22 was not loaded, or Glen might have put a round or two in their direction.
There you have it, the intrepid adventures of youth.