Not Another Nigel!

By Peter Carnall

There are times in our life that are really hilarious and remain as fond memories in our minds forever. It could be an innocent comment or a crude joke, but it remains with us for our whole life. Sometimes it even defines the very way we look at life. In Not Another Nigel, the writer reflects on these hilarious incidents of his life which gives him and the reader a good laugh. There are times in our own life that give us a good laugh and just by recollecting them gives us a sense of happiness and well-being. By documenting these incidents, the writer shows us that happy times can be shared and not just locked up as memories. The contents of the book are light and fun to read. It also describes how the writer saw different phases of his life, taking a part time job as a kid, the fun times he had as a teenager, funny moments during National Service, getting hooked on to motor bikes, road trips and various holiday experiences as life went on.
The book’s main purpose is to highlight the many hilarious moments of the writer’s life. The writer has managed to turn everyday incidents into memorable and nostalgic ones that many tend to forget. The book makes us realise that recollecting those hilarious moments of our lives helps us relive that moment and gives us a great sense of contentment in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadOnTime BV
• Release date: Aug 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781742841298

Book preview

Not Another Nigel!

Peter Carnall

Smashwords Edition

Not Another Nigel!

Copyright © 2011 Peter Carnall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 987-1-742841-29-8 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

Not Another Nigel!

Thanks to Heidi for her friendship and inspiring me to record has made me laugh or had an impact on my life over the years, moments that should be shared otherwise they will be lost forever.

It’s taken over forty years to realise that men and women can be friends. If only I had known I’d been friends with Dawn all those years ago.

Much appreciation to my friend Jo and my cousin Barb for their editorial wisdom, keeping me guided in the right direction while I headed the other way.

Many thanks to Jason from Kaboom Toons for bringing my ramblings to life. It was great fun watching stories evolve into illustrations with the stroke of a pen.

Thanks to Nigel and his crew for providing a good laugh during one of my embarrassing moments and, as a result, the title of this book.

Contents

Oh No, Not Another Nigel!

Horsing Around!

Child Labour!

Gone Fishing!

Inspired!

Splashing Around!

Motor Vehicle Driving Test!

I Never Knew!

Number Off!

The Sergeants Mess!

Map Reading!

Secret Men’s Business!

The Orderly Room!

L-plates!

Grenade!

Spiderbait!

Two Cans Per Man!

Motor Cycle Licence!

Wild horses!

The Neighbour!

On Ya Bike!

Karnaval!

Spike Milligan!

Christine!

Bingo!

All At Sea!

It’s The Way You Say It!

Traditions!

Hairy Bikies!

White Line Fever!

An Orwellian Saga!

Outboard Motors!

Stink boats!

Maggies Farm!

Oh No Mum, Not Again!

The Pie man!

Dracula!

Turning 40!

Ice-cream!

Get your rocks off!

Virus!

Frock Friday!

Mr Bean!

Stuck In Sin City!

High Rollers!

The $1,000 Free Cat =^._.^=

Sting In The Tail!

Wildlife!

Don’t Speak Too Soon!

Training Session!

Wine Tasting!

Sausage Sizzle!!

Back Seat Driver!

Lotto!

Electric shock!

Unless You Get The Call!

Head-on!

My Mother’s Favourite Joke!

Recycling!

A Spare Cousin!

Collection!

Smokin’

Bob Bob Bobbin’

The Stationery Room!

We’re Watching Out For You!

Sign This!

Local Headline!

New Car!

Bogans!

Pest Control!

Faking It!

On The Wharf!

Legless!

Spectacular!

Leggin’ It!

Singapore Sling!

On The Lam!

Bikepackers!

The sMile High Club!

Exploring Hong Kong!

eMale Attachment!

Oh No, Not Another Nigel!

One Thursday night I was invited to go twilight sailing by John, a work colleague, on his yacht at Royal Melbourne Yacht squadron.

Sailing was entirely new to me, having never previously stepped on a power boat or yacht. Desert boots, tee shirt and jeans are not perfect attire for a wild and woolly sail on Port Phillip Bay.

Wet weather gear...what’s that?

My sailing ability was absolutely non-existent, soaked through, cold and wet; I had no idea of what was happening.

John spoke in strange terms:

‘Ready about’ ‘Gybo’ ‘Trim the sheet’. ‘Tiller’ ‘Main’ ‘Headsail’ ‘DON’T DO THAT!’

A foreign language no doubt!

After what seemed a lifetime, the yacht returned to her mooring, about 100 metres from shore, with myself assigned to pick up the mooring buoy and secure it to the yacht’s bow... ‘WHAT’S A MOORING?’

As we came towards the mooring flag, I was holding the forestay waiting for the yacht to draw closer, when John shouted:

‘Ready about!’

‘Ready what?’..........next moment..... In the air....SPLASH.... I was in the water with the yacht sailing past.....

Ok...that’s interesting!

Luckily the shore was close and I was happily swimming that way.

Next I heard a voice, ‘Hey mate, you want a lift?’

I looked around, it was the rather hefty stroke on a surf boat from the life saving club on a training session, who asked ‘Do you mind if we practice our rescue techniques on you?’

‘Yeh, sure, no worries.’

As the crew members attempted to drag me aboard, they saw I wasn’t a lightweight.

Then they fell about laughing, dropping me back into the water, saying;

‘Oh no, Not another Nigel!’ as they pointed to the hefty bloke on the stroke.

Sheepishly, I swam back to shore to the laughter of the others on the yacht and the surf boat crew, thankful that their surf boat was still intact!

Horsing Around!

In the mid-1950s, I was about six or seven when my parents moved in with my maternal grandmother who had become ill.

My grandmother lived in Newmarket, not far from Flemington Racecourse. The property had racing stables with eight inside stalls, exercise yards, outside stables and a heated saltwater bath for horse rehabilitation.

There were always four or five racehorses in the stalls plus numerous dogs, cats, rabbits, a goat and a draught horse on the property.

Along with the stables there was the main house, which was part boarding house, there were two sleepouts.

The sleepouts were used for jockey and stable hand accommodation, with country visitors and racing people taking up the boarding rooms.

Saturdays were always busy when the horses were being prepared for transport to and from Flemington on race days.

Sundays were even busier, particularly in winter. The heated saltwater bath was only the one in the northern suburbs. The only other in Melbourne was the heated public baths at St Kilda Beach.

Horses weren’t welcome there!

During the football season, North Melbourne and Essendon footballers would arrive around eight-am on Sunday mornings for after-match rehabilitation following Saturday’s game.

When the football players finished in the salt water bath, the trainers would lead the horses through.

The draught horse belonged to an old Bott’lo (also known as a Marine collector) who would hitch the horse to a flatbed dray and wander the surrounding streets each day, collecting empty beer bottles left outside houses. The bottles were known as ‘Dead Marines’.

On Mondays the horse would be hitched up to the dray, to head off at eight-fifteen-am towards the primary school I attended. Along the way the driver would pick up a few of my school friends and drop of us off at school.

We moved along the street with the driver yelling out ‘BOTT’LO, BOTT’LO’ and us kids would yell out ‘BRING OUT YA DEAD, BRING OUT YA DEAD’……we would crack up!

The louder the driver yelled out ‘BOTT’LO, BOTT’LO’ us kids would yell, ‘BRING OUT YA DEAD, BRING OUT YA DEAD’ even louder… it was great way to go to school!

Child Labour!

Most kids in our neighbourhood had part-time jobs to earn pocket money.

We all knew the good jobs and if any of our mates had better jobs than we did, we harassed the business owner or manager to list our name if a vacancy came up.

There were four jobs that I wanted:

The newspaper kiosk at the railway station for the daily morning peak hour.

The afternoon spot at the railway station selling the daily evening newspapers as passengers came home at night.

The Saturday afternoon spot at the railway station for all the passengers coming home after the races or football.

Delivering telegrams after school each day, Saturday mornings and during school holidays.

My parents wouldn’t let me apply for any as I was only seven!

They made me wait until I was ten years old before I could have a part-time job.

The day I turned ten, the newsagent gave me the morning kiosk job (before school; six-thirty-am to eight-am) on the railway platform; the pay was per dozen papers sold. With no pay for selling cigarettes, sweets or soft drinks. I’m sure the newsagent gave me a job just to get me off his back!

Luckily I only had that job for six months, the tips were really poor!

Then I scooped the afternoon paper job (three-pm to six-pm). The pay was the same; however there were three editions of the daily afternoon paper with the afternoon customers being good tippers!

About six months later, I managed to land the Saturday afternoon shift; this was the plum paper job from the newsagency.

Again there were three editions, plus the Sporting Globe with the Saturday football and race results in the last edition, which went on sale around six-pm.

The Saturday customers were the best, the tips were enormous! You could earn more on a Saturday afternoon than the rest of the week. (Of course, the tips had nothing to do with amount of beer drunk at the football or the races!).

The money earned went towards tram fares, movie tickets and toys, if you saved enough.

I held the Saturday afternoon paper job until I was fourteen, when I landed the part-time telegram delivery job at the local Post Office.

I held that telegram delivery job until I was seventeen, when I started full time employment after finishing my Leaving Certificate at Essendon Technical School.

The local Post Office was about 100 metres from home which was easy to go to after school. Generally the hours were three-thirty-pm to six-pm on weekdays and eight-thirty am to one-pm on Saturdays, plus full time hours during school holidays when normal postal staff had leave.

The fortnightly pay was unbelievable for a fourteen year old; however my parents banked half for my future!

Even after they banked half I still had about two pounds ten shillings (five dollars) left each fortnight!

My goal was to save enough to buy a wooden skateboard.

Skateboards were new in the mid-1960s and they became popular very quickly, although they were expensive for kids on a casual income.

A mate of mine, Frank, had the same goal. His part time job was drilling holes in small plastic caps on a lathe in his father’s back shed at home.

We had a brainwave, buy a pair of roller skates, remove the wheels and housing from the boots and attach to old timber floor board pieces.

Roller skates were about fifty per cent of the cost of skateboards.

It took us about three months to save our money for the roller skates.

Frank had a mission - to check out skateboard measurements, the general shape of the board and the positioning of the wheels on the base.

My job was to find the suitable timber lying around the stables, cut the timber to size, and use a plane to even up the piece, then smooth the edges with a spoke shave and finally, paint.

Frank’s was red and black and mine red and blue, we had the best looking skateboards!

And after our first test run, we had the fastest downhill skateboards!

Part-time work certainly paid off!

Gone Fishing!

In the early 1960s, family and friends had regular holidays at our Diamond Bay holiday home on the Mornington