Poverty Lodge

By Gordon Pound

Gordon Pound was born in rural Oxfordshire into a farming family and enjoyed the benefits of country living during the dark days of WW2 and post-war austerity. Later he boarded at a grammar school that was founded in 1571 and appeared to retain the original plumbing and some of the original masters.

Subsequently, he attended Seale-Hayne Agricultural College, graduating just in time to be conscripted into the Army, where he obtained a short service commission. Following that service, finding that he enjoyed army life, he transferred to the Australian Army, where he served in various capacities at locations throughout Australia and Asia.

Retiring after 20 years soldiering and anxious to resume a rural life style, he convinced his family that moving to a ramshackle farmhouse on a rundown farm in Tasmania would be a good idea. How the enterprise worked out is what this tale is all about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley
• Release date: Apr 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463646700

Gordon Pound

Gordon Pound was born in 1939 in England’s rural Oxfordshire near the village of Gallows Tree Common, the scene – it is alleged – of the demise of many of his ancestors. Too young to appreciate the horrors of the Second World War he enjoyed the best things about a country childhood while his father worked his grandfather’s farm, but during his teen years he endured life at an English boarding school, which was founded in 1571 and – or so the inmates suspected – retained most of the original plumbing and some of the original masters. Yearning for a farming career he attended Seale-Hayne Agricultural College where he obtained his diploma and was immediately conscripted into the British Army as a Gunner. Offered the chance to try for a commission he accepted because there would be less people to boss him around. After enduring winters on Salisbury Plain and the West Coast of Scotland he sought something more tropical and, in 1964, transferred to the Australian Army, just in time to be sent to tropical Vietnam. During the next twenty years he served in many parts of Australia and overseas, including a second tour in Vietnam, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel where there were even fewer people to boss him around. In 1984 his yearning for the land became too strong to resist and he retired to rural North-East Tasmania where he lived with his wife, two children, in-laws and an assortment of animals, all of whom bossed him around. In the intervening years since then he spent some years working again for the government before retiring for good. Somewhere along the way his marriage failed and he returned to the UK where he is rediscovering the delights of the English countryside and reuniting with long lost friends and family. His son and daughter remained in Australia, but there are reciprocal visits, during which he finds that his granddaughter has matured into a beautiful woman who makes the most of every opportunity to boss him around.

Book preview

About the Author

Gordon Pound was born in 1939 in England’s rural Oxfordshire near the village of Gallows Tree Common, the scene – it is alleged – of the demise of many of his ancestors.

Too young to appreciate the horrors of the Second World War, he enjoyed the best things about a country childhood while his father worked his grandfather’s farm, but during his teen years, he endured life at an English boarding school, which was founded in 1571 and – or so the inmates suspected – retained most of the original plumbing and some of the original masters.

Yearning for a farming career, he attended Seale-Hayne Agricultural College, where he obtained his diploma and was immediately conscripted into the British Army as a Gunner. Offered the chance to try for a commission, he accepted because there would be less people to boss him around.

After enduring winters on Salisbury Plain and the West Coast of Scotland, he sought something more tropical and, in 1964, transferred to the Australian Army, just in time to be sent to tropical Vietnam.

During the next twenty years, he served in many parts of Australia and overseas, including a second tour in Vietnam, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel where there were even fewer people to boss him around.

In 1984, his yearning for the land became too strong to resist and he retired to rural North-East Tasmania where he lived with his wife, two children, in-laws and an assortment of animals, all of whom bossed him around.

In the intervening years since then, he spent some years working again for the government before retiring for good. Somewhere along the way, his marriage failed and he returned to the UK, where he is rediscovering the delights of the English countryside and reuniting with long lost friends and family. His son and daughter remained in Australia, but there are reciprocal visits, during which he finds that his granddaughter has matured into a beautiful woman who makes the most of every opportunity to boss him around.

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Dedication

For Ros, Lorraine, Jan, Nick, Linda, Simon, Singe, Heather, Amanda, Gav and Julia – my family; scattered across the globe, they are all forever in my thoughts.

Poverty Lodge

Published by Austin Macauley at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Gordon Pound

The right of Gordon Pound to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is

Available from the British Library.

www.austinmacauley.com

Poverty Lodge, 2018

ISBN 978-1-78823-591-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-78823-592-1 (Hardback)

ISBN 978-1-78823-593-8 (Kindle E-Book)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

First Published in 2018

AustinMacauley Publishers.LTD/

CGC-33-01, 25 Canada Square

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Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter One: Farewell to Canberra

Chapter Two: Give Portnoy a Hand

Chapter Three: Chug’s Got Goats

Chapter Four: Go Away, Hairy Legs

Chapter Five: Come on out, Mother

Chapter Six: A Wonderful Sense of Achievement

Chapter Seven: It’s Like Nailing Cake

Chapter Eight: Mother Likes It

Chapter Nine: This Is Getting Ridiculous

Chapter Ten: He’s Only Got One

Chapter Eleven: A Silly Thing to Do

Chapter Twelve: Classically Proportioned and Voluptuously Rounded

Chapter Thirteen: There I Was

Chapter Fourteen: Firewood Doesn’t Grow on Trees

Chapter Fifteen: Swarfega, Lysol and Eau-De-Cologne

Chapter Sixteen: How D’you Feel About…?

Chapter Seventeen: Between the Two Bricks

Chapter Eighteen: Not Far Enough from the Madding Crowd

Chapter Nineteen: 186Drunkenness, Gluttony and Fornication

Chapter Twenty: Please Will You Take Your Trees Back?

Epilogue

A Pom’s Glossary

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Poverty Lodge Day 1

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Preface

The opening chapter of this account describes how it came to pass that my family and I elected to take on a run-down farm in Tasmania. That should be sufficient for those who are familiar with that particular Australian state but I am fully aware that many are not, including most Australians! Therefore I suppose I should start this account by providing some basic facts about where I used to live.

Suspended below the vast bulk of the Australian continent, for all the world like a delicate, bejewelled raindrop hanging from a banana leaf or a wart on an elephant’s testicle, lies the island state of Tasmania. To this day it remains the smallest, poorest and most thinly populated of the original colonies that were coerced into a federation by a Britain anxious to divest itself of a ragtag mob of recalcitrant colonials to leave her free to milk India and most of Africa of their riches.

Many of those who do know something about the place regard Tasmania as being the most ‘English’ of the states. Certainly generations of settlers have introduced deciduous trees and built houses, bridges and monuments in the European style, but the overwhelming impression remains purely Australian. Some also describe the climate as being similar to that of the UK but that’s not strictly true either. It may be closer climatically to England, Scotland and Wales (I’m not too familiar with Ireland) than other parts of Australia but the weather lacks the sheer bloody misery that makes the climate in those countries unique.

We found, or at least I did – the rest of my family being native Australians – that it is the attitude of the people that is most reminiscent of the ‘Old Dart’. The residents of the north of the state hate those in the south, and vice versa. Northerners consider themselves the toilers; the best farmers, the merchants, the entrepreneurs and view the southerners as little more than parasitic wimps. An attitude that is not entirely without foundation in that the principal city of the south, Hobart, is also the seat of government. Australia is the most over governed country in the world outside those which openly profess communism. It has federal, state and local government and thus a proliferation of politicians and councillors and their attendant bureaucrats, all of whom are an anathema to those who claim to actually do something productive for a living.

While we were on the farm certain people and events were making the news and where applicable, I have retained those incidents, referred to people and events that were making news at the time, amongst them individuals like Jesse Jackson, Geoff Lawson, Mick Young and Paddington Bear. These are now, sadly, all condemned to obscurity, though P. Bear has managed a resurgence of late.

The references to the newsmakers, however, remain to titillate those with good memories and to prompt the less fortunate to try and remember. An exercise that does us all good providing the memories are not too painful.

I am fully cognisant of the fact that I have used many Australian colloquial expressions in this account and made reference to places and things that the average reader might not wot of; accordingly there is a ‘Poms’ Glossary’ included by way of explanation.

I have kept my material essentially factual; the snake in the woodpile, the devil under the house, the squashed caterpillar green paint, all true. Nor have I resorted to invention or attempted character assassination as far as the personae are concerned. The people and animals I write of actually exist or existed and if they are portrayed warts and all, well, I just happen to know some pretty warty people and animals, that’s all.

Basically this is meant to be an amusing book but there are some serious bits because it’s true life, and that’s not always funny. I mean, if our existence was one long frolic it would hardly exercise our emotional capabilities, besides there would be no need for comedians because light relief would not be necessary. Those observations apart, I hope at least some readers will find it educational. There will be thousands of people out there who share the dream we had of a place in the country, self-sufficiency, tranquillity and all that jazz. Well dream on or even go for it if you must, but don’t say you haven’t been bloody well warned!

G.P.

Everton, Hants 2017

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Chapter One

Farewell to Canberra

It is a sad fact of life that if you are an officer in the Australian Army – as I was in the sixties, seventies and eighties – the chances are that, as you become more senior, you will wind up pushing a desk in one of the headquarters scattered around the nation, most likely in the nation’s capital, Canberra, because that’s the biggest. Thus it was that, as a lieutenant colonel and veteran of two tours in Vietnam during Australia’s involvement in that misbegotten conflict, I found myself occupying an office in the Canberra complex known as Russell Offices, the central HQ of the Department of Defence

At least my office had a window and from behind my desk the weather outside always looked inviting, whatever it was like. I have been chilled to the marrow by sub-zero winds, soaked to the skin by monsoonal rains and roasted by the sun in various latitudes over the years – and all three on one afternoon at the Melbourne Cricket Ground – but the vagaries of the climate seemed infinitely preferable to the contagious atmosphere of my work place; contagion that was both biological and mental

To illustrate the biological hazards, Canberra offices, at least those that are provided to servicemen, are either dark little cell-like rooms, in which the incumbents secrete themselves like ancient monks – but with far less worthy intent – or vast open plan concourses. Whichever style, the dangers are the same.

Each Government building contains a mass of recycled air into which generations of public servants have breathed their germs. These multiply in the cavernous labyrinth of the air conditioning systems to re-emerge, sometimes years later, to infect the hitherto untainted. They’re all there, the public service diseases, every strain of flu, all the poxes, even, or so one acquaintance of mine insisted to his wife, herpes.

However, to my mind the most pernicious and infectious maladies were mental, those of obfuscation, prevarication and sloth.

Fortunately, my pipe going full blast deterred all but the hardiest germs and diminished my susceptibility to infection while tending its furnace bowl relieved some of the monotony of my employment. I was a link in one of those endless bureaucratic paper chains that serve as an excuse to postpone decisions, and the mass of paper that flowed across my desk was so devoid of literary merit, so crammed with cliché and jargon and so lacking in original thought and innovation that I could feel my brain addling as I read it.

Most of the papers were referred to my directorate, as they were to many others, for agreement, comment or concurrence; it seemed that the originators were so frightened of decisions that they circulated their ideas amongst as many people as possible so that, if things went wrong, the blame could be shared around. That would have been alright in its way if most of the proposals hadn’t been so bloody pointless. I made a sign for my desk which read:

Will What I Do Today Help To Win The Next War?

That upset the bureaucrats no end. They may have worked for the Department of Defence but they preferred not to be reminded that their ministrations might actually influence the outcome of some future conflict. Of course, if we won it wouldn’t be so bad, but if we lost then they might have to take some of the blame.

That was how I spent my days, scribbling ‘agree’ or ‘concur’ or just initialling the umpteenth page of some turgid document and passing it on. I was busy enough but I never started anything or finished anything. A situation accurately described as activity without achievement; it was an omen that my days of active soldiering were at an end unless I could persuade the system to post me somewhere else.

To this end I sought an audience with an old friend who worked in the Military Secretary’s Branch where officers’ postings are arranged. Arriving in the corridor outside his office I tagged on the end of a line of other officers whose morose expressions indicated that their frustrations equalled mine and we were all there for the same purpose. Eventually my turn came to enter my colleague’s office but from the moment I set foot across the threshold it became apparent that the friendship, comradeship and bonhomie that we had shared in the past counted for nought in the present circumstances. From behind a desk piled with officers’ personal files he glared at me, waiting for the inevitable request for a posting out of Canberra. I obliged by telling him that I’d accept a posting to do anything anywhere other than in the ACT but destinations like Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris or even London would be preferable.

If I may be permitted a slight digression here; the Australian Army, like most other armies, absorbs a little of the culture of the lands in which it has campaigned. This applies particularly to language. Everyday words from the local dialect are picked up, mixed with a generous measure of colloquialisms, abbreviations and acronyms. Liberally laced with swear words it combines to create a rich and colourful patois. Shortly my colleague was to delve into this military lexicon and chose a phrase that, from his point of view, suited the occasion.

I had no sooner finished uttering my request than I became aware of a noticeable cooling of the atmosphere, he pulled a file out of his IN tray, lay it before him, opened it, picked up his pen and looked up at me, clearly hoping that I would take the hint and go away. For my part I was determined to force the issue one way or another and remained seated and defiant. Eventually he said, Those sorts of postings are not up to me, mate. If you have a particular reason or need, put your case in writing through your branch head. That made me terse and I observed that he had become nothing but an obsequious bureaucrat, at which point he reminded me that we were both Vietnam Veterans by using a phrase that we had both used on many occasions to repel the advances of mendicants, street women and the man who came to tell us it was time to wake up and go on duty.

Di di mau, he advised. Now ‘di mau’ is a Vietnamese exhortation ‘to go away’ while ‘di di mau’ means ‘go away quickly’, or in colloquial terms, ‘piss off’!

Realising there was no point in pursuing what was obviously a lost cause I retired as gracefully as I could while reflecting on exactly where this left me.

Whereas for most of my working life I had viewed each day’s employment as a challenge, I began to accept that the present daily grind would bring no satisfaction and I became concerned lest I began to take my frustrations home after work. I was worried that I might start hitting my wife, shout at the children, kick the dogs and spend the evenings watching American sitcoms on TV. It became obvious that a change was called for, a sentiment shared by my wife, Lorraine, who, being aware of my abhorrence with my work and house bound with two young children, was finding Canberra a stultifying place in which to live. Sure, it was very clean and laid out according to the tenets of the best town planners and also very convenient, but it was governed by three institutions; a council that was half elected and half appointed, a Government Department and the National Capital Development Commission. None of these had any responsibility to an electorate and no real power so they justified their existence by enacting regulations to cover every conceivable situation. This they all did with great zeal. There were – and probably still are – byelaws that covered every field of human activity, including some that I personally found highly unusual. In short, it was a public service paradise but hardly one to nurture an independent spirit.

Another factor was our concern for the future of our daughter. If we stayed in the Nation’s Capital, the laws of probability decreed that she would eventually become enamoured with one or other of the two most numerous species dwelling there; either a politician or a public servant, and while we numbered examples of both amongst our acquaintances, we didn’t want our daughter to marry one.

Then there was the problem of the low esteem in which Canberra is held by the rest of Australia.

One Saturday afternoon I was driving past Princes Park in Melbourne and a mob of about thirty hooligans threw stones at my car. I couldn’t understand why. So my car was blue, but there weren’t that many Collingwood supporters in the whole world. Of course! It was because the car carried ACT registration plates. Just after we arrived in Tasmania, and before I had chance to change the registration, we drove into Launceston with a huge semi-trailer sitting right on our clacker. For the entire seventy kilometres the mirror was filled with a view of a massive bull bar, a vast radiator and the word OVLOV. I tried to shake him off but in vain. As I went faster so did he, if I slowed down he just came closer until, on the long hill down to the city’s outskirts he gave a contemptuous blast on his battery of wind tone horns and roared past, leaving our little station wagon rocking in his wake. As soon as we changed to Tasmanian number plates every truck we met on the road treated us with the utmost consideration so I am in no doubt about what got up that particular driver’s nose.

The residents of other parts of Australia regard Canberra as presenting the same threat to their wellbeing and peace of mind as the Huns and Visigoths did to Rome, the white man did to the Aborigine and AIDS does to half the male population of Sydney. Being cognisant of this we didn’t relish the thought of becoming permanent residents of the National Capital and considered nothing less than public enemies, so any change would involve leaving Canberra.

The decision to leave the army and depart Canberra gave rise to two questions: what should I do and where should we settle? I was entitled to a small pension but it was not enough for us all to live on, I would need to eke it out somehow.

In deciding where we should settle we had, thanks to the Army’s habit of shifting its members around every year or so, plenty of experience to draw on. We had lived for varying periods in all the mainland states and knew their drawbacks. Where could we go to escape the Northern Territory’s cyclones, the corruption in NSW, the poofs of South Australia, Western Australia’s earthquakes, the VFL, the Public Service Board and Russ Hinze? A question that seemed to have no ready answer and which was further complicated by our contemplation of a rural lifestyle.

Lorraine pored over a map of the Pacific with a magnifying glass while I spun our small son’s globe and jabbed at it with a pin; a singularly ineffective exercise because the pin only glanced off and punctured the cat.

Having dwelt in the tropics for some years we agreed that we wanted to live somewhere where there was a change of season and our attention was drawn irresistibly southwards. We had also lived in Melbourne, in fact