PROUSTY: A Man of Many Words

By Ron Sinclair

Prousty is a real Australian larrikin. He's a bush poet, comedian, firefighter, plumber, intrepid traveller and explorer, as well as a loving husband and father of six children. His poems and stories have enthralled and entertained people all over the world for years, and he leaves his mark on people and places wherever he goes.

Unfortunately Prousty was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2018 and will not be with us for much longer, so his mate, Ron Sinclair, has written this book as a celebration of his poetry, his crazy sense of humour, and his love of life. The book is a rollicking journey that will make you laugh, cry and wonder at the exploits of Dave 'Prousty' Proust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Oct 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685830359

Book preview

Chapter 1. A Lonely Life

When Dave ‘Prousty’ Proust was born, it was almost like a skit from The Benny Hill Show, and that seems to have set his direction in life.

Prousty was born in Wyong (NSW) Hospital in 1959 to parents Peter and Denise Proust. He was their second child with older brother Phil, a two-year-old, while younger siblings Simone and Andy were still just happy thoughts in their parents’ minds.

Back then the old Wyong Hospital was really just an old house that had been adapted as a hospital and it only had one bathroom to accommodate the staff and patients. Prousty’s mum Denise was in a shared bedroom with another new mum, a red-headed lady, after they’d both just had their babies overnight. 

The next morning the door to their room was opened by a woman wearing an apron and head-scarf who had a swaddled newborn baby in the crook of each arm and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. As she pushed through the door exhaling a lungful of smoke she called out Which one is which?. Denise’s room-mate answered I think mine’s the red-head and the babies were handed over to the two mums. That could have been interesting!

The Prousts had a farm at Dooralong on the NSW Central Coast. For those who don’t know the geography of the area, Dooralong is near Mandalong, which is near Yarramalong, which is near Cooranbong, which is not far from Kariong and obviously quite close to Wyong. They had a one hundred acre property and ran about three-thousand ‘head’ ….. of chooks. Yes, a poultry farm with all of the work that entails. Prousty and his siblings were brought up working with their dad on the farm in the mornings before going to the local one-teacher school, and then working on the farm again in the afternoon. Prousty reckons there was a fair bit of dozing going on during class, especially when they had to get up early in winter to do their chores before school.

Dave, Phil, Simone and Andy

When Prousty was about thirteen the family eventually moved to Wamberal, quite near the beach in what was a life changing transition for the whole family. From the farm to the beach; from a one-teacher Primary school and then Wyong High, to Erina High School; and from an isolated farmhouse with lots of chores to a suburban home where they were free to roam and play with the local kids. Peter started working as the local driving examiner for the (then) Department of Motor Transport and the kids easily fitted in to school, the beach and team sports. Rugby League and touch football would become major parts of Prousty’s life for many years to come and he became an inaugural member of the Juniors in the Terrigal Sharks Rugby League Club. He started to gather new friends from his first days at school and throughout his school experiences. Many of those, along with his work friends and his sports friends, would become lifelong mates.

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It turns out that Prousty is dyslexic and back then often struggled with school work. His dad, Peter, had a love of Australian bush poetry and used to be able to recite all of the classic poems, which he did given the slightest encouragement. Prousty realised after some time that he too not only loved these poems, but could remember them and recite them from a very young age. When he used this amazing memory skill in conjunction with practicing his reading he found it improved his overall reading proficiency and helped him with his  comprehension. He loved Patterson for his comedy poems and Lawson for his serious stuff and believed that there had been no Australian poetry written since their time. Who would have guessed back then where this interest in Australian poetry would lead?

In 1991 Prousty was a young plumber with an already growing family. One rainy day when it was too wet to go to work Prousty sat down and started thinking about an idea for an original poem. He had always been interested in the courageous stories of great men of the outback such as Sidney Kidman, and these legendary stories must have had an impact on him which inspired and guided him through his very first attempt at writing.

The poem seemed to just flow out of him and only took him about an hour to write. It almost seems like all of those years of hearing and reciting bush poetry finally touched a nerve in him that produced his first offering, and what a first offering it is.

A Lonely Life is a very simple yet poignant story written in a way that draws in the listeners and engages them in an emotional journey where they eagerly anticipate the finale. Prousty probably didn’t realise it at the time but he obviously had an innate talent to write poems, tell stories and connect to an audience, and these talents would lay almost dormant for some years - but more about that later.

A Lonely Life 

Prousty 1991

At thirteen years Bob’s father died and left his mum alone

With seven kids she had to rear without a moan or groan.

But things got tough, his mother found it hard to make ends meet. 

So at thirteen years he left his home and had to find his feet.

He took a job, yes droving sheep, a harder game there’s none.

At thirteen years a-droving life the poor boy had no fun.

But he grew up hard and he grew fast, all his money he would save 

And he sent his mum a share of, yes this young boy was brave.

The years went by while he grew up he never shed a tear,

For all his youth was spent with men and crying he would fear.

For his years of droving along the great stock trails, 

The dream of his own station kept this young man on the rails.

He finally bought his station, a big and barren run,

An outer lying station where no visitors would come.

The loneliness that he had known since the time his father died,

Was something that he lived with and he took it in his stride.

Then one day in town when he came in to sell some sheep, 

He saw a woman standing there who seemed so strong yet sweet.

She had also done it hard and like him was alone,

She was the teacher of the town but little else was known.

They finally met and hit it off as people sometimes do,

He stayed in town for these weeks then the station work he knew 

Had to be done, but he couldn’t leave this woman he had found 

Until she said she’d marry him, then they were station bound.

The years went by and in their home an empty spot was there, 

The children that they longed for never came and it felt bare.

At forty-two it seemed too late for her to have a child, 

But still she prayed that one might come, they waited all the while.

And then one day when he came in from working on the land 

He saw her face was smiling and then she held out her hand.

The flying doctor’s note he read and to him brought a smile,

‘Old Bob’ the doctor wrote to him, ‘your missus is with child’.

Her time drew near and poor old Bob had to muster in some sheep

He said that he would wait until the baby was complete.

With four weeks left she told him that she’d be quite all right 

To go and get the sheep in, it would only take one night.

So against his better judgment Bob went out with his men, 

But half way through the muster he saw the plane come in.

Bob started for the homestead he knew something was wrong,

He saw the plane take off again and to the town flew on.

The tension built inside of him the homestead he rushed in,

But Bob had found it empty and he knew that she’d gone in.

So Bob jumped back into his truck and raced off to the town,

A three-hour trip before him his face began to frown.

The town finally came into view, the hospital he saw, 

Then Bob leapt out from the truck and ran up to the door.

He charged inside and looked around and asked a nurse if she 

Knew what had come of his wife. What would the answer be?

She took him to a room where he found his wife and child,

His wife said it was a boy and she began to cry.

Bob kissed his wife and to the cot he bent down low to peer, 

Bob looked upon his newborn son and finally shed a tear

Chapter 2. Mates

Back in 1996 Prousty heard a yarn from his dad about one of Peter’s mates who was in hospital dying of cancer. He was very moved by the story and decided to try to write an original poem on that theme. He changed the characters and the story slightly, added a touch of comedy and a generous lashing of pathos, and came up with the poem ‘Mates’.

This poem was an amazing effort at writing for this dyslexic budding poet who had only ever written one other poem about five years earlier. Everyone who heard the poem was affected by the story and the performance, with many a tear flowing in the audience. I honestly don’t think that Prousty realised at first just how good the poem was, but he was always happy to recite it to a new audience. He performed the poem at his fortieth birthday and surprised many people who had no idea that he could also write poetry as well as recite it.

One of Prousty’s best mates Mike Littler, who was later to be the inspiration for many poems that began with ‘My mate Mike’, heard the performance at the party and suggested to Prousty that he should enter the poem into the Tamworth Bush Poetry Competition. This competition is one of Australia’s most prestigious competitions and is held each year in January in conjunction with the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Of course, Prousty never got around to entering it so Mike entered it for him in 2001 and said to him Prousty, you owe me ten bucks for the entry fee.

Suddenly Prousty had to go to Tamworth and perform his poem in front of genuine bush poetry fans and performers, as well as in front of a panel of judges. In addition to performing ‘Mates’ in the ‘original poem’ section, he would also have to perform a poem by another poet, which would be no problem given his catalogue of classic bush poems.

Prousty had been a plumber for many years since becoming an apprentice straight from school. He had also joined the NSW Fire Brigades as a professional firefighter in 1992 and by this time he and his wife, childhood sweetheart Therese, had a large family of six kids. Due to this large family he was very ‘careful’ with his coin. In fact it’s fair to say ‘he’s as tight as a fish’s arsehole’ and consequently he never spent much money on such extravagances as clothes for himself.

Prousty was used to performing his poems to a bunch of workmates in the fire station or on the job-site, groups of people at parties, or anyone who stood still long enough to listen. His performing ensemble was usually a pair of blue stubby shorts, a blue ‘Jacky Howe’ singlet and a pair of thongs. When he turned up at the poetry competition in Tamworth he noticed that all of the performers wore very similar outfits to each other, consisting of ‘mole-skin’ trousers, chambray shirt, vest, R.M Williams boots and an Akubra hat. It was almost like they were wearing a uniform, so he certainly stood out!

Prousty performed ‘Mates’ to a packed audience and brought the house down and then performed ‘One More Season Of Footy’ by David Berman as his ‘non-original’ performance. He immediately had people asking him if he had any other original poems. No, he replied. Just that one. They were amazed and asked What other competitions have you entered? Now Prousty was amazed. You mean there are other competitions?

He went on to win the Golden Damper Award for Bush Poet of the Year at his first attempt and ‘crashed’ the Australian Bush Poetry scene like a Barbarian at the gates of Rome.

And the winner is …

Bush poetry in Australia would never be the same again.

Mates

Prousty 1996

I got a letter recently the news in it was bad,

My mate Don’s in hospital t’was cancer that he had.

The memories they came flooding back of days so long ago,

But to me they were like yesterday, where they’d gone I didn’t know.

There was me and Don and Greg and Pete, and Mud and Craig were there.

The six of us went right through school and fights with us were rare.

We were in the footy team, we played at cricket too,

Though none of us were champions there was nothing we wouldn’t do.

The pimples came and then the hair and then we found the girls.

We did a bit of drinking then, sometimes we even hurled.

We all got jobs then we left home, we tried to find our way,

But all through this though we were mates and that is how it stayed.

Marriage came to most of us and I was first to go.

Then Greg, he went and so did Craig the others followed so.

But all through this though we were mates the truest ever seen,

Yes closer mates I do not think that there has ever been.

It finally had to happen, big Greg he moved away.

He took a job up in the north, the rest of us we stayed.

Then Pete he moved down to the south, he took his lovely wife,

But all through this though we were mates, yes we were mates for life.

We all got back together for a christening one day,

It was as though that none of us had ever moved away.

We joked about the odd grey hair and the spectacles Greg wore,

The six of us we laughed and joked just like we did before.

The years went by, the christenings stopped our children they grew up.

There were the Christmas cards of course that would never stop.

Then the kids began to marry and it started off again,

A table for the old blokes, we’d stay until the end.

Our kids knew the importance of this mate-ship that we had,

So they never stopped to argue when the old men, we went mad.

Then the last child she was married and our meetings finally stopped,

And we hadn’t been together, now this bad news that I copped.

So I rang and wrote and chased around to muster up me mates,

And I told them that I’d meet them and that they should not be late.

Then I waited at the hospital and waited with a frown,

And one by one the old grey men, they didn’t let me down.

The years had changed us yet again but none of us we cared,

We’d come to see our good mate Don to see how he had fared.

Our mood was very quiet till we saw what Mud had bought,

A stack of beer like in his youth, it was a bonza thought.

So up we went to our mate’s room and as we all filed in

I could see the life return to Donny’s face so thin.

We locked the door and in Don’s hand Mud placed a can of beer,

Then Pete he told us all a joke and we laughed so all could hear.

We re-lived all the silly things we did when we were young,

And we drank the beer with our mate Don, for that is why we’d come.

Then the nurses said that it was time for us to go away,

But Don he said he wanted all his mates to stay.

All afternoon and half the night we laughed and joked and drank,

So when Craig said it’s time to go, Don’s old frail heart it sank.

He begged us all to stay a bit, just half an hour more,

So Greg lit up a cigarette and relocked Donny’s door.

Finally the time had come to say our last goodbye,

We said that we would keep in touch though we knew it was a lie.

Then one by one I shook their hands and a thought came to me then,

That this was it, my life long mates we’d never meet again.

Now all my mates are dead and gone and I’m not far behind.

A better life than mine you know would be real hard to find.

One thing I’ve learnt through all these years of times of good and strife,

That friends may come and friends may go, but mates are mates for life

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Mates from school

To this day, Prousty still has mates from his school days and his teen years which, in itself, is an incredible concept for many people to understand. These guys are a loyal bunch who get together every year for a weekend away. Prousty calls them the ‘mates are mates for life’ crew after the poem, and they are the bunch of mates he used as characters for the poem. These guys have stuck together even though Prousty had a few trials and tribulations that he had to endure at school before this crew formed.

Prousty has always been small for his age and was also very late reaching puberty, which became the catalyst for some bullying when he got to Wyong High School. When he went into year seven there were only four other kids from his small primary school who had gone on with him, so there were lots of kids at the new school who he didn’t know. Some of these kids soon started giving Prousty a hard time, including ‘pantsing’ him in front of the girls whenever the chance arose. This was immensely embarrassing for Prousty as he knew he was behind the other kids in physical maturity, and the embarrassment has stayed with him his whole life.

While at Wyong he also had some troubles regarding the uniform code. The winter uniform included a shirt and tie, but the tie was not required for the summer uniform. Unfortunately Prousty’s dad had his own very strict ideas about appropriate dress and insisted that Prousty and older brother Phil would wear a tie all year through. Phil didn’t seem to mind the tie in summer, or the fact that he stood out as a bit of a geek, but Prousty hated it. This gave Prousty’s tormentors another excuse to harass him and he soon started to rebel. On days where he took the tie off during summer, Phil would often report him to their father and Prousty would ‘cop a flogging’ for his disobedience.

By the time it came to start year eight at Wyong, Prousty stood up to his father and refused to wear the tie in summer. This caused a massive fight but Prousty stood his ground to the point where he even refused to wear the tie in winter. This caused another problem for Prousty as the school demanded the tie for the winter uniform so, every day he turned up at school without it he got the cane. For those of you too young to understand what getting the cane means, ask your grandparents.

When the family moved to Wamberal, Prousty was going into year nine and would be attending Erina High School and he was still very small and not well developed for his age. His mother went with him to the school to get his uniform. The school was just beginning to change their uniform from the old grey and white to a green uniform. This would mean that all of year seven and any new students would get the new uniform and the whole school would transition over the following two years. Unfortunately for Prousty the combination of his new uniform and his small size meant that when he turned up for his first class the teacher thought he was a year seven student and sent him to the office. The embarrassment of this incident immediately caused problems for him with the bullies at this new school so at the end of that first day he told his mother the problem, but she replied, I can’t change it now, you’ll just have to wear it.

Prousty ended up wearing this uniform for the rest of years nine and ten while the rest of the school caught up.

Prousty put up with the ‘pantsing’, the jokes about his size and the jokes about his uniform until things changed in year eleven when, not only did he have the same uniform as the rest of the school, he also won the school cross country race. He eventually advanced to the Zone Championships and then found that his skill at football also helped him to gain acceptance amongst his school peers. His newly found respect, started off by his athletic achievements, would go on to help him establish himself as one of the crowd, and he soon also became known as a bit of a clown and a loyal friend to those who became his mates, especially the ‘mates are mates for life’ crew from those school days; Peter Norman, Craig Dowling, Glenn Symonds (Mud), Greg Spence, Don Lavery and Steven Smith.

Mates. 1982

Prousty must have made an impact on the teachers as well as the students because at the school ‘muck up’ day in 1977, one of the teachers wrote a ditty about the departing students of year twelve. Prousty earned his own verse, to the tune of Pub With No Beer -

A Dooralong kid arrived at our school,

With the gift of the gab that made the girls drool,

And though he lacked inches, in fact rather short

Chatting up girls is his favourite sport.

In 1979 Prousty and his mates started hitting the pubs and clubs together.  Prousty soon found himself attracted to a girl named Therese McGinlay who was often out with her friend Robyn Jacques and Robyn’s boyfriend Mark Brown. Little did Prousty and Mark know at the time but they would end up becoming not only best mates but also life partners with these cute girls, and that the friendship between the four of them would last a lifetime.

Peter Norman has had a few encounters with Prousty and his poetry over the years since those school days; some good and some not so good. He remembers -

My individual memory is about the time that I accompanied David to the Coonamble Rodeo and Campdraft in 2009.

The place was booked out so we were offered accommodation with a local family. David as he always used to do when we were away on our boys weekend would try any new poems out on us. If you were lucky you would get to the venue last, lest you had to hear it another 7 times over (although I suspect he had already read it to each of us over the phone at least twice prior)

There was a Bush Poets Breakfast on the Sunday morning and we were around the table  with our hosts on the Saturday evening having finished heaps of beers and a few rounds on the electronic bull earlier in the day and Dave read out a piece of new material he was planning on performing as their special guest at the Bush Poets Breakfast. As only friends can do, I suggested he may wish to re-think it as it wasn’t funny. He read it again and once again he got the same response. Maybe 9 or 10 times later and not receiving any positive response from me we decided to call it a night and he agreed that maybe he would rethink whether he would recite the poem.

Come Sunday he told me he was going to recite it as he had done it previously somewhere else and they loved it. OK I said I'll be up the back and give you all the encouragement and support you need.

Sure enough he started his act and he was doing well with some of my favourite material going down well. Then he delivered the poem that was the subject of much debate the night before and it went down as I had predicted it would with barely a murmur from the crowd. He concluded the poem pointed in my general direction up the back and said See that bloke up  the back in the blue shirt? That's my mate Pete. He said last night I shouldn’t do that poem. I shoulda listened to him, ay.

An addition to that same Bush Poets breakfast was he read 'Mates' towards the end of his set and one of the organisers was standing next to me up the back.

I saw her out of the corner of my eye grab a handful of tissues from the gentleman standing to her left. She looked across to me on her right and without any eye contact handed me some of the tissues. We were both blubbering uncontrollably such was, and still is, to me the emotion of that poem.

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The generosity of friends.

Prousty has an enormous number of mates, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. However you describe your mates, one thing I’ve found in all the time I’ve known Prousty is that he has a real impact on people and has friendships that have lasted a lifetime as well as some relatively new friendships that form fast and strong.

When Prousty was first diagnosed with cancer it took everyone by surprise and had a big impact on many people throughout Prousty’s life. One of the most generous and decisive demonstrations of people’s love for Prousty was the surprise visit from Bill and Angie Deralas with Claire Cooper and Sharyn Southorn, who all flew from Melbourne just to spend an evening with Dave and Therese.

Back in 2013, my wife Di and I had won a competition with the TV show What’s Up Downunder to travel on the Convoy For Charity as part of their Summer Series. I played some music for Happy Hour at each of the locations we visited and I ended up, on our last day, opening the show at Melbourne’s Federation Square with Daryl Braithwaite as our headline act. It was an amazing experience and the first of what would become many years of travelling and performing with this great show. After we finished that first convoy, our producer, Warren Parrot, asked us if we’d like to do it again next year. Of course we said yes and I put forward Prousty and Therese as potential participants for the next one.

Bill and Angie are the owners of Royal Flair Caravans which is an Australian owned company that has been making high quality caravans since 1975 in Campbellfield, Melbourne. We met these wonderful people when we were on the What’s Up Downunder ‘Convoy for Charity’ in 2014. This was the first year that Prousty came along on the convoy, but unfortunately Therese was overseas trekking in Nepal so he was flying solo. Bill and Angie were on the convoy with one of their great Royal Flair caravans and we all soon developed a solid rapport with them, especially Prousty, and they insisted that Prousty and Therese would represent them in the Royal Flair the following year.

In 2015, the sensational Royal Flair Piazza, the caravan with a front verandah, was the van that the Prousts would be towing and presenting over the two weeks of filming and travelling through NSW and Victoria. Incredibly, on our first stop in Merimbula, NSW, another caravanner drove too close to the Piazza, which had only just been set up, while trying to maneuver into his site and scraped his caravan right across the front of the Piazza’s verandah. We couldn’t believe it!

The old fella who had done the damage was shocked and almost incapable of moving his rig, so Prousty drove the old fella's car and van to their site, then reversed it into the site for him and left him to set up. The producers of the show were worried about the damage to the Piazza as we’d only just started the trip with two weeks of filming still to go. They had to ring Billy and tell him of the damage to the Royal Flair but it was almost like one of those prank calls and Billy just couldn’t believe it.

Prousty - Hi Bill. Just wanted to let you know that we had a bit of an accident.

Bill - Haha. Yeah sure mate. What’s really going on?

Prousty - No really. An old bloke just scraped his van right along the front of the Piazza and broke the railing on the front verandah. I’ll send you a photo.

Bill - Shit mate! Can it be fixed?

Prousty - Our wrangler, Russell Breadmore, reckons he’ll patch it up!

The van was fixed by Russell ‘the genius’ and the Prousts managed to use it through the whole convoy without any problems. We even recorded them on the verandah of the Piazza singing a little ditty that I wrote, using the tune of Home Among The Gum Trees. Therese and Prousty are on the verandah singing,

Here we are in our Piazza, it’s what we’re after.

A drink or two and a stunning view.

Bedroom out the back, verandah out the front 

Of our new Royal Flair, our new Royal Flair.

Claire and Sharyn, who also came to visit, are the wonderful ladies from Sweet Seduction Catering who have been the caterers on What’s Up Downunder for as long as we’ve been travelling with the show. We’ve all come to know and love Claire and Sharyn over the years and they have also become great friends with Prousty and Therese.

When news spread about Prousty’s diagnosis Angie rang Di and me to ask us to help organise a surprise trip to the Central Coast, to visit Prousty and Therese. After some quick discussions they booked flights to Sydney, a hire car and accommodation at a flash hotel in Terrigal, which is a beach suburb quite close to us, and headed up to the sunny Central Coast.

Di and I had to come up with a plan to supposedly have a night out with Prousty and Therese that would be just the four of us and that would allow the others to jump in and surprise them.

This wasn’t easy as we don’t often frequent the expensive restaurants and bars at Terrigal, as both Prousty and I are notoriously tight. We’d much rather have a beer at the pub and a BBQ, so Di and I had to be creative. We convinced Therese that we wanted to splurge and have a nice meal with just the two of them at a nice venue so we could chat and have the type of night out we wouldn’t normally have.

The plan was that we’d have a drink in the posh bar upstairs in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where the visitors were staying, and then go to dinner. The four of us turned up to the bar and the bar