Old Days, Old Ways

by Alex Nicol

  Waiting for me outside the studio in the sunlight was an old Aboriginal man with a wicked grin. He clutched half a jam tin of witchetty grubs, which he offered with a sneaky, ‘Since you’re only a young fella, you can bite the heads off and spit them out.’ At least I can say that I tasted them.

  Second course came in the form of a 9-gallon keg of beer, complete with the trappings, being wheeled up the path by a local publican. My protest—‘We might need a bit of help with that’—was met with a laconic reply: ‘Someone’ll turn up.’ And someone did—Ted Egan with a group of his mates. This was not going to end well.

  I’m very well aware of my capabilities, and one look at this crowd of Territorians spelled trouble. I was booked on the first available flight out of the Alice, with connections to get me home to Orange that night, and this group of larrikins was supposed to provide the transport to the airport. It was now about eleven o’clock. Rapid calculations—while I was still able to make them—suggested that, if I was careful, I might just be able to get to that plane in acceptable condition. Let breakfast begin.

  One of the group was involved with a CSIRO research project working to ascertain just how much ‘pure’ dingo remained in the dogs then roaming the Territory. I’ve always had a soft spot for dogs, so we decamped, trailing the keg, in the direction of the CSIRO research station. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

  Two dogs had just been captured and brought in from the desert, a mature dog and a bitch. They were housed in a long, very securely enclosed run. The roof was, from memory, about seven feet high, and there was a single gate into the enclosure. Now, please don’t lecture me on the damage that dogs can do. I’ve cleaned up my fair share of mauled sheep and shot more than a couple of marauding dogs, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a splendid wild animal when I see one.

  Here we were: a large, loud, boozy group of humans gazing at two dogs in captivity. The male dog ‘set’ us. He stood with his hackles up, unflinching. His bitch glided—the only way you could describe her action—up and down the cage behind him, giving a little leap every time she came to the gate. That little leap saw her hit the top of the enclosure effortlessly. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on either of them. If you think you’ve seen dingos in a zoo, then let me tell you: you haven’t.

  I looked at that dog’s eyes. From memory, there were about five of us in the group, but there was not a flicker of fear in those eyes—no sign of him backing down. If we’ve got one thing wrong in this country, it’s our branding of a coward as a dingo.

  ‘Breakfast’ might have been having a bit of an effect by this time, and perhaps I waxed a touch lyrical about the dogs, but the suggestion was made that I should have a dingo pup to take home with me. A litter had just been born; it would be no trouble to ‘nick’ one. For the rest of the day I had to keep checking my pockets for fear that the offer had been made good.

  It was about now that Ted approached me with some terrifying news. There was a problem with the airlines: my flight had been cancelled and the next available flight out was at about six that evening. I trust Ted. He was telling the truth, wasn’t he?

  Simultaneously, it seemed, someone in Alice Springs had decided that our group would by now be in need of a ‘smoko’, and a fresh keg made its appearance. I was doomed.

  They did get me to the plane. But I was in that terrible state of knowing that I was in a deplorable condition and yet being desperate to somehow ‘hold myself together’.

  My escorts were loud and colourful in their wishes that I might have a safe journey and return quickly, and my fellow passengers were not looking on me with favour. A look at the hostess made it plain that, if I knew what was good for me, I’d sit down and be very quiet for the entire flight.

  I might have got away with it, but for the fact that, just before the doors closed, Ted burst into the plane clutching a sixpack—to ‘keep you going till you get to Adelaide’. Truly, air hostesses are not paid enough money.

  Adelaide was the cold breath of reality. My original flight would have linked with other flights to get me home, but now I was stranded in Adelaide on a Sunday night, with no accommodation and a brain struggling to function through the mists of a prolonged Territorian breakfast. I hope they were satisfied.

  CAMEL CUP

  Like an elephant, a camel never forgets—and if you’re cruel to him, he’ll wait his time and he’ll kill you. Sali told me that, and he should know. He was one of the last of the old ‘Ghan’ camel drivers, and what he didn’t know about camels wasn’t worth knowing.

  I met Sali Mohamed in 1974, when I was back in the Alice for the Camel Cup. I thought that the worst a camel could do was spit at you, but far from it. ‘They fight with their necks,’ Sali explained, ‘each trying to force the other to the ground. If they succeed, they throw their legs apart and fall on their victim’s head with their fifth foot.’

  ‘Fifth foot?’

  ‘Look at a camel’s brisket—that is where he rests. It is as callused as a foot. That’s what he will use to kill you.’

  I agreed that I’d treat camels with more respect in future, but Sali had a glint in his eye as he told me how to gain forgiveness from your camel. All you needed to do, he explained, was take off your clothes—all your clothes—and pile them in front of your camel. The camel would then proceed with great fury to ‘kill’ the clothes. When he was finished, you could put the clothes back on and start the relationship all over again. Camels are curious animals.

  Sali reminded me that a bale of wool is the shape and weight it is simply because two of them made a balanced load for a camel. Proof, if you needed it, of the place camels once commanded.

  Of course, he knew all about the revival of camel racing and was quick to tell me that it was nothing new in the Territory. Camel races had long been part of outback entertainment, with workday teams being commandeered for weekend racing, and of course there was betting on those races. Not by the drivers—they were all Muslim, and the Prophet forbade gambling—but drivers were much in demand as ‘advisers’.

  ‘During the week, when they are working, every camel knows its place in the line,’ Sali explained. ‘Every camel knows its leader, and no camel would ever pass his leader. It is a wise man indeed who is friend to a camel driver at a race meeting.’

  I was determined to ride in the Camel Cup that year. I’d never ridden a camel, but I reasoned that if you could ride a horse, it couldn’t be too different. All you had to do was get on. Think about it: no movie you’ve ever seen shows you how to get that camel to kneel down so you can climb aboard.

  Sali showed me the trick, and I was convinced that it would put me ‘one up’ when it came to race day. ‘Tap your camel on the near-side front knee and command “Ooshta”,’ he told me.

  ‘Ooshta?’

  ‘That’s right—Ooshta.’

  I practised a couple of times with increasing ferocity, until Sali was satisfied. I was on my way to becoming a cameleer.

  Nineteen seventy-four was my second trip to present All Ways on Sunday in Alice Springs, and there was a welcoming party waiting for me at the airport. The plane landed at about 3.00 p.m.; they delivered me to my lodgings at about eleven o’clock the following morning. A week in the Alice is a feat of endurance.

  The revival of camel racing was still in its infancy. Almost by accident the locals had discovered how attractive it was as a tourist spectacle, and they were still refining the event. Noel Fullerton, whose bet with a mate had kicked off the event four years earlier, was operating his camel farm, but things were much less sophisticated than they are now.

  We would race at Traeger Park, named for the inventor of the famous pedal wireless, and I was amazed at the crowd jammed into the place. There was even a bookies’ ring of sorts.

  I was staying with one of the organisers of the event, and while there was initially some concern about letting ‘this wireless bloke’ have a ride, consent was finally given. Thinking about it, the organisation was risking
a lot. It had paid to fly me to the Alice to present the program; I wouldn’t be much use to them in a hospital bed with a leg in the air, and I soon learned that was a real possibility.

  As with every race meeting, there were plenty of minor races leading up to the feature event. In one, all the riders were town ‘personalities’, and I watched with some apprehension as, halfway down the straight, one of the riders slipped down the back of his camel and under the feet of the field. They galloped all over him. He got up, and I consoled myself with the thought that camels have soft feet.

  I don’t know what I expected so far as racing gear went. Yes, I’d seen Lawrence of Arabia—but would you really race with your foot sort of hooked around the camel’s hump? I was relieved to see that the Alice way was to attach what looked like a standard stock saddle to a frame that fitted over the hump.

  I could manage that. Watching the experts in action, I saw that the trick was to lean forward over the hump. Feet back, body forward—that was the way.

  Some of the riders had their ‘colours’, but the best I could manage was a paisley-patterned skivvy. They were all the rage at the time; I’d have loved to have seen one described in a race book.

  I’ll confess to butterflies as we gathered in the marshalling yards. The clerk of the course was allocating camels to riders, and cautioned me about corners. Corners, he advised, could be tricky. Traeger Park is your traditional circular track, with the field running anticlockwise, and it seems that camels, relatively new to this business of racing, weren’t comfortable with corners. They were used to running in a straight line; a couple of them had already tried to scale the fence and escape during a race. Something else to remember.

  ‘Which one’s mine?’ I demanded, sounding a good deal more confident than I felt.

  He considered for a moment and pointed to ‘that black one over there’.

  He wasn’t what I’d call black, but he was huge, and he was held by a little Aboriginal boy, who, I discovered, would be leading him to the starting line. The kid looked to be about ten or twelve years old, and was dwarfed by his charge.

  With Sali’s advice ringing in my ears, I made a confident show of approaching my mount. I was a bit nonplussed—where were his nose pegs? Control, it seemed, would be a touch less sophisticated, and would come via two rope leads attached to a halter. The kid held one lead and the other dangled.

  Okay, now: near-side front knee. I tapped and, in my best commanding tone, called, ‘Ooshta!’

  My camel stood completely unperturbed.

  I tried again, which prompted my young squire to enquire: ‘What you say to him, boss?’

  I explained that the term ‘Ooshta’ was used to make a camel kneel for its master … Did this boy know nothing?

  His reply chilled me: ‘Oh, Christ, he can’t talk, boss. We only caught him Wednesday.’

  Okay. I couldn’t believe that, but two assistants now made an appearance with a rope. They wrapped it around the camel’s legs, and he obligingly collapsed.

  ‘Get on him quick, boss! Get on him quick!’ was the command. So ‘boss’ scrambled aboard.

  Have you ever noticed that a camel rises by lurching? First, the back legs hoist you high in the air, and then, just as you’re about to sail forward over the hump, the front legs lift to throw you backwards. The outcome is that you find yourself a long way off the ground and in danger of sliding backwards off the beast.

  Equilibrium restored, it suddenly occurred to me that if my camel didn’t understand the command to kneel, would he understand the command to stop?

  ‘Just turn him into a fence,’ was the laconic reply to my query.

  There is something exhilarating about sitting high on a camel. Oh, yes, I embraced the whole romantic image. I put a hand on my hip, looked down at the underlings scurrying about below, and gave myself up to the rhythmic sway of this noble beast. This was fun.

  As we padded to the start, I began belatedly to formulate a race plan. I’d noticed that earlier fall, and didn’t intend to have camels, soft-footed or not, walk over me. I would ‘miss the jump’. Pity about that, but, after all, I was just a blow-in from down south. I’d hang about at the back of the field, out of harm’s way. I’d finish last and give everyone a laugh.

  I lined up on the extreme outside, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had only one lead in my hand. My squire still held the other firm. When would the transfer take place? Someone shouted ‘Go!’ and I got the answer—the kid threw the lead up in the air and bolted.

  God is good: I caught it. Otherwise, we’d have raced around Traeger Park with a lead swinging. I hate to think.

  I hadn’t communicated my race plan to my mount. He sprang forward as though shot and—shit! shit! shit! We were leading the field! I could have touched the crowds on the fence, and they could have touched me. One did try to hand me a cold stubby—it was a familiar figure. Jimmy Hereen would never see you go thirsty.

  Frantically, I tried to remember ‘body forward, legs back’, and without thinking, I was suddenly taking my weight on my knees and moving in unison with a camel that could run. And could he run! This was exciting.

  I’d settled down to enjoy things when the corner into the straight loomed. We were still on the outside fence and he clearly had freedom in his sights. Despite my tugging, his head turned right and I expected at any moment to be joining that mob on the fence in a tangle of camel neck and legs.

  I leaned out and began to flog the poor beast across his nose in an attempt to turn his head, the whole time tracing his ancestry back to the sands of Saudi Arabia. And I can assure you none of his ancestors had been married. The thought ‘This is terribly cruel’ crossed my mind, and I was already mentally undressing to assuage my beast’s anger when we crossed the line.

  I remembered the advice I’d received in the mounting yard and turned him into the fence to stop. This was good. I wanted to go back and do it again.

  I rejoined my host and event organiser in the grandstand with the other official guests. He grinned and asked if I could recall the names I’d called that poor beast on the turn.

  I replied that I’d been ‘a bit busy at the time and couldn’t remember’.

  ‘Ask anyone in Traeger Park—they’ll tell you,’ he laughed.

  There goes Aunty’s reputation.

  ‘1974 Alice Springs Camel Cup Tourist Promotion Invitation Race Won by Alex Nicol.’ That’s what it says on the pewter. I’m a cameleer.

  A NEAR THING

  Long after I’d come home from the Alice, I got a letter from Jimmy. He wanted to keep in touch and tell me of his latest disaster, when he’d been camping out.

  ‘It was a beautiful night,’ he wrote. ‘I was at peace with the world. Just before I settled down I opened the tucker box and pulled out a fresh bottle of rum. I knocked the scab off, poured meself a pannikin and settled down to enjoy it. I pushed the cork back in and set the bottle down on top of the tucker box right beside me teeth and climbed into me swag.’

  That night, it seems, Jimmy broke one of his cardinal rules and camped in a creek bed. He woke up to the sound of the creek coming down.

  ‘Jesus it was close,’ went the letter. ‘I just had time to grab the essentials and get clear. I lost me swag and me tucker box … I get me new teeth next week.

  ‘Your mate, Jimmy.’

  THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN FUNNY BONE

  Australians have a unique sense of humour. In 1500 words or more, discuss.

  This is a question I’d like to see put every year to final-year high-school students. The examples used to support the arguments would provide a great running history of comedy in Australia.

  Some of what we find funny now would shock our grandparents, and likewise some cartoons from their era would be viewed askance today, but a good joke—like good wine—gets better and better. So what is the Aussie sense of humour?

  Right up into the 1990s, the manufacturer of Minties ran a series of cartoon advertisements under the banner ‘It
’s Moments Like These You Need Minties’. A classic showed two construction workers who’d fallen from a high-rise site. One clings to an exposed beam. His mate has slipped down his legs, pulling his pants around his ankles as he does so, and is hanging onto his boots, helpless with laughter. The original was drawn in the 1920s, with the caption: ‘For gorsake stop laughing, this is serious.’ Some things last.

  I ran a competition on All Ways on Sunday to find Australia’s best bush yarn. You could either send your written yarn and trust me to do it justice, or record it yourself on a cassette tape. There’d be no prize, and the audience would be the judge. They rolled in. The best, of course, were those who’d recorded their own yarn. The old adage held good: ‘It’s not the story, it’s the way you tell it.’

  Aunty got wind of the competition and decided that a definitive television search for just what made us laugh was in order. John Woods, a young television director, would direct and the search would be far and wide, from the outback to the waterfront, from bushie to wharfie. Of course, the professionals would be plumbed for a contribution—the cartoonists, comedians and actors who make a living out of making us laugh would show us how.

  This would be big. This would be A Long-distance Search for the Great Australian Funny Bone. My role was to scout for the bush comedians, to coax a story out of the non-professionals, and to sort of meld the show together.

  John believed it was particularly important to tap into the wharfie sense of humour—surely that would be a prime example of what tickled the working class. And we’d been told of just the bloke to fill the bill.

  It wasn’t easy to get onto a wharf, even in the 1970s, but we weren’t expecting the last hurdle: the union rep with an enormously inflated idea of his importance. Yes, he knew the individual we were looking for. Yes, he might be persuaded to talk to us, but first: would we be interested in the story of the great progress the union had made for the Australian working man?