by Graham Seal
This tradition of the execrable cook continued into the folklore of World War I diggers. Sometimes known as ‘bait-layers’ from the poisonous nature of their offerings, the army cook was basically the bush cook in uniform.
I came out of my dugout one morning attracted by a terrible outburst of Aussie slanguage in the trench. The company dag was standing in about three feet of mud, holding his mess tin in front of him and gazing contemptuously at a piece of badly cooked bacon, while he made a few heated remarks concerning one known as Bolo, the babbling brook. He concluded an earnest and powerful address thus:
‘An’ if the _____ that cooked this bacon ever gets hung for bein’ a cook, the poor_____ will be innocent.’
A variant story piggy-backs on this one.
A digger is being questioned by the officer in charge of his court-martial: ‘Did you call the cook a bastard?’
‘No,’ the digger answers, ‘but I could kiss the bastard who did!’
Historian of the war C.E.W. Bean provided an insight into the dual roles of the cook in digger culture, roles that were also at the base of the cook’s bush personality. ‘This individual was both a provider of sustenance and the (mostly) willing butt of humour within the military group with which he was affiliated, bearing the “oaths and good-natured sarcasm” of those who had no option but to consume his offerings, with equanimity and humorous forbearance.’
Slow trains
Modern Australia’s development was made possible by the railway. After Federation, the various states’ railways were linked together via the Transcontinental Railway, or ‘the Trans’. The railways’ importance, and the armies of workers they employed, gave rise to a large fund of railway yarns, many of which are still told among railway folk. The slow train is a popular theme.
A man jumps off a train as it approaches the platform and rushes up to the station master. ‘I need an ambulance!’ he cries. ‘My wife’s about to have a baby.’ The station master phones for the ambulance, then says, ‘She shouldn’t have been travelling in that condition, you know.’ The man replies: ‘She wasn’t in that condition when she got on the train.’
On another slow trip a passenger looks out the window and sees the engine driver throwing seeds onto the sides of the track. All day, as the train crawls along, the driver keeps sowing. Eventually the passenger goes up to the engine and asks, ‘Why are you throwing seeds onto the side of the line?’
The driver fixes the passenger with a doleful eye and drawls: ‘The guard’s picking tomatoes.’
On another journey, a notoriously slow train pulls into the station right on time. An astonished passenger rushes up to the driver and congratulates him for being punctual for a change. ‘No chance, mate,’ came the laconic reply, ‘this is yesterday’s train.’
A Texan and an Australian are thrown into each other’s company one day on a train. The Texan begins to brag to the Australian about the size of his home state.
‘In my state, you can get on a train, travel all day and night but still be in Texas the next morning.’
‘Yeah,’ drawls the Australian, ‘we have slow trains here too.’
Bushies
Anecdotes about real or imagined bush life are a staple of Australian folklore, and many revolve around the itinerant bush workers known as swagmen. In this one, the swaggy is a taciturn loner:
A swaggy is plodding along the dry and dusty track in blazing heat. A solitary car approaches and stops near him. The driver leans out the window and asks, ‘Where ya goin’, mate?’
‘Bourke,’ the swaggy says.
‘Climb in, then, and I’ll give you a lift.’
‘No, thanks; you can open and shut your own bloody gates.’
The bullock driver, or bullocky, was an important part of the rural labour force in the era before cars and, in some places, for long after. The ability to control and work a team of sweating, bad-tempered and reluctant beasts was highly prized. A good bullocky could get work just about anywhere. It was a hard job, though, requiring not just strength but a loud voice and special calls, often given in extremely colourful language. A bullocky’s ability to swear—creatively and to good effect—was a measure of his status.
Variants of this tale have been well honed over the decades. One was published in the 1940s in Lance Skuthorpe’s ‘The Champion Bullock Driver’, and another, titled ‘The Phantom Bullocky’, in Bill Wannan’s The Australian of 1954. The latter version goes like this:
The boss is in need of a bullocky. His eight-yoke team of especially wild beasts has already sent fourteen drivers to their graves. A bushman shows up, looking for a job. ‘Can you swear well enough to handle a team?’ the boss asks. Assured that the bushman can, the boss decides to give the bloke a trial. He asks him to demonstrate his skills by imagining that eight panels of the wood-and-wire fence are eight bullocks. ‘Here’s a whip,’ says the boss, giving him one eighteen feet long.
The bloke runs the whip through his fingers, then begins to work the fence, swearing, cheering and cracking the whip. Before long there is a blue flame running across the top fence wire. Suddenly, the graves of the fourteen dead bullockies open. They jump out, each with a whip, and, cheering and swearing and cracking their whips along the now fiery fence wire, hail the bloke as King of the Bullockies. Suddenly the fence posts began to move forward, just like a team of reluctant bullocks. The phantom bullockies and the bloke continue exhorting the fence, plying their whips all the while, until the fence strains so hard it rips out a stringybark tree and moves off at a flying pace over the hill with the bloke behind.
The fourteen phantom bullockies give another rousing cheer and disappear back into their graves. The bloke returns with the fence, and the amazed boss says, ‘You’re the best bullocky I’ve ever seen. You can have the job.’
The bloke laughs, gives another cheer and jumps into the air. He never comes down again.
Later versions of the tale drop the phantom fourteen and simply end with the bloke accepting the job. Another variant has him letting the fence disappear into the back blocks, then asking, ‘Can I have the job?’ ‘Any man who starts up a team an’ fergits to stop ’em is no bloody good to me!’ says the boss.
Another bullock-driver tale has a bullocky in very trying circumstances cursing his beasts in fine style. The parson happens by. ‘Do you know where that sort of language will lead?’ asks the reverend. ‘Yair,’ the irate driver replies. ‘To the bloody sawmill—or I’ll cut every bastard bullock’s bloody throat.’
The bullockies’ facility with bad language forms the basis of an oral poem known as ‘Holy Dan’.
One bullocky doesn’t swear like the rest. When teams die of thirst in the Queensland drought, he tells his fellow drivers it is:
The Lord’s all-wise decree,
And if they’d only watch and wait,
A change they’d quickly see.
Eventually even Holy Dan’s twenty bullocks begin to die of thirst, and he entreats the Lord to send rain. No matter how hard he prays, the rain fails to fall. Finally there is only one bullock left:
Then Dan broke down—good Holy Dan—
The man who never swore.
He knelt beside the latest corpse,
And here’s the prayer he prore:
‘That’s nineteen Thou hast taken, Lord,
And now you’ll plainly see
You’d better take the bloody lot,
One’s no damn good to me.’
The other riders laughed so much,
They shook the sky around,
The lightning flashed, the thunder roared,
And Holy Dan was drowned.
The wharfie’s reply
Another much-yarned-about worker is the wharfie:
At the end of each shift at the dockyard, the old wharfie would wheel his barrow out for the day. All the wharfies were s
earched as they left the docks in case they’d pilfered something. But no matter how carefully he frisked the wharfie, the dockyard guard never found any loot on the old bloke.
Eventually, the wharfie retired. A few months later the guard came across him in a waterside pub. ‘Howya goin’, mate?’ said the guard, and bought the wharfie a beer for old time’s sake. Conversation turned to working life. After a while, the guard said, ‘You’re well out of there now, mate, so why don’t you tell me the truth? I knew yer were knockin’ something off, but we never found anything on you. What were yer stealin’?’
The wharfie, smiling broadly, said: ‘Wheelbarrows.’
The union dog
Trade unions’ long influence, not only on the railways and docks but in manufacturing and mining, ensure that they feature in many work yarns.
Four union members are discussing how smart their dogs are.
The first, a member of the Vehicle Workers’ Union, says his dog can do maths calculations. Its name is T Square, and he tells it to go to the blackboard and draw a square, a circle and a triangle. This the dog does with consummate ease.
The Amalgamated Metalworkers’ Union member says his dog, Slide Rule, is even smarter. He tells it to fetch a dozen biscuits and divide them into four piles, which Slide Rule duly does.
The Liquor Trades Union member concedes that both dogs are quite clever, but says his is even cleverer. His dog, named Measure, is told to go and fetch a stubby of beer and pour seven ounces into a ten-ounce glass. It does this perfectly.
The three men turn to the Waterside Workers’ Union member and say, ‘What can your mongrel do?’ He turns to his dog and says, ‘Tea Break, show these bastards what you can do, mate!’
Tea Break eats the biscuits, drinks the beer, pisses on the blackboard, screws the other three dogs, claims he’s injured his back, fills out a Workers’ Compensation form, and shoots through on sick leave.
The Dimboola Cat Farm
This tale began life at least as early as the 1920s, when it circulated in the form of a letter. Since then it has been updated in various ways in photocopied, facsimile and email forms.
Wild Cat Syndicate
Dimboola
Dear Sir,
Knowing that you are always interested and open for an investment in a good live proposition, I take the liberty of presenting to you what appears to be a most wonderful business, in which no doubt you will take a lively interest and subscribe towards the formation of the Company. The objects of the Company are to operate a large cat ranch near Dimboola, where land can be purchased cheap for the purpose.
To start with we want 1,000,000 cats. Each cat will average about 12 kittens per year; the skins from 1/6 [1 shilling, 6 pence] for the white one to 2/6 for the pure black ones. This will give us 12,000,000 skins a year to sell at an average of 2/- each, making our revenue about £2500 per day.
A man can skin about 100 cats a day, at 15/- per day wages, and it will take 100 men to operate the ranch; therefore the net profit per day will be £2425. We feed the cats on rats and will start a rat ranch; the rats multiply four times as fast as the cats.
We start with 1,000,000 rats and will have four rats per cat from which the skins have been taken, giving each rat one quarter of a cat. It will thus be seen that the whole business will be self-acting and automatic throughout. The cats will eat the rats and for the rats’ tails we will get the government grant of 4d. [4 pence] per tail. Other by-products are guts for tennis racquets, whiskers for wireless sets, and cat’s pyjamas for Glenelg flappers. Eventually we will cross the cats with snakes, and they will skin themselves twice a year, thus saving the men’s wages for skinning and also getting two skins per cat per year.
Awaiting your prompt reply, and trusting that you will appreciate this most wonderful opportunity to get rich quick.
Yours faithfully
Babbling Brook,
Promoter
A half-century or so later, the story was still going the rounds in the form of a photocopied page but the 1920s good-time girls known as ‘flappers’ had disappered and the figures were in decimal currency. There was also a more modern enticement to invest: ‘The offer to participate in this investment opportunity of a lifetime has only been made to a limited number of individuals—so send your cheque now!!’ Otherwise, it was the same bizarre tale.
A farmer’s lament
The conversion from imperial to metric units that took place in Australia in the 1960s gave rise to this mild satire:
It all started back in 1966, when they changed to dollars and overnight my overdraft doubled.
I was just getting used to this when they brought in kilograms and my wool cheque dropped by half.
Then they started playing around with the weather and brought in Celsius and millimetres, and we haven’t had a decent fall of rain since.
As if this wasn’t enough, they had to change over to hectares and I end up with less than half the farm I had.
So one day I sat down and had a good think. I reckoned with daylight saving I was working eight days a week, so I decided to sell out.
Then, to cap it all, I had only got the place in the agent’s hand when they changed to kilometres and I find I’m too flaming far out of town!
The little red hen
This is one of many tales that turn on tensions between the boss and the workers. Based on a folktale that has itself been around since at least the nineteenth century, this photocopied satire from the 1980s still resonates today with its down-to-earth simplification of industrial politics.
Once upon a time there was a little red hen who scratched around and found some grains of wheat. She called on the other animals to help her plant the wheat.
‘Too busy,’ said the cow.
‘Wrong union,’ said the horse.
‘Not me,’ said the goose.
‘Where’s the environmental impact study?’ asked the duck.
So the hen planted the grain, tended it and reaped the wheat. Then she called for assistance to bake some bread.
‘I’ll lose my unemployment relief,’ said the duck.
‘I’ll get more from the RED [Royal Employment Development scheme],’ said the sheep.
‘Out of my classification, and I’ve already explained the union problem,’ said the horse.
‘At this hour?’ queried the goose.
‘I’m preparing a submission to the IAC [Industry Assistance Commission],’ said the cow.
So the little red hen baked five lovely loaves of bread and held them up for everyone to see.
‘I want some,’ said the duck and sheep together.
‘I demand my share,’ said the horse.
‘No,’ said the little red hen. ‘I have done all the work. I will keep the bread and rest awhile.’
‘Excess profit,’ snorted the cow.
‘Capitalist pig,’ screamed the duck.
‘Foreign multi-national,’ yelled the horse.
‘Where’s the workers’ share?’ demanded the pig.
So they hurriedly painted picket signs and paraded around the hen, yelling, ‘We shall overcome.’ And they did, for the farmer came to see what all the commotion was about.
‘You must not be greedy, little red hen,’ he admonished. ‘Look at the disadvantaged goose, the underprivileged pig, the less fortunate horse, the out-of-work duck. You are guilty of making second-class citizens out of them. You must learn to share.’
‘But I have worked to produce my own bread,’ said the little red hen.
‘Exactly,’ said the farmer. ‘That is what free enterprise is all about these days. You are free to work as hard as you like. If you were on a Communist farm you would have to give up all the bread. Here you can share it with your needy companions.’
So they lived happily ever after. But the uni
versity research team, having obtained a large government grant to study this odd happening, wondered why the little red hen never baked any more bread.
The airline steward’s revenge
This recent urban legend nicely encapsulates the workplace fantasy of getting one’s own back on an especially difficult customer.
A steward was working in First Class on a plane from South Africa to Sydney. On the flight was a very wealthy and snooty elderly couple. A little way into the flight, the steward came along the aisle to where the pair were seated. ‘What would you like to drink, Madam?’ he asked.
There was no reply. Thinking that the woman might not have heard him, the steward asked again.
Once more she ignored him. But her husband leaned over and said, ‘My wife doesn’t speak to the help. She would like a bottle of red.’
So the steward went off to get the wine. As he walked away, the man called out ‘Boy, boy!’ The steward quickly returned to the couple. ‘Yes, Sir, how can I help you?’
The man said, ‘My wife was wondering about the situation with domestic help in Australia.’
‘Oh, Sir,’ the steward replied, ‘I’m sure Madam will have no trouble at all finding a job.’
