Local Hero

I lived for many years in a small country town in North-Western New South Wales. 
The town had a population of about 300 people, most of whom were descended from the convicts who had been assigned by the NSW government in the late 19th century to work on the 16,000 acre property granted to a gentleman squatter from Sydney.

Dan and I had fallen into the habit of restoring our fluid balance after a hard day's work in the cattle yards by dropping in to the town's only hotel, a majestic relic of colonial architecture which dominated the main street.

The public bar was a comforting reassurance of constancy, a still life painting by Bosch, the same patrons perched on the same barstools in the same unwritten order as yesterday, last week, last year; only changed by death, illness, incarceration at the lock-up of the local copper or internment at the local cottage hospital. 

The slow rotation of heads in response to the squeak and clatter of the swinging doors as each new customer entered the bar resembled the laughing clown-heads of sideshows. 

Strangers were perfunctorily ignored. 
Locals were acknowledged with a naming ceremony, and a burlesque catechism would ensue: 

"Dan". "Johnno". "Doc". "Joey". "Dan". "Bert".  "Spud". "Toady". "Fritz", "Snot" ......."It's Ronald, Geoffrey!" 
(Ronald, perhaps understandably, didn't like his nickname. Dan had been christened Geoffrey.)


Once this ceremony was completed, the bar returned to the serious and silent business of rehydration. 
Every now and then, however, an outbreak of animated conversation would erupt, usually a disagreement about some irrelevant fragment of local history. 

On one such occasion, the topic concerned the number of pubs in the village in the 1950's. 
There was a surprising level of emotion lying behind the question, the type of alcohol-fuelled situation that would have lead to a gunfight in cowboy movies.

The opposing opinions about whether there were two or three pubs became progressively heated, and when it became obvious that no amount of emotional assertion by either camp would resolve the argument,  they turned to Dan, who was sitting with me, quietly enjoying his beer and the impromptu floor show.



"OK, Dan. How many pubs were there in the 1950's"

Dan, without hesitation, said "There were three."


Obviously the degree of respect in which Dan was held had its limits, and the heated response from the dissenters was "How would you know, Dan? You're not a local!"

Dan's reply, which for me was a clincher, was "Well, I was born here!", but this was rebuffed with "That doesn't make you a fukin' local!"


(Dan's father had lived in the village all his life, but was born on a property about 20 miles away.)




I sipped my beer and kept out of it.