The other day I hit the comments button on my WP thingy an lo and behold I saw 2 comments, which is unusual nowadays after PT & EJ straightening me out on the correct procedures, whatever, to avoid those making comments to have to go through all the palava in getting their comments good, bad or indifferent through.
Does that load of codswallop make says? Bingo: I saw this
Well i’ll be a …………………
Stumbled onto some of your remeniscences and when it mentioned Country Fire Dept, Accounts Dept, Carl McKernan etc I said to myself “who and the hell could that blast from the past possibily be”, then the fog lifted and I knew that it could only be B**** S**** .formerly of the East End and the Royal in the 1950’s.
Reply to my email address with your Tel No and I will give you a call and we can have a chat.
Cheers for now.
Roy
Naturally I replied instantly:
Well I’ll be damned! Yes indeed that’s me, Just got back from taking my dog to the vet. Sending email with phone #better mention though I’m pretty hard of hearing so if I keep saying/yelling “What” you’ll know why. Too when I’m on the phone I still have the old Cockney accentwhich will confirm that its really me!
(Don’t you just love the way I bring colour into my posts? XD )
Within minutes of my replying the phone started a’ringing, and yes it was Roy, and we had a great old chat. It dawned on me; would you believe, that here I was actually talking to the only person; (that I now knew of) alive who actually knew me, worked and socialized with me from when I was just sixteen through to when I was going on 21! Blast from the past?? What would you think?
Roy is of my age, and came to work at the Royal Insurance Co, some 6 months after I’d started, and as he quickly reminded me he became my offsider and I gave him his first training in the insurance industry. Post/Mail boy!
I never got to finishing the tales of the Royal; the when and why I left, one day I might get back to it, but up until the middle of 1955 I was one of the ‘boys’; then events occurred and I left the Royal in December of ’55 resisting pressure and promises to stay with them. But up until mid 55 things were quite jolly, ‘Gun & Fames’ as ‘Bristow’ was wont to speak of; and The Rev Mr Spooner approved of!
We were both great fans of Dixieland music and Melbourne in the 1950’s was undoubtably the place to be with some great “Australian Jazz Bands”; our firm favourite being Frank Johnson and his Fabulous Dixielanders.
A national disaster when the trombone player Warwick “Wocka” Dyer got killed in a car accident up around Wangaratta way I think it was; they’d been to a gig and were ” as peed as parrots” Frank was driving. The band broke up shortly after, big loss to the Australian music scene.
Of course, our chinwag turned to the people we knew and worked with, and he gave me the run down on so many of them now dead, and the funerals he’d been to; and I got to thinking they’ll soon be none left to go to his, not worrying about mine as I’m not having one, as my long time follower knows.
We talked again yesterday and I’ll be talking to Roy again next week.
I’ve certainly received a big lift in spirits this week, I no longer feel lonely!
And this last little bit will cheer us all up. XD
LordBeariOfBow 
Well, you old bastard. You make the comment that you only listen to radio National and the Opera stuff so I sort of turned off a bit. Now I think I am back on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fenBddFYDY0
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I’ve got that link on file John, Always been a great fan of Dixieland I really do believe it’s the purest of music always did always will XD
Not stuck on the 2 stations just for the music you thought trouble with the commercials is they don’t play any of what I enjoy, Sinatra for starters,
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Brian,
perhaps not a funeral, but it would be good for us to have a “get together” down at the Empire to reminisce. Otherwise it will be just Ira and me, in the backyard, drinking a bottle or two of cheap-but-cheerful plonk.
Neill.
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Good idea Neill, I can sit an nurse a whiskey or rough red, not too rough, make it soon , I’ll consult with the “Boss” and give you a buzz. Cheers Brian
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Can’t say I like your taste in music, but it’s nice you reconnected with people from your youth. Not something I would want to do, even if they were people from my youth, but then I never really bonded with many people.
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I actually had a very good time from 16 – 20 when I first came to Australia and have only good memories of that small period in my life.
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Brian,
in my comment I meant after “you go to God”, but if you feel up to it there is nothing I’d like more than a few sessions, I hope many, down at the old “Empire”.
Neill.
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I thought I was going to Woollongong, don’t know this god place you’re referring to, is that an outer campus of the “Gong Uni? 😈 XD
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If you come to Wollongong while you are still vertical you can join the Illawarra Jazz Club. I’ve been a dozen or so times to their weekly gigs and they are fabulous. Various performers and styles so you should find something you like.
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Well when I do come down there they can get one of the bands out to play me into the formaldehyde room, with the old Jazz funeral song/march “Oh Didn’t he ramble” which will be very fitting after my years of rambling away here 😈
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Well, just give me two months notice of ETA if you hope I can arrange it 🙂
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I’m hoping to go off quicker than that, you’re wishing me 2 months of waiting , ah cruel woman! 😦
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