Restless Men
Restless Men is an appropriate title for this colourful adventure by, in my opinion anyway, one of the world's best travel writers.
Chapter 1. South Coast of Queensland.
Pinney is on a Prawn trawler in Moreton Bay making wages along with other restless men whose work is hard toil for a meagre living while facing the danger of hauling up dumped WW2 ordinance in their nets. Once back in Doboy Creek they spend their times drinking, womanising and complaining about the authorities. Being a resident of Brisbane I learnt a couple of things from our past. Doboy Creek is now Bulimba Creek. I never knew that.
Chapter 2. Brisbane.
We find Pinney catching rats! The sub heading Twenty Thousand Rats seemed a bit over the top to me but after reading this chapter but I researched up with a read of this item.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-11/rat-catching-brisbane-fox-terrier/9245388
On the theme of leaning something new Brisbane had serious plague outbreak in 1921.
https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/black-death-queensland
Chapter 3. Capricorn.
While starting this chapter my wife was chatting to her 89 year old father who was a station master in the Capricorn district of Queensland for an eternity. “Ask him if he knew Jurema Siding” I ask. Sure did and proceeded to name every siding from there out to Emerald. Pinney was now at Jurema Siding doing fettling work, described to me by my father in law as “hard yakka” This chapter certainly explains that. There was many a restless man doing this back breaking work and many a restless man making a break for it after having enough.
Chapter 4. Rockhampton.
Pinney has made a break for it and stays at a “Mecca of vagrants” in this central Queensland city. A place for “the needy and the derelict” to get a good nights feed and sleep and exchange their tales of woe.
Chapter 5. Whitsunday Passage.
Philosophising in said Passage.
“Love thy neighbour” Snow went on thoughtfully. “It's a fine precept, but its not practical. There's still too much primeval slime. Have you ever thought how difficult it would be to love, sincerely and selflessly, the first three strangers you see on a Tuesday afternoon? It'd be a damn site more practical to say, Understand they neighbour”
Chapter 6. Hayman Island.
Boys meet girls in a tropical paradise. Light hearted adventures in a resort as the staff have a great time but the lure of other adventures is too alluring for Pinney and the call of the north beckons.
Chapter 7. Northern Territory.
Pinney is now props assistant on the making of an episode from Adventure Unlimited called in the book The Crocodile Hunter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Unlimited#Episode_5%E2%80%93%22Crocodile%22
The comment in the wiki by actor Gwen Plumb is interesting in that she says the episode was made in 1961. If this book is in chronological order then according to Pinney the episode was made in 63 as he had earlier discussed a Qld State election that was held 1 June 1963. Pinney writes that there was not a crocodile to be found when they were in Kakadu and that the one flown in as discussed by Gwen Plumb could not be anesthetised as the vet flown in by Darwin had no idea what to do. The crew went onto to record the next episode of the series called The Buffalo Hunter and then when that ended he was offered a free trip back to Sydney as part of the crew. Another (non existent) crew beckoned and he refused.
Chapter 8. Normanton.
Further philosophising but while crocodile hunting.
One evening, as we sat beside a fire, Joe asked, “How did you find London, when you were there?” He had come from London fifteen years before, but gave no hint of wishing to return. “I was disillusioned” “Oh? You didn't like it?”“On the contrary. I went there with the usual Aussie illusions – that Pommies were about as cordial as thorn hedges, sneered at the colonials, lived on crumpets and Kipling, and talked with a sort of effeminate historical nostalgia. And I suddenly found how friendly London was, and loved it”He fiddled with the carbide lamp, causing it to hiss and bubble with escaping gas. “Well, the opposite with me. I'd heard all about the terrific hospitality of Australia's outback. And I've been outback for most of fifteen years, and I'm damned if I found it”
Chapter 9. Townsville.
The brutality of the abattoir exposed and it is not for the faint hearted be that for man or beast.
Chapter 10. Mackay.
Hunting sharks for the good of the surfer and swimmer? “It's a useless waste of time” says the bloke from the government. But hey! a few deaths over a hundred years and the public are worried. When the public are worried what's a few wasted sharks. This discussion/debate still goes on today. Man fears sharks but gives no thought to his own position as the apex predator. Pinney has seen too much blood and decides to head south.
There is a bit of restlessness in all of us at times. I suppose that is the attraction of travel writing and why some such as Peter Pinney, who has the ability to tell a good yarn without literary pretentions, is so attractive. He can tell his tale of restlessness travel in a way that is easy to read, be comprehensible to those that may not know the meaning of the big words. He is also of another era. This is in the early 60's and his telling of his time as a Brisbane rat catcher gives insight into what was a less sophisticated profession than it now is. It also brings back to me that health, safety and hygiene rules and regulations of the past were rather lax. His time in Capricornia had me chatting to my father-in-law. He was a station master in a central Qld cattle siding and the day he retired the Qld railway shut the station down. When my wife took me to see the small town of her youth the railway was something that just passed through without stopping. Back then it was part of the very essence of the community. It is reflections such as these that make this book such a worth while read to anyone from Queensland and knows the areas covered in each chapter.
Recommended to any that think what might have been and wonder where their restlessness would have taken them.