From where I am in the great sweep of the Universe, to get from Point A to anywhere else requires a voyage a la trein if you are sans un voiture, as I am these days.
One boards at the tiny halt at the bottom of Cowslip Street, which I hastily did, along with a chap who asked, rhetorically I assumed, as I would clearly have no idea, and could care even less; " I wonder if it's the "City of Morwell" or the "City of Wangaratta", indicating the locomotive engine, as it thrummed into the station. "Its always one or the other." It turned out to be the former, causing a smirk of satisfaction from my co-entrainer. "Correct, again ." the smirk said. These are the things one worries about, if one stays too long in one small town in the countryside, from innocent childhood, through an uninquisitive middlehood, to budding querellous senility .Little victories.
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| Seymour Railway Station |
There seemed to be an air of impatience attending the large basso profundo humming machine, having to pause in it's throb through the Northeast, so one was encouraged to be quick about boarding. We were soon away. I intended to go to Melbourne to attend some business and a spot of "must have" shopping, but a last minute change saw me detrain at the small town of Seymour, some one hundred k's shy of my original destination.
Although I had never before actually set foot in the town, I was reasonably confident of being able to obtain what I needed, as the place, from the train window, seemed to be of a fair size, and very few places in a first world country like Australia Felix, have escaped the tentacles of marketing and free enterprise in the global village. You can be mistaken, you know.
As I walked out of the station, through a shallow, brick lined tunnel that passed under the railway lines, I observed, with a slight tremor of consternation , a large round person of the feminine pursuasion, lumbering towards me at a pace which, although not FloJo velocity, was swift enough to cause we convocation of detrainers to part like the Red Sea, in fear of being flattened like proverbial tacks. Her only connection with the athletic exploits of said, late FloJo, was a probable injestion of some chemical substance which enabled her to break into a pace other than an elephantine plod.
Her progress was accompained by those particular screeches which females of a certain age, say from thirteen to about twenty years, these days utter when approaching their compatriots, and as I turned to see her likely quarry, I was assured this was indeed the case.
She fell upon a pair of her fellows, a rather lumpy bloke, ardently clinging to his highschool girl companion, he in dusty stained black tracky dacks and a T shirt of indeterminate hue, greasy dark hair and a fair crop of acne. His paramour wore a blue check school uniform summer dress, of a length I believe these days is called Hornsby; that is to say, just below The Entrance. She topped this with a "Windcheater", school logo imprinted thereon. I did not manage to read said logo, to ascertain which particular seat of learning she hailed from. As she and the screeching farago clashed in the middle of the tunnel, there was a cry from the student along the lines of " Ya don't havta barrell me ya fuckin' moll-get fuckin' off!" followed by more screeches from both. The black clad moron stood about, akimbo, with a stupid look. Probably deaf, I thought, with a twinge of envy.
I gathered that she was not numbered among the alumnus of Gennazzano or Melbourne Girls Grammar School, although the language used would not necessarily have been an indicator. I thought rather, her choice of beau was a more reliable sign. Although the stupidity quotient might have been on par, the ladies of Gen and MCCEGGS usually only permit themselves to be handled by chaps with much better teeth, and with personal hygeine, supervised by their Mumsies. A rather interesting welcome to the town, I thought. It is probably a good thing to be so uninhibited in such public demonstrations of affection. I would not know.
My first duty was to find a branch of my bank, and I wandered about more or less in search of same. It was only a little after nine o'clock, and a steady rain washed the rather glum looking streets. I assumed that there would be a part of the town given over to all the merchant activity we have come to think we need, in this day and age. So I meandered around the few shops, expecting that eventually the whole bustling metropolis would appear. As I have mentioned, you can be mistaken, No such vista offered itself, which I thought unusual.
Euroa, a smaller town further north, where I have shopped and explored the excellent book shop, is a case in point. Still with covered verandahs down each side of the main drag, most things one wants are there. An added attraction to visiting the town is it's brace of quite beautiful Victorian buildings, an old bank now a private house, some fine public buildings, particularly the decommisioned court house and another bank, which claim connection to Ned Kelly, are architecturally interesting and speak of an earlier epoch, pre Federation, when towns like these prospered and thrived, mostly on the sheep's back.
Ned and his gang; a group of bank robbers/police killers/horse thieves/ thugs/colonial heroes/transvestite nee'r do well bounders, inhabit the social history of many towns up, down and across the Strathbogie Ranges, from Donnybrook to Glenrowan, and into New South Wales, to Jerilderie at least.
Benalla is another. Again with courthouse, bank and colonial lockup now a butchershop, again with connection to the Gang. Excellent shopping each side of a wide shady thoroughfare. Rowses, Rowses everywhere, a lake complete with fountain and boatsheds. The streets have a solid, dependable country look that bespeaks a town which has not forgotten it's halcyon times, and indeed might still be expecting them to re-appear any day now. Open faced, happy looking people inhabit both these places, and upon leaving the train earlier, I was supposing that Seymour would be much the same. Nah.
I searched among the couple of thoroughfares around the railway station for a branch of my bank, but no such luck.
I spied a few matronly women setting up a fund raising initiative in a small piazza between some shops of the sort which trade in men's and women's clothing, kitchen implements, and a gift shop or two, offering the sorts of gimcrackery that find it's way into your local Opshop, a year or two after purchase.The women set up card tables, home baked goods, raffle tickets, and an old tartan biscuit tin or two for small change, raffle books and biros. With collapsible chairs, travelling rugs and knitting, they seemed set for a day's fund raising and gossip.
An approach to one likely mesdame, punctilious about a mannerly opening gambit, aware that a certain generation are sticklers for these things, I wondered aloud if she might be able to advise me of the whereabouts of X bank?
"Cripes, I dunno" she said, not looking up from her purling and plaining. None of her companions seemed to know either. Well if they did, they were going to keep it to themselves. Faced with such implacable silence, I did not feel the need to embark on any formal farewell. I walked on. Nothing to see here.
At around 9.30am I encountered my first drunk of the day. A thin bloke sprawled on a bench in the street, he held a bottle of something, still in it's brown bag, held up to his lips with one shaking hand, the other holding a thin cigarette which I knew as a 'racehorse" in my youth. This was held in black nicotine stained fingers, which were a common sight once, but not so much now in these more health conscious days. Health was not a priority for this bloke obviously, as each swig was accompained by a hacking cough that shook his thin frame, causing his feet to leave the ground and his body to double up. He kept a firm grip on both booze and fag, however, and at the cessation of his mild fit, he continued on imbibing and inhaling. Not much point asking him for directions. The other street traffic went about their lives oblivious, so when in Rome.
My second drunk leaned against a motor vehicle parked outside the Liquor barn of one of the chain supermarkets. I had wandered about some more, realising that my break in journey had all the hallmarks of one of my usual impetuous blunders, and had fetched up in a small arcade leading to either Coles or Woollies, which was exactly where I did not want to be.
Drunk Number two was a tall loutish looking chap, probably somewhere between twenty and forty. There is a particular sort of Australian male, a subspecies within the Genus HomoErectus Australis, I name for want of a better-Crassus Ignoramus Moronicus. He (or She) is visually distinct from another subspecies found on the streets, (equally best avoided.) Dentus Absentus Docket headicus Junkycus.
D#2(C-I-M) nursed his can of either Bundy and Coke or Southern Comfort and whatever, making it last. He was, as I mentioned, tall and solid. with a huge gut hanging over tight legged jeans that ended in a pair of scuffed and dirty Blundstones, which had never been cleaned since the day he put them on.
Any sign of pride in personal appearance in this subspecies is looked upon as having poofterish tendencies, and clean footwear, which by the way, always consist of either the aforementioned boots or an equally dirty pair of sneakers, will earn you the scorn of your mates, who won't want it known that they even know a poofter, let alone have a mate who dresses like one. This, along with unironed clothes, the non wearing of a suit and tie (even at weddings, funerals, or court appearances) is inculcated at about 12 years of age, so D#2 had many years of conforming to type. He had also a florid complexion under a scaly unshaven four day growth, bleary bloodshot eyes, rimed with a hoar frost of sleep. All true to the breed.
The usual truculent expression, I assumed, was on this occasion exacerbated by the fact that the liquor barn could not commence trading until eleven am, which was some 30 minutes in the future, requiring him to nurse his can a while longer before he could get a replenishing slab, I supposed, to get him through the day. I offered a silent prayer that he was not driving a car, in the hope he would not cause the death of some innocent abroad. He himself? Well, fuck him, and all his breed, I thought. A single vehicle crash on a deserted back road would be one less.
A sense of frustration is begining to assail me. I ask at the cigarette counter of the Supermarket for directions: "X Bank? No, there is no X Bank here If you go to the end of the carpark, go under the bridge at the roundabout, on the other side of the railway, there might be a branch there, but I couldn't really say "
At least she was being helpful. Unhelpfully helpfull, but she displayed a willingness to communicate and that, in itself was, a leap forward.
"How about X Store?"
"There used to be one here a while ago, but it closed."
Right. So my sojourn in this dump has proved to be totally pointless. I am reluctant to set off on a search that might, probably will be fruitless. The train back home doesn't leave until well after midday and it wants little for eleven am. Never mind, I'm going back to the railway station, and will wait in high dudgeon for it's saving hoot to carry me away, never to return. Which I do.
Seymour Station is a pretty building. Pointed and tucked brickwork of an unusual (for Victoria) purply red colour with lots of quoining. Not the usual bluestone, so prevalent in the north in places like Woodend, Kyneton, Malmsbury, Carlsruhe. Bluestone is the Victorian signature. Bridges, viaducts, churches, farmhouses from Rupert Clark's fifedom to the great squatocracies in the Western district, Camperdown, Hamilton, Mortlake. Back when the railway was king. The stone lends itself to stolidity. Expensive to quarry, cart and build, which told the tale of the emergence of the land owning gentry. If you could afford that, you were on your way.
If your family seat was one of the bluestone variety, tucked with a pale mortar to highlight the dark heavy stone, reached by a long winding carriageway, planted about with fir or cypress windbreaks, the house overhung with a Rambling Rector over the portico and around the square paned windows, you were made. You were someone. Not Crassus Ignoramus Moronicus anyway. Countryparticus Borntoruleicus probably. Equally repellent, but is another kettle of fish entirely.
I wandered around the Station. In the days of rail, it had a Refreshment Room of some note. It is still there, but in straightened circumstances. Still a large space, with attractive crown mouldings, Victorian overhead lighting,and some panelling remain, as does the long wooden counter which runs for most of it's twenty or thirty feet length. The kitchen is still there, but only produces snack food, the inevitable pies, chips and mundane sandwiches. Mine host, a slight little bloke is in black tracksuit pants and boots, which I have decided must be regional costume in these parts, as every second person I have seen this day, is thus attired. Much like Lederhosen in Munich, or the woollen cap of a Basque cheesemaker, the blacktracksuit pants of your Seymourian is a readily identifiable cultural garb.
I'm sure, in the sometime, never, when I do my long planned trip to Fromelles, via Turkey then ferry to Brindisi, if I come across les touristes queueing up outside the Ufizzi; or"The Madonna of the Rocks" in the Louvre; or even waiting to take the ferry across to the Asian side in Istanbul; if any of them are clad in black trackies, feet shod in dirty blunnies, I'll be able to shout out "Hey Seymour, get a dog up ya!" and he/she will immediately feel not so far from home.
Far from home is probably what the subjects were feeling, as they had their photographs taken, while they sat down to a meal in the Refreshment Rooms more than half a century ago These subjects were part of the great wave of immigration to Australia that took place in the late 1940's and 50's. They would have arrived in Port Melbourne, aboard the Angelino Lauro, Fairstar or Fairsky, Orcades or Orontes, or perhaps the magnificently named Johann Van Oldenbarneveldt, and quickly loaded onto trains on Station Pier, hissing and steaming, waiting for the trip to Bonegilla Migrant Camp, out of Albury on the Victorian-New South Wales border. To begin a new life in a new country, where most likely their first Antipodean meal would have been in Seymour.
These photographs line the walls of the Rooms. Black and White of course, they are so sharp in their detail, and so completely encapsulate their moment, suddenly I'm glad that for all the frustration of the day, I'm able to see these wonderful images, not only of a time long gone, but of a very important record of the social change impacting not only on the Immigrants but on their heretofore predominantly Anglo Saxon, hosts.
My eyes are drawn to the waitresses, what they wore. Starched pinafores, over the uniforms, what colour? Pale green I'm thinking. The pale green of servitude.They wear sturdy shoes, some have socks on. Maybe they are lesbians. Is it a sign? Perhaps like the bunch of violets the daughters of Sappho wore in the 30's Bloomsbury set. Oh well, a random thought. Covered cakestands, electroplate jugs,coffeepots and teapots. Solid white crockery, it would have VR stamped in blue. The coffee would have been good, Railway coffee in those days was excellent. Well, that is to say good as far as your rail travelling Australian was concerned. It certainly did not have the harsh reputation of British Railways tea.The migrants might have had better coffee in their native villages, but six weeks on a British liner would have dulled those memories.
Look at them. They look tired. There are only women and children at the tables Wearing war time clothes, ill fitting. Overcoats and pullovers. Of Course!! the socks. It's winter time and the constantly opening doors from the station outside would bring icy draughts whistling around your legs. Your finely turned heterosexual, womanly Australian legs.Sorry OK? A young mother is offering a cup to a small child, who looks fractious and weary. An uneaten meal sits before her. Big thick sausages, and an ice cream scoop of something pale and unappetising, probably mashed potato.What a meal for a child. A first meal on Australian soil. In Seymour of all places. Welcome to the great southern land of stodge. To recoil from a Railway Cafeteria meal is one thing, wait a few more hours until you get a smell of the fumes of mutton overhanging the Nissan huts of Bonegilla, and you'll wish you were back in the Bay of Biscay.
In the photographs all the men sit at one long table at the back of the room. I imagine that most of them will go to the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electrical scheme. The biggest infrastructure undertaking in Australia up until that time. Where are our big schemes now I wonder? We need tunnels, bridges, railways, water. We need manufacturing, we need our own cars, ships, shoes, Television stets for Goodness sake. I wander about the photographs. Europe has gone to hell in a handcart once again, I'm thinking. Same handcart, same hell as these people were escaping , not because of Hitler this time round, but another monster. He doesn't live in Bertchesgarten, but Wall Street.
In the end I'm paraphrasing Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.
In Australia it's not the schemes that got small, its the politicians. Too scared to take a big idea to the people. To timid and poll driven to voice a plan for the future. The future seems to be only as far as the next By-Election. Tony Abbott says "Election now" "Election now." not because he wants to
DO anything, but because he knows he can win
without doing anything. Julia won't deal with Craig Whosit because her majority will be paper thin if she does.
I fish out a book from the old Gladstone bag, and wait for the train. "Venice" Peter Ackroyd. I love his use of language, and I'm losing myself in it. A youngish chap lurches through the door and stares blankly at the sparse chalked menu at the counter. He carries a plastic bag that clinks when he puts it at his feet. Either he can't decipher the menu, as he sways before it, or there is nothing he wants to buy. He apparently decides that he is no longer hungry or in any event his mind wanders, as he fixes his stare on the bag at his feet for some moments. As though he suddenly remembers that it is his, he gathers it up and stumbles back through the door. A moment or so later there is a glassy crash from somewhere on the platform, and a yeasty smell permeates the room. Drunk Number Three, I muse. The whole town seems full of them, and it's only midday. On a Tuesday.
I can hear a conversation between two young girls sitting on the platform.
"You know Hughesie" one of them is saying. "Well did you see the interview on The Project he did with the Pope?"
Nah. I didn't know he met the Pope, was Hughsie, like you know, in Rome or like somewhere?"
"Yeah,no he wasn't in Rome or nothin', He was like here."
"Like here, ya mean. Like in- you know, Seymour"
"Don't be fuckin' stupid. Nah- like in Melbourne."
"I reckon the Pope hasn't been to Melbourne"
"He was in Melbourne, he like- was in that place in Braybrook where they all go"
"Where who go?"
"Like all those people, like you know, that wear those red and orange robes that like, shave their heads and stuff"
"That wasn't the Pope, that was the Dalai Lama"
"What the fuck's a Dalai Lama?"
"He's like an Asian guy, he's sort of good to people, and he, like, laughs a lot an' that, He said Hughsie had funny eyes."
"Not the Pope"
"Nah the Pope's like the boss of like, Catholics. He's not Asian. I heard he was, like a Nazi during the war or somethin'
"What's a Nazi?"
I put the book away. Peter Ackroyd cannot compete.
Please Lord, send the train. Like now, if you want. Like, you know, soon. Please.
