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Makan - No. 22
Official Organ of 2/30th. Bn, A.I.F. Assn. Dear Dig, You will be sorry to hear of the death of Snowy Hodges of B Coy, who was accidently killed a few weeks ago. The Association sends its deepest sympathy to the friends and relatives of this fine fellow. Garry Rickwood has written from Singapore with a different angle on the current terrorism than we receive from the daily papers. He states that Singapore is comparatively swept free from thieves and bad boys as they have all gone to the mainland to stage a revolution. The opinion of the local lads over there, he writes, is that within a few months the terrorists will be an unpleasant memory. Garry is now a big business man and spends a lot of his time flying around Asia. His last little jaunt took him to China and Japan where the Japanese are bowing themselves silly at every opportunity. Their national characteristics of politeness and agreeability which they temporarily forgot when they thought that they would win the war has now been proclaimed in the new order and will be carried on until they are ready for war again. Garry bumped into Stuart Peach holding up the bar of a Tokyo hotel. Stuart is disgustingly fit and is enjoying himself in Japan. We bob up with another Life Member this month, Ernie Parkes. He is still suffering from deafness but has little to complain about really and is quite happy. He has three daughters, one of them a post-war baby, who besides being a beautiful little thing also reduces the Income Tax and brings in a little beer money with the endowment. Ted Watt, back from Singapore within the last few months is now a member and is in a good position to meet any of the boys who come to town. We have always plugged for the Tatler as an off-chance meeting place, and now besides having some of the lads in permanent residence there, Ted is serving behind the bar. When the beer shortage becomes tough again in the summer run along to the Tatler and if there is any beer Watty will cool your tongue with a drip from the drip tray. Saw Andy Hyslop in the train. He looks fit and well and is teaching at Newtown Public School, I should say working there, I suppose, because he is probably the Headmaster and as such has moved up from Grade XY to Grade XYZ with the privileges of two extra days cumulative sick pay per year and an illuminated address on retiring. Some people make me positively ill the way they talk about their babies. Joe Geoghegan is a menace at the moment and if you see him coming walk the other way. He carries a small attache case of photos of the little fellow around and will talk one blind on the relative merits of ViLactogen and grapefruit juice or whatever they feed babies on. The only way to stop him is to walk up the nearest flight of stairs. Joe is suffering from an enlarged heart from running up five flights of stairs at King George V Hospital for three weeks and he baulks at staircases now. With qualifications therefore we send our fullest congratulations to Joe and his wife on this occasion and we also send some to the Bill Humphreys of Armidale for their new daughter Ann. I cannot tell you much about Bill, but will probably have some news later on. We congratulate Bob Wells on his marriage to the local school teacher at Gosford. I heard myself that Bob was the only man in the district otherwise he wouldn't have been in the race, but that is the way things turn out. He is doing well, share farming, and with a nice little wife and a few good seasons he cannot go wrong, The 8th Div, reunion at Newcastle was a smashing success and the nine Sydney lads who spent the week-end up there had the time of their lives. The trip was made both ways in convoy and we arrived at Newcastle just in time for the ceremony at the Cenotaph where Arch Thorburn placed a wreath in memory of fallen comrades. Arrangements had been made from the Newcastle end by Phil Schofield and the Sydney party were accommodated at the hotel in which the reunion was held. You can imagine the scope that this gave us and the lads took full advantage of it. The reunion was a banquet job with grog laid on tap in huge quantities and the mob pinned their ears back and got into it in the real style. Before 9 o'clock the roof was lifting with the noise of singing and we Waltzed Matilda to the sky. Laughter and song were the order of the day and the landlady enjoyed it so much that she came in herself. When she saw Arch Thorburn demonstrating to a luscious waitress how to drink a glass of beer while standing on one's hands and while Garry Evans and Keith Broughton did a Maypole dance and the bottle trick at the same time, she brought all the guests to see the show. It was an incredibly happy smoko without a single jaring note, the Newcastle lads Tommy Kennedy, Don Schumacher, Wally Barnes, Tommy Williamson and the rest went out of their way to give us lavish hospitality. After the smoko we talked our heads off in the dining room (beer still flowing) until 1.30 a.m. and then went to bad for a couple of hours until Harry Maurice, Hank Massey and Reg Friend began to talk in such loud tones that we all got up and sat around the room, going through all the old stories until daylight. We get home in leisurely stages. Starver Jones turned on the hospitality at Swansea Soldiers' Club so liberally that Reg Friend and Alan Smith came home in the back of a Utility and as far as we know are still there. Don't miss the next Newcastle reunion. Yours to a cinder, STAN ARNEIL
President: J.H. Cooper, 105 Pitt Street, SYDNEY. Back to 1948 index or Main Index |