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Published: August 27th 2011
I'm no stranger to pubs. I've worked behind the bar in a couple and downed drinks on the other side of more establishments than I can well remember. However, the world of a rural pub in Western Australia is another thing entirely. Seven months working in Australia was no preparation for what I faced on my first day as a barmaid in a local pub; I felt like I'd been dropped in a new country, possibly a foreign planet even.
My first couple of days I had to learn a whole new language. For a start I work in a
'hotel' but it is just a pub. Out here only tourists are stupid enough to ask for pints, locals drink
'middies' – half pints that ensure your beer doesn't get a chance to warm up before you've drunk it. Maybe if you're a city boy you'll order a
'schooner' (halfway between a middy and a pint), but the old men around the bar will think there's something wrong with you for it. If the limited draught options don't appeal (to be fair my pub has a maximum four beers on tap and regularly those run dry), then there's a trough
of ice out the back filled with
'stubbies' (bottles) and
'tinnies' (cans) of beer which are kept cold while you drink them by a polystyrene sleeve or
'stubby holder'. The most dedicated regulars have their own personalised stubby holders at the bar and woe betide the new barmaid who mistakenly gives an Eagles fan the Dockers sleeve! (Rival AFL -
Aussie rules football - teams)
Even tougher than learning all these new terms, is understanding the silent language. After the first introductions with a new customer I am expected to remember their name and their tipple of choice, regardless of whether they have ten drinks a night or only come in once a fortnight. Back home, in fact everywhere but here, I'm used to interacting and conversing with people I'm serving.
“Hi how are you? What would you like? I'd like XYZ please. Here you go, that's $5 please. Thank you very much. No worries, enjoy!” But here someone will walk in, give me a nod, sit down at the bar and place a banknote or a fistful of change in front of them. In return I must dredge my memory for their usual beverage, place it front of
them, extract the money from their pile and return their change. I must then keep an eye on their glass and, so long as there is still money in front of them, as soon as it is empty I must refill it without being asked. Heaven forbid I should be in a boredom-induced coma at the time and need them to tap their glass impatiently on the counter to get my attention! When they are ready to go home they don't say that's it thanks, see ya. No, they remove their money from the bar and lay their empty glass flat. This is not to say that the locals aren't incredibly friendly and chatty, just not when it comes to ordering their beer!
Second only to drinking
'piss' (grog/beer/alcohol), the old boys' favourite activity is gambling. The large flatscreen tv on the wall is strictly limited to two channels: Sky Racing 1 and Sky Racing 2. From one in the afternoon, when I open the doors, until I close them mid-evening as the last patron departs, the widescreen flickers images of endless tracks with dogs and horses speeding around them. Betting is one of the biggest industries in Australia.
Even the smallest town will have a
'TAB' (betting shop, often inside the pubs, but in our case a few doors up the street), and an earnest line of customers. Saturday afternoon - if there isn't a race meeting out at the local racecourse - the pub will be filled with people drinking and gambling away their hard earned salaries and pension cheques, waiting and hoping for their big win. Every twenty minutes or so someone will lift their head from studying the form paper and announce they are going to go put a
'punt' (bet) on. A clamour of notes will be fluttered in their face as everyone else too lazy to walk 20 metres to the TAB requests bets to be placed on their behalf. Most of the time late afternoon leaves the pub eerily empty except for the detritus of screwed up betting slips scattered across the floor. Occasionally someone will win big, their
'trifecta' coming in (successfully choosing the first 3 across the line), and then they shout the bar drinks and people stay on to congratulate them and help them drink away their winnings.
When money and luck is running dry and there is
Never ending Greyhound races
I tell a lie, sometimes they end for horse racing and trots!only enough cash for a couple more middies and a taxi home, the old boys tongues loosen and the stories flow. Past travels, distant female conquests, stupendous wins squandered, big money made selling crops during better harvests; I've heard them all many times over, elaborated each time. I politely nod and smile at these tales, waiting for the narrator to go for a smoke, and then I politely nod and smile while one of the other regulars tells me what a bullshi**er the other guy is and how he's never won a cent in his life. Whenever I am introduced to a new local all the others warn me not to believe anything he says, and he in turn will say the same about his accusers! At first all this was mildly amusing. After three months of hearing the same tall tales everyday, I have to bite my tongue sometimes to stop myself snapping
'stop telling me all this crap!' but I have so far remained professional.
Wow they may be quiet when it comes to ordering, but when it comes to describing events that have happened during their day the language can become particularly animated and colourful. Literally
Show and Tell shelf
including cards from Caernarfon and Stalbridge, Boo Boo won and donated by the hostel cleaner, and the all important Pub Greyhound (well actually now the mother of several pub greyhounds) every other word is
'bloody this' and
'bloody that'. Every inanimate object is a
'bastard'. Despite my best attempts at maintaining decorum in the pub, the C-word is bantered about frequently. And all this is just to tell me about the size of the tomatoes they picked that morning, or how well their dog performed on the track the previous evening. Heaven forbid something really exciting ever happens in Carnarvon and they have to find suitably powerful language to express it!
Despite my amusement and despair at some of their ways, most of the locals are really lovely here and there's no way I would have stayed in such a boring job for so long if it wasn't for their company and hospitality. They are eternally generous, plying me with spare seafood from their freezers and reject fruit and vegetables from their plantations. Having been unable to afford a banana for six months (in the shops they are an extortionate
$13 a kilo!!), I have now got to the point where I am eating two a day to stop them going to waste! It's not just an endless supply of food either, I've had offers to use their 4x4s
on my days off, invites to dinner and for fishing trips, job prospects, house sitting requests, even contacts for relations to stay with around the world.
Some of the gifts the locals bring in have turned the bar into a 'show and tell' feature. I have a shelf in the bar where my tip jar sits, and next to this I display the rudest fruit specimens given to me, usually tomatoes with phallic protuberances or siamese twin cucumbers dubbed by one imaginative local as the 'double dildos'. The shelf also proudly displays a postcard of Caernarfon Castle in Wales (to remind the locals where they're really from), and a greetings card from my home village of Stalbridge (to spread the fame of Dikes around the World)! The most exciting thing brought to me though was a bag from the Hostel cleaner with three Leader(?) Prawns, each with a body the size of my hand. Every time I went to safely stow them in the cool room one of the locals would insist I show another customer that had just walked in. I never even knew prawns could get that size and they made for a few very tasty meals!
Prawns the size of bananas!
Fantastic gift thank you Kerry! So that's how I've passed my time for the past three months. From the fireworks and frenzy of Sydney to the red sand and calm waters of Carnarvon. I may not have driven the circumference of Australia ticking off every must-see sight along the way, but I think I have got a good insight into the lives of typical Australians. From the city slickers coming in for their morning coffee, to the students getting their discount burgers, to the families with hyper sugar-loaded kids on a rainy Sunday afternoon, to the plantation workers taking a quick refreshment break between back-breaking 14 hour days, to the old men eeking out their evenings over a few beers. And it has been a pleasure to meet and serve them all (well, 85% of them!) during my year working in Australia.
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