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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Outback (Angus)



In an earlier post (crocodile farming) I told you about my friend Luke and his son Angus. That’s not their real names but that doesn't mean they are not real people. They are  totally real and totally unlike anyone you would have as a neighbour in leafy suburbia. 




You will recall that the ten-year-old drove a jeep with blocks on the pedals and went chasing bulls with his dad. You can probably guess that he didn’t grow into the sort of adult who wears a business suit and sits behind a desk. Angus grew into the tough, leathery sort of bushman I describe in my novels. Some people accuse me of exaggerating. Let me assure you that I do not.

In so far as Angus received an early education, he got it through the School of the Air and private tuition from his mum. His younger brothers were scholastically inclined. Angus was not. So when his maternal grandfather put up money for him to attend an expensive private school, Angus was less than enthusiastic.

It was the prestigious sort of school that his mother had attended in England. She came from an upper crust family and had taken off for Australia as a pioneer backpacker. Her parents were impressed when she said she’d met a yachtsman called Luke who owned a colossal grazing property in the Gulf of Carpentaria. She recalls their shocked expressions when they met her new husband. With his sun-beaten features, Luke looked more like a labourer than a gentleman and he spoke with a heavy Aussie accent they could hardly understand. In short, Luke wasn’t the sort of chap they wanted as a son-in-law.

Grandfather was out to claim Angus for the upper classes and the young fellow, now twelve, arrived at his new school suitably attired. Things went badly from the start. Angus regarded his new mates as toffy nosed. At least, that was the expression his mother used when describing her son’s disdain for his peers. I suspect Angus used stronger language.

He was particularly miffed because the toffy-nosed kids wouldn’t believe the stories he told about life back on the farm. They accused him of “wagging”, which was a popular schoolboy term in those days. When Angus discovered that “wagging” meant “lying”, fights broke out and the staff had to intervene. Angus didn’t fight by the rules and invariably won.

He lasted a few years in his new environment before returning to the bush. By then he’d got all he wanted from school. His marks in English literature were abysmal but he excelled in a certain sort of mathematics. Put a dollar sign in front of the numbers and Angus would talk about interest rates, inflation, leverage, earnings and other financial tools needed to run a business.

He’s now in his early forties but looks much older. The dry atmosphere and harsh rays of the tropical sun have aged his skin. His cattle property is near to Luke’s and he runs it in conjunction with a tourist venture that he set up for fishermen visiting the region to catch Barramundi.







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