Oz, as they tend to do in the States, lay some claim to individuality, whatever that might be, but this is important, really, here; as the noticeboard in the car-park says, the town was set up to ‘commemorate those early settlers of Celtic origin who helped to build the Australian nation’. All Celtic languages are represented here, both Brythonic and Goidelic; there’s even a reconstruction of the Tynwald, a small hill surrounded by stone slabs to sit on. Kernow is here. Breizh. Of course there’s also something here of the speciously Romantic and mystic, of Clannad and the kilt and the kindly old mam cooking cawl in the cottage in the cwm, but still there’s a good core to this commemoration. It’s okay. I approve. And Llangothlin, some miles outside, is afew clapboard houses and bleating sheep and drizzle in a cold wind. Low green hills. Close your eyes.
The New England Highway dominates this Celtic region of Oz. Cuts straight across it, separates Oban from Llangothlin. I wonder if that was deliberate? There’s a hamlet called Wards Mistake which sets me off wondering, intrigued, but it’s miles away down some barely-there road and no doubt when we get there it’d be little more than a shack or two so we continue on through Guyra and Tilbuster and soon, no, not soon, but eventually we reach Armidale.
THEN
The Highland Caravan Park. A sign with a piper on it in a kilt.
–Why’s there a Scotchman on the sign, dad?
–Dunno. Maybe the feller who owns it is from Scotland.
–Can you only stay there if you’re Scotch?
–Maybe. You’ll have to say ‘och aye the noo’ and ‘hoots’ and eat neeps.
–What’s neeps?
They drive in, park, rent a chalet for the night. It’s small and cramped and the boy claims the top bunk, mere inches from the wooden ceiling. He goes with his father to the camp shop for food, basic food to feed the family; potatoes and baked beans and cooking oil. But there is no oil. The boy’s father speaks to the man behind the counter and another man enters from the back room, a big man in glasses and a woolly jumper and a big grey beard with his hands in the pockets of his trousers jiggling the change in them and doing a funny little dance to the song on the radio. He stops and stares at the boy’sfather and nods at him and says in a strong Yorkshire accent:
–Lancashire.
–Well, no, the dad says. –Merseyside. Same area, kind of.
They talk. There is a chocolate bar on display. On the wrapper is a picture of green fields in mist and grazing brown horses and it makes the boy think of cottages and log fires and dairies and farms and cosiness in the country. He wants the chocolate.
There is no oil so the boy’s father buys a few tubs of margarine and they return to the chalet and the boy climbs up onto his bunk to be out of the way while his mother cooks. The smell of the melted margarine surprises him with its sweetness. Shortly after they’ve eaten they all go to bed and the boy imagines he’s in a war as he falls asleep, a hero, protecting his family from armies of baddies and he wakes with a start to see wood so close to his face and they have breakfast and get back into the car and drive again into Uralla where they stop, briefly, to look at Thunderbolt’s grave, which is when the boy becomes a bushranger on a strong and faithful horse which can leap across valleys and off mountains. It’s not so much the chocolate the boy wants as the wrapper.
Tamworth. Goonoo Goonoo, which sets the children off singing ‘I’m a gnu, how do you do?’ Scone and Aberdeen, Scotland in Oz. A long day’s drive across the Great Dividing Range whose landscape both exhilarates and scares the boy, and the sky turns dark and they enter the tiny scattered hamlet of Colo and find a caravan which the boy’s mother says is ‘grotty’ but they stay there anyway and in the morning they leave the caravan and take a walk down to the river and now in daylight they can see where they are and the
The New England Highway dominates this Celtic region of Oz. Cuts straight across it, separates Oban from Llangothlin. I wonder if that was deliberate? There’s a hamlet called Wards Mistake which sets me off wondering, intrigued, but it’s miles away down some barely-there road and no doubt when we get there it’d be little more than a shack or two so we continue on through Guyra and Tilbuster and soon, no, not soon, but eventually we reach Armidale.
THEN
The Highland Caravan Park. A sign with a piper on it in a kilt.
–Why’s there a Scotchman on the sign, dad?
–Dunno. Maybe the feller who owns it is from Scotland.
–Can you only stay there if you’re Scotch?
–Maybe. You’ll have to say ‘och aye the noo’ and ‘hoots’ and eat neeps.
–What’s neeps?
They drive in, park, rent a chalet for the night. It’s small and cramped and the boy claims the top bunk, mere inches from the wooden ceiling. He goes with his father to the camp shop for food, basic food to feed the family; potatoes and baked beans and cooking oil. But there is no oil. The boy’s father speaks to the man behind the counter and another man enters from the back room, a big man in glasses and a woolly jumper and a big grey beard with his hands in the pockets of his trousers jiggling the change in them and doing a funny little dance to the song on the radio. He stops and stares at the boy’sfather and nods at him and says in a strong Yorkshire accent:
–Lancashire.
–Well, no, the dad says. –Merseyside. Same area, kind of.
They talk. There is a chocolate bar on display. On the wrapper is a picture of green fields in mist and grazing brown horses and it makes the boy think of cottages and log fires and dairies and farms and cosiness in the country. He wants the chocolate.
There is no oil so the boy’s father buys a few tubs of margarine and they return to the chalet and the boy climbs up onto his bunk to be out of the way while his mother cooks. The smell of the melted margarine surprises him with its sweetness. Shortly after they’ve eaten they all go to bed and the boy imagines he’s in a war as he falls asleep, a hero, protecting his family from armies of baddies and he wakes with a start to see wood so close to his face and they have breakfast and get back into the car and drive again into Uralla where they stop, briefly, to look at Thunderbolt’s grave, which is when the boy becomes a bushranger on a strong and faithful horse which can leap across valleys and off mountains. It’s not so much the chocolate the boy wants as the wrapper.
Tamworth. Goonoo Goonoo, which sets the children off singing ‘I’m a gnu, how do you do?’ Scone and Aberdeen, Scotland in Oz. A long day’s drive across the Great Dividing Range whose landscape both exhilarates and scares the boy, and the sky turns dark and they enter the tiny scattered hamlet of Colo and find a caravan which the boy’s mother says is ‘grotty’ but they stay there anyway and in the morning they leave the caravan and take a walk down to the river and now in daylight they can see where they are and the
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