Sticky post
The tears I’ve cried since 1962 have been evenly shared between family and the Port Adelaide Football Club. I started barracking for the Magpies when I was nine. My sister Sharon kept Port scrapbooks and I copied her. I cut out photos from The News including headshots of Jack Cahill from his used-car ads and stuck them in my book with Clag. On Fridays I … Continue reading From a backyard in Port Pirie to Shanghai
Sticky post
When I was 14 years old I worked for Ken Madigan Sports Store in Port Pirie. I was shy. I hid behind the goggles and flippers to avoid customers. Dad sent me out the back to blow up netballs and stack boxes of trampolines. I spent my whole wage on Fanta from the Coke machine and gingerbread men from Angie’s Cake Shop. We delivered toys … Continue reading Mayhem at Midnight Mass
Sticky post
At a roadhouse in Port Wakefield near Wild Horse Plains, a truck-driver steps down from his rig and scratches his guts and keeps the engine running. Beryl barges through the swinging doors of the kitchen, puffing. “Yes love, wadda ya’ want?” A fisherman with cockle on his fingers fumbles through the drink-straw dispenser. An old bloke wipes his bum and goes next door for an … Continue reading No Guts no glory
Sticky post
Every Friday night in 1985 half of Port Pirie crammed into the saloon bar of the Family Hotel down the road from the lead smelter. Old Malvern Stars leaned against the heritage listed lime-green tiles out the front, bags of pomegranates, Brylcreem and legs of lamb hanging from the handlebars. Loyal border collies slept on the footpath with one eye open, snapping at the odd … Continue reading Friday night at the Family Hotel
Sticky post
On Boxing Day in 1988 Dad and I rode our pushbikes from Port Pirie to Broken Hill. It was a father-son bonding thing. I paid my rent two weeks in advance and bought $200 worth of spare parts including tubes and tyres that Dad hung over my shoulder. It was 41 degrees which melted the tar on the road. No helmet, just a Greg Chappell … Continue reading Broken Hill, here we come
Sticky post
Whenever I’m behind a slow caravan on the highway I think of hairy soap and thongs in the shower. And not-enough-veggies noises in the next cubicle. So I was not in a happy holiday frame of mind when I sat in my deck chair to taste the Grey Nomad Sauvignon Blanc 2010, left in the bottom of my esky by a ‘mate’. It brought back … Continue reading The caravan of love
A young lawyer drinks a whole-bunch Pinot at a hipster wine bar in Adelaide while an old grapegrower getting by on an oily rag can only glance at the wine list in the window and keep walking. Dairy-farmers are doing it tough but grapegrowers have had 10 years of it. Twenty-five years ago my sister Elizabeth married Michael in the backyard of our cream-brick home … Continue reading The canvas can do miracles
Kay Brothers Amery Vineyards launched its book, The First 125 Years, in the ‘heritage cask room’ that went up 17 years before the Titanic went down. Kindly folk shuffled into the dimly-lit cellar from the midday sun to sip cool, fizzy Shiraz. It was a Saturday but felt like a Sunday with a solemn congregation of true Kay believers. There were whole tables of 80-year-old ladies … Continue reading Kay Syrah Syrah, whatever will be, will be
Honouring the Anzacs at Wandearah Hall nestled among wheat fields in the Mid North. Continue reading Among the fields of gold
Country Wine 