Thank Pat. Perhaps you are right about the finishing point. I just wanted
to make the point about some things remaining and some Brexiting whoops I
mean passing away.
Interesting about your coin location scheme as a nipper. New schemes now no
doubt. I noticed this arvo at the supermarket where people are encouraged
to scan their own purchases, a couple of kids doing just that to oblige
their waiting mother but one of them whipped in a Kit Kat from a nearby
stand and scanned that without bothering to ask anyone.
Bill
On 6 July 2016 at 19:15, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Cheers Bill enjoyed this reminded me when I was a kid had a job collecting
> up deckchairs on a beach and we always checked for dropped coins and
> sometimes were lucky!!!!
> I am not sure if the last two verses fell a bit predictable and maybe
> finish
> 'Uh huh, a shifty schent shit!' which is gorgeous -well my tuppence!!
> Ps always ;oved those threepenny bits!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Bill Wootton
> Sent: 05 July 2016 23:35
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Not there any more
>
> The olive paint-flaked weatherboard house was
> wedged between St Pius Catholic Primary School
> and East Ivanhoe State School number 4386.
>
> Old Mr Wakeman lived there, wild-haired,
> grumpy state school caretaker
> whose son John was in my grade.
>
> Imagine now someone suggesting
> building attached premises to schools
> for live-in caretakers and their families.
>
> But it worked. We all knew Old Wakeman
> had eyes over the whole property.
> Maintained it, kept it clean.
>
> Metal bins full of lunch scraps he'd empty
> into the 'burner' as we termed the brick
> incinerator on school grounds between
>
> the wooden library/tuckshop building
> and Wakeman's backyard. Smoke
> billowed each night.
>
> Come morning recess we'd pounce.
> Three or four of us regularly. Down
> on our knees with sticks, raking
>
> ash from under the burner,
> slow sifting for careless treasure.
> Coins. Mostly pennies, halfpennies.
>
> But sometimes the odd little threepence
> or sixpence with its kangaroo/emu
> coat of arms. And once, John Bright
>
> hit the jackpot with a blackened shilling,
> that distinctive ram's head silvering up
> nicely with a bit of spit and hanky rubbing.
>
> The coins cropped up because slack kids
> failed to check for change in paper bags
> with their tuckshop lunch orders.
>
> The best you could hope for was change
> from a two-bob bit. Especially if
> they only ordered one thing.
>
> Old Wakeman knew what we were up to.
> And he'd come charging out to shoo
> us away, hating the strewn ash piles
>
> we left on the concrete apron in front
> of the burner. Sometimes it was lumpy
> stuff. Best was fine, powdery ash,
>
> so available of quick coin reveals.
> Some tuck-shop ladies turned up
> their noses at our black bounty.
>
> But most clanked our coinage
> and served us Chocolate Royals
> which we promptly smashed
>
> on our foreheads before peeling
> off chocolate to reveal marshmallow
> on top of jam biscuit. Or Sunnyboys,
>
> sweet orange cordial in a tetrahedonal
> tetra pak, also available frozen,
> the better for lasting longer.
>
> 1966 saw decimal coinage take over
> but no one slipped a new silver fifty
> in their lunch order as far as we knew.
>
> Not that it stopped us trying to suck
> in gullible burner newcomers:
> 'Uh huh, a shifty schent shit!'
>
> Both schools still exist, on Robin Hood
> Road, East Ivanhoe but in between,
> where the caretaker's house stood,
>
> gleams a massive steel stadium,
> a facility perhaps shared. And who
> cleans it is anybody's business.
>
> bw
>
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