September 2010 Issue 102

by Al McCartan

“I’m off ter England,” grinned Alfie. “got a few quid stashed away in the bank, an’ I’m gonna get on one of them big liners and go to Pommy land, watch the tests, us agin the poms; bewdy.”

We all looked at Alfie, some of us envious.

“I bin ter England,” said old Tim. “In the big war.”

Yes, old Tim had been to England, but what he failed to tell us was that he was a mess steward for the officers at Horseferry Road, never saw France.

“England’s bloody cold,” remarked Tim. “Yers ‘ave a jimmy riddle an’ it gets frozen afore it hits the ground.”

“Bullshit, Tim. Many’s the dairy you’ve never been to, or you’d know, piddle is ‘ot. Mate, I’ve seen Kikacro below bloody zero an’ me cows diodn’t freeze up.”

“Waddya gonna do in when ya not watchin’ the cricket, mate?”

“Look at all them tourist things, ya know, the Tower, the pubs, dart matches , but mainly, a gander at the cricket. There’s a young bloke, Len Hutton, I heard tell he’s gonna give us Aussies a bit of a goin’ over, in the summer. Ol’ Wally Hammond’s jokers might give us a bit of a run. Might ‘ang around fer that.”

Kikacro, like many other towns in rural Australia was affected by the depression and it was a really big event when one of our own was going to tackle the big adventure. A keen cricketer and useful bat, Alf was not much of a traveller – Bilangalow was the biggest centre he had visited.

“Sydney, no ways, mate. Too bloody big, too crowded and too dirty; jokers down there would rob ya blind fer sixpence.”

Alf’s granny, Maude, passed away six months prior and she had left him a nice little legacy of one hundred pounds. This coupled with the savings he had accumulated meant he could take the trip.

Not too many from our town had that privilege and it was with great ceremony that we patrons of Stumpy Morgan’s Pub escorted Alf to the station for the long, slow trip to Sydney.

Kikacro, April 20, 1938
A wire service photograph had landed on the desk of the Chronicle editor. It showed our Alf showing a bunch of English schoolboys the correct way to hold a bat. With the caption. Mr. Alfred Little, opening bat for the Kikacro, NSW, team, gives the lads of Much Puddlesome Junior School batting points.
This was too good an opportunity for our Chief sub-editor to miss out. His headlines in the next day’s Chronicles were:

Local Cricketing Identity in England

A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY

© Al McCartan 2010

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