After I had had my well deserved cup of tea at Auburn, I was all set again for further battles of pedals with a consistently strong headwind, when my attention was diverted – to a hotel. No, there was no question of me getting attracted by the Fosters-label before lunchtime and happily sitting at a sheltered counter. The hotel in question was not a real one; it was a model of the old ‘Auburn Hotel’, about a foot long, standing on a stone beside the pavement. This was the site of the birthplace of C.J. Dennis, author and poet, son of a retired Irish-Australian sea-captain, who had run a hotel after abandoning the Seven Seas.
Coming in to Auburn only half an hour ago, I had not had the faintest idea about an author and poet called C.J. Dennis, let alone about such a person’s Irish roots. The model of his birthplace sparked off a chain of inquires. They revealed that C.J. Dennis had been born in Auburn in 1876 and had died in Melbourne in 1938. He had been educated at a Christian Brother’s College in Adelaide, and had taken up a number of different jobs, one being a bar man in his father’s hotel in Auburn. This job he took so seriously that he personally tested a wide range of his merchandise on a daily basis. His literary breakthrough came in 1915 with the publication of his best known work: “Songs of a Sentimental Bloke”, a sequence of verses about Bill and Doreen, written in coarse dialect.
Well, if this was not enough to make me walk into a few book-places along the track, surely my old friend the headwind was going to remind of the need for tea-breaks and printed pages. It turned out that C.J. Dennis was very much a writer of parody, irony and satirical criticism of the bourgeoisie, its genteel attitudes and manners, its cultural and political ambitions.
The Martyred Democrat
(Begin breezily)
In Lady Lusher’s drawing-room, where float the strains of Brahms
While cultured caterpillars chew the leaves of potted palms -
In Lady Lusher’s drawing-room, upon a summer’s day,
The Democrats of Toorak met to pass an hour away.
They listened to a speech by Mr. Grabbitt, MLC,
While Senator O’Sweatem passed around the cakes and tea.
And all the brains and beauty of the suburb gathered there,
In Lady Lusher’s drawing-room – Miss Fibwell in the chair.
(With increasing interest)
Ay, all the brave and fair were there – the fair in charming hats
The brave in pale mauve pantaloons and shiny boots, with spats.
But pride of all that gathering, a giant mid the rest,
Was Mr. Petty Puttipate, in fancy socks and vest.
Despite his bout of brain-fag, plainly showing in his eyes -
(Contracted while inventing something in nobby ties) -
He braved the ills-the draughts and chills, damp tablecloths and mats-
Of Lady Lusher’s drawing-room: this prince of Democrats.
(Resume the breeze)
Upon a silken ottoman sat Willie Dawdlerich,
Who spoke of democratic things to Mabel Bandersnitch;
…
Dennis, C.J., “Blackblock Ballads”, E.W. Cole, 1913
In his own estimate, Dennis’ best work is “The Glugs of Gosh”, in which he strongly criticises the ‘Glugs’, his fellow Australians for their tendency to conformity. Best known, however, seems to be the sequence “Songs of a Sentimental Bloke”, which sold 67.000 copies in the first 12 months after publication (1915 – 1916) and which was put on stage as a musical during the sixties. The aim of this satire in Dennis’ own words was “to show those … blind snobs that beautiful thoughts are quite possible amongst the vulgar whom they affect to despise and pity” (Humphrey Mc Queen in “The Greats” p. 170). My own attempt to follow such ‘beautiful thoughts’ got stuck immediately after the introduction: Written in Australian dialect, incomprehensible to my eyes and ears, I quickly ‘shelved’ the book at the bottom of my pannier bags for language grinds to come with friends up further north. They would have to help me out with texts like ‘The Play’, something that appeared to be a ‘Crocodile Dundee’s account of a Shakespearian experience’, which at present, to my mind, constituted nothing but a conglomerate of words, a gargle-concoction of rhyme:
The Play
WOT’s in a name? she sez. ..An’ then she sighs,
An’ clasps ‘er little ‘ands, an’rolls ‘er eyes.
‘A rose’, she sez, ‘be any other name
Would smell the same.
Oh, w’erefore art you Romeo, young sir?
Chuck yer ole pot, an’change yer moniker!’
Doreen an’ me, we bin to see a show -
The swell two-dollar touch. Bong tong, yeh know.
A chain apiece wiv velvit on the seat;
A slap-up treat.
The drarmer’s writ be Shakespeare, years ago,
About a barmy goat called Romeo,
‘Lady, be yonder moon I swear!’ sez ‘e.
An’ then ‘e climbs up on the balkiney;
An’ there they smooge a treat, wiv pretty words
Like two lovebirds.
I nudge Doreen. She whispers, ‘Ain’t it grand!’
‘Er eyes is shinin’; an’ I squeeze ‘er ‘and.
‘Wot’s in a name?’ she sez. ‘Struth, I donna.
Billo is just as good as Romeo.
She may be Juli-er or Juli-et—–
‘E loves ‘er yet.
If she’s the tart ‘e wants, then she’s ‘is queen,
Names never count. ….But ar, I like ‘Doreen!’
A sweater, dearer sound I never ‘eard;
Ther’s music ‘angs around that little word,
Doreen! ….but wot was this I starts to say
About the play?
I’m off me beat. But when a bloke’s in love
‘Is thorts turns ‘er way, like a ‘omin’ dove.
This Romeo ‘e’s lurkin’ wiv a crew -
A dead tough crowd o’ crooks – called Montague.
‘Is cliner’s push – wot ‘s nicknamed Capulet -
They ‘as ‘em set.
Fair narks they are, jist like them back-street clicks,
Ixcep’ they fights wiv skewers, ‘stid o’bricks.
Wot’s in a name? Wot’s in a string o’ words?
They scraps in ole Verona wiv their swords,
An’ never give a bloke a stray dog’s chance,
An’ that’s Romance.
But when they deals it out wiv bricks an’ boots
In little Lon., they’re low, degraded broots.
Wot’s jist plain stoush wiv us, right ‘ere today,
Is ‘valler’ if yer fur enough away.
Some time, some writer bloke will do the trick
Wiv Ginger Mick,
Of Spadger’s Lane. ‘E’ll be a Romeo,
When e’s bin dead five ‘undred years or so.
C.J.Dennis
C.J. Dennis-biography
C.J. Dennis, free web books by the University of Adelaide
While travelling from Auburn to Clare a mere 24 km, I was still ignorant of Sir Stodge, the leader of Dennis’ land of Gosh, described as “meretricious, avaricious, vicious Swank of Gosh”, but having entered the heart of the Clare Valley, another wine-producing district, the sign posted wine- sampling invitations of about 20 producers turned me rather avaricious. However, while still on the road, I resisted any temptation, even the one of Sevenhill, where vineyards had first been planted by either German or Austrian Jesuits who initially produced altar wine only, but gave in to the forces of secular markets later, and then, in the township of Clare, I was eventually rewarded by an absolutely superb dinner at ‘Treloars’. This stylish, yet friendly and subdued restaurant with an excellent cuisine, good wines and a warm eucalypt-fire will make you want to stay all night – not only if the weather- man suddenly decides to pour down a few buckets, as he did tonight. This was the first rain of the whole trip and I certainly could not have been in a better spot. I managed to complete most of today’s notes before Tim Knappstein’s Cabernet Sauvignon from the winery next door took over the controls. Little did I know then that I was going to meet famous Mr. Knappstein a few weeks later when he, unquestionably enjoying his own product, stayed a night at the Arkaroola Mt. Painter Sanctuary, where he was passing through while taking part in the 1990 Clipsal Bush-Bash, a dusty charity-race of rather unusual cars.
I found myself “singing in the rain’ on my way ‘home’ to Bentley’s Hotel, and, although you may have. your own suspicions, I was just simply happy about a successful day and a good meal, convinced that on further occasions, ‘Treloars’ would be worth a detour, even on a bicycle.
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