Then there were old Gympie Howard from Longreach, a shearers’ cook, he was, and a damn good one too. He was a character, a real old character was Gympie. He used to wake us up in the morning beating on an old ship’s water tank with a big spoon, a red sort of square one, it was—not the spoon, that is, it were the tank that was square. Anyway, he’d be there banging away and yelling, ‘Come ‘n get it!’
Then I remember once there was a team of us going down from Blackall, here in central Queensland, out to some place away out in the sticks to do some shearing. So, there we were, driving through this property, mile after mile, with Gympie sitting in the front. Now it were always the passenger in the front that got the job of jumping out and opening and shutting gate, and on this trip there was just gate after gate after gate.
Anyway, there’s a bit of a larrikin on the back of the truck and when they arrive at this particular gate, Gympie gets out and he opens it for the truck to drive through. So while Gympie’s got his back turned, shutting the gate, this larrikin chap jumps off real quick and he hides under the back of the truck. Then as old Gympie was strolling back past the truck, to get back in again, this larrikin chap grabs him by the leg of his pants and growls like he’s pretending to be a dog. And Jack Peth was driving the truck. Jack was a wool classer; a damn good one too, Jack was. Anyhow, old Gympie doesn’t even take a look down. He just gives his leg a bit of a shake, causing this larrikin chap to let go his grip. Then as Gympie gets back into the cab of the truck he says to Jack, ‘Well Jack,’ he says, nice and slow, like Gympie always talked, ‘I reckon we’re nearly there.’
‘What makes yer think that?’ Jack asks.
‘Well,’ says Gympie, ‘I just been bit by a dog so we mustn’t be too far from the homestead.’
And so they took off, leaving this larrikin chap behind, still laying there on the ground. He couldn’t move because he were laughing so much. The others in the back couldn’t say much either because they was laughing too. And Old Gympie didn’t even twig to the fact that it was just this chap playing around pretending to be a dog.
But that was Gympie. Like I said, he was a real character.
Then there was the time that he had a piggery just out of Longreach and when he wasn’t out with the shearing team he used to sell pigs to the butchers and all that. Anyhow, one day, he’d gone off down to his piggery and someone came along and said to Gympie’s next-door neighbour, ‘Hey, I’m lookin’ fer a chap called Gympie Howard. Do yer know where he is?’ he asked.
‘He’s not home,’ said the neighbour. ‘You’ll find him down at his piggery.’
‘Where’s that?’ asked the chap.
So the neighbour gave this chap the directions down to Gympie’s piggery. ‘Just go down the end of the road ‘n turn right, yer can’t miss it.’
Then just as the chap’s about to walk away he turns to the neighbour. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he says, ‘how’ll I know which one Gympie is?’
‘Ah,’ said the neighbour, ‘you’ll know Gympie, alright,’ he said. ‘He’ll be the one with the hat on!’