I AM without a shadow of a doubt the fastest eater in captivity, bar maybe the odd polar bear in a zoo somewhere. It was the same at Pentridge. No-one finished their meal before me, and not because I went to any special effort, either.
I would create havoc if I was sentenced to death and then had to eat my last meal. I would finish it so fast that the hangman would still be getting the hood out of the boot when I was ready to rock and roll.
I got this skill at eating food with great speed from my dear old Dad who, in his heyday, could polish off a three-course meal in no time flat. He ate like a snake, swallowing things whole and in one gulp.
He would be sipping on his cup of tea having eaten his meal and a second helping while others were about to start on their second course.
My dad’s dinnertime rule to me was simple: ‘Son, you get in there, get it into you and get out. It is okay for the womenfolk to ponce about at the dinner table but men don’t dilly dally about.’
After grace was said, I would lift my knife and fork and Dad would lift his. We would look at each other and Dad would wink at me and away we’d go. To eat fast yet maintain table manners is a skill. The secret is three chews, then another mouthful, three chews then another mouthful.
It mightn’t have looked pretty but, my oath, it was effective. It was constant shovelling of the food and chewing and swallowing all at once with perfect timing. Dad was always six or seven mouthfuls ahead of me and is the only man I’ve ever known who could finish his food ahead of me or at the same time.
It was a fine family tradition. Okay, it’s not likely to win us a family seat in the House of Lords, but it was a bonding thing any rate. Maybe our family crest could be a fork and a front-end loader.
Dad always said that he hated the way the wogs played with their food – a mouthful of this, a mouthful of that, a little conversation, a drink of wine and a nibble of something else, and an hour later the bastards are still piss farting about sitting around the table nibbling away and sipping wine like a pack of old molls.
Dad loathed it. ‘I cannot stand the way these bloody dagos play with their food, son. Get in, get it down ya and get out of the bloody place, that’s what I reckon,’ was my old Dad’s wise advice. ‘Bloody hell, son. When I was a boy I was lucky to get a decent meal, let alone a bloody hour to eat it.’
When Dave the Jew had dinner with us, Dad and I would finish off and sit and watch Dave as he fiddled about and chewed each mouthful for minutes on end and chatted away.
Dad looked at Dave once across the table and said, ‘I’ll tell you right now, boy, I don’t like a man who plays with his food.’ Now, Dave may have been criminally insane but when he looked at my dear old Dad he knew what he had to do.
After that Dave would sit at the table in stone cold silence and do his utmost to match my dad and me, mouthful for mouthful. We would finish three to four minutes ahead of him but Dad would say, ‘Ah, that’s what I like to see: a man who enjoys his food. No messing about, get it down ya, son,’ and he would give Dave a hearty slap on the back. Dad would start to wash the dishes as Dave struggled to finish off his plate.
I have always taken this way of eating for granted. Dad and me would resemble a couple of giant blue whales going through a school of krill. Just go past the food and suck it in. It’s only when I eat in company that people say I eat fast. ‘Don’t you swallow? You just seem to shovel it down your neck,’ they say. Yet I say with all modesty that I do so with perfect decorum.
I can shovel down steak, eggs, sausages, mushrooms and mixed vegies and sweets in under three minutes with total propriety. I have perfect manners. I eat like Prince Charles would if he was on Angel Dust.
I would challenge anyone in a speed-eating contest. I can do it and maintain good manners. The other night I ate my main meal of meat, potato, gravy, bread and butter to mop the gravy up and five full bowls of plum duff and custard and I was on my second cup of tea while the others in the yard were still struggling to finish their main meal.
And then Ray Sheehan could not eat his food so I finished off his, gave Peter Wright a helping hand on his and I was still ahead of the rest by minutes. I would have got into the plum duff in a big way but manners precluded it.
I think only Paul Newman in my favorite prison movie, Cool Hand Luke, could have challenged me in an eating contest. The way he ate those eggs got me quite hungry. I try to watch my weight inside, but there is hardly any great motivation. It’s not as though you have to trim down to slip into your dinner jacket so that you can get out on the tear and impress a few womenfolk.
The art of eating runs in the family. Evidently my grandfather, Alf the Bull, was not a man to fiddle at the dinner table. You may recall that Alf, a World War One veteran, was so strong he could hold the weight of a bale of wool singlehanded.
When I was a kid there was a ‘no talking at the table’ rule. We sat and we ate and we got the hell out of there, while the women did the dishes. These days people sit and chat and drink and nibble, and piss fart about for the best part of an hour or longer, then call for coffee and extra nibbles and buggerise about for another half hour like a bunch of grannies at a garden party.
When my dad left my mum he went to live in a boarding house at 1 Hawksburn Road, South Yarra. For a while I went and lived at the same address to keep him company.
An old Hungarian fellow invited Dad and myself to a Hungarian restaurant in Greville Street, Prahran, for tea one night. The time was set for six o’clock. As I recall Cowboy Johnny Harris, who was not well known as a food critic, was with us. Cowboy only had one rule about food. It had to be dead and he would eat it.
I was carrying a gun, as was my habit. I couldn’t dine comfortably unless I was properly dressed. We arrived promptly at six o’clock but the old Hungarian fellow was late, so we sat down and ordered up three giant plates of Hungarian goulash and got stuck in.
‘The Cowboy’ was not one to mess about and we soon finished and ordered seconds. We had polished that off and were drinking tea when the old Hungarian walked in.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You have finished your meal. You start without me.’ Dad replied, ‘Look sport, you said six o’clock and that’s the time we got here so don’t go crook at us when you ponce in 20 minutes late.’
The old bloke looked at his watch and said, ‘It’s only ten minutes past,’ but Dad wasn’t impressed. ‘Ten minutes, 20 minutes, what’s the difference? You’re still bloody late. You invite us to dinner and ponce in late. Well, we’ve had ours.’
‘No please, do not be cross. We sit, we talk, we have coffee,’ he said in a most cultured way. ‘Yeah, well, no offence mate,’ said my old Dad, ‘but that’s how the Germans rooted ya. You were too busy sitting talking and having ya bloody coffee.’
With that we got up to leave and the waitress handed Dad the bill. Dad handed it to the old Hungarian and we walked out. When we got outside it was raining. Dad said, ‘Remember that, son. If ya ever need to “sneak go” a dago, ya can always get the bastards while they are having dinner. The buggers take all day. I can’t stand these bastards who play with their food.’
‘I agree,’ said Cowboy Johnny, which was about as close as he got to being philosophical. He was always in full agreement with anything Dad said. Then Dad cracked wise with one of his pearls of wisdom. ‘There are three sorts of people who dilly dally at the dinner table, son … wogs, poofters and members of the Royal family.’
Whenever my maternal Grandfather, a Seventh Day Adventist minister called Pastor George Weslake, visited us my dad always let it be known he thought old Pastor George was a ‘la-di-da old ponce’. Needless to say, old George dilly-dallied at the dinner table.
Breakfast was a big meal for Grandad. It would take me and Dad three minutes under normal conditions but Grandad would sit and want to enjoy toast, butter, marmalade, Weetbix, brown sugar, hot milk and sliced banana and dates, with sultanas all over it.
Then he would have more toast and marmalade followed by a piping hot toby jug of Milo, and this would go on with the old bloke chattering away like a married magpie for a good hour or more.
My mother loved Grandad’s visits and would sit with my little sister Debbie and enjoy breakfast with him. So what Dad would do is finish his breakfast first, as always, then get up and start to clear the table bit by bit as soon as Grandad used anything.
The old fellow took a knife full of butter to put on his toast; Dad cleared the butter away. Grandad took some marmalade; Dad took the marmalade. Grandad took a bit of toast; Dad removed the toast. Grandad used the brown sugar and hot milk, then Dad cleared it away. This went on until the whole table was empty except for Grandad’s bowl of Weetbix and fruit, and Dad was hovering to grab that.
My mum and sister would sit through this, angry and embarrassed. I, however, thought Dad’s conduct was very funny. As soon as Grandad had finished his bowl, Dad took the empty bowl and gave him his big toby jug of Milo and that was that.
Grandad’s hour-long breakfast got cut down to 15 minutes. Dad would sit on the back step and say to me, ‘Ya got to watch the old bastard, son. He’ll eat us out of house and home. Silly old prick’s got one hand on the bible and the other hand on the fridge door.’
I love all types of food, although at times I’m a little wary of your Chinese tucker. You would be, too, if you knew which crims used to be shipped off to a certain dim sim factory where they went on the missing list. It happened so often it became the norm, if you know what I mean.
Now I have been close to many members of the criminal fraternity, but not close enough to eat them with soy sauce and fried rice. Ha (burp) ha.
BREAKFAST, lunch and teatime at Risdon is always a great joy for me. With Ray Sheehan sitting on one side and Peter Wright on the other, the eating is fast and furious, although Peter’s table manners leave a great deal to be desired. Ray, on the other hand, likes to give me a verbal running commentary on every move he makes.
‘Ah,’ says Ray, ‘I think I’ll have a bit of the old butter on the old potato. Where is the old knife? Pass the salt, Chopper. I think I’ll have a cup of the old tea. Bloody hell, these potatoes taste good with a bit of the old butter on them. Gee, this knife is sharp, I’d like to jam it up George Lawler’s arse.’ As you may gather, gentle reader, Ray doesn’t like the Governor, Mr Lawler, and doesn’t care who knows it.
And Ray is a bit of a food critic, as well. ‘What’s this shit?’ he asks. ‘How can I eat it if I don’t know what it is? I’ll put a bit of the old butter on that as well.
‘Excuse me, boss,’ he yells. ‘Has the cook shit on my plate? What’s this crap?’
‘I’ll eat it if you don’t want it,’ says Peter.
Meanwhile, Bucky’s sitting at another table and flicks a portion of peanut butter over at Peter Wright. Then it starts. ‘Ahh,’ says old Ray, ‘a bit of the old food fight.’ Slop, a spoonful of stew gets sent hurtling across the room.
Warren Oldham stops inspecting his false teeth to let go with several slices of bread like frisbees across the room. Harry the Greek calls for order. ‘Turn it up, turn it up,’ he cries.
‘Shut up, wog,’ yells Bucky, as if he’s addressing the United Nations. ‘You are not a bad bloke, Harry, but you are a bit like a computer. Once in a while you need a bit of information punched into you.’
Laughter erupts and Harry starts air raiding, which he does well. More food flies, more abuse is directed at various ones, and chaos is the result. I sit quietly and eat my meal with Ray, who gives me a lecture on how it does not snow on the planet Mars, with Bucky calling him a senile old goat, saying he saw a TV documentary about us all living on Mars in the near future.
‘Well, you would know,’ yells Ray. ‘You are a bloody Martian, you’ve got two heads.’ The screws call for silence, but to no avail. All the other yards in their mess rooms are in an uproar.
The whole idea is to eat up and get out quick. Harry the Greek spends most of his day muttering and mumbling and air raiding about bloody two-headed Tasmanians, and then being told to sit down or be knocked down, but it’s all in jest.
Bucky has a standing joke that before Harry gets out of jail he will stuff him in one of the industrial washing machines down in the laundry where everyone in C Yard works.
The boss of the laundry is a prison industry supervisor named Eddy Fry, or Eddy the Head, as we call him. He enjoys the reputation of running a tight ship and having booked more prisoners than any other member of staff in the prison. A booking means that the prisoner will more than likely be sent around the comer to N Division. Harry the Greek is Eddy’s number one worker. Like all Greeks, Harry loves a day’s work. As soon as Harry hits the laundry he goes into work mode, whereas me and Bucky head for the coffee tin and start to make a cuppa.
‘I want to see some work out of you two bastards today,’ yells Eddy. ‘No problem,’ yells Bucky, raising his coffee cup in a cheers gesture.
Eddy has a sense of humor in spite of his best efforts to appear otherwise. ‘The wog’s got it all under control,’ yells Bucky.
‘You will miss Harry when he goes. This jail needs more Greeks,’ yells Eddy. ‘Good bloody workers they are.’ Harry spits the dummy at all this and starts air raiding and the daily chaos starts.
The whole day is spent in a mixture of work and laughter and friendly abuse of each other. Then up we go for lunch and more chaos. I quite enjoy getting into my cell for some peace and bloody quiet.
Day in and day out the laughter, friendly abuse and scallywag practical jokes continue. As jails go the Pink Palace is in a class of its own.