The Amateur, being an answer to The Specialist

The Amateur, being an answer to The Specialist

THE AMATEUR

being

An Answer To

THE SPECIALIST

MRS. E. F. BOSWORICK

The name of the author of this book is not Mrs. Bosworick and the name Mrs. Bosworick appearing in this book does not relate to any person living or dead.

Melbourne 1949

To my English friends, B & P of Elwood.

Dear Mr. Chic Sale:

Now I'm only an old woman who lives in the bush in Australia, but I has me opinions the same as the next ones, and as we has the right to vote, I reckon we has the right to speak.

Now its this way. Every time one of me sons come back from the city they begin larfin' and say, "Cripes, but have yer read 'The Specialist,' be Chic Sale?" and they get their noses into your little book and don't care if their dinner gets cold or not, they're larfin' that much.

So the next time I went up to me sister Mrs. Naggses in Melbourne, I turned round and asked her where I could buy your book. She turned round and said, "Why, Fan, we've got it here. No home is complete without it. Joe keeps it by his bed," Joe bein' Mr. Naggs. So she brings out the book already larfin'. "You'll bust yer sides, Fan," she says, "and it'll remind yer of the old days when we was all kids back home."

Of course me sister Mrs. Naggs is sewered and all and has quite forgot the days when she used to dodge the washin' up, by first standin' still, then lookin' wildly round, then rushin' down the yard, hopin' as how we wouldn't see the book flappin' about in the seat of her drawers.

Well, Mr. Sale, to give you your due, it's a great book. I took it to bed with me, and if I didn't just larfe! I was glad I'd took me town stays off, for I'm sure I'd 'a split the 'lastic.

And then I lay in the dark thinkin'. I felt that Lem Putt was so clost to me I coulda touched him, and that we had somethin' in common. So I bought "The Specialist" and took it back home to Dingbat Gully with me, and I put it on me front room table.

Now I'm only a country woman, as I says before but I move with the times, and when me sister Mrs. Naggs comes to stay, she'll see Mari Stopes and the Specialist and the album lying there next the aspidistra, which will go fer to show I'm broad-minded, and there ain't no mock-modesty in me make up, and I reckon I'm a cleaner woman than them who has it.

Then, Mr. Sale, little be little, the seeds of doubt crep in, so ter speak, and I began to see different to Lem Putt. But I don't deny it may be as the sayin' goes - different countries, different habits, and yet our habits is the same the whole world over as far as what you Americans call "the Privy" goes.

Now I might tell you Privy's a new name to us out here, bein' as we was all brought up to call it the Dub, and me eight children after me, and the Littley when they was tiny mites. Yet, I disagree with a lot of it. And I'll tell you why.

Now, first and foremost, I don't reckon as how Lem Putt had to be a Specialist to put up a Dub. All you want is service and no swank, with a certain amount of and leg room, and everything to comfort hand. And if any sort of a handyman can't run up a Dub like that, well he ain't worth callin' a dinkum Aussie.

Now to begin with I don't hold with Lem in havin' a flat roof like what he's got in the picture of the Specialist. When my Alf was buildin' ours, after the hessian one was gettin' too shabby, I turned round and told him all we wanted was a large pit and a small Dub. I agree with Lem about it bein' better to have a little Dub over a big hole, than a big Dub over a small hole. We certainly see eye to eye in that, Lem Putt and me.

Then Alf says, "While I'm about it, Fan, what about havin' a double-holer? I think," he says, "that the house is worthy of it now we've got a verandah."

I turned round and said, "No, Alf," I says. "Nothin' gets done when there's a double-holer. The children would always be two inside, talkin', and two waitin' outside. And if you don't take matches you're apt to ferget.

You know where Constable Casey put his helmet that night he called on the Hennessys, and went out to feed his horse or so he said - and a nice fool be looked when he come in without it, and turned round and said he'd lost- his helmet in the dark and wouldn't bother about it no further.

Some Lodge Gentlemen came to help lift her off her feet.

Our Sammy was the only one pleased about it he's that fond of dressin' up like a policeman, so that might happen to anybody, Alf, I says, and it isn't as if couples could go together and hold hands friendly like. -NO, Alf, there's plenty other places for couples, and there's no doubt but a double-holer takes yer mind off yer work, and goodness only knows when the children would get off ter school." So Alf turned round and says, "Right-o, Fan," he says, "'we'll keep it single. Somethin' high and narrer and dignified we'll make her."

So Alf and three gentlemen friends from his Lodge got busy diggin' the pit. We placed it, after a lot of messin' about, right down the orchard, but facin' the road, of course, and they built it - not like Lem Putt's-but with a gable roof, with spoutin' round the edge, and a large cask be the door. We wanted every drop of drinkin' water we could get.

And Mr. Sale, another thing I disagree with Lem Putt is, that he didn't like apples droppin' on the roof, bein' as it was disconcertin'. Well I proved it different. And I'll tell yer why. We had quinces, and there wasn't one of my eight children that didn't enjoy the thud of a quince, not to speak of the rain runnin' into the cask. They was all helpful.

And we had ventilators, too. No stars or crescents like his. Nothin' flash, and just made to let the air in and the air out. They was cut in V's along the top of the door, and they stayed like that till me sister Mrs. Naggs come to stay, and turned round and says to me quite nasty, "Fan," she says "you'll have to do somethin' about that there Dub. I come here fer a rest, and every day I go down the orchard, and if it ain't flies - its bees."

So Alf, he turned round and nailed wire acrost the ventilators and painted it white, which showed up lovely on the dark wood.

I couldn't understand Lem Putt leanin' towards red. Red draws the heat somethin' cruel, and after all, you only go down there when your work is done, and you want to cool off and everything. When she was built, and Melanda, me eldest girl, come home fer the first time, she savs, "Mum," she says, "I seen the Dub a mile up the road. Don't it look regal! It reminds me of grandma, bein' so tall and narrer and the white paint lookin' like her fringe." And her dad was real pleased, fer nothin' pleases him more than hearin' his old mother praised up.

But I disagree with Lem about the woodpile. And I'll tell yer fer why. Out here it would be unworkable. Fer instance, in the mornin's I used to see the children standin' clost to the great woodpile. I put up the Nvinder and I calls, "Here, Sam, and you, too, Aggie, run me in a coupla logs in-Stead of standin' beside the pile as if it wasn't there!" They all keep jiggin' up and down, and turn round and shout, "After school, mum. I ain't goin' to miss me turn. "

So both my Alf and me feel we'd rather bring in the wood ourselves than be naggin' about it. But maybe you had more visitors or were nearer the road, and your Privy was built as more of an ornament, while our Dub was built for service, and we were real conservative about it, not encouragin' outsiders, so ter speak. She had all she could do with the ten of us, but all the same we nearly split our sides when we read the cunnin' of it. Lem Putt knew his ecker, and no mistake.

And I reckon we furnish better out here than they do in America, too. Lem never put a bracket for a candle or your teeth, nor a seat lid, nor a box of ashes with a jam-tin scoop be yer feet.

Me sister Mrs. Naggs says the toffs in town had a water bottle with a glass over it- on a shelf, but I said that was ridiculous fer us with a cask and pannican at the door of the Dub.

Once she come here fer a week, but only stayed three days, she's that pernicketty. Melanda told me she backed in and bolted out, and that's no way to behave when Melanda went in first and killed the only two tarantulas there was to be seen. But she turned round and says it wasn't the tarantulas, but she just didn't fancy it somehow, and she never once used the little step so that you could rest your elbows on your knees and have a thorough rest.

Grandma often went to sleep like that. She said it was the only place she could meet her soul face to face, in peace and quiet.

As time passed, and the children grew up, the dolichos covered the whole building, and people drivin' past all looked that way, for it wasn't often vacant, bein' ten of us, and fancyin' fresh air like.

Then Alf turned round and says it had to be shifted, and this is where the trouble began with me friend Mrs. Flint down the road.

The Lodge gentlemen came out again to help Alf lift the Dub over another pit. Me and the girls was all watchin' the diggin' in, and the diggin' out, and we had trouble findin' a fruit tree to put her under. So we decided on an old pine tree, dependin' on the cones for the droppin'.

They cracked a bottle or two when they heaved her over and got her free, and we all had a drink. Then sudden like Bung Hint gets frantic like. Alf turns round surprised.

"What's bit yer, Bung?" he says. "Come and have a beer now the old girl's lifted off her feet."

"Beer be beggared," shouts Bung. "Me coat's fell in the old pit."

"Aw, fergit it, Bung," the men said. "Come on, Bung!" But Bung fusses around and Alf gets wild.

"Well," he says, "yer carn't wear it if yer do get it, so have yer beer and fergit it," he says reasonable like.

I never seen a man look so wild as Bung when he turns round and shouts, "Yer don*t think I'm goin' snaky about me bloody coat, do yer? But I'd like yer to know me pipe and terbaccer's in me pocket."

It was a rumpus at the time, and we didn't find them till next day, but I sent them to him be Sammy, and Mrs. Flint never seems quite the same since. It shows she's the touchy sort.

Since then she's been sewered, and all and it cost her sixty pound. Melanda says its like Niagara Falls every time you pass. She just sits at her winder and watches, then flushes the water as you pass the door. And if that ain't swank, what is?

My Alf was terrible anxious to try the sewerage, so he goes in one day, but finds Bung Flint is out. So being gentleman-like, he asks Mrs. Flint if he can have a look at her back garden. Then he didn't know what to do, for it wasn't worked be a chain, and h, was feared of bustin' up the works. So out he comes, all nervous, but tryin' to be casual like.

Now Bung was a very little man, so Alf turns round and says, as pleasant as yer please. "Ain't the Littley workin', Mrs. Flint?" "No," she snapped. "He's gone ter the races," and when Alf told me I nearly bust me sides larfin'.

Then, Mr. Sale, we had our silver weddin', and the old dolichos was again coverin' the Dub, and people was all sayin' yer could eat yer meals off the floor I kep' it so clean.

Me sister Mrs. Naggs brought me a lovely holder fer the wall and rolls of toilet paper. She said it was only Army paper, she didn't bother about the Navy sort, and I asked her what the difference was. She turned round and says as if I was ignorant like, "You ought to know, Fan," she says, "that the Navy's made two inches wider to allow fer the roll of the ship."

But all the same, Mr. Sale, I miss the newspaper. It was nothing to hear four times a day, at one meal, that they had caught the murderer, or that the price of pigs had gone up. Then Melanda would say, refined like, "I see there's an Indian Rajah Stayin' at Menzies," and there would always be a chorus, "I coulda told you that this mornin'," but this made dad and me know all was goin' well with the kids, and we didn't have to worry no more on that score.

Well, Mr. Sale I'm old now, and I've seen our Dub shifted four times, and fresh vegetables planted. I know this one will see us through.

There's a picture in your book where Lem Putt's in his motor-car admirin' his American Privy. But it don't appeal to me at all. It's unfriendly lookin' to my idea, and not shady enough.

Give me a spring afternoon when I can take the children's letters down there when me apron's off and my Alf is sittin' in the back yard with his pipe. I can call out to him the news, with me foot in the door, and old Rover with his head restin' on the little step, while the pine cones drop from the tree -gentle, yet so effective, so ter speak.

I often see my old Alf lookin' with pride at the stately single-holer that looked like grandma so long dead; and which has stood up to so much shiftin' and knockin' about.

Alf looks with pride in his old age.

We've had troubles down there I'll admit, but when I says that, Alf turns round and says, "Yes, Fan," he says, but we've had pleasures, too, and I reckon that Privy of Lem Putt's ain't got nothin' on ours inside or out."

And what's wrong with the Americans, anyhow? Surely it don't need a Specialist to raise a Dub that's seen eight children through, and can still give service, and, what's more, still looks the part.

But after my Alf's asleep, I light the candle and take out your book about Lem Putt, and I larfe and larfe till me sides ache. But all the same I sometimes wish you could see our Dub, and Lem, too. I feel I could get on with Lem, I mean in conversation and such like, but after all, a Privy and a Dub are much the same, and, as someone said in a book, "What's in a name?" I ferget the rest of it.

But I'd like to thank you, Mr. Chic Sale, fer writing that book called the Specialist that none of us don't have to read behind the door. One night my Alf turned round and, "Fan," he says, "that there book is so simple and straightforward that its real clean. And if yer can read a book like that and laugh hearty and natcheral, well, it wipes off all the bloody mock-modesty that people has, and the which to my mind is real dirty."

I turned round, Mr. Sale, and agreed with all my Alf was sayin', and when the second million of the Specialist comes out, I'm buyin' another, and intend hangin' it next to me sister Mrs. Naggses toilet holder, under the bracket, so we can read it in our spare moments in the dear old Dub.

Thank you, again Mr. Sale,

Your respectful admirer,

Mrs. E. F. BOSWORICK.