What is found herein are true events as I personally experienced them, and that have ventured into the realms of folk-lore and stories... although, I do declare that I have 9,000 or so books and amongst them is a book (1960s I do not have the book to hand right now) written in Kalgoorlie in the old heyday when the Boulder Mine (Kalgoorlie) was operating... and someone did write a book of the old stories and this story of AssAbout is in that book...
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HE was a funny little man... AssAbout... an Englishman, slight of body, kind of face, not ha ha funny but funny like an elf or a creature that sortof ....is here, yet, hardly noticed, and then is gone... without a trace... and yet he left a trace that is in Legend in Australian Mining history... and we shared 'crib-times' together quite a few times in Roseberry Mines. {Crib was generically known as Lunch-time...}
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At the time written about {how AssAbout was honoured with his nick-name} we are pre-1960s between the town of Roseberry and Tullah, on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.
A delightful quiet backwater paradise that only had a rail line that Wee Georgie Wood used to travel the 8 miles from Roseberry to Tullah over Mt Black.
Mt Black was where the train used to cross that separated the two towns ...
Tullah was a tiny isolated mine (that had pit-ponies) and workshops for Wee Georgie Wood and other small trams.
Hardly a village, but with pub that rarely closed at all, a store, a dozen or so houses, and a ramshackle cinema the locals had to take an umbrella for when it rained as the roof leaked... and the other town of Roseberry with a relatively stable population of a few thousand miners and families etc... a few pubs, a club or two, and a dude in the 1970s who won the lottery who then bought himself a new red Mustang he only drove on sundays...
His mates bet that he would not go rob the local bank where he kept all of his winnings (quite a sum at the time) and he did rob the bank.. with his nephews' toy gun...
And, THE WHOLE TOWN CAME TO WATCH...
The 2 local cops came careering around the corner with siren wailing ....tyres screeching, like it was the Wild West and they were "on to the scene of the crime like nobodies business but theirs" {while the whole town kacked themselves watching from across the road from the bank, and kacked themselves some more like it was the best tv show in town, and it was.... AS it WAS the best show in town, who needs TV... ... as the Dude Robber was sittin on the bench seat outside the bank countin "the loot"... when he was arrested by the 2 cops who did not know him... {the cops were blowins} and the Robber was subsequently handcuffed, arrested and put in gaol like a two bit criminal . . . . .and the whole town laughted some more, {you would have thought the cops would have twigged to something goin on when he saw the whole town on the other side of the street… but no, he did not till later… the joke was on the cops.. sort a running town joke really.....lol...} …
So the town went back to the pub and clubs and got more drunk on the story.. and laughted some more in the next years to come ... {ö and in court the next week, the Dude Robber was told not to make any more 'Illegal Withdrawals' without filling in a withdrawal slip, and to leave his nephews toys at home and fined $80, with a 'Good behaviour Bond' for a year... so the Bank was safe, and the newbie cop would not get egg on his face by arresting a local whi could have bought the entire town... lol...
...
The Robber naturally won the bet which paid the fine, and they all got drunk again...
But the Dude Bank Robber of Rosebery is not what this writing is about ..-although many a story can be had from Rosebery . . .
...
This is the story of how AssAbout got his name...
Ya see, Wee Georgie Wood (a real small gauge tram/ train) huffed n puffed over the mountain daily and when you were too drunk and missed the train due to illegally drinkin at the Tullah Pub on the weekend {read ALL WEEKEND as the pub did not ever shut}, well, one had to walk over Mt Black to Rosebery (8 miles over the mountain), and missing the train was not uncommon...
AssAbout did this... got drunk. . . Missed the train ...and started walking over Mt Black...
...
In those days the miners wore Blueys with long collars that were like the size of a sailors flap to shield from the wind when up and facing away from the wind... {I owned and wore one daily when I worked underground as a hard rock miner in the 1970s when AssAbout was an old wisened somewhat shrunken stooped over little man who shared a joke or two with us at Crib-time...} and the origin of his name was found out to be that (when he was drunk as a miner can be on a Sunday in Tullah... well...) he was a smoker you see,... and he rolled a smoke sittin on a log by the rail line on the way from Tullah to Rosebery, and to light his smoke he put his back to the wind and then started walkin...
Being drunk n all, he did not notice too much what was happening until he arrived back in Tullah, as he had done a u-turn when he lit his smoke and went AssAbout-face and walked in the opposite direction from whence he wished to go... So he slept at Tullah and missed a shift at work on the Monday . . .and when he spoke of what happened he inherited the name AssAbout for the rest of his days on Earth...
...
So like the very practical joke of the Robber who robbed his own bank, the story of AssAbout was soo funny that it arrived in the book published in the 1960s from the Boulder Mine...
So, even though AssAbout never did find out he was written into history... he was... and I can say that AssAbout was a fine fellow, a man who would help you in any way he could... a 'salt of Earth' kind of guy,... so he did not mind so much he was called AssAbout everyday by all who knew him that I heard about... {I never found out his real name... I am sure it could be done though}…
...
PART TWO IS BELOW as the post was more than 10,000 characters...
...
HE was a funny little man... AssAbout... an Englishman, slight of body, kind of face, not ha ha funny but funny like an elf or a creature that sortof ....is here, yet, hardly noticed, and then is gone... without a trace... and yet he left a trace that is in Legend in Australian Mining history... and we shared 'crib-times' together quite a few times in Roseberry Mines. {Crib was generically known as Lunch-time...}
...
At the time written about {how AssAbout was honoured with his nick-name} we are pre-1960s between the town of Roseberry and Tullah, on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.
A delightful quiet backwater paradise that only had a rail line that Wee Georgie Wood used to travel the 8 miles from Roseberry to Tullah over Mt Black.
Mt Black was where the train used to cross that separated the two towns ...
Tullah was a tiny isolated mine (that had pit-ponies) and workshops for Wee Georgie Wood and other small trams.
Hardly a village, but with pub that rarely closed at all, a store, a dozen or so houses, and a ramshackle cinema the locals had to take an umbrella for when it rained as the roof leaked... and the other town of Roseberry with a relatively stable population of a few thousand miners and families etc... a few pubs, a club or two, and a dude in the 1970s who won the lottery who then bought himself a new red Mustang he only drove on sundays...
His mates bet that he would not go rob the local bank where he kept all of his winnings (quite a sum at the time) and he did rob the bank.. with his nephews' toy gun...
And, THE WHOLE TOWN CAME TO WATCH...
The 2 local cops came careering around the corner with siren wailing ....tyres screeching, like it was the Wild West and they were "on to the scene of the crime like nobodies business but theirs" {while the whole town kacked themselves watching from across the road from the bank, and kacked themselves some more like it was the best tv show in town, and it was.... AS it WAS the best show in town, who needs TV... ... as the Dude Robber was sittin on the bench seat outside the bank countin "the loot"... when he was arrested by the 2 cops who did not know him... {the cops were blowins} and the Robber was subsequently handcuffed, arrested and put in gaol like a two bit criminal . . . . .and the whole town laughted some more, {you would have thought the cops would have twigged to something goin on when he saw the whole town on the other side of the street… but no, he did not till later… the joke was on the cops.. sort a running town joke really.....lol...} …
So the town went back to the pub and clubs and got more drunk on the story.. and laughted some more in the next years to come ... {ö and in court the next week, the Dude Robber was told not to make any more 'Illegal Withdrawals' without filling in a withdrawal slip, and to leave his nephews toys at home and fined $80, with a 'Good behaviour Bond' for a year... so the Bank was safe, and the newbie cop would not get egg on his face by arresting a local whi could have bought the entire town... lol...
...
The Robber naturally won the bet which paid the fine, and they all got drunk again...
But the Dude Bank Robber of Rosebery is not what this writing is about ..-although many a story can be had from Rosebery . . .
...
This is the story of how AssAbout got his name...
Ya see, Wee Georgie Wood (a real small gauge tram/ train) huffed n puffed over the mountain daily and when you were too drunk and missed the train due to illegally drinkin at the Tullah Pub on the weekend {read ALL WEEKEND as the pub did not ever shut}, well, one had to walk over Mt Black to Rosebery (8 miles over the mountain), and missing the train was not uncommon...
AssAbout did this... got drunk. . . Missed the train ...and started walking over Mt Black...
...
In those days the miners wore Blueys with long collars that were like the size of a sailors flap to shield from the wind when up and facing away from the wind... {I owned and wore one daily when I worked underground as a hard rock miner in the 1970s when AssAbout was an old wisened somewhat shrunken stooped over little man who shared a joke or two with us at Crib-time...} and the origin of his name was found out to be that (when he was drunk as a miner can be on a Sunday in Tullah... well...) he was a smoker you see,... and he rolled a smoke sittin on a log by the rail line on the way from Tullah to Rosebery, and to light his smoke he put his back to the wind and then started walkin...
Being drunk n all, he did not notice too much what was happening until he arrived back in Tullah, as he had done a u-turn when he lit his smoke and went AssAbout-face and walked in the opposite direction from whence he wished to go... So he slept at Tullah and missed a shift at work on the Monday . . .and when he spoke of what happened he inherited the name AssAbout for the rest of his days on Earth...
...
So like the very practical joke of the Robber who robbed his own bank, the story of AssAbout was soo funny that it arrived in the book published in the 1960s from the Boulder Mine...
So, even though AssAbout never did find out he was written into history... he was... and I can say that AssAbout was a fine fellow, a man who would help you in any way he could... a 'salt of Earth' kind of guy,... so he did not mind so much he was called AssAbout everyday by all who knew him that I heard about... {I never found out his real name... I am sure it could be done though}…
...
PART TWO IS BELOW as the post was more than 10,000 characters...
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