PUB OF THE MONTH
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Words said gently, softly and with a
feeling cloaked in memories.
There’s thirteen rooms upstairs –
each’ll cost you forty bucks a night.
All have a double bed and a few also
have a single.
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And there’s been up to 80 motorcycle
riders camping and swagging for free on
the grass out the back.
The hot water seems endless and the
pressure in the showers is top notch.
You can get a meal pretty much any
time you’re hungry with lunch and
dinner seven days, and no-one’s going
to object if you park your bike under
the front balcony.
This is a comfort pub. It’s entire credo
seems aimed at the comfort of every
single visitor, no matter if this is going
to be the only time you visit in your
lifetime, or you’re regular enough to have
your mug on the wall.
Whilst writing this, I’m involved in
an email joust with a publican whose
place up in Qld I slagged off. As I try
to explain to this bloke just what a good
country pub can be, I keep thinking that
all he really needs to do is visit a pub like
the Royal at Yeoval. That way he’d see
just what is possible when a pub is run
by people with a passion for the job, for
the pub, for its town and for its history.
Banjo Paterson never returned
to Yeoval after he left for his
grandmother’s place at Gladesville
in Sydney, and his studies at Sydney
Grammar School. If he’d come back
and written a poem about this town it’d
be the crowning treasure for Alf and
fascinating for the rest of us.
In its absence I make do with Bob
Skelton’s poem and before I head off I
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