Tom Oftard, late of Kyogle, was an artist – and a stern critic of the contemporary scene.
I’m a musician. Some musicians call themselves artists. Good luck to them, but I’d never call myself an artist.
I firmly believe that the only people who should call themselves artists are the ones who can paint people in the nude.
Tom was a really good artist. He could paint people in the nude, no worries. He was mainly into landscapes, but, from what his wife Pat said, I think he painted landscapes in the nude anyway.
Before Tom was an artist he was a Pom and a young bloke given to hijinks, jiggery pokery, excess bravado, stern criticism of the contemporary scene – and getting drunk with his chums. They inhabited a Lancashire town. It could have been Dollop or Old Futwingham or Cheese Newton. Perhaps not.
Anyway, Tom and the chums were speeding along a road near their home town. They were drunk. They were in a Standard Vanguard Phase 1, and they were hot-seating the driving.
“Hot-seating?” you ask. Well, upon any chum hollering “Oy, Oy, Oy! Hot-seat three-two-one!” the driver would bail out into the back seat; Back Seat 1 would shuffle left; Back Seat 2 would shuffle left; Back Seat 3 would vault into the front seat; Front Seat Left would shuffle right and, critically, Front Seat Centre would shuffle right and take over the steering wheel.
It was rare sport, and it wasn’t unusual for the chums to pull it off, say, a dozen times during any given outing. I blame the boredom.
This was Lancashire: it made McKees Hill look vibrant.
By the way, a Standard Vanguard looked like a cross between an FJ Holden and an inflated bullfrog. The back wheels were hidden. The engines came from a Ferguson tractor. What? Yep.
Standard didn’t mean ordinary: it was more to do with the Royal Navy and flags or something. It was no Nissan Cedric, and that’s the main thing.
Inevitably, eventually, some chum, or chums, stuffed up the hot seat routine. Maybe it was a protruding pocket comb, an elbow, a jutting buttock, a pothole, or a random lurch. Who knows?
Whatever, the unsupervised Standard Vanguard feinted left, slewed right and left the road with the mad trajectory of a George Christensen Facebook post and landed on its side.
Time stood still. Something stood on Tom’s head. Tom regained consciousness. Someone was screaming, “Chlorophyll! Chlorophyll!” It was him.
“Chlorophyll! Chlorophyll! Drunk! Police! Get out. Get chlorophyll!”
Despite all being drunk and concussed, the chums sprang into action. They knew that smokers and drinkers chewed chlorophyll tablets to disguise their breath from teachers, spouses and the cops. But where to source chlorophyll here, now?
Ever the lateral thinker, Tom spotted the solution.
“Grass! Chlorophyll! Eat grass! Hurry, chums! Eat grass, graze, graze dammit!”
So, they all commenced to devour the meadow. Soon their mouthparts were stained green like those of gluttonous guinea pigs.
“Here come the coppers!”
Agents of the law.
The chums, devious to a man, commenced to groan, and nurse their compound fractures, spinal injuries, amputated heads and dislocated brains.
Tom gamely raised himself on one elbow and addressed the stunned constable.
“Grey Jag, grey Jag, ooh, ow, grey Jag. Ran us off the road. Drunk as a lord. Catch him. He went that way, only a minute ago. Oh, please catch him. We’ll soldier on here, ooh, ow!”
And off sped the policeman. The chums rolled the Standard Vanguard back onto its wheels and headed for home. They had to stop a couple of times to hack up grass balls.
Oh, and they hot seated, just the once. When bucked by a horse, it’s very important that you jump straight back on.
A lesson to us all.
Bullgoose
and then
lmao. reminds me of some good old days