A prized possession in the Little Darwin collection of oddities , mentioned previously , is the headless bulldog displayed here .
By Peter Simon
In Darwin in the l970s there was a rather hush-hush establishment known as British Radio . Englishman Alan Carne worked at the communications base , and he , his wife, Val, lived nextdoor to me and my family .
He and Val , a friendly couple , had lived in Russia , Cuba and the Middle East in the Foreign Service and had many interesting stories to tell .
One year, Alan , a technician of some kind, took me to a British Radio Christmas party , where there were some slick-backed James Bond types , one sporting a cravat .
Over the years , we kept in contact with the Carnes back in England.. My wife visited them during a trip there with our sons.
In turn , on a visit back to Australia , Val and Alan stayed with us at Saddleworth , near the Clare Valley , South Australia , in an early post office building in which we lived and ran an old wares and bookshop business called the Den of Antiquity
It was next to an old bank which had been taken over by the Catholic church at one stage and used as a rectory . We used to carry out digs on both premises looking for old bottles , coins, mail bag metal tags, pieces of china , in the process often finding large numbers of oyster shells .
One wondered if the oysters had been consumed in bulk by early settlers ,including postmen, for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities .
Many wine bottles were dug up on the Catholic site , which indicated thirsty work had been carried out there .
Val Carne enthusiastically joined digging while Alan tinkered around with old clocks and mechanical pieces that I had accumulated from auctions , farm clearances and garage sales .
Incredibly, Val dug up the said headless bulldog , which caused much merriment . A Pommie comes out to Australia , goes for an archaeological dig , and finds a headless bulldog !!!!
The very animal that typifies the British spirit .
Strangely, she did not want to take the headless canine home with her , probably because you can buy a headless bulldog at every car boot sale in the Old Dart .
However, while she was excavating , Alan worked on a bunged up mantel clock and got it working . Then he started probing an alarm clock . He told of the time in the Middle East when he came upon an old long case clock which had stopped working after an embassy had been bombed . He had eagerly plunged into its innards and got it ticking .
He entertained me with a colourful story about an old pub in England which I think he said had been ransacked by Oliver Cromwell's men during the Civil War and it had cost something like 37 shillings and sixpence , possibly much less , to restock the pub. A penny obviously went a long way in those days and spending one got a lot of men into trouble .
Sadly, word came through several days ago that Alan Carne had died , aged 90.
The headless bulldog was taken down , examined and found to be very spotty. Don't think any bulldog has ever been named Spot in England . We might just call this one Val and fondly think of the couple each time it is dusted .
