Many and varied are the recollections of people who passed through Darwin moons ago . We recently spoke to a Brisbane woman who recalled being unjustly sacked when she worked as a barmaid in the Hot and Cold bar of the Hotel Darwin back in the l960s.
Her dismissal was due to the fact that she replaced a beer without charging after a fly had been found swimming in the beverage of a customer. According to her, the eagle- eyed “ boss” , whose name she could not recall, had been upset by the freebie, and told her she was fired. He, presumably, would have hooked the fly out with a finger and told the fussy drinker to be a tough Territorian.
Only 17 at the time, with the urge to travel, she and a girlfriend had arrived in Darwin from south . She had put up her age to obtain work in the pub , but the variation on the joke about a fly in the soup put an end to that career.
So off the girls went back down south . They both worked in a pub in a large city, but were sacked because they were so popular that young drinkers flocked about them like flies , and the “biddies ” serving behind the long bar with them objected because their tips fell away .
Her dismissal was due to the fact that she replaced a beer without charging after a fly had been found swimming in the beverage of a customer. According to her, the eagle- eyed “ boss” , whose name she could not recall, had been upset by the freebie, and told her she was fired. He, presumably, would have hooked the fly out with a finger and told the fussy drinker to be a tough Territorian.
Only 17 at the time, with the urge to travel, she and a girlfriend had arrived in Darwin from south . She had put up her age to obtain work in the pub , but the variation on the joke about a fly in the soup put an end to that career.
So off the girls went back down south . They both worked in a pub in a large city, but were sacked because they were so popular that young drinkers flocked about them like flies , and the “biddies ” serving behind the long bar with them objected because their tips fell away .
Of Grecian lineage , the woman has had a nip and tuck to maintain a youthful appearance and fend off the ravages of time , so that even now- if she took up duty in a Darwin pub- she would attract barflies .
