SKYPE ADVENTURES

A conversation of interest via Skype recently took place with a friend in England who once lived in Darwin before and just after Cyclone Tracy . He recalled a woman in Nightcliff had a pet baby buffalo and also liked to punt , asking him to put a bet on a horse which won the Melbourne Cup. As a reward , she gave him part of the winnings with which he bought a frypan in Darwin which subsequently travelled the world to some exotic places with his family and is still in use . Other subjects raised included his nearby old village pub , Wooden Walls of Old England, which had been ransacked by Oliver Cromwell’s puritan troops , later restocked for a ridiculous sum, something less than a few pounds. A shout for the boys probably set you back a farthing in those days. Our friend , a collector and fixer of clocks, has three in each room, the latest acquisition an old long case which chimes like Big Ben and once kept time in a prison. While serving in Beirut , he repaired a magnificent old clock from the British Embassy which had stopped after the building was bombed . A son was away climbing Mount Everest as we spoke .