Cull of the Century ongoing series
It is no surprise that one (moi) feels light headed , has a few throbbing useless bits and pieces of the anatomy , laughs occasionally like a loon , swears softly and sweats profusely while going through this blog's files, cardboard boxes , dusty topped archival bins , drawers filled with ephemera , photo albums .
Mad memories come flooding back when you pull out some oddity about which you had almost forgotten . One such item was the above deal to pay $1,500,000 for a pair of breeding monkeys , said to be part of a rapidly expanding colony near Rockhampton, Queensland.
By Peter Simon
The proposed Simon simian deal arose in South Australia a score or more years ago while drinking with former journalist , author , Toby jug collector , opal dealer Robert Haill . As a lad back in Pommie Land , Robert had a nasty experience with a monkey (could have been an Orangutan ) his seafaring grandfather brought home as a souvenir . The creature, he said, was kept in a cage on the landing. When young Robert attempted to go to the toilet at night , the lonely creature tried to grab him , give him a hairy hug . As a result , Rob retreated ...wet the bed , repeatedly . The animal escaped during the war and was shot dead by police .
Meanwhile, back at the absurd contract . Haill , who once offered me a special deal on Penny Black stamps , told me he had been given a property out of Rockhampton on which there were monkeys by a woman he had helped write her family history . Monkeys in Queensland ? Pull the other one , Robert. No . True . As he had once worked for the Truth newspaper in Melbourne, he might just be telling the truth .
He claimed to have actually visited the property , seen chimps in substantial numbers swinging about near a creek. This had been some years ago , so they had probably bred like rabbits and there could now be more monks than cane toads in the Sunshine State .
Still dubious about the monkey colony , I continued to take the mickey out of Robert. He responded in similar vein , embroidering the implausible story . These monkeys , he said , were not ordinary members of our forebears, they were the rarer , more desirable Rhesus ones, in demand for medical tests .
As imports of monkeys into Australia were now banned because of the fear of introducing foot and mouth , these Rhesus were even more valuable to develop vaccines against all kinds of diseases .
On the strength of this sound advice , I thought this was a golden opportunity to corner the Rhesus market and make megabucks. However, I was not stupid. I told Robert I was intending to drive up to Townsville in the near future and would call at his estate near Rocky and check out the swinging inmates .
If , indeed, there were monkeys , the rare Rhesus ones, I would purchase a breeding pair, bring them back with my wife in the car, and start my stud . Robert instantly drew up the promissory note, on a piece of old newspaper copy paper , acting on the adage that there is a sucker born every minute . In doing so, he managed to spell my name incorrectly . (Anyway, I was going to pay him with a cheque drawn on the Bank of Nigeria ).
Never did get to visit the dubious property . If there is a grave shortage of bananas in the near future, blame it on Haill's Army of feral monkeys rampaging through the nation's banana plantations .
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Haill's not in good order breeding monkeys.
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Never did get to visit the dubious property . If there is a grave shortage of bananas in the near future, blame it on Haill's Army of feral monkeys rampaging through the nation's banana plantations .
