THEY MAKE THEM TOUGH IN TUMUT
Last year I went home to Tumut
A place I remember as a dream
For forty years ago my father worked
On the Snowy mountains scheme
I sought out the single room school house
For I had attended here as a lad
I was only here for six short years
But they were among the most joyful years I've had
Our teacher fresh from Ireland
Was a reasonably young man
He could not have been much past thirty
But we still called him old man Stan
He was a really gentle bloke
But as green as they come
He was frightened of the bush
And was often the butt of all our fun
Of snakes an all other creatures
He was absolutely terrified
For there were no snakes in Ireland
Unless St Patrick had lied
One day my mate's father
Killed a red belly snake in his shed
Its corpse we wrapped round the teacher's chair
You'd never know that it was dead
At roll call the tension rose
As the teacher went to sit down
The scream he let out
Could be heard in town
And then he bolted from that room
Still screaming like a banshee
I'm sure if there had been a ship
Back to Ireland he would be
Despite reassurance he would not re-enter
He could not be convinced that the snake was dead
Till my aboriginal mate pulled out his knife
And deftly sliced off the red belly's head
Then we place the head
In a jar of formaldehyde
When he saw the preserved head
He finally accepted the snake had died
But he resolved to become much tougher
And mounted that jar on the cupboard wall
And as the years passed to our consternation
He was never frightened easily at all
But we still played some awful tricks
Whenever we could on him
On one school excursion I jumped into the river
While making out I couldn't swim
Now the poor unfortunate teacher
Was at a loss as to what to do
Not only was the water flowing fast
But it was fairly freezing too
For the Tumut is an alpine river
With its waters flowing fast
Hiding dangerous rocks and branches
A false move could be your last
When I was out of the teacher's view
I swam strongly for the bank
For we knew a small hidden beach near there
Behind old Mcdonald's tank
But the teacher plunged into that current
And was soon out of his depth
Knocked sideways, upward, downward
He struggled to catch his breath
With water swirling round him
He searched for something to get a hand on
He'd never experienced such a torrent
This was not his gentle Shannon
He scrambled round the rocky outcrops
He struck out east and west
But the fast flowing mountain water
Just would not let him come to rest
We thought surely he was gone
When the waterfall took him over
Urgently now we snapped down our swinging rope
And headed on down the river
For we'd done this many times
When a new kid started at our school
But they were all mountain boys like us
And none of them a fool
For only a fool would brave that river
When the floodwaters were on the rise
But we were still adventurous innocent children
And none of us yet too wise
With urgency and desperation
We followed the river round
And when the teacher grabbed our rope
We dragged him to safe ground
Bloodied and exhausted
He was still as angry as all hell
And we thought that everyone is our class
He would certainly all expel
But he learnt from our Aussie humour
And Tumut made him truly tough
Though when we left school in sixth grade
He could not have hugged us all enough
And that was the last memory
I had of my teacher Stan
So now that I'd come home
I would try to find that old man
Sure enough I found him retired now
And living in the cottage behind the school
When I saw again that poor old bloke
I wondered how we could have been so cruel
He pretended to remember me
For many of his kids had returned to see him
And he knew that they would be disappointed
If he did not remember them
But I reminded him of the episode
Of the dead snake wrapped round his chair
And I pointed at the cupboard
And the preserved snake head that was still there
And then a flicker of recognition
Came to the old man's eyes
Together with a tear or two
Much to my surprise
And he told me quite candidly
He had come close to resigning that year
He hated the bush and Tumut
There was nothing to keep him here
But the kids of Tumut provided a challenge
And had woken his pioneering spirit
And if he had run home to Ireland
He would have been branded a "fecking idjit"
He had come to admire our ingenuity
And tried to outguess us every time
The episode with the snake
Had just been a harmless pantomime
But we had nearly actually killed him
With that episode on the river
For it seems that day
We had been just a tad too clever
He'd never been a strong athlete
And could not swim much at all
On the day he plunged into the river
It was his sense of duty that made the call
Now I grew in admiration
Of this frail little old man
And I realised the extent of the love for kids
Existing within the heart of our teacher Stan
So when it was time to leave
I held back a tear or two
For they make them tough in Tumut mate
And I'm from Tumut too
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem