Phil Brown was a vegetarian reporting on the Cattlemen’s Union, and he admits he knew nothing.
Covering the Monto Lucerne Growers Association meeting was my first assignment for the Burnett Herald in Central Queensland, and I fronted with a question burning in my mind. I just had to have the answer and I turned to the large bucolic man next to me. He was big, very big, and he smelt of soap and talcum powder (it was early evening) and when I tapped him on the shoulder he looked at me like I had just passed wind.
As the meeting got underway I whispered to him. “I hope you don’t mind me asking but what exactly is lucerne?” He thought I was joking at first, I think, but then realised I wasn’t and said one word out of the side of his mouth: “Hay.”
“Aha,” I said and wrote that down in my notebook like any good reporter should. Lesson one on a provincial weekly newspaper: don’t be afraid to ask questions. I had plenty more where that one came from, too, because I was as green as the lucerne, a new boy in town who had accidentally stumbled into a job on the local rag.
It was 1979 and I had gone to Monto, a six-hour drive north-north-west of Brisbane, to visit a mate, Wayne Sanderson, who I’d met while studying journalism at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in Toowoomba, or DDIAE as it was known. Sounds rather like a pesticide, doesn’t it? (It’s now the University of Southern Queensland.)
After dropping out of my journalism course, due to a nervous disposition possibly brought on by bacchanalian excess, I sought refuge writing advertising copy back at home on the Gold Coast for Radio 4GG, a workplace where a sunny disposition was compulsory. After two years in a broom closet churning out tawdry commercials I needed a break and was invited to Monto to visit my mate, Wayne, and his girlfriend, Heather.
I was a budding poet at the time and thought the rural setting might inspire some poetic pastorales. Wayne also wanted me to work with him. He was studying journalism by correspondence at the time and cutting railway sleepers by day to make ends meet.
After half a day on the job with him it became clear that sleeper cutting was not my forte, mainly because I was unable to successfully lift the end of one off the ground. I sacked myself and retreated to the house to commune with my muse and meditate. Well, it was still the 1970s.
A month or so later, when I had almost worn out my welcome, Wayne arrived home looking excited.
“The editor of the local newspaper is in the pub and he’s looking for a reporter,” Wayne said. “Why don’t you apply?”
As it happened I had my college scrapbook with me and I made my way downtown – a journey of approximately 500 metres – and fronted the editor who was desperate to hire someone. I found out later that this was because apparently nobody in the town would talk to him for reasons that were never made clear to me.
I started the next day, met the staff of two, and I was on my way with the Lucerne Growers Association meeting top of the agenda that evening.
I had a purpose at last and people who had once looked at me askance – a long haired, possibly drug-crazed hippy from the Gold Coast – now seemed glad to see me when I wandered up and down the main drag, Newton Street. Wayne and Heather were pleased, too. I had a job and could move out into my own place, a humble van at the Monto Caravan Park.
The Burnett Herald serviced the Central and Upper Burnett district of Central Queensland and my beat included Monto (population 1700, town and district) and the nearby towns of Eidsvold, Mundubbera and Gayndah to the south. As a city slicker – I was brought up in Hong Kong and, later, the Gold Coast – I was out of my depth but nonetheless very interested in country life and keen to learn. My eagerness was noticed and appreciated by the country folk who were, for the most part, very welcoming.
I learnt about crops and livestock, covered bull sales and Cattlemen’s Union meetings, reported on local weather events, the goings on at the Historical Society and such. The Golden Jubilee of the Mulgildie Country Women’s Association stands out in my mind: those CWA ladies make a very fine scone, let me tell you. I also covered the town’s major events including the Monto Show which featured, that year, a whip cracker from Goondiwindi called Hollywood George.
I ranged around the region in my trusty Falcon 500, jotting poems alongside the notes for my newspaper stories. Though I wasn’t aware of the demarcation problems at the time, I also often took my own photos.
There’s still this notion that a grounding in regional journalism is a solid one. I agree – you are forced to learn quickly, on your feet, and cover a multitude of events. You either sink or swim.
I loved the work. I also covered the Monto Shire Council meetings, which were like something out of a Dad and Dave story or, occasionally, Wake in Fright. The shire chairman was a car dealer known as “Honest” Phil Marshall, a blustering character who ruled the council with an iron fist. I accompanied him, the shire clerk, and some other officials to the town of Biggenden on one occasion to cover a regional local government conference. I brought the luncheon to a standstill by declaring that I wouldn’t have the steak because I was a vegetarian. This in a room full of graziers. Oops.
But it was all brilliant stuff for a young writer … until my career at the Burnett Herald came to a screaming halt after the editor sacked me, without a proper explanation. I figured he was jealous because people would actually talk to me, while they wouldn’t talk to him.
But I’d had almost a year there and it prepared me well for my move to the big smoke – Rockhampton – where I fronted Roy Theodore, caretaker general manager at the local daily, The Morning Bulletin.
Roy is a bit of a legend in Queensland regional newspapers. A keen aficionado of fine wine, he hired me immediately on the grounds that I was born in Maitland in the Hunter Valley, home to some of his favourite tipples. I settled in quickly at the newspaper and soon had my first splash while doing police and ambulance rounds one evening.
I remember turning to the chief sub and saying: “There’s been a mass food poisoning at a pensioners’ dinner.”
“You little ripper!” he shouted and I rushed to the hospital to interview stricken elderly patients as they were carried in. Next morning my story was emblazoned on the front page and my 30-year career in journalism was on its way.
Phil Brown has written for The Australian, The Courier-Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, the Sunday Herald Sun and other newspapers in Australia and overseas. He is a poet and author and is currently senior writer with Brisbane News magazine
