We used to exercise about once a year. Now I don't mean a session of P.T.,
I mean an event where a bunch would go to a caving area and put into practice
rescue techniques in an actual cave. The people involved were from two groups.
There were the cavers, of course, and members of the Police search and rescue
squad. We would spend all day crawling, climbing in a suitable hole in the rock,
hauling gear and bodies and getting darn cold and very thirsty. The best cure
for thirst is, would you believe, beer. Some might argue, but with this mob,
the evening was devoted to relieving dehydration at the local hostelry. So
after a feed at the camp we would all head for the pub. The Police had a small
bus whose driver was a non-drinker and prepared to cart us to the watering hole
and pick us up a few hours later. I never did find out what he did in the
intervening hours.
Normally the party congregate in the lounge bar, and the locals would normally
stay in the front bar. The bars were arranged so that one could see from one
drinking area into the other, and the antics of the cops and cavers provided
the evening entertainment for the locals. Dress was generally the immensely
popular New Zealand wool shirt but the cops tended to wear blue in while the
cavers wore every other colour. The other difference was the cops tended to be
about a foot taller than the average caver. There were the usual games played
and some novel ones. The fireplace had a brick face up to the ceiling, and
there were small corners of the bricks emerging at one corner. These provided
miniscule finger and toe holds. The challenge was to climb this obstacle and
touch the ceiling with your head. Few did, many fell, but nobody seemed to get
injured. One time my prized bush hat got "stolen". One young constable put his
training to work and interviewed me and every member of the groups, taking
copious notes and reporting progress. And the beer flowed, and the locals watched.
One time a couple of the cavers put on an act. The left the lounge and went
to the front bar. They evidently wanted to have a quiet chat and smoke. This was
in the days when you could smoke in the bar:-, in fact it was almost a requirement.
These two blokes were both bearded and long haired. Hippy types. They fronted the
bar, ordered a couple of beers and one started to roll a fag. Now this was very
common practice and normally nobody would have taken much notice. What was a bit
different was the size of the fag. It was fat. Not one of the skinny little efforts,
the normal roll-your-own the thickness of a pencil. No, this was like your thumb.
The paper barely reached. A triumph of the smoking art! A couple of the locals were
a bit suspicious and eased down the bar away from the pair. The monster was lit and
the maker took a drag, held it and then slowly exhaled. Then came the cruncher. He
passed it to his mate who repeated the process. All the locals retreated to the far
end of the bar. Without being too obvious, a few of the cavers and coppers were
observing the antics of the "hippies" and the reactions of the locals. The word
spread and with no diminishing of the noise in the lounge, the boys moved back and
forth, taking turns to grab a view of the front bar. You could see the locals
anxiously glancing from the "hippies" to the partying cops, and exchanging whispered
comments like "Don't the daft buggers know the place is stiff with cops?" The playlet
went on for about ten minutes until one of the police leaned across and called to the
pair of puffers. "You two finished playing silly sods? Your turn to try the chimney".
They rose, extinguished the "joint", and strolled out of the bar, nodding to the
locals while a bunch of us stood grinning in full view. One by one the locals woke up
to the joke. You could almost hear them saying "Sucked in" and "Smart bastards!"
Frank Brown©
|