THE ACADEMY
Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 7:51 pm
THE ACADEMY
For a fair while home at Coober Pedy in the sixties for myself and mate Gunther, was an old brush hut; better known as the ‘Academy’.
Many weird yet wonderful get-togethers took place within what passed for walls in our old hut.
There were also card games of all varieties, (bet limit threepence) plus Canasta nights and so on.
On at least one occasion we held a séance with a genuine Widgie Board where we summoned up some spirits, albeit with a bit of help from Don the Yank whose finger the visiting spirit’s seemed to take over, or though he swore otherwise. Mind you when I used a little bit of reverse pressure, Don’s finger tip turned white with endeavour.
The names of those who were regular visitors to the Academy (or those I can still remember) were Don and wife Darlene, as mentioned they hailed from America (sadly Don later committed suicide.)
Then there was Brendon a first year school teacher whom we managed to lead well and truly astray. (Brendon was later to be best man when I got married).
And of course there was Colin a sort of jack of all trades; Colin was later tragically murdered.
Also there was John of crapper phone fame; we gave him that name after he told us a yarn about when he was in prison. He reckoned the Crims used to be able to communicate when the loo’s were flushed. Having, probably through more good fortune than anything else, never been in Jail, I can’t confirm if this is true. John had a mate called Jock a Scot, who was always railing away about Kirk for some reason or other.
Then of course there Gunther my partner (the mining type – we didn’t have those other ones in those days – not openly anyway) and me of course.
These few made up the main core group of Academy Diehards. There were others of course who drifted in and out from time to time when invited. But the Academy being very exclusive, invites were hard to come by.
We often held discussions on things like the Supernatural, mystic powers, space and so on I’m sure Stephen Hawkin would have felt right at home among us. Although I’m not sure what he would have thought if he’d seen us walking around in the moonlight blindfolded and using our supposed new found powers to discover pockets of opal 30 foot underground.
But it was all good fun and interestingly there was never any drinking to muddle our thinking,
Although I’m sure that some reading this will assume our minds sound pretty muddled anyway.
©T.E. Piggott
For a fair while home at Coober Pedy in the sixties for myself and mate Gunther, was an old brush hut; better known as the ‘Academy’.
Many weird yet wonderful get-togethers took place within what passed for walls in our old hut.
There were also card games of all varieties, (bet limit threepence) plus Canasta nights and so on.
On at least one occasion we held a séance with a genuine Widgie Board where we summoned up some spirits, albeit with a bit of help from Don the Yank whose finger the visiting spirit’s seemed to take over, or though he swore otherwise. Mind you when I used a little bit of reverse pressure, Don’s finger tip turned white with endeavour.
The names of those who were regular visitors to the Academy (or those I can still remember) were Don and wife Darlene, as mentioned they hailed from America (sadly Don later committed suicide.)
Then there was Brendon a first year school teacher whom we managed to lead well and truly astray. (Brendon was later to be best man when I got married).
And of course there was Colin a sort of jack of all trades; Colin was later tragically murdered.
Also there was John of crapper phone fame; we gave him that name after he told us a yarn about when he was in prison. He reckoned the Crims used to be able to communicate when the loo’s were flushed. Having, probably through more good fortune than anything else, never been in Jail, I can’t confirm if this is true. John had a mate called Jock a Scot, who was always railing away about Kirk for some reason or other.
Then of course there Gunther my partner (the mining type – we didn’t have those other ones in those days – not openly anyway) and me of course.
These few made up the main core group of Academy Diehards. There were others of course who drifted in and out from time to time when invited. But the Academy being very exclusive, invites were hard to come by.
We often held discussions on things like the Supernatural, mystic powers, space and so on I’m sure Stephen Hawkin would have felt right at home among us. Although I’m not sure what he would have thought if he’d seen us walking around in the moonlight blindfolded and using our supposed new found powers to discover pockets of opal 30 foot underground.
But it was all good fun and interestingly there was never any drinking to muddle our thinking,
Although I’m sure that some reading this will assume our minds sound pretty muddled anyway.
©T.E. Piggott