My first Hogmanay / New Year in Australia as a 17 year old teenager in 1970

My first Hogmanay / New Year in Australia as a 17 year old teenager in 1970.

The family had taken on the running of a roadhouse, about halfway between Sydney and Melbourne on the main Hume Hwy near a town called Gundagai.

New Year falling mid-Summer in Australia, we were operating 24 hours a day at the height of the holiday season.

Coming up to midnight we had a queue of cars on the forecourt (no self-service then!), but at 5 minutes before the bells, my dad went along the queue and told them all we would be closed for five minutes before resuming filling up the empty tanks.

We switched off the power to the pumps but left all the lights on, locked the doors, and went through to our flat immediately behind and joined to the roadhouse.

At the stroke of midnight, with just me, dad, mum, and my younger brother, we exchanged hugs and greetings, just for a couple of minutes. The only offering on TV there in lieu of a New Year celebration was a five-year-old Dean Martin show from the US!

I then went back through and opened up the petrol pumps again and started serving. A couple of minutes later my dad appeared with trays of glasses of cold beer for all of those who had been waiting.

They all looked at us like we were mad, apart from a car with four Italian guys who knew of the Scottish tradition and smiled broadly. ALL of those in the queue gratefully accepted the beer though!

It was a long crazy Summer though. During the night dad and me would operate for a couple of hours at a time and take turns sleeping on a camp bed behind a long table at the back of the restaurant, always on call if it became busy. Dad had a reversible jacket, blue on one side if he was on the forecourt and the other side white if anyone asked for food which he would happily serve up, anything from burgers to T bone steaks!

Mum and dad are long gone, and my brother has just retired, living in Brisbane, but we do meet every few years.

What I would have given to have Hogmanay 1970 replace Hogmanay 2021, but of course that is impossible.

​But not in my imagination…


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*BTW, the pic with my dad and the dog on the forecourt - It was a pup that just wandered in and adopted us. Anyone familiar with the 'Dog on the Tuckerbox' memorial five miles the other side of Gundagai will understand!

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Click on dog to go to the website.