Bush Pub by M. J. ‘Chap’ Burton

Bush Pub

by M. J. ‘Chap’ Burton

illustrated by Max Foley

Rigby, 1978, [First Edition], ISBN 0727008099, black and white illustrations in text, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, foxing to edges, previous owners’ details stamped on front endpaper, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, water stain at back (see photographs)

“The Bush Pub of this book is a hotel which the author calls ‘The Farmers’ Inn’, situated in a small country town in the 1930s.  His father bought the pub just as Australia was hit by the Great Depression.  It offered a better life than farming, but the family had to learn the hotel business fast.  The author, at eighteen, became the barman.
He soon learnt the tricks of the trade… and some of the tricks of the patrons.
Many of them were a strange and eccentric crew.  There was Les, who had cheated almost everyone in town.  Col Dudley and the ‘hoorangs’, who spent their weekends planning new ways to buy illicit grog.  Giblets who had ‘lost his marbles’ sliding down a slippery pole.  The battling McPhee brothers, John Lander who claimed to be the sooplest man in the world, Joe Scotton the Fanatic, and many more..
‘Chap’ Burton still runs a hotel.  IN this book he writes of his early days in the business, when attitudes and atmosphere were very different from today.”