When I was a boy – well, much younger than I am now, in the nineteenth century – my family were Rechabites.
A poster on our farmhouse wall pictured Jesus with sheep, a family and mountains of produce.
The Rechabites are Temperance Association, we burned down the tents of sly grog sellers and ran them out of town. My great grandmother cross stitched a poem about smashing the bottles of the sly gypsy who came to town with a dray loaded with grappa.
What a fire it made, that Demon Drink.
Palimpset of cross stitched poem at the Sebire historical house, Wandin, Victoria
The flames of hell, and what a stink.
We ran the devil out of town,
in the clothes he wore, without a crown.
Ewwwwww Grandma
Of course, in those days “without a Crown”, meant broke, not a penny to his name, skint, not a brazz razoo, penniless, … a Crown was an ounce of silver, worth five shillings, not that it was traded much in day to day transactions by the time Vicky was on the throne – when the “Grogger” was run out of town.
I think the Chapman family kept the horse and the Sebieres, the dray. The Flemings salvaged a couple of boxes of grog that changed hands in very dark places on moonless nights. But I should not talk about that in case the reputation of their descendants are smeared and besmirched by the truth.
Fiery days, indeed.