Having been born and bred in a New South Wales coal mining town , I was quite familiar with a variety of British dialects . When the British miners came out to Australia they settled in small enclaves near particular pits , and the many collieries were very often exclusively manned by men from specific parts of coal mining Britain.

My father , who came from Stoke on Trent , worked in the Bellbird pit , predominantly a Scottish enclave , but other pits in the surrounding districts , with names like Aberdare , Pelaw Main , Stamford Merthyr , had a variety of miners from Wales and from the northern counties like Durham . Hence one could hear a wide variety of accents , and the one I heard most of was from our Geordie neighbour , Harry.

I was polite child , and if Harry was working in his yard I would often allow myself to be drawn into conversation with him . I use the word conversation loosely , because I rarely interrupted Harry's flow as he talked to me or rather at me as he worked in his expanse of garden , just like that cultivated by my father and every other British immigrant in the town .

The conversation was one sided as I probably understood only about one word in ten. But he liked to talk and I liked to listen , every now and then nodding sagely as if I knew what he was on about . I soon learned to change the nod to a shake of the head if he looked surprised.

On the other side of our quarter acre block lived an old seaman , his blind and slightly demented wife , and a black swan that old Chris had rescued from a tormenting group of boys . It had had a wing broken , and Dicky as it was known would make swan noises to coax the unwary towards the fence , then remove a piece of their flesh with a snakelike dart of its neck and a savage twist of its beak . Dogs , children and strangers were treated alike and soon learned to steer clear .

The old man would turn up on Friday nights , solemnly but staggeringly drunk , to be berated by the blind wife , whom he had to mollify with soothing words or be beaten with her stick . She would often hear someone in our yard too , and proceed to threaten Youse Parkinsons with her stick , because apparently the people who had lived in house before us would cause her aggravation. I can't remember having a conversation with her , Chris or the swan .

It was different with Harry Jess and Peter. Conversation over the backyard fence was a daily occurrence , and had many interesting moments . Jess and her brother Peter were Irish . Which , you must admit is a good start , when allied with Geordie.

But I remember Jess coming over to the fence to make an unusual request of my mother , which I overheard though I was obviously not meant to. She called my mother to the fence , away from the washing line , and half whispered to her:

Hinny , would you mind not hanging out your underwear where Peter can see it ? He's not married , you know ! A request that left my mother flabbergasted . as being very much up to date with all the home town gossip , she was well aware that Peter at thirty five or so was having interesting afternoon times with a widow lady in the suburb of Aberdare .

Peter was also involved with two other hot incidents , so to speak. He made some chilli wine on one occasion , and offered my father a glass over the fence, remarking No heeltaps as he handed it over. My father obliged by gulping it straight down . I am fairly sure that though having been caught with the breathlessness and burning involved , he still could have tapdanced ( he did tapdance , actually , then and there ! ) on the grates of Hell.

Harry also suffered at Peter's hands . Harry had a bad back , occasioned by a mine accident , and indeed had to get Jess to buy him a series of corsets for support . But there was the occasion when he got Peter to rub some liniment onto his lumbar region. With rather too much enthusiasm , Peter poured a dollop on the spot , but was unable to rub it upwards on Harry's back before it trickled into the crack of his backside . I understand that turpentine has much the same effect on recalcitrant tomcats , but one is unlikely to see a tomcat dipping its backside in a tub of cold water even though the wild howls might be similar.

They were long married , though childless , and that may have meant more ease of communication between Harry and Jess. Nevertheless I shall never forget the Irishisms that Jess perpetrated . For her it was always Paris of plaster and long leave service but for me her best was when she returned from an afternoon session at the cinema , happily telling Harry :I've just seen the most beautiful picture -- the Wizard of Zoo !

Harry looked at her and in his richest untranscribable Geordie tones remarked Ooz you silly booger , Ooz .

I was sad to find that , when I later returned to my home town , Peter had died , and Harry and Jess had entered an old people's home run by a religious order . Though they were married , the attempt was made to segregate them , an attempt that Jess fiercely resisted , to her credit bringing about a special change of rules to allow her to be with Harry.

An admirable couple who brightened a lot of my childhood .