Book Details
Title: Holy Smoke; From the scriptures according to Saltbush Bill
Author: Stuart Gore
Illustrator: Cole Buchanan
Publisher: Ure Smith
Year: 1968
Impression/Edition: N/A
Cover: Hardcover (no dust jacket)
Pages: 112
Dimensions:
Weight:
ISBN: N/A
Battle Scars:
Overall good condition.
Outside:
The cover is intact with very little shelf wear (rubbing) to edges, ends and corners. The embossing on the spine remains intact and legible.
The page margins (seen when book is closed) are clean, with some yellowing and light foxing present.
Inside:
The binding is firm and intact.
Inside the front and back covers is clean.
The pages are clean and intact. Any tanning or foxing is right on the page margin.
Don't forget to check the photos below for a visual and make sure you are happy prior to purchase. Happy to answer questions if there is information missing.
Book Content:
From the Preface -
"Once in a far corner of the continent, near that coast fretted by 'the long wash of Australasian seas', I camped for a night or two with an old man. He had been horse-tailer, sheepman, prospector, dam-sinker, dry-shell pearler, and rouseabout in a pub. Now he was a dogger- a dingo trapper.
He wore a grey flannel singlet, heavy blucher boots guaranteed (at eight-and-six a pair) practically indestructible, and sagging chalk-stripe 'work trousers', strained to his paunch by an old leather belt strung about with little pouches for matches, knife, tobacco tin, and a gunmetal watch with a snap-cover.
These, with blankets, billycan and a high-powered rifle, were all he had. These things, and one other.
Later that night, he brought out a small, very worn-looking Bible, and said simply: 'I generally read a chapter or so before I turn in of a night. Though, mind yer - she's a weird Book in some ways. Fire and slaughter and rape and godly blokes all mixed up together. Still, that's life, ain't it? But if only she wouldn't repeat herself so much...holy smoke, she's always meetin' herself comin' back! It's a real bastard tryin' to get 'er down to plain English at times. Which is what you gotta do, to get any sense out of 'er - if yer foller me?' He relit his pipe, opened the Book at random, and said, 'Like, for instance...'
And for the remainder of that night and on into the early hours, while the stars waxed bright and the campfire grew dim, he went on getting 'er down to plain English. His theology may have been a bit rocky in places, but his most impressive command of that most expressive of languages, Australian, made it abundantly and robustly clear that the Devil does not necessarily play all the best tunes.
That was forty years ago - and Saltbush Bill was not his name. But I make no apology to 'Bango' Paterson for investing him with the title of that immortal character. For here, with drooping grey moustaches and melancholy eye, ironically putting his own caustic interpretation on anything and everything, was the epitome of all old bushmen.
A vanishing race...to whom these stories, imperfectly rendered as they may be, are dedicated.
I like to think that even yet, somewhere out there in the grey, smoky scrub, there still exists a Saltbush Bill: still getting 'er down to plain English for the benefit of yet another generation of younger and maybe less wise, men.
While the stars wax bright, and the campfire grows dim."
Book Details
Title: Holy Smoke; From the scriptures according to Saltbush Bill
Author: Stuart Gore
Illustrator: Cole Buchanan
Publisher: Ure Smith
Year: 1968
Impression/Edition: N/A
Cover: Hardcover (no dust jacket)
Pages: 112
Dimensions:
Weight:
ISBN: N/A
Battle Scars:
Overall good condition.
Outside:
The cover is intact with very little shelf wear (rubbing) to edges, ends and corners. The embossing on the spine remains intact and legible.
The page margins (seen when book is closed) are clean, with some yellowing and light foxing present.
Inside:
The binding is firm and intact.
Inside the front and back covers is clean.
The pages are clean and intact. Any tanning or foxing is right on the page margin.
Don't forget to check the photos below for a visual and make sure you are happy prior to purchase. Happy to answer questions if there is information missing.
Book Content:
From the Preface -
"Once in a far corner of the continent, near that coast fretted by 'the long wash of Australasian seas', I camped for a night or two with an old man. He had been horse-tailer, sheepman, prospector, dam-sinker, dry-shell pearler, and rouseabout in a pub. Now he was a dogger- a dingo trapper.
He wore a grey flannel singlet, heavy blucher boots guaranteed (at eight-and-six a pair) practically indestructible, and sagging chalk-stripe 'work trousers', strained to his paunch by an old leather belt strung about with little pouches for matches, knife, tobacco tin, and a gunmetal watch with a snap-cover.
These, with blankets, billycan and a high-powered rifle, were all he had. These things, and one other.
Later that night, he brought out a small, very worn-looking Bible, and said simply: 'I generally read a chapter or so before I turn in of a night. Though, mind yer - she's a weird Book in some ways. Fire and slaughter and rape and godly blokes all mixed up together. Still, that's life, ain't it? But if only she wouldn't repeat herself so much...holy smoke, she's always meetin' herself comin' back! It's a real bastard tryin' to get 'er down to plain English at times. Which is what you gotta do, to get any sense out of 'er - if yer foller me?' He relit his pipe, opened the Book at random, and said, 'Like, for instance...'
And for the remainder of that night and on into the early hours, while the stars waxed bright and the campfire grew dim, he went on getting 'er down to plain English. His theology may have been a bit rocky in places, but his most impressive command of that most expressive of languages, Australian, made it abundantly and robustly clear that the Devil does not necessarily play all the best tunes.
That was forty years ago - and Saltbush Bill was not his name. But I make no apology to 'Bango' Paterson for investing him with the title of that immortal character. For here, with drooping grey moustaches and melancholy eye, ironically putting his own caustic interpretation on anything and everything, was the epitome of all old bushmen.
A vanishing race...to whom these stories, imperfectly rendered as they may be, are dedicated.
I like to think that even yet, somewhere out there in the grey, smoky scrub, there still exists a Saltbush Bill: still getting 'er down to plain English for the benefit of yet another generation of younger and maybe less wise, men.
While the stars wax bright, and the campfire grows dim."
