Some Comrades were outraged when it became known that we had in mind to stand Hugh Grant for the Lord Mayorality of Sydney. And not only some of our loved and respected members battling for the revolution in the backblocks of Killara either.
One Comrade was moved enough to raise it in his Party branch at Garden Island Dockyards and came into the District office to present the case. He didn't think we could be serious really. What if Hughie actually got elected and when the queen came out next year he keyed her up the arse going up the Town Hall steps. Creating this image probably won more votes for Hughie than otherwise. Party respectability notwithstanding.
Comrade Grant was Secretary of the Sydney Branch of the Boilermakers Union and widely acknowledged as a militant union official who took the members side, right or wrong - mostly right. Popular with both the drinking mob as well as the not. His unofficial office was the nearest pub to the union premises. A regular and unashamed lover of the grape and the grain, the hops and the barley or whatever was on hand if nothing better was offering. And it showed.
He was short - very. Rotund rather than fat. Really round, sort of a global Gorbal. His walk was more of a waddle to carry the weight on his tubby legs. Not like a duck, more a swing of hip and shoulder like commanding respect. You could imagine him as a tough young Scot who might well have 'left his country for his country's good'. Like some others of his tribe among the seventeen eighty-eighters earlier on.
Uncouth he was for sure. Notoriously so. I reckon that Hughie reveled in it. Sort of like carrying on and improving the best image of yourself as you see yourself. Startling the natives as it were and knowing you were on safe ground because you were really couth. More cultured than many who got upset at your extravaganzas. Maybe knowing that they would forget, if not forgive, them in measure of your contribution to the common good.
Most working class women either liked or loved Hughie. What today might be called a roguish sexism by some won many friends because behind the front was a love and respect that he had for fellow beings.
In a pisshouse, somewhere, sometime, I stood alongside him and suggested it was a long time since he had seen it.
"Ah well, mebbe," he said, "boot I'm gettin' goo' reports aboot it."
We lost the election.
One Comrade was moved enough to raise it in his Party branch at Garden Island Dockyards and came into the District office to present the case. He didn't think we could be serious really. What if Hughie actually got elected and when the queen came out next year he keyed her up the arse going up the Town Hall steps. Creating this image probably won more votes for Hughie than otherwise. Party respectability notwithstanding.
Comrade Grant was Secretary of the Sydney Branch of the Boilermakers Union and widely acknowledged as a militant union official who took the members side, right or wrong - mostly right. Popular with both the drinking mob as well as the not. His unofficial office was the nearest pub to the union premises. A regular and unashamed lover of the grape and the grain, the hops and the barley or whatever was on hand if nothing better was offering. And it showed.
He was short - very. Rotund rather than fat. Really round, sort of a global Gorbal. His walk was more of a waddle to carry the weight on his tubby legs. Not like a duck, more a swing of hip and shoulder like commanding respect. You could imagine him as a tough young Scot who might well have 'left his country for his country's good'. Like some others of his tribe among the seventeen eighty-eighters earlier on.
Uncouth he was for sure. Notoriously so. I reckon that Hughie reveled in it. Sort of like carrying on and improving the best image of yourself as you see yourself. Startling the natives as it were and knowing you were on safe ground because you were really couth. More cultured than many who got upset at your extravaganzas. Maybe knowing that they would forget, if not forgive, them in measure of your contribution to the common good.
Most working class women either liked or loved Hughie. What today might be called a roguish sexism by some won many friends because behind the front was a love and respect that he had for fellow beings.
In a pisshouse, somewhere, sometime, I stood alongside him and suggested it was a long time since he had seen it.
"Ah well, mebbe," he said, "boot I'm gettin' goo' reports aboot it."
We lost the election.
