The Last Stand, Sophie and Ned
by Paddy 0′Cearmada

In 2003 I was invited to attend the Glenrowan Siege Dinner.  (Glenrowan, 150 miles north of Melbourne, was the place where Ned Kelly*, Australia’s most famous bushranger was captured after a siege.)  It was held on the exact anniversary of the end of siege, 28 June, near the siege site, in a large marquee.  For such a grim piece of history on a freezing and clear night it was in its own way a jolly event and the warm bush hospitality created a festive atmosphere not unlike the party that had taken place 123 years before in Ann Jones’ Glenrowan Inn.

There is no such thing as a free lunch or a free dinner.  I was there as the then public custodian of a large collection of Ned Kelly material, and at the time there was some enthusiasm for gathering all that remains of Ned and his gang, plus much of what has come after including the Nolan series of paintings and installing them in a vast museum to be built on the site.  This impressive act of civic boosterism had its origin in a request from the good burghers of Glenrowan for funding from Tourism Victoria for a new toilet block.  Seized by an enthusiastic bureaucrat as a once in a lifetime opportunity to create the next ‘Sovereign Hill’, dollars well in excess of the cost of new dunnies were soon spent on consultants and feasibility reports.  And I was at the dinner to be cajoled and persuaded, and as I soon discovered romanced.

I was introduced to the still quite new local Federal member for the seat of Indi, Sophie Panopoulos, and when it came time to be seated I discovered I had been given pride of place seated at her right hand.  To her left was a very handsome and fit local farmer, her current beau as it happened, but looking quite forlorn.  The Baileys Shiraz flowed, and so did the conversation.  Sophie’s partner it transpired was in the midst of a bitter divorce and his unhappiness was compounded by the fact that one of his daughters was a waitress at the dinner and his estranged wife another guest.  In the kind of games played at such times the mother was seeking to make sure that he could not talk to his child as it was not his contact week.

Sophie seemed oblivious to this drama and focused her full attention on me.  With all the charm that a St Catherine’s education can instil, she worked her way through the entire repertoire.  There was the flickering of the eyelashes; attempts at coquettish pursing of crimson lips;  the exaggerated laughter at the merest joke, head tossed back but always with an eye on me to make sure I noticed; the hand rested on my forearm, or more provocatively ……  Not for the first time I was happy to be gay for none of it was working on me, and my eyes when I could risk a glance were for the heartbroken boyfriend with his heaving chest, sinewy forearms and well-formed biceps flexing under his tight shirt.  Surely, I thought, a bit of man-love would make his life better.

The evening ended with all loves lost and unrequited lust.  As I made my way through the freezing night to Glenrowan’s one motel the crystalline sky looked so brittle that one well aimed stone could shatter it into a billion brilliant shards.  Entering my very cold room I contemplated a shower to cleanse me of all the attention and to warm me, but the thin brown trickle from the shower head made me wary of triggering hypothermia.  I climbed fully clothed into a bed with a mattress that seemed made from the off-cuts of the armour forged for the Kelly gang and attempted sleep.

The Museum didn’t happen.  The City of Greater Wangaratta saw a huge white elephant and rejected a trumped up feasibility study at a meeting where I was able to share one of my favourite jokes from my father’s repertoire.  A country Shire Council meeting was debating the installation of a urinal in the local Park and while there was support, the President was adamantly opposed.  In the tea-break one Shire Councillor took the time to explain to him what a urinal was, and when the meeting recommenced he announced ‘I’m in favour of the urinal and while we’re at it we should build an arsenal as well’.  The good folk of Glenrowan got their toilet block, and the hapless farmer didn’t marry Ms Panopoulos, who found instead another local, Greg Mirabella.  I often wonder about the farmer and hope he broke free, maybe making it to Sydney and parading at least once down Oxford Street in Mardi Gras.

And as for Sophie?  Well it seems her adopted community has had enough.  Perhaps with her Parliamentary Pension she can go to Charm School and practice her wiles.  Given her deficit she will be there a while.

* Edward “Ned” Kelly (June 1854 or 1855 – 11 November 1880)[1] was an Irish Australian bushranger. Kelly’s legacy is controversial; many consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class, while others emphasise his involvement in killing.