GUNNING READY OR NOT

This was to me my first spoken blog but I sounded like John Howard ...  worse ... I sounded like Billy MacMahon. I don't know why but when I get in front of a mic, even when I know it can be wiped, and theres no one around; the jaw freezes, the mind solidifies and I feel like my now dead aunty is going to give me a wet kiss on the cheek any minute. So my blogs will remain as the written word until I learn to use my normal voice.

Tommie and I roll into the small country called Gunning on our way to Adelaide.  I was first drawn here because of a simple story. Actor Max Cullen and his artist wife Margarita Georgiadis renovated a run down picture house, converting it into The Picture House Gallery. The migration of an actor and artist to a small town to renovate a decaying building captured my imagination. It was a romantic story. Even more so had I known that Max was 61 and his wife 35 when they moved here 5 years ago. I am back now for a second time.

Gunning is gorgoeus. It is in an area called the Valley of the Little towns. There are heaps of them like Crookwell, Dalton, Jerrawa and all only an hour or so from Goulburn and Canberra. When the cattle duffers and bushrangers let them, the towns served the wool industry after the local Pajong people were wiped out. I always wonder if their spirits are still here, perhaps secreted amongst the granite outcrops that lie weathering on the surrounding hills.

I head into the gallery past the original ticket booth. The spirit of the old theatre has stuck to the building like chewing gum under a seat. I imagine it's Saturday night ... 1932 ... the Depression years softened by James Cagney in Taxi ... you dirty rat ...  Dad and Dave ... Movietone shorts of Don Bradman. God, how many Gunning babies had kissing in the back row and then a quick session in an FJ Holden to thank for their existence? Now there is a maze of antiques, memorabilia, theatre posters, costumes and old books on sale. Max and Margarita's art and scultpure is in the back.

We move to sit in the glorious morning sun outside the Merino Cafe, enjoying a soy chai latte and, in keeping with the pioneer spirit, strike up a conversation with two fashionably bald gay guys tucking into Eggs Benedict. Cafes are now my entree into small towns like this.