A
Child's
Christmas
in
Warrnambool
[A
parody
by
John
Clarke
[1]
of
A
Child's
Christmas
in
Wales
by
Dylan
Thomas.]One
Christmas
was
so
like
another
in
those
years
around
the
sea
town
corner
now
that
I
can
never
remember
whether
it
was
106
degrees
in
1953
or
whether
it
was
103
degrees
in
1956.
Oh,
the
Christmases
roll
into
one
down
the
wave-roaring
salt-squinting
years
of
yesterboy.
My
hand
goes
into
the
fridge
of
imperishable
memory
and
out
come
...
salads
and
sunburn
lotions
and
a
brief
exuberant
hiss
of
beer
being
opened
and
the
laugh
of
wet-haired
youths
around
a
Zephyr
Six.
The
smell
of
insect
repellent
and
eucalyptus
and
the
distant
constant
slowly
listless
bang
of
the
fly
wire
door.
And
resting
on
a
formica
altar
waiting
for
'ron
[2]
:
the
biggest
pav
[3]
in
the
world,
a
magic
pav,
a
cut-and-come-again
pav
for
all
the
children
in
all
the
towns
across
the
wide
brown
bee-humming,
trout-fit,
sheep-rich,
two-horse
country.
And
the
aunts,
always
the
aunts.
In
the
kitchen,
on
the
black
and
white
photographed
beach
of
the
past
playing
out
the
rope
to
a
shared
childhood
caught
in
the
undertow
and
drifting.
And
some
numerous
uncles,
wondering
occasionally
why
they
weren't
each
other,
coming
around
the
letterbox
to
an
attacking
field
in
a
test
match
and
then
driven
handsomely
by
some
middle
order
nephew,
skipping
down
the
vowel-flattening
pitch
and
putting
the
ball
into
the
tent
flaps
on
the
first
bounce
of
puberty.
Notes
[Note
1]
Thanks
to
Richard
Bollard
for
pointing
out
an
episode
Late
Night
Live
(Phillip
Adams
interviews
John
Clarke)
in
which
this
piece
is
played.[Note
2]
'ron
--
short
for
"later
on"
[Note
3]
pav
--
short
for
"pavlova",
a
dessert,
a
soft-centred
merangue
cake
topped
with
whipped
cream
and
fruit,
named
in
honour
of
the
great
Russian
dancer
Anna
Pavlova,
who
toured
Australia
and
New
Zealand
in
1926.
MP3 audio of prose (1.3 Mbyte)
