OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums The History Forum Curios and Stories POEM - Me Old Mate Victa - Brian Doyle

Hello ODK Poetry Lovers
I feel compelled to record this poem 'Me Old Mate Victa' about Australia's iconic Victa.
My best guess is that it was written in the early 2000s.

Written by a seemingly unknown Queensland author, Brian Doyle, this must be
considered an important tribute to the once-iconic Victa lawnmower.

The owner of this site, Bruce, told me he contacted the author many years' ago.
Brian gave Bruce permission to share the poem with the ODK community.

I'm glad that Bruce did that ... because I know nothing about Brian Doyle except
- I think he is from Queensland, recited his poem on ABC radio in 2008, and an
academic quoted part of the poem in an undergraduate research paper in 2009.

The multi-versed poem seems to capture the 'Aussie spirit' and sense of adventure;
the invention, prosperity and optimism, that personified how the rotary lawnmower
was in-tune with the 1950s Australian lifestyle - the 'Friday on the tiles' ;
the barby; the Victas owned by neighbours ...

This is a nostalgic recollection of a generation who grew up with Victas when
under Australian ownership. This is a poem about Australian Identity - and the
laid-back lifestyle of a more simple and easy Australia. Not like today at all.

I reproduce this great poem for the record.



TO BE CONTINUED ...

ME OLD MATE VICTA

Australia's national anthem
Tells us we are 'girt'
A peculiar word for 'ocean
Flowing round our block of dirt'

Since Cookie dropped his anchor
As each convict loosed his lock
First thing that he'd try to do
Was grab himself a 'block'

And every Aussie since that day
From medico to baker
Liked to put his feet up
On his little quarter acre

But, as always, there's a drawback
The flaming grass keeps growin'
To spoil yer summer weekends
With mowin' mowin' mowin'!

No sooner do you cut it
Than it's shootin' up again!
I'll swear it's women's vengeance
On non-housework-doin men

And still you see those drongos
Who chuck on fertiliser
Their grass is growin' twice as fast
But they seem none the wiser

Way back in the early days
Mowin' kept us fit and lithe
Coz the only way to do it
Was to swing a flaming scythe

Until some bright spark somewhere
Said, "Now this'll be a goer!"
And came up with that curse of kids
The horrible push mower

But then one day Merv Richardson
An engineer from Adelaide
Showed the world a better way
To spin a mowing blade

He took a two stroke engine
Made a peach tin petrol tank
Slapped it onto four old wheels
And gave the rope a yank

And so, in 1952
The Victa mower was born
And ever since that time has turned
Australian grass to lawn

Victa's become an institution
The sound of our weekend
Though I curse those early starters
If me sore heads on the mend

Nothin's worse than Sat'dy mornin'
After Friday on the tiles
When the Victas wake up with the crows
And you can hear them roar for miles

Or when your mates have come for lunch
And you've just lit the barby
And the Victas on both sides of you
Start a local mowing derby!

But what really gets me
In fact it makes me strew
Is not looking where I'm mowin'
And hitting lumps of doggy doo

I can tolerate the old ones
That explode in puffs of pongy smoke
But those icky sticky news ones
Make me gag and retch and choke

But it never worries Victa
He just goes on with his toil
Though I rarely ever clean his plug
And almost never change the oil

Victa's been with me for so long now
I regard him as me mate
God knows how far I've pushed him
Too bloomin' hard to calculate

But his old rings are really rattlin'
Compressions just a cough
His wobbly wheels are short of rubber
And his mufflers fallin' off

P'raps I oughta trade him on a rider?
Nah -I'd miss me weekly walk
And mowing gives me time to think
And Victa listens while I talk

- Brian Doyle, Brisbane QLD
http://www.abc.net.au/site-archive/rural/telegraph/poetry/stories/s438532.htm

Here is a copy of the original typed document(signed) sent to Bruce by Brian Doyle.