"The Smell of times gone bye!"

As Anne and I walked through a product pavilion at the Murrumbateman Field Days one year I was taken on a journey, back to the summer of 1968.
We were getting ready to leave Aunty Flora’s to travel back to Tumbarumba after Christmas Lunch.
My cousin Michael was chasing me down the road when you guessed it, over I went sprawled out on the bitumen after an ankle tap, he was another individual that gained great pleasure from seeing me bleed! Why, once he placed Drawing Pins or tacks all around his bedroom, called me in from the lounge room and when I was inside his room turned off the light, slammed the door shut and chased me around the room! Needless to say when Dad told me I had to stay with Uncle Chicka and Aunty Flora I wasn’t very happy! Anyway, following my “trip” down the road it was straight inside washed the gravel out and Aunty dabbed the graze with “Rawleys” the same ointment that I could smell on display in front of us.
I asked the lady what it was.
She informed me it was “Anti-septic salve” and told me the recipe had not differed from those early days.
We still use this Rawleys ointment today for our own kids! I have fond memories each time I take the lid off!
In 1969 I was joined by my brother Paul, I can still remember hiding in the grass as Kevin Wake and I watched dad drive back and forth along the road between our properties. Dad was looking for us because Mum was having Paul in hospital as we hid! Pretty normal behaviour for a 5yr old boy in training to be an elite solder!
After school mum would often ask me to entertain or sing nursery rhymes to Paul so she could get some house work done, mum would call me her little saviour! Paul and I were never very close until later years due I guess to our age difference.
Later in life we became close mates and I still cherish his friendship today!
Nana and Pa Sherriff often called Paul “Ned Kelly” as he was always either in trouble or trouble was very close behind him.
If there was a puddle to get wet Paul was in it!
If there were stones to be thrown Paul was throwing them! He always managed to find some trouble no matter where we were.
Paul was lucky enough to be given a slug gun for Christmas one year, not all that unusual in the bush.
Well Mum and Dad were livid when they learned that Paul and one of his mates had shot out the windows of an old truck parked in some bloke’s back yard. Paul didn’t do the shooting but he was there. So he only had the slug gun for a week or two, then it was taken off him.