Friday, September 24, 2010

Wild Man

Today I heard a horse galloping up the hill towards town, iron shoes clanging against the bitumen, going hell for leather. It made me wonder if Johnny Chester was back in town.

When I was a kid, we camped in a bush hut by Broke Inlet. The door was unlocked and there was a pile of firewood by the grate. We stayed there for a few days. I asked Dad about the name carved into the wall near the table. "Ahh ha. Johnny Chester," Mum and Dad laughed together and Mum said, "So he's still on the loose. He must have been holed up here. Cocky int he?"
When we left the hut, Dad made us kids collect some firewood and leave it by the fireplace.

In 1976, Johnny and another man bombed the brand new WA Chip and Pulp Company's terminal in Bunbury, to protest against the Government-sanctioned logging of old growth forests for woodchips. "I will fight and die for the right to give nature to my children," he said. 1,000 sticks of gelignite, a stolen sawnoff and one trussed up security guard later, they managed to do a bit of damage and not hurt anyone. People felt that blast ten kilometres away. A week later Johnny and his mate were tracked down and arrested. I suppose now it would be tried as a serious case of sedition or even terrorism. They both got three and a half years.

About twenty years after the bombing, I met Johnny. It's funny, despite those Ned Kelly-style stories from my childhood of a fugitive, wild man bomber on an environmental mission, I only recently realised that I'd met him. He used to ride his horse into town, stay a few days and then head back out to the Porongorup ranges where he had a camp. I ran a market stall selling clothes and stuff. He brought in things for me to sell: little moss gardens that he'd planted in hollowed-out wood, necklaces made from fox's teeth and fencing wire. He always wore a filthy khaki beanie with rosella feathers stuck all over it.

He would ride one horse into town and lead another, plus he had a speckled cattle dog and a brown kelpie trotting beside him. He rode right down the main street, with his horses and dogs and his wares. Lovely.
So today, I heard that horse galloping up the road towards town and I thought of Johnny Chester. He's still around, somewhere, I think.

9 comments:

  1. He sounds like a very naughty boy, Sarah.

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  2. Yes, not the messiah but definitely an 'outsider'. Myth material methinks.

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  3. I've seen this guy. He sounds wonderful, and definite myth material.

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  4. He deserves a book, I think. Or, at least, a short story.
    Evocative piece, Sarah.

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  5. Thanks Sontag and Michelle. Yes I agree Sontag. I'd like to find him and have a chat about that ... if anyone knows where he dwells these days.

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  6. In a sense...You painted the whole picture..right here

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  7. Loved your story on the Wild Man. I met that man too, but I cannot remember the woolen hat...although the many feather strike a chord... It would have been in 1997 that I met him alone with his pack of dogs and horses. Yep, he is out there somewhere still hunting pigs. He is something akin to a modern day Moondine Joe. I agree with one of your other comments, he'd make for a great short story!

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  8. Hey Sarah I know Johnny Chester's boy Justin. He teaches horsemanship in Denmark. I even met Johnny a couple of times myself, and I can tell you where he is living today ... you'll have to ask me at cosies

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  9. Hello Peta Piper. Okay, See you tomorrow!

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