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"John Eltin Ahern wasn't always a suburbanite living down here at the bottom end of the world. No Sir! He was once a great traveller and no trip was too hard. He would tell his poor mother (in Kinsale, Southern Ireland) that he was off hitch-hiking for a few days fishing to Killarney and a week later she would receive a postcard from Greece, Bulgaria, North Africa or the Shetland Islands - and that was before the word 'backpacker' was invented!
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Eventually he travelled too far east thru Afghanistan, India and Thailand and bumped into Australia, hitch-hiking from Perth to The Riverina in New South Wales (with the 'Rice Bowl Beauty Queen'). Some years later he bumped into Australia again (she's a big place mate!) this time coming from the east across the Pacific from Chile.
There was only one place he hadn't seen - Adelaide - and he came down from Darwin intending to spend but a few days. What kept him a while longer is another story (unsuitable for children) but as he was about to move on he was offered a job with LINCOT LINEN, an old and well established firm full of well established and rather infirm old men, still driving the outback showing their suitcases of samples to farmers and graziers, many of them on remote sheep stations.
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Time passed and the old men got even older and the company eventually shut down leaving John to carry on supplying the usual work clothing and of course the famous LINCOT SOCKS, long worn by the feet of the ancestors of these good country people. Now instead of waking up in such exotic places as Transylvania, Valparaiso or Mexico (Sharm el Sheikh or Chichicastenango - and other places where no human hand ever set foot!) he would wake up in Orroroo, Broken Hill or Milparinka.
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These days the business is done mainly by mail-order and not many country trips are made since John discovered the computer and ….eh….sailing, windsurfing and playing Rock 'n Roll. "It's tough out here in the colonies and ya have to make the best of it." 'Out of the jungle (or the bog) and into the twenty first century'!
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INTERESTED IN TRAVEL STORIES?: Follow the link on the HOME page
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John toured with
Ronnie in Germany
in 2004
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Grandfather's Harness Maker's Shop in Fermoy County Cork
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Web Design by John Eltin Ahern - Copyright 1997
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