FIFTY-FIFTY CLUB

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 July 1939, Page 9

FIFTY-FIFTY CLUB

STARTLING N.S.W. PROJECT SYDNEY, June 28. Mr. Noel Kirkby, a member of one of the best-known families in Moree, has caused a real stir with his proposed Fifty-Fifty club. Announcing that he intended to form the club, he said membership would be limited to 50 men. They and their lady friends would have to attend meetings dressed in shorts or short frocks respectively, or some other garb of schooldays, and in their school bags would have to bring along liquor or else they would not be admitted. The president, dressed as a schoolmaster, would control the revels. Marbles, tkiss-in-the-ring, hop-scotch, and other games would be played. Mr. Kirkby was astonished by the scorn that descended on his head. People telephoned him abusing him, and tne police even visited him to inquire what it was all about as no liquoi’ is allowed in the hall where the club intends to hold its revels. The Church of England clergyman at Moree, the Rev. A., E. James, lost no time in denouncing the whole business. He said he would like to preside at the revels like a real schoolmaster. “I would bring down the birch so hard on some of them that they would not be able to sit down for many a day,” he declared. To this Mr. Kirkby replied with an invitation to the clergyman to come along with his birch. Mr. Kirkby said the fun would be so innocent that before the end of the night Mr. James would put away his birch and join wholeheartedly in it, He said the idea had been misrepresented; it was really intended to raise funds for the Parents’ and Citizens’ Association. “Moree isn’t a hard-drinking town as some people seem to think,” he stated. “When I mentioned liquor 1 didn’t mean hard stuff. We are not used to that up here. This was going to be a real back-to-childhood turnout, with lemonade instead of whisky.”

It was in Moree that at the picnic races recent’y a wealthy grazier created a mild sensation by riding his horse into the vestibule of the leading hotel, having a drink, and riding out again. The incident was condemned, chiefly by clerical critics, as a bad example to be set by the wealthy, but at the Moree Council this week an aiderman solemnly moved that the council should not only pay the grazier’s fine, but thank him for what he had done. He said that the incident had put Moree on the map and had been reported in every paper in Australia. There was a seconder for his motion, but the. Mayor dissuaded the council from taking any action. He agreed that the incident had been a wonderful advertisement for Moree, but said the wealthy grazier would be insulted if the council offered to pay his fine.