DOWN AND OUT DOWN UNDER is the riotous autobiographical travel epic of a Scottish cricketer who leaves a HAUNTED boarding school for SYDNEY. The author recalls the horrors and hilarity of a young stranger’s new life abroad. It reveals much about the raw Oz ‘culture’, and the LUNACY that lies within.

Ordered to “PISS OFF AND FIND A PUB TO PLAY FOR” on arrival, and with his KILT IMPOUNDED by customs, the tone is set for seven months of unparalleled disaster. When the kilt saga ends up on Page 3 of The Sun, the author is the one in the skirt.

But the focus of alarm and amusement lies within the walls of Kookaburra Palace Hotel, where one night turns into four months. Inside is a circus of DRUGS, CONVICTS, CORPSES, and a NYMPHOMANIAC. There is a Mongolian who sleeps chained to the bed and to his suitcases, a Swede fleeing the communists, a man that wears no shoes, a DWARF who steals dummies from babies, and a megalomaniac ‘manager’ who tries to kill our hero with a pool cue in the night. The police can only urge a restraining order. But most shocking of all, PM JOHN HOWARD lives next door. This is the Downing Street of Australia. Is the Prime Minister aware a BOMB has been detonated outside his home?

No longer the dream about chatting with Shane Warne over post-match drinks, this is a TALE OF SURVIVAL. Donning his kilt religiously, the proud Scotsman encounters all kinds of peculiar characters, from druids to vest-wearing rednecks, to a man with a compulsion to BREAK FINGERS, and the son of a South African ARMS DEALER. Back home, the author’s father falls victim to horrendous medical negligence. A “routine” triple heart by-pass results in him losing a leg.

The cricketing aspects of the story turn out to be minimal in this rites of passage tale. Even a loather of the game will find delight. Angus is a LOLLIPOPMAN for a day, a removal worker – specialising in antiques, fine arts, and hypodermic needles – and a dish-pig, just as George Orwell began his Parisian career. (He is fired after five shifts.) Even rugby legend DAVID CAMPESE is unimpressed by their encounter. Then, in a cruel twist, the author is finally evicted from the HOTEL FROM HELL, a day before THE QUEEN arrives, falsely accused of being arrested for rioting outside John Howard’s house. He has no job, and just $3 in the bank. But he finds revenge playing rugby league against Belrose under-fourteens. With his sister sent out to rescue him, they embark on a trail along the east coast in search of the Road to Kookaburra Palace.

DOWN AND OUT DOWN UNDER is The Beach meets The League of Gentlemen. It is the Australia Bill Bryson missed. Finished at 74,000 words, it will SCREAM APPEAL to anyone who enjoys humour, travel, sport, and anyone wondering how to spend one of their most formative years. More than 400,000 travellers head to Australia every year, and as many again come to London. They all need books to read on their long flights, bus and train rides. If they get hold of this one, it might just do for Sydney what Trainspotting has done for Edinburgh.

“Go to Australia, mate,” they said in Edinburgh’s Bar Oz. “It’s the best fuckin’ country in the world!”
            “So why aren’t you there?”

    ‘Q 34. Have you or your partner ever:
a) been convicted of war crimes?
b) subscribed to the Communist or Nazi parties?
If yes, please give details below. If no, go to Q 92... 

    ‘Q 92. Are you or your partner suffering from:
a) a terminal disease?
b) chronic gonorrhoea, syphilis or penile warts?   
If yes, please give all the lurid details below...’

Welcome to the bureaucratic nightmare that is Australian Immigration, an affair involving umpteen doctor’s notes, self-addressed envelopes, and booklets of questions like the above. With an application process like this, everyone must struggle to get into Australia. It has the toughest immigration laws in the world. Well, there and North Korea, perhaps.

“It says I’m applying for a visa. Isn’t that a kind of credit card?” I asked my mum in our home in the bleak Scottish Borders.

“No, dear.” It was clear that eight years of institution in a haunted boarding school had left me unprepared for the outside world. Thank God for the visa help line.

“Press 3,” said the computer voice on the phone charging at sixty-pence-per-minute, “to hear music on Pan pipes…Press 18 for further inconvenience...If at any time you find yourself lost, press 46 to hear the options again…” Before you know it you’ve tapped in the numbers from last week’s lottery draw, and you’re still no closer to submitting your application.

“Fuck off!” I screamed down the line.

“I’m sorry. Your demand has not been recognised. Please listen to the options again.”

The stress doesn’t stop there. Someone in the chain of command must be taking pleasure in the irony that working visas “must be applied for no earlier than four weeks before the intended travel date”, yet the wait for processing is ten weeks. For those who have booked their flights within that period, they must surely never make it to the country at all.

I decided on Australia because everyone in Neighbours was good-looking, and they appeared to be leading a leisurely, pleasant life (though their lack of binge-drinking was troublesome). That, and I harboured an obsession for cricket. Australia was the best in the world at God’s game. If anyone could teach a rubbish Scotsman the sport, it was the Aussies. Their steely attitude, first-class facilities, expert coaching, and lust for post-match beer would turn me into a well-rounded professional. They could put hairs on my milky-white chest. When, to this dreambubble, I added sun, sand, surf, and sex, the concept of a year abroad seemed as natural as childbirth. As far as I knew, Australia was safe and they even drove on the same side of the road as us.

I’d been offered a post as a school tutor in Melbourne, but turned it down. I wanted to escape boarding school – a part of my life that was more like Lord Of The Flies than Harry Potter. I had gone beyond nicknames, nametags, laundrybags, and Sunday morning chapel services in itchy socks. I wanted to build a new life, one where I wouldn’t have to bring a girlfriend back to a dormitory with twelve other savages.

And so, as a nineteen-year-old who didn’t get out much, in this last chance of parental sponsorship, I was thrust into the New World like an Amish kid to fend for myself. I would be tempted and have to decide whether to return. Armed with my bat and a goodbye gift of condoms, I set out in October 1999 on a course for disaster.

“Looks like we might be a player short for the rugby tomorrow, Dad,” said Luke at the dinner table.
            “Maybe Angus will play for you!” joked Barry.
            “I’d love to play just one more game of rugby,” I said.
            “Imagine if he could!” said Luke excitedly. “Against the under-fourteens! You’d murder them!”
            A realisation swept over the table. Maybe I could pass for under fourteen.
            “I’m not that tall for my age,” I said. “A shave in the morning and it might just be possible…”
            Three hands leant across the plates for a feel of the blond peach-fuzz covering my cheeks.
            “Luke can lend you some kit,” said Barry. “I’m sure we could find some old boots and socks.”
            “Maybe you’ll just get your wish,” smiled Debbie.
            After dinner Luke and I headed into the backyard to practise some ball handling skills. In the five minutes that we were out there I was successful in removing the wing mirror from his sister’s new car, whilst Luke almost took out her bedroom window. The wing mirror was easy to fix but we decided against any further practice or any mention to Dana.

Someone once said, “To play Rugby League you need three things: a good pass, a good tackle and a good excuse”. What I needed was some kit. The next morning, as the Hylands confidently dug around the cupboards for matching socks and boots amongst Luke’s old gubbins, I ran off to the chemist to find a mouth guard.
            “Not a word to anyone that you’re actually nineteen, Angus, or there’ll be serious trouble,” warned Barry as we pulled up to the ground in the car. This was the first rugby game I had ever turned up to wearing sunglasses and sunscreen.
            Barry walked over for a word with the coach at the edge of the pitch. “We’ve got a friend from Scotland who plays rugby. Do you think you can give him a game? He’s only thirteen.”
            The coach glanced over at me. “Christ that’s a big thirteen-year-old!” his reaction suggested he was thinking. “We can definitely give him a game! Get the boy registered – quick!”
            “What’s your date of birth?” asked the mum with the register.
            I tried to think back to what Barry had said in the car. “Umm, it’s the sixteenth of September nineteen eighty…eighty-six,” I said, smiling sweetly.
            “Ok. Sign here. You’ll need to bring some form of identification next time, like a passport.”
            Will my driver’s licence or bank details do? I thought of saying. Next time I would be three thousand kilometres away.
            The coach marched up and thrust out a hand. “How ya goin’, mate? D’ya play thugby or rara?”
            “Sorry?”
            “League or union?” Barry explained.
            “Oh, union,” I said. “I’ve only had a few practice sessions of league – no games – but I know basically what to do.”
            “Who do you play for in, umm…Scotland, is it?” he asked, obviously having no idea where that was.
            “East of Scotland Prep Schools and Midlothian under-sixteens,” I said, missing out the minor details that it had been seven and four years earlier respectively.
            “So what are you doing over here?” he asked.
            “I’ve been playing cricket all season for Mosman.”
            “Awesome! And now you’re gonna play for us, eh?”
            What would a thirteen-year-old from Scotland be doing on his own in Australia? Did school and family not matter? I couldn’t believe the coach didn’t question this.
            I was handed my red-and-white-hooped North Ryde shirt in the changing room. Several players stared at me. I realised I was the only guy in the team that had developed bodily hair.
            “My God! How hairy are you!” some high-balled teammate exclaimed. 
            Luke shook his head.
            The coach came in for the pep-talk. “This is our newest player – Angus, from Scotland. He hasn’t played a rugby league game before, so help him out.” We were briefed on the game plan.
            “Angus, can you play lock for me, please?” asked the coach.
            “Sure.”
            “Good man!” At five-foot-eight it was the only time in my rugby career I had ever been asked to play there.
            The team charged out to the centre of the pitch for a quick handshake of the enemy and then got into position. I could see fear in the faces of the Belrose opponents. Some barely came up to my knees. Just because they were thirteen, however, did not mean they were all smaller. It must be something they feed them over there.
            “You see that big ginger bastard, Angus?” said Luke. “He’s your man.”
            I looked at the freckly monstrosity busily sucking on his gum shield. His teammates were obviously hoping he would take me on.
            “Umm…aren’t we missing something?” I asked as the game was about to begin. “I know I’ve never played league before, but aren’t goalposts kind of essential?”
            “They were stolen in the night,” said the referee. “We’ll just have to do without. Right, boys, let’s keep this clean. I don’t want any shit.” The whistle was blown.
            Thirteen North Ryde players hared after the opponent with the ball. He looked around nervously for someone to pass to, but no one wanted it. I grabbed him, drove him back twenty yards, and dropped him to the hard floor. I figured as long as I could do that for eighty minutes I’d have done my part.
            It was not long until we had notched up our first try. A slick dummy and a crafty inside pass from Luke had set the centre up virtually unchallenged.
            “What do we do about kicks with no posts?” someone asked.
            “Forget about ‘em,” said the referee.
            The exhausting heat and humidity were like nothing I had ever experienced in rugby. Where was my Scottish mist and ground frost? Where was the sloppy mud to roll around in? The most I was going to get from this pitch was a few grass stains and some carpet burn. Some little shit had knee-dropped me in the thigh too.
            I continued to make most of the tackles and grabbed a few darting spurts that left opponents dragging around my ankles. With the smaller players I found it was actually possible to pick them up with the ball and run.
            North Ryde demolished the flagging opposition by nine tries to one. Twice our players had broken clean and placed the ball five metres short of the line, thinking they had scored.
            “Jesus Christ! Take it to the next suburb!” shouted Barry in frustration from the stands.
            The big ginger bastard looked thoroughly demoralised and left the field early, complaining of a stitch.
            “Awesome game, mate!” praised the coach, running on at the end with water bottles. “Can you play next week?”
            No. I’m picking my car up, I thought of saying. “I wish I could,” I said, “but my sister is coming out and we’re going to travel the east coast. After that I’m going back to Scotland.”
            “Are you sure, mate? I tell you what; you can stay with me if you want. There’s plenty of room.”
            “No, I can’t unfortunately.”
            “Oh well. That’s a shame. But well played anyway. You’ve got a huge future in the game.” And it was true, if I continued playing at under-fourteen level, anyway.
            Back in the dressing room aftersun was the order of the day and some heat spray for an aching thigh and dicky elbow. The rest of the team wandered off without showering. It wasn’t just Belrose who were intimidated by my tackle.

© 2004-2007 All rights reserved. Angus J. J. Bell.