THE CORONATION HOTEL



Recollections from Peter Land



My first memories of the Coro, were as a 15 year old and as a Junior of the Tugun Surf Club. My best mate Larry Murdoch and I would go to the Coro after work on Fridays, to help with the raffles for Tugun, and hopefully get a lift down to the Coast. If we didn't get a lift we would catch a tram to the Mt Gravatt terminus and hitch down.

My association with the Coro continued when I joined the squash club and I started drinking there after squash and again started raffling for the squash club.

There were many characters who drank at the Coro, one was Mick Crocker who played rugby league for Australia in the days when it was no holds barred. When the squash players walked in the bar, Mick would act the part of playing squash in a feminine way thus giving the impression squash players were a bunch of girls; he got no argument from us. This was done in good humor and caused a lot of laughs over the years.

Another character was Justin Rudkins, who regularly threw himself out if he thought he had enough or if he had been told by the Publican that he had sufficient for that day. He did this by grabbing his collar behind his neck and with the other hand, he grabbed himself by the seat of his pants. As he got close to the door he used to propel himself out the door, as if he had been kicked out by the Publican. Justie used to say he was declaring himself drunk, and would proceed to kick himself out. It was humorous watching some of the faces of the other drinkers, seeing this show for the first time. Justin was a good bloke and also was a social member of Tugun.

Recollections of Joe Williams



The first time I became aware of the Coronation Hotel was when I started playing squash at Boomerang Squash Club in Hope Street in the early sixties, as it was only about 50 metres down the road from the club, the Terminus Hotel was down the other end of the street but it was about twice as far away from the courts. I drank at the Coro even though it served Bulimba Beer, which was know by many drinkers in those days as "The Green Death"

The Coronation became the watering hole for some of the Boomerang members, and was a place where a lot of us quenched our thirsts after running around the courts after a pennant match or after squash practice.

The Publican at that time was a Mr. Bob Biltoft, who became one of the early Patrons of the Boomerang Club. After a couple of years Bob sold out to Noel and Gabriel Hayes, and nothing seem to change, except as the club got larger, Noel also acquired a lot more very thirsty squash players and Reg Ryan and I decided to approach Noel and see if he would allow the club to raffle on Fridays nights, (the thinking behind that was it would take the pressure off club members having to sell raffle tickets to family and friends, or buying them themselves).

Noel advised Reg and I that 6 months of the year Tugun Lifesaving Club had the Raffles, and the other 6 months of the year South Rugby Union Club used to raffle there.

Noel probably didn't want to lose such a large group of customers, because I am sure he would have thought that if he didn't give the club some weeks, they may have moved down to the other end of the street to the Terminus, and they may have been granted some weeks to raffle down there.

So what he came up with was to tell Chipsy Wood of South's and Des College of Tugun, that he had decided to take 4 weeks off each club and give Boomerang 8 weeks to raffle during the year. There were no bad feelings from either club as they realized that Boomerang members, where patronising the hotel a lot more than either of their clubs.

The first night that the squash club was due to raffle, I had organized to get result blackoards and a few smaller boards with the winning numbers on for each raffle, with the Boomerang squash club name printed on them. However, the night arrived and the blackboards were not ready, so Des College from Tugun, said the squash club could borrow their boards, Reg organized to stick some white butcher's paper with Boomerang printed on it, to cover all the Tugun names on the board; it was only going to be for one week. Peter Land ruled up the board and put the raffle numbers to the left of the board and left spaces to put the winning numbers on the board.

This board was normally left up for a couple of days especially when there was an unclaimed meat tray, some times the winners were gone by the time the last raffle was drawn and didn't come back till the following day, or sometimes later in the week.

Anyhow, all was set to start the raffles, The tickets had been passed out to the sellers for the first raffle of the night, I grabbed the result board and went to put it in the Public Bar, as I walked into the bar I was copping some good natured stirring from Mick Crocker about the girls from the squash club were doing the raffles that night.

I obviously wasn't watching what I was doing, and forgot about the ceiling fan that was in the Public Bar, as I went to put the board up, the blades of the fan hit the blackboard, and smashed the top half of the board all around the bar, customers were ducking everywhere, (as parts of the board flew all around the bar) when things settled down, and we found out that no one was hurt, there was lot of laughter, especially Mick, who said I hope you girls can play better squash than they can organize meat raffles.

After that little teething problem, the squash club members became quite good at doing the raffles, and raffled at the Coro for years after that and later raffled down the other end of the street at the Terminus on Sunday Mornings in the first session. Over quite a few years the pub raffles were a great source of revenue for the club.

So, Monday morning I rang the sign writer and asked him to do an extra blackboard, but to put Tugun's name on it instead of Boomerang's.

On the first night both Chipsy and Des came down and helped us with the finer points of pub raffling. The Squash Boys, as they were known (except for Mick), became pretty popular with the regular customers of the Coro at that time. Some of the regulars I can remember were Jack Sadd (who's daughter Madeleine was a club member), Jack's nick name was "Happy", Ray Hawkins, Jack Loft, Brian and Paul Land (brothers of Peter). The Publican Noel Hayes was also appointed Patron of the squash club for a few years.

One Saturday night in the off cricket Season, Crispo had turned up for squash practice and of course, he and I adjourned down to the Coro. We had been there for several hours and Bill remarked to me what a good drinker Bob Bartels was (as most of you would remember Bob was a pretty quiet bloke). Bob had been there as long as us, and was taking in all that happened, and looked remarkably sober. Just then he must have decided he needed to go to the toilet but instead of turning around and heading off to the toilet, he just staggered sideways and disappeared out the back door. Crispo said to me "Can I rescind that remark".

Peter Creevey's Recollections



In the early days of the pub raffles, Bill Crisp was not a member of Boomerang, so organizing of the early raffles was done by Joe Williams, Terry Kelly, Reg Ryan and Laurie Pashley, but once Bill joined the club he became the No 1 raffle man. Bill, over the years organized the raffles and performed other jobs for the Squash Club, but never sought positions on committees. Bill was rewarded firstly being named first winner of the Bob Turner Memorial Award, and a couple of years later Bill was awarded life membership of the squash club.

Even when the club started doing the pub raffles, most of the Treasurers never trusted the raffle sellers to get the money back to the club, most of the Treasurers over the years attended the pub raffles, and it was customary for the blokes who sold the tickets to receive a free beer for their labor.

The very first Treasurer Terry Kelly, was very tight with the club's money and it was a waste of time trying to get an extra beer out of him, but the workers tried all the same as they did with other Treasurers Peter Skelly and Laurie Pashley. Occasionally, both Peter and Laurie dipped into kitty for a 2nd time on the night, but not very often.

I think the hardest man to get an extra Beer out of was Ron Baranoff. Ron was very strict with the club's money also, some of the sellers used to say Ron would have still had some of his tuck shop money from his school days.

It was decided by the sellers the best way to talk Ron into a 2nd round of drinks was to toss him double or nothing , the way the sellers used to do this was instead of using a coin, Ron dropped a $2.00 note from his hand stretched above his head. On one side of the note there was a story about John MacArthur, which meant there was a photo of some sheep on the note, and on the other side of the note there was a story about William Farrar the father of the Australian Wheat Industry, so there was some photos of wheat on that side of the note.

So if it came up sheep, the sellers would get another beer, but if it came up wheat that meant Ron tied up the money bag and went home, more often than not Ron was the victor, there was a story going around the club, that the raffle sellers made sure Ron's term as Treasurer was short lived, but I am sure that was not right. As the note floated slowly ground ward, there used to be a fair bit of blowing by the sellers hoping to change the direction of the note.

Saturday afternoons after practice at the squash courts, some of the members used to adjourn down to the Coronation, to replace their lost body fluids. After a couple of hours of replacing lost fluids, the sporting activates would commence.

The Back or Private Bar on most nights and weekends was the Squash Club Bar. The bar could only hold about a dozen people seated, but some Saturday afternoons there would be double that amount packed into it. Some of the regulars were Laurie Pashley, Joe, Peter Creevey, Wally Kwit, Mike & Geoff Moore, Ray Smith, Crispo, Bob Bartels, Peter Land, Peter Prickett, Bob McCormick, Turner Bob, Ron Pearce, Bob Eyles, Geoff Gebhard and Justin till he declared himself drunk and turfed himself out, and many others.

The bar would be cleared of stools along the main side of the bar. The aim was to slide a 20 cent piece the length of the bar, on the tiled floor, to the end of the wall, the nearest to the wall without touching the wall would be declared the winner. The winner would win all the 20 cent pieces.

Another favorite event was the (peanut catching competition).

There were two members in each team, one catcher and one thrower, normally about 5 teams used to compete as there was only room for 5 at the most at the end of the bar. The catchers used to sit there, and the throwers used to adjourn to the end of the bar and the competition would get underway. The team that caught the most peanuts was declared the winner and used to take all the money that was in the middle, it used to cost each team a certain amount to enter the event. From memory, the team of Mike Moore and Ray Smith were just about unbeatable, except when the catcher (Ray Smith) had a few too many and his judgment and timing used to get a bit wayward.

Another of the more competitive events was the (Bar Stool Racing), the participants mounted their bar stools, and awaited the starter's whistle. On commencement of the races, they moved forward by sitting on the seat of the bar stool and holding their hands under the seat of the stool and hopping the length of the bar.

That, as you could imagine, caused quite a deal of commotion quite Regularly Gabriel, Noel's wife, would appear at the door of the bar, with a look on her face that would make hell freeze over, and say something like how do you expect my children to sleep upstairs with this going on.

These activities would last to about 8pm, when our better halves would arrive to take the majority of us dancing. If anyone believes that I would be surprised!

There used to be other games that were played from time to time. There used to be a few card games now and again and a set of dice used to be produced now and again and the odd competition of arm wrestling, but most of that was done by Wally Kwit and Bob "Ease Up" Eyles.