Meet the wild character with tales of Mackay’s pubs

Malcolm 'Pumpkin' Maclean describes the chaos and fun of Pioneer Valley’s famous pubs in the 1950s

Malcolm 'Pumpkin' Maclean and wife Alice Mclean.

DOWN the range to the Netherdale Hotel. In my time, the early 50s, Huey McAnelly and his dear old wife had the pub.

It was situated where Col Ladley lives now, but like a lot of the old pubs, it was burnt down in the 60s.

There was a small store and a dance hall alongside it.

Some weekends we would stay up on the range and come down to a dance.

I can recall a hole in the floor where a post had been removed, and you had to negotiate it when waltzing around the hall.

The Netherdale Excelsior Hotel on its opening day.

I had two Thursday Island boys off-siding for me, and they would stand outside on the edge of the light – all you could see was their eyes, and their teeth.

They were happy with a few beers and some of the ladies’ sandwiches.

The Netherdale pub’s customers were mostly Lovis, as their parents old Jake Lovi and his wife lived there.

The Lovi brothers couldn’t find anybody else to argue with so they spent most of the time drinking and arguing in the bar of the hotel.

They were all bush mechanics, so a lot of the topics they argued about were motor cars.

One day they were discussing a certain make of car when a tourist pulled up outside in the same make of car.

Before he could switch the motor off, about four of the Lovis had rushed out, lifted the bonnet and started pulling bits of the motor out.

A council grader at Eungella in the 1950s.

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The startled motorist had a quick beer, a quick pee, and disappeared in a cloud of dust without a backward look.

Another amusing story concerning their father Jake, was after he and Mum had a session at the Royal Hotel at Hatton.

Jake decided to take the old Chev. Tourer home.

Well, for some reason, Jake turned left into People’s Street and started driving up the Netherdale railway line, complaining as he bounced over the sleepers that the bloody road was getting rougher and rougher.

Luckily, someone spotted him and mum bouncing along and headed him off before the first bridge.

Actually, the Netherdale road at that time was just as rough as the railway line as some of the old-timers would remember.

The 10 years of the 1950s were the wettest decade of the 20th century around the Mackay district, without a doubt.

I spent a lot of the early 50s working and camping in the upper part of the Pioneer Valley.

There were no road bridges over Cattle Creek between Eungella and Finch Hatton.

The Mirani rail bridge was destroyed by a flood in 1956.

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The railway bridges would wash out easily, so the only way home from Eungella in the very wet years would be to walk down Eungella Range, go around the foothills to keep you on the southern side of Cattle Creek down to Hatton, get a lift down to the Gargett railway bridge, walk across to Gargett, get a lift down to Mirani railway bridge, and walk across to Mirani – naturally calling into all the pubs on the way.

This was until Easter of 1956 when the Pioneer River went mad and tore down the high level Mirani railway bridge.

I spent one of the wildest nights of my life in the council barracks at Eungella in March of 1955 when Cyclone Annie crossed the coast at Sarina, and moved north over the Eungella Range with the wind blowing from the west straight over the Range edge.

The worst part of this was that I had a young off-sider who slept right through the cyclone – he was a big help.

We lost a good friend in this cyclone, as a mate who had played football with Mirani in 1954 by the name of Cec Atkinson, had decided a week before to try a bit of adventure and signed on with a Trochus boat, the “Barrier Princess”.

Not a trace of this boat was ever found. So much for adventure.

This was a continuation of the memoirs of the late Malcolm “Pumpkin” Maclean with kind permission of his family.

Pioneer Valley Museum opening hours:

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 9.30am – 2.30pm

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