Part 2:
The
Beginning of the Beginning
IF BERT
WHISH-WILLSON had kept quiet about having seen a Tasmanian Tiger on
the High Street, he never would have lost his job as town drunk.
But he
told everyone who would listen. It seemed, in fact, that he told the
whole world.
The locals
felt that this brought shame on the sleepy little township of Windy
Mountain in the heart of one of Tasmania's historic fruit-growing districts.
Officially,
the Tasmanian Tiger - or Thylacine as it is scientifically known -
is extinct. The last one in captivity died in the Hobart Zoo in 1934.
But in
recent years many people claim to have seen the animal, mostly deep
in the bush or on lonely country roads late at night.
The
observers have come from all walks of life: bushmen, rural taxi
drivers, even the odd zoologist.
But Bert
was the first town drunk. For the next two weeks he told anyone who
would listen how a Tasmanian Tiger had woken him up from a nap in a
bus shelter on the High Street shortly after closing time at the
Windy Mountain hotel, The Applecart.
First he
told an impressionable reporter on the local newspaper, The Pick Of
The Crop.
It got
front page treatment too, much to the horror of the editor, Mr D.O.B
Leggs, who subsequently ordered that the news editor in charge of
that edition, Paul Tabernale, be sacked.
The
mainland print and electronic media had no such qualms when they
heard the report, however, and quickly despatched their best news
crews to find to Bert.
They came
from all over Australia to interview him, usually in his familiar
spot in the back bar of The Applecart. One film crew even came from
as far away as the United States. Bert had never had so much attention.
"Yeap,''
he'd drawl earnestly after taking another swig of his cider.
"The Tasmanian Tiger is alive and kicking here in Windy Mountain.''
The locals
didn't believe a word of it, of course.
It wasn't
that they didn't respect Bert. They did.
He had
been town drunk for 11 years. He was the youngest town drunk in local
history and a damn good one too.
He had a
brilliant mind and had been a top scholar and a champion schoolboy sportsman.
In
recognition of Bert's services to Windy Mountain as town drunk, his
name was engraved on a stool at the back bar of The Applecart and no
one else dared sit on it.
Townsfolk
sought his advice on important matters such as football and horse
racing; sometimes they even asked him to arbitrate on bitter marital disputes.
Bert did
the job with dignity, honour and efficiency. The townsfolk could
trust him with their money or their wives.
Unfortunately,
though, Bert could not be trusted with the truth. It wasn't that he
meant to tell lies. It's just that his imagination always seemed to
get the better of him. Every time he told a story he embellished it
just a bit more until finally it bore little resemblance to the
original version.
By the
time the mainland Australia and American reporters caught on, it was
too late. The damage was done. Bert's Tasmanian Tiger was something
out of a horror movie and the local perception was that Windy
Mountain was the laughing stock of the world.
The
citizens of Windy Mountain felt they had no choice. They replaced
Bert with a middle-aged Catholic priest named John Whitchurch.
