ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A Betoota boy who now has to suffer the indignity of living in Sydney has learned something today.
Working on a site on Sydney’s Lower East Side this month, apprentice carpenter Darcy Lovelock is high above the streets framing a roof in an old pub.
He told The Advocate he spied a hardware shop and asked his boss about it. The 18-year-old recounted the conversation.
“You see that tool shop down there?” he said.
His boss looked up and bent under an Oregon rafter.
“Yeah [laughs] That’s a very old tool shop. That’s where sparkys get their tools from, mate. That Tool Shed. You should pop down there at knockoff and see if they’ve got anything you like,” his boss said.
“I think they only stock Ryobi power tools, anyway.”
Darcy laughed.
“Fucken Ryobi, hey? The rich man’s Ozito, they reckon.”
Darcy told The Advocate that as long as you learn one thing, the day hasn’t been a waste.
“You know, come to think of it, I’ve never seen a sparky down Sydney Tools or Total Tools or even Bunnings. They just go to their wholesalers and yeah, the Tool Shed in whatever bourgeois shithole I’m working in this month. Surry Hills. You couldn’t pay me to live around here. Stacked on top of each other like a game of Twister. Not for me.”
More to come.
