Merv & Bub...
First time I met Merv (1990...first trip to Windorah in my new M20j VH-JDU.....the Thompson River was about 30 miles wide in places) I conducted an eye clinic on the back verandah of the Western Star hotel.The sand flies were as big as scotch grey mossies and the mossies were as big as swallows!
And the characters were larger than life..."Wingie" the local "odd chap"and Merv and Bub!
Told Merv I thought he should give up alcohol due to his rampant diabetic retinopathy....he did after it was too late....
Service at the bowser always good and hospitality at the Western Star just as good....discovered early on that Bub could go beer for beer with any of the hard drinking locals....though sometimes she cheated with 7oz glasses!
She also startled the genteel ladies in my waiting room in Longreach with a loudly shrieked expletive after I "puffed" her in the eye with a non-contact tonometer for measuring eye pressure a few years later.....
Surely they will be sadly missed.The colourful people of the west are one of the main reasons I have been going west for 25 years...I guess my retirement is now coming sooner rather than later but I hope not too soon...just put a new IO360 in the current M20j.
Flopt