Where’s Pomona you may ask.
It is a small country town about 30 minutes into the Noosa hinterland under the shadow of an ancient volcanic plug called Mt. Cooroora.
We moved there from Melbourne in 1982.
The boys, who were about 8 and 10 at the time, took advantage of the large verandas to run around with the corgi in tow. As a result of the noise, a next door window popped open and a bald head poked out to ascertain the cause of the kids excitement and seeing he had new neighbours and no cause for alarm, withdrew.
Next morning, the bald head, attached to a short rotund torso, and legs like he had ridden a horse all his life, wandered over from his veggie patch – situated in the front garden – and introduced himself as Roy.
“ Do you’se like strawberries”? he asked with a punnett in his hand.
“Is the pope a catholic” I replied in an attempt at humour.
He looked at me for a second or two and with a deadpan face drawled “My wifes’ a catholic”
Roy had a brother who was his twin and his wife also had a twin sister. This was Queensland after all.
I discovered this when he said, “ I f you see me down the street and I don’t talk to you that’s because I’m me twin brother”. They were like peas in a pod.
There were no fences so property boundaries were indeterminate and our backyard had a very large mango tree in which Roy grew his orchids. He’d been doing it for years and we saw no reason to discourage him. He would wander over now and again to tend them. He would also bring over some lettuce leaves from his garden to drop into the guinea pig cage on our back lawn, then stand back and enjoy watching them tear into them. Roy and his wife were two of the best neighbours we ever had
We had bought the house from a local identity and rugby player Stan Bisset who ran the local newsagency. In the ten years or so we lived there the locals always referred to it as the Bisset house.
Probably still do.