Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 31 October 1962, page 19


ON THE TURPS

ROSS CAMPBELL

"ON your holidays are you?

I suppose you're getting some painting done," said Mr. Simpson at the corner shop.

It was true — I was on holidays and I was getting some painting

done. Yet his remark irritated me a little.

People today take it for granted

that man should spend his holidays painting. If he doesn't, they think

him lazy and lacking in character.

Bernie Doolittle, of our district, went on a fishing holiday, although the paint is peeling off his house. Now the neighbors hardly speak to him; neither does Mrs. Doolittle.

There are different ways of go-ing at holiday painting. Some men adopt the steady method used on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The painters on the bridge just keep at it, and by the time they have done the last bit the first bit needs doing

again.

Cec Tomkins is going over his house like that. But he has been

13 years on the first time around.

Two years ago they stopped mak- ing Capri Dawn, the color Cec was

using, and he has had to do the verandah in a shade called Sleepy Lagoon. It doesn't quite match.

I don't go in for this methodical painting, but simply slap paint on

where it is needed.

On my recent holidays I didn't

start painting at once. Instead, my wife and I sneaked away for a few days at motels. It was an irrespon-sible thing to do, but it made me feel fitter for the hard painting

ahead.

My first step was to lay in a big stock of turpentine. As a rule, the less skilled the painter the more need for turpentine. I like having

plenty of it to clean the paint off my shoes, trousers, hands, face, and

hair.

I need a lot of tins, too. My wife was very good in supplying these. She would open tins of soup and spaghetti and take the contents out. The only disadvantage was we had to eat an unusual amount of

soup and spaghetti.

My two-year-old daughter, Pip,

was not so helpful. After I had put

a coat of Amazon Green on the terrace, and gone inside for another plate of spaghetti, a panicky scream was heard: "I stuck! I stuck!" And indeed Pip was stuck by her

sandals.

Now the job is done, I have a good deal of paint left over. There is a quart of Amazon Green and more than a pint of Blushing Rose. It is very hard to judge how much you need. My wife is thinking of things that could be painted with the left-over paint.

As I did a fair bit of painting, it

was a successful holiday.

I wonder if painters paint their houses in their holidays. That would

really make your face turn Post

Office Red.