What I saw at Seymour

The people of Seymour are nothing if not honest. I absentmindedly left my wallet at the Terminus Hotel, a grand old building just over the road from the Seymour railway station, and was pleased to later find that it had been handed into bar staff. I suppose that if you have to lose your wallet, a small country town is probably the best place to do so if you ever want to see it again. Well, I was somewhat embarrassed to have to return and pick it up, but at least I got it back.

I don't really know why I went to Seymour, a town of about 6,000 people an hour and a half's drive north-east of Melbourne. I had no reason to go. Perhaps I went because I had never been to that part of the state. What I found was that state's north-east looks pretty much like it does everywhere else. This shouldn't have surprised me; when I've travelled by plane I've often looked down at the ground and wondered when this kind of landscape will come to an end and be replaced by something else. It usually takes a long, long time.


As the trip to Seymour is a long one, I managed to read Fitzgerald's first edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in its entirety. Had I wished to, I think I could have managed to read the fifth edition -- the other I own -- as well. As I passed through bushland and farmland I read such verses as:

'Tis all a chequerboard of nights and days
Where destiny for men with pieces plays

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the closet lays

 There was a door to which I found no key
There was a veil past which I could not see

Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee

There seemed – and then no talk of Thee and Me

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd

Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust

Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn

Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise

To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;

One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;

 The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

As I was half way through Omar's poem it began to rain. Usually this would not have been a problem but, as it so happened, this train leaked. Or rather, the window next to my seat leaked, and leaked quite a lot. This seemed like an inauspicious way to begin my journey. Still, when I arrived in Seymour I decided I would follow my usual ritual in such places, and head first for a cafe, then an art gallery and finally a pub. Unfortunately, I made some regrettable choices. Had I gone to the gallery first I would have caught it while it was open, but I spent some time in a strange little cafe and then walking all around the township. So I missed seeing the gallery, but I did spent quite a long time in the town itself. I can't say it was the most exciting place I've visited. Unlike the other country towns I've visited recently, Seymour has never been particularly wealthy. The goldfields are an hour's drive to the West. Mark Twain never visited Seymour.

The people of Seymour like to say 'fuck' a lot. They use the word in as many different ways as you can imagine. The old and young use it alike, as do the drunk and the sober. They say 'fuck' in pubs and on trains, and in cafes and on the phone. They say it all the time. In Seymour, at least, 'fuck' and its derivatives have overtaken 'bloody' as the adjective (and perhaps the noun and verb) of choice.

While I waited at Seymour station for my train home to arrive, I could see a large rat scurrying in the shadows beside the platform, dashing from bush to bush. That evening the air was cool and felt very clean. Had I stayed longer, and had the night been clear, I imagine I would have been able to see the milky way and all the stars.