Peter Underwood

Those of you  who know me know I’m not particularly polite or deferential. Yes, I can do a good nod, an appropriate smile, the right handshake, but I keep my feelings pretty much to myself.

Yes god knows how I got the job looking after Charles and Di back in 1983. Another story. 

Back even further, as a teenager (and therefore always looking for a bit of pocket money) I got a gig mowing the lawns of a lawyer called Peter Underwood. He was distantly related at the time, and so that’s how the job came about.

The job was a Saturday, over at his place in Bellerive. After the usual…. Here's the mower, the fuel, the scope of the job… he pointed at the kitchen sink and told me there was a bottle of Cascade cordial there, and to help myself.

He and family took off for wherever.

Come one-ish, I went to the kitchen, poured myself a generous slug of what I’m pretty sure was labelled lime cordial into a large mug, added an iceblock and water and put it into the freezer for extra chill. It was a hot day and thirsty work.

Twenty minutes later, I swigged it down. 

Ohhh, baby! 

You guessed it. It was less lime cordial than dishwashing liquid in a Cascade bottle. Yeah, how we did things back then.

When Mr Underwood and clan returned some time later, I pointed out that I had ingested a significant quantity of dishwashing liquid masquerading as Cascade’s finest. 

He asked how I felt. “Any burps, anything uncomfortable now?” 

I was honest.  I hadn’t thrown up or felt any serious after effects. I’d finished the job, and done it well. It was well…. the surprise of realizing what I’d poured down my throat. The shock, really. 

But no, I was feeling okay.

“Probably gave you a good old clean-out,” said the future Governor of Tasmania. And with that, amused expression on his face, off he went. 

Underwood compensated me in a roundabout way 45 years or so later. 

I’d written a piece about steam trains, how their deep connection to human beings continues to live on in multiple forms. It was published by Forty South magazine.

It was a good piece, underwritten by quotes from train drivers and engineers. Clearly, it had a reader in the 50-room sandstone mansion that is the vice-regal home and became the basis of a speech given at a steam train event at Sheffield in northern Tasmania in March 2014. 

I’m quoted, and my name used multiple times in the Governor’s speech on that March day, and it felt good, validation of hard work and good research. 

After Underwood died post-surgery in July of the same year, I took the opportunity to tell the story, but not of his speech about trains. 

My venue was ABC radio, where there’d been an outpouring of sadness over his passing. 

My contribution to the conversation, which went on for a significant chunk of the afternoon, was as refreshing as… well, a glass of dishwashing liquid pretending to be cordial.

He was a good man, and I miss that smile and his piano playing.