James, or "Tup" as everyone called him, was an idler.
And like all idlers, Tup had his favourite spot to sit while he watched the world go by.
His was on the front steps of Austral House, since renovated as Georgina’s Restaurant, in Bridge St.
Coo-ee: Great war fantasies
No-one could enter Austral House without discussing weather and local news with Tup, its guardian idler.
Tup and food were inseparable friends. He was a trencherman.
Tup had a brother who ate like him, but he dug ditches and trenches for sewerage extensions.
Pone Callow, Tup’s brother, was a large man who consisted of slabs of muscle. Tup was just a large fat man.
Coo-ee: White collar crime
When Harry John’s Boxing and Wrestling Troupe came to Benalla Show on its regular circuit for tent boxing and wrestling, Harry Johns refused to let Pone wrestle his showmen.
He had learnt the hard way. A couple of times in the 1920s Pone easily outwrestled Harry’s men using his strength.
Harry lost $10 on every bout when his wrestlers were pinned to the canvas.
As time went by, Tup grew larger. When Tup died in May 1956 at 61, a fire engine was used as his hearse.
Coo-ee: Benalla before the railway came through
The unkind said a fire engine was the only vehicle in town capable of carrying his body.
Perhaps. However, Tup had acted as a volunteer trainer and masseur for the fire brigade for 25 years.
He had also volunteered as a trainer at various Benalla football clubs for 30 years.
In 1938, Tup was Toota Eddy’s partner in the Dance of the Fairies performed to the laughter of a packed Town Hall.
Coo-ee: Cashel the doomed
Both were dressed as female fairies bestowing their magic on the audience. In 1946, they performed as flower girls in a cross-dressing ball for charity.
In earlier days, odd challenges were often issued in country towns.
This usually involved a local man advertising that he would take on all comers over his chosen distance, the loser to pay the winner a sum of money.
There would be frantic betting on the race.
Coo-ee: A parachute jump
In 1952, Tup arranged a different challenge to be issued by Toota against all comers.
Toota was prepared to push the town’s heaviest inhabitant, being Tup, in a wheelbarrow around Benalla football oval inside 12 minutes.
The wheelbarrow would be supplied and was iron wheeled.
The challenger had to weigh no more than 70 km; no straps were to be used and any challenger was to take just two breaks of no more than 30 seconds each in completing the task.
Coo-ee: The circle of love
The event was to be held on May 24 just before the Benalla v Wangaratta football match.
The prize was $10.
If a challenger lost, collapsed and failed to complete the task, he would donate $10 to the Ambulance Fund.
Despite Tup’s best efforts in promoting the challenge, no challenger ever emerged to risk a heart attack by carting Tup 450 metres.
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