The Grandad of Budgy Smuggler 

A story from Chief Smuggler, Linny.

With Father’s Day approaching, I wanted to give a shout to a man who is no longer with us, but whose spirit is very much infused at Budgy Smuggler: The Don. He has all five grandkids involved with Budgy today.

In the early days, the Don was a true believer in Smuggling and our original email confirmation for Budgy Smuggler was a picture of the Don with a comment like: "Thank you for purchasing with Budgy Smuggler, every time we get an order our 81 year old grandfather The Don drinks a beer".

The Don came from a time where Australia was a pretty isolated place, when the seasons were fire, flood & drought (this hasn’t really changed). This bred a pretty resilient kind of character.

This was a generation of great storytellers & the Don was somewhat of a combination of Paul Hogan & Bob Hawke. As a kid, I loved listening to a yarn from the Don. He could keep a whole room on the edge of their seats before dropping the punch line to a room of belly laughs, even if we’d already heard the same story before. 

One such story was when he went for a job interview for a big American firm called NCR. This was an achievement in itself as he’d left school at the age of 12 to help his old man at his tap foundry business.   The interviewer asked grandad if he had much going on in life at the moment. “I’m getting married” said the Don. “Ah fantastic, when’s that?” “Ah mate, in about 45 minutes, so I'd better get going” - he promptly drove to his own wedding and sealed the deal on both the wedding & employment where he rose to be the head of the business in Australia.   Not bad for a bloke who’d barely completed primary school.

As kids, my siblings & parents lived with my grandparents in the outer suburbs of Sydney & there was a pool that was the focal point of the house. The Don would be there cleaning it in smugglers & the place would be filled with friends and family sinking plenty of piss across the weekends.

The older generation were in their 60’s here but still always up for a laugh.   At Christmas, they’d invite every family who didn’t have a family and some years it reached towards 100 people with a mix of accents and nationalities.   I think there’s something in our DNA at Budgy where we’re trying to re-create this mix of people coming together.

There was always singing. A lot of singing and in his 70’s the Don learned to play the ukelele. With a group of mates called The BUG’s, they’d tour around Sydney, playing in nursing homes & RSL’s. They’d take donations which they'd use to buy ukuleles for kids at a local primary school and then teach the kids to play.   Again, I loved how he created fun and community out of the most simple of ideas. This is something we are trying to emulate in our own way at Budgy Smuggler.

In the end, lung cancer would be the cause of his end after 83 years of an otherwise fit & healthy life.   “I can’t remember you smoking grandad?” I enquired. “I didn’t mate… well only if you count the time from the age of about 9 to to 55 ” -  although the doctor reckoned quitting smoking when he did probably gave him an extra 5-10 years. He took the positives out of otherwise terrible news.

I know Father’s Day, can be a tough time for many, especially as we reflect on the father’s and grandfather’s no longer with us.   A shout to anyone missing their old man or family today. We do our best not to be sad that they are gone, but smile because they were here.   I really miss the Don but we’ll make sure you live on in Budgy.   With Love, Linny