Flowerdale is a tiny settlement in what used to be deep country in Victoria; now it's almost on the outskirts of Melbourne. It has gained some recognition as one of the worst-hit localities in the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009.

In the early part of the 20th century, my mother's family, the Collins, ran the local pub, which is still standing. Two of them were called Tom Collins and John Collins, but that's not where the name of the drinks came from.

My cousin Mark, who calls himself Louis Nowra, writes in The Twelfth of Never that our mothers' family lived in Flowerdale at the time, and describes how my aunt Norma was drowned in the well there at the tender age of 2 years, and just before my mother was born. This book, described as a “memoir”, doesn't seem to be overly accurate to me, but it states that the family then moved to Broadford, 30 km away.

It seems, though, that in the school holidays my mother often stayed in Flowerdale. She tells the story of when she was helping out in the pub one evening when she was about 16—that would have been about 1940. In those days, pubs in Victoria were open all day, but were required by law to close at 6 pm. In the country, things were different. Flowerdale was a couple of orders of magnitude too small to have its own police station, and the nearest police presence was miles away. So the pubs shut when people had quenched their often considerable thirst.

On one such evening, the pub was full to the gunwhales, when a knock came on the locked door. “Open up! Police”.

Everybody shot into action. Many people disappeared out the back. Nobody fell into the well, but some people hurt themselves in the dark, a few got wet in a pond or some such (I forget the details), and my mother was given the job of putting everybody's name into the guest register.

You see, there was one exception to the 6 pm closing rule: every pub in Australia at that time was required by law to have accommodation, and guests staying overnight were exempt from the 6 pm closing rule. So anybody in the register would not have a problem with the police.

She didn't get finished before Tom ran out of excuses not to unlock the door. He opened it and found a friend of his masquerading as the police. The whole thing had been a practical joke.

Things didn't always go that well. Each of the Collins lost his license after being caught 3 times open after closing time, and finally the Collins family had to sell the pub. It's still there, though. If you go there, think of poor Norma and my not-quite-so poor mother.