From depictions of everyday life to accounts of major events, Brian Menzies’ chronicle of colonial Brisbane educates and entertains. His ancestor, John Menzies was a successful publican and boarding house proprietor. He extended hospitality to a wide assortment of customers, including entrepreneurs, petty thieves, a future premier, brawlers and drunkards, armed service volunteers, proud expatriates, and some who met untimely fates.

John Menzies also served as an alderman and became embroiled in the local issues of the day. There were contentious arguments about whether street lighting was even necessary, controversial proposals for night soil disposal, accusations of scandal and corruption, budget overruns and mismanagement of construction projects. There were discussions about problems with feral goats, and arrangements for a young Prince Alfred’s  highly anticipated visit that did not always proceed as planned.

Brian’s well-researched book has ‘something for everyone’. There are descriptions of lavish suppers and balls, concerts and carousing, horse races, parades and street demonstrations. Family matters are revealed. John Menzies was concerned with the price of beer, wine and spirits; his youngest daughter joined the burgeoning temperance movement. Another daughter journeyed more than eighteen hundred miles to find herself a husband. His son was a keen footballer, and played during the pivotal seasons in which two codes vied for dominance in Brisbane. The family also bore its share of misfortune, illness and death.

In sub-tropical Brisbane the everyday colonists strove to retain and impose their traditions and lifestyles – onto the landscape and its indigenous inhabitants, and in the face of storms and floods, disease and fires. Pawky John : The Life and Times of a Colonial Publican presents the events that touched John Menzies’ life and the people he knew, compiled from public and personal records of the times.