By Janine Hill

YOU would expect someone who has worked in pubs for 47 years to have some tales to tell. Jenny Gibbs has, and has put some of them in a book.

The Nambour 76-year-old recently become a published author with the release of Pubs, People and Pussies, a collection of stories gathered over a working life spent quenching thirsts from one side of Australia to the other.

Jenny’s pub career began in 1964 when her father bought the Nebo Hotel, west of Mackay, and she also helped her parents during a couple of stints at the St Lawrence Hotel in north Queensland.

She went on to work at the Whim Creek Hotel, south of Port Hedland, and the Waverley Hotel in Perth, the Emerald Hotel in central Queensland, and the Prince of Wales in Proserpine, before taking on the challenge of the rundown Beach House Motel in Townsville and finishing up at the Sleepy Lagoon in Tin Can Bay.

Jenny said the average pub worker lasted about five years in the industry but she had loved it too much to leave.

“I’ve got amber fluid in my veins. It’s a passion. I just love doing it. I was brought up with it.”

She mixed with people from all walks of life in pubs and said customers generally wanted a chat, as much as, if not more than, a drink.

“Most of the blokes who come in for a drink come in for a talk. They’re often lonely. They’d tell me things that they wouldn’t tell their best friend.”

She said that a good bar tender listened without lingering too long.

“You’ve got to stay on the move. I was brought up to have no empty glasses on the bar. People get cranky if they can’t get a drink.”

Jenny has been asked numerous times to write a book. She got 75 pages down 15 years ago but put it all away in a drawer. 

She resumed after a resident of the retirement village where she lives suggested she try using a dictaphone to record her stories. 

Jenny has been delighted by the response to the book. One man bought 12. 

“He said he usually bought all his mates a carton for Christmas but this year, he was going to buy them a book,” she said. 

“I was writing them out to Richard, Bill, Bob … I wrote out 12 books and he said, ‘That’s my Christmas shopping done’. I couldn’t stop laughing.”

To buy a copy, phone 0419 659 522.