Mid March 1985

Ernie Singleton stood near the kerb in front of the Glen Hartwell City Library, on the corner of Dirk Hartog Place and Boothy Street, watching the cavalcade driving slowly along.   It seemed as though the entire populations of the Glen, Merridale, Daley, LePage, and the other surrounding towns had turned out to witness the return of the prodigal son.   Leonard J. Moffett was a tall, distinguished looking man in his late fifties.   He had left the Glen forty years earlier as a teenager and was now returning, hailed as the saviour of the farming man.   Newly elected as leader of the Victorian branch of the National Country Party, with a state election due in less than a month’s time the press were unanimous in declaring that Moffett would sweep to power to become Victoria’s first Country Party Premier since December 1952, deposing Australian Labor Party Premier John Cain, elected in March 1982.

Ernie looked away from the cavalcade for a moment to inspect the crowd.   He could see his mother Vikkie, standing by the corner of Howard Street, along with Gloria and Holly Ulverstone, and Samantha and Rowena Frankland.   As their eyes met, Ernie could see the hurt look on Rowena’s face and felt a pang of guilt at the way that he had treated her over the last few months.   Their on-again-off-again romance had been very much off-again since late the previous year, although Ernie could tell from the sorrow in Rowena’s eyes that she still loved him and could not understand the reason for his recent coldness toward her.

Forcing himself to look away from her, Ernie scanned the crowd on both sides of the street, looking for Tony Frankland, surprised that he wasn’t with Samantha and Rowena.   ‘Surely he isn’t the only Glen Hartwellean who couldn’t be bothered welcoming the prodigal son home?’ wondered Ernie, spotting Sam and Georgina Hart, and Des and Elizabeth Hutchinson standing together on the opposite side of the street.

Returning his gaze to the slow-moving cavalcade, which inched its way along Boothy Street, Ernie saw his best friend, Sergeant Danny “Bear” Ross of the Glen Hartwell Police Force.   Bear (so nicknamed because of his great height and muscular build) was trying without success not to look put-out by the great influx of big city cops who had swooped down from Melbourne like seagulls swooping on a crust of bread, to protect the Country Party Leader while he was pressing the flesh.   Although the Glen’s two-man police force of Bear and his constable, Terry Blewett, could never have provided adequate protection for the politician without help, Ernie knew that Bear took it as a personal affront that he was only third-in-charge of the police operation.