You don’t have to talk to Sybil Motum for very long to realise there’s still a lot of ‘the wag’ left in the bright-eyed 80-year-old retired businesswoman and mother of two.
“I was born in Inverell in 1931, went to school here, left school when I was about 16-years-old,” Sybil recalled.
“My first job was in a baker’s shop selling bread, pies and cakes and everything, for about four or five years. I worked there and loved it…That must have been about 1948 –1950, those times we had those high-top loaves of bread wrapped in paper, everything was wrapped up in paper.
“And I used to eat the pies like mad, God they were lovely when they just came out of the oven; beautiful. I used to have one just about every day but I never got fat though!” Sybil said with a laugh.
But a whole new world opened up for her when she changed employers.
“I went and worked at Fuller and Gunston, which is now the Premier Store, and I worked there until I was married in 1956,” Sybil said.
“Fuller and Gunston was opposite the (Imperial) hotel and Frank Motum just got his eye on me and said ‘you’re mine’ and it just sort of went like that. I married Frank, he owned the Imperial, he was a divorced man and he was older than me but we just clicked,” she said.
During the 1950’s hotels ceased trading at 6pm.
“I loved the hotel work, it was full on because every day was a different day and different travellers came and until late closing came in it was all right,” Sybil said.
“Everything was nice while six o’clock closing was on.
“But when 10 o’clock closing was on, then there were different travellers in the bar each night and they’d expect you to stay back and play up with them and everything, which we did, just to create a bit of clientele; we had a bigger opposition then,” Sybil said.
In those days it was not entirely about the beer.
“We had accommodation for about 60, we had 44 bedrooms and I had about 16 on the staff who used to work upstairs. There were four bars and there had to be staff on all the bars, about seven all told in different shifts,” Sybil said. “Sometimes we used to have two sittings for dinner…there was seating for about 50 to 60 in the dining room,” she said.
As Sybil recalled fondly, it was not only the customers who were sometimes difficult to move.
“We had the same male cook for about 25 years, he used to leave it until about 10 past six to make the entrée for the night,” Sybil said.
“He’d just poke out of the bar (he’d go in and have a couple of schooners before he went) then he’d just go out into the kitchen and dish up something.
“He had the soup cooked before he left the bar and the main course and the sweets, but half the time he wouldn’t have the entrée made!
He was unreal. He’d just hold everybody up, anyone who was having an entrée just had to wait! But I liked Tom, he was very good,” Sybil said
Of course the best entertainment came from the main bar but it was a place that would possibly be unrecognisable by today’s standards.
“We had about four beers on tap…Tooths and Tooheys… Resches and we had Grafton beer on tap.” Sybil said.
“Those days the place was full of cigarette smoke, there was no air conditioning there was just a few ceiling fans and a few outdoor fans going out onto the street and that was all we had on, and we had a full pub every night, it was unreal.
“Women weren’t allowed in the main bar and the young ones weren’t allowed in the pub at all. Everyone got half sloshed and drove home,” she said.
There was a mixture of male and female staff but the male staff handled the security.
“If anyone needed to be thrown out the barman did it, absolutely…and that was Jimmy O’Neil, he was there for quite a number of years,” said Sybil.
“There were a few fights and that…and I’d say to them ‘get out the back!’ and they’d go out the back and fight.
“I’d go out and there’d be blood flying everywhere and I’d just ring the ambulance to come and get them,” Sybil said.
If the occasional altercation provided fleeting entertainment the regulars supplied longer lasting memories.
“I’ll never forget one night there were about four firemen sitting in the bar having a drink when they were all called in to go around to the station,” Sybil said.
“So up they got from the bar and went round to the station only to be told that the fire was at the Imperial! Someone across the road had seen flames coming out of the chimney and they thought the hotel was on fire.
“But Jimmy O’Neil had emptied all the raffle tickets into the fire and, ‘whoosh’, and away it went and caught the chimney on fire. So they all come back to the hotel in uniform, where they’d just been sitting here drinking, and yes they put it out…” Sybil laughed.
In those days things happened in the pubs that would be unheard of today.
“It’s probably not well known now, but back in the days when there was no Sunday trading ‘choir practice’ used to be held at the Imperial Hotel; I did a roaring trade out in the beer garden!” Sybil chuckled.
“And the Rugby Union boys used to drink at the Imperial years ago and they would stay to all hours, so if it got too late for Frank he would tell them to have their drinks, put their money in the til and see themselves out when they were finished. They always did.
“They would pour their own spirits and always left the money for their drinks in the til,” she said.
Though the introduction of the Breathalyser changed the pub culture of the day Sybil reckons it still created some memorable moments.
“It did make a lot of difference because a lot of people weren’t going out because they all had cars and they had to drive cars home. It did knock our trade about a bit.” Sybil said.
“There was one fellow there, he used to get terribly drunk, him and his wife, and he used to waddle into the bar and say ‘Frank, can you take me home because I’m too drunk?’ and Frank would say ‘yeah, and how am I going to get back?’ and he said ‘Aw, I’ll bring ya back! Yes, that was funny.
“For anyone who had about six schooners or something, it really knocked them around, because they could only have a couple and they had to get their wives to come and get them; and it was not always convenient for the wives to walk out of the kitchen and come and get them from the pub and she didn’t like it either,” Sybil said.
Not all the action went on during set trading hours either.
“Some nights after 10 o’clock there would be about 30 in the bar there, we’d be dancing and singing and up on the tables (it was real good fun), and even some of the other publicans were coming down to our pub,” Sybil recalled.
“Nearly always the fellows that were drinking at the Aussie used to come down to the Imperial after 10 o’clock, yeah, they’d come down and play up. There was (name withheld) and a couple of bank managers and whoever, and they’d play up.
“I’d see the police walk past the glass door and I say ‘put all the lights out! Here’s the cops’ and then, knock, knock, knock on the door, and they’d all get down on the floor or something, you know. Then the Police would come in and say, ‘have you got anyone in here?’ I’d say ‘well, yes I’ve got a few, Sergeant,’ and he’d say ‘well you’d better get them out!’. You know, he’d really go ahead with anything, he say ‘you’d better get ‘em out, it’s after 10 o’clock!’ so I’d say ‘that’s it, finished, out you go’,” she chuckled.
Sybil remembers her time at the Imperial hotel fondly even though it included the passing of her husband.
Frank died in 1972.
“I ran the hotel for six and a half years on my own. I left the pub in the Christmas of 1979,” she said.
“When it got to the end of my time there the hotel needed some renovations and things and I couldn’t see my way clear to do it,”
“I’ve lived a pretty interesting life and I have loved it. I’ve got no regrets, and with everything I have done since I left the hotel… I’ve done it all and I’m just so happy that I have,” Sybil said.
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