When the fat lady laughs

Here’s another tale from my book Spirits of Tasmania, which is well on the way to completion ready for a Halloween launch. It’s the story of Minnie, a jovial fat lady.

Opposite Narryna in Battery Point, Hobart, is the old Queen Alexandra Hospital, birthplace of Hollywood film star Errol Flynn on June 20, 1909. My spirit Errol, who has a lot in common with his famous namesake, offered to check out the old hospital before the existing apartments were built. Especially memorable is the image of Minnie stuck in the doorway.

The first story concerns a young lady who was rushed here on a dark wintry night back in the 1930s. The child she produced was a boy but unfortunately he died not long after birth and the young mother died shortly after.

Her name was Anna and she frequents these hallowed halls in search of her dead child. She wanders about sobbing, enough to send a chill down even my spine.

After she wanders about a bit, a guide will come and gently remove her and take her away. They say she does this to herself as a form of self punishment because, rumour has it, she was an unmarried mother and suffered the shame she brought upon herself and family.

This was all very heart-wrenching, so I looked for a happier story and found a rotund cheerful soul called Minnie. She was assistant cook and a funnier soul I have yet to find.

Minnie unfortunately sampled too much of her cooking and grew rather large. Not my type. I like a lady with a bit of meat on her bones but I draw the line at ten tons of blubber!

Now Minnie was a great cook and was always cheerful and when she laughed it was like the rumbling of Mount Vesuvius and each chin would wobble and shake like a plate of jelly.

Minnie was a treasured cook and all who tasted her cooking and saw her ready smile loved her, but some years later she had to be put off the job. Why, I hear you say, if she did such a great job?

Well, as the years went by, she grew larger and larger and was discovered one morning framed in the scullery doorway. She had been on her way out with a tray of dishes and there she stayed stuck in between the doorframe, dishes all over the floor, crying her eyes out.

Her hips had caught fast and workmen had to be called in and the frame and door locks were prised off in order to free the poor lady.

Minnie herself agreed she should leave the job rather than risk getting caught in doorways again. Minnie returns and wanders about and often she bursts out laughing thinking of the sight she was on that hapless day.

—Errol