Val circled the bar, dumping the empty glasses for the girls to wash. ‘G’day, fellas,’ she called to a group of four black GIs who’d just arrived; young privates, in their very early twenties. She recognised one of them, a big handsome bloke; Ben was his name. Ben had visited the bar several times and on each occasion with a new set of mates.

‘Hi there, Val,’ Ben called back.

While one of his buddies headed for the bar to buy the beers and lay the bet, Ben led the others directly to the snake pen, just as Val had expected he would. Ben had been unable to win the bet himself, but was obviously determined to witness one of his buddies who could.

The snake pen was how the pub had gained its reputation, and even its very name, which had stuck as a personal and fond title for the pub itself. Newcomers constantly asked, and had for years, ‘Who are the Browns?’, ignoring the apostrophe in the title and presuming the Browns must be the owners of the pub. But they were quickly set straight. ‘The browns aren’t a who,’ they were told, ‘the brown is a what. This is the brown’s bar.’

The brown, as it turned out, was a snake – an eastern brown snake to be precise, highly venomous and extremely aggressive. In reality, the snake pen was a large glass enclosure that sat upon a two-foot-high granite plinth in the very centre of The Brown’s Bar. It might have appeared nothing more than a decorative addition, rather like a fish tank, and certainly seemed so to the locals, who paid little attention to the reddish-brown reptile inside, which was either dozing or contentedly slithering about. The snake pen, however, served a purpose far greater than decoration. If any bold newcomer wanted to test himself, a house bet could be laid at the bar as to whether he could keep his hand resting on the glass while the snake struck. Val was happy to agree to whatever sum was offered, paying three to one in the punter’s favour. With the bets coming in at around five bob a time, or at the most a quid, the enterprise wasn’t a big money earner for her, but it wasn’t intended to be – the snake pen provided excellent entertainment for the drinkers, and attracted people to the bar.