Still a good-looking woman, it didn’t take Val Callahan long to find a man. Thomas McIntyre was a publican with whom she lived and to whom she stayed faithful for a full five years. She worked hard, managing the bar, employing staff, keeping the books, and, with a sharp eye for business, was quick to learn the pub trade. But she made the mistake of letting her lover know she had money of her own, and within those five years McIntyre, another hopeless gambler, had spent every penny of it. Furthermore, once she’d served her purpose, not content with robbing her, he threw her out into the street. But Val still had her looks, and she still had her van. ‘Caravan Callahan’ was back in business.

Val had become attached to her caravan. She regarded it as the only real home she’d ever been able to call her own. And I’m bloody right, aren’t I, she’d told herself any number of times – the only other homes I’ve had belonged to a couple of useless, bastard gamblers. God I can pick ’em!

She’d set out for far-off places in the remote north of Queensland, places where men needed the pleasures women could supply. And not just the sex. The role of a prostitute was not as simple as people supposed, in Val’s well-informed opinion. Many of her clients were lonely men who craved not only a woman’s body, but a woman’s company. She could be a mother, a lover and a wife all in one; Val was very good at her job.

‘Caravanning’ from town to town, she’d made a bigger fortune than ever before, ending up in Mount Isa with three working girls she’d picked up on her travels. She even bought a second-hand car and another caravan for her team. She was a true businesswoman now.

In 1934 at the age of forty-five, Val decided to quit the game altogether. She handed over the business to her longest-serving girl and took off for Townsville, a place she’d visited and loved, and which, most conveniently, had a pub for sale. Now with money to burn, Val had determined to set her sights on the pub trade. And this time it would be without a man. She didn’t need or want a husband, lover or partner. Val Callahan was more than capable of making it on her own.

And she had. She’d bought the pub on the corner of Stokes and Sturt streets, refurbished the main bar, introduced the snake pen and called it ‘The Brown’s Bar’, and after that there was no looking back.