By Garry Howe
AN ERA will end in Pakenham on Sunday when Bryan and Antoinette Cunningham call last drinks at the Pakenham Hotel.
The iconic watering hole, better known as Purvies, has been in Antoinette’s family for the past 80 years and they both concede it will be a bit emotional when they lock up for the last time.
“It will be a wrench, that’s for sure,” Antoinette said. “This place has been such a big part of our lives. I’ve been around here since I was four and can remember sliding down the banister as a child.”
The Cunninghams say they have mixed feelings about leaving but wish new owners Brendan Theobald and John O’Halloran well.
They say they will mostly miss the relationship built up over the years with their loyal staff and “great regular clientele”.
Bryan, his son Anthony and barman of 27 years Stan Young cut some of the most familiar figures in Pakenham as they work behind the bar.
“It’s like that TV show Cheers,” Antoinette said. “It’s the place you come where everybody knows your name.”
Antoinette can remember back to the days of the famous “six o’clock swill” and the letters of protest that flooded in when opening hours were finally extended to 10pm.
Anthony described the pub as a meeting place. He said many an outing has begun with the phrase: “I’ll meet you at Purvies”.
“I don’t know whether it’s because we’re close to the station or that we’ve been around so long, but so many people tend to meet up here.”
Purvies has meant so many things to so many people over the years.
Back in the early days it provided accommodation and three square meals for the relieving teachers and bank managers in town.
In more recent times it has been home to three permanent residents, who had to move out a few weeks ago to make way for refurbishment upstairs.
Barman Stan didn’t want them left without lodgings, so he and a friend bought a flat around the corner in King Street to make sure they still had a roof over their heads.
Antoinette said she will miss the Christmas morning tradition of fathers coming down for a drink with their sons while dinner is being cooked… and the inevitable phone calls asking when they are going to return.
“I see the grandsons of people my dad used to drink with coming into the bar,” she said.
The hotel was established before the turn of the last century by early settler Daniel Bourke and was known as the Gembrook Hotel.
In 1918 it was bought by Antoinette’s grandparents Joe and Esther Shankley, who settled in town with their daughters Maude Purves, Nell McKenzie, Belle Lia.
Maude lost her husband William in World War I and her son Dave, Antoinette’s father, was born soon after his death. The mother and son team took over running the hotel after Joe Shankley’s death in 1946.
Dave and his wife Mary continued the family business until Dave retired in 1980. Their eldest daughter Margaret and her husband Frank Batey worked with them. In 1980 the hotel was leased to Margaret and Ron Spinks, who ran it for 15 years before management returned to the family.
