Siloti is a charming man.

He has a big moon face and a mouth full of metal fillings. His beard and hair are white and immaculately groomed. On his head is a hat with a yellow and tangerine piping, matching the yellow and tangerine feather that was stuck into the top of the hat at a jaunty angle.

He is beaming.

He is beamin so much I was briefly concerned that his head might fall off.

Sitoli likes to be called uncle. He insists in fact, and shakes hands at every opportunity, almost like a punctuation mark, whenever he makes a point or finishes a sentence he grabs your hands and shakes them somewhere between vigorously and gently. Being somewhat garrulous, this means at least two or three times a minute!

And Sitoli is in love with Shirley Bassey.

The yellow and tangerine piping is apparently the colour of his clan, for Sitoli is an aboriginal elder, though I quite managed to find out which nation he was part of.

On the floor besides him is a new looking guitar case, an acoustic by the size of it, but certainly not a large one.

'Don't tell anyone I'm here! he whispers conspiratorially as he pumped my hand again.

'Your secret's safe with me' I smile

Uncle Sitoli grins and winks at me.

'By the way, what is it?' I inquire.

'What's what?' he smiles, Sitolis eyes never stop smiling.

'The Secret.'

'Oh that!' he shakes my hand again, 'I'm sixty four years old you know, and I play then guitar!' he pointed down at the case on the bar floor.

'So I see.'

'I've just come from Egypt.' he confides with another wink.

'Really? I visited Egypt quite a few years ago,' I tried to join the conversation.

Sitoli leans forward suddenly,

'I'm here in Sydney,' he leans forward even more as though to draw me into this grand conspiracy. Whatever it is.

'Shirley Bassey has asked me to play Goldfinger!' he declares proudly.

'Shirley Bassey? You know Uncle Sitoli, I'm from Cardiff, in Wales, Shirley Bassey is Welsh, was born in Tiger Bay in Cardiff, but I had no idea she was still singing.'

I think that was the longest sentence that I managed to achieve with Sitoli. He didn't seem to like other people intruding on his conversation.

'I've just come from New York!'

'Er, really? I was in New York...'

'I play the guitar you know.' he grins again and shakes my hand. I begin to understand the game a little, not the rules of course, but certainly there was a game of sorts going on here.

Sitoli is so proud that Shirley BAssey has asked him to play Goldfinger for her when she is due arrives in Sydney in three weeks time. AS he shakes my hand again I can feel the callouses on his hand; Sitoli is a guitar player for sure, and the sleek but suspiciously pristine black case gives credence to at least his claim of being able to play the guitar.

'I've just flown in form London' he winks again, 'I'm an elder. COme for the funeral of Slim Dusty. Very sad' he shakes his head and het his eyes are still on fire with unconcealed mirth and merriment.

'I'm going to play Goldfinger for Shirley Bassey'

There's an odd rhythm to the lop sided conversation, the facts seem to be fluid but there seems to be a tune nonetheless and with little to do until the train departed I was quite happy to listen to Uncle Sitoli.

'I'm sixty five you know,' he continues, 'Been playing the guitar for fifty years!'

'But you were sixty four years old just a minute or two ago,' I chipped in, unable to resist, 'That's a very quick year.'

Sitoli shrugged,

'You're a good fella, want a beer? Have a beer!'

'No, but thankyou.'

I couldn't accept, simply because my glass was full and I onl;y had ten minutes before boarding the twice weekly Indian Pacific

'Where you heading?'

'Towards Broken Hill.'

'Ah!' he says shaking his head sadly.

'Fellas there like their grog too much.' he downed his beer and gave a small, picollo burp

On my right my be-beer gutted friend goes through another silent ritual of ordering a VB schooner and scurrying like a crab back to his water hole.

'You give me a call when you get to broken hill, I'll show you around.' Uncle Sitoliu shakes my hand. He orders me to write down his name and number. At first he is unconviced that he's got the number he's given me is correct, he takes the piece of paper, changes several numbers thoughtfully and then, beaming, he finally hands it back to me. He assure me that this is now correct. He shakes my hand again.

'Listen, I have to go...'

'Have a beer!' he gestures dismissively as though waiting another four days for thte next train west was of but a minor inconsequence comapred to his grand theatre.

'It was good to meet you, 'I smile, standing swinging my rucksack over my shoulder.'

'Iechy da!' I cheered as we clashed glasses on final time.

'Iechy da' Uncle Sitoli returned perfectly in reply. He winked at my suprise. And then he shook my hands once again. I smiled and made my way to the Indian Pacific.

Later on, I doscovered that Sitoli meant pop-singer. Uncle had claimed to have played with Eric Clapton and Marie Presley, and of course the legendary Shirley Bassey. Who knows?

Uncle Sitoi variously claimed to have worked the railways for thirty years, mined in Broken hill for forty years and been a professional boxer for fifty years, rubbing his rubbery nose as proof. Oh and he was sixty six years old. I think that Uncle Sitoli was telling the truth, well mostly, and the fact that his stories were quite contradictary didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. .

Nor did it bother me.

Now for the Indian-Pacific.