Les will let you stay in his old-fashioned country pub for free. He just asks for one thing in return

At the top end of a quiet regional town, an accidental publican is reviving an age-old tradition of refuge and succour for starving artists. All he asks in return is that your gifts are shared with the town that's slowly reinventing its identity. 

Standing proud at the top of the tiny town of Terang is a rambling red-brick pub the locals call The Commercial. 

Its wallpaper is dated and faded, broken up with black and white photos of the town's glory years that hang along a dusty picture rail.

A slightly out-of-tune piano takes up residence in a corner near a small telephone room that emanates the nostalgic mustiness that comes with old pubs of a certain era.

The lodgers' quarters, denoted by gold script on a tired wooden door, are tucked away behind some stairs near the back door to the bar.

But all that nostalgia takes a back seat when the warmth of North Melbourne footballer turned maths teacher turned hotelier Les Cameron greets you at the front door.

Les saunters in with a welcoming smile and a firm handshake; a tall man with a shock of white hair and kind eyes.

"This is it," he says with a smile that more than hints at the pride he has in his historic abode.

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Situated around two-and-a-half hours' drive west of Melbourne, the tiny town of Terang — population 2,000 or so — is an old-school farming town, with a wide main street dotted with historic buildings.

The Commercial Hotel has sat at the top of town for around 180 years now.

Les bought the pub in 2018.

Its maze of rooms feel largely unchanged in the time since he took possession (and probably decades before that, too).

Admittedly, some small modifications have been made, all in service of his greater goal.

The kitchen, once bustling, no longer serves counter meals; the bar operates slightly haphazard hours for a small team of rusted-on regulars. 

It's all in service of Les's dream; that this old building becomes a quasi-artists retreat — a place where creativity reigns.

Inspired by the legendary Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Co, where literary giants like Hemingway, Joyce and Fitzgerald once found refuge, Les dreams of turning his humble establishment into a crucible of creation.

He offers free room and board to any creative pursuing an artistic goal.

Sometimes, that room comes with a generous stipend.

"My interest in providing things like artist residences comes from 30 or 40 years of seeing how badly treated artists were in terms of economics," Les says.

All he asks is that you help out a little around the hotel every now and then.

"I made a pledge to myself that we do the best we could to get a fair day's work for a fair day's pay at our hotel."

In the pub's once bustling dining room, playwright Terence O'Connell has found a temporary home.

His suitcase is tucked under the bed in the cramped lodger's quarters, moseying distance from the bar's back door.

Amid the quiet symphony of a tapping keyboard and scrawling pen-on-paper notes, Terence — the hotel's current artist in residence — is immersed in his craft.

Today it's typing up notes from rehearsals. Terence is putting on a show featuring the town's residents as part of his stay at the Commercial. 

But bubbling away in the background is his latest original work; a musical based on the beloved Australian novel I Can Jump Puddles. 

A wry smile plays at the corners of his eyes as he works. 

"It's going pretty well," he muses, a statement drenched in understatement.

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Terence's writing and directorial credits are so long, his CV splits them into decades across multiple pages.

The stages of London's West End, his familiar hunting ground, are admittedly a long way from Terang.

But his latest work has all the ambition of London's best. 

The playwright is determined to stage a full-scale production of Alana Valentine's court drama Letters to Lindy, a narrative woven from the 20,000 letters sent to Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton.

Terence's stage, appropriately enough, is Terang's old court house across the road, which Les bought as an art space not long after taking over the pub.

"It's very unusual, but it's great," Terence says of his residency.

"This is what normally happens with subsidised operations or grants, but what [Les] does is not [government] subsidised in any way; it's only because of him that it happens."

He stumbled upon Les's artistic empire by chance; a friend who knew of Terang had heard a whisper from someone or other about this "unique" approach in a country town. 

Terence's cast is a bunch of predominantly first-time actors — residents of the town and surrounds that he's currently whipping into shape.

It's something to breathe a bit of life into the town, the director said.

"There's no theatre here, no cinema or music venue, so all of those things happen, probably weekly, in the pub."

Rosie Knight, Les's "theatrical artistic director" and partner in both life and art, tackles the lead role of Lindy Chamberlain.

She laughs at the title Les has given her within his burgeoning artistic empire.

"He said that, did he?

"That's about right, very cheeky."

Rosie doesn't think of herself as an actor, so much as someone that's lived a life full of drama that's finally been let out on stage.

She's also a teacher by trade, having returned to town to look after her aging mother a few years earlier.

Before that her artistic side came out in spits and spurts — sometimes as a singing telegram at friends' birthday parties, others in her work running acting classes for people with disabilities.

But the role of Lindy Chamberlain requires a different tact.

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Sitting around an old kitchen table in a makeshift rehearsal room at the back of the pub, Rosie delivers a monologue while her cast members watch with unguarded awe.

For most of her fellow actors, it's the first time they've been in a play, let alone read a script out loud.

She's taken the lead in this production but would happily hand over the reins to the next generation.

"God, I'd love to see some more young people around here, seriously," she says with a laugh.

The median age of Terang residents is 49, a fair shot older than any of its surrounding towns.

But that's not something this cast is being defined by.

Rosie says witnessing the transformation in her fellow cast members has been almost as radical as the hotel's rebirth.

"There are some people in Terang who've never gone anywhere, they don't drive, their lives have been quite conservative and insular.

"We have one woman in the play and she's 84; she came and lived here about five years ago.

"She never thought she could do anything like this, but she walked in on us rehearsing one day and hasn't left since.

"She said to me recently, 'I met these people and they seem to be having so much fun. I've joined [their play], and they've now become my family'.

"That's why we do it. There's something really powerful about having someone believe in you."

That woman is Anne Corbin.

Anne, along with her theatrical partner-in-crime Rob Storr, sit like audience members, rather than actors, as they take in the rehearsal process.

Rob's got a reel of "bad dad jokes" he's obviously very proud of. It doesn't take much to cajole one out of him.

The chemistry and friendship between the pair is special.

"I love these people," Anne says in passing. "Even old Rob here."

In the middle of an old pub, performing an old play, in an old town, there's something refreshingly young about their teasing and taunting.

There's a vibrancy and life to it.

"When I was playing footy I was surrounded by young men, but I'm an old man now so I'm surrounded by old people," Les says with a smile.

"But I'm still doing the same thing now, trying to inspire people to be more than they think they are; it's still teaching.

Some of those old people remember Les's exploits with Koroit in the Hampden Football League. He led them to their maiden premiership in 1971.

Those days are behind him but the passion remains. 

"There are older people in this town, and particularly older women, who are inspired and inspiring. And they're doing things they never thought they'd ever get the chance to do.

"And it's just incredible. That feeling ... it's something else."

Back at the Commercial Hotel, the lights are dim behind the bar.

Publican Des Bouchier wipes down the serving area, joking he was sold to Les as part of a package deal when the pub changed hands.

They no longer run beer through the taps, there's not enough demand for it to be worth it, plus, as Des says, his patrons are happy to drink cans these days anyway.

What he does is more important than perhaps he even realises.

"He's what keeps the lights on in this place, really," Les says of his counterpart, prompting a wry chuckle from Des.

The fact is, without Des behind the bar, the trickle of finances through the pub could all but dry up.

But Des isn't one to seek the spotlight. 

"I dunno about all that," he says.

"We have a few movie nights here and that kind of thing, it's good. Good for the town too, I guess."

The bar opens a few nights a week.

Movie night on Tuesdays. Drinks sometimes on a weekend when live music is around.

But the kitchen's quiet now.

Instead of feeding his guests, Les sends his lodgers down the road to his "rival" pub, the Wheatsheaf.

The owner, Jill Cole, still isn't quite used to it.

"He very often will send people up here for meals," she says.

"It's unreal, not something that you do — or at least not something most people would do.

"A lot of the time when you have someone in opposition, you don't do that. He's just a very lovely guy."

Les is quick to point out he's not the only creative person in Terang.

He's just the guy who can afford to make it happen, albeit in a slightly unusual way.

A short walk down the town's main street is a 1920s art deco arcade with soaring ceilings and an old roughly painted piano chained to the wall.

At the end of the arcade is a large fabric banner emblazoned with the words "local art".

It's the passion project of Chelsea Pope, a fitter and turner who abandoned a well-paid job in the dairy industry to open a small gallery in her adopted hometown.

Chelsea moved to Terang with her then one-year-old son, buying a two-bedroom home for just $80,000 a few years earlier.

"As a single mum, that's perfect," she says.

But there's something about the community that's kept her here since.

And inspired her.

"The art movement's growing here," she says.

Chelsea's shop is one of the only in operation within the century-old arcade, which was built by a pioneering widow, Winifred Johnstone. 

Her initials sit above Chelsea's shop. A reminder of what can be achieved. 

"She was pretty cool; to think a single woman built such a magnificent thing," she says.

The State Electricity Commission's name is there too as one of the first tenants of the building.

But it is business on a much smaller scale that permeates today.

It's Johnstone's fighting spirit that Chelsea channels each morning.

"I'd love one day for Terang to be known for artists — for art to be to Terang what Timboon is for food," Chelsea says.

Inside Chelsea's gallery is a small, donated timber kitchen hutch.

She uses it as a gallery for other artists in town, a place for them to share and sell whatever they're working on creatively.

"I don't charge them or anything, it's just something for them to have."

Like all small country towns, Terang boasts a volunteer-run progress association.

In busier times, the association's president, farmer-turned-security guard Ken McSween, may have stood sentry outside Les's pub.

These days such measures aren't really necessary.

Ken doesn't frequent the Commercial for a beer. It's not really his scene.

"Yeah, It's a bit out there, isn't it?" he says of Les's vision.

Along with his canine companion, Willow, who dozes and cuts laps around his feet, Ken is on a mission to bring Terang to the masses.

If Les's artistic endeavours can make that possible, well, he's all for it.

"God's own country is what my mum used to call [Terang]," Ken says.

"If it's good for Terang and gets us out there, then I'm in."

Opening-night jitters run deep through Terence O'Connell's cast as they prepare to debut his latest theatrical adaptation.

The courthouse can only seat a dozen or so audience members.

The grand pulpit serves as part of the set, helping bring the trial aspect of the play to life.

"I was thinking there might still be a chance so I give the news as clearly and precisely as I can, 'A dingo's got my baby'," Rosie calls out as the play's protagonist.

Terence says he chose the play because it was something most people could relate to.

They knew the woman whose baby was stolen by a dingo. Everyone did.

The town's residents lived it: the media circus, the rumours, a nation's prejudices put on display for all to see.

During the show they sit in respectful silence.

They know the actors — everyone knows everyone in Terang, as Jill Cole put it.

But for a little over two hours in a tiny old courthouse, they suspend their disbelief.

There's no final curtain at the end of the show. The courthouse doesn't have one.

But the feeling from the audience is palpable; it's a mix of thanks, and pride.

The cast received a standing ovation on opening night, but Rosie missed it entirely.

"People stood up immediately, they bounced up off their seat — I didn't see it though, I just heard about it later," she says.

"We do our bows and then we walk out, we're very disciplined — we bow twice then we walk out.

"Maybe it was the adrenaline, I don't know. I just missed it."

Rosie says there's something special about watching how much her fellow cast members have grown under Terence's tutelage.

"The biggest thing for us, being amateurs, is the nerves — it's like anything, when you get to the end and achieve it, it's a really good feeling," she says.

"We've got all these people calling to buy tickets and there's just none left.

"Before that we'd go, 'Oh, they sold six tickets for Friday night', or, 'Wow, they sold 20 tickets on a Sunday — we might even have a full house if we're lucky'."

The company sold every seat for every performance held across its two-week run.

After the show's run, rooms are changed, clean sheets applied in Terence's lodger suite to be readied for the next guest.

Archibald Prize-winning painter Peter Wegner is one visitor who's booked a return visit. Writers and photographers are also clamouring to stay.

Rosie has cleared out the lights and set from the old courthouse, returning it to its original state as a B&B for rent.

Atop one of the bookshelves at Shakespeare and Co in Paris is a sign that reads:

"Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise."

It may have been Shakespeare that originally lifted that line from biblical scripture, but it could easily be attributed to Les Cameron.

There's something about the idea of Ernest Hemingway sleeping on the floor at that famous bookshop that makes Les chuckle.

"It was, effectively, a similar situation to what we're offering," he says.

"Fortunately, people don't have to sleep on the floor here, they didn't get a reasonable room and so on.

"But it's what artists have always probably needed, isn't it?"

That and maybe a bit of luck, which is certainly present in Les's case.

He never actually intended to run the pub, only wanting to open a little bookshop in the space next to the hotel, which now holds a gallery.

Les bought the Commercial Hotel for his daughter to run but then a pandemic struck and things changed.

Life changed for everyone, including Les.

His attention now turns to the next thing be it play, cinema, poetry or pottery.

He doesn't discriminate. He's sure Terang is ready for whatever is thrown at it.

"People are saying to me about our plays, 'Oh my God, can they tour to our town?'

"Others say things like, 'Oh, I've just come back from America, I went to Broadway, this is better'.

"To watch those women, all of them over 60s, was very emotional and powerful performances."

Delivering joy and empowerment to an entire town. One night's free room and board at a time.

Credits

• Reporting, photography and video: Daniel Miles
• Additional photography: Alice Miles
• Digital production: Daniel Franklin