Phil Hoye has mastered the art of spinning a good yarn, a talent that has led to radio station bans. But it is the true story of how he saved the wombat that has made him famous. KATRINA LOVELL reports.
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Warrnambool painter Phil Hoye loves to tell tall stories.
In fact it’s hard to know just when he’s spinning another yarn or if he’s ridgy didge because some of his true stories are just as unbelievable.
His wife Katrina admits even she is sometimes not sure.
“You don’t know that he’s not ridgy-didge. He’s either acting like someone or he’s telling a story that is a complete fabrication, but you don’t know until you get to the end of it,” she said.
So it comes as no surprise that Phil has found himself banned by a number of radio stations for the pranks he has pulled on the hosts. “I can spin a yarn,” he said with a laugh.
Ironically, it was some of those same radio stations that wanted to interview him when he became an internet sensation after the wombat video went viral.
With 36 million views on Youtube, Phil, along with wombat artist Jimmi Buscombe, is arguably one of Warrnambool’s most famous identities.
The story of Jimmi’s “temporary” mural of a wombat on the wall of a Warrnambool railway bridge becoming a permanent fixture when Phil decided to clear coat it without telling anyone, has captured the imagination of a nation after the ABC’s Emily Bissland brought it to life.
Now busloads of tourists to Warrnambool are adding a visit to the artwork to their itineraries.
Just the other day a young girl knocked on Phil’s door just to thank him for “saving the wombat”.
People from as far away as New South Wales and Queensland have come just to get a selfie with Phil and the wombat.
Last Sunday alone 16 people approached him at home for a selfie, and Phil is only too happy to oblige.
“I have not had a negative word,” he said. He’s even had messages from people overseas just to let him know how much the wombat story had cheered up their sick relatives.
“That’s where I get a buzz out of it,” he said.
“You could pay me $10 million tomorrow, just the buzz, the experience. Even Russell Crowe retweeted it.”
Katrina said people, who think they're making money out of the wombat video, have contacted them seeking money, or asking for help to make their videos go viral.
Katrina and Phil are childhood sweethearts who have been together since the age of 14. Phil grew up on a grain farm at St Arnaud, and admits that he was often in trouble at school for telling a few tall tales.
“He’s always been in trouble and he’s always been the centre of attention and he’s always wanted to see if he could make it and he eventually did,” Katrina said.
When the couple moved to Warrnambool in 2000, Phil said it was like moving to the big city. “This town has made me,” he said.
Katrina, a nurse, had work at the hospital and Phil quickly secured a job at Hammonds paint shop soon after they arrived. “He thought he’d made it because Hammonds had an ad on the TV,” Katrina said.
Again four years ago he thought he’d hit the big time when he made the TV news, radio and metro newspaper in the same week.
After Johnny Depp and Amanda Heard released a video apologising for illegally bringing their dogs into Australia, one radio station asked readers to send in their own “sorry” videos, so Phil did.
“It got on Nine News, Phil apologising for pranking on radio all the time but Phil was so not sorry,” Katrina said. That same week Phil’s photo of a rock on the banks of Warrnambool’s Hopkins River that looks like a face was published by the Herald Sun.
“Because I paint all day and listen to the radio, that’s all I’ve got to talk to. Love me radio,” he said.
“Suppose that’s where I got my sense of humour from.”
He said there were a few radio hosts that will “put up” with him. “When they ask to speak to a plumber, I’ll ring in as Phil the plumber or Phil the baker,” he said with a laugh.
He said when radio hosts ask listeners to call up if there’s was anything they want to talk about, Phil will take up the invitation. He once called and said he wanted to talk about turtles “just to see if they’d bite”.
After three months of calling they finally put him on the air. For 10 minutes he talked about long-neck and short-neck turtles, a subject he knows nothing about, not realising the host actually had pet turtles.
Phil said he hadn’t given up ringing radio stations, lately even making calls to some in the US. His most famous radio yarn, which he also tried on Senator Derryn Hinch when he came to visit, involves him accidentally splashing petrol up his sleeve and later lighting a cigarette, sparking a fire on his arm. After claiming the police had handed him a penalty for it, Phil delivered the punchline – the fine was for carrying an “illegal firearm”.
Phil said he would love to be a comedian, joking that he could be the next Dave Hughes of Warrnambool.
One thing’s for sure, his antics in the wombat video have certainly made him instantly recognisable, something he’s only too happy to have happen.
On a recent trip to the snow, he donned his trademark hat and took to the slopes at Falls Creek, but only a few people smiled in recognition. That all changed when he traded his snow suit for his white overalls and took to the ski run aptly named Wombat’s Ramble.
It is also the place where he created his “look” about 12 months ago. After a night out at the snow he woke the next morning wearing the hat and no memory of how he got it, and just a receipt for $120 in his pocket as evidence he’d purchased it. “That’s where the hat started.”
That was on their last night at the snow and hours later when they were halfway down the mountain they had to call an ambulance for Phil because he was struggling to breathe. He was taken by ambulance to Wodonga hospital (with the hat on) and it turned out he had six broken ribs and a punctured lung.
While doctors thought maybe he had had a fall while skiing, Phil said it was from playing football at East Warrnambool where he’d made his comeback at age 40 two years earlier.
Not realising how badly injured he was, Phil had decided to go skiing anyway because they’d already booked the trip. Needless to say he didn’t play football this season.
After a year of constant wear, his wife and kids lashed out on a new one for Father’s Day for the bargain price of $20. “I was pretty rapt,” Phil said.
While Phil is no stranger to radio hi jinks, the wombat is not the only artwork to be preserved by him.
He said that when he was 17 he put a clear coat over a charcoal drawing done by a shearer above the mantelpiece in the Woolpack Pub near his father’s farm at St Arnaud. “They don’t know it’s there. I wallpapered over it at 22 and since then the wallpaper’s been painted over,” he said.
“I’m hoping to get in contact with them cos I want to show up and get the stanley knife and cut it out and it’s going to be there.”
“True story,” Phil said.
