Living (in St Kilda) in the 1970s
A psychogeographical work in progress from writer and film-maker, David Cox.
Our Flats
The perception camera glides across a gravel strewn driveway. An early 60s
design block of flats with beige coloured bricks is at camera left. Looking
up we see the building - three levels, two balconies. To the right we see a
covered carport, and various cars - all poor people's cars. Semi working,
half going.
At night the tram stop outside my window made all the cool sounds D class
trams make. All hisses, brass bells, the 'thugga thugga' of the flywheel
which supplies energy to a pump which in turn builds pressure for the
brakes. The lights from the thing threw shadows across my wall in strips
going up to the ceiling, with spark flashes quick and sudden. For two years
I fell asleep to that sound, dreaming of my life and friends in the country
I left behind. Even then it was uncool to be from the UK. The dreams stopped
after a while.
Flats in the daytime. A vague smell of... cardomen or curry powder. Or both.
Something. Televisions are on in each flat. Each door is open as it is hot.
Night comes again. Electric blueness flickers behind Venetian blinds and the
sounds of "League Teams" comes in stereo from two flats about 40 yards apart.
"Hutton's footy franks are best! Don't argue!"
You can mix your own soundtrack from the television audio as you move up and
down the stairs and along the length of the block. Us kids are playing games
- chasey, yo yos. Around the back of the flats is where I once saw a kid
blow up one of those plastic Commonwealth savings combination lock toy safes
with a firecracker, but not before trapping a five inch lizard inside. The
resulting mess was met with absolute glee. I can see that kid's face now,
giggling maniacally through the cordite smoke.
The kid kept hamsters in a hutch outside the flat and I once saw a dog come
and open that box of hamsters, playfully follow one around before grabbing
it with his powerful jaws, killing it, then carrying it off. When the kid
saw what had happened he screamed at me for not stopping the dog. I told him
there was nothing I could do. That was probably untrue, but I had stood
there unlocking my bike, fascinated by what I was seeing. I still remember
that with absolute clarity. Like it was this morning.
The Whitlam election rally was held at the Brighton Road town hall and you
could hear the "Its Time" singing from our balcony, and see the balloons and
hundreds of people milling around there. That famous footage of Whitlam
beaming and next to him Hawke doing the twist with his mutton chops sideys
and think hornrim glasses was filmed on that night.
Within months of our arrival on these beautiful troubled shores, a reformist
socialist government was elected to office after decades of stagnant
conservatism. This was what I remember from my first impressions of
Australia and hold these feelings deep within me.
We were kids in St Kilda in the early seventies. We ran and rode bikes and
skateboarded through what are now sanitised gentrified theme parks wet
within and merely based on the original St Kilda. Acland street - Cavanagh
Street - Fitzroy St, Luna Park, the beach, the arcades, sleazy motel
carparks. The place was seriously down at heel in those days and all the
more fun for it, for kids at least.
My best mate's brother came back from Vietnam and would drink himself into a
stupor every night. We never knew why, but he always told us we would never
want to see what a land mine could do to a bloke when we watched our war
movies and cheered (as kids do) at depictions of that. We'd watch films like
"The Battle of the Bulge" and compare our model kits of tanks and planes to
the ones on the telly. The guy (who came back from VN) tried to make those
kits himself but always made a mess of it.
They spray painted those flats pink about 10 years ago with industrial spray
cans, covering the windows with black tarps. Then they put green wooden
trellises on the whole place and a hideous brass plaque out the front.
History is sucked out like so much pub smoke. Like the place had never even
*been* a block of flats. All that is solid melts into air... Our flats (as
we used to call them affectionately) were about five minutes walk from Luna
Park. Yuppies don't have memories, just good investment advice.
Just for Fun
For $2 in 1973 you could entertain yourself all afternoon. A packet of Black
and White smokes cost 40 cents. A chico roll was also 40 cents. Chips were
20 cents, (sauce 2c extra). Can of coke was 15 cents.
I've replaced the memory film in the Perception Camera and it now slow tilts
up to the Big Dipper tracks. Can't miss shots like these from the past...
Screams from behind the mechanical life size King of Fun rocking on his
throne. He presided over the Fun Palace. All old turn of the century
amusement technology - all of it a bit aggressive. These rides and things
were always inside timber structures with old painted stuff on them - but
the paintings had been done about 50 years prior so they were peeling and
faded. Faces happy, faces alarmed - all kind of amateurish and mock 30s
comic book style.
There was one area where you could throw cork balls at a scene painted like
a middle class living room with china plates everywhere. The balls would
smash the china while the painted hoytie toyties would billow on their
canvas background as the cork balls and shards of teacups, saucers and
plates were smashed off their stands. A guy would come and replace the
plates and give you a prize. Controlled mock class warfare. Just for fun...
The place was a museum, even then. The amusements machines were antique
electro magnetic devices with brass plaques announcing the name and
manufacturer - they had been hand made by WW2 era firms who probably also
made vending machines, pinballs and juke boxes. One was a 'drop the coin
from the bomber onto the submarine' where your own 2c (converted from old
penny sized slots) would become the 'bomb' with which you attacked this
solid steel sub, "floating" in a painted theatrical set of "the sea". The
sky was beautifully painted in watercolours and little fading lights lit the
whole thing. The pulleys and gearage were all visible and were oily, little
screw gears turning camshafts. It must have weight a ton on its steel base.
That object was so cool. And the thing would be in a wooden cabinet. You
would look through a 12 inch by six inch pane of glass framed by brass.
Lights would come on and off and there would be the hum of an old
transformer as the thing came to life.
If you really looked around on the ground at Luna Park you could find the
romeod blue and red tickets to rides which parents, eager to get their
nauseated kids out of the place had just dropped, or stuffed into holes in
the cyclone fence. I think also looking back some of the groovier attendants
would turn a blind eye to us grabbing them from the turnstile holes. If you
went behind the off limits areas, you'd find them no worries.
They knew we were local kids and we made the place our playground, staying
there on Saturday night until it was dark, and all the coloured lights would
come on and the teenage girlfriends and boyfriends would come, drunk and
lusty. You had to watch out for the St Moritz skins though. We were chased
by them several times and if they caught you, they could seriously hurt you.
They smoked Marlboroughs, listened to the Skyhooks on cheap cassette players
and wore roller skates. They always moved around in groups of about six.
Through the turnstiles, serious looking and mean.
Those turnstiles were solid steel - British made, with the name of the
manufacture in relief lettering 1/8th of an inch thick. The whole of Luna
Park was Edwardian Brighton, England transposed to the colonies.
Quadrophenia...
Some of our more adventurous sorties in Luna Park took us to places like the
area where they kept the big dipper cars for maintenance. It was very very
dark and scary and the whole of the ride would make this awesome rumble
which got louder and louder as the cars came down those dips and back up.
The loud rattle of the cars on the tracks would mix in with the yells of the
people riding, only you could see almost nothing. The whole enclosure shook
quite suddenly and forcefully. Just the smell of oil and wood and then the
roar of the cars as they came past us in the dark like a train from hell.
A mate and I once let off a gas cylinder near Caulfield. We burned a plastic
aeroplane with lighter fluid and put a CO2 cylinder in it which we had taken
from a soda siphon. - the satisfyingly loud explosion, and rocketing casing
(with blue flame from out the back!) scared these old Jewish blokes who came
out demanding "you have gun?!? you have gun?!?" They might have been ex
concentration camp victims to whom a loud sudden bang could only mean one
thing. We told them "no no.." and ran like hell!
Stealing 8 balls from pool halls and using them for bike bombing runs on
milk bottles set up like skittles. Listening to music in blocks of flats.
"Venus and Mars", "Bat out of Hell", We were kids. Nine, ten years old. We didn't know. We were bored.
At the pier - trying to catch fish, but getting fishing hook caught on the
struts holding up the thing (which was still entirely wooden then). You
could buy lemon squash at the kiosk at the end of the pier. The guy would
reach into this stainless steel well and ladle out a tall glass of the
stuff. It tasted fantastic. There was this telescope which you could put 40
cents into and look out across to the Palais, along the Esplanade, then out
to the bay. And this huge wall sized map of the world from the 1940s. All
the red bits were British empire colonies we were told. We'd nod and drink
our lemonade and scan the bay. The sun would peer behind massive clouds as
it slowly went down. Then we'd get all our stuff together and run home to
watch telly and eat our tea. |
