ALMOST
A CASE OF DÉJÀ VU!
It’s only after you
journey back in time that you realise you are indeed a very small cog in the
wheel of life. Back in the 50’s there I
was a teenager about to replicate a momentous event in the life of my Great
Grandmother Geraldine; one of the Four Sisters from Sussex. I approached this
milestone with all the ignorance of youth as did Grandmother Maggie twenty or
so years later. All three of us no doubt considered the world our oyster and we
had only to dive in and choose the way we devoured it.
I was about to test the water.
ROCK’N ROLL
& ACRONYMS GALORE
Brisbane
skyline 1954-1964: These ten years have
seen big changes for both Brisbane and for me. Back in the 1950’s I was just one of the eager
teenagers queuing to see America’s sob singer Johnny Ray; but now it’s 1964 and
the Beatles are in town performing in the old city stadium revamped and called
Festival Hall, but I won’t be there to see them because by the time they arrive
I’m a house wife with a husband and two small and adorable babies.
Gosh!
What a difference those ten years made. It
seems only yesterday I was that naïve young fifteen year old in a baggy uniform
and battered hat marching into the Brisbane Telegraph’s office to ask for a
job. How on earth did I get from little girl then to mum of two circa 1964?
Easy!
I discovered Rock’n Roll and a progression of teenage jobs that involved
an awful lot of acronyms. Mind you, the timely appearance of the
Reluctant Traveller did, as well, have a great deal to do with it all.
***
Circa
1954: Queensland’s capital Brisbane was fondly considered nothing more than a
country town and compared to its southern sisters, Sydney and Melbourne I guess
it was. The town had none of the bustle
of a busy metropolis. Life was lived at a comparatively slower pace. Cars and trams were still sharing the city
streets, Cloudland still hovered in all its neon pulsing glory over the skyline
and with two newspapers churning out thick daily editions Brisbane’s fish and
chip shops never ran short of wrapping paper.
Over
the river at the busy Gabba Five Ways traffic still came to a halt when railway
engines crossed the road behind a worker waving a red flag and shaking a bell; in
Brisbane’s absolute city centre the pandemonium of the Roma Street fruit and
veg markets reverberated in clear sight of City Hall… and as you can see high
profile Davis Cup matches attracted amazingly huge crowds to the Milton Tennis
Centre.
On
the fashion front skirts were being worn mid calf, gloves and hats were a social
must; we all wanted to look like our favourite movie stars, Audrey Hepburn,
Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe.
That’s
me; in the middle of the group, handbag
over shoulder hat in hand; we’re all eager Johnny Ray fans waiting to see our
heart throb arrive at the airport, hoping for a freebie ticket, maybe even meet
him face to face. I wonder where all
those teenage girls are now.
So
much has disappeared. The trains meandering across lanes of traffic, the mayhem
of the Markets diverted out of town to Rocklea.
Huge entertainment centres replacing the old stadium, Milton Tennis courts
abandoned, and the carefree youngsters of yesterday now grey haired and reduced
to reminiscing about the ‘good old days’.
And they were…
*
ENTERING THE
WORK FORCE
I
guess the biggest difference between then
and now was the wide variety and availability of jobs. You had only to open
the Classified Advertising section of the Courier or Telegraph to scan through
a veritable smorgasbord of positions vacant.
Kids in this impersonal, computerised 21st Century don’t
enjoy that luxury. The dole has replaced incentive. Machines have swelled the unemployed.
For
me that first job at The Telegraph proved to be a gentle introduction into the
working force though I’m not so sure the paper’s various section heads had the
same opinion. Believing I’d actually benefited from those years at Commercial
High the powers to be started me off in classified accounts handling one of
several hugely cumbersome accounting machines.
I
well remember sitting at those now obsolete machines, fingers tapping away with
increased abandon as I entered account numbers and billing amounts. Debits and credits, fingers flying across the
rackety keyboard; it was heady stuff.
What I didn’t like was the subsequent search and correct sessions as I
desperately tried to untangle page after page of figures that refused to
balance.
They
tried me on the switchboard next; another delightful, though by today’s
standards messy conglomeration of cords and plugs with tiny holes. It was of course a minefield that demanded
one hundred percent accuracy with giggles and gasps of apology not always
appreciated. So I wasn’t altogether surprised to find myself eventually dumped
in the nerve centre of newspaper advertising, the vast telephone room where
several women sat in little cubicles, headsets on, typewriters at the ready
waiting to copy info from people wanting to hire, sell or buy. Thank heavens two things I could do
reasonably well were type and spell and at last I had a job that seemed to run
smoothly.
The
Telegraph offices were wonderfully friendly with office staff and young
journalists like John Morton and Glyn May mingling socially and hopefully with
the girls from classified. I even joined
the cadet journalist’s shorthand classes run by Bud Matzow though the squiggles
and hieroglyphics of shorthand would forever prove as alien to me as the French
foreign legion caps worn by Brisbane’s tram conductors.
But
then came the morning my work phone lit up and I went into the usual spiel, Good evening Telegraph classified, and
took down a positions vacant advertisement for a secretary to the Operations
Manager of Queensland Airlines. Q.A.L. My teenage eyes lit up, aeroplanes,
airports, pilots. I was hooked: Another
stepping stone, another job and my first working acronym.
Apparently
I suffered no qualms about snatching the job before anyone else had a chance to
see the advert. I guess it wasn’t very
ethical but then again I hadn’t yet come across the word in the books I read
and in any case had no idea what it meant.
A
quick chat to the advertiser, an appointment for next morning in his office at
Eagle Farm and before you could say Charles Kingsford Smith I had a new career
in the growing airline industry and a working life ruled by a growing list of
acronyms.
The
airlines in those days while not in their infancy were by today’s standards
only barely out of nappies. Air travel was considered an almost unattainable
luxury. There were just the two major airlines, ANA or Australian National Airlines, and TAA, Trans Australia Airlines and they were housed in old world war two
hangars on the fringe of the airport tarmac.
The hangars were tarted up with false hanging ceilings and partitions
separating waiting rooms from offices and baggage collection.
Aircraft
in service then were DC3’s, the civilian equivalent to the old wartime
workhorse, the Dakota. Queensland Airlines, or QAL shared
premises with Australian National Airways,
ANA, and serviced rural Queensland flying into towns like Emerald and Cunnamulla,
Barcaldine, Biloela, Clermont, Longreach and Rockhampton. The big boss of QAL was the aviation legend
Captain Robbie Adair who together with his secretary Iris Burton managed to
keep the company on an even keel with skill and careful management.
The
job had its perks; on the rare occasions an unaccompanied child needed
babysitting on one of the short hops I climbed aboard with even more delight
than the kid I was supposed to be looking after.
Eagle
Farm airport in the fifties was nothing more than a huge landing field occupied
by a clutch of large WW2 hangars. When
the occasional American Air Force super fortress or KLM stratocruiser dropped
in from the sky onto the tarmac, taxiing to a stop in front of ANA, the
airport’s entire work force looked on in awe.
We were like kids in a lolly shop with office girls and even pilots
clambering aboard to explore and savour these foreign giants. I remember sinking into blissfully plush
seats accepting foreign confectionary from smiling Dutch hosties. What our Aussie flight crews thought of the
intricate cockpit panels I can only imagine.
My
first grown up boyfriend was a pilot with ANA, a tall gangling young second
officer from Sydney. Nev had a sports
car and was a keen amateur photographer.
Before long he had me draped over that car in a variety of poses and
outfits. Sometimes I was the sporty girl
in flippers and goggles, other times the backdrop was a sleek DC3 or Fokker
Friendship. Looking back I have to
wonder which one of us was the star attraction; me or the car.
An
overriding memory I have from that time happened when his parents came up from
Sydney to meet mine. Over the dinner
table at our house the usual rush of pleasantries were being exchanged with Mum
getting in first with her flowery appreciation of Nev’s many qualities. There was a considerable silence when it came
to his mother’s turn to presumably say nice things about me. We all waited with polite anticipation until she
finally smiled and said what nice teeth I had.
*
FROM AIRCRAFT TO
NEWSPRINT
Fickle
me: I don’t recall how or why the transition was made but my next job was with
QRNS, or the Queensland Radio News
Service, a tightly run appendage to both radio station 4BK and the Courier
Mail in which Queen Street building across from the GPO, General Post Office, both were housed.
My
job now was to transcribe editors and reporters dictated news stories directly
onto a typewriter before the copy was whizzed upstairs to newsreaders in the
studio.
More
often there was enough time for the editor to proof read the news stories, some
memorable times there was not, and while the senior newsreader Don Chadwick
didn’t seem unduly fazed when he read out marital instead of martial my boss
Gordon Cran would go politely ballistic.
Funnily enough that same spelling
error would resurface with an embarrassing correction in a much later job when
I was considerably older, married and should really have known better.
That’s
me growing up! Wearing the daring
strapless ball gown; Revisiting Bondi; and the noticeboard that caused my
cheeks to burn red with guilt and embarrassment…
Courier
Mail journalists were renowned for their social life which included an
incredible amount of time in the next door pub, the Stock Exchange Hotel just
across Isles Lane and known to all the switchboard operators as the Branch
Office. Many a telephone call was
switched through to the public bar. (Isles
Lane has since disappeared along with the Courier to become an arcade linking
Queen Street to Anzac Square in Adelaide Street.)
With
everyone working ungodly hours through to midnight and beyond office parties
often carried on into the early hours of the morning. Consequently we news typists would at times
stumble onto the 5am shift in desperate need of black coffee. It was after one of these late night parties
coincided with the misplacement of a crucial decimal point in a story about
Government finance that my boss fired an arrow that found its mark in my
wounded vanity.
A
typed memorandum appeared on the notice board addressed to ‘THE PERSON
CONCERNED’. It read ‘Those who burn the candle at both ends do
their jobs and themselves no justice.
Think about it.’ I did and I
felt my cheeks burn bright red, I knew the missive was aimed at me.
But
I must have been doing something right because I was soon promoted; at least I
think it was a promotion. I became
secretary to the Courier Mail’s Chief of Staff.
My new boss was Alan Cummins and he in turn answered to God, the charismatic
Editor in Chief, Ted Bray, who later became Sir Theodor Bray.
The
Chief of Staff’s office was a fishbowl that looked out onto the news room where
reporters could be seen busily tapping away at typewriters or chatting away on
telephones. News items originated from the Chief of Staff's office; he or his
deputies Jim Blaikie, John Atherton or Bud Matzkows decided the item’s level of
importance and then allocated the story to a journalist. Finished copy was collected by copy boys or
girls and taken to the sub-editors room where they were cut and polished and
from there printed on rough sheets and
returned to the chief sub-editor for the news conference with God that decided
the final shape the next day’s paper
would take.
Sir
Ted found out the hard way that not all secretaries came equipped with
shorthand. For a short while I took on
the role of secretary while his own super efficient one was on holiday. This delightful sojourn which for a while involved
nothing more onerous than answering the phone and skimming through his large
and interesting library suddenly perked up when a late night crisis occurred at
Parliament House: Vince Gair the then
Premier of Queensland and his government were in dire straits.
The
Editor in Chief’s office was crammed with journalists with the phone hooked up
to the Political correspondent replaying the action from George Street. The atmosphere was tense; the parliament
looked like falling, my boss suddenly called me to take down the story for the
morning’s edition…in shorthand.
I’m
sure I gulped, I know I went numb. Then
the adrenalin kicked in and I suggested the typewriter would be faster. I survived the night, though I’m sure the
Editor in Chief was highly amused: A 17 year old secretary with no shorthand.
We parted firm friends and I left his office with
the gift of books from his library. I
still have one of them, a collection of short stories by Alexandra Hasluck
entitled, Of Ladies Past. Most appropriate.
Putting
the Courier Mail to bed was undeniably an epic operation, a daily Hollywood
blockbuster with a huge supporting cast. The newspaper became my home away from
home, no doubt helped by the camaraderie of staff. Siblings and family groups featured
prominently in the news room. Apart from
the Brays, father and son and the Vines in Sport, there were the Bolton boys
and the ever jovial Sligo brothers both senior political roundsmen as unalike
as chalk and cheese except for their beaming smiles. Around then Noel Turnbull married a young
nurse called Dulcie who later figured prominently in local politics.
I
loved visiting the printing room while the huge machines were in operation,
having to shout above the noisy roar and still not be heard; experiencing a
shivery thrill as pages of the paper emerged to be sorted by more machines and
finally delivered in trussed bundles along huge conveyor belts to the trucks
waiting to disperse the Courier Mail all over Queensland and the Northern
Rivers.
(Maybe I was feeling a whisper from the past,
from the American Grandfather with the assumed name whose officially legal profession
was once as a newspaper print setter.)
*
BRISBANE’S
BRIGHT LIGHTS
Keep
in mind these were the days of radio. Television had yet to arrive; cars could actually
park in Queen Street; Saturday night at the movies was considered the big night
out.
The
tramlines and parked cars have long gone, in their place the Queen Street Mall.
Apart
from a multitude of movie theatres, in
Queen Street alone the Regent, Odeon and Wintergarden, dances and balls and
visiting overseas celebrities were other features of life in the fifties.
Brisbane’s
public were well provided with a wide variety of entertainment. Live vaudeville
shows, drama, musical, ballet and opera were staged at either His Majesty’s Theatre
in Queen Street, the Cremorne across the river at South Brisbane or the
wonderfully bawdy Theatre Royal in Elizabeth Street. It would be 40 years before I found out my American grandfather had
appeared at the Royal in 1910, billed as the Champion Ball Puncher of Australia. Note admission price was only one shilling.
During
the holidays I moonlighted for a short time working for the hypnotist Franquin
during his season at His Majesty’s and later dressed up in a Japanese kimono to
sell programmes before the curtain rose for the Cherry Blossom Show...(and surprising my future and unsuspecting
Reluctant Traveller dating a girl friend of mine when he shouldn’t have been.)
There
were several dance halls situated in various parts of Brisbane. Most popular
were the Riverside at New Farm, the Blind Institute at South Brisbane and the
larger than life magnet for all dance enthusiasts be they jive artists, square
dancers or strictly ballroom, the incomparable Cloudland.
Cloudland
straddled a hill at Newstead overlooking just about all of Brisbane. More to the point all eyes were instantly
drawn to the huge horse shoe shaped dome that pulsed nightly with rainbows of
neon lighting. Access was gained by a
winding road up through the gardened terraces from the Bowen Hills side of the
complex but most young people preferred to ride up the hill from the tram stop
on Newstead Road in a passenger cable car, Brisbane’s little touch of San
Francisco.
Cloudland
had its resident big band and a specially sprung floor that made even the
clumsiest of dancers feel they were floating on air. I attended my first ball at Cloudland. My date was a tall handsome young man from
accounts and I wore a gorgeous, strapless froth of white tulle and
petticoats.
Mum
and I had spent hours agonising over the right dress. Did I have sufficient equipment to hold the
dress up? Was the stark white colour
flattering? We finally found THE one at
McWhirters department store in the Valley.
It cost a fortune, on time payment of course.
City
Hall was the venue for the annual Arts Ball, an absolute must on Brisbane's
social calendar. Its approach sent out a strange signal that changed even the
most staid people into raving lunatics. The Arts Ball was the ball of the
season where you could let your imagination run riot. The year I attended with a party of young
bloods from the Courier Mail our pre-ball party was held at the old Lennon’s
Hotel in George Street just around the corner from the City Hall.
These
pre ball occasions had a reputation something like today’s schoolies week with
party goers taking over whole hotels and spilling from room to room and floor
to floor. Because the City Hall was
strictly alcohol free the pre-ball parties were essentially nothing more than
booze ups. It was often 10 or 11 before
relieved hotel management saw the last gypsy or Arab sheik weave an unsteady
course round the corner of George and Adelaide Streets to the ball proper at nearby
City Hall.
That
year I took advantage of the latest craze in matador pants and went as a hot
pink matador. My date was a resplendently dressed restoration courtier complete
with a wig that was commandeered by some bright spark and went missing very
early in the night. But the star of the
Arts Ball that year and certainly the most popular was a very ordinary looking scuba diver in
mask and flippers who dispensed rum and coca cola to all and sundry from a pair
of oxygen cylinders strapped to his back.
With
clothing ration cards a thing of the past smart dress boutiques began springing
up in the city. I still owned hats and
gloves but found I wasn't using them quite so often. By now under the influence of a square
dancing craze we were wearing rope hemmed petticoats under full skirts and
cinch belts that accentuated the waist.
When
the short lived sack dress made an appearance I modelled one on a short walk
down Queen Street while Noel Pascoe photographed the reaction of passersby as I
hobbled past. It was certainly not the
most attractive style and with a tightly gathered hem just below the knees it
was awfully hard to walk in.
The sack dress
& the Reluctant Traveller- fine dining at Lennons.
By
1956 I was 17 and sharing a flat at New Farm with a former Miss Queensland
finalist who worked on the Courier Mail switchboard. Joycelyn was a country girl and one of a
really huge family of something like fifteen or more children. She had a classic Elizabethan beauty and an
elegant maturity far beyond her years. And
better still she could cook. We got on
together extremely well. Joycelyn had
many boyfriends as well as an older and very besotted mentor from her home town
and it was through him that I met my husband to be Stan.
In
Queen Street just a few doors from the Courier Mail, Michael Karlos had opened
Brisbane's first cappuccino espresso coffee lounge, the Carolena, The Carolena was a bright new alternative for
quick snacks between shifts and I was putting away an awesome plate of curried
spaghetti when Joycelyn’s friend entered with a dapper young man who could have
stepped from the pages of a Rowes menswear catalogue.
The
Reluctant Traveller had arrived on the scene.
I quickly established that while he looked rather young he was in fact
twenty seven, definitely an older man and as such an acquisition to be
flaunted.
At
the time I had shoulder length dark brown hair but for some perverse reason the
very next day in a fit of hair day blues I hacked it all off with a pair of
office scissors in the ladies loo. Years
would pass before he asked me what had happened to my hair.
My
social life was fairly busy around this time and I found only occasional free
moments to slot in this new attraction. Brisbane
was a busy place in the mid fifties, for teenage girls anyway. Not only were big name overseas entertainers
regularly performing in the woefully inadequate old stadium on the corner of Albert and Charlotte but the
American Navy had placed Brisbane top of the list for R and R visits.
At
that time the ships of the US Navy sailed into the Brisbane River nearly every
couple of weeks and their sailors were frequently to be found on the wharf
under the Story Bridge chewing gum, tossing baseballs and fending off the
girls. Along with Maureen Grant, a
country girl from Uki who had the smallest waist I'd ever seen, I joined the
Australian American Association thereby gaining entry to a giddy round of
cocktail parties and dinner dances for visiting naval officers.
I had
also acquired my first car; a memorable but very capricious vehicle. Bought on time payment at a time when I gave
scant thought to the legalities of a driving licence or registration, that
cheap little bomb spent more time being poured over by amateur mechanics than
on the road.
Brisbane
had a reputation for being just a big country town and in lots of ways I
suppose it was, but bit by little bit a change was creeping over the familiar
landscape. The animal cages at the Botanical Gardens had thankfully already
disappeared. Never again would Brisbane’s
public gaze upon imprisoned monkeys with raw pink bottoms.
Television
towers began sprouting along Mt Coot-tha ridge.
Cloudland and the historic Bellevue Hotel were, unknown to most,
destined soon for the rubble heap. Our
beloved trams too were headed for the big chop and in the name of progress King
George Square would very soon be created from the debris of Albert Street and
the Tivoli Theatre not to mention Jack’s Casket Agency where Constance Street
neighbour Shirley Payne once worked.
About
now too the Reluctant Traveller coming to my rescue on ever increasingly tricky
moments decided enough was enough. In
quick succession he returned the car to its original owners and took a more
permanent interest in my social calendar.
50 odd years
later – The Reluctant Traveller and me.
Like
Brisbane itself I was growing up. Ahead
lay marriage and motherhood. Life’s big
adventure was unfolding. No doubt along
the way mistakes would be made and storms would be encountered but looking back
now from our venerable and aged perch my Reluctant Traveller and I can safely
say it’s been a marvellous journey… and I for one wouldn’t change any part of
it.
***
Next: Brisbane’s world of TV game shows circa 70’s and 80’s.
*
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Then” stories:
