I happened upon the remarkable, daring exploits of Lt. Edgardo Simoni—the Italian prisoner of war who made a habit of repeatedly escaping from various Australian POW camps during WWII—while reading the non-wartime story of another (very different) ace escape artist, Kevin John Simmonds, a con on the run from NSW cops who bamboozled an extensive manhunt comprising 500-odd police and 300 volunteers in 1959, leading them on a long, fruitless chase through harsh and rugged bush land before being finally being recaptured. To their embarrassment the state’s police officers found themselves lagging far behind the solo fugitive in a catch-up game of “Where’s Wally”, with Simmonds making them at times look like “right” (and not very bright) “Charlies” (They’ll Never Hold Me, by Michael Adams (Affirm Press, Melbourne, 2024).
Kevin John Simmonds
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The theme of valiant escape and valiant escapees from POW camps is a standard trope of cinema and television that has been done to oblivion over the years. This sub-genre has been a recurring feature in cinema for the past seven or eight decades, including a raft of classic war (WWII) features like Escape from Stalag 17, The Colditz Story, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Von Ryan’s Express, The Wooden Horse, The Mackenzie Break and of course the most lauded of all movies subscribing to the sub-genre – 1963’s The Great Escape.
But for me my favourite POW screen vehicle is the antithesis of these largely stark and grim dramas. No, not Hogan’s Heroes but another TV war sitcom, an episode from the Seventies TV series Ripping Yarns (created by two-sixths of the “Monty Python” team, Michael Palin and Terry Jones) called ‘Escape from Stalag Luft 112B’. The protagonist played by Palin (Major Phipps) is a serial escape attempter…during the war to date he has attempted over 560 escapes, 200 of them before he had left England, as a consequence he is transferred to Germany’s most infamous prison camp. At Luft 112B he continues his escape attempts 24/7, all of them ludicrously impossible. Meanwhile the rest of the British POWs frustrate Phipps no end by being perfectly content to sit out the war in their cosy and comfy little gentleman–officer confinement. By the show’s end the other POWs and German guards have all scarpered, leaving Phillips as the only man to never have escaped the “inescapable POW camp”. In his life after the war we learn that escaping is so intrinsically part of Maj. Phipps’ DNA that two years after his death and burial, locals discovered a tunnel dug from his grave to the cemetery fence: his final and “greatest” escape! A gem of a send-up of both the unrelentingly solemn POW film and British upper-middle class and upper class twits𖤓.
Michael Palin, ‘Escape from Stalag Luft 112B’
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Back to the real life POW escapologist Signoré Simoni. Simoni was one of more than 18,000 Italian military personnel captured by the Allies and transported to Australian POW camps, in his case assigned to the Murchison Camp # 13, near Shepparton, Victoria. Unlike the fictional Maj. Phipps’ fellow prisoners and the great majority of his fellow Italian POWs, Edgardo Simoni never content to stay put behind barbed wire and high fences paralleled the fictional Phipps in trying to escape whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Italian prisoners of war arriving at Circular Quay wharf, Sydney, 1941 (source: coasit.com.au)
Simoni’s first shot at freedom failed but undaunted he soon tried again. Swapping uniforms with an Italian private in the prison was his passport to the outside POW work detail. From there he easily managed to slip away from the Murchison guards and head for metropolitan Melbourne. Once there, he took the alias “George Scoto” and got a job selling door-to-door cosmetics (very successfully) which lasted for ten months. Afterwards, Simoni moved to Mildura in country Victoria where he found work on a farm. Here he was recaptured by Australian military police and despatched to a higher security goal in the isolated town of Hay, NSW. Simoni was not intent to accept captivity in Hay and in no time he had escaped by painstakingly filing through the bars of his cell window, becoming the only POW to escape from that supposedly escape-proof incarceration facility. Simoni then walked 300km to Bendigo where he caught a train to Melbourne. His second sojourn in Melbourne was cut short by a stroke of rotten luck when he was spotted and arrested by the same policeman who had arrested him on the previous occasion! (‘Italian POWs in Australia’ by Frank O’Rourke, Newsletter # 580, 02–07–2021, www.melbashed.com.au)✦.
Italian POWs at Myrtleford Camp (photo: Geoffrey McInnes/Aust War Memorial)
Myrtleford, Victoria, was the next POW camp (# 5) to accommodate the peripatetic Signoré Simoni. Edgardo had been an anti-fascist in Italy and had joined Mussolini’s army only after swearing allegiance to the monarchy, but in Australia he started to embrace communism which led to the authorities placing him under special surveillance. Not very successfully it seems because Simoni was still able to regularly abscond from the Myrtleford facility at night-time without much effort to moonlight as an unofficial organiser for the local tobacco sharefarmers exhorting them to agitate for better working conditions (‘Edgardo Simoni oral history interview by Dan Connell’, 06–11–1986, http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au).
Col. Edgardo Simoni (ret.) in 1974: revisiting his travels around SE Australia
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Endnote: All in all Lt. Simoni—who earned the nickname La volpe (“the Fox”) for his war-time escapades—made 13 escape attempts in the three years he was a POW in Australian detention. At the end of the war, upon release, Simoni returned to Italy and resumed his career in the military, rising to the rank of colonel. In 1974 La volpe re-visited Australia, this time on happier terms, to retrace the steps of his fugitive odyssey around NSW and Victoria.
𖤓 the 2000 Aardman film animation Chicken Run also mines the escape from prison trope, freely parodying WWII POW movies (especially The Great Escape) by exploiting all the familiar cliches
✦ the press closely followed Simoni’s escapades in Australia as if they were tracking “Public Enemy # 1”: ‘Search For Italian’ MELBOURNE. June 10. Police and military authorities searching for Lt. Edgardo Simoni, 25, the Italian who escapedon a bicycle from a prisoner ofwar camp in Gotiburn Valley on Saturday, believe that he has crossed the Victorian border. Detectives and railway enquiry officers are checking; every interstate and country train. and interstate detectives have joined the search ~ Adelaide Advertiser, June 11 1942”
One of the favourite characters of the American moviegoing public in the 1930s and 1940s was the affable but inscrutable Chinese detective from Honolulu, Charlie Chan. Some 44 black and white (mostly B) movies were made by Fox Film Corp (20th Century Fox) and later Monogram Pictures spanning the years 1931 and 1949. Budgeted at $200,000 to $250,000 per film Chan pictures regularly returned a million dollars in profit for Fox (‘China and the Chinese in Popular Film: From Fu Manchu to Charlie Chan: 9781350985681, 9781786730640’, (2017), www.dokumen.pub). Bargain-basement Monogram made their Chans for much less than this.
Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935): Warner Oland with a very young Rita Hayworth (billed under her original name, Rita Cansino)
The producers used three non-Chinese actors to fill the eponymous role over the course of the series – a Swede, Warner Oland and two Americans, Sidney Toler and Roland Winters. This recourse to non-Asian white actors presuming to play Asians fuelled vitriolic criticism much later (and rightly so), but back around circa 1940 this was what Hollywood got away with without discernible objection or diminution of the character’s popularity🅐. Before the Fox series started up in 1931 there had been three earlier (1920s) representations of Charlie Chan on screen, two of which were played by Japanese actors.
The House Without a Key ~ the first Charlie Chan novel
It all starts in Honolulu: The life of the literary “Charlie Chan” begins with a midwestern United States writer on holiday in 1920. Earl Derr Biggers, who had already had a measure of success as an author, was relaxing on a beach in Hawaii when he concocted the bare bones of a murder mystery. As for the character of “Chan” himself, Biggers stitched together composite attributes based on what he learned about a brace of real-life Chinese-Hawaiian detectives𖣓. The end-product was Biggers’ novel The House Without a Key, the first Charlie Chan detective fiction, published in 1925. The author explained how he envisaged the character of the brilliant fictional oriental master-sleuth: “I had seen movies depicting and read stories about Chinatown and wicked Chinese villains, and it struck me that a Chinese hero, trustworthy, benevolent, and philosophical, would come nearer to presenting a correct portrayal of the race” (Barbara Gregorich, ‘Earl Derr Biggers’, Harvard Magazine, 03-Jan-2000). Biggers’ intention was an anti-racist creation, an antidote to the villainous yellow peril persona commonly constructed for the screen (as typified by the archetypal Dr Fu Manchu).
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936): Oland with Boris Karloff
The first four films of the Charlie Chan series including the first in the Fox franchise featuring Warner Oland, Charlie Chan Carries On, are all lost (destroyed in a vault fire), so of the remaining films in the sub-genre, critics generally rate these among the best: Charlie Chan at the Opera, Charlie Chan in London, Charlie Chan at the Circus,Charlie Chan in Shanghai, Charlie Chan at the Olympics, (all Oland); Charlie Chan in Honolulu, Castle in the Desert, Charlie Chan atTreasure Island, Dead Men Tell (all Toler). The quality dropped off alarmingly the longer the series went, especially after Monogram, the “Poverty Row” studio, with its low-budget approach and inferior production values, took charge of the films🅑.
Sidney Toler as DI Chan in his trademark cream suit and matching Panama hat
Pseudo-Confucian wisdom: One of the standard tropes of the CC films is Charlie’s habitual indulgence in oriental fortune cookie-style aphorisms, intoned deadpan in his characteristically truncated syntax. Some of the more memorable ones include “Accidents can happen, if planned that way”; “A soft word does not scratch the tongue”; “Caution sometime mother of suspicion”; “Tongue often hang man quicker than rope”; “Mind, like parachute, only function when open”; “Fish in sea like flea on dog – always present, but difficult to catch”; “Grain of sand in eye may hide mountain”; “If you want wild bird to sing, do not put him in cage”; “Innocent act without thinking, guilty always make plans”; “Motive like string, tied in many knots, end may be in sight but hard to unravel”; “Opinion like tea leaf in hot water – both need time for brewing”; “Optimist only see only doughnut, pessimist see hole”; ”Person who ask riddle should know answer”; “Talk cannot cook rice”; “Waiting for tomorrow is waste of today”; “When money talk, few are deaf”; “Bad alibi like dead fish – cannot stand test of time”. Another stock phrase of Chan’s, oft-repeated in every film, is “Contradiction, please!” Followed by observations such as “Case still open like swinging gate”.
Roland Winters, Keye Luke & Victor Sen Yung together in The Feathered Serpent (1948)
Sons No. 1, 2 and 3: The honourable Inspector Chan is a family man with multiple offspring (the Chan clan numbering 14 at the last count!), but it is his three eldest sons, #1, #2 and #3, that mostly get to share the spotlight with their father, and even play a role (sometimes inadvertently) in the solving of the particular case in question, whilst irritating the bejesus out of Chan. In most of the Warner Oland films Charlie is paired with Son #1, Lee Chan (played by Keye Luke). In the Sidney Toler films Chan is joined by Son #2, Jimmy (portrayed by Victor Sen Yung). By Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) Son #3, Tommy (Benson Fong) is on board, opposite Toler in several of the Chan movies. After the CC baton is passed to Roland Winters in the late Forties, Keye Luke🅒 returns as Son #1 for the last few entries in the sequence. The favourite sons act as foils to Charlie, emphasising the generation gap between themselves and their “Pop” by demonstrating how thoroughly as Chinese-Americans they have assimilated into the dominant white culture (Tino Balio, “Balio on Charlie Chan ‘Grand Design’”, Some critical perspectives on Charlie Chan, (University of Missouri – St Louis) www.umsl.edu). African-American actor Mantan Moreland injected moments of comedy relief (usually working in unison with one of the numbered sons), appearing in 15 of the later mystery whodunnits in the 1940s as Chan’s jittery chauffeur Birmingham Brown.
The Chinese Cat (1944): Charlie Chan team # 2 – Toler, Fong and Moreland together
What made Charlie Chan so popular with Waspish America?🅓 Chan’s portrayal in a positive light (as intended by Biggers) made him something of a novelty for white audiences accustomed to negative depictions of Asians on the screen. Chan was different, it seemed incongruous, here was a rotund, humorous Chinese man who held the senior position of police inspector and the obvious respect of his peers. Endowed with Sherlock Holmes-like acute powers of observation, he solves baffling crimes that no one else can (Elaine Kim ‘Images of Asians in Anglo-American Literature’, Some critical perspectives on Charlie Chan, (University of Missouri – St Louis) www.umsl.edu). Another appealing factor was the movies’ variety of settings…though based in Honolulu, the usual format sees globe-trotting Charlie Chan following the murder trail to a host of exotic international locations—London, Paris, Monte Carlo, Río, Egypt, Shànghâi, Panama, Mexico, Berlin, etc—for a spot of outreach sleuth work. The regular changes of locale/scenery helped to maintain the interest of moviegoers.
Charlie Chan follows the crime trail everywhere, even to the Berlin Olympic Games
Is Chan a transitional figure bridging the divide in cultures?:The Charlie Chan persona has certainly polarised critics in America. Some see the character as having been a positive for changing the perception of Asian and specifically Chinese people. Hitherto American audiences were exposed to the notion of Orientals as “heathen Chinee”, denizens of the squalid opium den or as nondescript types who worked solely in damp, dingy laundries. Det. Inspector Chan is a very different Oriental, his attributes, intelligence, diligence, good humour and loyalty, are qualities much valued in the American cultural ethos. In this context the Chinese-Hawaiian shamus is seen as a good stereotype, countering the bad Oriental stereotype so long ingrained in US cinema. (Sandra Hawley, ‘The Importance of Being Charlie Chan’, www.enotes.com).
Still from Charlie Chan in Paris (1935) (photo: 20th Century Fox/Photofest)
Charlie Chan as “showcase” representative of a “model minority”: Other critics take a more trenchant view of why Americans of the day so readily accepted Charlie Chan. They see Chan as one-dimensional, subservient, kowtowing to white authority, merely a subject for satire. Even when he is demonstrating his superior intellectual powers, meek of demeanour Chan is self-effacing and apologetic (“so sorry to disagree”), he never challenges the power imbalance in the Caucasians’ favour🅔. Culturally assimilated, Chan knows his place in white American society as the “benevolent Other”…always stoical, he cheerfully accepts his assigned status (Shilpa Dave et al, East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture, and Jeffrey Crean, Fear of Chinese Power: An International History, (both cited in Wikipedia); Kim, ‘Images of Asians’). Some critiques see the Chan character as an emasculated figure, a pernicious racial stereotype blocking the articulation of “more credible, self-determined enunciations of Asian American identity” (‘The Hardboiled and the Haunted: Race, Masculinity and the Asian American Detective’, Calvin McMillin, (2012), www.academia.edu). Philippa Gates sees Chan as “existing in a liminal space between Chinese and American culture symbolized by his home: the mid-Pacific territory of Hawaii” (Philippa Gates, “‘Asian’ Detectives. An Overview”, Crime Culture, www.crimeculture.com).
Sky Dragon (1949): the final film in the Charlie Chan series
Resuscitating “Yellowface“ in a more racial diverse and inclusive era: The Charlie Chan films worked for their time and cultural context. Attempts to revive the Charlie Chan mystique in remakes a generation later with The Return of Charlie Chan (1973), and the lame Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), still committing the sin of casting Caucasian actors in the title role, misfired badly and were called out for their cultural insensitivity and political incorrectness🅕. The Curse of the Dragon Queen provoked a vociferous backlash from Asian-Americans who labelled Chan “a yellow Uncle Tom” and organised protests against the film, beginning even before it into production (‘Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen’ (1981), AFI Catalog, www.catalog.afi.com).
Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938): Sidney Toler’s debut as the No 1 detective
Sceptical police inspector: Aren’t you jumping to conclusions? Chan: No, conclusions are jumping at me.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Charlie Chan in London)
𖣓 for more on this see ‘Chan and Chang: The Origin and Cultural Vicissitudes of the Most Famous Chinese-American Literary and Screen Detective’, posted July 2020: https://www.7dayadventurer.com/tag/fictional-super-sleuths/
🅐 from the Forties right through to the Sixties Hollywood westerns dished up to the public Italians, Hungarians, Russian actors with three-day growths, passing them all off as American “Indians”, anyone it seemed was used other than actual native Americans
🅑 relating to the films in the later phase of Toler and his successor Winter
🅒 the popular Luke scored a solo turn in the Chinese-American detective whodunnit caper in Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
🅓 intriguingly Chan was also very popular in China during the 1930s, even seen as a Chinese hero. Warner Oland was feted like royalty when he visited the country. Homegrown versions of the Charlie Chan movies were made in Shànghâi and Hong Kong
🅔 although as Fletcher Chan notes, Charlie doesn’t always passively accept the doormat position. In The Chinese Parrot, confronted with egregious racism he reacts with discernible anger and displeasure towards the offending white person (Fletcher Chan, ‘Charlie Chan: A Hero of Sorts’, California Literary Review, 26-Mar-2007, www.calitreview.com)
🅕 Hollywood’s casting of a “yellowface” Charlie continued into television, a 1957 series, The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, saw fit to feature an American of Irish heritage in the lead role
Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” (GLF) in 1958—communist China’s bold venture to transform the nation’s economy from agrarian to industrial—necessitated some drastic social engineering, and more than a little tinkering with nature. The “Paramount Leader”, repudiating the advice of state economists, consistently advocated the efficacy of population growth for China (Ren Duo, Liliang Da – “With Many People, Strength is Great”) …he stated that “even if China’s population multiplies many times, she is fully capable of finding a solution, the solution is production” (‘The Bankruptcy of the Idealist Conception of History’, (1949)). One strategy of Mao’s for protecting the imperative of national productivity and boosting output involved an extreme “solution” in itself.
Four Evils Campaign poster (source: chineseposters.net)
Pest controllers: As a plank of the GLF Mao spearheaded the “Four Evils Campaign”, four “pests” of the natural world were targeted for elimination – rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows…the first three especially concentrated in large numbers certainly could pose a threat to public health and hygiene, but why sparrows? Mao singled out the sparrow because it consumed the grain seed and rice from agricultural fields. What followed was a government propaganda campaign exhorting the people to fulfil their patriotic duty and zealously hunt down these proscribed “enemies of the state”. The regime enlisted the civilian population in a military-like operation, a coordinated mass mobilisation, dedicated to this singular task. The mass participation event included the very young, armies of children aged five and older were despatched from their homes armed with slingshot and stones, to formicate all over the countryside and wipe out vast numbers of sparrows often with frightening effectiveness.
“Patriotic duty” of young Chinese (source: chineseposters.net)
Mao v Nature: Mao’s war on passerine birds was part of a wider war on nature. Mao encapsulated the objective for China in one of his oft-repeated slogans: Ren Ding Sheng Tian (“Man must conquer nature”). Mao’s modernist conception of the world saw humans as fundamentally distinct and separate from nature, so in order to fashion the world’s most populous republic into the socialist utopia that he envisioned, nature, this external thing, had to be harnessed and defeated (Zhansheng ziran). The result was a drastic reshaping of China’s physical landscape, the over-extraction of resources, intensive farming schemes, massive deforestation, riverine pollution, over-hunting and over-fishing [Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War against Nature (2001)]
Eurasian Tree Sparrow: top of Mao’s nature hit-list
A monstrous ecological imbalance and a species endangered: The nationally coordinated campaign against the four pests proceeded with phenomenal speed and ruthless efficiency. By early 1960 an estimated one billion sparrows had been destroyed🄰, nearly wiping out the species altogether in China…a fateful consequence that was to prove catastrophic for the country’s food production. The authorities had not heeded the expert advice from Chinese scientists🄱 that sparrows fulfilled a vital function in feeding off not just crops but off insects including locusts. With the removal of this natural predator, locusts in plague quantities were free to ravage the nation’s fields of grain and rice, and ravage they did, in Nanjiang 60% of the produce fields were ruined [‘Mao and the Sparrows: A Communist State’s War Against Nature’, Agata Kasprolewicz, Przekroj, 22-Mar-2019, www.przekroj.org] .
The Great (man-made) Famine, 1959–1961: The resulting Great Famine in the PRC caused up to 30 million deaths and an estimated similar figure or more in lost or postponed births, making it the worstfamine in human history judged by population loss [‘Berkeley study: Historic famineleavesmultiplegenerationsvulnerable to infectiousdisease’, Berkeley Public Health, www.publichealth.berkeley.edu]. The plunge in agricultural output linked to the sparrow decimation project was further exacerbated by other factors such as Peking’s procurements policy, increase in grain exports from 1957 (redirecting grain away from domestic consumption which otherwise could have allowed millions of Chinese to survive the famine); the priority on industrialisation diverting huge numbers of agriculturalworkers into industrial sectors adversely affected the food scarcity crisis.
Fujian province propaganda poster, 1960 (image: US National Library of Medicine)
Postscript: Reprising the eradication campaign In 1960 the Chinese government upon realising the folly of its sparrow offensive, overturned its proscription of the birds, declaring war on bed bugs in their place. The disastrous sparrow mega-kill episode however didn’t bury the Four Evils campaign forever. The Chinese government in 1998 launched a new version of the movement, posters were seen in Beijing and Chongqing urging citizens to kill the four pests…the first three were the usual suspects as in 1958, but this time cockroaches were substituted for sparrows. Unlike the original sparrow campaign the 1998 version was not successful [‘The Four Pests Campaign: Objectives, Execution, Failure, And Consequences, World Atlas, www.worldatlas.com].
🄰 along with 1.5 billion rats, over 220 million pounds of flies and over 24 million pounds of mosquitoes
🄱 there were doubters within the hierarchy of the Communist Party who had misgivings about the wisdom of the Paramount Leader’s policy, but most found it expedient to remain silent for fear of the personal consequences of incurring the wrath of Mao
As a kid I developed a liking for “Our Gang” comedies, a series of American short films about a gang of poor, mainly white (but including black) children. I enjoyed the good-natured tomfoolery and minor mischief perpetrated by the juvenile gang members, particularly Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat. I’m thankful that I was exposed to the “Our Gang” shorts🅐 as it pointed me towards another cinema series about the same demographic that became part of my standard viewing fodder – the Dead End Kids series of movies and its successors.
The “53rd Street Gang” in their playground
While the antics of “Our Gang” were unadulterated if sentimentalised fun, I came to prefer the more serious tone and developed storylines of the “Dead End Kids” (DEK) movies. The early movies were starkly realistic, and this was realism of the grittiest kind, rooted in the unforgiving here and now of grim slum life in America’s depression era. These kids were dirt poor, locked into a daily struggle for survival, taking every opportunity, fair or foul, to fleece or steal from anyone or anything that presented itself. At the same time their brutal experience had made them rebels with a cause – the inequities of capitalist America…impoverished slum boys who never missed a chance to decry or one-up the “better-offs” in society.
Where it started: Dead End (1937)
The Kids from Dead End: The DEK phenomena had its genesis in a 1935 Broadway play, Dead End🅑, by Sidney Kingsley, featuring a cadre of young actors which would go on to form the nucleus of the gang in the movie series: Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsley🅒 and the Gorcey brothers, Leo and David. The play was successful, running for two years, Hollywood mega-mogul Samuel Goldwyn saw the show and was immediately impressed. Goldwyn bought the film rights and made Dead End as a United Artists feature film in 1937, co-starring the Kids alongside Humphrey Bogart. The film was a hit but the boys caused havoc during the production, crashing a truck into a soundstage, prompting an annoyed Goldwyn to unload them to Warner Brothers.
Angels With Dirty Faces: the Dead Enders plus James Cagney in a gangster melodrama (source: alchetron.com)
Warners Bros’ crime school graduates: At Warner Brothers the Dead End Kids made six features, typically in supporting roles to big stars (Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Anne Sheridan, John Garfield and Bogart). In They Made me a Criminal (1939) starring Garfield, the Kids don’t make an appearance until 25 minutes into the film. The Warners’ series followed the studio’s formula of serious social crime dramas with the Kids heavily involved in the plot and also lending some comedy relief (‘Dead End Kids’, www.boweryboys.bobfinnan.com). Billy Halop was acknowledged as the leader of the gang and was purportedly paid more than the other boys, leading to some bad feelings within the group. Despite the DEK success at Warners the studio was disenchanted with the group’s off-camera antics (more impromptu hell–raising) and released them from their contracts after their sixth film.
Sea Raiders (1941): emphasising the interchangeable nature of the group’s various names, Universal tended to use the double-billing, “Dead End Kids” and “Little Tough Guys”, in their advertising
Little Tough Guys: Universal decided to get in on the act, cashing in on the DEK’s appeal with its own (B–movie) series. Billing the gang as the “Little Tough Guys”, Universal made 12 features in the late 1930s–early 40s, featuring at one time or other all of the original Kids except Leo Gorcey. Shemp Howard, one of the popular “Three Stooges”, appeared in two of the LTG movies, and was acknowledged by Huntz Hall as an influence on the slapstick style of comedy that the group later developed.
East Side Kids: The Dead End Kids morphed into a new incarnation called the “East Side Kids” in a series made by Monogram Pictures. These were 22 films made as low-budget imitations of the DEK movies, initially crime melodramas with comedic overtones, but as the series evolved, the comedy angle took greater emphasis. With Halop gone by this time, Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan were now the gang leaders. As the series progressed, the comedy duo of wise guy Leo Gorcey and zany but dim Huntz Hall became the focus in films like Million Dollar Kid and Spooks Run Wild (a horror comedy headlined by an ageing Bela Lugosi) (www.boweryboys.bobfinnan.com). As a variation on the usual criminals that the boys routinely cross swords with, in Let’s Get Tough (1942) they find themselves this time trying to foil Nazi and Japanese saboteurs in the US. A black former child actor of the original Our Gang movies “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison and William (“Billy”) Benedict were added to the ESK retinue of scruffy working class street kids.
Spooks Gone Wild (1941): East Side Kids v Dracula
Bowery Boys: Stoogesque slapstick and streetwise Abbott and Costello In 1945 the ESK series folded and was replaced by yet another name for the team of screen performers, the “Bowery Boys”🅓. Leo Gorcey this time had an enhanced stake in the enterprise, owning 40% of the production company🅔, acting as producer and contributing to the script. Gorcey also brought his father Bernard to the films’ players. Bobby Jordan left the series again and Gabriel Dell returned. The interaction of Leo Gorcey, with his malapropism-prone utterances as “Slip”, and Hunt as dim-witted sidekick “Sash”, continued to provide the central plank of the humour. The Bowery Boys series—made by Allied Artists, successor studio to Monogram—comprised 48 movies in all. The early efforts continued the standard fare of gangster melodrama, but after “Three Stooges” director Edward Bernds started directing Gorcey and Co, the films resorted more to slapstick comedy, Three Stooges-like wordplay and occasionally to fantasy themes (‘The Bowery Boys: Anything But Routine’, Ivan G. Shreve, Jr Classic Flix, 19-Sep-2013, www.classicflix.com). Abbott and Costello’s influence is also evident, there are obvious echoes of Africa Screams in the Bowery Boys’ Jungle Gents (1954) (‘Dead End Kids’ found new life as ‘Bowery Boys’, Jim Willard, Loveland Reporter-Herald, 07-July-2018, www.reporterherald.com).
Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954): several movies in the series sought to capitalise on the public’s craze for horror/monster movies
By the time the final Bowery Boys film In the Money is made in 1958, the series is looking tired, stale and frayed…only Huntz Hall and David Gorcey remain of the originals (Leo’s ongoing bouts with the demon alcohol saw his forced departure in 1956, replaced by Stanley Clements), the “Kids” were now middle-aged, hardly juvenile delinquent material, and their screen work lacking the verve and punch of earlier days.
In the Money (1958): ageing juvenile delinquents
🅐 syndicated for television in the 1960s as The Little Rascals
🅑 the “Dead End” tag came from the inscription on the road sign at the river’s edge in the original, 1937 film
🅒 Punsly was the odd one out among the “young punk” band of actors, he stayed in the DEK/ESK series only till 1942 (notching up 19 films) before leaving show biz for good to become a successful physician (later chief of staff at a private hospital in LA)
🅓 the Bowery is a street and neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan, NYC
If you could travel in the Tardis back to my primary school days, you’d find me most lunchtimes in the school library with my head in the fiction section habitually combing through the shelves for any books from my favourite series of reads for kids that I hadn’t yet wolfed down. Precisely I’d have my nose in the ‘C’ section – ‘C’ for Richmal Crompton, the author of the “Just William” series of books. From about the age of nine or ten I was hooked on the rebellious juvenile role model William, a 1920s–1960’s version of Harry Potter in his all-consuming cult appeal🄰…William became as integral to my childhood as Classics Illustrated comics, plasticine and chocolate malted sundaes. With more energy than I could ever summon for my obligatory school home work, I dedicated myself with missionary zeal to reading every single Just William book I could lay my hands on! Fortunately for me there was plenty of scope for that ambition, Crompton having written 39 Just William books in all. In the end I’m not sure if I actually read all of them (did the library hold the entire collection?), but I was certainly exposed to enough of them to become a vicarious member of “The Outlaws”.
The popularity of the Just William books prompted multiple other media spin-offs, including several television series—the 1962 series cast Denis Waterman (above) as William—as well as films and radio serials
William (Brown) is 11, and like Peter Pan he doesn’t age, despite the Just William entries in the series stretching over a period of nearly half-a-century!🄱 William in appearance is scruffy-haired and untidy, in nature straight talking, anarchic and rebellious – which generally lands him and his own small gang of school friends “The Outlaws” in hot water. Guy Mankowski attributes the series’ success (12 million books sold in the UK alone) to the English love of the rebel. My own recollection of the general tenor of mainstream Western society circa 1965, before the societal ripples of the Counterculture and Vietnam were felt, was still very conformist and strait-jacketed. I delighted in the character of William, his rebellious free spirit and sense of fun, constantly waging a war against the rules of adults which stop children like him enjoying the fun things in life (like unlimited ice cream). What also endeared me was William’s sheer inventiveness, constantly coming up with sometimes zany, always hilarious schemes to make money or to teach grown-ups a lesson or two, and the like. And I might add just quietly, William’s loud anti-school rhetoric didn’t diminish his appeal in my books as well.
Early volumes
Two things I only found out about Just William in my adulthood…I had from the start assumed that the author of the William books was a man, he had to be a man to write about a mischievous albeit good-natured boy with such knowing authority, I thought (plus, though “Richmal” was a weird first name, it sounded more like an upper-class toff’s name than a women’s name). Wrong on both counts! Miss Richmal Crompton Lamburn was in fact a school mistress (ironically – in an all-girls school!) who contracted polio and spent the rest of her life writing the William series of books as well as 41 separate adult novels (which she rated as her real true literary work)🄲. The second discovery was that John Lennon also harboured an all-consuming passion for the Just William stories growing up in Forties and Fifties Liverpool. Had I known at the time that no less a global cultural luminary of the Sixties than Beatle John hero-worshipped the fictional rebel William, my own cup of infatuated fandom for “Britain’s favourite naughty boy” may have runneth over even more than it did🄳.
Miss Crompton with juvenile “proofreaders” (photo: Keystone/Getty Images)
Something else that slipped under the radar of my 11-year-old self was the topicality (and sometimes controversial nature) of the William stories. In the 1940s in William and the Brains Trust William responds to the publication of the Beveridge Report—the blueprint for radical social policy change that profoundly affected postwar UK—with a list of his own child-centred demands. William the Dictator reflected the Western world’s concern with the rise of fascism and National Socialism. The US/USSR space race in the Fifties inspired the Just William titles William and the Moon Rocket and William and the Space Animal. Occasionally Crompton strayed onto edgy and even highly controversial turf. In the 1934 short story ‘William and the Nasties’ William and his Outlaws copy Hitler’s jackbooted Nazis by harassing and persecuting a local Jewish sweet-shop owner…passages such “There came to William glorious visions of chasing Jew after Jew out of sweetshop after sweetshop” definitely wouldn’t pass the politics or ethical pub test in our avowedly PC times. The anti-Semitic tone of ‘William and the Nasties’ has ensured its exclusion from modern editions of the William series.
William the Lawless, the final book in the series, published in 1970, the year after Crompton’s death
🄰 perhaps a better analogy is with Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole character although Adrian is way too timid and wimpishly sensitive juxtaposed to William
🄱 2022 was the centenary of the publication of the first Just William book in the series, although William’s debut in print was in a 1919 magazine story
🄲 Crompton Lamburn apparently based the character of William on a combination of her younger brother Battersby and her nephew Tommy
🄳 in William the Lawless (1970) William receives as a present, a Beatles’ LP
Ucalegon: neighbour whose house is on fire or has burned down [from Gk. Oukalégōn – one of the Elders of whose house was set on fire by the Achaeans during the sack of Troy, a character in the Iliad (3.148)]
Ululate: to howl like a wolf [from L. ululāre (“to howl or bay”)]
Ululate (source: the Conversation)
Umbersorrow: fit, robust, sturdy, resisting disease or the effects of severe weather; rugged, uncultivated, surly disposition [from Scot. Eng. origin obscure]
Umbriferous: shady; making shade [from L. umbrifer, from umbra (“a shade”) + –ferre (“to bear”)]
Undinism: the association of water with erotic thoughts; sexual arousal from urination [from Ger. undine from L. unda (“wave”)+ -ism]
Unidextral: capable of using one hand only [L. uni (“one only”) + –dexter (“right hand”)] ✋
Upaithric: (Arch.) (a building or structure) without a roof [Gk. Origin obscure] (Synonym: Hypethral)
Upaithric
Urorilocal: (refer to Uxorious in the Logolept’s Diet 1.0) living with one’s wife’s family [borrowed from L. uxōrius (“of or pertaining to a wife”), from uxor (“wife”) + -local(?)]
<: word meaning root formation:>
Valetudinarian: an invalid, esp one with a tendency towards hypochondria; a person who is unduly anxious about their health [from L. valēre, (“to have strength” or “to be well”) + -arian]
Vapulatory: relating to flogging or beating [from L. vāpulō (“cry”; “wail”)]
Venery: sexual indulgence (from L. vener-, venus– (“sexual desire, sexual intercourse”) + -ery]
Verecund: modest; shy; bashful [from L. verēcundus (“shy, modest”)]
Verkramp: someone narrow-minded or extremely conservative in their views [Afrik. “cramped”]
Vetust: venerable from antiquity [from L. vetustus (“old, ancient”)]
Viduity: widowhood [from MidEng. (Scots) viduite, from L. vidua (“widow”) + –ity]
Viviseplture: the practice of burying someone alive [from L. vivus (“alive”) + –sepulture (from L. sepultura (“bury”)]
Viviseplture
Voteen: a zealously pious person [from Gael. Irish. corruption of devotee + -een]
Vulpinate: to wilily cheat or deceive someone [from L. vulpes (“fox” )]
Paleomnesia: good memory for events of the far past [Gk. paleo (“old”; “ancient”) + –mnesia (“memory”)]
Palimony: the division of financial assets and real property on the termination of a personal live-in relationship wherein the parties are not legally married (ie, de facto) [formed from “pal” + “alimony” (coined by celebrity lawyer Marvin Mitchelson)]
Palinoia: the compulsive repetition of an act over and over until perfection is achieved [? + Gk. –noia (“mind”)]
Palladian: pertaining to learning and wisdom [from Gk. Pallás an epithet of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom) + -ian]
Palladian: Pallas Athena
Palpebrate: having eyelids; to wink. [L. palpebra, eyelid]
Paltripolitan: an insular city dweller [blending of “paltry” + -“metropolitan”]
Pancratic: (Hist.) an athletic contest called the pankration; athletic; pertaining to or having ability in all matters [Gk. pankratḗs, [“all-powerful”)]
Pancratic Credit: Midjourney for the Greek Reporter
Pandaculation: involuntary stretching and yawning [L. pandiculatus, from pandiculari (“to stretch oneself”)] 🥱
Pangrammatist: a person who composes verses or sentences using all letters of the alphabet [Gk. pan (“all”) + -grammar + -ist]
Pantophagy: a diet that consists of a large variety of foods; ideally, of all possible foods [from Gk. pant (“all”) + –phagein (“to eat”)]
Paracme: (Medic.) a point beyond the greatest or highest (eg, of a fever); the stage after one’s peak [from Gk. para, (“beyond”) + -akmē, (“highest point”; “prime”)]
Paradiastole: (Rhetoric) a form of euphemism in which a positive synonym is substituted for a negative word; to reframe a vice as a virtue [para + -diastolḗ, (“separation”; “distinction”)]
Paronomasia: word-play of the punning kind; playing upon words which sound alike for comic or clever effect [from para + –onomasía, (“naming”)]
Parorexia: a craving or appetite for unusual foods [from Gk. para + -orexia (“desire”; “appetite”)]
Parorexia (photo: taste.com.au)
Passepartout: a master key; a safe conduct or passport (from Fr. lit. (“passes everywhere”)] 🔑
Passepartout (fictional character)
Peculate: to pilfer or embezzle (money, esp public funds) [L. from peculatus]
Pilgarlic: a pitiful bald-headed man [from “pilled”/“peeled” + “-garlic”]
Pleionosis: the exaggeration of one’s own importance [? + Gk. –osis (“disease”; “process”); “condition”)]
Preterist: (Theo.) a Christian eschatological view or belief that interprets prophecies of the Bible as events which have already been fulfilled in history; a person interested in the past [ from L. praeteritus, (“gone by”) + -ist]
Prevenient: anticipating; preceding in time or order; having foresight; preventing [from L. praeveniens (“precedes”)]
Procerity: tallness; height [from L. pro– (“forward”) + –cerus, from –crescere (“to grow”) + –itas (“-ity”)]
Proctalgia: a severe, episodic pain in the region of the rectum and anus; pain in the arse [Gk. prōktos (“anus”) + –algos (“pain”)] (cf. Rectalgia)
Procumbent: lying or kneeling with face down; prostrate [L. pro + -cumbere (“to lie down”)]
Protogenal: pertaining to primitive creatures [NewLat. protogenes, from L. prot (“first”) + –gen (“birth”)]
Psephologist: someone who studies elections and voting patterns [Gk. psēphos, (“pebble”)]
The Zorro story is deeply embedded in western popular culture, especially in the world of Anglophone cinema and television which trades heavily on all the familiar tropes, “carving the ‘Z’ on someone or something (the zigzagging mark of El Zorro)”; “secret identity of the protagonist, the elusive fox”🇦; “masked avenging angel fighting the powerful in the cause of the powerless”, etc. The fictional Zorro inherits the tradition of storied folklore heroes like Robin Hood and the Scarlet Pimpernel…in this Zorro is a worthy member of that exalted pantheon of morally-superior righters of heinous wrongs.
Batman: wardrobe tips from Zorro
Clark Kent aka Superman
Before Batman, Superman and the Lone Ranger: Zorro, he of the rapid rapier and distinctive black mask covering only his eyes, was a precursor to the iconic, quintessential American heroes of comic book and screen. There are transparent linkages between Zorro, the caballero (Spanish gentleman)–cum–rebellious outlaw, and Batman, the crusading superhero of Gotham City…both heroes effect a double identity. Both Don Diego de la Vega (Zorro) and Bruce Wayne (Batman) are wealthy aristocrats who feign unheroic personalities in their open identities🇧(compare Don Diego’s foppish even effeminate affectations with Wayne’s playboy persona). The dual/secret identities trope is also exhibited in the Supermen franchise, in times of great crisis or peril mild-mannered loser-type Clark Kent only has to dash into the nearest phone booth to instantly transform into peerless crime fighter Superman. The parallels extend to popular American TV westerns fare in the 1950s with the masked Lone Ranger who “was little more than Zorro in a western guise”, substituting the swashbuckler Zorro’s black garb and accessories with a lawman’s white outfit, etc. Zorro and Lone Ranger share another similar trait to their makeup, as does Batman. Unlike Superman, they don’t rely on superpowers or extra human strength but utilise “stealth, dexterity and ingenuity” to best the bad guys and end “corruption and abuse, and establish a world of moral justice” [John J. Valadez. (2016). The Lone Ranger Unmasked: Zorro and the Whitewashing of the American Superhero. Filmmaker Essay. Chiricú, 1(1), 135–151. https://doi.org/10.2979/chiricu.1.1.11]. In Batman’s case, he relies on his “scientific knowledge, detective skills and athletic prowess” [Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (1968)].
(source: archive.org/)
Over 40 films, several TV series, novels, a musical, cartoons and comics, and the obligatory merchandise, Zorro as an entertainment phenomenon has been the complete package for over a century. But it all started with a simple and seemingly nondescript adventure story, The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley, appearing in print in a dime pulp magazine. First serialised in 1919, the template was picked up almost immediately by Douglas Fairbanks Sr (a Zorro tragic!) and his production company and developed into a box office hit silent movie, The Mark of Zorro in 1920. On the strength of The Mark of Zorro’s success McCulley serialised the Zorro tale, producing in all over 60 stories by the time of his death in 1958. The Curse of Capistrano by itself has sold more than 750 million copies worldwide!
Time setting for ‘Zorro’? McCalley’s Zorro stories are vaguely set during the later era of Spanish California (ca.1800–1821), however some of the film adaptations locate Zorro much closer to the gold rushes and the US takeover (late 1840s).
Guy Williams, the iconic Zorro of ‘50s television, and creator Johnston McCulley
Chicano bandit prototypes for Zorro: McCulley drew on sources from literature and legend—primarily Robin Hood and Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel—for inspiration for the Zorro character, but he also gleaned much from the pages of history, especially of early California. McCulley seems to have modelled Zorro partly on various 19th century Californio bandidos, in particular Joaquin Murrieta whose actual historicity is uncertain🇨. The popular legend has Murrieta immigrating to the California gold fields but when gringos committed murderous atrocities against his family, the Mexican wreaks revenge on the American killers and embarks on a short but violent career of robbery and banditry. Murrieta’s “exploits” polarised opinion, Californian authorities identify him an enemy of the state and place a high price on his head while to Chicanos the romanticised outlaw has become a symbol of Mexican resistance to Anglo-American economic and cultural domination in California [‘Joaquin Murrieta’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]🇩.
Moviemakers even roped Zorro into the Italian Sword-and-Sandals (peplum strongman) sub-genre during its apotheosis, with Zorro Contro Maciste (1963)
Another Mexican bandit (more historically authenticatable than Murrieta), Tiburcio Vásquez, provided similar inspiration for fiction author McCulley. Vásquez attributed his 20-year career in crime to retribution for the racist attitudes of the norteamericanos—the white settlers from the US who had taken over Alta California after it had become an American state—and their treatment of non-Anglo (especially Mexican) inhabitants of California. Vásquez’s bold defiance earned him a folkhero following within the 19th century Méxican-American community (Valadez).
William Lamport (by PP Rubens)
An Irish Gaelic Zorro?: A decidedly non-Latino historical influence on the creation of Zorro is attributed to the career of Irish adventurer William Lamport, noted for being both an accomplished swordsman and a ladies’ man. The peripatetic Lamport served as a captain in the Spanish army and was sent to New Spain (Mexico) with a new, Hispanicised name to spy for the Spanish crown. The Eirish adventurer was appalled by the treatment of Amerindians and Black slaves in Mexico and sought to advance their liberation. Lamport was eventually arrested and accused of sedition and intending to set himself up as king of an independent Mexico. The Irishman was tried by the Mexican Inquisition and executed as a heretic in 1659 [‘The Man Behind the Mask of Zorro’, History Ireland, www.historyireland.com].
Banderas & Zeta-Jones in the 2005 sequel to ‘The Mask of Zorro’
TriStar Pictures’ 1998 production, The Mask of Zorro, with a vigorous, athletic Antonio Banderas in the title role, revived interest in the Zorro story and earned a cool US$250,000,000 at the box office. In the 1960s Disney’s television adaptation of the Zorro story (starring Guy Williams, the Anglo-sounding screen name of Armando Catalano) was one of the most popular programs on the box, especially with kids. So is Zorro just some innocuous action-adventure entertainment fare? Well, not according to some critical voices from the Latino community who see the Zorro phenomena as perpetuating Hispanic myths within the wider white-dominated mainstream, reinforcing “classic stereotypes of the Latin Lover (see also Footnote below) fighting endless series of inept Méxican villains” and misrepresenting the “multiethnicity and cultural complexity of of early California [‘Zorro still makes his mark’, Lewis Beale, Los Angeles Times, 28-June-2005, www.latimes.com]🇪. Others are critical of Zorro’s ethnicity, UCLA professor, Rafael Perez-Torres, emphasises the point that the “Robin Hood of the pueblo” is Criollo, a white Spaniard born in the New World of purely Spanish blood, he is always represented as the “honourable good ” against the evil and corrupt Méxican officials (Beale). Novelist Isabel Allende with an unorthodox take on Zorro (El Zorro: comienza la leyenda, 2005) subverts this idea of Eurocentric Zorro by reinventing his origin as a mestizo (mixed parentage: Spanish aristocrat father and Shoshone warrior mother).
The dandy Don Diego & macho he-man alter ego Zorro in the Walt Disney TV ‘Zorro’
Footnote: Celluloid Zorros One of the tropes employed by filmmakers in Zorro’s frequent screen appearances is Zorro as “sexy Latino lover”, as portrayed in the versions (big screen and small) by a bevy of heart-throb testosterone-charged actors – Tyrone Power, Guy Williams, Alain Delon, Antonio Banderas, George Hamilton (though Hamilton in the 1981 Zorro: The Gay Blade, tagline: “Zexy, Zany and Zensational!”, plays the black caped avenger purely for (campy) laughs).
🇦 zorro in Spanish translates as “fox”
🇧 Bob Kane co-creator of the Batman character admitted Zorro—and in particular the Douglas Fairbanks Sr swashbuckling portrayal in Mark of Zorro (1920)—heavily influenced his shaping of the “caped crusader” of Gotham City
🇨 Murrieta’s story is mostly recounted through a contemporary novel, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit (1854)
🇩Californio Salomón Pico was another historical figure in 1850s California with a similar sounding story embellished by local legend – grievously wronged by white settlers so he turns to banditry against the powers that-be and shares his booty with the local Mexican poor
🇪all of which is not to deny that there are countless other Latinos (and other peoples) who have derived genuine inspiration from the story and legend of Zorro to help fortify them in their very real, everyday struggles against unjust, authoritarian and oppressive regimes
Forisfamiliate: (Scot. law) to disinherit; to shed parental authority [Medieval Latin. forisfamiliatus, forisfamiliare, from L. foris (“outside”) + -familia (“family”)]
Fungible: (Legal.) replaceable by or acceptable as a replacement for a similar item [L. fungi (“to perform”)]
Fustian: ridiculously pompous, bombastic or inflated language [Anglo-Fr. fustian (“a kind of fabric”), prob. from L. fustis (“tree trunk” or “club”; “staff”)]
Fustigate: to criticise severely; to cudgel, ie, to beat with a stick [L. fustis + –igare ]
Fylfot: “Saxon” swastika; a type of swastika associated with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture (cf. Gammadion)
Fylfot (source: the Golden Dawn Shop)
<word meaning and root formation>
Gabion: a cage, cylinder or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil used as a retaining wall in civil engineering, road building, military applications and landscaping [from It. gabbione (“big cage”) from It. gabbia from L. cavea (“cage”)]
Genarch: (also sp. Genearch) head of family; a chief of a family or tribe [Gk. géniteur (“genitor”) + -arch ]
Genial:¹ diffusing warmth and friendliness; cordial [L. geniālis (“relating to birth or marriage”; from genius (“tutelary”; “deity”)]
Glycolimia: (also sp. Glycaemia) a craving for sweets; presence or level of sugar (glucose) in the blood [from NewLat. glyco- (“sugar”) + -emia (“condition of the blood.”)]
Gormandise: eat greedily or voraciously [from MidEng. gourmaunt, gormond, gromonde, from OldFr. gormant (“a glutton”) + -ise]
Gormandise
Gracile: slender [L. gracilis (“slender”)]
Gramercy: used to thank someone; an exclamation of surprise [Fr. from grand merci (“a special thank you”)]
Grammatolatry: the worship of letters or words Gk. grammato, from grammat-, gramma) + -latry (Grammatolatry could be the motto for this whole project!)
Grampus: a blowing, spouting, whale-like sea creature; a cetacean of the dolphin family [grampoys, from graundepose (“great fish”)]
Grampus (image: facebook.com)
Grandgousier: someone who will eat anything and everything [Fr. grand gosier, (“Big throat”) a fictional character in the story of Gargantua by François Rabelais]
Grassation: the act of attacking violently; living in wait to attack [L. grassatio, from grassatus, grassarito (“go about”; “attack”; “rage against”) + -ion]
Graveolent: having a rank smell; fetid; stinking [L. graveolent-, graveolens, from gravis (“heavy”) + -olent-, -olens ]
Gravid: pregnant (-a: pregnant woman); full of meaning [L. gravidus (“laden”; “pregnant”), from gravis (“heavy”)] (cf. Gravific: that which makes heavy)
Groak: to watch people silently while they’re eating, hoping they will ask you to join them (OU)
Grobianism: rudeness; boorishness [from Middle High Ger. grob or grop (“coarse or vulgar”). 1. a Grobian is an imaginary personage known for boorish behaviour, appearing in works of 15-16th century writers 📑 2. a fictional patron saint of the vulgar and coarse, St Grobian
Gyrovagues: wandering or itinerant monks devoid of leadership. Having no fixed address they were reliant on charity and the hospitality of others [Late Latin. gyrovagus from L. gȳrus (“circle”) + –vagus (“wandering”)]
As a kid I was wholly immersed in what film critics call ”epic films“…those mega-large scale productions with sweeping scope and spectacle, unfettered extravagance, lavishly costumed, a cast of thousands (actual persons, not a computer-generated substitution of a multiplicity of images for people en masse), exotic locations, loosely set in a far ago historical context which could be Biblical, could be Viking sagas, Sinbad the Sailor/Arabian Nights adventures, 16th century pirates, Spanish Conquistadors in the New World, 12th century Crusaders venturing forth for the Holy Land or from countless other pages in the chronicles of history. Even movies which mix myth with history like the Robin Hood sagas or the Arthurian legend drew me to their flame. But it was the world of antiquity, in particular the BC era as interpreted on celluoid screens large or small that most fired my imagination. My all-time favourite viewing entertainments back then were “sword-and-sandal” movies. Yes okay I admit that when we got a TV set in the late Fifties, watching Westerns started to consume the lion’s share of my leisure time, but by circa 1960 there was just so many damn TV westerns, “horse operas”, “oaters” call them what you like monopolising air time on the box, that you had to be discerning to avoid them (which I wasn’t!).
King of Kings (1961): dubbed “I was a teenage Jesus” by critics upon its release
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The Peplum:
This quintessential term in the epic film lexicon comes from the garment worn by Greek women in the Archaic era, the peplos. What the Hellenic women of antiquity called a peplos—a long outer robe or shawl which hung from the body in loose folds and sometimes was drawn over the head—is a far cry from how moviemakers in the mid-20th century conceived the garment. Peplaⓐ in the Greco-Roman cinematic universe were a much sexier affair, mini-length tunics to show off shapely legs (and worn by both sexes).
Peplum fashionistas
In that less prescriptive age when no one fretted much about the adverse physiological (or psychological) effects on juveniles of their maxing out in front of the idiot box 12 hours a day, my penchant was to get as much Hollywood epic blockbusters into me as I could manage—this included such classic Hollywood biblical and historical fodder as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments and Spartacus —seeing them in the picture theatre and again on television when they turned up there. If I had to nominate one ancient world epic flick as my all-time favourite though, I’d probably plump for the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts movie– admittedly a smaller scale ‘indy’ production without the big name star drawing power (maybe more “epic-lite?”). It’s stellar appeal lay in part, like its more famous fellow Greek myth story, “The Odyssey”, in the adventure-packed extravaganza of its Classical heroic tale, its virtuous protagonist’s quest and ultimate triumph against the longest of odds stacked against him. But what elevated Jason and the Argonauts above the pack for my 11-year-old self was undoubtedly the film’s fantasy special effects. I was captivated by the myriad of fearsome legendary creatures created by Ray Harryhausen’s ground-breaking SFX wizardry—though to more discerning adult eyes they must have looked decidedly “hokey” and “stilted”—the glorious highlight of which was the iconic scene where Jason single-handedly battles the frenetic army of animated sabre-wielding skeletons – and emerges triumphant of course!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963): Harryhausen’s Special FX
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At some point in my juvenile years I developed a special fondness for Italian-made sword-and-sandal ⓑ flicks, something which I find hard today to rationalise. These are films, made primarily between the late Fifties and the mid Sixties, with trite, ludicrous and meaningless translated titles like Goliath and the Vampires, Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun, Samson Against the Sheik and Ursus in the Valley of the Lions.Most are set in ancient Greece, sometimes in Rome or elsewhere within the Empire (occasionally somewhere more exotic), and characteristically with storylines and events riddled with anachronisms.
Ursus finds himself in the Amazon in this 1960 entry
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The sword-and-sandal formula
Robert Rushing defines the peplum as “depicting muscle-bound heroes…in mythological antiquity, fighting fantastic monsters and saving scantily clad beauties”. Sloppily dubbed into halting English, atrociously woodenly acted, scenes lacking continuity, the plots are ludicrously formulaic, typically involving a superhuman strong man hero who stereotypically runs through his repertoire of superhuman feats of strength, triumphing over all foes while rescuing a beautiful but defenceless heroine (typically wearing the briefest peplum imaginable) and sometimes liberating the oppressed masses to boot at the same time. Unlike Hollywood’s lavish epic spectacles (Quo Vadis?, Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, etc.) , these Italian homegrown peplums were decidedly low-budget flicks which zeroed in on the hero’s beefcake attributesⓒ. (‘Sword-and-Sandal’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org). The Italian cinematic peplum was indeed a curious passion of my pre-teen to early adolescent years.
Hercules (1958) with Steve Reeves: prototype for the Italian sword-and-sandal film
Hercules by another name
The ur-peplum was Hercules (Italian title: Le Fatiche di Ercole), released in 1958, starring American bodybuilder-turned-actor Steve Reeves, an instant hit which pocketed >$5,000,000 profit for the producers and backers and unleashed a steady stream of sequels starting with Hercules Unchained. As a variation to Hercules, other strongman protagonists were added to subsequent peplum movies, including Samson, Goliath, Ursus and Italy’s own folk hero Macisteⓓ. By 1965 the peplum was pretty much passé in Italy, with the void quickly filled by Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy films.
My fascination with this Continental movie sub-genre was even more remarkable and unfathomable because, even then, I knew that the films were egregiously badly put together! Watching them was like being drawn against your better instincts to look at something as horrific as a car crash…you know it’s wrong but you just can’t resist the temptation. The unequivocal fact that the sword-and-sandal pictures were such thoroughly execrable, absolute turkeys of films perversely had precisely zero impact on my satisfaction quotient during my early impressionable years!
This 1964 ”Sword-and-sandaller” Maciste Contre Les Hommes De Pierre was released in English as Hercules Against the Moon Men, (“Hercules meets Sci-Fi”)
Footnote: Now at an age where I am hurtling towards senectitude I find the grainy and tired-looking footage and the equally tired storylines so unappetising that I couldn’t even stuck it out for 10 minutes, let alone stay the course of a peplum…but even with my profoundly diminished enthusiasm I still hold a soft spot for the deeply flawed sub-genre…I guess that’s simply nostalgia kicking in – the remembrances of things past which seemed better then (ie, in my youth) than they do now guided presumably by a more mature, more measured outlook.⿻⿻⿻
The sub-genre’s popularity in the early ’60s prompted the Three Stooges to get in on the act with a slapstick, farcical take on the Italian peplum The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962)
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ⓐ plural of peplum
ⓑ “sword-and-sandal” and “peplum” are used interchangeably to describe this sub-genre, both terms have a disparaging connotation. The sorcery component of the sub-genre was something I could take or leave
ⓒ so to have the lead convincingly looking the part, professional bodybuilders, athletes and wrestlers were transformed into actors and cast as the Herculean-like protagonist
ⓓ Maciste as strongman in the peplum films was resurrected from a previous incarnation in the silent era of Italian cinema
1964 was the year the Beatles made their first world tour. The year they transformed from a UK/West German phenomenon to a global sensation. It was, to obviously understate it, a very busy year for the band. Two of the very many international places the Liverpool lads performed at that hyper-hectic year were Hong Kong and Sydney. The venues in both locations played by the Four Moptops—as is the case with many of the venues they played—no longer exist.
The Beatles without drummer Ringo Starr⌧ touched down at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong in early June of ‘64 and booked into a suite recently vacated by the President of Indonesia in the President Hotel in Kowloon. The band only stayed in the British crown colony for a couple of days while they played two concerts at the Princess Theatre (130 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui) on the 9th June…long enough though for Beatle Paul and road manager Neil Aspinall get themselves bespoke tailored suits made up in 24 hours.
Note concert date, incorrectly printed as 10-06-64 (Source. ha.com)
The Princess Theatre (above), built in the early Fifties, was better known for screening first-run flicks than teen-hysterics pop concerts. On the bill supporting the Beatles was a New Zealand group, the Māori Hi-Five. Instrumental backing for the headline performers was provided by Sounds Incorporated. The concerts were surprisingly not a sell-out, basically because tickets were priced exorbitantly high, the equivalence of a full week’s wage for the average Hong Kong worker (the best seats fetched HK$75).
The Beatles didn’t find the smallish, old-fashioned venue very vibe conducive and McCartney remarked that the band’s performance at the Princess was pretty flat accordingly. The full complement of Beatles came back to Hong Kong in 1966 on their Far East tour, but only for a stopover on route to the Philippines where the performers and their handlers ran into trouble with a capital T❈❈.
Ownership of the Princess Theatre changed hands in 1970 and the building with theatre seating for 1,722 was demolished in 1973 to make way for a new hotel.
Early boxing bout at the Old Tin Shed (Source: Nat. Lib. of Aust.)
Next destination after Hong Kong for the Beatles was Sydney Airport for a three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand. Sydney’s allotment was six concerts over three nights (18–20 June) at Sydney Stadium in Rushcutters Bay, a venue affectionately known as the “Old Tin Shed”, and hitherto the arrival of Beatlemania probably better known as a boxing stadium. At that time the Stadium was the city’s only large-capacity concert venue. Again, as they did in Hong Kong, the Beatles bedded down close to the concert venue, at the Sheraton Hotel, Potts Point.
Supporting the Beatles on that tour were several local (trans-Tasman) artists including Johnny Chester, Johnny Devlin and The Phantoms, along with Sounds Incorporated who had made the trip from Hong Kong with the Beatles.
Jimmy N, all alone at Melbourne Airport, end of the fairytale
By now Ringo sans tonsils had rejoined the quartet in time for Sydney and Jimmy (or Jimmie) Nichol was unceremoniously cast off and sent home, abruptly closing the door shut on his 15 minutes of fame…it was all downhill in the music caper from there for the Ringo stand-in, less than a year later poor Jimmy was forced to declare himself bankrupt.
Source: ha.com
After some initial hesitancy from audiences the Sydney Stadium concerts were all massive sell-outs with frenzied young women the most conspicuously vocal of fan attendees. Seeing the band in Sydney seemed comparatively more affordable than in Hong Kong, Tickets started at 15s & 6d, ranging up to £1, 17s & 6d.
Boxing matches and rock ‘n roll concerts at Rushcutters Bay are long a thing of the past. In 1970 the six decades old-stadium on the corner of Nield Avenue and New South Head Road closed and was demolished in 1973 to make way for the construction of the Eastern Suburbs Railway.
After Sydney the Beatles headed across the Tasman, taking most of their Australian support acts with them, to shake up the hitherto seemingly hebetudinous youth culture in New Zealand. Just like in Australia, mass turnouts of fans posed the same crowd control problems for Kiwi authorities and level of teen-generated frenzy at the concerts in the four main NZ cities made for deja vu.
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⌧ stuck back in a London hospital with tonsil trouble and substituted by previously unknown drummer Jimmy Nichol
❈❈ see earlier blog on this site ‘Beatles Not For Sale: Public Enemy # 1 in the Philippines’, March 2022
Bibliography
‘The Beatles arrive in Hong Kong’, The Beatles Bible,www.beatlesbible.com
‘Beatle Place: Hong Kong, Princess Theatre‘, FAB4tracks, www.fab4tracks.home.blog
‘Meet Jimmy Nicol, the forgotten Beatle, stand-in drummer for Ringo’, Craig Cook, The Advertiser, 11-Jun-2014, www.adelaide now.com.au
Anyone who grew up in the golden age of milk bars in Australia, from the 1940s to the 1960s, will have a memory of or an association with these erstwhile hubs of suburban and small town social life…for many of that vintage it’d be hanging out inside with friends, indulging in their favourite flavoured milkshake, ice cream or other sweet tooth delight. My own fond recollection is of salivating over chocolate malt sundaes with nuts and taking turns at playing (or tilting) the pinball machine in the back corner of the shop. This treat was an exhilarating antidote to the aftertaste of having spent the preceding six hours toiling away in school confinement.
B&W 4d Milk Bar with mechanical cow & Red Cross-like symbol
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They were such an integral institution during my salad days that I was under the assumption that milk bars had been around forever. In fact they only surfaced in Australia for the first time in the early years of the Depression. The first bonifidé milk bar is generally considered to be the Black and White 4d. Milk Bar which opened its doors at 24 Martin Place, Sydney, in 1932𝕒, it’s conception was the idea of a Greek migrant to the Antipodes, Joachim Tavlaridis, who had Anglicised his name to Mick Adams. Mick had visited the US and had drew on the American diner/soda parlour concept that was flourishing in the US for his inspiration (including American menus, ice creams and chocolate). The distinguishing feature of the Black and White Milk Bar was its singular purpose, it exclusively sold just sodas and milkshakes (in the iconic silver-coloured metal milkshake cups with actual fruit in the shake). Mick was an early entrepreneur in the field, later adding Wollongong, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane shops to his milk bar “empire”. (‘1932: Australia’s first milk bar’, Australian Food Timeline, www.australianfoodtimeline.com). Mick Adams and other Greek-Australian small businessmen like him were the pioneers of the milk bar trade in Australia…typically the shops operating as open-all-hours family businesses, cf. postwar migrant Italians in the vanguard of delicatessen culture in Australia𝕓.
Golden Star Milk Bar, Perth (Photo source: M. Coufos)
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Greek cafes with a large dollop of Hollywood glitz The Greek owner-operators in Australia added glamour to their milk bars by infusing the decor with an vibrant American feel…gleaming chrome, neon illumination, plush leather chairs, mirrors, curvilinear Art Deco interiors, soda fountain pumps, snazzy uniforms, American jukeboxes. These early Greek milk bars (and cafés)𝕔 were purveyors of American dreams along with confectionery and sugary flavoured chilled beverages. Macquarie University history academic Leonard Janiszewski describes the agency of the early milk bars as “a kind of Trojan horse for the Americanisation of Australian culture” (‘The story of Australia’s Greek cafes and milk bars’, ABC Radio, Conversations (broadcast 02 May 2016). The milk bar caught on like wildfire—by 1937 there were around 4,000 in Australia, with names like “Olympia”, “The Orion” and “The Paragon”—as they did across the Tasman in New Zealand where the milk bar is known as “the Dairy”.
Milk bars passéBy the 1970s the heyday of the Australian milk bar was well and truly past its use-by-date. Faced with an inability to compete with supermarket chains and multinational-owned petrol stations plus high rents, milk bar closures (together with that of the community corner store) became an increasingly common sight. 7-Eleven-style convenience stores started to pop up everywhere across suburbia to fill the void (‘Remembering the Milk Bar, Australia’s Vanishing Neighbourhood Staple’, Matthew Sedacca, Saveur, 18 January 2018, www.saveur.com).
Olympia, tea and milkshakes (Source: Daily Mail Australia)
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One Greek milk bar that did manage to defy extinction for much longer than most was the Olympia Milk Bar in the inner-Sydney suburb of Stanmore. Taken over by the Fotiou brothers in 1959, the Olympia under surviving brother Nick achieved a kind of local iconic status in recent years for its anachronistic novelty…open late, and always dimly lit, ancient chocolate bar wrappers plastered all over, a yesteryear-looking shop locked in a time warp. The Olympia somehow survived to 2018, until the Council decided to close down the dilapidated milk bar.
Postscript: Green plaque fiascoAttempts since 2017 to commemorate the Black and White Milk Bar as “the world’s first modern milk bar” with a green plaque have met with a roadblock. The plan had been to place the plaque on the original site of the proto-milk bar in Martin Place, Sydney, now the ANZ Tower. The spanner in the works has been the overseas corporate owner of the building who has steadfastly refused to allow the plaque to be mounted on the structure. The matter remains deadlocked with the City of Sydney Council unable to find an alternate, close-by location acceptable to Mr Adams’ relatives (“‘Disrespect’: Frustration grows over plaque for world’s first modern milk bar in Sydney”, Adriana Simos, Greek Herald, 05-Oct-22, www.greekherald.com.au).
Green plaque in limbo!
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𝕒a staggering 5,000 customers fronted up on the opening day!
𝕓Mick’s concept of a modern milk bar was later replicated overseas in various places within the Commonwealth and Europe
𝕔the nouns “café” and “milk bar” seem to be interchangeable in describing these Greek-Australian run establishments
Mention the topic of classic European comic strips and the names Astérix and Tintin spring instantly to mind. Previously I delved into the stupendous comic book institution that is Astérix the Gaul in the blog ‘The Astérix Series: High Comic Art with a Few Dark Shadows’ (19 November 2022). The Tintin comic strip shares with Astérix the same high pedestal of best-selling popularity, enduring iconic status and attendant cult following. Tintin is a boy reporter❶ of unspecified age with a distinctive (carrot) blond quiff of hair and trademark plus-fours who embarks on numerous adventures to exotic locations accompanied by his companions: a white wire fox terrier Snowy (Fr: Milou), Captain Haddock the good-hearted dipsomaniac seafarer and Professor Calculus, a genius if absent-minded inventor. Since the publication of the first Tintin comic book in 1929 total sales of Tintin books have clocked up more than 200 million copies, with an appeal that reaches both adults and children❷.
Hergé with a cinematic clone of his fictional boy hero࿏
Graphical style
Tintin’s creator wrote and published under the name of Hergé (real name: Georges Remi)…the Belgian cartoonist pioneered a distinctive drawing style for comic strips which later became known as Ligne claire (“Clear line”) (coined by Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte in 1977). This comprises ”uniform strong lines, flat saturated colour” and “clearly delineated shapes and volumes” (‘The Afterlife of Tintin’, Jenny Hendrix, LA Review of Books, 27-Dec-2022, www.lareviewofbooks.org).
Blighted by propaganda, racism and chauvinismTintin was instantly and massively popular right from the cartoon’s onset—boosted by Hergé’s innovative use of speech bubbles, an American invention unfamiliar to the European comic scene at the time—despite this the comic has garnered its fair share of flak as has Hergé, the author. The first three books, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America, in particular drew the ire of critics. The first with its unsubtle anti-communist message was much disparaged as “cheap right-wing propaganda for small children” (Harry Thompson, Hergé: Tintin and his Creator (2011). The Congo and America books were pilloried in some circles for blatantly racist depictions of native populations. The youthful Hergé, swayed by a conservative Catholic upbringing, was very much a creature of the time and his crude depictions of the Black African tribes in particular reflected a prevailing Eurocentric sense of superiority and prejudice. Tintin Au Congo praises the virtues of colonialism and missionaries and expresses a wholly patronising view of the local Africans who are portrayed as primitive, lazy and infantile❸ (‘Hergé’, Lambiek Comiclopedia, www.lambiek.net). Another criticism of the Tintin comics is the charge of sexism, women are almost completely erased from the stories – the one female figure with anything like a steady presence in the books is operatic diva Bianca Castafiore who is portrayed unflatteringly as foolish and imperceptive (Hergé pointedly is on record as saying women have no part in the stories which “are all about male friendship”).
In the early Sixties there were 2 French-made film adaptations of Tintin࿏Other discordant voices against Tintin’s author surfaced during the Nazi occupation of Belgium during WWII. Hergé worked for collaborationist pro-Nazi newspapers Le Petit Vingtième and Le Soir and elements of Anti-Semitism emerged in his presentation of Jews. Unfortunately it didn’t end with the war, Jewish racial stereotypes also reappear in postwar Tintin stories, eg, Vol 714 pour Sydney (‘Flight 714 to Sydney’). A parody by Belgian cartoonist Dubus depicting a captive Tintin begging businessman Rodwell for his liberty (Source: Sydney Morning Herald)࿏
”Kidnapping” a children’s icon?
Since Hergé’s death in 1983 Tintin’s artistic providence and the author’s estate has been rigidly controlled to the nth degree by his widow Fanny Vlamynck and her second husband Nick Rodwell. Hergé’s heirs through their management firm Moulinsart S.A. Moulinsart spearheaded by an unflinching Rodwell have obsessively pursued a crusade, suing everybody who uses Hergé or Tintin’s name or image without their permission. Not content with cracking down on bootleggers, plagiarists and copyright infringers, perversely they have targeted Tintin parodists, students, collectors, fan clubs, comic stores and people auctioning original artwork as well. They even tried to block journalists from taking unauthorised photographs at the Hergé Museum opening event (Lambiek). Individuals subjected to Moulinsart’s trigger-quick lawsuits include a French novelist who reproduced a drawing of Tintin in a book with a print run of only 200 copies and an elderly artist (and friend of Hergé) who painted the image of Tintin on some old bottles (‘Meet Nick Rodwell, Tintin heir and least popular man in Belgium’, Julien Oeuillet, Sydney Morning Herald, 30-Oct-2015, www.smh.com.au). Bart Beaty, a professor of comics at the University of Calgary, described Moulinsart as being “relentless in the protection of the Tintin copyrights even to the point of discouraging academic study of the Tintin books” (‘Moulinsart Lost A Legal Case At The Hague Over Tintin Rights’, Comics Reporter, 08-Jun-2025, www.comicsreporter.com). Other detractors including Hergé’s nephew have pointed out how under Moulinsart‘s direction “a hero dedicated to children has become the lynchpin of a profit-minded machine that is stifling the enthusiasm of Tintin admirers“ (‘Fans of Tintin cry foul’, Stanley Pignal, Financial Times, 08-May-2010, www.ft.com).
Moulinsart have mined the full depths of Tintin’s merchandising potential, many spin-off items priced at the luxury high-end
Genootschap (Source: www.hergegenootschap.nl/)࿏A small win for Tintinphiles and Tintinologists
The pattern shifted a few years ago when Moulinsart and Rodwell’s attempt to prosecute a small Dutch fanzine of Tintin Hergé Genootschap (Hergé Society (or Fellowship)) for including Hergé’s strip in its newsletter backfired badly❹. In a surprise twist a Dutch court in 2015 ruled that a 1942 contract between Hergé and his publisher Ediciones Casterman presented by the defence gave Casterman, NOT Moulinsart, the rights to publish the 22 Tintin albums. The right “to exploit extracts of the books and pictures” however still belong to the Hergé heirs (‘Tintin and the Copyright Mystery, Carolina Sánchez, Lady Trademark, 06-Oct-2015, www.ladytrademark.blogspot.com).
Fmr Australian prime minster Kevin Rudd satirised as Tintin
Endnote: Imitating Tintin
Parodies and pastiches satirising Tintin have been around since the 1940s. When Hergé compromised his reputation by publishing (Tintin) in a collaborationist-run Belgium newspaper” in war-time, it provoked a satire of Tintin, ‘Tintin au Pays des Nazis’ (‘Tintin in the Land of the Nazis’). Other parodies featuring Tintin include as a disaffected working class English youth who turns to political radicalism; ‘Tintin in Lebanon’ and ‘Tintin in Iraq’, embroiling Hergé’s “golden boy” in the intractable maze of Middle East conflicts; ‘Tintin in The Shire’, Tintin as a stereotypical Sydney bogan, etc.❺
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❶ though he acts more like a detective, investigating crimes and mysteries and at times carries a pistol and even makes arrests
❷ according to Tintin’s publishing house the books are marketed for “the youth between 7 and 77 years old” demographic
❸ to his credit Hergé did redress some of the crude and xenophobic representations of the earlier books in Le Lotus Bleu (‘The Blue Lotus’, 1934-35) in which Hergé depicts China and the Chinese people with more accuracy and evenness (Lambiek)
❹ Rodwell’s attempt to sue a French artist who did mash-ups of Tintin and Edward Hopper paintings was also thrown out of court with the judge determining that the artist’s works were legitimate parodies of Tintin which was fair game
❺ “most of these parodies would probably have remained obscure curiosities, if it weren’t for Moulinsart’s active attempts to hunt the makers down, giving them more publicity” (Lambiek)
“The year is 50BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely . . . One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.”
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The “indomitable Gauls” in question are the tribe of Astérix, pint-sized Gallic hero of the long-running eponymous French comic strip with its legion of dedicated fans. Like all classic literary modes, be they of a pop cultural kind or more highbrow, the Astérix comic can be read on more than one level. On the surface the impossible but highly comical escapades of its principal cartoon characters (Astérix and his sidekick Obélix) are much loved and savoured by aficionados across the globe. On another level some observers have detected various allegorical meanings delving within the cartoon series.
Astérix’s debut, 1959
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The Astérix comic strip (in France known as a bande dessinée – literally “drawn strip”) made its debut in 1959 in the Franco-Belgian comic magazine Pilote under the the strip title Les aventures d’astérix. The Astérix phenomenon that followed that unassuming beginning was the result of a long and harmonious collaboration between writer René Goscinny and illustrator Albert Uderzo.
Getafix, Druid & grandmaven
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What a Gaul! The basic plot of the comic is that Astérix and his XXL-sized friend Obelix reside in the sole remaining village in Gaul which has not been conquered by the might of the Roman war machine. The reason enabling its continued freedom is that Astérix has access to a magic potion supplied by the village’s Druid Panoramix (in English translations: Getafix) which gives him temporary, superhuman strength (Obelix is already endowed with extraordinary strength courtesy of having fallen into the cauldron of magic potion as a baby). The two companions, usually accompanied by Obelix’s little dog, Idéfix (English: Dogmatix), spend their time roaming around the countryside of Armorica (modern-day Brittany) bashing countless numbers of heads, mostly of the hapless and unsuspecting Roman legionnaires. In many of the books the magic potion-fuelled duo venture out on escapades to lands both far and near from Gaul.
Dubbleosix in ‘The Black Gold’
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Undisguised punnery Much of the humour in Astérix revolves around Goscinny’s and translator Bell’s (see below) use of puns and in-jokes which abound in the character names, Astérix, the comic’s central protagonist is of course “the star” (for which “asterisk” is another word); the monolithic-like Obelix is a carter and shaper of menhirs which are also known as “obelisks”; Bell translated Obelix’s dog’s name as…Dogmatix – what else! A spy Druid in Astérix and the Black Gold with more than a passing resemblance to Sean Connery is given the name Dubbelosix.
Nomenclature of the dramatis personae When sketching out the framework of their fictional First century BC Gaul Goscinny and Uderzo decided on a formula for the names of each of the groups of characters. The Gauls’ men’s names would end in -ix (the inspiration for this was the real-life Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix who revolted against Julius Caesar’s Rome in 52BC), so we have Vitalstatistix (chief of Astérix’s tribe) and his brother Doublehelix; Assurancetourixൠ (English: Cacofonix) (bard and scapegoat of the village); Geriatrix (oldest member of the village); Unhygienix (village fishmonger); Cétautomatix (village smith) (Eng: Fulliautomatix); Saingésix (wine merchant) (Eng: Alcoholix), etc. etc. The Romans mostly are identified by names with the suffix “-us” (although “Julius Caesar” (Fr: Jules César) appears as a fictional character under his own name)…as the “bad guys” the Romans all tend to have derogatory or demeaning names, eg, Pamplemus (Arteriosclerosus); Cadaverus; Caius Fatuous; Caius Flebitus …you get the idea!
‘Astérix and the Normans’
Goscinny employed suffix-identifiers for other national groups in the books. For instance, the names of the fearsome Norman tribesmen were all given -af endings, so we get lots of joke names like Psychopaf, Riffraf, Autograf, Nescaf and Toocleverbyhaf, ad tedium…basically anything preposterous enough Goscinny and Bell could think of that would raise a laugh. The device extends to Britons (-ax)(usually puns on taxation, eg, “Valueaddedtax”), Germans (-ic), Greeks (-os) and Egyptians (-is).
‘Astérix and Cleopatra‘
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Stereotyping and racial tropes
One of the preoccupations of the Astérix comics and the source of much of its humour is ethnic stereotyping. Uderzo and Goscinny delight in lampooning the perceived national traits of different groups of Europeans. The English are depicted as phlegmatic, love to drink lukewarm beer and tend to speak in a chipper, upper-class way. The Iberians (Spanish) are displayed as being full of pride and tend to have choleric tempers. The Normans (Vikings) drink endlessly and fear nothing. Goths (the Germanic tribes) are disciplined and militaristic, but are not unified and fight among themselves. This all reads as a bit problematic especially in this age of political correctness. In the case of the Spanish the generalisations are compounded by Uderzo’s unflattering drawings of them. But the most disturbing element of the books’ stereotyping of races exposing the creators to considerable criticism relates to the bigoted portrayal of Black Africans. Slaves in the series are always Black and sometimes they have have bones through their hair and other cliches (eg, Astérix and Cleopatra). Uderzo also introduced the character of a caricatured Black pirate (Baba)—notoriously depicted with exaggerated racial features, enormous, full red lips—who appears in several books including Astérix in Corsica and Astérix and Obélix All At Sea. For this reason American cartoonist Ronald Wimberly has described the Astérix comics as “blatantly white supremacist” in nature and thus unsuitable for children (’Race and Representation: Relaunching Astérix in America’, Brigid Alverson & Calvin Reid, PW, 19-Aug-2020, www.publishersweekly.com). In recent versions of the comic edited for the US market the overt racialist profiling has been toned down a bit (‘Asterix Comes to America‘, Jo Livingstone, Critical Mass, 17-Jun-2020, www.newrepublic.com).
Black pirate lookout in ‘Astérix in Corsica’
Bravura and the village women in revolt
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Uderzo contra feminism Similarly, Astérix has attracted criticism for its negative portrayal of women in the strips. Asterix and the Secret Weapon for instance introduces a female bard Bravura from Lutetia (Paris) who incites the women of the village to revolt against their husbands and the patriarchy. ’Secret Weapon’ unsubtly parodies feminism and gender equality. By 1991 when the album was published it might have been hoped that Uderzo would have expressed a more enlightened and nuanced perspective on sexual politics, but he and Goscinny were very much products of their time so it probably shouldn’t surprise that the artist/storyteller was still implacably fastened on to his old ideals of male chauvinism and hegemony.
The ludicrous amount of violence dished out in Astérix—the heroic Gallic duo are constantly bashing Roman skulls senselessდ—has also opened the comic strips up to criticism from some quarters. In 2007 the Swiss-based organisation Defence for Children International echoed Wimberly’s sentiments, saying that Astérix, Obélix & Co set a bad example for the young by constantly fighting with everyone, never at peace with their neighbours…adding that the comic series was “too monocultural” in its obsession with “invaders” (The Guardian).
‘Astérix and the Great Crossing’: Astérix & Obélix tango with native Americans – more sterotyping of ”the other”࿏࿏࿏
With Goscinny’s untimely early death in 1977 Uderzo took on responsibility for the Astérix scripts as well as the artwork. Uderzo solo added another nine comic books to the Asterix oeuvre, although he retained the late M Goscinny’s name on the covers as co-creator. The Astérix‘s scripts written by Uderzo were not in the same class of storytelling as Goscinny’s—lacking René’s incisive wit and punchiness—but even so, the Uderzo-penned comic albums still proved bestsellers, such was the lustre of the Astérix brand.
Enter the new generation of Astérix comic artists By 2011, Uderzo in his eighties, was ready to pass the Astérix baton on to two cartoonists who he had been mentoring. The new team, Jean-Yves Ferri (writer) and Didier Conrad (illustrator), having got the master’s nod of approval, produced Astérix and the Picts in 2013, followed by four more Astérix albums thus far. Ferri and Conrad have even introduced new characters with contemporary and topical resonance, eg, Confoundtheirpolitix, a muckraking journalist, spoofing Julian Assange (Astérix and the Missing Scroll). Unfortunately, since becoming custodians of the world’s most famous cartoon Gaul, Messieurs Conrad and Ferri have missed the opportunity to redress the earlier derogatory depiction of Africans drawn by Uderzo. Instead Conrad tactlessly reprised Uderzo’s Black pirate lookout character in 2015 in ‘Missing Scroll’) with the same racist depiction of Baba with bulbous red lips.
‘Astérix en Bretagne‘
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Astérix for AnglosTranslations into English of the iconic comic books began in 1969. Anthea Bell, in collaboration with Derek Hockridge, was the gifted translator who worked with the full sequence of Astérix creators. Bell’s distinctly English expressions and puns as translated won much praise “for keeping the original French spirit intact” (‘Anthea Bell’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org). Bell also shared with Goscinny a delight in the humour of historical anachronisms which filter through the various books.
The Astérix industryAs at 2021, with the publication of the 38th Astérix comic book Astérix and the Griffin, the books have sold a staggering combined total of 385 million copies worldwide. They have been translated into 111 languages and dialects including Afrikaans, Welsh, Hebrew, Occitan, Arabic, Urdu and even Latin. Astérix adaptation to the screen comprise 10 animated films and four live action films (of which only Mission Cleopatra merits any accolades at all). There’s the usual accompaniment of merchandising of course and even a theme park, Le Parc Astérix, north of Paris. The comic books’ following spans the globe, in their heartland, France and Belgium, in Germany, Britain, just about everywhere they have been in vogue with the notable exception of the US.
What’s the secret of the Asterix comics’ success?To M Uderzo the endearing nature of Astérix’s popularity remained a puzzle that he couldn’t fathom, best left to others of which there has been no shortage of opinions aired over the years. Clearly, the character of Astérix is deeply rooted in French popular culture. Two-thirds of the French population had read at least one Astérix books according to a 1969 national survey (‘Going for Gaul: Mary Beard on 40 years of Astérix’, The Guardian, 15-Feb-2002, www.amp.theguardian.com . Some observers put the appeal down to the escapism the comics represented – providing “a world of joyful innocence born in the aftermath of (world) war” ‘My hero: Asterix by Tom Holland‘, The Guardian, 26-Oct-2013, www.amp.theguardian.com . This sentiment is echoed by those who have called the series ”the most brilliant antidote to (the catastrophe of) Vichy in French literature”. Many French people identify with the petit Gaul as a symbol of rebellion, standing up for the “little guy“ against Goliath. To them Astérix’s steely determination to defy the juggernaut of Roman power mirrors the impulse in the hearts of many modern-day French citizens to hold out and not succumb to the all-conquering globalisation driven by the United States⚘. While the French feel an inextinguishable pride in Astérix (“simply French”), to many outsiders the comics personify what they take to be the French character, such as the trait of “infuriating, occasionally endearing contradictions” (John Thornhill, Lunch with the FT: Asterix the national treasure’, Financial Times, 24-Dec-2005, www.financialtimes.com). Another take on Astérix’s popularity beyond the borders of France is that the idea of an heroic “native freedom-fighter” defying Rome struck a resonant tone in countries which had once been subjected to the tyranny of the Roman Empire (Beard).
Footnote: In Astérix in Belgium, the 24th volume in the series໒꒰, village chief Vitalstatistix, Astérix and Obélix head off to Belgae to tangle with an equally fierce tribe of Belgian Gauls. As usual, the comic is saturated with cultural references, Goscinny weaves in a series of gently digs at the Belgians, spoofing famous national celebrities like Walloon actress/singer Annie Cordy and cyclist Eddie Merckx. The comic’s battle scene is a riff on the historical Battle of Waterloo and Uderzo draws in a cameo appearance by fictional detectives Thomson and Thompson from Belgium’s most honoured cartoon strip Tintin (‘Asterix v24: “ Asterix in Belgium”’, Augie De Blieck Jr, Pipeline Comics , 25-Jul-2018, www.pipelinecomics.com).
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ൠ some sort of pun on “insurance”
დ although it should be noted that no one is actually killed in the comics
⚘ shared by Uderzo himself who said in 2005, “the more we are under the sway of globalisation, the more people feel the need to rediscover their roots”, which is what he hoped connecting with France’s ancient Gallic past via his cartoon creation might help achieve
໒꒰ Goscinny died during the comic’s production and this was also the last Astérix that Albert Uderzo’s artist brother, Marcel, worked on
❝I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream❞
~ the words of a popular 1927 novelty song…prompting numerous later references to the refrain dotted throughout American popular culture, eg, ads for Hersey’s ice cream; a prison chant in Jim Jarmusch’s cult 1986 indy film Down by Law; etc., etc.
‘Down by Law’.
🍦🍦 🍦 🍦 🍦 🍦
Source: truelocal.com.au
For anyone growing up in suburban Melbourne or Sydney or one of the larger conurbations in 1960s and 1970s Australia, the familiar strains of the “Greensleeves” tune permeating the local neighbourhood in Spring or Summer-time could mean only one thing – the approach of a Mr Whippy ice cream van. Within seconds queues of animated parents and children would form in anticipation of indulging in their favourite soft-serve frozen ice delight.
Like most popular commercial trends the mobile ice cream van was an import to these shores. The archetype Mr Whippy emerged from the English Midlands city of Birmingham in 1958, starting with a modest six vans and copying the formula, look and business plan of America’s Mister Softee ice cream trucks (see below). By 1961 the homegrown Mr Whippy fleet on the road had extended to 150 vehicles. Mr Whippy came to Australia when company founder Dominic Facchino shipped six pink and white Commer Karrier vans out to Sydney in 1962. Two years later Mr Whippy vans landed on the shores of New Zealand. By this time Facchino had sold the business which was eventually acquired by industry giant Unilever. By the 1970s the Mr Whippy franchises down under were sold to private operators who varied the vans’ styling and colours (‘1962 Mr Whippy arrives in Australia’, Australian Food TimeLine, www.australianfoodtimeline.com.au). The NZ Mr Whippy operators switched vehicles (to Isuzu Elfs) as well as colour schemes (a common choice became orange and white with a yellow stripe)𝟙.
The ubiquitous Mister Softee (Photo: Elena Kadvany)
1956 was Year Zero for the mobile ice cream vendor. The first soft whip ice cream truck to venture onto the streets of suburbia✱ was the brainchild of two Irish migrants to America, William and James Conway, living in Philadelphia. The initial ice cream run was prompted by St Patrick’s Day celebrations with the two brothers selling green-coloured ice cream in cones to the local West Philly community𝟚. The single van quickly morphed into a franchise business under the name “Mister Softee”, with headquarters in Runnemede, New Jersey, since 1958. At the height of the Mister Softee phenomena (late 1960s) they were operating 1,000 trucks across 15–18 American states. Today, the Mister Softee operations, still owned today by the Conway family, has scaled back the number of trucks as a consequence of both the growth of competing business and a national drop in the consumption of ice cream𝟛 (‘A Brief History of Mister Softee’, Daniela Galarza, Eater, 17-Jul-2015, www.eater.com).
Marchetti Bros ice cream van, 1980s Glasgow
A deadly serious side to the business
The sensory pleasures, the nostalgia, associated with the iconic ice cream van masks a darker chapter in its history. Glasgow in the UK in the 1970s and 80s was blighted by the growth of vast housing estates in its peripheries. With massive unemployment and a lack of infrastructure servicing these estates, the city’s ice cream van vendors experienced a boom in business𝟜. The success elicited interest from Glasgow’s organised criminal gangs who sought to muscle in and use the trade’s popularity to sell drugs, bootleg commodities like cigarettes and even weapons. Rival gangs vied for a piece of the action, resulting in turf wars. The gangs employed intimidation and violence to coerce van drivers and owners into cooperation…in a notorious incident one local driver, Andrew Doyle, refused, with fatal consequences. Doyle worked for one of the “competing ice cream factions” (Bloomberg) in Glasgow, Marchetti Bros. After a failed attempt to kill Doyle on his ice cream van route, a rival gang succeeded in murdering the recalcitrant driver along with five members of his family in an arson attack on their home. Two men were convicted and sentenced, but were ultimately released on appeal after spending two decades in prison.
Mr Whippy Clones (Photo: 9Nine.com.au)
Generic Mr Whippy and the Clone Cone Vans
The popularity of Mr Whippy unsurprisingly has spawned numerous imitators wherever the original has had a retail impact. So much so that the name “Mr Whippy” today is a generic term for any ice cream truck selling the familiar soft-mix in single cones. Trademark holders of the name—such as Mr Whippy P/L/Franchise Food Co in Australia—have attempted to make small, independent operators in the field comply with their exclusive right to use the name and the playing of ‘Greensleeves’. Consequently, many imitators resort to using names that echo the famous original, eg, “Mr Softy”, “Mr Soft Serve”, and “Miss Whippy”, whilst continuing to offer up the standard menu of soft-serves, sundaes and milkshakes.
NYC’s ice cream turf war
Across the Pacific the premier US soft-mix seller Mister Softee has been embroiled for years in an acrimonious turf war with an upstart competitor. A disgruntled former employee started his own rival ice cream truck business which infringed Mister Softee‘s trademark by blatantly copying it’s blue and white colour scheme, cursive lettering, mascot and distinctive jingle, not to mention ripping off its name. Mister Softee took the copycat “Master Softee” to court, forcing it off the road. Master Softee responded by rebranding itself as “New York Ice Cream” and allegedly launching a campaign of intimidation against Mister Softee drivers (‘As Summer Begins, NYC’s Soft-Serve Turf War Reignites’, Stefanie Tuder, Eater, 30-May-2017, www.eater.com). For its part, Mister Softee hasn’t been entirely squeaky clean in the affair, it resorted to hiring private eyes to spy on the movements of New York Ice Cream’s drivers.
early Good Humor vending truck (Source: mahoninghistory.org)
Endnote: From special treats for the elite to mass consumption item
The ice cream van made the frozen confectionary more accessible to more people but it wasn’t responsible for its popularity with the public. The treat itself goes way back. Imperial rulers in antiquity such as Alexander the Great and Roman emperors Nero and Claudius were known to have a sweet tooth for snow and ice concoctions flavoured with honey and nectar and other fruits. “Cream Ice” desserts graced the royal dinner tables of English and French monarchs in the 1600s. US presidents Washington and Jefferson were big fans (‘The History of Ice Cream’, IDFA (International Dairy Foods Association), idfa.org ). In the 20th century the imposition of prohibition in America—together with technological improvements—more efficient refrigeration and better ice cream production methods—were a catalyst for the widespread popularising of ice cream in society…the nationwide ban on booze and bars left a void which ice cream and ice cream parlours rapidly filled (‘Why Ice Cream Soared in Popularity During Prohibition’, History Channel, 28-Jan-2021, www.history.com).
Photo: Manchester Evening News
𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽𓁽
✱ not necessarily the first mobile ice cream vehicle though…in 1920 Harry Burt in Youngstown, Ohio, began selling his “Good Humor” chocolate-coated ice cream bars from Ford trucks equipped with rudimentary freezers
𖡽𖡽𖡽𖡽𖡽
𝟙 in New Zealand the franchise passed into the hands of ice cream manufacturer Tip Top
𝟚 William and James at the time worked for Sweden Freezer, a leading manufacturer of ice cream machines in the US
𝟛 to about 350 franchisees and 625 trucks
𝟜 the ice cream vendors also were purveyors of household staples (milk, bread, newspapers, etc) for the estates’ residents
Considering how universally popular and well-known Elvis Presley was𝕒, during the entertainer’s heyday there was much conjecture about why “the King” of the music entertainment industry failed to capitalise on his phenomenal record sales by not touring internationally – like virtually every other successful pop and rock music act did. In fact Elvis only left American shores a couple of times during his entire lifetime, once for a tour of duty in West Germany as part of his compulsory military service, and the other briefly to northern neighbour Canada for two shows each in Toronto and Ottawa in 1957, followed later that year by a single performance in Vancouver (Elvis was not accompanied on his Canadian trips by his manager Tom Parker). At the time Presley’s reluctance to journey overseas was attributed by a number of observers to the singer’s fear of flying – notwithstanding the fact that Elvis regularly took domestic flights within the US to shows.
Elvis For Beginners♬ ♬ ♬
Light was shed on the puzzle of Elvis’s non-event international performing career for me many years ago when I was thumbing through a copy of Elvis For Beginners𝕓 one day at a bookshop. The reason for this striking anomaly in the Elvis career path was apparently all about Elvis’ ubiquitous manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker. The ex-carny Parker was notorious for several things, among them his vice-like grip on Elvis’s career; his way over-the-top fee for managing Elvis’ career (25%, later increased to an outrageous 50%); his insistence on Elvis getting a 50/50 cut in songwriting royalties even though Elvis contributed zero to the actual writing of the songs he recorded, and who hasn’t heard about the story of his “exemplary ethics”(sic) long, long before he got his avaricious mitts on the goldmine that was Elvis – the colonel started his business career by painting sparrows yellow and selling them as canaries! But there was a much darker, clandestine side to Parker’s past that explained the curiosity of Elvis’ stay-at-home career. “The Colonel” was not actually “Tom Parker”, an assumed identity he adopted. Parker’s real name was Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk (alternately rendered in some articles as “Kuijk-Dries” or “Kuyk”) and he was born not in West Virginia as he always claimed but in Breda in the Netherlands. Van Kuijk entered the US illegally (probably via Canada) in the late 1920s and took on the assumed name (and identity of a Southerner) after a short stint in the US Army. Altogether quite a revelation! Seismic even for the history of popular music.
“Elvis the Pelvis” and the “Colonel” (Photo: Getty)♬ ♬ ♬
For reasons only known to himself Parker never tried to acquired an American passport, so he remained an alien all his life in America. Without a passport Parker was housebound within the US, and as keeping a tight rein on Elvis was essential to the Colonel Parker business plan, there was no way he’d let his golden egg go off overseas without him. So apart from the brief trip early on to Canada Elvis the entertainment industry’s number one pin-up boy never got to tour the globe and show international audiences his swivelling hips and velvet voice. As a consequence Parker “turned down dozens of offers, totaling millions of dollars, to have his famous client tour the world”𝕔 (Dash).
Breda, Netherlands♬ ♬ ♬
It was van Kuijk’s own relatives back in the Netherlands who first twigged to Elvis’ manager’s grand deception. Van Kuijk’s sister stumbled by chance upon a photo of Andreas in a Belgian magazine. A subsequent visit by Kuijk’s brother to him in America threatened to blow the Colonel‘s cover but Parker managed to hush it all up, for the time being at least. The truth only emerged very gradually after Elvis’ death. The revelation that Parker was actually Dutch doesn’t get a mention in Peter Guralnick’s acclaimed biography of Elvis Last Train to Memphis which was published as late as 1994.
“Colonel” Tom, 1960♬ ♬ ♬
Footnote: The Colonel’s darkest secret? Rumours about Parker’s mysterious past in Holland have floated around for decades. One theory about the reason for van Kuijk’s sudden departure for America—developed from journalist Alanna Nash’s research—is that the Dutchman brutally murdered a grocer’s wife in Breda in 1929 when he was about 20, and thus was on the run from the law. Van Kuijk was first connected to the crime via a tip-off given to Dutch reporter Dirk Vellenga in the 1970s while he was investigating the Colonel’s past (Giles). Evidence of van Kuijk’s culpability is at best circumstantial (he left the Netherlands for the US the same day as the murder) and nothing has ever been proved.
ྂ࿐ྂ࿐ྂ࿐ྂ࿐ྂྂ࿐ྂ࿐ྂ
𝕒 when Presley died in 1977 a Western news crew visited a village in a very remote part of Siberia to discover that uneducated peasants there—without the aid of modern communication devices like the internet and social media (or even TV)—somehow still knew who Elvis was!
𝕓 a book in the Readers and Writers series of documentary comic books (graphic books)
𝕔 such as an invitation from Buckingham Palace for Elvis to perform at the Royal Variety Show in London
♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
Bibliography
Jill Pearlman, Elvis for Beginners (1986)
’Colonel Tom Parker (1909-1997)’, New Netherland Institute, www.newnetherlandinstitute.org
‘Colonel Parker Managed Elvis’ Career, but Was He a Killer on the Lam?’, Mike Dash, Smithsonian Magazine, 24-Feb-2012, www.smithsonianmag.com
Rosemary Giles, ‘Who Was the Colonel Before He Met Elvis?’, Vintage News, 27-Jun-2022, www.thevintagenews.com
IN a 1966 double-A side single the Beatles sung “we all live in a yellow submarine” but in real life the Fab Four (or at least, 75% of them) did want to live together on a secluded Greek island that they intended to buy. It happened the following year, 1967, the boys were holidaying in the Greek islands and were island-hopping when they came upon an ideal island location. Or at least that was what George, John and Paul thought while on acid the whole time of the “inspection”{𝔸}. The island that their eyes lit on was roomy enough, some 80-acres with a fishing village, a large olive grove and four beaches. In addition to the main island there were four smaller islands surrounding it (one for each Beatle!)
The prime mover for the island home scheme was Beatle John. At that point in his life Lennon was edging his way into his glorious hippie phase. The Aegean “Arcadia” represented a chance to live communally, an idyllic place where he and the other three celebs could escape the overwhelming pressures and attentions of superstardom. The plan was for the four musicians and the group’s entourage (manager Epstein, the roadies and the inner circle of assistants plus relatives) to all live together on a huge estate on the island hideaway. Paul and George seemed to have been on-song with John at that hazily propitious moment in time…McCartney: (the island was the means of achieving) “a sort of hippie community…where nobody’d interfere with your lifestyle”…Harrison concurred: “we’ll buy the island, we’ll just go there and drop out” (‘The Beatles in Greece’, Daily Beatle,, 03-Jul-2014, www.wogew.blogspot.com).
Team Beatles hit Greece (Source: Greek City News)
What prompted such an extravagantly fanciful and surreal notion?The short answer would appear simply to be drugs! Narcotic substances may have inspired the germ of the highly romantic and improbable idea. As Beatle Paul explained later, the boys saw in the island jewel a place where they could smoke pot unhindered, without fearing the consequences of the law. Paul attributed the island acquisition project to “drug-induced ambition”. Certainly drug consumption was part of the agenda in coming to Greece – if you accept the word of NEMS staffer Peter Brown. According to Brown, a Beatle associate Yannis Mardas (AKA “Magic Alex”) had brokered a deal with the Greek authorities giving the Fab Four the green light to bring personal supplies of drugs secreted in their carry-on bags into the country in return for photo ops in aid of Hellenic tourism (Daily Beatle).
The rich celebrity artists’ communeRoadie (and later Apple Corps head) Neil Aspinall’s recollection of what John, Paul and George (but especially John) had in mind was a configuration of individual villas for the four Beatles which would all be linked to a central dome of some description. There would also be a recording studio on the main island, plus an entertainment complex and some “knock-up” housing for Beatle staff and visiting friends.
Trinity Is (Source: Culture Trip)
The decision to buy the island paradise was pretty much made on the spot and another NEMS assistant Alistair Taylor was sent back to London to seal the deal. This necessitated the boys buying £90,000 worth of special export dollars to complete the international transaction. But by the time the deal was set up, the Beatles’s initial enthusiasm had waned and they had changed their minds…or maybe they just forgot about the whole grand scheme. Taylor then had to sell the export dollars back to the Greek government, which resulted in an unexpected windfall for the group, courtesy of a favourable exchange rate for the UK£{𝔹}.
Trinity Is is commonly referred to as “guitar-shaped” but with such a profound bend in its “neck” it looks more like one of Pete Townshend’s well-thwacked Fender guitars
In the application to purchase document (held in the British National Archives) the name of the would-be Beatle island—described as “300,000 square metres of arable land, olive trees, beaches and rocks”—is given as “Aegos, Konstadinos”(?), however no such island can be identified among the multitude of Aegean offshore islands. Another name ascribed to the heavily-wooded island fancied by the Liverpudlian musos is “Leslo” which also unfortunately does not exist. The more likely candidate which most people favour is Trinity Island{ℂ}, located to the east of Athens and just off the larger Euboea Island in the Western Aegean ‘The Beatles visit a Greek island they intended to purchase’, The Beatles Bible, Updated 13-Sep-2021, www.beatlesbible.com .
╾╾╼╾━╼╼╾╾╼╾━╼╼╾╾╼╾━╼╼
{𝔸} Ringo wasn’t on the real estate expedition, he bailed after the Greek mainland part of the trip to return to his Weybridge (Surrey) mansion
{𝔹} a profit of £11,400 was forthcoming for the band
{ℂ} sometimes erroneously called Agia Triada (“Holy Trinity” island)
1966 was indeed a watershed year for the world’s most popular band the Beatles. It was the year that at its end the fabled foursome called it quits on overseas touring and live performances. This followed a demanding 12 months of touring, including Germany, Japan, the Philippines and America (the third visit but this time as reluctant tourers). The constant grind, the heavy work load, the culmination of five years of more or less nonstop touring, had left the group exhausted.
Nihonjin cultural lesson for Ringo & John (Source: nippon.com)
This was only one factor in the ultimate decision to pull the plug…increasing dissatisfaction with sound quality at the various venues they played contributed as well as fears about their personal security and safety on tour1⃞ which escalated after John Lennon’s controversial comments about the Beatles being “more popular than Jesus Christ” and his stated prediction that Christianity will wither away.
Fateful words of the leader
John’s spontaneous act of hubris had profound ramifications as the year unfolded. On the “reunion” visit back to Hamburg, Germany, the Beatles received a death threat. In Japan though fans at concerts were rapturous, Japanese traditionalists voiced opposition to them, and were incensed that the Beatles’ gigs were held at the Nippon Budekan, a Japanese shrine for the war dead. But this was all mere turbulence compared to the tsunami greeting them in Manila, the Philippines’ capital. Moments after the boys stepped foot on the tarmac they were separated from manager Epstein and abruptly whisked away by military types to visit some local plutocrat VIP they didn’t know. The two concerts scheduled for the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium for that day (before a Beatle record combined audience of 80,000) though went exceedingly well.
The Marcoses in 1966 (with an American “friend”) (Photo: Yoichi Yokamoto/National Archives)
“Enemies of the state” snubbing the First Family
What brought the tour undone and turned it into a nightmare for the Beatles was Epstein’s declining an invitation for the boys to attend a brunch reception at the presidential palace organised by “First Lady” Imelda Marcos 2⃞. After the no-show by the Fab Four things turned ugly. The Philippine media castigated the Beatles for their grievous insult to the Marcos family, whipping up an instant public frenzy of Beatlephobia in the country.
Manhandling the teen icons
Beatles Alis Dayan!3⃞
All the chickens came home to roost the next day when the Beatles and their entourage tried to leave the country. First, the local promoter refused to pay the group for their performances, then they weren’t allowed to leave the hotel until Epstein coughed up nearly 75,000 pesos in taxes on the performance fees they were never paid! Meanwhile bomb and death threats against the Beatles were phoned in. But it was when they got to the airport that Filipino vengeance displayed its real venom. The Beatles found their protection had disappeared and the airport refused to handle their baggage and gear, forcing them to carry their own luggage (and their roadies to lug all the equipment themselves) to the plane. As they struggling to make their way to the plane, guns were brandished and the entourage was jostled and attacked by thugs (Mal Evans copped a beating, Epstein was hit, even Ringo got clocked with an flailing uppercut!). They were seen off into the aircraft with an equally hostile reception from hundreds of irate Filipinos wishing them good riddance!
But that wasn’t the end of the ordeal for the Beatles and their minders. The authorities suddenly discovered that some of the group’s flight paperwork was awry and roadie Mal and press officer Tony Barrow were forced to leave the safety of the Beatles’ KLM plane and return to the terminal to make amends. So the Beatles’ jet sat idly on the tarmac for another 40 minutes before it was finally allowed to depart. When they arrived back in London (via a stopover in India) the Beatles vowed never to return to the Philippines – an oath that all four musicians kept.
Talking it down…or up? (Photo credit: AP)
Footnote: The Religious Right’s war on the Beatles
The last tour, which Epstein had long pre-committed John, Paul, George and Ringo to was back to the USA. Lennon’s perceived slight on Jesus and Christianity–although he tried to walk the comments back once he arrived in the US—plagued the entire tour4⃞. Southern fundamentalists and the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated against the “degenerate and blasphemous” Liverpool band. More death threats, some radio stations in the South banned Beatle records from the air, some even organised bonfires, inviting listeners to burn the group’s discs and merchandise. Security became a more pressing issue the longer the tour proceeded, crowds of fans broke down barriers on several occasions. The four band members harboured a genuine fear that they may be the victim of an assassin’s bullet while performing on stage. By the tour’s end all four had hardened their resolve to draw a curtain on touring (‘The Beatles’ 1966 US tour’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org).
Postscript: Hello/Goodbye! The Beatle’s final ever concert (leaving aside the impromptu rooftop jam in London in 1969) at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, didn’t play to a full house, resulting in a loss for the local company organising the event.
𒆜𒆜𒆜𒆜𒆜𒆜𒆜𒆜𒆜
1⃞ for which the four performers to some extent blamed Brian Epstein resulting in a loss of confidence by them in his managerial skills
2⃞ “Go Home Beatles!”
3⃞ a disastrous PR move as Epstein had been advised by the British ambassador to accept the invitation as the band’s security while in the country was in the hands of President Marcos (‘A Hard Day’s Night in Manila’, www.beatlesnumber9.com)
4⃞ John in fact proceeded unhelpfully to pour petrol on the fire by criticising the American military intervention in Vietnam which added to the backlash (at that time 90% of Americans still backed the US’ war in Indochina)
This is a story about how Israel missed a golden opportunity to get the Beatles, then on the cusp of greatness, to perform live before Israeli audiences. The “Fab Four” were supposed to tour the country in 1965, concert tickets were even printed for what became a non-event. At the time the official account of why the Israeli government didn’t let the concert tour proceed was the fear of the deleterious effects that the Liverpool band were likely to have on the local youngsters. Citing the teen frenzy created by Cliff Richard’s 1963 concert hullabaloo in Israel, the authorities deny entry to the ‘Rhythm’ Beatles (as they were called in Hebrew) less they ”corrupt the minds of Israeli youth”. A follow-up investigation by a Knesset finance committee finds that “the band has no artistic merit” and reinforces the assertion that they were liable to “cause hysteria and mass disorder among young people” (Resolution 701). The local conservative press echoes the ’outrage’, describing the band’s music in hyperbolic vein as “yeah-yeah–yeah howls which are capable of striking dead a real beetle”.
▪ ▪ ▪ Cliff Richard: not wholesome enough for Israel?
▪ ▪ ▪
Thus the Beatles’ fans in the Jewish state never got to see the biggest band on the globe play live⍟. No doubt the desire of Israeli politicians to keep out the ‘pernicious’ influences of “sex, alcohol and rock‘n’roll” in the early 1960s was part of the thinking, however evidence emerged during the Aughts demonstrating that the (official) narratives presented in 1964/1965 were in fact apocryphal. A 2007 Israeli musical documentary Waiting for Godik by Ari Davidovich and subsequent investigations by Israel historians Yoav Kutner and Alon Gan unearths more personal considerations guiding the decision.
▪ ▪ ▪ Giora Godik, Theatrical promoter (Source: Lama Films)
▪ ▪ ▪
The true story—apparently—starts in 1962 with the mother of the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein✥, she apparently makes an offer to Israeli music promoter Giora Godik for the not-quite-yet famous Liverpool band to perform in Israel. Godik rejects the offer and instead invites the better known-internationally Cliff Richard to do a concert the following year. Fast forward two years and Godik’s rival Israeli promoter Yaakov Uri trumps him by securing the rights to a Beatles’ concert in the country. To get back at Uri for being “one-upped”, Godik successfully lobbies the Israeli authorities to veto promoters from taking out foreign currency (thereby making the whole undertaking financially unsustainable)…Godik persuades the bureaucrats by apparently playing up the bad publicity engendered from the Cliff Richard concert. A dispute between rival Jewish music promoters – and neither of them got the Beatles!
▪ ▪ ▪The four “Mop Tops”, 1965 with medals
▪ ▪ ▪
End-note: In 2008 the state of Israel issued an official apology to the Beatles via a letter to the surviving sister of John Lennon for the 1965 snub, citing lack of budget and the contemporary concerns of some members of the Knesset⌖ as the reason for pulling the tour.
Retro McCartney sparking a mini-Beatlemania revival in Tel Aviv (Source: abc.com.au)
▪ ▪ ▪
◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨
⍟ though they did finally get to see one-fourth of the band, Paul McCartney, perform there solo in 2008, triggering a new, short-lived wave of Beatlemania in Israel
✥ an Ashkenazi Jew
⌖ at the time of the incident some insiders within the country pointed the finger at Israel’s matronly prime minister Golda Meir
༺༺༺
Articles and sites consulted
‘The Beatles and Israel’, The Beatles Bible, Updated 16-Mar-2018, www.beatlesbible.com)
‘Truth after 42 years: Beatles banned for fear of influence on youth’, Toni O’Loughlin, The Guardian, 22-Sep-2008, www.amp.theguardian.com)
‘A Beatle (finally) coming to Israel’, Matti Friedman, The Inquirer, Aug 28-Aug-2008, www.theinquirer.com
When the Beatles at the top of their fame reflected back on their climb to the summit of pop/rock music, they didn’t understate the early contribution to their success of exceedingly long periods of time spent playing in seedy, red-light night spots in Hamburg, West Germany. John Lennon summed up the immeasurable value of the Hamburg gigs phase to the early Beatles’ development, quipping to a journalist that though he was “born in Liverpool, (he) grew up in Hamburg”. George Harrison echoed John’s sentiments, saying that the band “didn’t have a clue” before the German experience, “Hamburg was really like our apprenticeship, learning how to play in front of people”. Paul McCartney concurred that playing to inebriated and often hostile German sailors “galvanised the band into a musical form”. The boys’ repertoire expanded by necessity, forced to learn countless new songs so as to fill in the marathon eight-hours sets in the Reeperbahn precinct clubs (“George Harrison Said The Beatles ‘Didn’t Have a Clue’ Before They Went to Hamburg, Germany”, Hannah Wigandt, Showbiz CheatSheet, 08-Dec-2021, www.cheatsheet.com).
ʰᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ ¹⁹⁶¹ ⁽ᵖʰᵒᵗᵒ﹕ ᵍᵉᵗᵗʸ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾
Just before departing for their first stint in Hamburg in 1960, the Beatles (still calling themselves the Silver Beatles) needing a regular drummer to fulfil their contractural obligations took on ex-Blackjacks drummer Pete Best (hired by the band’s manager of sorts Allan Williams). Williams’ business associate Harold Adolphus Phillips (who promoted the band during its Silver Beetles days and occasionally performed himself as “Lord Woodbine”) drove the now five-piece group to Germany.
The band first played at the Indra Club in August 1960 (while sleeping rough in “pigsty” accommodation behind the screen of the nearby Bambi Kino). Later in the year they moved from the Indra down the street to the larger Kaiserkeller, performing late-night to sailors and sex workers, and the more appreciative art students. Both nightclubs were owned by Bruno Koschmider who was paying each of the five Beatles the princely sum of £2.50 a night to perform (although they did score an accommodation upgrade to actual hotels)🏴.
ᴷˡᵃᵘˢ, ᴬˢᵗʳᶦᵈ & ˢᵗᵘ, ¹⁹⁶¹ ⁽ᴾʰᵒᵗᵒ: ᴳᵉᵗᵗʸ ᴵᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾
While they were doing their night sets at the Kaiserkeller, John, Paul and George met Ringo (Starr), also working the club with the (then) more highly regarded Hurricanes band. The Kaiserkeller was also where the boys met Astrid Kirchherr, a Hamburg local who was to have a profound influence on the band’s look …from Astrid they got their signature “mop-top” style haircut. In Hamburg the Beatles wore black leather jackets and cowboy boots, but Astrid’s influence has an effect here too with the rounded collarless jacket she made for Stu Sutcliffe🏴 which became a prototype of the famous 1963 collarless suits worn by the Beatles🇮🇹. Astrid’s Hamburg art college student friends Klaus Voorman and Jürgen Vollmer also formed lasting associations with the Beatles from the Kaiserkeller days (especially artist and session musician Voorman who designed art covers for Beatles’ albums and played bass on post-breakup Beatles’ individual records).
ᵀᵒᵖ ᵀᵉⁿ ᶜˡᵘᵇ . ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴷ & ᴷ ᴴᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ
The following year, while still contracted to Koschmider, the boys were enticed by Peter Eckhorn (Koschmider’s Reeperbahn rival) into defecting to the Top Ten Club on the offer of better money and conditions. Koschmider found out and it’s likely that it was he who turned the underage Harrison in to the police, leading to George’s deportation. When Paul and Pete went back to the Kaiserkeller to get their equipment a fire lit by them caused minor damage to the club. The seriously “pissed-off” Koschmider had McCartney and Best arrested for arson and they too were deported back to England…Lennon eventually followed them back to Liverpool, bringing the Beatles’ engagement at the Top Ten Club in 1961 to an abrupt close.
The Beatles’ residency at the Top Ten did result in a breakthrough of sorts in their career thus far, albeit a low-key one at the time…the boys managed to cut their very first record – backing singer Tony Sheridan (who was also on the Hamburg club circuit at the same time) on a German 45 for the Polydor label. The recording “My Bonnie” at Ernst-Merck-Halle listed the Beatles on the label as the “Beat Brothers”🇦🇺 (‘Tony Sheridan’, The Beatles Bible, Upd. 15-May-2017, www.beatlesbible.com).
ˢᵗᵃʳ⁻ᶜˡᵘᵇ
The following year they were back however, this time performing at the Star-Club, operated by Manfred Weissleder and Horst Fascher🇩🇪. By now the band members’ nightly fee had been upped to £67 each. They did three stints at the Star in 1962—the last two with Ringo in the drummer’s seat for the first time—undertaken reluctantly as the band had already released their first UK single on Parlophone and were champing at the bit to get on with consolidating their burgeoning recording career in the UK. The last live performance by the soon-to-be “Fab Four” in Germany was on New Years Eve 1962.
The tyro Liverpudlian band’s musical education in the north coast German city got a terrific leg-up from getting up close and personal with legendary US rock ‘n roll performers—such as Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis—also working the same St Pauli clubs at the time…Little Richard later recounted helping to hone Paul’s vocal style backstage while the Beatles were opening for the pioneering American rock performer at the Star.
The Chronology of the Beatles’ gig venues in Hamburg, 1960–62Indra Club, Große Freiheit 64, St Pauli. 48 nights, August—October 1960 (37-hr week)Kaiserkeller, Große Freiheit 36, St Pauli. 56 nights, October—November 1960 Top Ten Club, Reeperbahn 136, St Pauli. 92 nights,April—July 1961 (51-hr week)Star-Club, Große Freiheit 39, St Pauli. April—May, November, December, 1962
Live at the Reeperbahn (image: Spotify)
↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝
The intense schedule imposed by the Hamburg club management, forcing the Beatles to play live for hours on end (with the aid of copious amounts of booze and a regular diet of ‘uppers’)🏁 formed the band into a tight musical outfit. This and the band’s increasingly fetzig (“wild”) and unpredictable stage antics and the decibel-shattering volume and raw energy of their playing earned them a loyal following in Hamburg (‘Breaking the Illusion: Hamburg and The Beatles’ Gritty Roots’, Riley Fitzgerald, Happy, 13-Oct-2021, www.happy mag.tv). And when they came back to Merseyside at the very beginning of 1963, the Beatles (–Pete/+Ringo) didn’t come back as nobodies, Hamburg gave them an international reputation to trade on in the future.
Postscript: Return to their roots
The Beatles returned to Hamburg one more time, this time as the hottest musical act on the planet. In 1966 at ‘Beatlemania’s” high-water mark, the group played two nights in Hamburg, not at any of the old haunts they had played as young scruffs but at the more respectable Ernst-Merck-Halle. This was part of the German leg (tagged the “Bravo-Beatles-Blitztournee“) of the band’s ‘66 world tour, which also included concerts in Munich and Essen.
🏴 their booking agent Allan Williams was getting three times what the musicians were!
🏴 Sutcliffe left the group and became engaged to Kirchherr in 1961 before his premature death the following year
🇮🇹 based partly on Pierre Cardin’s design
🇦🇺 it was a customer request in the Liverpool NEMS music store for ‘My Bonnie’ that first alerted Brian Epstein to the existence of the Beatles
🇩🇪 Fascher, a West German amateur boxing champion, doubled as the Beatles’ bodyguard
🏁 “800 hours in the rehearsal room” McCartney called it
There have been untold zillions of words written or spoken about the Beatles—in books, in music mags, in newsprint, on the web, in doco films and videos—over the last six decades. Anyone vaguely following the Liverpudlian Foursome’s stellar musical journey would be familiar with the major secondary personalities that feature prominently in the Beatles’ narrative (manager Epstein, producer Martin, the various wives and girlfriends, a few of the band’s musical peers like Jagger and Clapton, the so-called “Fifth Beatles” and so on), but after wading through weighty Beatles biographies by Hunter Davies and Phillip Norman and others, I’m more curious about the lesser dramatis personae who feature peripherally in the Beatles saga. As the Beatles journey on their irresistible path from provincial obscurity to global mega-celebrity, these less well-known names pop in and out of the various accounts of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s formative days on the nascent Liverpool rock scene…so let’s shift the spotlight away from the quartet of pop music icons momentarily on to some of the background players to note their particular part in the Beatles’ back story — most were fleeting and insignificant, others flitted in and out of the Beatles’ orbit without impact and a few were important participants out of the limelight.
⥉ Lennon & Shotton (Source: forums.stevehoffman.tv)
The bulk of the minor figures getting a mention in the early Beatles story tend to connect directly with John Lennon, not surprisingly as he was the band’s founder and driving force in the rise of the Beatles phenomena. John’s best friend in childhood was Pete Shotton, who attended the same schools as the future ‘First’ Beatle (Dovedale Infants School and Quarry Bank Grammar). Shotton was there at Lennon’s earliest foray into musical bands, initially in John’s mid-1950s skiffle boy band which became the “The Quarrymen”. Other friends of John joined them in the band including Nigel Whalley, Rod Davis Ivan Vaughan, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths, Ken Brown, Colin Hanton, Chas Newby, Bill Smith, John Duff Lowe…and a little later of course Paul McCartney and his baby-faced pal George Harrison and Stu Sutcliffe (Quarrymen membership history was very fluid). Vaughan’s not insignificant claim to fame resides in his being the member/friend who introduced Paul to John at that famous 1957 church fete. Shotton, Vaughan and Whalley had the further distinction of forming the nucleus of John’s “Woolton Gang”…a mischievous, juvenile ”gang of four” imitating and paying homage to Lennon’s all-time favourite hero of children’s fiction, ’William’ from Richmal Cromwell’s Just William books. Of his many childhood friends and associates, John’s connexion with Pete Shotton lasted the longest. When the Beatles achieved fame and fortune Shotton was a beneficiary, managing first a supermarket owned by the Beatles and then the Apple Boutique. Eventually Shotton severed his business nexus with the band and founded his own chain of restaurants, Fatty Arbuckle’s.
⥉ The Quarrymen performing in 1957 (pre-Paul & George)
In 1958 Lennon, having abjectly failed his ‘O’ Level exams at Quarry Bank High, shuffled off to Liverpool Art School. Lennox’s art school period was a key phase in the formation of the scruffy “Teddy boy’s” relationships, meeting his first girlfriend Thelma Pickles, his first wife Cynthia (née Powell) and close friend and early Beatle Stu Sutcliffe whose gifted artistic merit influenced him greatly. John formed other friendships at the art school including with Jeff Mohammed who took on a older brother sort of role in helping John try to cope with the trauma of his mother Julia’s sudden death; and with Bill Harry who went on to create Mersey Beat , a local music publication which helped the band gain early traction in Liverpool music circles. Harry also published Lennon’s poems and drawings in the newspaper.
⥉ Allan Williams (Source: Meet the Beatles for Real)
Before Brian Epstein stumbled upon the Beatles the lads had another manager of sorts, Allan Williams. Williams owned The Jacaranda club in Liverpool which the young John and Paul frequented. Williams‘s role as booking agent and manager for the early Beatles (known variously as “The Quarrymen”, “Johnny and the Moondogs” and “The Silver Beetles” before settling on “The Beatles”) was a somewhat informal relationship, coming to an abrupt end in 1961 over a fee dispute, leaving the way clear for Epstein to assume the grid position and steer the Beatles’s career trajectory⦑1⦒. Williams did make an important contribution to the band’s early development as a musical force, he was the one who arranged for the band to undertake the first of a series of nightclub performances in Hamburg, West Germany, where the Beatles over three visits between 1960 and 1962 really honed their musical skills.
The Cavern Club in Liverpool was synonymous with the early Beatles who debuted in its damp, dingy warehouse cellar as the Quarrymen in 1957⦑2⦒. Ringo Starr then in another skiffle band had already made his first appearance in the club a week earlier (Ringo went on to join Liverpool’s top ‘beat’ band prior to the Beatles’ ascendancy – “Rory Storm and the Hurricanes”). A key Cavern figure was its longtime emcee/DJ Bob Wooler, instrumental along with Bill Harry in helping arrange Brian Epstein‘s first visit to the Cavern to see John, Paul, George and Pete play.
⥉ Pete & Mona (Photo: John Smart/Associated Newspapers/Shutterstock)
Another regular Liverpool venue for the Beatles in their various early incarnations was the Casbah Coffee Club, owned by the mother of the band’s drummer pre-Ringo (Pete), Mona Best. Not only were the Beatles able to perform there on dozens of occasions (tallies differ as to the exact number), Mrs Best allowed the fledgling band use of the Casbah’s basement to practice in.
After Epstein and his NEMS Company⦑3⦒ took over managing the four Liverpudlian ‘Moptops’ he recruited Tony Barrow from Decca to handle publicity for the group. In the full flush of Beatlemania fame Barrow found the task easier with the press now scurrying after him, but he was still there to extinguish any Beatles crises that might occur, such as John’s incendiary “more popular than Jesus” claim. Barrow wrote liner notes for the Beatles’ EPs and albums and was also the one who came up with the “Fab Four” tag.
⥉ Neil Aspinall filling in for George in the “Fab Four” lineup (Source: independent.ie)
When the Beatles started getting bookings outside of Liverpool they got themselves a road manager, Neil Aspinall, who had gone to high school with Paul and George at the Liverpool Institute. An accountant by training, Neil’s main attribute for the ‘roadie’ job—which he scored by being ‘besties’ with Pete Best at the time—was that he owned a battered old Commer van which was used to ferry round the boys and their amps to venues, and to London for their famous Decca audition on New Year’s Day 1962. After Epstein’s death Aspinall became CEO of the flagship Apple Corps and ran the Beatles’ business empire for 40 years⦑4⦒.
Another Beatle backgrounder Epstein put on the payroll was Tony Bramwell. During their Liverpool school years Bramwell was “besties'” with George Harrison and also a friend of Paul McCartney. From roadie in the Beatlemania days Bramwell rose to become CEO of Apple Films. Today, Bramwell is one of the very few surviving Beatles’ insiders.
⥉ Paul & Bodyguard Mal return from safari in Kenya
When Aspinall got promoted to Beatles’ PA in 1963, the doorman at the Cavern, the 1.98m-tall Mal Evans got the ‘roadie’ gig. As well as being ‘roadie’ for the Beatles’ 1964 and 1965 US tours, Mal copped the brunt of the violent backlash by enraged Filipinos against the “Fab Four” during the notorious 1966 tour of that country. Evans also served as the band’s bodyguard and in-attendance ‘gofer’ for any personal items required by any of the four musicians.
⥉ Derek Taylor (Source: Pinterest.co.uk)
While Mal Evans took care of most of the Beatles’ simple day-to-day needs, NEMS employee Derek Taylor was tasked with organising holiday trips for the boys as well as taking care of more complicated matters like copyright issues and acquiring personal properties on behalf of the four members, plus acting as “spin doctor” for the Beatles, for all of which he earned the sobriquet “Mr Fixit”.
Someone else behind the scenes who did very well from his connexion with the Beatles was music publisher Dick James. Just as the Beatles’ juggernaut was starting its ascent in 1963 James brokered a deal with Lennon and McCartney through their manager Epstein which enriched the publisher and his business partner but more crucially resulted in the two principal Beatles songwriters losing control of their own songs for ever!
⥉ George Martin (Source: USA Today)
Footnote: The Fifth Beatle
Beatles watchers have long speculated on particular individuals whose contribution/ role in the band’s story warrant, justified or not, the appellation fifth Beatle…the “would-be” candidates for the title are so manifold that it invites comparison with the list of numerous contenders regularly thrown up for “eighth wonder of the world“. Those ascribed the Fifth Beatle label over the years include George Martin, Brian Epstein, Neil Aspinall, Stuart Sutcliffe, Peter Best, Chas Newby, Jimmy Nichol, Tony Sheridan and Billy Preston.
🎵🎶🎼🎼🎸♫♬
⦑1⦒ securing for Williams the unenviable epithet, “the man who gave the Beatles away”
⦑2⦒ the band didn’t actually play the Cavern as the Beatles until February 1961, but within two-and-a-half years had racked up close to 300 appearances at the venue
⦑3⦒ North End Music Stores
⦑4⦒ after the band broke up Neil became the closest confidant of each of the ex-Beatles
Any Sydneysiders born in or prior to the 1890s would have been aware of the opening of Sydney Stadium. 1908 was the year this iconic boxing arena on the eastern outskirts of the city’s CBD first saw the light of day…literally saw the light of day as it was originally built as an open air stadium. The brainchild of promoter Hugh D McIntosh who constructed a ‘temporary’ outdoor boxing ring on the site of a former Chinese market garden in Rushcutters Bay to hold the world heavyweight boxing contest featuring Canadian title-holder Tommy Burns and Australian challenger “Boshter Bill” Squires. The fight was however just a warm-up for a legendary pugilistic bout in the same arena four months later between Burns and African-American fighter Jack Johnson. The fight garnered a lot of attention in Australia and internationally as Johnson was the first black boxer to contest (and win) a world title… and the heavyweight title at that!
The Australian press of the day predictably invoked the race card in the lead-up to the fight, racist descriptions of Johnson abounded, “coloured pugilist” was one of the few politer characterisations of Johnson (Bush Advocate, 28th December 1908). Burns’s thrashing at the hands of his much bigger black opponent—physically it was a real “David and Goliath” mismatch—prompted a backlash from white supremacists. Writer Jack London (ringside at the fight) put out the call for a “Great White Hope” to restore the white man to his ‘rightful’ place atop the professional boxing tree. The decisiveness of Jack Johnson’s triumph tapped into the prevailing currents of eugenic belief of the day, doing nothing to soothe anxieties about the “moral decay and decline” of the white race.
𝔖𝔶𝔡𝔫𝔢𝔶𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔲𝔪 (𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔑𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔩𝔏𝔦𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔯𝔶𝔬𝔣𝔄𝔲𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞)
Stadiums Ltd
For almost its entire lifespan (from 1915 to its closure) Sydney Stadium was owned by Melbourne entrepreneur and gambling identity John Wren’s Stadiums Ltd…during that epoch the company enticed most of the top Australian professional boxers including Vic Patrick, Fred Henneberry, Dave Sands, Jimmy Carruthers and Tommy Burns (not the Canadian heavyweight champion) as well as renowned international prize-fighters such as Emile Griffith, Freddie Dawson and ‘Fighting’ Harada, to Sydney Stadium (‘The Wild Ones: Sydney Stadium 1908-1970’, Sydney Living Museums, www.sydneylivingmuseums.com).
“The old tin shed”
In 1912 the stadium was given a lid, an octagonal shaped roof of corrugated iron, and equiped for a capacity of 12,000 seated patrons. As the decades passed, hosting countless boxing and wrestling matches (in operation several nights a week at one point), it acquired the affectionate sobriquet “the old tin shed”❈. From the 1950s while boxing was still its core entertainment, the Sydney Stadium became a venue for popular music entertainers and television stars (eg, Frank Sinatra, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Walt Disney’s Mouseketeers, and so on⚘. This continued into the Sixties with “The Samurai” star Koichi Ose, and perhaps its pinnacle, the Beatles performing there on their 1964 Australian tour (‘Sydney Stadium’, Milesago – Venues, www.milesago.com; ‘World Heavyweight Boxing Championship Title Fight 1908’, Woollahra Municipal Council), www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au).
𓂀𝓣𝓱𝓮“𝓕𝓪𝓫𝓕𝓸𝓾𝓻” 𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓸𝓵𝓭𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓭1964
Leichhardt Stadium in Sydney’s inner west never managed to capture the limelight of Rushcutters Bay but was still very popular in its time, it’s Thursday night boxing events regularly ”packed to capacity” (‘Packing a punch’, James Cockington, 01-Jul-2009, SMH, www.smh.com.au). Leichhardt was Sydney pro boxing’s ‘Medina’ to Sydney Stadiums’ ‘Mecca’, together, this brace of stadiums was the home of professional pugilism in Sydney in the early to middle part of the 20th century. The suburban stadium on Balmain Road, Leichhardt, first opened its doors in 1922. The two Sydney stadiums featured many of the popular active Aboriginal fighters, typically stepping up from the touring boxing tents to try to earn their livelihoods inside their square rings, including Ron Richards, Jack Hassen, George Bracken, the Sands brothers and many more. Other names regularly featuring on Leichhardt Stadium’s draw cards included Jack Carroll, Jimmy Kelso, ‘Kid’ Rooney and Hockey Bennell.
‘Blood’ sports and ”show biz” mash-up
Like it’s older relative at Rushcutters Bay, Leichhardt Stadium’s “bread-and-butter” remained pro-boxing and wrestling. However, during the Depression, the suburban stadium, perhaps anticipating Lee Gordon, innovated by incorporating the prevailing popular form of stage entertainment…Saturday night featured a program of boxing contests intermixed with “Vaudeville entertainment” acts (‘Leichhardt Stadium. 1922.’, Sydney Morning Herald, 08-Dec-1930 (Trove); Milesago).
𝔖𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔠𝔢: 𝔉𝔞𝔠𝔢𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨
ஓ๑ஓ
By the mid to late 1960s Australian professional boxing was in the doldrums and the stadium itself at Rushcutters Bay closed in 1970. Three years later the complex was demolished to make way for the Eastern Suburbs Railway. Leichhardt Stadium’s demise as a boxing venue occurred not long after in 1975.
Footnote: White City’s fleeting existence
In 1913 another landmark was erected in Rushcutters Bay, a 9-iron’s distance from Sydney Stadium. The White City Amusement Park, also built on former Chinese market gardens, was a precursor of Sydney’s better known Luna Park. White City offered pleasure-seekers a smorgasbord of lakes, canals, river caves, “pleasure palaces”, “fun factories”, the city’s first roller coaster and it’s pièce de résistance, a gigantic (Pennsylvanian-constructed) carousel. White City lasted less than four years before being burnt to the ground after a lightning strike in 1917 (‘Lost Sydney : White City Amusement Park’, Pocket Oz, www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au). In the early 1920’s the White City tennis complex was erected on the site.
𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬
❈ also known as ” the old barn”
⚘ expat American promoter Lee Gordon was the brains behind this move into pop music, bringing out big US bands, singers and duos for concerts at Rushcutters Bay, backed by Australian support acts
‘Coniston’ Ashfield, Bea’s first home (Source: hafs.org.au)
You’dbe hard pressed to come up with a personality that epitomised 20th Century Sydney eccentricity more than the legendary Bea Miles who died in 1973. When the subject arises even today, so many Sydneysiders of a certain vintage have a Bea Miles anecdote to tell. Either it’s a chance (and sometimes disconcerting) encounter they had as a school kid—usually on inner Sydney public transport—with the larger (and louder) than life character herself, or one recounted to them by their mother or father. Such was her profile in this city that newspapers in the Forties and Fifties claimed that Bea (or ‘Bee’ as she later insisted it be spelt) was “more widely known than the prime minister” of the day. Bea’s popularity was rooted in that honoured tradition of Australian larrikinism, the unusual thing about this was that she was female※.
Early days, the athletic Bea Miles
Born into a wealthy merchant family, young Beatrice Miles was already exhibiting the rebellious nature that made her buck against the straitjacketed proprieties of conservative Sydney (and specifically North Shore) society, when the illness befell her that would profoundly change her forever. Contracting Encephalitis Lethargica at 21, Bea over time changed physically from a tall, trim and athletic young woman to a seriously overweight, matronly-looking woman.
(Photo: Daily Tele)
Going rogue
More immediately and crucially, Bea underwent a complete personality change, becoming totally disruptive, hyper-kinetic, manic and basically uncontrollable§. When her father couldn’t cope any more with her behaviour he had her committed to an asylum, she was shuffled around between psyche facilities in Gladesville, Kenmore (Goulburn) and Callan Park. After her last escape attempt a Sydney tabloid,Smith’s Weekly,ran a story which exposed Bea’s dire plight in the psychiatric gulag of Callan Park (with sensationalised headline “Mad House Mystery of Beautiful Sydney Girl”) which helped secure her release.
No fixed address
Unable to return to the family home in St Ives, Bea had a sojourn in Sydney’s Kings Cross where she mixed happily with the locale’s Bohemian artists and writers. After this she lived rough in Sydney, finding shelter where she could – a Rushcutters Bay stormwater drain, a cave above a Sydney beach, a park bench opposite Central Station, the steps of a church rectory, etc. Ratbags author Keith Dunstan called her “very nearly the first drop-out, the first hippie”.
Bea with men of the press, circa 1946
CV: Enemy of authority, laws and law-enforcers, habitually disruptive public presence
Bea revelled in being controversial and confrontational, especially towards political and social authorities…abusing police, doctors and magistrates came instinctually to her, and she certainly had plenty of practice at it! By her own (not necessarily reliable) count she was “falsely convicted 195 times, fairly 100 times”…Bea defiantly refused to pay for public transport or to enter cinemas. Other offences earning her the ire of the law included swearing in public and vagrancy.
Bea’s recital services board
Bea Miles, literary oratorBea loved pulling stunts and making a spectacle of herself, some she did for the heck of it—like riding a man’s push bike through the streets while wearing a formal evening dress—other stunts were to earn money after her grandmother’s inheritance allowance dried up – on the street she would hold a sign up to passing punters advertising her declamatory services, for a set “schedule of fees” she would verbatim quote passages from Shakespeare.
Main Reading Room, NSW State Library (Flickr)
Rogue scholar
Under the rough edges of Bea’s (very) public persona, was a formidable intellect. She had excelled at school (Abbotsleigh Girls) and gained admission to medicine at Sydney University. In her post-illness nomadic years, the “wayward waif” as one article called her, never held a formal job and generally gave her occupation as ‘student’. Bea was a habitué of public libraries, especially the State Library in Macquarie Street¶…a life-long voracious reader and produced her own collection of writings, such as “Dictionary by a Bitch”φ.
Bea in the driving seat? (Photo: Daily Telegraph)
Scourge of taxi drivers
The stunts Bea is best remembered and most notorious for involved her with taxis and their drivers. Her propensity for refusing to pay for taxi trips and commandeering taxis to demand that they take her to vastly distant locations has gone into folklore. Legendary instances of this were the 19-day taxi trip she took to Perth (fortunately for the female cabbie involved Bea paid her £600 for the assignment), as well as trips to Broken Hill via Melbourne and Adelaide). As is the way with legendary public figures, some of her outrageous taxi exploits were more urban myths than actual events, like the tale that used to circulate of Bea taking a taxi to Broken Hill and then on approaching the outskirts of the town she was supposed to have done a runner leaving the poor hapless driver fleeced of his massive fare. Bea’s most dramatic encounter with a cab, one that did happen, saw her respond to the driver’s refusal to take her by wrenching the door completely off the taxi’s hinges (she was a big woman!). This legendary “Bea-act” landed her in Long Bay Gaol for a spell (and a rest).
“Bee in charcoal”, Roderick Shaw (Source: portrait.gov.au)
Terror of trams
Tram drivers didn’t escape the attentions of Bea either…the popular press labelled her the “Terror of Trams” and on at least one occasion her antics flirted with real danger as one tram driver who refused to move until Bea paid the fare discovered. Bea, never one to back down, hijacked the tram, seizing its controls and piloted it to Bondi, even stopping to pick up passengers on route.
The Bea Miles “signature look”: The original “bag lady” apparel
Bea’s unorthodox ways made her a Sydney institution and an unmissable sight. Her irregular and unkempt mode of dress made her readily recognisable wherever she went…Bea’s regular ‘outfit’ described by the Sydney Morning Herald as a “down-at-heel uniform” of tennis shoes, white (or was it green) tennis sun visor and ever more scruffy overcoat. Always pinned to the overcoat’s lapel was a £5 note (Bea’s idea of countering any notion the police might get about arresting her for vagrancy).
Years of homeless living, sleeping rough, took its toll on Bea and in 1964 she was taken in by the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in Randwick. Those last nine years of her life allowed Bea a clean, dry bed and gave the inveterate bookworm that she was joyous access to another library (borrowing an average of 14 books a week from the Randwick branch library).
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Footnote: Deviating from the mainstream, inheriting some of her father’s idiosyncrasies
Despite the love-hate conflict with her father and his eventual disowning of her, Bea gained quite a number of her radical and non-conformist predispositions and beliefs from him. In his own right, wealthy businessman William J Miles was also an individualist and an eccentric. Miles was a rationalist and a secularist (Bea herself was a staunchly committed atheist❡)… from him she also got her love of Shakespeare and her anti-British imperialist/strident Australian patriotism). In the late 1930s pater Miles’ odd brand of political extremism found its voice in The Publicist. Funded and edited by Miles, the journal advocated fascism (curiously in tandem with Aboriginal rights), wholeheartedly embracing German Nazism and anti-Semitism𝄢. Bea endorsed his pro-Aboriginal and anti-British stand but never enunciated far-right or racist sentiments during her life, although at the end she did express some views that inferred the supremacy of the “white race”.
✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠✠
※ one of precious few non-male Aussie public larrikins, Dawn Fraser also comes to mind
§ though she still retained her sharpness of intellect afterwards
¶ until she was barred from the library in the late 1950s for being a nuisance (What, Bea?!? Never!)
φ example of an entry, “Duty: an excuse for showing unwarranted interference in somebody else’s business”
❡ there’s some dispute over whether her deathbed conversion to Catholicism was genuine or merely Bea’s way of thanking the church for taking her in off the streets in her twilight years
𝄢 it was a forerunner of the Australia First Movement. William’s dalliance with fascism prompted Cunneen’s assessment that, “with dangerous obsessions and money to spend, Miles represented an unstable element in Australian society”
ℼℼ~ℼℼ~ℼℼ
Articles and websites consulted:
Chris Cunneen, ‘Miles, William John (1871–1942)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/miles-william-john-7576/text13225, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 27 October 2021.
Judith Allen, ‘Miles, Beatrice (Bea) (1902–1973)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/miles-beatrice-bea-7573/text13219, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 27 October 2021.
Pip Wilson, ‘Bee Miles One of Sydney’s favourite individualists’, Wilson’s Almanac, 18-Feb-2012, web.archive.org
Robert Kaplan, ‘Miles From Her Father’, Quadrant, 07-Aug-2016, http://quadrant.org.au
The first two decades of the 21st century have been witness to a raft of passing fads and rages, we’ve seen the likes of Planking, Twerking and Tebowing, etcad nauseam, it makes me wonder whatever happened to the wholly sedentary craze of pole-sitting? Like most crazes, I guess, it was of its time and the shelf life is never infinite. It’s day, or its heyday, was in the 1920s up to around the early 1930s when the peak of the craze subsided.
‘Shipwreck’ Kelly at work ▙
Pole-sitting
The initial exponent of pole-sitting or specifically flagpole-sitting, so far as we know, was New Yorker Alvin ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly. Prior to his preoccupation with pole-sitting, Kelly was a jack-of-all-trades, trying his hand as a steelworker, steeplejack⋖a⋗, high diver, boxer and movie double. He also was a naval ensign during WWI and held a pilot’s licence and performed aerial stunt flights. Opinions differ on how ‘Shipwreck’ got into the business of pole-sitting, one view goes that the habit came early, scrambling up a pole at the tender age of seven, others attribute it to a dare or to a publicity stunt for a Philadelphia department store [‘Body of ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly Lies Unclaimed in Morgue’, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 13-Oct-1952, (Google News Archive)]. In January 1924 his ‘career’ took off with a record-setting sit atop a pole for 13 hours and 13 minutes to help promote a Hollywood film. Kelly’s best-ever effort was 49 days and one hour, Atlantic City 1930.
AK keeping up with the news at ground-level ▙ (Photo: Everett/Fine Art America)
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At the height of his popularity Kelly was earning $500 a day, coming from charging money to people to watch his feats of endurance, from books about his life, from endorsements and personal appearances. His fame also led to a 28-day tour of the United States, sitting on poles in a different city on each day of the tour. But the glory days did not last, the onset of the Great Depression saw his popularity plummet rapidly, Americans quickly lost interest in spending precious money watching men sit on poles with more serious and urgent concerns taking centre stage in their lives (Saratosa Tribune).
▙ ‘Dixie’ Blandy (Source: Facebook)
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Pole-sitting became competitive with Richard ‘Dixie’ Blandy challenging and even besting Kelly’s 49-day record. Brandy’s accomplishment, 77 days, was the stuff of legend, sustained as it was on a diet of bottles of whiskey and three packs of cigarettes a day [‘The Mad 1920s: Fad of Pole-Sitting’, Messynessy, 25-Sep-2020, www.chic.com]. Interestingly, prior to being bitten by the pole-sitting bug Blandy, like Kelly, tried an assortment of jobs including circus worker, boxer, house painter, steeplejack, riveter, merchant marine, salesman and (wait for it) flagpole painter. Unlike Kelly though, the Louisiana-born Blandy didn’t become inactive because of the Depression, continuing the activity and even breaking his 1933 record twice more, the second time in Stockholm, Sweden, added to Dixie’s legend – a sit of 125 days in a chair affixed to a pole 200-feet above the ground, while consuming 92 bottles of whiskey and his customary diurnal 3 packs of cigs⋖b⋗.[‘Richard Ernest “Dixie” Blandy’, Findagrave, www.findagrave.com]. Blandy actually died on the job, killed in 1974 when the flagpole supporting him collapsed.
▙ Publicity shot: Dixie was popular with the ladies, married 6 times (all his wives met him via the phone at his pole-sitting events) (Source: Dayton Daily News)❕
▙ Paalzitten (Noordwijkerhout)
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Blandy notwithstanding, the fad had seen its day after the Depression bit hard. Since then there have been attempts from time to time to revive the pole-sitting caper. In the Netherlands for example pole-sitting became a competitive sport In the 1970s – the Dutch call it Paalzitten (literally “sit tight”). This is a world away from the pursuit that made Alvin and Dixie famous, the poles in the Netherland sit above not solid ground but water and nose-bleeds are uncommon as Dutch derrières are perched barely two arm lengths from the level of the water…“a tourist attraction more than a spectator sport”. [‘Paalzitten Is A Dutch Competitive Sport Where You Have To Sit On A Pole For Hours’, The Engineer, www.wonderfulengineering.com].
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Stylites
The fad of Pole-sitting originated in the 1920s as we have seen, but there are historical precedents for this curious pastime. In the early Christian period certain ascetic monks of a particularly fanatical bent practiced something broadly analogous to pole-sitting. These holy men of Late Antiquity were called ‘Stylites’ (from Greek stylos, ‘pillar’). Stylites were “pillar-dwellers” not pole-sitters, and their motivation was spiritual salvation rather than money and fame which spurred on ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly and his ilk. Stylites’ also differed from the pole-sitters in modus operandi, standing on the pillars was their preferred position. Sitting was something they tended to resort to only when overcome by fatigue or perhaps sleep.
▙ 6th century depiction of Ur-Simeon Stylites
The ‘poles’ in question were in fact narrow columns or towers atop which were small platforms which housed the Stylite. The platform were usually encircled by a railing of sorts to prevent the hermit-preacher from falling off. The most famous of the practitioners—the ur-Stylite—was Simeon Stylites the Elder whose early zeal for Christianity led him to ascend a pillar in Syria in AD 423. Later he relocated to a second, nearby pillar more than 15 metres above the ground, apparently staying in it till his death 37 years later⋖c⋗.
▙ Icon depicting both Simeon the Elder & Simeon the Younger
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Simeon’s devotion to the practice made him quite a celebrity in the Christian world, he corresponded with the high and mighty including the Eastern emperors Theodosius II and Leo I, even exerting some influence on ecclesiastical matters, such was his standing. Visitors flocked to observe him praying, preaching and fasting on his high platform. Pilgrims and sightseers sought spiritual counselling, healing for the sick, intervention on behalf of the oppressed, etc. Simeon was too popular, a double wall had to be constructed around his pillar to keep the thronging multitudes from getting too close and disturbing his prayer sessions [‘St. Simeon Stylites’, Britannica, www.britannica.com].
▙ Luke the Stylite
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The pre-Medieval Christian lifestyle caught on among the more ascetically inclined of the early Byzantine clergy (including women) with many following the prototypical Stylite, some even adopting his name. The more notable of these include St Daniel of Constantinople, St Simeon Stylites the Younger (Antioch), St Alypius of Paphlagonia (north-central Anatolia) and St Simeon Stylites (III) of Lesbos. As this list shows, prominence in the Stylite calling was a passport to sainthood. The Stylites needed to be a stoical lot as they were exposed to all kinds of weather at the top (although some were fortunate enough to be furnished with a small hut to escape into in time of severe inclemency).
▙ Georgian hermit headquarters (Source: Vintage News)
Footnote: If you think the Stylites were confined to the so-called “Dark Ages”, think again! The practice has not entirely been extinguished in the 21st century. A monk in Georgia (Maxime Qavtaradze) in 2013 celebrated 20 years of lofty solitude as a ascetic hermit atop a mountain pillar a la the Stylites⋖d⋗. The original Stylites however would not recognise their barest of existences in the Georgian pillar set-up…Maxime lives in a small cosy cottage with adjoining church house on the top of his pillar, and the monk descends twice a week to the village below to say prayers with his parishioners [‘Georgian Monk Renews Tradition, Lives Atop Pillar’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 11-Sep-2013, www.rferl.org].
⋖a⋗ perhaps serving as a kind of altitude training for his later pole-sitting marathons
⋖b⋗ to avoid a calamitous outcome in marathon stints, the pole-sitters tied their legs to the vertical structure when wanting to sleep
⋖c⋗ meagre parcels of food were fetched to Simeon by his disciples
I went to the ‘Student Prince’ in the 1970s, only the once I think. The pub was pretty well packed with students from across the road, befitting its reputation as the unofficial watering hole of Sydney University students in those days (I was probably one of the few people there who were not actually going to USyd).
The interior was dimly-lit, the furniture well-used and the place definitely not decorated in the fashion of Old Heidelberg. I recall music playing however it was not a Mario Lanza record but a scrawny-looking band out the back playing something that wasn’t the “Drinking Song’ from the 1954 movie bearing the hotel’s name.
(Source: G’day Pubs)
The public house changed hands several times in the years before 2001 when it closed its doors for good, having been the perennial refuge for countless undergrads after a day spent in the mental grind of lecture halls and swotting up in Fisher Library. While many former patrons of the pub no doubt fondly recall their time drinking and waxing lyrically about some newly-acquired parcel of esoteric knowledge, other habitués associate the Student Prince with other memories – Russell Crowe for instance confessed to the Twitterati in 2010 that the roof of the pub was where his ten-year-old self first got his nicotine addiction!
The Student Prince after loitering on the market for a protracted period of time was bought by what the Sydney Morning Herald called “a mysterious consortium of Asian businessmen” who spent two years and $11 million turning the old uni student watering hole into an upmarket brothel (‘Sexclusively yours’, SMH, February 17, 2003).
‘Stiletto’ (the name it trades under) was described on the DA (development application) as an “adult entertainment facility”, or translated into street parlance, a “very high class knocking shop”. In 2011 plans to expand Stiletto into a “42-room megaplex” (the “largest short-stay bordello in the world”) ran into a hitch when Westpac the principal financier got cold feet. The establishment went ahead with the new development, but after a moral backlash (‘Sydney sinking into sin’, Daily Telegraph, November 12, 2010), the eventual expansion was appreciably more limited in size than initially proposed by the developers.
(Photo: ANU Open Research)
Footnote: There was an earlier pub dating from the 1880’s on the site at 82 Parramatta Road, Camperdown, called the ‘Captain Cook Hotel’ (‘Former Student Prince Hotel in Camperdown (NSW)’, www.gdaypubs.com.au).
I finally received Carol’s death certificate from the unfeeling bots at the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Glancing through it I noticed that under the sections “Mother’s Name” and “Mother’s Maiden Family Name”, the entries were “Unknown” and “WALKER”. This triggered something in my mind that I hadn’t realised before. Whenever Carol had raised the hate-inducing subject of her mother, she had never mentioned her by first name or by any name for that matter. For Carol, the resentment of her maternal treatment was as fresh and vivid as it was when she was five…the mother-abuser of Carol’s childhood, the denier of their mother-daughter bond, was a non-person, merely and perpetually an accursed thing, not to be dignified with human attribution.
Shipley Art Gallery: ‘The Lost Child’ by A. Dixon
The entry for “Father’s Name” conveyed even less information. Entered on the page were the cold and clinical words that had haunted Carol all her life — (first) “Unknown” and (surname) “UNKNOWN”. Her father’s identity was an enigma—the missing nexus that perhaps would have made her feel more whole—which Carol had always puzzled over unendingly and unknowingly. Now, here it was, official confirmation from Births, Deaths and Marriages so it would seem, that the cloak of anonymity enveloping her natural father would accompany her to the grave. Given that Carol in her life caused such a ripple with so many people who entered within her orbit, touched so many with her selfless kindness devoid of the semblance of a quid pro quo, I wondered to myself, was Carol the known daughter of two unknown (and unknowable) persons? So it does seem.
The story of Robin Hood is one of those enduring English chronicles from the distant past, which like the Arthurian legend has continually provided rich fodder for the screen. The basic story is an all-too familiar one with universal appeal: a virtuous Saxon nobleman in Mediaeval England, fleeced out of his estate and title by powerful villains, responds by mobilising an heroic and effective resistance against the status quo, on the way freeing the poor and oppressed peasantry from their yokes. That the legend is known throughout the Anglophone world and Europe, is testimony to the fact has there been so many film and television goes at retelling the legend – starting with the first silent one in 1908.
It wasn’t until the 1922 silent version with Robin Hood played by the lead Hollywood actor of the day Douglas Fairbanks Sr that the Robin Hood movie achieved serious cinematic recognition. Fairbanks’ athletic prowess and spectacular stunts elevated the movie and captured the imagination of audiences. With a budget of nearly one million dollars (one of the biggest in the silent era) the 1922 Robin Hood helped to establish the ‘swashbuckler’ sub-genre in cinema.
The next version of note, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is considered by many to be the best movie on the iconic Saxon hero. Errol Flynn in the title role brings the energy and verve to the film that largely accounts for The Adventures of Robin Hood’s standing as one of the great swashbucklers of Hollywood. As one critic observed: “Flynn’s Robert of Locksley, dripping with sexuality, good humor, panache and swagger, captures not only the derring-do character, but also the more dramatic side of his fight for injustice” (Susan King, ‘Classic Hollywood: 100 Years of Robin Hood movies’, LA Times, 12-May-2010). The use of (Technicolor) colour, still not widely used at that time, added to the film’s freshness and appeal.
R Todd in the Lincoln Green
For most Flynn’s performance and the 1938 classic has remained the benchmark. Of the numerous subsequent RH iterations, none have really stacked up against The Adventures of Robin Hood but some of the efforts do warrant a degree of favourable mention. The modest 1952 low-profile Disney flick, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a sleeper of a movie compared to the blockbusters above, but it proved popular in the US (good performance by Irish actor Richard Todd in the lead) and was in the main well received by the press: “an expert rendition of an ancient legend”; “as lively as a sturdy Western” (New York Times); a “zesty, colorfully retelling of the familiar story” (Leonard Maltin); and for its authentic English locations.
One of two 1991 feature film versions of Robin Hood was the much hyped Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves which did well at the box office but was not critical well received. Kevin Costner was lambasted for his less than credible impersonation of an English noble as was the screenplay, though Alan Rickman won plaudits for his deliciously hammy Sheriff of Nottingham — “wicked, droll, sly, eye-rolling, witty one-liners and put-downs” (Roger Ebert). The second film entitled simply Robin Hood, starring another Irish thespian Patrick Bergin, tries for more modern touches. The movie tones down the traditional “rob from the rich, give to the poor”, socialist-leaning revolutionary Robin, opting for a more out and out impudent anti-authoritarian (Tom Jicha, SunSentinel, 13-May-1991). Another innovation is the replacement of Hood’s traditional nemeses, the Sheriff of Nottingham and Sir Guy of Gisborne, with two new baddies, Sir Miles Folcanet and Baron Deguerre. The Maid Marian role in RH adaptions are usually passive objects of attention, but this film has Uma Thurman attempting to redress this by actively participating in the climactic sword fight, (one critic was dismissive of this as “a contrived nod to present-day feminism”, Tom Shales, The Washington Post, 13-May-1991).
Crowe’s band
Two more recent iterations of RH have sought to give the story a modern twist. Both Ridley Scott’s revisionist 2010 Robin Hood and the 2018 version analogised the time-honoured legend with the post-9/11 West’s preoccupation with the war on terror. The critical consensus was that Ridley Scott’s version was dour and joyless with the essential adventure ingredient of the tale drained out. Russell Crowe playing Hood as a hardened war veteran was singled out for specific criticism by some – too old to play the role, his accent sounded more Irish or even Scottish than Nottinghamshire, etc. The 2018 Robin Hood depicts the Merry Men, clothed in half-modern costumes, as if they are SAS commandos entwined in a Middle East-type scenario picking off terrorists with automatic weapons (’14 Big Scren Robin Hoods’: Ranked’, (Mary Sollosi), 14-Jun-2019, EW.com).
The 1950s was the first decade that television really impacted on the public and popular culture in advanced Western countries…for countless viewers in Britain, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, this meant a new opportunity to indulge in the perennial classic adventure story of the Lincoln-green set. In those pioneering days in the new medium Associated Television’s Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-59) was compulsory viewing in grainy black and white. Richard Greene was a reassuringly efficient “righter of wrongs” and appropriately English in pedigree. His presence as Hood aided by interesting stories and an enticingly catchy theme song, saw the production through 143 episodes. The success of the Greene “Robin Hood” inspired a new wave of TV series on the Nottinghamshire archer extraordinaire from the Seventies on🅐. The pick of these is probably the 1984 series Robin of Sherwood which had the novelty of two different incarnations of Robin Hood. The ITV series was widely praised as a “gritty, authentic production design with real-life history, 20th century fiction and pagan myth” (‘Robin Hood’, Wikipedia). World expert on Robin Hood literature Stephen Knight described it as “the most innovative and influential version of the myth in recent times”. A haunting soundtrack by Clannad helped the “moody and atmospheric” vibe of Robin of Sherwood. Personally, I’m a bit partial to a more recent Robin Hood series (2006-09), largely for Keith Allen’s high camp, deeply sarcastic performance, replete with a range of exaggerated often incredulous facial gestures as the Sheriff of Nottingham (one episode spoofs the Bob Marley song in its title, “Who Shot the Sheriff?”).
So deeply embedded in film and popular culture is the Robin Hood story that inevitably someone would lampoon it and that somebody was Mel Brooks in his 1993 parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Brooks makes fun of other (serious) iterations of RH like Costner’s Prince of Thieves. In fact Brooks has already roamed into this territory in television in 1975 with his sitcom on Hood and co, When Things Were Rotten. Both were replete with one-liners, sight gags, literal humour and anachronisms (something the non-humorous versions were also very prone to).
One of the funniest alternative iterations of Robin Hood came out of late Eighties children’s television. Creator Tony Robinson‘s Maid Marian and her Merry Men as the title suggests inverts the roles of the legend…Marian is the de facto leader and the brains of the Sherwood Forest outlaws, while Robin, an incompetent ex-tailor (“Robin of Kensington”) is a complete airhead. Another comic inversion of the traditional legend seen here and in Men in Tights is the presentation of Robin as being far from heroic.
Marian’s outfit
Footnote: One of the quintessential personal traits of Robin Hood is his prowess as a master archer which features in all RH screen versions. Given the character’s mythic status this prowess is typically grossly exaggerated – Russell Crowe manages to hit a fleeing soldier on horseback hundreds of yards away with an arrow flush on the back of his head; Taron Egerton in the 2018 film shoots nearly 20 arrows in the trailer alone! (Max Tenenbaum, ‘The 10 Best Archers From Film and TV’ Screen Rant, 07-Apr-2020).
Postscript: Political HoodThe Adventures of Robin Hood TV series was clearly intended as good fun, a vehicle of commercial escapist entertainment, nonetheless buried in the storyline are snatches of political commentary on contemporary events in the UK during the strait-jacketed postwar decade after 1945. An analogy can be made between Robin’s return from serving in the Crusades to find his property and titles confiscated, and the shabby treatment of British veterans returning from the WWII conflagration. The Adventures‘ political messages were not confined to contemporary Britain. The TV program was the brainchild of a blacklisted US producer Hannah Weinstein. Weinstein hired leftist American writers such as Ring Lardner Jr similarly persecuted by the McCarthyism scourge in the US. Lardner and the others were not slow to draw comparisons between the fictional Robin Hood’s plight and their own ongoing victimisation by the zealous American Right. According to Lardner, writing for the show afforded “plenty of opportunities for oblique social comment on (the assault on liberties in) Eisenhower-era America” (Allen W.Wright, ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood 1950s TV Series Page 2’, (Sept 2005), Robin Hood: Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood, Spotlight, www.boldoutlaw.com).
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🅐 not to mention the similarly themed 1958 TV series William Tell which might be summed up succinctly as “Robin Hood with a crossbow”
The ardent British football fan while waiting for match day or counting down the off-season days to next August can often be found lapping up all the available literature he or she can get their hands on about the beloved round ball game. The appetite for football fiction extends to the graphic novel and it’s predecessor the comic book. The perennially popular exemplar of this quintessential “Boy’s Own” exploits genre is Roy of the Rovers.
[R] 17-y-o Roy Race on his ‘debut’
The comic Roy of the Rovers had its debut in Tiger magazine in 1954…the strip follows the fortunes of fictional football team Melchester Rovers, with the spotlight very much on its star centre forward Roy Race. Captain Roy and his team invariably find themselves the underdogs, battling adversity, foul play, injuries and bad luck, somehow in the end they manage to beat the odds and spectacularly win the game in the last minute usually with a corker of a goal by Roy (for supposed ‘underdogs’ Melchester Rovers are decided overachievers – over the years racking up eight fictional FA cups, three European cups and one UEFA cup!).
Roy on the field epitomises fair play (often in contrast to his opponents), his personality embodies all the virtues of “sportsmanship, etiquette and why a fractured ankle, a broken rib and an early case of polio should never stand between a determined team captain and victory in FA cups” (McGinty). Roy’s Rovers competed against the other teams in the League—like their arch-rivals Tynefield United—who never come close to ever matching up to the ethical pedigree of Melchester Rovers.
Roy of the Rovers momentsRoy of the Rovers permeates English football culture to the extent that it is a standard trope for fans of the game to invoke the comic strip to describe memorable sporting incidents, unexpected comebacks, miraculous wins from behind, etc.
Roy is beyond the slightest doubt the absolute gun player in Melchester’s colours, however it’s not quite a one man band. He gets stirling assistance from teammates, most notably from Johnny Dexter the team’s “hard man” and goalie Gordon (“the safest hands in soccer”) Stewart (cf. Gordon Banks).
The créme de la créme, the “Roy of the Rovers Annuals” were a staple for boys each year…over the years of the publication Roy and his team go through all the highs and lows – relegation to Second Division; kidnapping of players; a terrorist attack; the club experiences financial calamities and so on. In the process Roy briefly defects at one time to a rival club before returning to the fold before losing a leg in a skiing accident. After enforced retirement he becomes Melchester manager and his son Rocky assumes the mantle of the side’s star striker.
[B] Roy with his Prince Valiant hairstyle
By the early 1990s, with the inevitable ebbing of ROTR’s popularity, the publication folded. However, at several intervals, the comic, phoenix-like, has been resurrected for the diehearts, most recently in 2018.
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Socialism in one football club
In 1988 the BBC produced a two series radio program drawing inspiration from the legendary Roy of the Rovers comic but taking it in a very different direction. Lenin of the Rovers, “the story of Britain’s only communist football club”, written by Marcus Berkman, is both spoof and affectionate satire, sending up the football comic classic while retaining a sliver of nostalgia both for Roy of the Rovers and the British game of yesteryear. Lenin of the Rovers conversely takes a massive swipe at the contemporary (that is, as at 1988) world of Brit soccer, ridiculing big game commentators and pundits alike, skewering top-flight players for being overpaid, pampered show-ponies with their “in-car leopard skin yoghurt dispensers” (nothing’s changed!). Also in the program’s cross-hairs is the run amuck degree of football sponsorship (eg, the “Heinz Sandwich Spread FA Cup”) and stockbroker hooligans (Hughes). The LCD gutter press also gets a pummeling for its bald-faced lies and facile and trivalising reporting (eg, “Curvy Corinne’s” tabloid article in The Daily Tits: “My night of lust with Ralph Coates”✧).
The story line is pure farce, supposedly detailing the experiences of communist East European football player Ricky Lenin (Alexei Sayle in a heavily accented voice which appears to be channelling his Balowski family character from The Young Ones) at Midlands club Felchester Rovers. Lenin is portrayed as a “tactical mastermind/balding midfield maestro” but more accurately might be described as thick as two planks. Through constant rhetorical flourishes Lenin lectures the team on dialectical materialism, the inevitable destiny of Felchester Rovers football club*, but he is exposed as a faux Marxist for covertly trying to enrich himself through football connexions. Lenin launches a proletarian coup which removes the club’s manager Ray Royce (a transparent pun on Roy Race), and then himself has to ward off a challenge from Felchester’s “burly defender” Stevie Stalin and “hard nut” henchman Terry Trotsky.
A riotous hoot
Many misadventures follow as Lenin and the club bungle their way through sex scandals, corruption and dodgy business deals, and a disastrous mid-season holiday in a war-torn Central American banana republic (El Telvador)+. The latter episode spoofs cult movie Apocalypse Now (“I love the smell of shin-pads in the morning”), with a side reference to the WWII football plot of Escape to Victory!
In the episode where Felchester travel to Germany to play Borussia Mönchenpastry (cringe!), they encounter diabolical German tabloid publisher Max Gut, a thinly disguised Robert Maxwell. Piss-taking comes fast and furious in LOTR, another episode involving Ricky putting out feelers for a move across the Irish Sea to represent the Republic of Ireland national whose team sheet reads like the United Nations with not a solitary Gaelic name in it! One of the team apparently qualified for Ireland due to having once read a James Joyce novel!
A recurring device sprinkled liberally through Lenin of the Rovers has Ricky Lenin speaking random lines from well-known pop songs – “We are family! I have all my sisters with me”; “A rebel to the core”, “Don’t go breaking my heart“, etc. ad nauseum.
From go to whoa it’s a pun bonanza, reminding me a lot of those exquisite Sixties radio comedies like I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. Felchester’s Euro opponent is Swiss club FC Toblerone (groan!). Their arch-rivals in the English comp is the thuggish Crunchthorpe United, however the Felchester team itself triumphs in the Cup employing the same tactics of illegal crunching tackles and skilless brawn. Needless to say that in the computer football universe, Felchester Rovers would be Melchester’s Crunchthorpe United.
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✧ LOTR takes no prisoners with the reputations of past FA stars with a constant flow of running gags at their expense (particularly cruel on Ralph Coates)
* with ideological fidelity he also devises a “five year goal plan” for the club, prompting his teammates to slag Arsenal for its “five goals a year plan”
+ there’s a reference to Terry Venables here, the former English manager’s nickname was “El Tel”
Reference material:
‘A teen magazine for boys — but will they buy it?’, The Scotsman, Stephen McGinty, 15-Jan-2004, www.thescotsman.co.uk
‘Lenin of the Rovers’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org
‘Radio revolution’, Rob Hughes, When Saturday Comes, November 2010, www.wsc.co.uk
‘Lenin on the goalpost’, Paul Shaffer, Lion and Unicorn, 2017, www.thelionandunicorn.wordpress.com
AdolfHitler was born in the small Upper Austrian town Braunau am Inn on the border with the German state of Bavaria. The future Germanführer’s association with Braunau am Inn was only a fleeting one…after Adolf’s birth in the three-story yellow corner house—agasthaus(guesthouse) which later was agasthof (ale house)—the Hitler family only stayed in Braunau am Inn until 1892, when Hitler’s father’s work as a customs official took them to Passau, further down the Inn River border but on the German side.
(Archival image: Stadtverein Braunau)
When the Nazis annexed the Austrian state in 1938 the street of Hitler’s birth Salzburger Vorstadt was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Straße, in time for the führer’s one and only return to the town of his birth since he left at aged three – passing swiftly through Braunau am Inn on the way to Vienna to celebrate the Anschluß. From this time Hitler’s birthplace became a cult centre attracting hordes of fawning devotes to Hitler, creating a pilgrimage site for the Nazi “true-believers”. At the end of WWII the town surrendered to the US Army and No 15 as part of the historic city centre was eventually granted heritage status➀. Rented since the Fifties by the Austrian republic, the building had provided makeshift premises for a public library, a bank, technical high school classes, a day centre for people with learning difficulties.
(Photo: The Guardian)
During the last decade the Austrian government, still renting Salzburger Vorstadt 15 from its original family owner (Gerlinde Pommer), has kept it unoccupied, fearful that it was in danger of becoming a shrine for Neo-Nazi sympathisers (and their regular visits were also bringing anti-fascist protestors to the site as well) [‘Austria wants to appropriate Hitler’s birth house to stop it from becoming neo-Nazi shrine’, Daily Sabah, 09-Apr-2016, www.dailysabah.com]. The building has no identifiable signage on it but a concentration camp stone memorial dedicated to the victims of Nazism stands in front (Hitler is not mentioned in the inscription).
Braunauers, saddled with the legacy of their quiet, backwater town being forever associated with the Nazi führer, have long held divided opinions over what to do with the property locals refer to as the “Hitler-haus”. Some wanted to demolish all trace of it, to replace it with a new purpose-built building (a refugee centre, a museum dedicated to the Austrian liberation from Nazi rule, etc), or to leave it as an empty, amorphous space (an option extensively criticised because it could infer that Austria was trying to bury a part of its dark past). With such heat generated over the controversial site, its not surprising that the government in Vienna too has vacillated over what to do with it➁ [Adolf Hitler’s first home set to be demolished for new buildings, The Guardian, 17-Oct-2016, www.theguardian.com].
(Artist’s impression of the renovation)
In 2016, the Austrian government, frustrated at the owner’s refusal to renovate the property to make it suitable to desirable tenants, or to negotiate the building’s future, indicated its intent to demolish it and rebuild anew. In 2017 after a court ruling in the government’s favour the building was expropriated…this year Vienna has flipped the 2016 decision, now deciding that the existing structure will stay in place but will undergo significant change to its outward appearance and be given a new life. The change of plan will see the renovated building becoming a police station for Braunau and the district (slated for completion at end 2022 at a cost of €2 million) [‘Adolf Hitler’s birthhouse to be remodeled by architects’, DW, 05-Jul-2020, www.dw.com]. Repurposing Salzburger Vorstadt 15 as a police station with a (1750 townhouse style) design that predates the period of Hitler’s residence, according to the authorities, has the intention to deter Neo-Nazis from congregating at the site in the future and trying to turn it into a shrine to the head Nazi [‘Adolf Hitler’s Birthplace Will be Transformed Into a Police Station to ‘Neutralize’ Its Appeal as a Pilgrimage Site for Neo-Fascists’, (Kate Brown), Artnet News, 03-Jun-2020, www.artnet.com].
Postscript: The decision to radically makeover the four centuries-old building that was Hitler’s birthplace won’t please the cultural and heritage groups in Upper Austria, but that the building has not been obliterated leaving only a blank, anonymous space has been welcomed by others. As one architecture professor notes, the creation of ”a void into which any kind of meaning can be projected” does not necessarily solve the dilemma, witness the aftermath of the 1952 dynamiting of Berghof (Hitler’s Bavarian mountain hideaway). Despite there being nothing to see any more, tourists kept coming in droves, as did Neo-Nazis who left their calling cards [‘The house where Hitler was born could be demolished soon. Here’s why it should stay standing’, (Despina Stratigakos), Quartz, 31-Oct-2016, www.quartz.com].
(Photo: The Guardian)
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➀ in the decades following the war, along with curious tourists, Austrian and German veterans, especially on Hitler’s birthday, made the trek to the house [‘Hitler’s Birth Home in Austria to Become a Police Station’, (Melissa Eddy), New York Times, 20-Nov-2019, www.nytimes.com]
➁the Ministry of the Interior in Vienna was also under flack from the media and the public for the extravagance of paying Frau Pommer nearly €5,000 every month to rent a space it was putting to no practical use [‘Why the Austrian government won’t tear down Adolf Hitler’s birth home’, (Bianca Bharti), National Post, 05-Sep-2019, www.nationalpost.com]
The “Groundhog Day” existence of coronavirus, with people ‘sentenced’ to indeterminable periods of isolation and lockdown inside four square walls, has been a boon to the pursuit of leisure activities※. Social media platforms have gone “gang-busters” – Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Zoom, and Snapchat and TikTok (for the Gen-Zs) among others. Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Stan, ditto. In this year like no other, Audible tell us that audio books are more popular than ever – a trend promoted undoubtedly by Audible’s own deft marketing (eg, during Covid-19 they are streaming a selection of children’s stories free to the public). The uptake of Borrow Box loan activity in 2020 underscores this assertion.
Cohen & Roney 1952: taking the 1st steps for audio booksellers (Photo: Lib of Congress Blogs)
𖠜𖠜𖠜
Audio books (ABs) in one form or another have been around a long time, arguably the pioneer in the area of spoken-word records was Caedmon Records, the first to hit the mark with a mainstream audience. The Caedmon company evolved out of the initiatives in 1952 of two 22-year-old female college graduates (Barbara Cohen and Marianne Roney) in the US to record a poetry reading by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The popularity of the poetry album which included A Child’s Christmas in Wales laid the groundwork for today’s AB industry. The development of technology assisted the progression of “spoken books”… from the first LPs (Long-playing records), emerging in the 1930s, which gave way to tape cassettes in the 1960s and 70s, which in turn lead later still to compact discs [‘Caedmon Records and Audiobooks, (HarperCollins), www.200.hc.com].
My own personal history as a consumer of spoken-word records begins with the aforementioned Caedmon, circa 1977. In the mid-Seventies I had watched several films in a series of commercial releases under the title “American Film Theatre”, film adaptations of a number of well-known plays…the series which utilised Lord Olivier as its promotional face included Galileo (Brecht), Rhinoceros (Ionesco), Luther (Osborne), The Homecoming (Pinter) and The Iceman Cometh (O’Neill).
At the time I came across vinyl 78s of two of the plays-to-films in the series—Butley (Simon Gray) and A Delicate Balance (Edward Albee)—in a tiny spoken-word section of a second-hand record shop. Snapping them up, this marked my first foray into the (at that time) still embryonic world of collecting ABs.
Audio books then were pretty much unknown in retail record departments and shops… major book retailers were yet to cotton on to the potentiality of thus broadening the market for their products, and online goliaths like Amazon were yet to come into existence. I remember that I got my first spoken-word cassette by (pre-online) mail order from the Royal Blind Society in 1978. The RBS had more incentive than anyone else to embrace “talking books”⋓, an innovation which opened up a whole new world of leisure for the visually-impaired. The first (double cassette) AB that I purchased was a BBC recording of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.
Since that time the audio book industry has exploded with heavyweights like Hachette Audio, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon and Schuster, all with significant “skin in the game”. Lording over all these competitors is Audible (Amazon), unchallenged as the dominant market leader. Even before the pandemic the global AB market was valued at US$2.67 Bn in 2019 (wwwgrandviewresearchcom/]. The coronavirus is sending that worldwide sales trajectory even higher (US audio unit sales are up 16% dwarfing the book market growth of the industry as a whole (wwwthenewpublishingstandardcom/)).
The success of audio books has been welcomed by the book industry as a positive addition (cf. the advent of Kindle and e-books which raised fears of ‘cannibalisation’ of the main product)⊞. The takeaway from the AB phenomena is that the aural experience is a different one, and that ABs (according to a Deloitte report) tend to attract a younger demographic that is less inclined to read print books [‘A word in your ear…why the rise of audiobooks is a story worth celebrating’, (Alex Preston), The Guardian, 02-Aug-2020, www.theguardian.com].
The versatility of audio books is behind its blossoming into an integral part of the literature landscape for ‘readers’. ABs can be integrated easily into one’s life in all manner of ways that are not confined to a sedentary or stationary state – while exercising, walking, jogging, cycling, in the gym, while cooking, doing housework, driving a car, commuting, etc [‘Audiobooks: The rise and rise of the books you don’t read’, (Clare Thorp), BBC, 06-Jan-2020, www.bbc.com].
For many buyers of audio books a factor in choosing a title is the reader itself. Having “A-list talent” and the “dulcet tones of a familiar voice” as reader certainly can add value to the product✦, but big names only work if they have a genuine connexion with the material (Thorp). Some ABs work better when the author doubles as reader, this particularly applies to memoirs and non-fiction titles. Having this can convey to the listener a more authentic experience of the subject’s journey. For myself, the AB experience that I most enjoyed was John Lithgow’s brilliant reading of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities. Character actor Lithgow brought such an energy to the reading, greatly enhancing the flavour and tone of Wolfe’s biting satire on greed and status in NYC (in marked contrast to the disappointing Tom Hanks movie version), probably my all-time favourite AB.
Another memorable audio book collection I would place high on my AB order of merit are the recordings of Samuel Pepys’ Diaries (readings by Kenneth Branagh and a BBC dramatisation). From both sets of recordings I got a real “living history” insight into Pepys’ thought processes and compromised behaviour—flaws and virtues, so redolent of that of the modern bureaucrat—and of the everyday life of an event-filled London in late Stuart Britain.
One of the reasons I took to audio books is that it offered me a way into critically acclaimed works of fiction that in print form I had found Sphinx-like and impenetrable. Back in the 1970s I made several attempts at reading the 754 abstruse and puzzling pages of Joyce’s Ulysses before raising the white flag in defeat. Ulysses’ emergence in the AB format in the, must be late Eighties/early Nineties (albeit in an abridged four-CD form) was the key I needed to unlock the stylistic labyrinth of Joyce’s prose. ABs also let me get a handle on that other Irish author of literary complexity Flann O’Brien, and his convoluted metafiction maze The Third Policeman.
Ftnote: CædmonCaedmon, the name chosen by Cohen and Roney for their revolutionary business enterprise, was the name of the first known English poet (flourished late Seventh century AD), a Northumbrian cowherd turned exponent of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) verse poetry.
※ another pastime, gaining impetus in the lockdown and perhaps capturing the zeitgeist of 2020 is doomscrolling – the social media practice of continuing to read long streams of news feeds which are disheartening in content
⋓ the term as I recall more in currency at the time than audio books
⊞ print books managed to repulse the challenge from e-books in part due to pricing strategies which disincentivised e-book purchasing [Amazon’s Audiobook Boom’, (Alex Shepard), The New Republic, O3-Jul-2018, www.newrepublic.com]
✦ the rise of ABs has provided a source of peripheral work for some actors, a very welcome and in some cases lucrative sideline
After Wonder Woman’s creator Bill Marston dies in 1947, Robert Kanigher takes over the writing duties, the first of many subsequent writers to take on pop culture’s most famous female superhero. DC Comics wastes little time in ringing the changes with Wonder Woman, both to her physical appearance and to her abilities, disposition and purpose.
There are several reasons for the change. One motive is simply commercial, Wonder Woman like her male superhero counterparts, experiences a fall-off in popularity after the war. Another relates to expectations of gender roles in America. So much of America’s manhood is away during the world war on the front line engaging the enemy. Born of necessity, American women move into the work force, invading traditional male domains of employment as never before. With the war’s end, men return to their jobs relegating thousands of women back to unpaid work in the home. There is a re-solidifying of the traditional gender roles. A casualty of this is Wonder Woman herself. In Marston’s hands she reflects empowerment, ie, freedom from male domination. The feminist overtones she embodies are a challenge as the US attempts to re-establish the status quo ante order [‘The Fitful Evolution of Wonder Woman’s Look’, (Diana Martinez), The Atlantic, 07-Jun-2017, www.theatlantic.com].
Superhero Nazi hunters
Wonder Woman’s superhuman exertions and physicality—as with everyone else in the superhero comic universe—have an aptness during WWII. The superheroes in the comics spearhead the fight against the Nazis, promoting a patriotic agenda and helping to boost morale. When the war is won, this agenda loses its relevance for the American readership [‘Women of Comics: Objectified, Sexualize and Disempowered’, (Nia Aiysha), Wild Black Orchids, 07-May-2016, www.wildblackorchids.wordpress.com].
Making the iconic feminist warrior a bit less super
In wanting to rein in Wonder Woman’s powerful persona DC Comics are responding to prevailing (male) society’s anxieties about women’s independence. By 1950, the toning down is well underway, WW’s crime-fighting exploits are taking second fiddle – in Sensation Comics #97 she is the editor of a newspaper lonely hearts column❋. During the decade WW becomes a reluctant superheroine, love-struck and longing to settle down with her beau Steve Trevor [‘Publication history of Wonder Woman’, Wikipedia,http://en.m.wikipedia.org; Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine, Tim Hanley (2014)].
Wonder Woman is not just a feminist, she’s also a sexy feminist! Accordingly, there is a lot of scrutiny on her salacious attire as well by the “morally self-appointed” in society. Eventually, the raunchy bathing suit and sexually-confident red boots will be traded in for a more demure look. Psychologist Fredric Wertham’s full-on crusade against the deleterious effects of comics on children in the early 1950s includes WW in its cross-hairs. WW’s sexually provocative bondage fetish (involving herself or other females) leads Wertham to ‘blacklist’ the depicted character as a promoter of lesbianism (which he took as evidence of misandry)(Martinez), pressuring DC Comics to remove Marston’s message of WW as a harbinger of matriarchy (Hanley).
The Amazonian princess returns to ‘civies’ – “Emma Peeled”
In the 1960s other comic book action heroines come forward such as secret agent Modesty Blaise. Reflecting the early rumblings of what would evolve into the second wave feminism of the Seventies, Blaise exhibits Wonder Woman-like “badass fighting capabilities” to triumph in a male world. At this time however WW loses that same original verve✪, getting a Sixties ‘mod’ makeover which transforms her into an Emma Peel clone (from the cult British TV series The Avengers), complete with martial arts moves, jumpsuits and Carnaby Street attire〥 [‘Four-Colour Yesteryears: Wonder Woman – the Emma Peel Years’, (Rob N), Paradox Comics Group, 22-Aug-2009, www.paradoxcomicsgroup.com; Hanley].
1970s, the women’s movement and empowerment
Gloria Steinem and the burgeoning women’s movement comes into the story at this time. Steinem, dismayed at DC Comics’ relegation of Wonder Woman to a “powerless 1950s car hop”, lobbies DC to restore WW’s superheroine stature. Steinem puts WW on the cover of the first edition of Ms. magazine in 1972, tagging it “Wonder Woman for President”. [‘How Gloria Steinem Saved Wonder Woman’, (Yohana Desta), Vanity Fair, 10-Oct-2017, www.vanityfair.com]. WW in Ms. becomes a kind of masthead to promote sisterhood and equality among women (the magazine depicts WW confronting store owners who deny their female employees equal pay and defending abortion clinics against male thugs [‘How A Magazine Cover From The 1970s Helped Wonder Woman Win Over Feminists’, (Katie Kilkenny), Pacific Standard, 21-Jun-2017, www.psmag.com]. Steinem and Ms.’ agitation on behalf of WW forces DC to restore her special powers including the “Lasso of Truth” and re-draw her in her original voluptuous form.
With the critical spotlight turned on DC’s portrayal of Wonder Woman, DC made further concessions to the comic. Diversity was introduced —a nod to the Black Power Movement in the US and perhaps belated recognition of a lack of ethnic diversity in its comics—with the inclusion of Nubia, WW’s African half-sister (Martinez). The perception of Wonder Woman as a feminist icon is given a further boost along by the cult success of the 1975-79 television series. WW, played by Lynda Carter, embodies the qualities of strength, fearlessness, wisdom and determination, restored in the comics post-1972✧.
PostScript: The Wonder Woman comic books over the past 40 years has seen the WW character and image undergo sundry transitions, a procession of “conflicting and seemingly incompatible versions” of WW – alternating between ramped-up raunchiness and less overt sexuality, between a muscular Amazonian physicality and a “heroin chic” fashion model (Martinez).
❋ in other Fifties comics Wonder Woman or her alter ego Diana Prince appears as a model and a film star
〥 WW becomes younger and thinner too. She also gets labelled as a “female James Bond” during this period
✪ DC Comics’s hegemony in the superhero comic popularity stakes in the late Sixties is seriously being challenged by Marvel Comics, a factor in the decision to revamp WW along with the entire ‘stable’ (Rob N)
✧ subsequent interpretations of Wonder Woman on the screen follow, the most recent in 2017 (with a sequel slated for release this year) sees WW reconnect with her Amazonian roots
The United States over the years has had a mania about banning lots of things—there’s been an unspoken exemption granted to bad taste—but one of the more curious prohibitions in the 20th century was that on the seemingly innocuous pinball machine.
In the early 1930s the Gottlieb Company of Chicago introduced the first coin-operated, machines, the “Baffle Ball”. The timing was right, the Great Depression had hit, playing pinball was a cheap and accessible form of entertainment for the financially impoverished masses, and the machines caught on. A few years later machines became electromechanical and automatic score counters were added, making games more appealing [“The History of Pinball Machines and Pintables”, BMI Gaming, www.bmigaming.com/].
The moral legislatorsBy the time of America’s entry into WWII pinball’s popularity had grown exponentially. Not all sectors of American society however were enthusiastic about the game. Churches and school boards harboured a perception of pinball as corrupting the morals of American youth, asserting that children would steal coins and skip school to play❋. Lawmakers too viewed pinball negatively because they saw it a game of chance and thus was a form of gambling. They shared the view that it “a time and dime-waster for impressionable youth”. Legislators were also suspicious that it may be a “mafia-run racket” because of Chicago’s centrality in pinball machine manufacturing, a “hotbed of organised crime” [“That Time America Outlawed Pinball”, (Christopher Klein), History, upd. 22-Aug-2018, www.history.com ; “11 Things You Didn’t Know About Pinball History”, (Seth Porges), Popular Mechanics, 01-Sep-2009, www.popularmechanics.com].
⍌ City authorities vandalising the machines
(Source: Chicago Sun-Times)
New York City’s crusade against the pinball
The mayor of NYC, Fiorello LaGuardia, took these perceptions to heart, launching a very proactive approach to rid the city of these “insidious nickel-stealers” by ordering the police force to make “Prohibition-style pinball raids” on candy stores, bowling alleys, speakeasies, cigar stores, drugstores, amusement centres, etc [“The Mayor Who Took a Sledgehammer to NYC’s Pinball Machines”, (Conor Friedersdorf), The Atlantic, 18-Jan-2013, www.theatlantic.com]. Illegal pinball machines and slot machines were confiscated and some were smashed in staged, publicity-conscious showcases (Klein).
LaGuardia’s anti-pinball machine crusade took on extra zeal after Pearl Harbour, which allowed him to characterise it as a patriotic cause…the line run by the NYC mayor was that the copper, aluminium and nickel components of the outlawed machines could be better utilised in the materiel requirements of America’s war efforts (Klein). This didn’t prevent many machines ending up dumped in NYC harbour.
⍌ 1963 ‘Swing Time’ Gottlieb machine
Banned, but not eliminatedOther cities were quick to follow NYC’s example, Including Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and New Orleans, with pinball bans extending across the country. Other cities like Washington DC didn’t go as far but prohibited children from playing it during school hours. The inevitable consequence of banning was to drive pinball activity underground (resurfacing in places like the back rooms of ‘porno’ book shops). Thus marginalised, pinball become “part of rebel culture”⧆ (Klein).
⍓ Roger Sharpe, “calling the shot!”
(Source: IFPA)
The long ban, ended by a ‘Sharpe’ player Remarkably, the outlawing of pinball machines persisted until the 1970s – despite the technical innovation of “flippers” (pivoted arms activated to propel the ball back up the table) introduced in Gottlieb’s 1947 “Humpty-Dumpty” machine which made the game more one of reflexes (skill) than of chance. Finally, in 1974 the Californian Supreme Court, accepting the skill component, overturned the prohibition in that state. In 1976 NYC councillors were still skeptical about pinball and it took a spectacular courtroom demonstration by one of the game’s top exponents, Roger Sharpe, to break the impasse. Sharpe won over the doubters by nominating beforehand which lane he would propel the ball through and then making the shot, demonstrating that patience, hand-eye coordination and reflexes, not luck, were the ingredients for success in the game◰[“How One Perfect Shot Saved Pinball From Being Illegal In The US”, (Matt Blitz), Gizmodo, 19-Aug-2013, www.gizmodo.com.au].
⍓ An “Indiana Jones” Williams machine with revolver for plunger
With the ‘liberation’ of pinball, player interest revived in the late Seventies, but it was a short-lived triumph. The advent of video games provided compelling competition (the newer technology requiring fewer repairs and less space). By the Nineties the writing was on the wall for arcades and the coin-op industry, as home video-games and the internet were rendering them obsolete [“The First Family of Pinball: Meet the local wizards behind the game’s huge resurgence”, (Ryan Smith), Reader, 03-May-2018, www.chicagoreader.com]. In any case, the repealing of the prohibition wasn’t uniformly implemented…Chicago city authorities resisted, still associating pinball machines with “nests of gangs and drugs” for juveniles [“Chicago once waged a 40-year war on Pinball”, (Ryan Smith), The Bleader, 03-May-2018, www.chicagoreader.com]. Prohibition in Kokomo, Indiana, was not ended till 2016✦ [“Pinball—once a source of vice and immorality—now, legal in Kokomo, Ind., after 61-year ban”, (Ben Guarino), Washington Post, 15-Dec-2016, www.washingtonpost.com].
PostScript: Surviving if not exactly thrivingToday, the Stern Pinball Co (Chicago) is the only manufacturer of machines left in the business in America. If not played by casual gamers in anything like its numbers in the “Baby Boomer” era (except in video game mode), it has experienced a resurgence of sorts – as an annual series of professional tournaments (Stern Pro Circuit) (among its internationally ranked seeds are Roger Sharpe’s two sons).
⍓ Roger Daltry (Tommy “Pinball Wizard”) at the controls
❋ Seth Porges identifies something quasi-religious in the anti-pinball position, a “temperance-fuelled” belief that the activity was “a tool from the devil” corrupting young people (Friedersdorf)
◰ the councillors were also persuaded to overturn the ban by the eloquent testimony mounted by Sharpe, who went on to be a pinball star witness in subsequent, successful hearings in other states. Another factor in the outcome may have been revenue-raising, eg, Mayor Daley in Chicago wanted to lift the ban so as to tax individual machines and licensing operators (Smith, “Chicago once waged”)
⧆ the rebel image remained into the late 1960s and ‘70s with the anti-establishment tone of The Who’s rock opera about a “pinball wizard”, Tommy
✦ it was a similar story in Nashville, TN, for anyone under 18, and in some places and times it is still illegal – such as on Sundays in Ocean City, N.J. (Porges)
When testosterone-charged visitors to coastal Belgian towns began strolling around the shops and cafes bare-chested in 2015, locals objecting to this aesthetic blight on the landscape took to labelling the offending blow-ins “Tarzan tourists”. References to that archetypical, mesomorphic white hero of amorphous jungle habitats, Tarzan, have permeated popular culture for over a century. Since the time pencil-sharpener salesman Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) turned his hand to writing his first story in 1912, the aura of Tarzan, carefully cultivated by the author into a cultural icon, has extended from pulp fiction, to various media including comic strips, films (over 90!), radio shows, TV series, Broadway musicals, computer games and a raft of commercial merchandise𝓪.
Celluloid Tarzan – from urbane gent to LCD savage
The phenomenal success of ERB’sTarzan of the Apes and follow-up pulp novels provided prime adventure material for a rapid transition into cinema, starting with a silent movie in 1918. Later sound film interpretations, especially those with former American Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, departed radically from Burroughs’ original conception of the heroic jungle adventurer as a cultured, multilingual, erudite aristocrat (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke). Weissmuller’s “dumbed-down” depiction of Tarzan was as an innocent and noble savage, the “strong and silent” type given only to monosyllabic utterings (“Me, Tarzan, you, Jane”).
⇩ERB at home in Tarzana, California
White skin, white supremacist
As successful as the books and later franchises have been, Tarzan’s character has engendered a persistent stream of controversy. ERB’s creation, from the start, was an obvious target for accusations of racism – a white boy/man𝓫 thrown into a dangerous and alien environment (the “dark continent”), who manages not only to survive but to triumph over hordes of dark-skinned peoples and over numerous wild animals. Tarzan emerges from the pages as a “consummate colonial-era adventurer” – “a white man whose novel civility enabled him to communicate with and control savage peoples and animals…using appropriate technology” to help natives who “cannot solve their own problems” [RJ Gordon in Tarzan was an Eco-Tourist … and Other Tales in the Anthropology of Adventure, (edited by Luis A Vivanco & Robert J Gordon), 2006]. The world that Tarzan creates in the jungle is in effect a “white supremacist Eden parable”, the books and films completely omit the point-of-view of the indigenous people who live in the African jungle (or the Amazonian rainforest𝓬) ‘[‘The Only Good Tarzan is a Bad Tarzan’, (Aaron Bady), Pacific Standard, 08-Jul-2016, www.psmag.com; ‘From Tarzan to Avatar: the problem with “the white man in the jungle”’, (Steve Rose), The Guardian, 06-Jul-2016, www.theguardian.com].
⇧TV Tarzan (loin-clothed Ron Ely) translocated to Mesoamerican climes (Source: www.nbc.com)
A white world of comfortable racial assumptions Tarzan’s brand of chivalrous “white masculinity” precludes him from engaging in sexual violence against women, but he is utterly implicated in the negative racial stereotyping of Africans, an explicit feature of the books – black men aredescribed as “lithe, ebon warriors, gesticulating and jabbering”, Arabs are “surly looking”. Without holding back, ERB tells us, Tarzan is “a killer of many black men”, revelling, shockingly for modern sensitivities, in the act of ‘lynching’ blacks [Gail Bederman, quoted in ‘Tarzan’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
The mystique of Tarzan: Green mascot, eco-warrior and proto-expat
Part of Tarzan’s durability as a cultural icon might lie in his versatile utility. It has been noted that Tarzan possesses an “ability to adapt to the zeitgeist of different eras”. In seamlessly managing an environment that is unnatural and unfamiliar to him, he demonstrates a flair for “ecological sustainability”, we are shown the ape-man’s apparently impeccable “green credentials” [‘The Untamed Image of the Perfect Savage’, (Bram Wicherink), Efnofoor, vol. 22, no. 2, 2010, pp.90-97. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25758188. Accessed 10 July 2020]. For Paul Theroux, who hadhands-on experience of being part of the ‘invasion’ of Africa by Peace Corps Volunteers in the 1960s, Tarzan is “in the jungle, but notof the jungle”…therefore he was the “first expatriate”𝒹[Theroux, P.“Tarzan Is an Expatriate.” Transition, no. 32, 1967, pp. 13–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2934617. Accessed 10 July 2020].
⇩The first screen Tarzan, Elmo Lincoln, 1918
Tarzan as metaphor – defender of masculinity
The period in which ERB wrote the first Tarzan books (just before, through and after WWI) saw the emergence of a challenge to the hegemony of white masculinity – from the Suffragette Movement…according to Robert Gordon, Burroughs’ creation of the all-conquering jungle superhero constituted a buffer against that perceived threat. This held sway again in the 1960s and 70s when the advent of women’s, LGBT and civil rights movements loomed as a threat to (white heterosexual) masculinity. Tarzan, as “the archetypal white-manhood fantasy” represented a “refuge of sorts for white audiences”. What they could observe in the story of Tarzan was an ideal of manliness, a he-man proving himself physically in the most testing of circumstances [Gordon; ‘Me, Tarzan. You, Really Still Doing This?’, (Devon Maloney), Mel, 11-Jul-2016, www.melmagazine.com.
PostScript: An attempt at a politically-corrected Tarzan
The talkies motion picture era has seen a string of mostly forgettable actors taking on the role of Tarzan, as well as a TV series or two and even Disney animation versions of the vine-swinging king of the jungle. In recent decades the Tarzan phenomenon has appeared to be running out of steam, although a recent entry, a 2016 screen production, The Legend of Tarzan, sought to present a Tarzan with ‘woke’ politics and more psychological complexity. Tarzan is this time avowedly anti-colonial, taking to task the odious slave-based Congo empire of Belgian king Leopold II, and displaying his capacity for “racial sensibilities” in the endeavour. Resurrecting a Tarzan who is more nuanced is still in itself problematic for its contemporary tone-deafness – “propagating…a white saviour narrative during the charged era of Black Lives Matter” is not the most prudent or politically savvy card to play [Glenn Kenny, ‘The Legend of Tarzan’, (01-Jul-2016), www.rogerebert.com]. The hero’s mate Jane departs from her character’s standard “eye-candy” function and exhibits a “feisty proto-feminist” defiance and the film gives a nod to environmental and conservationist concerns. Unfortunately the movie got at best only mixed reviews and basically bombed at the box office [‘The Legend of Tarzan’ Falls Well Short of the Tree Tops’,(David Edelstein), Vulture, 01-Jul-2016, www.vulture.com].
Footnote: Tarzan, very much “all-American”
Oddly, in all the graphic representations of Tarzan—in films, on book covers and illustrations—he is presented as clean-shaven, always sans beard, somewhat of an anomaly considering he is almost always off the grid, cut off from all the usual paraphernalia and comforts of life.
⇧Just your average Middle American family – the Weissmullers
𝓪 Tarzan was “the first fictional character to be multi-mass-media marketed…the growth of a veritable Tarzan industry, with “Tarzan Clubs” rivalling the Boy Scouts (Gordon). But not just boys, famed ethnologist and world chimpanzee authority Jane Goodall was captivated by the mystique of Tarzan, his impact on the primatologist’s childhood imagination “set her on a path to Africa to work with wild animals” [‘How Tarzan created Jane Goodall and how Goodall then repaid the favour’, (Shawn Thompson), The Ethical Ape, (2013), www.news.mongabay.com]
𝓫 in the books Burroughs explains that the name given the eponymous hero, ‘Tarzan’, means (in African “ape language”) “white of skin”
𝓬 occasionally for plot variety the setting for Tarzan’s adventures diverts from the customary (vaguely) African location to Latin America and India
𝒹 apparently he was the inspiration for future adventure junkies – for many restless souls in the West who flocked to join the Peace Corps in an Africa emerging from colonialism, as well as for later devotees of the ongoing craze for adventure tourism (Gordon)
Mention “The Ten Commandments” to cinephiles and almost invariably they’ll think of the 1956 epic with Chuck Heston as the resolute Moses. But that was Cecil B DeMille’s second attempt at filming the Old Testament story, or his (Cold War-inspired) interpretation of it at least. Back when Hollywood was still in it’s adolescence, 1923, DeMille made a silent version of The Ten Commandments, in black and white with some sequences in Technicolor.
(Image: www.bestplaces.com)
The location chosen by DeMille for his first go at shooting the biblical epic was a barren 18-mile stretch of sand some 170 miles north of LA, at Guadalupe on California’s central coast. Today, the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, as they are called, are a protected sea coast and wildlife refuge (eg, for the endangered western snowy plover) and largely unchanged, but for three months in 1923 it was a hive of mega-budget movie-making activity as DeMille transformed the empty dunes into a reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian city. DeMille chose the Guadalupe dunes for the movie set because he thought it might pass for the Egyptian desert (or at least the Sahara Desert) [‘Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes’, Atlas Obscura, www.altasobscura.com].
𐅉 ‘10 Commandments’ of California in glorious “techni-tint”
Hollywood scale extravaganza
The set was massive scale, destined to become the director’s trademark – 120 foot high by 720 feet wide, erected by 1,500 construction workers, a twelve-story tall “Egyptian city” of plaster, wood and straw. The city’s human population comprised a further 3,500 actors✖and technicians plus 125 cooks to feed the assembled masses. Add to these impressive numbers some 5,000 animals, 300 chariots and 21 plaster sphinxes. Statues of Pharaoh Rameses were eleven metres tall and the facade had a 110-foot high gate enclosure✧[‘The Ten Commandments, (1923 film)’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org; Bob Brier, Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs, (2013); www.lostcitydemille.com].
(Source: G-N Dune Center)
A Virtuous Camp DeMille?
DeMille had a huge makeshift tent city erected (nicknamed “Camp DeMille”) to house all of the personnel on the set. Perhaps, in keeping with the overtly religious theme of the film⊡, DeMille laid down strict rules of non-engagement for everyone involved on the production…men and women were billeted separately with no fraternisation allowed, no gambling, no alcohol and no coarse language [‘The Ten Commandments of 1923: The Exodus, Take One’, Patheos, 20-Apr-2012, www.patheos.com]. The alcohol ban adhered to the Prohibition rules in place in America at the time, but subsequent generations of beach-combing visitors to Guadalupe’s dunes have discovered evidence that participants on the movie set found a way round that…the debris of empty bottles of alcohol-laced cough syrup strewn all over the dunes [PJ Grisar, ‘How DeMille made his ‘Ten Commandments’ Jewish again’, Forward, 08-Apr-2020, www.forward.com].
A vanishing “Egyptian metropolis”
After filming of The Ten Commandments on the Central Coast finished in August 1923✥, what DeMille did next astounds. Instead of dismantling and hauling the costly set (the overall budget for the movie was a staggering $1.5M or more) back to Hollywood, DeMille had it bulldozed and buried in the Guadalupe dunes. The film-maker just didn’t want to be bothered with the logistics or expense of an enormous removal task and/or he didn’t want rival Hollywood film-makers or studios to get their hands on the set.
(Photo:www.fws.gov)
Unearthing cinematic artefacts
And there it sat—or shifted around in the constantly swirling winds of the dunes—for sixty years, one of Hollywood’s most expensive-ever film sets. Then in 1983 film-maker Peter Brosnan became intrigued after a chance encounter with the story, got hooked on it and spent the next 30 years searching for the site, finding it and trying (frustratingly) to excavate it. The project is ongoing, and has taken this length of time due to a combination of factors – local “red tape” (jurisdiction of the dunes falls under two separate counties); the site is a bird-life sanctuary with limited, seasonal access; plus there’s the extremely high cost of funding excavations. Over the years, archaeologists, both professional and amateur, have joined the quest to dig up DeMille’s treasure-trove. Buried replicas from DeMille’s Lost City have been unearthed including a 300-pound plaster sphinx which now resides in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center [‘There’s a Fake Egyptian City Buried in California’, (Marissa Fessenden), Smithsonian Magazine, 15-Oct-2015, www.smithsonianmag.com]. Brosnan compiled his years of research, including interviews with surviving actors, extras and other crew members, into a documentary film, The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille, screened in 2016.
✖DeMille also bused in some 250 Orthodox Jews as extras to give the movie a more authentic Hebrew look
✧ Rameses’ ‘temple’ contained recreations of hieroglyphics copied from the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922
⊡ certainly in keeping with the sternly moralising tone of DeMille’s film
✥ only part of the film was made on the Guadalupe dunes, the wonky parting of the Red Sea scene was shot at Seal Beach in Orange County, and a modern-day morality tale DeMille tacked on to the film was shot back at the studios
The Brill Building at 1619 Broadway in Midtown New York City, architecturally, has few distinguishing features to set it apart from most any other homogeneous looking commercial medium high-rise building in the “Big Apple” (save for a rather dazzlingly decorative archway entrance). But for a period from the end of the Fifties to the late Sixties it was the fulcrum (if not quite the epicentre) of innovative and groundbreaking Rock and Pop music-making in the USA.
The young professionals are in the Building! The collaborative and creative energies of the Brill Building produced a conducive environment for young professional songwriters of the period to work with music producers to create highly productively musical outcomes. So there were song-writing teams that emerged around 1960 (often they were couples) – (Carole) King and (Gerry) Goffin, (Barry) Mann and (Cynthia) Weil, (Jeff) Barry and (Ellie) Greenwich – who linked up successfully with young producers like “wonder-kid” Phil Spector※ [‘The Brill Building: Assembly-Line Pop’, (Reebee Garofalo), Encyclopaedia Britannia, www.encyclopaediabritannia.com].
⬆ Kirshner, King & Goffin
But the Brill Building’s genesis as a revolutionary force in 1960s US pop music actually started in a building across the road – at 1650 Broadway. Here in 1958 “pop entrepreneur” Don Kirshner and musician Al Nevins formed Aldon Music✳. Aldon’s reading of the popular music zeitgeist of the day was that rock and roll’s original impact had dissipated and somewhat lost its way. Kirshner’s remedy was “to take its energies and reapply the old-fashioned Tin Pan Alley❁ disciplines to the craft and professionalism of making hits for the youth market” [Inglis, Ian. “‘Some Kind of Wonderful’: The Creative Legacy of the Brill Building.” American Music, vol. 21, no. 2, 2003, pp. 214–235. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3250565]. Kirshner put together a stable of aspiring young songwriters, including Goffin and King, Mann and Weil, as well as Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka.
1619 + 1650 = the Brill Building styleThe term “Brill Building” in the musical context doesn’t confine itself exclusively just to that one building…Brill Buildingas a descriptor for the achievements inNYC pop and rock creativityof the day is an omnibus reference for what was happening at two addresses, 1619 and 1650 Broadway, New York.
The pioneers of the new professionalism that was to become labelled as “Brill Building” were probably the song-writing team of Leiber and Stoller (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) who had earlier written for Elvis Presley, started to write hits for the Drifters from the late 50s that mark the starting-off point for Brill [Garofalo, loc.cit.]. A new wave of songwriters began to etch out pop songs from within the walls of 1650 Broadway and 1619 Broadway (the Brill Building adopted Aldon’s ‘hothouse’ style of songwriting from youthful collaborators with a creative overlap between the two addresses)✥ [Inglis, op.cit.].
Distinguishing features of Brill Building musicand music-makersKirshner’s writing staff at 1650 Broadway were not only dedicated professionals, they were remarkably youthful…the eighteen songwriters Kirshner had in his employ in 1961 (roughly equally male and female) were aged between 19 and 26, a clear departure from the status quo ante of “middle-age men churning outnovelty songs” [ibid.].This contemporary generation of songwriters, not much older than their target audience, grasped the idiom of teenagers and wrote exclusively for the youth of the 1960s [Garofalo, loc.cit.]♕.
Other composer/lyricist teams to thrive in the environment ofthe Brill Building included Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (who later worked with Kirshner and the Monkees) and the extraordinarily prolific hit-making duo of Burt Bacharachand Hal David.
The songwriting teams at Brill allowed women a measure of gender equality unusual for that period. Brill provided a leg-in in the industry for female pop and rock songwriters like King, Weil and Greenwich. Their ascent to the fore corresponded with the rise of the girl groups of the early 60s in the US…these female writers wrote hits for the Shirelles, the Crystals, the Chiffons, the Ronettes and the like [Inglis, op.cit.]✪.
⬇ The Ronettes: “Big hair” sound!
‘Brill’ place, ‘Brill’ music?Recollections of the songwriters’ working conditions at the Brill Building doesn’t suggest an ideal environment to inspire the creation of Top 40 hits: writers were assigned their “respective cubby holes” (Carole King), “a tiny cubicle the size of a closet”…”no window or anything” …(an upright) “piano and a chair” …”we’d go in and write songs all day” (Barry Mann, ibid.). The creators of pop and rock worked in an assembly line fashion in something akin to a standard nine-to-five office job [Garofalo, loc.cit.]. Kirshner would play one young writing team off againstanother to enhance their productivity [Sociology of Rock, Simon Frith (1978)].
The hit factoryAnd yet despite these strictures it somehow worked! The songwriting team did come up with “teenage drivel” from time to time, but collectively, the youthful penners of contemporary Sixties song generated a steady series of musical hits for a Pop-crazy world! Fusing the urgency of R & B with “the brightness of mainstream pop” melodies, Goffin and King, Greenfield and Sedaka and the other B.B. star writing teams came up with perennial pop classics like “Will you Love me Tomorrow?”, “Calendar Girl”, “Leader of the Pack” and the much revered “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” [ibid.].
A vertical integration of the pop music biz on a micro-scaleThe “B.B. factory” was good at matching artists to appropriate material. By 1962 the Brill Building contained 165 separate music businesses. This meant a B.B. musician “could find a publisher and printer, cut a demo, promote the record and cut a deal with radio promoters, all within this one building”, Garofalo, loc.cit.; ‘The Brill Building’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org; Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Volume 8: Genres: North, (Edited by John Shepherd, David Horn), 2013, www.books.google.com.au]
Time call on the Brill BuildingBy the mid to late 1960s the B.B. music line was losing its energy. A new creative force was rapidly filling its void – the rise of the singer-songwriter, heralding a new era of artists who wrote their own material. The new wave led by the phenomenal global success of the Beatles (the unsurpassed potency of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting duo) and the guru-like acclaim afforded Bob Dylan, fairly swiftly relegated the Brill Building writers to the edges of pop music relevance [Garofalo, loc.cit.].
Footnote: A Brill Building ‘sound?’The Brill Building style of songs drew inspiration from diverse strands of earlier music – R & B (rhythm and blues), Latin, jazz and African-American gospel. The result was often referred to as the “Brill Building sound” but there actually wasn’t a specific or distinctive sound at all. The only similarities between the Brill ‘products’ was in the recurring themes and components in the song lyrics (might be described as “First World problems” seen through the eyes of 60s American youth) [‘The Brill Building pioneered assembly line pop music but left a legacy of hits’, (Troy Lennon), The Daily Telegraph, 13-Sep-2017, www.dailytelegraph.com.au]; Inglis, op.cit.].
⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅⚅⚄⚃⚂⚁⚀⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅⚄⚃⚂⚁⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅⚅⚄⚃⚂⚁⚀⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅⚄⚃⚂⚁
※ Spector was both a collaborator with the Brill songwriters and a customer of their compositions
✳ described by Ian Inglis as “a crucial moment in the development of Brill Building’s pop sensibilities”
❁ Tin Pan Alley was a loose collection of composers, lyricists and music publishers based in NYC who dominated the industry for several decades through the first half of the 20th century (Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Sammy Cahn, Hammerstein and Rodgers and many more)
✥ although two of the mainstays of the Brill team, Goffin and King, never actually worked in the Brill Building, producing their entire creative output in the period over at Aldon Music (they did however sell some of their compositions through the Brill Building)
♕ many of the Brill songwriting alumni went on to be highly successful performers in their own right – top of the totem included industry names like Neil Diamond, Gene Pitney, Paul Anka and Paul Simon
✪another interesting juxtaposition emerging from the Brill Building music factory was the ethnic contrast between writer and artist – the songwriters were all white and mostly Jewish, writing largely for emerging black girl groups (Inglis)
First World problem – Cadbury’s or Nestlé’s?FOR children of the Fifties and Sixties growing up in the West, the preference of chocolate usually came down to a shelf choice between two, Cadbury or Nestlé. My recollection is that my own juvenile palate tended towards Nestlé, but only partly due to taste…yes I did as a kid have a fondness for Nestlé’s slim, pocket-size milk chocolate bars but Nestlé was also great for youthful card collectors. Each bar contained a different colour card (vintage cars, planes, etc.) that you could paste into your Nestlé Car Club book or Sky Club book or into their “Conquest of Space” series book. A glance at the enduring popularity of Cadbury’s chocolate is confirmation that the British confectioner did not miss my preference for their Swiss rival.
(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
As a child I was very aware that Cadbury’s had a chocolate factory in Tasmania (known as “the factory in the garden”)…the idyllic image of rustic Claremont was imprinted in my head courtesy of innumerable Cadbury TV ads (spectacular mountain scenery didn’t improve the taste of the chocolatier’s product but it gave it the perception of an extra lustre). What I wasn’t aware of as a young chocolate consumer was that that Cadbury’s—nay, almost all of the English pioneering chocolate manufacturing industry—was a Quaker company. Cadbury’s kicked off from a small shop in Birmingham, England, in 1824, but before Cadbury’s there was Fry’s Chocolates which opened its first shop in Bristol in 1761, and after it Rowntree’s (established 1862, in York{a}). All of these chocolatiers were founded by English Quakers and the companies business ethos imbued with the Quaker philosophy.
(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
In business by circumstance and conviction British Quakers in the 19th century not only cornered the chocolate market, they excelled in business in a multiplicity of fields, ranging from banking (Barclays, Lloyds) to biscuit manufacturing (Huntley and Palmers, Carrs) to footwear (Clarks’ Shoes) to match manufacturing (Bryant and May) [‘How did Quakers conquer the British sweet shop?’, (Peter Jackson), BBC News Magazine, 20-Jan-2010, www.bbc.com].
The circumstance that Quakers found themselves in guided their decision to embrace the world of business. As a Christian non-conformist group in a sea of English Anglicanism, adherents of the Quaker faith in the 1800s were subjected to the systematic discrimination befalling religious outsiders – exclusion from the universities (until the 1870s) meant the leading professions of medicine and law was barred to them. Naturally enough, this barrier to the industrious, go-ahead Quaker person, turned them towards business and commerce [ibid.].
The senior Cadbury⤋
Kings of the chocolate business{b}
The Quaker philosophy incorporates a commitment to social reform and the pursuit of justice and equality. This ethos informed their business practices, Cadbury’s and other Quaker firms established a reputation for being honest and reliable. This gave them a competitive advantage over their non-Quaker competitors. The perceived ethical nature of Quaker confectionery firms was rewarded with customer loyalty. John Cadbury and his successors were among the first to set a firm (and fair) price – this was a clear departure from the hitherto customary retail practice of point-of-sale price bartering [ibid.]{c}.
Cocoa the health drink
Founder Cadbury started off mainly selling cocoa drinks (solid chocolate came later)…this was borne out of 19th century social concerns – a Quaker (by definition teetotal) response to the “perceived misery and deprivation caused by alcohol” in British society (Helen Rowlands, Quaker historian){d}. The Cadburys marketed cocoa as a cheap available drink, one that was healthy (the process involved boiling thus removing the impurities lurking in the dubious public water supplies of the day)[ibid.]{e}.
Democratising cocoa and drinking chocolateCocoa and drinking chocolate had been around in England since the 1650s but before Cadbury’s came along it had been a luxury beverage for the elite. John Cadbury’s improvements to the product gave it more varieties and made it a more palatable drink, and after the Gladstone government reduced taxes on imported cocoa beans in the mid 1850s, the cost of cocoa became within the reach of the greater majority of Britons. Cadbury’s introduction of unadulterated “cocoa essence” in the 1870s coincided with a government crackdown on the widespread adulteration of food in the UK. The upshot was free ‘plugs’ for the purer Cadbury product and a boost in fortunes for the Quaker business [‘The Story of Cadbury. Early Days – A One Man Business’, www.cadbury.com.au].
Even ‘Lancet’ was lavish in it’s praise of Cadbury’s Cocoa⤋(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
Worker welfare and satisfaction a priority The Cadbury brothers, Richard and George (sons of the founder), placed an uncommon degree of emphasis on the fitness and health of their workforce (again philosophically driven by their faith). After moving their factory to a greenfields site south of Birmingham to cope with the business’ growth, George built the Bourneville village in the vicinity – this was a model village community for Cadbury’s workers – replete with schools, leisure facilities (including a lido) and parks, canteen, a carillon and its Friends meeting house. Cadbury’s employed doctors and dentists for the benefit of Bourneville employees and was among the first to pioneer pension schemes for their workforce [Jackson, loc.cit.]. The village included attractive “Arts and Crafts” style cottages in picturesque surrounds, but no pubs were permitted on the Bourneville estate{f}.The Bourneville factory ⤊
Chocolate you can eat! Cadbury Dairy Milk Richard and George’s acquisition of a new cocoa press reduced the cocoa butter content, further improving the taste of the Cadbury cocoa drink. The press also helped Cadbury’s make a breakthrough with eating chocolate in the 1890s…learning from the Swiss prototype, Nestlé, it started to create milk chocolate bars to rival those on the Continent. In 1905 Cadbury’s introduced Dairy Milk Chocolate which would go on to become its and the UK’s top selling chocolate bar (60% UK market share in 1936). DCM, together with Bourneville Cocoa, have established themselves as Cadbury’s two all-time stand-outs, iconic products in the history of the company [‘The Story of Cadbury’, loc.cit.; Deborah Cadbury, The Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World’s Greatest Chocolate Makers, (2010)].
(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
Following success came expansion – in 1918 Cadbury’s opened a new factory in Tasmania (the first outside the UK). In 1910 Cadbury’s finally overtook J.S.Fry & Sons in chocolate and cocoa sales…Fry’s got the block of solid chocolate right before Cadbury’s but the legendary “glass and a half” merchants surged ahead in the end. [ibid.]. So much so that Cadbury’s acquired its biggest domestic rival in 1919 (giving it Fry’s top lines, ‘Chocolate Cream’ and ‘Turkish Delight’). In 1967 Cadbury’s added the Australian chocolate manufacturer MacRobertson(‘Freddo’, ‘Snack’){g}.
Family Fry and partnersThe Fry chocolate business was another dynastic Anglo-Quaker confectioner. The original Joseph Frystarted the company in the mid Georgian period in Britain, taking on a partner, John Vaughan. Upon Fry’s death his widow Anna Frytook over the family business and the firm name changed to Anna Fry & Son. Joseph Storrs Frysucceeded her and partnered with a Dr Hunt. Storrs Fry patented a method of grinding cocoa beans using a Watt steam engine. The company then devolved to his sons, Joseph, Francis and Richard, as joint partners. Under the next generation of Frys (Joseph Storrs Fry II), the business reached its commercial pinnacle before it got swallowed up by the vast Cadbury empire [‘J.S.Fry & Sons’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Shadowing Cadbury’s, the rise of Rowntree’s Rowntree’s, Cadbury’s other domestic rival in the sweets trade, was the creation of Henry Rowntree. Like Cadbury’s Rowntree applied Quaker principles to his business and always insisted on the best quality ingredients [‘Rowntree’s’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. JosephRowntree, Henry’s brother, joined as partner in 1869, and being a staunch advocate of social reform, steered some of the firm’s profits towards his Quaker philanthropy. The company’s first big success was with ‘Fruit Pastilles’ and ‘Fruit Gums’ which allowed it to follow Cadbury’s earlier move in purchasing aVan Houten press. This enabled Rowntree’s to produce chocolate sans cocoa butter, so as to compete with Cadbury’s successful ‘Cocoa Essence’ [Robert Fitzgerald, Rowntree and the Marketing Revolution, 1862-1969, (2007)]. Rowntree’s, as their rival Cadbury’s did, created a dynasty of chocolatiers, merchants, philanthropists and social reformers – succeeding sons and brothers kept the family name at the helm of the company (Joseph Rowntree Jr, Henry Issac Rowntree, John Stephenson Rowntree).
Rowntree’s later created the consumer favourites ‘Kit Kat’, ‘Aero’ and ‘Smarties’, and went on its own expansion journey, merging with the Halifax “Toffee King” Mackintosh in 1969 (which added ‘Quality Street’ and ‘Rolo’ to its product inventory). Rowntree’s (rebranded Rowntree Mackintosh Confectionery) then acquired Australian chocolate manufacturer Hoadley’s (1972) which gave RMC Hoadley’s ‘Violet Crumble’ bar.
Rowntree’s introduced the ‘Yorkie’ bar in the Seventies which put a serious dent in Cadbury Dairy Milk’s market share and contributed to Rowntree’s reaching fourth spot in the world chocolate manufacturers’ ladder by the Eighties{h}. This was Rowntree’s apogee however as its underperforming shares saw it fall victim to a successful takeover from the Swiss giant Nestlé in 1988 [‘Rowntree’s’, op.cit.].
Nestlé’s Yorkie, a dubious sales pitch: the “NestléGoliath” was clearly tone deaf to the advantages of presenting as inclusive when they designed this, a chocolate bar which discriminates on the grounds of gender? ⤋
“Not for girls!”
A British institution undone
Cadbury’s, despite its continuing success, in 2010 suffered the same fate as Rowntree – swallowed up by another Goliath of the food business, US Kraft Foods (operating now as Mondelēz International). The loss of Cadbury’s, a household name in British manufacturing for 186 years, was highly controversial, causing an outcry in the UK. What was especially galling to many patriotic Brits was that Kraft had to borrow £7bn to seal the acquisition deal, and the banker brokering the financial transaction was itself British – the Royal Bank of Scotland [Deborah Cadbury, op.cit].
Ft-Note: Pseudo-QuakersThe runaway commercial success of Quaker food and confectionery companies did inevitably lead to imitation. A US food manufacturer in the 1870s introduced “Quaker Oats” to the cereal market…on the packets and in product advertising are images of a man dressed in Quaker garb, despite the US company having NO connexion whatsoever with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers){i}. The company states that it chose the “Quaker Man” as its figurehead “because the Quaker faith projected the values of honesty, integrity, purity and strength”, [‘Quaker Oats website’, (FAQ 2009), www.quakeroats.com] (an early example of retail “identity theft’ to try to cash in commercially on the high regard, ethically, Quaker businessmen were held in).
تتتتتﭢ ت ﭢ تتتتتتتتتتﭢ ت ﭢ تتتتت
PostScript:Third World cocoa beans and the Quaker chocolatiers – an uncomfortable associationIn the late 19th century the Cadbury brothers and other British chocolate-makers started exporting a large proportion of their cocoa beans from the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe (Portuguese West Africa)…by the turn of the century this amounted to 55% of Cadbury’s total supply of beans. Although Portugal had abolished slavery in its colonies, the rigid labour contract system which replaced left the African labourers working the plantations in a de facto slave status. This uncomfortable connexion of an ethical Quaker business to neo-slavery prompted one of the managing grandsons, William Cadbury, to commission an investigation of worker conditions in São Tomé and Príncipe in the 1900s. Cadbury eventually found an alternative source of cocoa beans (the Gold Coast) and organised a boycott of the two Portuguese plantations, but not before he had to fend off a spate of newspaper attacks on Cadbury’s alleging that it profited from the labour of slaves [‘William Cadbury, Chocolate, and Slavery in Portuguese West Africa’, (Lindsey Flewelling), 11-May-2016, https://britishandirishhistory.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/william-cadbury-chocolate-and-slavery-in-portuguese-west-africa/].
(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
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{a} the non-Quaker exception to this was Terry’s (established 1767, York, UK), famous for “Terry’s Chocolate Orange” and now owned by Kraft Foods
{b} the Quaker chocolatiers’ success was remarkably out of proportion to their numbers…with Quakers just one in fourteen out of a total UK population of 21M in 1851, they comprised >0.1% of the population [Jackson, loc.cit.]
{c} descendant and family historian Deborah Cadbury states that the Cadbury founder practiced a brand of “Quaker capitalism” that valued hard work and “wealth creation for the benefit of the workers, the local community, and society at large” [Cadbury, op.cit.]
{d} John Cadbury had a long connexion with the Temperance Society
{e} later with the move into making chocolate bars, what gave the Quaker confectionery businesses an added edge over rival manufacturers was their preparedness to invest in new, state-of-the-art machinery [Jackson, loc.cit.]
{f} the Cadbury village inspired the American non-Quaker Milton Hershey(a Pennsylvanian Mennonitein fact) to create his own ‘utopian’ village for his chocolate factory workers [Cadbury, op.cit.]
{g} a 1969 merger with soft drink giant Schweppesproved less enduring with the two partners demerging in 2008
{h} behind Mars, Hershey and Cadbury’s
{i} in recent years some brethren of theQuaker movement have objected to the way the company’s advertising depicts Quakers, ‘Quaker Oats Company’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]
Cinesound is a name that resonates brightly in the history of Australia’s film industry – it harks back to a time when the indigenous industry still had a place of some significance in the pecking order of world cinema. The establishment of Cinesound Studios (in 1931) to make talking motion pictures, evolved out of a group of movie exhibiting companies (including Australasian Films and Union Theatres) which had coalesced into Greater Union Theatres in the Twenties.
In 1925 Australasian Films purchased a roller skating rink at 65 Ebley Street, Bondi Junction, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Australasian converted part of the premises into a film studio but maintained the skating rink as an ongoing commercial concern to help finance the studios’ film production (by day a film studio, by night a skating rink) [‘Cinesound: From roller rink to sound stage’, (Waverley Library), www.waverley.nsw.gov.au].
# 1 Studios Bondi Junction ⬇
Greater Union (henceforth GUT) was involved in all forms of the movie business – production, distribution and exhibition. The Bondi Studios made a few silent films in the late 1920s, like The Adorable Outcast and most notably The Term of His Natural Life which cost £60,000 and bombed badly at the box office [‘Cinesound Productions’, Sydney Morning Herald, 06-Aug-1934 (Trove).
Stuart F Doyle, GUT managing director, appointed former film publicist Ken G Hall as general manager of the newly formed Cinesound Productions. Two more Cinesound studio locations were opened, one at nearby Rushcutters Bay and the other at St Kilda (in Melbourne). Over an eight-year period (1932-40), with Hall at the helm as producer-director, Cinesound produced 17 feature films (16 of which were directed by Hall). The first of the sequence, On Our Selection, revolved round the adventures of one of Australian cinema’s most popular characters, Dad Rudd and his family. The film, benefiting from a new sound-recording system invented in Tasmania, was a box office triumph for Cinesound, earning £46,000 in Australia and New Zealand by the end of 1933, providing a tremendous fillip for the fledgling studios [Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900-1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, (1998)].
Studios # 1 at Bondi Junction※ provided a large interior space for film production, over 20,000 square feet…with more than 100 craftsmen on the staff, the facility was equipped to complete “all stages of production, processing and sound recording, in the preparation of topical, scenic, educational, industrial, and microscopic films” [SMH, 06-Aug-1934, loc.cit.]. Some newspapers of the day erroneously referred to the main studios as being #3 and the location as Waverley (an adjoining suburb of Bondi Junction).
Cinesound and Hall exploited On Our Selection’s popularity with a series of sequels, Grandad Rudd, Dad and Dave Come to Town and Dad Rudd, MP. Of these the ‘Dad and Dave’ entry especially proved a hit, matching the profitability of the original movie.
↗ Ken G Hall (centre) with American actress Helen Twelvetrees during filming of ‘Thoroughbred’ (photo: Mitchell Library)
Sydney’s ‘Little Hollywood’ While Ken G Hall’s cinematic canvas was unmistakably Australian (only one of the Cinesound movies was not set in Australia), his approach to film-making saw Hollywood clearly as the model. With the characteristic “spirit of a showman”✺, Hall wanted to shape Cinesound Studios in the Hollywood mould⊡…to create a “Little Hollywood” with a star system, hyped-up promotion of the studios’ movies, etc. [Waverley Lib, loc.cit.].
↗ Twelvetrees outside Cinesound Studios
FT and Efftee Studios Sydney-based Cinesound’s domestic rival in the film-making caper was Melbourne’s Efftee Studios, started by theatrical entrepreneur Frank W Thring (FT) in 1930. Thring produced the first commercially-viable sound feature-length film in Australia, Diggers (1931) in collaboration with Pat Hanna. Efftee, unlike Cinesound though, had to import the optical sound system for its movies from the USA. [‘Efftee Studios’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. Other notable Efftee films of the Thirties include an adaption of CJ Dennis’ The Sentimental Bloke to the screen, and several George Wallace vehicles, His Royal Highness, Harmony Row and A Ticket in Tatts. Thring’s premature death in 1935 put paid to Efftee Studios’ productions.
⬆️ Australian cinema’s long tradition of Bushranger flicks beginning with the original 1906 feature film
The outlawing of bushranger films A 1930s Cinesound project for a film based on the popular Australian novel, Robbery Under Arms was quashed as it would have transgressed the standing prohibition by the NSW government (in force since 1912), banning movies about bushrangers✪ [‘Bonuses for Films’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20-Oct-1934 (Trove); ‘Bushranger ban’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Shirley Ann Richards: Cinesound’s contract female star In accordance with Ken G Hall’s star-making approach, he fostered the career of actress Shirley Ann Richards, starring her in several of his films (It Isn’t Done, Tall Timbers, Lovers and Luggers and Dad and Dave Come to Town). Richards, Cinesound’s only star under long-term contract, later emigrated to America and had a reasonably high profile Hollywood career (under the name Ann Richards).
The Kellaway brothers and Cinesound Alec Kellaway and his more famous brother Cecil were feature players for Hall and Cinesound. Alec was a regular performer, appearing in a raft of the studio’s movies including The Broken Melody, Mr Chedworth Steps Out and several of the Dad Rudd series. South African-born Cecil Kellaway started his acting career on the Australian stage, establishing himself first as a top Australian theatre star before appearing in two Cinesound films where his performances opened studio doors in Hollywood for him…Kellaway subsequently carved out a career as a major character actor in numerous US films.
George Wallace, Aussie “king of comedy” In addition to being a prominent actor in Efftee Studios musical-comedies, George Wallace was Ken G Hall’s “go-to” favourite comic performer, starring in two late 1930s Cinesound films directed by Hall – Let George Do It and Gone to the Dogs.With the outbreak of world war Cinesound called a halt on feature film production. During the war years the studios directed all energies into making newsreels, initially covering the war against Japan and beyond that on all aspects of Australiana.
Newsreel rivalry: Cinesound Vs Movietone: the focus on newsreels by Cinesound was not a novel innovation. From its outset Cinesound produced newsreels – short documentary films containing news stories and items of topical interest – in competition with the rival Fox Movietone company. The two newsreels differed in content, Cinesound concentrated on Australian only topics while Movietone covered a mix of international and national news✤.
Newsreels in Australia prior to 1956 occupied a unique place in media and communications. Before the introduction of television, cinema-goers’ exposure to newsreels (part of the “warm-up” for the main feature) were the only images Australians saw of their land – the footage of elections, natural disasters and other such events [Waverley Lib, loc.cit.]. Thus, newsreels like the Cinesound Review, with its distinctive red kangaroo symbol, were an important source of news and current affairs, and were an integral part of the cinema program [‘Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreels’, (ASO) (Poppy De Souza), www.aso.gov.au]✙. According to Anthony Buckley, the newsreels reflected Ken G Hall’s “pride and spirited nationalism” [Buckley, A, ‘Obituary: Ken G. Hall’, The Independent (London), 17-Feb-1994].
The studios site post-Cinesound In 1951 Cinesound sold off the Ebley Street building which became a factory manufacturing American soft drink. However, between 1956 and 1973 the building reverted to the world of visual communications, housing various film and television production companies including Ajax Films. Following that, it housed a furniture retailer. Today it is the home of a Spotlight store (fabrics and home interiors) [Waverley Lib, loc.cit.].
Ken G Hall in his autobiography contended that Cinesound Productions never lost money on any feature films. Some did very well – crime drama The Silence of Dean Maitland, for instance, for an outlay of £10,000 returned takings of more than £70,000 in Australia and the UK [Graham Shirley & Brian Adams, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years, (1989)]. One Cinesound movie however, strictly-speaking, probably did lose money…Roy Rene’s single venture into celluloid, Strike Me Lucky, in which ‘Mo’s’ humour, robbed of it’s spontaneity in live performance didn’t translate well to the big screen and was reflected in negative critical reviews and at the box office [Film Review: ‘Strike Me Lucky’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19-Nov-1934 (Trove)]. Despite Hall’s faith in the studios’ films, from 1937 there was a decline in box office returns (prompting GUT head Doyle to resign). Another (external) factor affecting Cinesound profitability occurred in 1938 with the passing of the Cinematograph Films Act in the UK…under this legislation Australian films no longer counted as local, their removal from the British quota meant a loss of market for Cinesound and other Australian movie producers [Waverley Lib, loc.cit.].
The war resulted in a temporary halt to Cinesound feature films, however the studios made only one more (postwar) feature film, Smithy, a biopic about pioneering aviator Charles Kingsford Smith in 1946. Another blow to Cinesound’s future prospects at this time was a move by Rank Organisation – the British film giant purchased a controlling interest in Greater Union, preferring to use it to exhibit its own UK films in Australia [‘The first wave of Australian feature film production FROM EARLY PROMISE TO FADING HOPES’, http://afcarchive.screenaustralia.gov.au].
⬆️ ‘Smithy’ star Ron Randell later pursued a career in Hollywood
Stuart Doyle’s contribution WWII took all the impetus out of the Australian industry, there was a shortage of performers and crew due to recruitment and conscription. Stock available for film was also in short supply, what there was directed first and foremost to making propaganda and news films in support of the allies’ side. More particular to Cinesound’s challenges, the loss of MD Stuart Doyle before the war was especially telling. Film production is high cost (especially sound which proved massively more expensive) and high risk…Hall’s ability to pursue a good number of projects in the Thirties, depended on Doyle’s willingness to take a risk with Cinesound. When he departed, he was replaced by a “risk-adverse accountant who favoured real estate over film production” [ibid.].
Footnote: Cinesound Talent School The Cinesound people eventually established its own talent school for young actors. Run by George Cross and Alec Kellaway (a regular player in Cinesound movies)…offering training in “deportment, enunciation, miming, microphone technique and limbering”✥. By 1940 the school had had over 200 students including Grant Taylor, later a prominent actor in Australian movies and TV dramas [‘Cinesound Talent School, SMH, 02-Feb-1939, (Trove); Cinesound Productions’, Wiki, op.cit.].
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※ In 2002 GUT merged with Village Roadshow, these days Greater Union picture theatres go under the name ‘Event Cinemas’
✺ a trait shared by Greater Union boss Doyle ⊡ the company even closed down production at Bondi for several months in 1935 to let Hall go off to Hollywood to study American film techniques
✪ the state authorities felt that the popularity of the bushranger film genre would exert an ‘unhealthy’ influence on Australians, especially on the young, and make them more resistant to authority
✤ the two newsreel providers merged in 1970, forming the Australian Movie Magazine which folded in 1975
✙ the 1978 film drama Newsfront is a fictionalised account of newsreel makers in Australia between the late Forties and mid Fifties which includes actual newsreel footage from the period
✥ school director Kellaway’s brief was teaching dramatics and mic technique
An essential part of a tour of Independent Samoa’s main island, Upolu, is a trip to Aggie Grey’s…Samoa’s historic hotel in Beach Road on the western bank of the Vaisigano River. The place is a South Pacific institution, as was its legendary eponymous founder.
Aggie Grey’s Hotel (#77) on Apia map⍗
The ‘Aggie’ of Aggie Grey’s was born Agnes Genevieve Swann✲, the offspring of an English pharmacist from Lincolnshire and his Samoan wife, a local taupou (a ceremonial maiden). Business seemed to be in Miss Swann’s DNA – in her early twenties she opened her first club in Apia, the Cosmopolitan Club, and in 1933 started a Samoan private tourism company, Grey Investments (later called the Grey Investments Group).
No luck with ‘Kiwi’ spouses
The early death of Aggie’s first New Zealand husband left her without support and with four children to care for…the addictive gambling of her second husband squandered what money they had. In addition Aggie now had three more children and desperately needed to find a way to revive and consolidate her precarious financial situation.
With the advent of the Pacific War and American involvement, the resourceful and inventive Aggie eventually found the solution in 1942. She had earlier borrowed US$180 to purchase a colonial home which previously had been the “British Club”. As New Zealand’s prohibition laws were in force in Western Samoa⊡, Aggie started ‘Aggie Grey’s’ as a snack bar selling hamburgers and coffee to US servicemen on their tours of duty [Lonely Planet Samoan Islands, (M Bennett, D Talbot & D Swaney) (4th Ed 2003)].
The Hotel in 2006 ⍐
The American GIs in the South Pacific had plenty of money to splash around on their R & R activities, but the prohibition on liquor was a hand-brake on Aggie’s capacity to grow her business. Aggie found a inventive method of circumventing the ban…although serving alcohol was illegal, Aggie got round it by dispensing “medical permit doses” of booze to the American servicemen [‘Aggie Grey: West Point Hotelier, Legend – Apia, Upolu, Samoa’, in The Samoans: A Global Family, Frederic Koehler Sutter, (1989)].
⍗Aggie Grey: on the maiden Pan Am flight from Pago Pago (American Samoa) to Sydney International Airport, 1962(photo: John Mulligan)
From a backwater-town bar to a tourist hub
Beyond the war, over the following years, Mrs Grey turned the Apia hotel from a modest “drinking club” to a 200-room international hotel (arguably vying with Suva’s Grand Pacific Hotel for the mantle of the South Pacific’s premier international hotel) [‘Memories of the incomparable Aggie Grey’, Samoa Observer, (Terry Dunleavy), 26-Apr-2016, www.samoaobserver.com].
An ‘aiga welcome
The key to this success can be found largely in Aggie’s management style – her warm interpersonal skills, authentic, convivial personality, and her innate “understanding of the human condition”. Through her personal example of showing hospitality she imbued “Aggie Grey’s” with an atmosphere of “laid back Samoan friendly fa’aaloalo” (‘respect), conveying to each guest a sense that they were ‘aiga (‘family’) [Dunleavy].
In the formative days the hotel thrived as a result of Aggie’s ability to network… forging business links with the world outside Samoa – with the management and crews of TEAL (forerunner of Air New Zealand), and in encouraging celebrity A-listers (especially from the US) to make Samoa and Abbie Grey’s a regular stopover on route to film assignments in French Polynesia [ibid.]. Accordingly, the likes of Hollywood stars Marlon Brando, Dorothy Lamour, William Holden and Gary Cooper✥et al would be regular AG guests. Aggie sought to capitalise on the celebrity aura by naming each of the hotel’s fales (rooms) and bungalows after visiting movie celebs.
Stay in the Marlon Brando fale (№ 93) at AGs⍗
The hotel’s postwar success rested on a number of contributing factors. The arrival of trans-Pacific airlines (TEAL/Air NZ, Pan Am, QANTAS, then later Virgin’s Polynesian Blue) brought increasing numbers of tourists to replace the WWII servicemen. Aggie also had the right people behind her…a son with a good head for business, and a irreplaceable and devoted handiman, a “Mr Fixit” by the name of Fred Fairman, who Aggie could always rely on to keep the ‘wheels’ of the hotel running smoothly [ibid.; Sutter, loc.cit.].
Aggie Grey’s made it’s owner very wealthy…Aggie, a stalwart of the Samoan hospitality industry, continued at the hotel’s helm into her old age. In 1988 she died age 91, having long been one of the most respected members of the Apia business community.
Footnote: In December 2012 Cyclone Evan severely damaged Aggie Grey’s, closing it down for over three years. In August of the following year, management of the hotel complex, still under repairs, passed to the Sheraton’s hotel chain. Aggie Grey’s reopened in 2016, now operating under the name Sheraton Samoa Aggie Grey’s Hotel & Bungalows. A second Aggie Grey’s complex in Upolu, Aggie Grey’s Lagoon Resort, was opened in 2005 off a coral reef in the west of the island (a joint venture between the Grey family, the governments of Samoa and New Zealand and Virgin Samoa). 🇼🇸
PostScript: Prototype for Bloody Mary?
One of the US servicemen who frequented Aggie Grey’s during the War was travel adventure author James A Michener. Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific was later adapted into the hit Broadway musical South Pacific. One of it’s main characters, the loud and formidably forceful “Bloody Mary”, was widely thought to have been modelled on Aggie Grey, a comparison that didn’t endear itself to the Apia hotelier! [‘Lonely Planet’, op.cit.].
⍐‘Return to Paradise’ – Samoan film set & resources of ‘Aggie Grey’s’ 🇼🇸 (see below)
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✲ ‘Grey’ was the surname of Aggie’s second husband from New Zealand
⊡ New Zealand administered Western Samoa as it was called at this time, under a League of Nations mandate
✥ Cooper in fact made a movie in Samoa, Return to Paradise in 1953 (pretty stock standard South Seas adventure stuff), and of course Aggie came on board to contribute to the production …Aggie Grey’s hotel providing logistical support and a base for the project’s accommodation, and the indefatigable hotelier personally supervised the catering unit for the film [Dunleavy]
The northern coastline of suburban Sydney, with its abundance of picturesque beaches, is a magnet in summer for many visitors from far and near. One of the less frequented of the Northern Beaches, owing to its relative inaccessibility and lack of a rock pool✲, is Bungan Beach.
What drew me to Bungan this summer was not however the pristine waters of its uncrowded beach, but one particular unusual building standing out high up on Bungan Head…Bungan Castle, which this year celebrates 100 years since it was constructed.
Situated as one later observer noted “on a bold headland of the coast, about eighteen miles from Sydney” [1] (Newport, NSW), Bungan’s castle was built at the very pinnacle of a cliff-top by Gustav Adolph Wilhelm Albers, a German-born Australian artists’ agent. Today it is hemmed in and surrounded by a raft of modern, multi-million dollar mansions which share its unparalleled breathtaking views. But when Albers built “Bungan Castle” on what is now Bungan Head Road, the imposing high dwelling was surrounded only by bush and cleared scrub and completely neighbourless!✪
∆photo (ca.1928): National Library of Australia
Albers in 1919 was considered something of a doyen of the Australian art community, he represented local artists like Sidney Long and JJ Hilder, and the castle (his abode at weekends and holidays❇) acted as a kind of 1920s arts hub, an unofficial Sydney artists’ colony. The leather-bound visitors’ book (still surviving) records the names of numerous artistic personalities of the early 20th century including the formidable and influential Norman Lindsay.
photo: NSW Archives & Records∆
Aside from creating a skyline haven for practitioners of the art community, the eccentricity of Albers’ personal taste in decor is worthy of elaboration: he furnished Bungan Castle with an idiosyncratic and vast array of collectibles, a number of which the art connoisseur acquired on his regular jaunts overseas✤. The castle interior was inundated with a phenomenal “hotch-potch” of antiquated weaponry – including Medieval armour, Saracen helmets, Viking shields, sword and daggers including a Malay kris, battle-axes, muskets, flint-lock guns, Zulu rifles; convicts’ leg-irons and Aboriginal breast-plates.
∆ photo: Fairfax Archives
In addition to the assortment of objects of a martial nature, there were numerous other oddities and curios, such as a big bell previously located at Wisemans Ferry and used to signal the carrying out of convict executions in colonial times; a human skull mounted above the hall door (washed up on Bungan Beach below the castle); a sea chest; a variety of ships’ lanterns; “tom-toms” (drums) and various items of taxidermy [2].
This home is a castle – a “Half-Monty” of a castle
From the road below, staring up at the tree-lined Bungan Castle, it does bear the countenance of something from a pre-modern time and not out of place in a rural British landscape. Constructed of rough-hewn stone (quarried from local (Pittwater) sandstone), it contains many of the castellated features associated with such a historic piece of architecture – towers and turrets, a donjon (keep), battlements, vaults, a great hall, a coat-of-arms, etc.
This said, Bungan Castle lacks other standard features – a drawbridge with a portcullis and a barbican ; visible gargoyles; and a moat (although Edinburgh Castle also lacks a moat, being built up high on bedrock it doesn’t require one for defensive purposes); and it is also bereft of a dungeon! And of course, most telling, parts of the southern and eastern facades are clearly more ‘home’ than castle! One could easily dismiss any claim to it being thought of as an authentic facsimile of the “real thing” (some early observers described it, erroneously, as a ‘Norman’ castle), but with a bit of licence we can reasonably ascribe the descriptor (small) ‘castle’ to Bungan, much as New Zealand tourism promotes the lauded Lanarch ‘Castle’ on the Otago Peninsula (also without many of those classic features).
A family concern
GAW Albers’ prominence in the Northern Beaches area and the talking point uniqueness of Bungan Castle led many locals to dub the Sydney art dealer “the Baron of Bungan Castle”. Albers died in 1959 but the ‘baronial’ castle has remained firmly in family hands. The current owners are Albers’ nephew John Webeck and his wife Pauline. John maintains the family’s artistic bent as well, having like Uncle William had a career as an art dealer.
Artists’ Mecca? museum? both?
Webeck has signalled that he would like to reprise the castle’s former mantle as an artists’ Mecca, but I can’t help feeling that with such a wealth of out-of-the-ordinary artifacts within its walls, that its future might be most apt as an historical museum. Such suggestions have been made in the past – the Avalon Beach Historical Society referred to Bungan Castle having been an “unofficial repository for many articles, (sufficient to deem it) Pittwater’s first museum”[3].
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✲ the close proximity of larger beaches with on-site car parks (absent from Bungan) – Newport, The Basin and Mona Vale – make them a more popular choice for beach-goers
✪ at the time there was only three other homes on the entire headland
❇ Albers’ principal family home was in Gordon, 25 km way on the North Shore of Sydney
✤ although the bulk of the castle’s collection were donated to Albers by others who thought it an appropriate home
[1] WEM Abbott, ‘Castle on a Cliff Edge’, The Scone Advocate, 25-Mar-1949, http://nla.gov.au.news-article162719685
[2] ‘Castle Turrets on Sydney’s Skyline’ (Nobody Wants them…Our Baronial Halls), The Sun (Sydney), 08-May-1927, http://nla.gov.au.news-article223623550. The author of this article goes on to lament the fact that Sydney’s castle homes had fallen out of fashion for the well-heeled “princes of commerce” in search of a suitable ancestoral mansion…in 1927 their preference was apparently for modern Californian villas with all the latest conveniences.
[3] ‘A Visit To Bungan Castle By ABHS’, Pittwater Online News, 14-20 Oct 2018, Issue 379, www.pittwatetonlinenew.com
Felix the cat,
The wonderful, wonderful cat!(Popular theme song lyrics)
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❛ I made the cat and the cat made me! ❜~ Pat Sullivan
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The model for a certain cartoon mouse …
The best part of a decade before Mickey Mouse made his first appearance on a celluloid screen and then went on to establish himself as the international popular culture phenomenon par excellence, there was Felix the Cat. The parentage of Mickey Mouse is not a topic that has generated the same level of controversy as that of Felix, which over the last forty years has been a matter for much impassioned cross-Pacific conjecture.
BF – before Felix…Felix, the anthropomorphic black cat with the massive white eyes and the broadest of broad grins, was not the first animated cat to grace the screens of movie theatres. That honour went to a mouser called Krazy Kat, the conception of cartoonist George Herriman…first appearing as a comic strip character in the New York Evening Journal, Krazy Kat debuted on movie screens in 1916 in a silent short featuring the eponymous cat and his brick-throwing ‘frenemy’ Ignatz Mouse.
Master Tom, prototypeNot long after, Felix had his beginnings in the prototype form of Thomas Cat. In 1917 Australian cartoonist Pat Sullivan produced a short, animated silent film about a black cat, The Tail of Thomas Cat, through his own New York studio. By 1919 ‘Thomas Cat’ had morphed into ‘Master Tom’ in the short Feline Follies. After a follow-up entry (The Musical Mews) again starring Master Tom, Sullivan’s third short of 1919 (Adventures ofFelix the Cat) changed the name of the ‘Tom’ character to the name he would henceforth be universally known as – Felix. Despite the seemingly clear lineage between Thomas Cat and Felix, some American animation historians discredit the connexion, citing Thomas Cat’s non-anthropomorphised nature, the uncertainty of his fur colour, the fact that he loses his tail fighting a rooster without ever being able to recover it (cf. the difference with Felix who can magically transform his tail into other forms) [‘Felix the Cat – McGill CS’, www.cs.mcgill.ca].
The chief animator of Sullivan’s film studio was Otto Messmer, but because of Sullivan’s proprietorial role in the process of animation production it was Sullivan’s name alone that appeared on the credits of films (this was a common business practice in animation at the time), despite Messmer as principal artist conceivably doing a weighty share of the studio’s artwork. After Sullivan’s premature death in 1933 his relatives in Australia took ownership of Felix. It wasn’t until 44 years later, that Messmer in an interview with animation historian John Canemaker belatedly made his claim to have been the originator of the famous feline.
Conflicting stories of Felix’s originSullivan maintained all along that he was the creator – on a visit back to Australia in 1925 he told the Melbourne Argus newspaper that the idea for Felix had come to him when his wife brought a stray cat into Sullivan’s studio one day (as was her wont). On other occasions he said that the inspiration came from a Rudyard Kipling story, ‘The Cat that Walked by Himself’. For the name of his cartoon creation Sullivan explained that he had drawn on his native Antipodes… Australia Felix was a term in use from the 19th century to describe the western districts of the state of Victoria (also later the name of an Australian novel by Henry Handel Richardson). Another source for the cat’s name came from a contemporary fellow cartoonist – appearing in print in 1936 the cartoonist affirmed that Sullivan told him that he derived the name from a black West Indian-born boxer living and fighting in Australia called Peter Felix whom Sullivan was acquainted with (the animator being a big enthusiast of boxing) [Pat Sullivan – I made the cat and the cat made me’,www.vixenmagazine.com].
Messmer by contrast had a wholly different story of Felix’s ‘birth’ and evolution. He recounted to Canemaker for the latter’s 1977 documentary film that because Sullivan’s studio was busy at the time, he (Messmer) went away and by himself at home drew the figure that was to become Felix. He perceived of the mischievous black cat as a kind of animated Charlie Chaplin. Messmer explained that the name “Felix” was thought up by a Paramount Magazine journalist from the Latin words felis (cat) and felix (happy). Canemaker and other contemporary American animation historians have been undisguisedly dismissive of Sullivan’s creative contribution, backing Messmer’s claim, subscribing to the view that Messmer ‘ghosted’ Felix for Sullivan who was preoccupied with his entrepreneurial role (inexhaustibly promoting and marketing Felix to the world)✱.
Contesting FelixNot surprisingly the strongest argument for endorsing Sullivan as Felix’s true creator comes from Australia, the animator-cum-entrepreneur’s homeland. Australian cartoonists, including some who knew Sullivan, have drawn attention to a comment during an interview when he visited Sydney in 1925 (quoted in the local papers): Sullivan stated that his practice was to ‘do the “key drawings” and leave the rest to a staff’ [Vixen Magazine, op.cit.]. Moreover, the Australian Cartoonist Association have argued that the distinctive lettering style of Sullivan can be detected on the Felix artwork, eg, in Feline Follies (Felix’s first incarnation), the lettering used matches examples of Sullivan’s handwriting. Additionally, certain speech bubbles in the short uses expressions and terms which have distinctive Australian usage, especially ” ‘Lo Mum! “. Australian animators, argue that had Otto Messmer conceived and created the prototype Felix film, as he claimed in 1977, he would have used the traditional American form of shorthand for mother, ‘mom’ (not ‘mum’) and he would not have dropped the ‘h’ in ‘hello’ which is more characteristically Australian or British◰. [‘Reclaiming Felix the Cat in the Picture Gallery’, (Judy Nelson, Exhibition, 1-May to 7-Aug 2005, State Library of NSW, Sydney),www.pandora.nla.gov.au]
Animator Ub Iwerks drawing animated rodent extraordinaire, M Mouse ▶
Sublime collaborationsWhether it was Messmer or Sullivan who was the true creator of Felix we may never know for sure, given that the episode occurred around 100 years ago and both claimants have been long dead. For a very long time the reflected glory for the creation of the animal superstar even more famous than Felix, Mickey Mouse, was almost exclusively falling on Walt Disney. Only in a relatively recent period, historically speaking, has the role of animator Ub Iwerks been properly acknowledged. Today even the Disney Corporation (metonymically known as the Mouse House), more or less unequivocally recognises Iwerks as the real creator of the mouse. But this doesn’t diminish Walt’s integral role from the origin point in developing Mickey’s personality and traits (not to mention the story lines). Similarly with Sullivan and Messmer, the fairest course may be to attribute causation, Felix’s genesis and transformation to the screen, to what was quintessentially a collaborative effort between two creative individuals.
PostScript A: Felix, a template worth copyingOne green-eyed embryonic animator in the US in the mid-Twenties very much aware of Felix’s ascending star was Walt Disney. Disney’s earliest innovation in the field was his Alice Comedies where he inserted a human figure “Alice of Wonderland” into an animated landscape. As foil to Alice, the main animated figure in these shorts was Julius, a cat with a particularly strong resemblance to Felix…basically a clone of Felix [‘Felix the Cat’, (Ian Gordon), St James Encyclopaedia of Popular Culture (2002)]. Disney’s later followed up Julius with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (a product he ultimately lost creative control of) and then lucked in again, hitting the jackpot with Mickey Mouse…Oswald and Mickey were both different animals to Felix but again the physical similarities to the (original) Felix are there – albeit with reshaped faces and ears.
PostScript B: Felix, the image de jour to launch a new mediumFelix with his funny, all-too-fallible anthropomorphic ways (fond of a drink or two in ‘speakeasies’, given to making whoopee and his general hijinks and manic spurts in surrealistic situations)✪ suited the “Jazz Age” to a tee! [Michael Cart, ‘The Cat with the Killer Personality’, New York Times, 31-Mar-1991, www.nytimes.com]. Capitalising on Felix’s success on the big screen (upward of 150 animated shorts made in the 1920s), Sullivan introduced a comic strip version of Felix in 1923 (syndicated by King Features 1923-1967). Everyone wanted a piece of the famous celluloid feline, the US Navy’s Bombing Squadron adopted Felix as its insignia, his countenance was used as the logo for car dealerships, he was the mascot for the New York Yankees at one time and for many high schools [‘Felix the Cat’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. The universal appeal of Felix made him the prime candidate to introduce television to Americans…in 1928 broadcaster RCA choose a papier-mâché doll of Felix as THE image for testing the new technology [‘The First Star of Television’, MZTV Museum, www.mztv.com].
PostScript C: A marketing bonanza
Felix as a commodity had an electrifying impact on the world of celebrity merchandising in the 1920s – the iconic image of the black cat popped up on toys, dolls, ceramics, postcards, cigarette cards, jigsaw puzzles, clothing, pencils, sheet music and so on (earning Sullivan an estimated $100,000 a year) [Dictionary of Sydney staff writer, Felix the cat, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/felix-the-cat, viewed 6th Oct 2018]
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✱ the generally accepted view of Sullivan’s character and behaviour, which was very far from exemplary, seems to have jaundiced the opinion held by some commentators (particularly Canemaker) as to the merits of the Australian animator’s achievements
◰ as Nelson et al have argued, these discrepancies in the case for Messmer have not been accounted for satisfactorily by American animation historians including Canemaker
✪ this said, Felix could also be contemplative at times, deep in thought, working things out, solving problems…a cat for all seasons!
The further I delved into my “war-ravaged” copy of Wilson’s 1922 Authentic Director of Sydney and Suburbs, the more snippets of hitherto unearthed information, little gems of Sydney’s yesterday, I stumbled upon.
Among the minutiae of miscellaneous info contained in the directory’s index, one item that got my attention was a list of the consuls and overseas government agents in Sydney in 1922. Interesting to see that at that time there were consulate offices established in Sydney for tiny international entities like Latvia, Nicaragua, Columbia, Ecuador, Honduras, Serbia and the Czechoslovak Republic, but being not yet four years after the cessation of the hostilities of WWI, no consulates for the countries deemed by the victors to be the “guilty parties”, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey. So much for moving on!!!…and we all know where that path catastrophically led!
Another curio I discovered was that among the State and Commonwealth government departments listed in the index, there were several with city addresses in Richmond Tce, The Domain. The questionably named Aborigines (spelt ‘Aborogines’) Protection Board, the Pharmacy Board of NSW, the Dental Board of NSW, the Medical Board of NSW, the Metropolitan Meat Industry Board and the Inspector-General of the Insane(sic) were all located in this east side of the city street…interesting in that this street, Richmond Terrace no longer exists!
Ad for the Orient Line
A total of forty-six shipping line companies were recorded as having offices in Sydney’s CBD. These included British-India SN Co, China-Australia Mail SS Line, Nippon Yusen Kaisha, the Adelaide Steamship Company, New Guinea, New Britain and the Solomon Islands (Line), the White Star Line✲ and the more contemporarily familiar P & O Line. Only one of the 46 placed a (full-paged and quite detailed) ad in the directory, the Australia to Britain Orient Line.
Royal Autos in ‘Wilson’s’
City clubs and buildings of interest
In a section of the index Wilson’s lists the various clubs, chambers, banks and arcades that formed part of the cityscape in 1922. The more ‘highbrow’ of the clubs, predominately “Gentlemen’s” establishments, tended to congregate ‘uptown’ (the end closer to Circular Quay) considered to be the smarter and more affluent part of the city. The clubs included the Australian Club (corner of Bent and Macquarie Sts)[¹], the Automobile Club of Australia (132 Phillip St)[²], the Country Club (17 Castlereagh St), the Catholic Club (107 Castlereagh St ), Masonic Club (216 Pitt St)[³], the N.S.W. Club (Bligh St)[⁴], the Soldiers’ Club (426 George St), the Union Club (2 Bligh St)[⁵], the Warrigal Club (145 Macquarie St). Also in the city were clubs associated with the sport (and business) of horse racing – these three used to be situated in the CBD, the Australian Jockey Club (now the Australian Turf Club) (8 Bligh St), the Canterbury Park Race Club (15 Castlereagh St) and the Rosehill Racing Club (32 Elizabeth St). Another city club intricately linked to horse racing is Tattersall’s Club (202-204 Pitt St). Traditionally the haunt of old style bookmakers, “City Tatts” as it is better known, still stands and operates on its original land, 123 years after its foundation.
The 1922 city’s chambers are a predictable lot with numerous entities bearing largely homogenous Anglo-(Saxon)Celtic names scattered around Phillip Street, the traditional law hub of the city. That equally upstanding and status quo affirming pillar of society in that day, the banks, are spread over a wide radius of the CBD. The only point of note about them is discovering that in the 1920s Australia financial climate, with regulation of the sector very tight, two foreign banks had Sydney branches and were allowed to trade here at that time… the French National d’Escompté de Paris, a forerunner of Banque National de Paris? (24 Hunter St) and even more surprisingly, the Japanese Bank (Falmouth Chambers, 117 Pitt St).
The original (1907) Challis House
One of the city buildings identified in Wilson’s Director with a busy and interesting history is Challis House, N⍛ 4-10 Martin Place. Eponymously named after merchant and University of Sydney benefactor John Henry Challis, the House has a long association with the University as well as many financial tenants over the decades. During WWI it was used as the recruiting campaign headquarters for New South Wales. The office building at the time of Wilson’s publication was in its original Victorian architectural state…in the Thirties it received a new (Art Deco) facade and later in 1993 it underwent major renovations [‘Challis House’, Sydney Architecture, www.sydneyarchitecture.com]
Blue Mountains – a “Tourist’s Guide”
Although it’s a street directory whose ambit is Sydney and suburbs, the Wilson’s directory ends with an extensive section (73pp) on the Blue Mountains. The entry even encompasses the town of Lithgow (also called ‘Eskbank’ in 1922) which is 15 miles west of the Blue Mountains. The book has lots of detailed information on the BM suburbs, each suburb has an entry on accommodation and the scenic natural highlights of the Mountains with select maps indicating points of interest.
The “Half-way House” of Blue Mts
The directory gives a picture of Springwood, the largest of the Lower Mountains towns✥, that suggests a warm place in an otherwise cold region – “sheltered by its westerly walls from the cooler air of the higher altitudes…pleasant sunshine all year round…in winter the climate is so equable that many families make Springwood a permanent residence”. An opinion echoed by Springwood house and land agent R.F. Harvey’s ad extolling “The Best Winter Climate in the World”. For day visitors to Springwood, the Hotel ‘Oriental’ awaits their patronage (ad, right).
Katoomba, the “largest of the mountain tourist resorts” with its “wide choice of charming and picturesque views”. Despite being 68 miles from Sydney, “horses and vehicles are always obtainable” – as this advertisement (left) on page 706 offering trips to the famous Jenolan Caves in luxury Buicks testifies.
Nearby Leura is “celebrated for the beauty of its great showpiece – the Leura Falls…in themselves alone worth the trip to the mountains”. With unfettered enthusiasm the writer goes on to laud the town in extravagant terms: “the place has been so well laid out as a tourist resort that it offers a perfect kaleidoscope of the views”. The object of Wilson’s Director is clearly to sell the Mountains to visitors from Sydney which synergises nicely with the numerous accommodation ads (funny that!) that appear such as this one (right) for Leura’s Hotel Alexandria (still in business in 2018).
The spa town of Medlow Bath, is “a pretty little village, rising rapidly in tourist favour”. The tiny Upper Mountains town is famous for its Hydro-Majestic hotel resort where in the day the better-off citizens of Sydney would periodically retreat to benefit from its therapeutic mineral waters and clean mountain air. Built by retailer Mark Foy (Jr) as a hydropathic sanatorium, the “Hydro-Maje” in the Twenties was where the cream of Sydney’s elite flocked on the weekends to socialise.
Jenolan tourer (Blackheath)
One station further west, the mountains tourist resort of Blackheath, had the writer reaching for new superlatives! The bush trails and valleys (the “Valley of the Grose” as he calls it) lead to “world-famous Govett’s Leap (waterfall), a stream which plunges headlong over a perpendicular wall of dark-tinted rock on to a mass of boulders, some 520 feet below”. Mermaid’s Cave is “like a glimpse of a fairyland…a more picturesque scene cannot be imagined”, etc. The other attraction of Blackheath in 1922 was that “there is every probability of its having a permanent water supply in the near future”. The accommodation ad below is for Blackheath’s ‘Ivanhoe Hotel’, replaced in 1938 by the now quite old-looking ‘New Ivanhoe Hotel’.
Mt Victoria, 79 miles by paved road❂ from Sydney, the highest point of the Blue Mountains (the guide gives it at 3,424 feet above sea-level)⍍, is praised for the scenic countryside surrounding the town dotted with charmingly named spots like Fern Cave, Fairy Bower, Fern Tree Gully and Witch’s Glen, for the walker to explore.
Upper Blue Mts map (‘Wilson’s’)
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[¹] the Australian Club (still at the same address, 165 Macquarie St), is the oldest men-only club in the country, dating from 1838
[²] the Automobile Club changed both its name to the Royal Automobile Club of Australia (RACA), and its location to Castlereagh St North, in the year of the directory’s publication (1922)
[³] the Masonic Club still exists but the premises relocated to a new building at 169-171 Castlereagh St in 1927
[⁴] the N.S.W. Club House is still in existence at 25-31 Bligh St, but the Club itself amalgamated with the Australian Club in 1969 and the building has had a series of commercial tenants since (currently occupied by the Lowy Institute for International Affairs)
[⁵] still in operation (since 1857), these days at 25 Bent St and now called the Union, University and Schools Club
✲ of Titanic fame, White Star Line merged with Cunard in 1934 as White-Cunard, before eventually becoming defunct
✥ Blaxland and Glenbrook, two other Lower BM towns, get very short shrift from Wilson’s, relegated to brief, passing mentions only
❂ the Great Western Highway, which bisects the Blue Mountains, was still called Bathurst Road in 1922
⍍ although according to markers on the spot, One Tree Hill on the south side of Mt Victoria, is the highest point in the Blue Mountains at 3,654 feet
I remember getting my first street directory as if it was 55 years ago – which it was! It was a Gregory’s of course, it was 1963 and UBD hadn’t quite yet entered the road map reproduction game (they brought out their first street directory the following year!) I had just starting playing soccer (the St George and Southern Sydney’s A-League – Ankle-biters League!) and my parents bought it to get me to season games in tricky-to-find and awkward-to-get-to places across Sydney.
Soccer aside, the Gregory’s spent more time in my bedroom than it did in the glovebox of my father’s VW. I loved perusing its contents, examining the colourful maps, sometimes in piecemeal fashion, other times randomly, learning about all the different parts of Sydney that in most cases I never knew existed let alone had been to! I discovered all sorts of faraway places (to a 10-y-o!) with exotic, magical-sounding names like Avalon, Burraneer, Oyster Bay, Picnic Point and Chipping Norton.
The 1960s Sydney motorist’s Vade mecum
I used to spend long hours during my childhood pouring over the maps of Sydney, preparing me for the future career as a taxi driver that I never had (phew!)…instead I learned lots of useless stuff like the fact that there were two separate bushland places called Warrimo. The name is well-known to many as the small town in the Blue Mountains, but my 1963 Gregory’s showed me that it was then also a suburb adjoining St Ives. Later it was renamed St Ives Chase but Warrimo Oval and Warrimo Avenue in the suburb are reminders of its association.
I got a lot of mileage out of that vintage 1963 Sydney street directory, and continued to do so even after I brought a new Gregory’s when I got my driver’s licence and my first car in the early seventies.
Footnote: Not sure what my father did for road directions before the 1963 Gregory’s came into our family’s life. He certainly had cars before then, at one time I recall he had a crank-start relic of an Austin! Maybe he had one of those fold-out maps that in my hands often end up in a tangled mess.
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WAD: the ante-(now)dated street directory
I got my second street directory around the same time as we got the ’63 Gregory’s, and it was a very different animal to the current edition of the Gregory’s, it was in fact the nearest thing I have had to an antiquarian book. I have recounted in a previous post (Part 1) how I got handed down a 1922 edition of Wilson’s Authentic Director: Sydney and Suburbs and shared some insights into how the WAD depicted different parts of Sydney then and some of the idiosyncratic aspects of the maps contained in the book. I want to focus here on the advertisements contained in the directory which are legion in number and tell an interesting story about life in 1922 Sydney in themselves.
Ad-bonanza
In a book 735pp long, even if I count the pages comprising the indexes and maps there were considerably more pages with ads than without! Some ads were full-page, some pages contained two or more separate ads, some firms like Rickard’s’ (below) had multiple entries of ads in the book. The directory is so ad-rich that the advertisement sales alone were a nice little earner to Wilson & Co. And with each copy retailing to the public at 4/6p, there was obviously more than enough takers to warrant the cost to the advertisers to be in it.
▲ Webber’s “One stop shop”!
Who advertised in ‘Wilson’s Authentic Director’?
Well just about anybody who traded, who had a business in Sydney at the time! Professional men, financiers, engineers, builders, bakers, butchers, chemists, builders, undertakers, stationers, carriers, ironmongers, haberdashers, drapers, milliners, mercers and tailors, retailers of Manchester, furniture suppliers, lime and cement merchants, glass manufacturers, all manner of service or product providers. Where the business being advertised related more directly to the world of motorists or to moving people from place to place, was where you got the lion’s share of ads.
▲ Strathfield: free from “Influences of the Sea Air”
Purveyors of property
The footprints of the auctioneer, the valuator and the real estate agent are visible throughout the directory, often in prominently displayed ads. Some who could afford to, placed more lavish ads which mega-hyped the virtues of certain suburbs and their homes – such as the Orton Bros ad (left) pitching homes in the “favourite suburb” of Strathfield, pushing the (alleged) “health benefits” of the area, “away from the “Influences of the Sea Air”. Presumably if Orton Bros had been selling houses in Clovelly or Coogee Beach, they would have taken a different attitude to the “harmful effects of sea air”!
▲ The “Digger” Agents at Roseville
Another property heavyweight Arthur Rickard & Co, appearing and reappearing across the directory, specialised in sub-division and the creation of new estates, eg, selling as “the New Model Suburb” of Toongabbie✲. Rickard’s had a full-page ad offering a choice of two estates, Toongabbie Park (“a most promising estate, fertile soil and good rainfall”) – the buyer could opt for a large home or a Rickard Farmlet, 1 acre to 4½ acres from £50 10s. per acre; or the Portico Estate (“city water, proximity to consumers’ markets, building conveniences”) – “designed on the latest and most up-to-date town-planning – a wonderful scheme of beauty”. Some property agents like Hough and Barnard emphasised their WWI service credentials to help flog their homes, displaying ads (at right) which proudly announced their AIF associations⊡.
Newtown 1922: Hire-a-luxury wedding vehicle
Transport options a-plenty!
Up there with the estate agents and developers were advertisers for anything to do with the automobile. Hire car companies posted ads for vehicles available for any special purpose. Ads from proprietors of motor garages are liberally sprinkled through the directory, these business often rented out touring vehicles for people both wanting to explore the far reaches of Sydney using Wilson’s of course as their guide. The plentiful motor garage ads naturally catered for all the motorists’ touring and driving needs – ‘Bowserised’ (often Shell) fuel, Benzine oil, ‘vulcanised’ tyres, mechanical repairs, etc.
▲ Bulli Motors: cars, motorcycles, bicycles, for Bulli Pass
The reach of Wilson’s publication was not narrowly limited to the city and suburban district boundaries that encompassed Sydney in 1922… business advertisers buying space in the directory came from as far away as the Blue Mountains and from the Illawarra/South Coast, as evidenced by the ad at right from a Bulli motor garage who also specialised in automotive services for the motor(bike) cyclist.
▲ A horse-intensive removals firm!
The Removalists
Domestic carriers were also well represented in the ads in the street directory. Ads for businesses, describing themselves variously as removalists, carriers or furniture carters, filter through the book. The removal business ads signal an interesting crossover between the old and the new technologies…in 1922 motorised vehicles as a form of transport would still be numerically inferior to horse-drawn carts, the ads in Wilson’s show original horse-power still much in demand on Sydney streets, side-by-side with the new, motor-driven furniture vans and vehicles.
‘Tradie’ ads
Tradesmen were regular advertisers in Wilson’s Street Directory, keen to take advantage of Sydney’s growing numbers of home occupiers and new areas of urbanisation – carpenters, plumbers/gasfitters, electricians, tilers, slaters, painters and decorators, sign writers, metal workers, galvanised iron workers, etc. Some of the most refreshing and humorous ads were from 1920s tradies like the two in the directory reproduced here. ▼ ▶
A miscellany of ads
Most every other avenue of (legal) private endeavour that you’d expect to be plying its business in early 1920s seems to get a shout-out in the street directory. Several ads that popped up in the vicinity of the Lidcombe entry and maps were for stone and marble masons. Considering that Lidcombe was (and still is) home to Rookwood Cemetery, reputed to be the biggest cemetery in the Southern Hemisphere, it is of no surprise to find a troop of monumental masons showcasing their artisan wares here.▼
Rookwood handiwork
A trifecta of disparate WAD advertisers from north of the harbour:▼
▲ 1922: Home entertainment unit
The piano – pride of place in the living room of Sydney homes in 1922
Many of the domestic carrier ads that I have alluded to above emphasised “careful piano removal” as one of the fortes of their trade. This is a reminder that in the early twenties, before the advent of radio and television in Australian households, both of how valuable pianos were and the key role they played as principal providers of home entertainment.
Accommodation and pleasure at Sandringham by the seaside
The first ad below at left is for the ‘Prince of Wales’, a popular beachfront hotel on Botany Bay, a local institution in the St George district since the 1860s drawing crowds to its lavish luncheons, parties, picnics and recreational pursuits on its pleasure grounds. Proprietor in 1922 William Langton was just one of very many publicans who had a go at running (with wildly varying success) the ‘Prince’ since 1866 (the hotel was demolished in 1961). ▼
Footnote: the LJ Hooker of his day:
Of the myriad real estate admen in the directory, the company name recurring most throughout is Stanton & Son, Ltd. Stanton’s features in six separate ads (pp.92, 155, 430, 503, 622, 644) to advertise its offices at Pitt St City, Summer Hill, Haberfield, Edgecliff, Randwick, North Sydney and Rosebery. Proprietor Richard Stanton was one of the founders of the Real Estate Institute of NSW and an advocate of the Garden City Movement (see later blogs on Early 1900s Sydney Garden Suburbs).
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✲ developer Rickard was in fact busy selling property all over Sydney and beyond…such as the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains where he talked the rail authorities into building new stations at Warrimo and Bullaburra to service his new estates there, Peter Spearritt, ‘Rickard, Sir Arthur (1868–1948)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rickard-sir-arthur-8206/text14357, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 12 July 2018.
⊡ realty men were no means the only business advertisers who played the AIF card, tradesmen et al were similarly not slow in slipping into the pitch their record of loyal service to King and Empire during the Great War
I had lots of old books when I was a kid growing up, but maybe only one or two books that would possibly generate the curiosity of an antiquarian✲. One of these books was given to me by my mother when I was about ten or eleven…a most unwise move on her part as it transpired.
‘1922 Wilson’s Director’
The humble but rarely spotted 1922 street directory
This book was the Sydney street directory for the year 1922, to give it it’s correct and full title, Wilson’s Authentic Director, Sydney and Suburbs 1922. This small but squat little publication (5½” x 4½”, 735pp), the original owner of which was almost certainly my carpenter-builder maternal grandfather (an early owner of a motor vehicle I believe), came into my hands in something approaching pristine condition, notwithstanding that the directory was then already more than 40 years old!
Today although I still possess it, it is an almost unrecognisable shadow of its once immaculate state! As my juvenility slowly gave way to adolescence I managed to write (things entirely unrelated to Sydney street maps), scribble and doodle on its quasi-virginal pages. Equally as bad, I haphazardly tossed the book around with such careless abandon over the decades that the front cover (a orangey-brown hard cover) became separated from the spine and eventually disappeared forever. Of course if cornered I could sheet home part of the blame for my repeated if unintended acts of vandalism to my parents who showed such egregiously bad judgement in trusting such a historically valuable tome to a ten-year-old Visigoth in the first place! But ultimately mine was the hand that caused the damage…I suppose if I was scratching round to find any compensating factors, I might say that at the very least no one can accuse me of neglecting my parent’s gift. Far from it! As a “child-distractor” Wilson’s Street Director performed yeoman’s service! I certainly made extensive, if not good, use of it.
The directory maps
The maps of each area of Sydney are neatly and clearly drawn by hand, but lack the computerised preciseness and uniformity of a map today…the cartographers in an effort to make the street names stand out by using large, bold type, have the effect of some disproportionality in the maps…streets look a bit out of alignment with each other (refer also to Eastwood below). Moreover, a critical flaw of the maps is the absence of a distance guide.
Curiously there are some variances in the kinds of type-face used in different maps, some use a Gothic font in contrast to the classic style. ◀ The Redfern-Darlington map at left differs from the type used in most maps. On a few seldom occasions maps make reference to the traditional, nineteenth century British land concept of parishes (eg, the Parish of Gordon)…this seems extraneous as the maps and the book largely follow a division by municipalities.
Gordon Rd – in the days before the upgrade to a highway and renaming
Very many of the street names that were current then survive to this day, although with some surprising little twists – the Pacific Highway, the seminal road leading north from the harbour bridge out of Sydney, was then called Gordon or Lane Cove Road. After Wahroonga it becomes Peat’s Ridge Road. Church Street, Parramatta, traditional haunt of car yards, was at the time alternately called Sydney Road.
Similarly Liverpool Road, starting from Parramatta Road, bears the alternative name “Great Southern Road” on the map (now the Hume Highway). The Princes Highway, the longest road in South-east Australia, is not to be seen! Curiously some suburbs or parts of suburbs are not shown on the maps at all!
The colliery (deepest mine shaft ever sunk in Aust.) in the 1940s (still operating at that time)
The suburb descriptors
One of the most interesting parts of the directory are the brief summaries of individual suburbs. Newtown is described as “thickly populated suburb adjoining the city” (well, no change here!), but its “numerous works and factories” have made way for the suburb’s relatively recent gentrification of modern living spaces☸. St Peters, just to Newtown’s south, is noted in the directory as being “for years the chief brick-making centre for the city” (these days the remaining, redundant kilns and chimneys are a historical curio within the undulating, expansive Sydney Park). Balmain, aside from its “fine public buildings” is “noteworthy as being the location of the deepest coal shaft in the Southern World – 3000 ft” (Balmain Colliery, corner of Birchgrove Rd and Water St, Birchgrove; an exclusive residential estate, Hopetoun Quays, today sits atop the former mine).
The Glebe
The map on page 223 details inner city Darlington (which in 1922 included the locale “Golden Grove”), then as now a suburb most approximate to the University of Sydney…the map shows that the grounds of the University had not at that time encroached onto the eastern side of City Road. The directory describes Darlington as “essentially a workers’ suburb, and being in close proximity to the City, is favoured by workers, who chiefly preside therein”.
Mascot with a racecourse where the airport should be!
Botany and Mascot are old adjoining suburbs in South Sydney. Map 151 (of Botany) and Map 405 (of Mascot) both document the existence at that time of Ascot Racecourse in Mascot…it was located on land adjacent to Botany Bay that now forms part of Sydney Airport⌽. Drummoyne is “a picturesque suburb which has made rapid strides since the tram was opened in 1902”.
Killara on Sydney’s leafy North Shore earns itself a stellar wrap that would make the burghers of the suburb today glow with pride: “(Killara) may justly claim to be both attractive and select. There are many substantial residences, the homes of the well-to-do citizen, and altogether the dwellings are of a superior class” (but not entirely exclusive because prestigious Hunters Hill also had “well-to-do citizens”).
East Subs’ residential paradise
Not to be outdone by the North Shore, the Eastern Suburbs gets even more of a ringing endorsement…the directory goes overboard with Vaucluse, and especially Watson’s Bay, lavishly portrayed as a “romantic looking and historical region, (standing) perhaps highest on the list of Australian ‘beauty spots’ “. Waxing lyrical, the writer ends with a frenzy of capitalisation extolling “the FORTIFICATIONS, LIGHTHOUSES, LIFEBOAT, SIGNAL STATION, and the WORLD-FAMED GAP, near the scene of the wreck of the ill-fated Dunbar” (a disastrous shipwreck occurring off South Head in 1857).
The other side of Strathfield municipality
Strathfield, seven miles west of the GPO, was lauded for its “numerous magnificent and substantially built dwellings (today we wouldn’t hold back, we’d simply say ‘mansions’), the homes of the wealthy citizen”. Strathfield’s maps include the locale of ‘Druitt Town’, now called South Strathfield. The map on page 583 includes the less salubrious side of the municipality (the Government Abattoirs and Rookwood Necropolis), a striking contrast with the world of Strathfield’s croquet-playing set.
Eastwood map, p235: site of future MQ University just to the south of Lane Cove River
On the other side of Parramatta River, Ryde (which in 1922 encompassed present-day West Ryde, North Ryde and Macquarie Park) is described as a “famous fruit-growing district on the Parramatta River”. The present location of Macquarie University in the northern reaches of the Eastwood district (set on generous acreage between Marsfield and North Ryde) was in earlier days the site of largely Italian market gardens and (citrus) orchards, interspersed incongruously with a greyhound racing track. An interesting feature shows a preponderance of street names around the present site of the campus with a martial theme – named after overseas battles (or campaigns) including Balaclava, Waterloo, Crimea, Culloden, Agincourt, Trafalgar, Sebastopol, Khartoum. When Talavera Rd was added later, this brought the number of streets commemorating the Crimean War alone to four.
Mosman, still today a suburb whose affluence makes real estate agents salivate at the prospect of dollar symbols followed by multiple zeros, was ever thus the sought-after destination for the cashed-up aspirational denizen…”(a thriving suburb) situated on a charming arm of Port Jackson…on the abrupt sides nestle red-tiled villas in many quaint styles of architecture…but a few years since the tramway rendered its beauties easily accessible to city men”, etc.⊡
Dee Why
Freshwater (on the Northern Beaches) is depicted as being a “pleasant one-half mile walk” from the Brookvale tram stop at Curl Curl, (comprising) “permanent camps and excellent surf-bathing”. Similarly, close-by Dee Why, reflecting its use as a vacation destination in the day, is a “delightful and charmingly situated sea-side resort (with) a lot to be proud of” – one factor of which presumably is the safety of its beach of which “drowning casualties are up to now unknown”.
Manly, by 1922 already long-established as a “must go-to” day trip for Sydneysiders, is described as a “delightful (ferry) trip down the harbour”…the writer is unrestrainedly fulsome in praise of its virtues, “Few resorts offer such a diversity of attractions – bathing in surf and baths, riding, driving, cycling, and motoring; while golf, cricket, football, la crosse, rifle, rowing, sailing, tennis, croquet, bowling clubs are all in full swing. Open air entertainments and band concerts nightly, and the usual attractions of a popular watering place”.
Vying with Manly for the beachside glamour stakes (then as now) was Bondi (subsumed under Waverley in the directory). Bondi Beach, in the words of Wilson’s, was equipped with baths and municipal “surf sheds” which accommodated 4500 men and 1500 women (clear evidence that 1922 was indeed a pre-feminist era devoid of the slightest pretence to gender equality!)…the (beach) park, the writer went on, “remodelled with the construction of the sea wall” was “now a rendezvous for natural pleasure seekers”. Beach accessible suburbs are always in demand with homebuyers, as underlined in the description of Maroubra – “a favourite place for surf bathers and is advancing with lightning rapidity and they are building fast there” (no hyperbole spared!)
South Kenso & Daceyville
Page 513 illustrates how much can change over lengthy periods of time. In 1922 Sydney’s second university, the University of New South Wales, was still 27 years away, but the future UNSW site was then occupied by Kensington Racecourse✾ and Randwick Park. Nearby was Randwick Asylum, now the Prince of Wales Hospital, and the Randwick Rifle Range, further south on Avoca St, is no more. Anzac Pde runs through the present suburb of Kingsford which in 1922 was called South Kensington with a small part of this suburb forming the locale of Lilyville.
Penrith & the (“world-class”) Nepean
Even suburbs located far the city CBD were given a positive spin by Wilson’s – Penrith, 34 miles from the GPO is described as “the centre of a fertile agricultural and fruit-growing district” only one hour’s journey by rail. The township is “well lighted with electricity and excellent water supply”. Among its attractions are the Nepean River, “world famed for its championship sculling courses, which is recognised by many as the best course in the world” and beautified by its “rugged grandeur of mountain scenery (which draws in) tourists and camping parties”. It also offers short day trips to the “delightful villages” of Mulgoa, Wallacia and Luddenham for shooting and fishing.
The township of Hornsby in the north-west of Sydney is the “centre of a prosperous district”. And with its high elevation (594 ft above sea level), Wilson’s Directory talks up Hornsby as a “metropolitan sanitarium”. The country of its environs “abound with charming drives and magnificent scenery”. Galston is “seven miles north by good metal road” (the “famous Galston ZIG-ZAG”).
Hurstville is depicted as “the centre of a large and progressive district…charmingly situated nine miles south by rail from Sydney”. It includes Mortdale, a township of recent growth, most of the property owned and occupied by the working class”. Also within the Hurstville municipality, the book refers to the suburb of Dumbleton – now called Beverley Hills (conspicuous today for its plethora of restaurants favouring Cantonese Hong Kong and Guangzhou cuisines).
The cover of my edition is long gone but the 1926 edition is very approx.
Pertinent omissions
There is an arbitrariness to the scope of the 1922 directory, it doesn’t extend to most peripheral districts like Liverpool, Blacktown, Campbelltown and Windsor/Richmond, all of which are included within the perimeters of contemporary greater Sydney. This perhaps provides a pointer to the trajectory of the early development patterns and communications of Sydney. Significant population and urban infrastructure reached districts like Penrith and even to parts of the Blue Mountains before it got to Windsor for instance☉.
‘ Gregory’s’ 1st street directory of Sydney 1934
PostScript: Swallowed up by Gregory’s expanding empire of streets? ‘Gregory’s’ before there was a Gregory’s?
In 1934 Gregory’s Street Directory (of Sydney Suburbs and Streets) made its debut, it was not long after this the Wilson’s Street Directory discontinued its annual publication and went out of business. I haven’t been able to ascertain for sure but I suspect a correlation between the two…it is quite feasible that the demise of Wilson’s was linked to the rise of Gregory’s, the latter becoming a household name in metropolitan street directories (and until the advent of GPS an unwaveringly constant companion of the majority of automobile glove-boxes).
Footnote: Taking the Eastwood map (above) as an example of the deficiencies of scale of the directory’s maps, the block between Herring St and Culloden Rd bisected by Waterloo Rd, encompasses the land occupied today by the rump of the campus of Macquarie University. This is some 16 hectares in area, but due to the use of large bold fonts for streets which condenses the sizes of blocks, the area seems quite small on the map!
More nomenclature change: the maps refer to the Municipality of Prospect and Sherwood, later the council was renamed ‘Holroyd’. Prospect retains its identity as a suburb but there is no longer a ‘Sherwood’ locality.
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✲ is Wilson’s Authentic Director, Sydney and Suburbs 1922 an antiquarian book? The key words in any definition of a antiquarian book are ‘old’ and ‘rare’. The perception of ‘what is old’ is subjective and can be related to a given individual’s experience. To me (even way back when I first got hold of it) it was old then and is ancient now! The quality of ‘rareness’ though might be harder to attribute to this book, short of conducting a survey of the remaining second-hand bookshops in this city (these days an increasingly less difficult task to accomplish) I have no earthly idea of how many copies there are in existence. It is certainly the only hardcopy of the publication that I have encountered in its physical state, however I am aware that multiple copies exist online in microfiche form. I suspect then that strictly speaking it probably falls short of the standard definition of antiquarian, so I am happy to go with any variation on a theme that retains that association…quasi-antiquarian, semi-antiquarian, even pseudo-antiquarian!
⌽ Mascot’s Ascot Racecourse (named after the premier horse-racing course in Britain) was the site from where the first aeroplane flight in Sydney took place (1911), [‘Ascot Racecourse, Sydney’, Wikipedia, www.en.m.wikipedia.org]
⊡ appropriately enough to match its elite and exclusive status, Mosman, along with North Sydney, are afforded the only inset maps in “three colors” in an otherwise entirely black-and-white publication (alas these too were casualties of my cavalier treatment of the book during my juvenile years – the tricoloured inset maps of the two suburbs were torn off long ago!)
✾ the maps of the South Sydney area indicate how littered it was with racecourses in 1922…in addition to Kensington and Randwick, there were racecourses at Ascot (see below) and at Eastlakes (Rosebery Racecourse) now occupied by The Lakes Golf Course
☸ the locale of South Kingston gets a nod in the book but these days this name for part of the Newtown suburb has long fallen into disuse and is obsolete
☉ the Penrith and Windsor districts are both roughly equidistance from Sydney (moreover, Windsor was settled as early as 1791, a mere three years after the British takeover of the continent!). Blacktown’s omission is even more puzzling, being considerably closer to the GPO than Penrith!
As a counterweight to the surfeit of 1960s American television that comprised a large slice of my diet of home entertainment, my juvenile literary tastes back then were decidedly more Anglophile. Plunging into the graphic art world of the 1960s comic book I digested everything I came across catering for adrenalin-pumping, red-blooded British boys.
Desperate Dan, ‘The Dandy’
Among these beacons of popular culture were The Beano (which starred Dennis the Menace and Gnasher), The Dandy❈ (featuring Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan), Knockout (Billy Bunter), The Hotspur, The Rover (these two papers were prime examples of the “Boys’ Own Adventure” style of stories) and Eagle with its centrepiece inter-galactic hero ‘Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future’, not to forget Tiger which catered for British schoolboy football mania with the stellar-booted striker ‘Roy of the Rovers’. The individual comics were grouse fun but what I most enjoyed was the comic book annuals of The Beano, etc., where I could indulge myself in reading a whole end-of-year book comprising a cross-section of the comic’s different strips⚀.
At primary school in the sixties the punitive powers-that-be weren’t all that rapt in comic books as reading material…my confiscated copy of ‘Dennis the Menace Bumper Comic’ (before I had a chance to read hardly any of it!) bore witness to that. From what was on offer in the school library, the one children’s book I did take a shine to was Just William, I should say series of books because there 38 (some sources say 39) ‘William’ books in all! All of the books were collections of short stories, with the exception of one in novel form.
Author Richmal Crompton
Just William was the creation of female English author Richmal Crompton (Lamburn). As a child feverishly devouring all the William books I shared with the overwhelming bulk of readers the uncritical assumption that Richmal was a man. How wrong were we all!!! Miss Lamburn was a school mistress (ironically – in an all-girls school!) who contracted polio and spent the rest of her life writing the William series of books as well as 41 adult novels❦.
The character of William (surname: Brown) was apparently based on Richmal’s young nephew Tommy…in the books William is scruffy and untidy in appearance, and given to directness, rebellion and straight talking – which sometimes lands him in strife. He is the leader of his own small gang of school friends who go by the name of “The Outlaws” (comprising his best friend Ginger as well as two other boys, Henry and Douglas). William is 11, an age he stays at, despite the series of books stretching over a period of nearly 50 years! [‘Just William’, Wikipedia entry]
‘William the Dictator’ (1938)
Most of the books follow the ordinary run of events of William and the Outlaws entangling themselves in minor mischiefs, usually involving nothing worse than the ill-conceived idea of painting a terrier blue! But occasionally William strayed into more edgy and outright polemical territory. In the short story ‘William and the Nasties’¤ William’s band emulate Hitler and his fellow National Socialists in order to terrorise a local Jewish sweet-shop owner (featuring in the 1935 collection William the Detective [‘Five Fascinating Facts about Just William’, www.interestingliterature.com].
Just William’s topicality
A good number of the Just William books regularly reflected current events of their day. William the Conqueror (published in 1926) was resonant of European colonial power imperialism leading up to WWI. William The Dictator (1938) reflected the world’s concern with fascism and National Socialism. Similarly, William and the Evacuees (appearing in 1940) was set against the backdrop of WWII. In the post-war period, the superpowers’ preoccupation with the space race inspired new books like William and the Moon Rocket (1954) and William and the Space Animal (1956) [‘Just William’, Wikipedia entry].
Just William book spin-offs
With such popularity that the Just William books attained (12 million sales in the UK alone), they inevitably flowed through to adaptation to other forms – cinema (three films in the 1940s), two television series (one in the mid-1950s and the other in the early 1960s), radio and even theatre. As well, the schoolboy hero spawned a host of Just William merchandise…from jigsaws and board games to cigarette cards, magic painting books and figurines of William [‘Richmal Crompton’s Just William Society’, www.justwilliam.co.uk]
Celebrity fandom: Lennon as William
Some time after the Beatles visited Australasia in 1964 at the height of “Mop-top mania”, I remember hearing that John Lennon had been a fan of the fictional William in his boyhood. Lennon’s devotion to the books prompted him to form his own, real-life version of the Outlaws, moulding his friends Ivy, Nigel and Pete into a Liverpudlian boy foursome. With John of course as leader, the boys engaged in “small acts of defiance and daring” on their local turf [J Edmondson, John Lennon: A Biography (2010)]. The revelation that I had been propelled into the stratospheric company of such a youth icon as Beatle John, only served to magnify my primary school days zeal for all things William Brown!
PostScript: Continental comic book legends
My childhood taste in comics were not exclusively confined to the gold standard of British comics. Like millions of other children I was also captivated by those ancient Gallic tormentors of Roman legionnaires, Asterix and Obelix (Astérix le Gaulois by Goscinny and Uderzo). In equal measure I was in the thrall of Tintin, Hergé’s creation of a globe-roaming Belgian boy-reporter. Each comic album of The Adventures of Tintin was a lesson in political geography embroiling Tintin in high-stakes adventures in a new and exotic land. But as rewarding as the respective adventures of Asterix and Tintin were, in my book nothing quite scaled the same exalted heights of anticipation as did the prospect of dipping into the treasure trove of Just William’s world.
╼╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼╼╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼ ╾╼╾
❈ The originals The Beano and The Dandy were of course far superior to the highly derivative and latter imitations like The Topper and Beezer and Cor!!
⚀ not to be overshadowed, schoolgirls had their own comics and annuals such as Bunty and School Friend Annual
❦ the most accomplished of which was Leadon Hill. The tone of the adult novels was more pessimistic than the Just William series, dealing with themes of divorce and infidelity [Danuta Keen, ‘Not Just William: Richmal Crompton’s adult fiction republished’, The Guardian, 21-Apr-2017]
¤ the name ‘Nasties’ is the result of William’s mishearing of the word ‘Nazis’
In the 1950s and ’60s just about every self-respecting teenager and pre-teen (the term “teeny-bopper” was still awaiting the onset of the ’70s) in New South Wales joined the Argonauts Club. Or so it seemed…I say “just about everyone” because although the Argonauts had mass appeal to children, when I was a kid, strangely its existence barely registered on my consciousness, let alone leading to my actually joining up! There was probably a couple of reasons for this: in that distant, Neanderthal era of communications, my parents habitually never rested the wireless dial on the ABC (they were not part of the ABC ‘listenerati’ as far as I recall). The only time the dial ever got within cooee of the 2BL frequency was when I switched over ritualistically to the ABC during a cricket test match.
Another factor in the Argonauts Show passing pretty much right under the radar for me was that it was a late afternoon children’s radio program (we spelt it ‘programme’ in those more formal, longhand days) and post-school afternoon and nights during my youth were incontestably reserved for television, then still a relatively novel phenomena. When it came to the wireless I was an avid morning listener to commercial networks like 2UE and 2UW. Gary O’Callaghan and “Sammy Sparrow” was more my style in the sixties. I can’t be sure if there had been a Sammy Sparrow radio club but as I’ve still got a Sammy Sparrow badge kicking round the house somewhere which probably confirms it.
ref=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/image-7.jpg”> The CC club pin[/ca
So, no Argonauts Club for me, in its place was the Charlie Chuckles Club. I was a very juvenile member in the 1960s, eagerly looking forward every week to the Sunday Telegraph where “Charlie” brought us contests and drawings to colour in. If you were privileged enough to own one, you coloured them in with that Rolls Royce of coloured pencils, a set of Derwents. In addition I was fully signed up for Nestlés, being in both their Car Club and their Sky Club. Membership of the Sky Club entitled you to a ‘flying wings’ badge and an Air Picture Logbook. The wings and logbook were free but you had to contribute to Nestlés sales figures by buying their small chocolate bars, each one of which contained a picture of different aircrafts you could then paste in the book.
Your (early) ABC ⇓
The Argonauts Club in Australia had a long history, it’s first manifestation in the early 1930s run from Victoria was short-lived. The club was revived in 1941 as a Sydney-based entity and continued until it was disbanded in 1972. Today it lives on in the vast repertoire of fond and nostalgic memories of middle-aged and older Australians.
The Argonauts’ format on radio was a six day-a-week segment, part of a radio program called The Children’s Session, later rebranded as the ‘Children’s Hour’ (the Session’s catchy song which introduced the program each week was very familiar to me). The program’s presenters were assigned Argonaut-themed pseudonyms, foremost among these was former English actor Atholl Fleming who was ‘Jason’. Others were given on-air personas such as ‘Phidas’ (artist Jeffery Smart who had a kids’ art appreciation spot), ‘Argus’ and ‘Icarus’. Founding compere Ida Elizabeth Lea was ‘Argo 1’. Co-compere, Actor John Ewart, was ‘Argo 29’. Guest presenters on the show included Australian poets AD Hope, Mary Gilmore and actor Peter Finch.
⇓1950 ABC blurb for the Argonauts: handily ‘Jason’ had a Sydney address – 55 Market St – so children could write to him!
Young Australians between seven and 17 (club membership was restricted to this age range) were invited to join the Argonauts Club, and join they did! The fifties were the pinnacle of Argonautdom, national membership reached 43,000 in 1953 [Sydney Morning Herald, 19 November 1953]. Upon joining the club youngsters would be allocated an imaginary place on one of the boats commanded by Jason and his Argonauts in their mythical quest for the Golden Fleece. The new member would become one of the “Merry Band of Rowers”, receive an enamel badge, take a pledge and be assigned to a ship with a Greek mythic name and an oar number on the vessel. On the radio segment members were referred to only by their Argonaut name and integer. Interestingly this anticipated the practice of anonymous usernames and avatars, a dominant symbol in this age of the internet [‘The Argonauts Club’, Cat Politics, www.catpolitics.blogspot.com].
Some of the youthful members went on to be prominent names and celebrities (especially in the arts) in their adult lives in and beyond Australia – including:
Tony Morphett (screenwriter) Antiphon 39
John Barron (Premier of South Australia) Charops 37 with Golden Fleece
Margaret Throsby (ABC broadcaster & icon) Androcles 26
Nick Enright (dramatist & playwright) Alastor 35
Michael Dransfield (poet) Eumolphus 24
Mike Walsh (TV presenter & theatre owner) Pontos 7
Anne Summers (writer & columnist) Pytheus 41 with Dragon’s Tooth
Christopher Koch (writer) Gaza 16
Margot Oliver (filmmaker) Herodotus 31
Allan Humphries (ABC weatherman) Ampelus 38
Peter Sculthorpe (composer) Jason 50
Joanna Mendelssohn (academic, art & design) Roxana 38
Rolf Harris (disgraced celebrity painter & entertainer) Echo 32, Perth Club
Barry Humphries (entertainer, writer, cross-dresser) Ithome 32
[Rob Johnson, ‘The Golden Age Of The Argonauts’, The Age, Friday September 13, 1996, reproduced in www.urania.com.au]
17th cent. map of the Argonauts’ route
The Argonauts wireless segment always began with the stirring club song extolling the youthful audience to “Row! Row! Merry oarsmen, Row!” … followed by the greeting from “ship captain Jason”: “Hello Argonauts, good rowing!” – which became a sort of pass or codeword for the Argonaut brethren to greet each other by, much in the way that secret brotherhoods do.
In the Argosy part of the show Argonauts were encouraged to submit drawings, stories and poems to the program, the best of which, presenters would read out aloud on air. ‘Rowers’ could earn marks or points which if accumulated sufficiently, would afford the member certain honours and status such as a Dragon’s Tooth Certificate, a Golden Fleece and the even more meritorious Golden Fleece & Bar. Holders of certificates often were rewarded with prizes, usually books. Children’s stories like Ruth Park’s The Muddle-headed Wombat were read on the radio, many former argonauts have recalled that their life-long listening habits were formed whilst their ears were ‘glued’ to the Children’s Hour [Urania, ibid.]. Stories were serialised on the Argonauts Show, serials such as ‘The Country of the Skull’ were compulsory listening for teenage devotees of the Children’s Hour. Similarly the ‘Melody Man’s’ segment helped foster the musical interests of school-age listeners.
One thing that strikes me is just how many of the ‘Rowers’ remember their Argonaut alias, given how long, and in some cases very long, ago it was! Obviously it was a huge thing in the lives of so many school-age children around the middle third of the 20th century. The number of former members (Panthea 32, Sisyphus 16, Erechtheum 33, Polybus 21, Hecuba 12, Sestus 50, Theseus 44, Equestor 3, etc. etc.) who lovingly comment on ABC Message Boards and similar online platforms is a testimony to this [ABC Message Board HYS – Messages, www.abc2b.net.au].
Trireme
Footnote: A bit pendantic to mention but there was a curious anachronism about the mathematics to do with the ships – triremes in the Heroic era of Greece (when the Argonauts legend is set) had a rowing galley of 170 oarsmen, however none of the ships fabricated by the ABC radio program ever had more than 50 places allocated to them.
The Argonauts radio show was a blessing and even maybe a salvation for many children especially for those living in remote parts of Australia. Many in fact were listening from outside Australia in places as far afield as Port Moresby and Aotearoa! It helped all of them in their isolation, compensating for the loneliness they were experiencing in the country. As one emeritus Argonaut put it, it gave isolated listeners “a sense of belonging to a community”. This was even more the case during World War II for children in rural northern Australia who gained a tremendous solace from the program at a time of anxieties about the possibility of Japanese invasion [Urania, ibid.]. A lot of children who migrated to Australia in the immediate years after the War (in that era more or less exclusively from the UK and Ireland) joined up with the Argonauts and it is clear from their recollections that the program softened the impact somewhat in trying to settle in to a new and unfamiliar land.
Inevitably, the popularity of the Argonauts program waned. In the late sixties the segment was cut to just one hour a week at 5pm on Sunday. In 1972 ABC Radio pulled the plug entirely on the show, apparently because a survey found that most of those still listening were over the age of 40! The inexorable encroachment of television into the lives of children also would have been a massively-significant factor in its ultimate demise [Urania, ibid.].
A few years ago FNFSA (Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive Inc) set up an online form to allow former Argonauts to record their membership details and recollections of the program [www.archfriends.org.au]. The response was impressive. The Argonauts Registration Form lists a vast range of ship names, an armada far greater than Jason’s meagre sum of triremes. The overwhelming response further illustrates what a phenomenal impact the Argonauts had on the formative lives of young Australians from the forties to the early seventies.
The deprivations imposed on Australian families by the Depression followed closely upon by WWII were great on children (as on the community at large). The Argonauts radio program gave youngsters an outlet to escape these harsh realities. It afforded them a chance to imagine themselves as members of a magical, mythical world, it entertained them and it inspired them to delve more into the worthy pursuits of reading and writing. For many of them it became a lifelong habit.
The Beatles flying from London to Hong Kong
The Beatles without drummer Ringo Starr⌧ touched down at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong in early June of ‘64 and booked into a suite recently vacated by the President of Indonesia in the President Hotel in Kowloon. The band only stayed in the British crown colony for a couple of days while they played two concerts at the Princess Theatre (130 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui) on the 9th June…long enough though for Beatle Paul and road manager Neil Aspinall get themselves bespoke tailored suits made up in 24 hours.
Note concert date, incorrectly printed as 10-06-64 (Source. ha.com)
Early boxing bout at the Old Tin Shed (Source: Nat. Lib. of Aust.)
Jimmy N, all alone at Melbourne Airport, end of the fairytale
Source: ha.com
Staid NZ says “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!” (Source: nzherald.co.nz)B&W 4d Milk Bar with mechanical cow & Red Cross-like symbol
Golden Star Milk Bar, Perth (Photo source: M. Coufos)
Olympia, tea and milkshakes (Source: Daily Mail Australia)
Green plaque in limbo!
Hergé with a cinematic clone of his fictional boy hero
In the early Sixties there were 2 French-made film adaptations of Tintin
A parody by Belgian cartoonist Dubus depicting a captive Tintin begging businessman Rodwell for his liberty (Source: Sydney Morning Herald)
Moulinsart have mined the full depths of Tintin’s merchandising potential, many spin-off items priced at the luxury high-end
Genootschap (Source: www.hergegenootschap.nl/)Fmr Australian prime minster Kevin Rudd satirised as Tintin
The “indomitable Gauls” in question are the tribe of Astérix, pint-sized Gallic hero of the long-running eponymous French comic strip with its legion of dedicated fans. Like all classic literary modes, be they of a pop cultural kind or more highbrow, the Astérix comic can be read on more than one level. On the surface the impossible but highly comical escapades of its principal cartoon characters (Astérix and his sidekick Obélix) are much loved and savoured by aficionados across the globe. On another level some observers have detected various allegorical meanings delving within the cartoon series. 
Astérix’s debut, 1959
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Getafix, Druid & grandmaven
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Dubbleosix in ‘The Black Gold’
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Nomenclature of the dramatis personae
When sketching out the framework of their fictional First century BC Gaul Goscinny and Uderzo decided on a formula for the names of each of the groups of characters. The Gauls’ men’s names would end in -ix (the inspiration for this was the real-life Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix who revolted against Julius Caesar’s Rome in 52BC), so we have Vitalstatistix (chief of Astérix’s tribe) and his brother Doublehelix; Assurancetourixൠ (English: Cacofonix) (bard and scapegoat of the village); Geriatrix (oldest member of the village); Unhygienix (village fishmonger); Cétautomatix (village smith) (Eng: Fulliautomatix); Saingésix (wine merchant) (Eng: Alcoholix), etc. etc. The Romans mostly are identified by names with the suffix “-us” (although “Julius Caesar” (Fr: Jules César) appears as a fictional character under his own name)…as the “bad guys” the Romans all tend to have derogatory or demeaning names, eg, Pamplemus (Arteriosclerosus); Cadaverus; Caius Fatuous; Caius Flebitus …you get the idea! 
‘Astérix and the Normans’
‘Astérix and Cleopatra‘
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Black pirate lookout in ‘Astérix in Corsica’
Bravura and the village women in revolt
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‘Astérix and the Great Crossing’: Astérix & Obélix tango with native Americans – more sterotyping of ”the other”࿏ ࿏ ࿏ 
Enter the new generation of Astérix comic artists
By 2011, Uderzo in his eighties, was ready to pass the Astérix baton on to two cartoonists who he had been mentoring. The new team, Jean-Yves Ferri (writer) and Didier Conrad (illustrator), having got the master’s nod of approval, produced Astérix and the Picts in 2013, followed by four more Astérix albums thus far. Ferri and Conrad have even introduced new characters with contemporary and topical resonance, eg, Confoundtheirpolitix, a muckraking journalist, spoofing Julian Assange (Astérix and the Missing Scroll). Unfortunately, since becoming custodians of the world’s most famous cartoon Gaul, Messieurs Conrad and Ferri have missed the opportunity to redress the earlier derogatory depiction of Africans drawn by Uderzo. Instead Conrad tactlessly reprised Uderzo’s Black pirate lookout character in 2015 in ‘Missing Scroll’) with the same racist depiction of Baba with bulbous red lips.
‘Astérix en Bretagne‘
࿏ 
The Astérix industry
As at 2021, with the publication of the 38th Astérix comic book Astérix and the Griffin, the books have sold a staggering combined total of 385 million copies worldwide. They have been translated into 111 languages and dialects including Afrikaans, Welsh, Hebrew, Occitan, Arabic, Urdu and even Latin. Astérix adaptation to the screen comprise 10 animated films and four live action films (of which only Mission Cleopatra merits any accolades at all). There’s the usual accompaniment of merchandising of course and even a theme park, Le Parc Astérix, north of Paris. The comic books’ following spans the globe, in their heartland, France and Belgium, in Germany, Britain, just about everywhere they have been in vogue with the notable exception of the US.
What’s the secret of the Asterix comics’ success?
To M Uderzo the endearing nature of Astérix’s popularity remained a puzzle that he couldn’t fathom, best left to others of which there has been no shortage of opinions aired over the years. Clearly, the character of Astérix is deeply rooted in French popular culture. Two-thirds of the French population had read at least one Astérix books according to a 1969 national survey (‘Going for Gaul: Mary Beard on 40 years of Astérix’, The Guardian, 15-Feb-2002, www.amp.theguardian.com . Some observers put the appeal down to the escapism the comics represented – providing “a world of joyful innocence born in the aftermath of (world) war” ‘My hero: Asterix by Tom Holland‘, The Guardian, 26-Oct-2013, www.amp.theguardian.com . This sentiment is echoed by those who have called the series ”the most brilliant antidote to (the catastrophe of) Vichy in French literature”. Many French people identify with the petit Gaul as a symbol of rebellion, standing up for the “little guy“ against Goliath. To them Astérix’s steely determination to defy the juggernaut of Roman power mirrors the impulse in the hearts of many modern-day French citizens to hold out and not succumb to the all-conquering globalisation driven by the United States⚘. While the French feel an inextinguishable pride in Astérix (“simply French”), to many outsiders the comics personify what they take to be the French character, such as the trait of “infuriating, occasionally endearing contradictions” (John Thornhill, Lunch with the FT: Asterix the national treasure’, Financial Times, 24-Dec-2005, www.financialtimes.com). Another take on Astérix’s popularity beyond the borders of France is that the idea of an heroic “native freedom-fighter” defying Rome struck a resonant tone in countries which had once been subjected to the tyranny of the Roman Empire (Beard). 
Footnote: In Astérix in Belgium, the 24th volume in the series໒꒰, village chief Vitalstatistix, Astérix and Obélix head off to Belgae to tangle with an equally fierce tribe of Belgian Gauls. As usual, the comic is saturated with cultural references, Goscinny weaves in a series of gently digs at the Belgians, spoofing famous national celebrities like Walloon actress/singer Annie Cordy and cyclist Eddie Merckx. The comic’s battle scene is a riff on the historical Battle of Waterloo and Uderzo draws in a cameo appearance by fictional detectives Thomson and Thompson from Belgium’s most honoured cartoon strip Tintin (‘Asterix v24: “ Asterix in Belgium”’, Augie De Blieck Jr, Pipeline Comics , 25-Jul-2018, www.pipelinecomics.com).
‘Down by Law’.
Source: truelocal.com.au
Like most popular commercial trends the mobile ice cream van was an import to these shores. The archetype Mr Whippy emerged from the English Midlands city of Birmingham in 1958, starting with a modest six vans and copying the formula, look and business plan of America’s Mister Softee ice cream trucks (see below). By 1961 the homegrown Mr Whippy fleet on the road had extended to 150 vehicles. Mr Whippy came to Australia when company founder Dominic Facchino shipped six pink and white Commer Karrier vans out to Sydney in 1962. Two years later Mr Whippy vans landed on the shores of New Zealand. By this time Facchino had sold the business which was eventually acquired by industry giant Unilever. By the 1970s the Mr Whippy franchises down under were sold to private operators who varied the vans’ styling and colours (‘1962 Mr Whippy arrives in Australia’, Australian Food TimeLine, www.australianfoodtimeline.com.au). The NZ Mr Whippy operators switched vehicles (to Isuzu Elfs) as well as colour schemes (a common choice became orange and white with a yellow stripe)𝟙. 
The ubiquitous Mister Softee (Photo: Elena Kadvany)
Marchetti Bros ice cream van, 1980s Glasgow
Mr Whippy Clones (Photo: 9Nine.com.au)
Mr Softee’s bête noir Master Softee (Photo: Newtown Pentacle)
early Good Humor vending truck (Source: mahoninghistory.org)
Photo: Manchester Evening News
EP in Ottawa 1957 (Source: Elvis Presley Photos)
Elvis For Beginners
“Elvis the Pelvis” and the “Colonel” (Photo: Getty)
Breda, Netherlands
“Colonel” Tom, 1960
IN a 1966 double-A side single the Beatles sung “we all live in a yellow submarine” but in real life the Fab Four (or at least, 75% of them) did want to live together on a secluded Greek island that they intended to buy. It happened the following year, 1967, the boys were holidaying in the Greek islands and were island-hopping when they came upon an ideal island location. Or at least that was what George, John and Paul thought while on acid the whole time of the “inspection”{𝔸}. The island that their eyes lit on was roomy enough, some 80-acres with a fishing village, a large olive grove and four beaches. In addition to the main island there were four smaller islands surrounding it (one for each Beatle!) 
The prime mover for the island home scheme was Beatle John. At that point in his life Lennon was edging his way into his glorious hippie phase. The Aegean “Arcadia” represented a chance to live communally, an idyllic place where he and the other three celebs could escape the overwhelming pressures and attentions of superstardom. The plan was for the four musicians and the group’s entourage (manager Epstein, the roadies and the inner circle of assistants plus relatives) to all live together on a huge estate on the island hideaway. Paul and George seemed to have been on-song with John at that hazily propitious moment in time…McCartney: (the island was the means of achieving) “a sort of hippie community…where nobody’d interfere with your lifestyle”…Harrison concurred: “we’ll buy the island, we’ll just go there and drop out” (‘The Beatles in Greece’, Daily Beatle,, 03-Jul-2014, www.wogew.blogspot.com).
Team Beatles hit Greece (Source: Greek City News)
Trinity Is (Source: Culture Trip)
Trinity Is is commonly referred to as “guitar-shaped” but with such a profound bend in its “neck” it looks more like one of Pete Townshend’s well-thwacked Fender guitars
Nihonjin cultural lesson for Ringo & John (Source: nippon.com)
Fateful words of the leader
John’s spontaneous act of hubris had profound ramifications as the year unfolded. On the “reunion” visit back to Hamburg, Germany, the Beatles received a death threat. In Japan though fans at concerts were rapturous, Japanese traditionalists voiced opposition to them, and were incensed that the Beatles’ gigs were held at the Nippon Budekan, a Japanese shrine for the war dead. But this was all mere turbulence compared to the tsunami greeting them in Manila, the Philippines’ capital. Moments after the boys stepped foot on the tarmac they were separated from manager Epstein and abruptly whisked away by military types to visit some local plutocrat VIP they didn’t know. The two concerts scheduled for the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium for that day (before a Beatle record combined audience of 80,000) though went exceedingly well.
The Marcoses in 1966 (with an American “friend”) (Photo: Yoichi Yokamoto/National Archives) 
Manhandling the teen icons
But that wasn’t the end of the ordeal for the Beatles and their minders. The authorities suddenly discovered that some of the group’s flight paperwork was awry and roadie Mal and press officer Tony Barrow were forced to leave the safety of the Beatles’ KLM plane and return to the terminal to make amends. So the Beatles’ jet sat idly on the tarmac for another 40 minutes before it was finally allowed to depart. When they arrived back in London (via a stopover in India) the Beatles vowed never to return to the Philippines – an oath that all four musicians kept.
Talking it down…or up? (Photo credit: AP)
▪ ▪ ▪ Cliff Richard: not wholesome enough for Israel? 
Retro McCartney sparking a mini-Beatlemania revival in Tel Aviv (Source: abc.com.au)
ʰᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ ¹⁹⁶¹ ⁽ᵖʰᵒᵗᵒ﹕ ᵍᵉᵗᵗʸ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾
ˢᵉᶜᵒⁿᵈ ᶠᶦᵈᵈˡᵉ ᵗᵒ ᴿᵒʳʸ ˢᵗᵒʳᵐ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᴴᵘʳʳᶦᶜᵃⁿᵉˢ ⁽ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᵇᵉᵃᵗˡᵉˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ.ᶜᵒᵐ⁾
ᴷˡᵃᵘˢ, ᴬˢᵗʳᶦᵈ & ˢᵗᵘ, ¹⁹⁶¹ ⁽ᴾʰᵒᵗᵒ: ᴳᵉᵗᵗʸ ᴵᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾
ᵀᵒᵖ ᵀᵉⁿ ᶜˡᵘᵇ . ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴷ & ᴷ ᴴᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ
ˢᵗᵃʳ⁻ᶜˡᵘᵇ
ᴷᵃᶦˢᵉʳᵏᵉˡˡᵉʳ. ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴮᵉᵃᵗˡᵉˢ ᴮᶦᵇˡᵉ!
ᴴᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ ᴮᵉᵃᵗˡᵉˢ ʷᶦᵗʰ ᴳᵉⁿᵉ ⱽᶦⁿᶜᵉⁿᵗ ⁽ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴾᶦⁿᵗᵉʳᵉˢᵗ⁾
🏴 their booking agent Allan Williams was getting three times what the musicians were!
⥉ Lennon & Shotton (Source: forums.stevehoffman.tv)
⥉ The Quarrymen performing in 1957 (pre-Paul & George)
In 1958 Lennon, having abjectly failed his ‘O’ Level exams at Quarry Bank High, shuffled off to Liverpool Art School. Lennox’s art school period was a key phase in the formation of the scruffy “Teddy boy’s” relationships, meeting his first girlfriend Thelma Pickles, his first wife Cynthia (née Powell) and close friend and early Beatle Stu Sutcliffe whose gifted artistic merit influenced him greatly. John formed other friendships at the art school including with Jeff Mohammed who took on a older brother sort of role in helping John try to cope with the trauma of his mother Julia’s sudden death; and with Bill Harry who went on to create Mersey Beat , a local music publication which helped the band gain early traction in Liverpool music circles. Harry also published Lennon’s poems and drawings in the newspaper.
⥉ Allan Williams (Source: Meet the Beatles for Real)
The Cavern Club in Liverpool was synonymous with the early Beatles who debuted in its damp, dingy warehouse cellar as the Quarrymen in 1957⦑2⦒. Ringo Starr then in another skiffle band had already made his first appearance in the club a week earlier (Ringo went on to join Liverpool’s top ‘beat’ band prior to the Beatles’ ascendancy – “Rory Storm and the Hurricanes”). A key Cavern figure was its longtime emcee/DJ Bob Wooler, instrumental along with Bill Harry in helping arrange Brian Epstein‘s first visit to the Cavern to see John, Paul, George and Pete play.
⥉ Pete & Mona (Photo: John Smart/Associated Newspapers/Shutterstock)
⥉ Neil Aspinall filling in for George in the “Fab Four” lineup (Source: independent.ie)
⥉ Paul & Bodyguard Mal return from safari in Kenya
⥉ Derek Taylor (Source: Pinterest.co.uk)
⥉ George Martin (Source: USA Today)
𝔉𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯 ~ 𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞 𝔰𝔶𝔪𝔟𝔬𝔩𝔦𝔠 𝔭𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔥𝔦𝔣𝔱
⚔️ 𝒮𝒸𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒻𝒾𝓁𝓂 𝑜𝒻 𝐵𝓊𝓇𝓃𝓈 𝓋 𝒥𝑜𝒽𝓃𝓈𝑜𝓃 𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 (𝒩𝐹𝒮𝒜/𝒜𝒮𝒪 𝑀𝑜𝒷𝒾𝓁𝑒) ⚔️
𝔖𝔶𝔡𝔫𝔢𝔶 𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔲𝔪 (𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔑𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔩 𝔏𝔦𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔯𝔶 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔲𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞)
𝔍𝔬𝔥𝔫𝔫𝔶 ℜ𝔞𝔶 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔯𝔱 𝔞𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔲𝔪, 1957 (𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔉𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔣𝔞𝔵 𝔄𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔰)
𓂀 𝓣𝓱𝓮 “𝓕𝓪𝓫 𝓕𝓸𝓾𝓻” 𝓪𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓸𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓲𝓷 𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓭 1964 
Leichhardt Stadium in Sydney’s inner west never managed to capture the limelight of Rushcutters Bay but was still very popular in its time, it’s Thursday night boxing events regularly ”packed to capacity” (‘Packing a punch’, James Cockington, 01-Jul-2009, SMH, www.smh.com.au). Leichhardt was Sydney pro boxing’s ‘Medina’ to Sydney Stadiums’ ‘Mecca’, together, this brace of stadiums was the home of professional pugilism in Sydney in the early to middle part of the 20th century. The suburban stadium on Balmain Road, Leichhardt, first opened its doors in 1922. The two Sydney stadiums featured many of the popular active Aboriginal fighters, typically stepping up from the touring boxing tents to try to earn their livelihoods inside their square rings, including Ron Richards, Jack Hassen, George Bracken, the Sands brothers and many more. Other names regularly featuring on Leichhardt Stadium’s draw cards included Jack Carroll, Jimmy Kelso, ‘Kid’ Rooney and Hockey Bennell.
ᗝ 𝒱𝒶𝓊𝒹𝑒𝓋𝒾𝓁𝓁𝑒 + 𝒶 𝒮𝒾𝓃𝑜–𝐼𝓇𝒾𝓈𝒽 𝒹𝓇𝒶𝓌 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝒹? 
𝐹o𝓇𝓂𝑒𝓇 𝒷o𝓍𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝓇o𝒹𝓊𝒸𝑒𝒹 o𝓃 𝒮𝓎𝒹𝓃𝑒𝓎 𝒮𝓉𝒶𝒹𝒾𝓊𝓂’𝓈 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒶𝓁 𝒻𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉, 𝟫th June 𝟣𝟫𝟩0 (𝒫𝒽o𝓉o: 𝒮𝑀𝐻) 
◥ 𝓦𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓲𝓽𝔂 𝓯𝓾𝓷 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓴 (𝓢𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓬𝓮: 𝓦𝓸𝓸𝓵𝓵𝓪𝓱𝓻𝓪 𝓜𝓾𝓷. 𝓒𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓬𝓲𝓵) 
‘Coniston’ Ashfield, Bea’s first home (Source: hafs.org.au)
Bea with men of the press, circa 1946
Bea’s recital services board
Main Reading Room, NSW State Library (Flickr)
Bea in the driving seat? (Photo: Daily Telegraph)
“Bee in charcoal”, Roderick Shaw (Source: portrait.gov.au)
(Sydney Morning Herald)
▙ Publicity shot: Dixie was popular with the ladies, married 6 times (all his wives met him via the phone at his pole-sitting events) (Source: Dayton Daily News)
▙ Luke the Stylite
▙ Georgian hermit headquarters (Source: Vintage News)
The interior was dimly-lit, the furniture well-used and the place definitely not decorated in the fashion of Old Heidelberg. I recall music playing however it was not a Mario Lanza record but a scrawny-looking band out the back playing something that wasn’t the “Drinking Song’ from the 1954 movie bearing the hotel’s name.
The story of Robin Hood is one of those enduring English chronicles from the distant past, which like the Arthurian legend has continually provided rich fodder for the screen. The basic story is an all-too familiar one with universal appeal: a virtuous Saxon nobleman in Mediaeval England, fleeced out of his estate and title by powerful villains, responds by mobilising an heroic and effective resistance against the status quo, on the way freeing the poor and oppressed peasantry from their yokes. That the legend is known throughout the Anglophone world and Europe, is testimony to the fact has there been so many film and television goes at retelling the legend – starting with the first silent one in 1908.
It wasn’t until the 1922 silent version with Robin Hood played by the lead Hollywood actor of the day Douglas Fairbanks Sr that the Robin Hood movie achieved serious cinematic recognition. Fairbanks’ athletic prowess and spectacular stunts elevated the movie and captured the imagination of audiences. With a budget of nearly one million dollars (one of the biggest in the silent era) the 1922 Robin Hood helped to establish the ‘swashbuckler’ sub-genre in cinema.
The next version of note, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is considered by many to be the best movie on the iconic Saxon hero. Errol Flynn in the title role brings the energy and verve to the film that largely accounts for The Adventures of Robin Hood’s standing as one of the great swashbucklers of Hollywood. As one critic observed: “Flynn’s Robert of Locksley, dripping with sexuality, good humor, panache and swagger, captures not only the derring-do character, but also the more dramatic side of his fight for injustice” (Susan King, ‘Classic Hollywood: 100 Years of Robin Hood movies’, LA Times, 12-May-2010). The use of (Technicolor) colour, still not widely used at that time, added to the film’s freshness and appeal.
One of two 1991 feature film versions of Robin Hood was the much hyped Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves which did well at the box office but was not critical well received. Kevin Costner was lambasted for his less than credible impersonation of an English noble as was the screenplay, though Alan Rickman won plaudits for his deliciously hammy Sheriff of Nottingham — “wicked, droll, sly, eye-rolling, witty one-liners and put-downs” (Roger Ebert). The second film entitled simply Robin Hood, starring another Irish thespian Patrick Bergin, tries for more modern touches. The movie tones down the traditional “rob from the rich, give to the poor”, socialist-leaning revolutionary Robin, opting for a more out and out impudent anti-authoritarian (Tom Jicha, SunSentinel, 13-May-1991). Another innovation is the replacement of Hood’s traditional nemeses, the Sheriff of Nottingham and Sir Guy of Gisborne, with two new baddies, Sir Miles Folcanet and Baron Deguerre. The Maid Marian role in RH adaptions are usually passive objects of attention, but this film has Uma Thurman attempting to redress this by actively participating in the climactic sword fight, (one critic was dismissive of this as “a contrived nod to present-day feminism”, Tom Shales, The Washington Post, 13-May-1991).
The 1950s was the first decade that television really impacted on the public and popular culture in advanced Western countries…for countless viewers in Britain, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, this meant a new opportunity to indulge in the perennial classic adventure story of the Lincoln-green set. In those pioneering days in the new medium Associated Television’s Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-59) was compulsory viewing in grainy black and white. Richard Greene was a reassuringly efficient “righter of wrongs” and appropriately English in pedigree. His presence as Hood aided by interesting stories and an enticingly catchy theme song, saw the production through 143 episodes. The success of the Greene “Robin Hood” inspired a new wave of TV series on the Nottinghamshire archer extraordinaire from the Seventies on🅐. The pick of these is probably the 1984 series Robin of Sherwood which had the novelty of two different incarnations of Robin Hood. The ITV series was widely praised as a “gritty, authentic production design with real-life history, 20th century fiction and pagan myth” (‘Robin Hood’, Wikipedia). World expert on Robin Hood literature Stephen Knight described it as “the most innovative and influential version of the myth in recent times”. A haunting soundtrack by Clannad helped the “moody and atmospheric” vibe of Robin of Sherwood. Personally, I’m a bit partial to a more recent Robin Hood series (2006-09), largely for Keith Allen’s high camp, deeply sarcastic performance, replete with a range of exaggerated often incredulous facial gestures as the Sheriff of Nottingham (one episode spoofs the Bob Marley song in its title, “Who Shot the Sheriff?”).
So deeply embedded in film and popular culture is the Robin Hood story that inevitably someone would lampoon it and that somebody was Mel Brooks in his 1993 parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Brooks makes fun of other (serious) iterations of RH like Costner’s Prince of Thieves. In fact Brooks has already roamed into this territory in television in 1975 with his sitcom on Hood and co, When Things Were Rotten. Both were replete with one-liners, sight gags, literal humour and anachronisms (something the non-humorous versions were also very prone to).
One of the funniest alternative iterations of Robin Hood came out of late Eighties children’s television. Creator Tony Robinson‘s Maid Marian and her Merry Men as the title suggests inverts the roles of the legend…Marian is the de facto leader and the brains of the Sherwood Forest outlaws, while Robin, an incompetent ex-tailor (“Robin of Kensington”) is a complete airhead. Another comic inversion of the traditional legend seen here and in Men in Tights is the presentation of Robin as being far from heroic.
Postscript: Political Hood The Adventures of Robin Hood TV series was clearly intended as good fun, a vehicle of commercial escapist entertainment, nonetheless buried in the storyline are snatches of political commentary on contemporary events in the UK during the strait-jacketed postwar decade after 1945. An analogy can be made between Robin’s return from serving in the Crusades to find his property and titles confiscated, and the shabby treatment of British veterans returning from the WWII conflagration. The Adventures‘ political messages were not confined to contemporary Britain. The TV program was the brainchild of a blacklisted US producer Hannah Weinstein. Weinstein hired leftist American writers such as Ring Lardner Jr similarly persecuted by the McCarthyism scourge in the US. Lardner and the others were not slow to draw comparisons between the fictional Robin Hood’s plight and their own ongoing victimisation by the zealous American Right. According to Lardner, writing for the show afforded “plenty of opportunities for oblique social comment on (the assault on liberties in) Eisenhower-era America” (Allen W.Wright, ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood 1950s TV Series Page 2’, (Sept 2005), Robin Hood: Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood, Spotlight, www.boldoutlaw.com).
[R] 17-y-o Roy Race on his ‘debut’
Roy on the field epitomises fair play (often in contrast to his opponents), his personality embodies all the virtues of “sportsmanship, etiquette and why a fractured ankle, a broken rib and an early case of polio should never stand between a determined team captain and victory in FA cups” (McGinty). Roy’s Rovers competed against the other teams in the League—like their arch-rivals Tynefield United—who never come close to ever matching up to the ethical pedigree of Melchester Rovers.
Roy is beyond the slightest doubt the absolute gun player in Melchester’s colours, however it’s not quite a one man band. He gets stirling assistance from teammates, most notably from Johnny Dexter the team’s “hard man” and goalie Gordon (“the safest hands in soccer”) Stewart (cf. Gordon Banks).
By the early 1990s, with the inevitable ebbing of ROTR’s popularity, the publication folded. However, at several intervals, the comic, phoenix-like, has been resurrected for the diehearts, most recently in 2018.
The story line is pure farce, supposedly detailing the experiences of communist East European football player Ricky Lenin (Alexei Sayle in a heavily accented voice which appears to be channelling his Balowski family character from The Young Ones) at Midlands club Felchester Rovers. Lenin is portrayed as a “tactical mastermind/balding midfield maestro” but more accurately might be described as thick as two planks. Through constant rhetorical flourishes Lenin lectures the team on dialectical materialism, the inevitable destiny of Felchester Rovers football club*, but he is exposed as a faux Marxist for covertly trying to enrich himself through football connexions. Lenin launches a proletarian coup which removes the club’s manager Ray Royce (a transparent pun on Roy Race), and then himself has to ward off a challenge from Felchester’s “burly defender” Stevie Stalin and “hard nut” henchman Terry Trotsky.
In the episode where Felchester travel to Germany to play Borussia Mönchenpastry (cringe!), they encounter diabolical German tabloid publisher Max Gut, a thinly disguised Robert Maxwell. Piss-taking comes fast and furious in LOTR, another episode involving Ricky putting out feelers for a move across the Irish Sea to represent the Republic of Ireland national whose team sheet reads like the United Nations with not a solitary Gaelic name in it! One of the team apparently qualified for Ireland due to having once read a James Joyce novel!
From go to whoa it’s a pun bonanza, reminding me a lot of those exquisite Sixties radio comedies like I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. Felchester’s Euro opponent is Swiss club FC Toblerone (groan!). Their arch-rivals in the English comp is the thuggish Crunchthorpe United, however the Felchester team itself triumphs in the Cup employing the same tactics of illegal crunching tackles and skilless brawn. Needless to say that in the computer football universe, Felchester Rovers would be Melchester’s Crunchthorpe United.
(Archival image: Stadtverein Braunau)
(Photo: The Guardian)
Cohen & Roney 1952: taking the 1st steps for audio booksellers (Photo: Lib of Congress Blogs)
The versatility of audio books is behind its blossoming into an integral part of the literature landscape for ‘readers’. ABs can be integrated easily into one’s life in all manner of ways that are not confined to a sedentary or stationary state – while exercising, walking, jogging, cycling, in the gym, while cooking, doing housework, driving a car, commuting, etc [‘Audiobooks: The rise and rise of the books you don’t read’, (Clare Thorp), BBC, 06-Jan-2020, www.bbc.com].
Banned, but not eliminated
Other cities were quick to follow NYC’s example, Including Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and New Orleans, with pinball bans extending across the country. Other cities like Washington DC didn’t go as far but prohibited children from playing it during school hours. The inevitable consequence of banning was to drive pinball activity underground (resurfacing in places like the back rooms of ‘porno’ book shops). Thus marginalised, pinball become “part of rebel culture”⧆ (Klein).
When testosterone-charged visitors to coastal Belgian towns began strolling around the shops and cafes bare-chested in 2015, locals objecting to this aesthetic blight on the landscape took to labelling the offending blow-ins “Tarzan tourists”. References to that archetypical, mesomorphic white hero of amorphous jungle habitats, Tarzan, have permeated popular culture for over a century. Since the time pencil-sharpener salesman Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) turned his hand to writing his first story in 1912, the aura of Tarzan, carefully cultivated by the author into a cultural icon, has extended from pulp fiction, to various media including comic strips, films (over 90!), radio shows, TV series, Broadway musicals, computer games and a raft of commercial merchandise
Mention “The Ten Commandments” to cinephiles and almost invariably they’ll think of the 1956 epic with Chuck Heston as the resolute Moses. But that was Cecil B DeMille’s second attempt at filming the Old Testament story, or his (Cold War-inspired) interpretation of it at least. Back when Hollywood was still in it’s adolescence, 1923, DeMille made a silent version of The Ten Commandments, in black and white with some sequences in Technicolor.
(Image: www.bestplaces.com)
(Source: G-N Dune Center)
(Photo:www.fws.gov)
(Photo: https://nypost.com)
⬆ Kirshner, King & Goffin
Kings of the chocolate business{b}
The Quaker philosophy incorporates a commitment to social reform and the pursuit of justice and equality. This ethos informed their business practices, Cadbury’s and other Quaker firms established a reputation for being honest and reliable. This gave them a competitive advantage over their non-Quaker competitors. The perceived ethical nature of Quaker confectionery firms was rewarded with customer loyalty. John Cadbury and his successors were among the first to set a firm (and fair) price – this was a clear departure from the hitherto customary retail practice of point-of-sale price bartering [ibid.]{c}.
Democratising cocoa and drinking chocolate Cocoa and drinking chocolate had been around in England since the 1650s but before Cadbury’s came along it had been a luxury beverage for the elite. John Cadbury’s improvements to the product gave it more varieties and made it a more palatable drink, and after the Gladstone government reduced taxes on imported cocoa beans in the mid 1850s, the cost of cocoa became within the reach of the greater majority of Britons. Cadbury’s introduction of unadulterated “cocoa essence” in the 1870s coincided with a government crackdown on the widespread adulteration of food in the UK. The upshot was free ‘plugs’ for the purer Cadbury product and a boost in fortunes for the Quaker business [‘The Story of Cadbury. Early Days – A One Man Business’, www.cadbury.com.au].
(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
The Bourneville factory ⤊
(photo courtesy of www.historyworld.co.uk)
Rowntree’s later created the consumer favourites ‘Kit Kat’, ‘Aero’ and ‘Smarties’, and went on its own expansion journey, merging with the Halifax “Toffee King” Mackintosh in 1969 (which added ‘Quality Street’ and ‘Rolo’ to its product inventory). Rowntree’s (rebranded Rowntree Mackintosh Confectionery) then acquired Australian chocolate manufacturer Hoadley’s (1972) which gave RMC Hoadley’s ‘Violet Crumble’ bar.
Ft-Note: Pseudo-Quakers The runaway commercial success of Quaker food and confectionery companies did inevitably lead to imitation. A US food manufacturer in the 1870s introduced “Quaker Oats” to the cereal market…on the packets and in product advertising are images of a man dressed in Quaker garb, despite the US company having NO connexion whatsoever with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers){i}. The company states that it chose the “Quaker Man” as its figurehead “because the Quaker faith projected the values of honesty, integrity, purity and strength”, [‘Quaker Oats website’, (FAQ 2009), www.quakeroats.com] (an early example of retail “identity theft’ to try to cash in commercially on the high regard, ethically, Quaker businessmen were held in).
PostScript: Third World cocoa beans and the Quaker chocolatiers – an uncomfortable association In the late 19th century the Cadbury brothers and other British chocolate-makers started exporting a large proportion of their cocoa beans from the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe (Portuguese West Africa)…by the turn of the century this amounted to 55% of Cadbury’s total supply of beans. Although Portugal had abolished slavery in its colonies, the rigid labour contract system which replaced left the African labourers working the plantations in a de facto slave status. This uncomfortable connexion of an ethical Quaker business to neo-slavery prompted one of the managing grandsons, William Cadbury, to commission an investigation of worker conditions in São Tomé and Príncipe in the 1900s. Cadbury eventually found an alternative source of cocoa beans (the Gold Coast) and organised a boycott of the two Portuguese plantations, but not before he had to fend off a spate of newspaper attacks on Cadbury’s alleging that it profited from the labour of slaves [‘William Cadbury, Chocolate, and Slavery in Portuguese West Africa’, (Lindsey Flewelling), 11-May-2016, https://britishandirishhistory.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/william-cadbury-chocolate-and-slavery-in-portuguese-west-africa/].
⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓⍓
Greater Union (henceforth GUT) was involved in all forms of the movie business – production, distribution and exhibition. The Bondi Studios made a few silent films in the late 1920s, like The Adorable Outcast and most notably The Term of His Natural Life which cost £60,000 and bombed badly at the box office [‘Cinesound Productions’, Sydney Morning Herald, 06-Aug-1934 (Trove).
Stuart F Doyle, GUT managing director, appointed former film publicist Ken G Hall as general manager of the newly formed Cinesound Productions. Two more Cinesound studio locations were opened, one at nearby Rushcutters Bay and the other at St Kilda (in Melbourne). Over an eight-year period (1932-40), with Hall at the helm as producer-director, Cinesound produced 17 feature films (16 of which were directed by Hall). The first of the sequence, On Our Selection, revolved round the adventures of one of Australian cinema’s most popular characters, Dad Rudd and his family. The film, benefiting from a new sound-recording system invented in Tasmania, was a box office triumph for Cinesound, earning £46,000 in Australia and New Zealand by the end of 1933, providing a tremendous fillip for the fledgling studios [Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900-1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, (1998)].
Cinesound and Hall exploited On Our Selection’s popularity with a series of sequels, Grandad Rudd, Dad and Dave Come to Town and Dad Rudd, MP. Of these the ‘Dad and Dave’ entry especially proved a hit, matching the profitability of the original movie.
↗ Ken G Hall (centre) with American actress Helen Twelvetrees during filming of ‘Thoroughbred’ (photo: Mitchell Library)
⬆️ Australian cinema’s long tradition of Bushranger flicks beginning with the original 1906 feature film
With the outbreak of world war Cinesound called a halt on feature film production. During the war years the studios directed all energies into making newsreels, initially covering the war against Japan and beyond that on all aspects of Australiana.Newsreel rivalry: Cinesound Vs Movietone: the focus on newsreels by Cinesound was not a novel innovation. From its outset Cinesound produced newsreels – short documentary films containing news stories and items of topical interest – in competition with the rival Fox Movietone company. The two newsreels differed in content, Cinesound concentrated on Australian only topics while Movietone covered a mix of international and national news✤.
Newsreels in Australia prior to 1956 occupied a unique place in media and communications. Before the introduction of television, cinema-goers’ exposure to newsreels (part of the “warm-up” for the main feature) were the only images Australians saw of their land – the footage of elections, natural disasters and other such events [Waverley Lib, loc.cit.]. Thus, newsreels like the Cinesound Review, with its distinctive red kangaroo symbol, were an important source of news and current affairs, and were an integral part of the cinema program [‘Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreels’, (ASO) (Poppy De Souza), www.aso.gov.au]✙. According to Anthony Buckley, the newsreels reflected Ken G Hall’s “pride and spirited nationalism” [Buckley, A, ‘Obituary: Ken G. Hall’, The Independent (London), 17-Feb-1994].
Ken G Hall in his autobiography contended that Cinesound Productions never lost money on any feature films. Some did very well – crime drama The Silence of Dean Maitland, for instance, for an outlay of £10,000 returned takings of more than £70,000 in Australia and the UK [Graham Shirley & Brian Adams, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years, (1989)]. One Cinesound movie however, strictly-speaking, probably did lose money…Roy Rene’s single venture into celluloid, Strike Me Lucky, in which ‘Mo’s’ humour, robbed of it’s spontaneity in live performance didn’t translate well to the big screen and was reflected in negative critical reviews and at the box office [Film Review: ‘Strike Me Lucky’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19-Nov-1934 (Trove)]. Despite Hall’s faith in the studios’ films, from 1937 there was a decline in box office returns (prompting GUT head Doyle to resign). Another (external) factor affecting Cinesound profitability occurred in 1938 with the passing of the Cinematograph Films Act in the UK…under this legislation Australian films no longer counted as local, their removal from the British quota meant a loss of market for Cinesound and other Australian movie producers [Waverley Lib, loc.cit.].
⬆️ ‘Smithy’ star Ron Randell later pursued a career in Hollywood
The ‘Aggie’ of Aggie Grey’s was born Agnes Genevieve Swann✲, the offspring of an English pharmacist from Lincolnshire and his Samoan wife, a local taupou (a ceremonial maiden). Business seemed to be in Miss Swann’s DNA – in her early twenties she opened her first club in Apia, the Cosmopolitan Club, and in 1933 started a Samoan private tourism company, Grey Investments (later called the Grey Investments Group).
The Hotel in 2006 ⍐
What drew me to Bungan this summer was not however the pristine waters of its uncrowded beach, but one particular unusual building standing out high up on Bungan Head…Bungan Castle, which this year celebrates 100 years since it was constructed.
∆photo (ca.1928): National Library of Australia
photo: NSW Archives & Records ∆
Artists’ Mecca? museum? both?
BF – before Felix…
Felix, the anthropomorphic black cat with the massive white eyes and the broadest of broad grins, was not the first animated cat to grace the screens of movie theatres. That honour went to a mouser called Krazy Kat, the conception of cartoonist George Herriman…first appearing as a comic strip character in the New York Evening Journal, Krazy Kat debuted on movie screens in 1916 in a silent short featuring the eponymous cat and his brick-throwing ‘frenemy’ Ignatz Mouse.
Master Tom, prototype
Not long after, Felix had his beginnings in the prototype form of Thomas Cat. In 1917 Australian cartoonist Pat Sullivan produced a short, animated silent film about a black cat, The Tail of Thomas Cat, through his own New York studio. By 1919 ‘Thomas Cat’ had morphed into ‘Master Tom’ in the short Feline Follies. After a follow-up entry (The Musical Mews) again starring Master Tom, Sullivan’s third short of 1919 (Adventures of Felix the Cat) changed the name of the ‘Tom’ character to the name he would henceforth be universally known as – Felix. Despite the seemingly clear lineage between Thomas Cat and Felix, some American animation historians discredit the connexion, citing Thomas Cat’s non-anthropomorphised nature, the uncertainty of his fur colour, the fact that he loses his tail fighting a rooster without ever being able to recover it (cf. the difference with Felix who can magically transform his tail into other forms) [‘Felix the Cat – McGill CS’, www.cs.mcgill.ca].
Conflicting stories of Felix’s origin
Sullivan maintained all along that he was the creator – on a visit back to Australia in 1925 he told the Melbourne Argus newspaper that the idea for Felix had come to him when his wife brought a stray cat into Sullivan’s studio one day (as was her wont). On other occasions he said that the inspiration came from a Rudyard Kipling story, ‘The Cat that Walked by Himself’. For the name of his cartoon creation Sullivan explained that he had drawn on his native Antipodes… Australia Felix was a term in use from the 19th century to describe the western districts of the state of Victoria (also later the name of an Australian novel by Henry Handel Richardson). Another source for the cat’s name came from a contemporary fellow cartoonist – appearing in print in 1936 the cartoonist affirmed that Sullivan told him that he derived the name from a black West Indian-born boxer living and fighting in Australia called Peter Felix whom Sullivan was acquainted with (the animator being a big enthusiast of boxing) [Pat Sullivan – I made the cat and the cat made me’, www.vixenmagazine.com].
Contesting Felix
Not surprisingly the strongest argument for endorsing Sullivan as Felix’s true creator comes from Australia, the animator-cum-entrepreneur’s homeland. Australian cartoonists, including some who knew Sullivan, have drawn attention to a comment during an interview when he visited Sydney in 1925 (quoted in the local papers): Sullivan stated that his practice was to ‘do the “key drawings” and leave the rest to a staff’ [Vixen Magazine, op.cit.]. Moreover, the Australian Cartoonist Association have argued that the distinctive lettering style of Sullivan can be detected on the Felix artwork, eg, in Feline Follies (Felix’s first incarnation), the lettering used matches examples of Sullivan’s handwriting. Additionally, certain speech bubbles in the short uses expressions and terms which have distinctive Australian usage, especially ” ‘Lo Mum! “. Australian animators, argue that had Otto Messmer conceived and created the prototype Felix film, as he claimed in 1977, he would have used the traditional American form of shorthand for mother, ‘mom’ (not ‘mum’) and he would not have dropped the ‘h’ in ‘hello’ which is more characteristically Australian or British◰. [‘Reclaiming Felix the Cat in the Picture Gallery’, (Judy Nelson, Exhibition, 1-May to 7-Aug 2005, State Library of NSW, Sydney), www.pandora.nla.gov.au]
Animator Ub Iwerks drawing animated rodent extraordinaire, M Mouse ▶PostScript A: Felix, a template worth copying One green-eyed embryonic animator in the US in the mid-Twenties very much aware of Felix’s ascending star was Walt Disney. Disney’s earliest innovation in the field was his Alice Comedies where he inserted a human figure “Alice of Wonderland” into an animated landscape. As foil to Alice, the main animated figure in these shorts was Julius, a cat with a particularly strong resemblance to Felix…basically a clone of Felix [‘Felix the Cat’, (Ian Gordon), St James Encyclopaedia of Popular Culture (2002)]. Disney’s later followed up Julius with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (a product he ultimately lost creative control of) and then lucked in again, hitting the jackpot with Mickey Mouse…Oswald and Mickey were both different animals to Felix but again the physical similarities to the (original) Felix are there – albeit with reshaped faces and ears.
Among the minutiae of miscellaneous info contained in the directory’s index, one item that got my attention was a list of the consuls and overseas government agents in Sydney in 1922. Interesting to see that at that time there were consulate offices established in Sydney for tiny international entities like Latvia, Nicaragua, Columbia, Ecuador, Honduras, Serbia and the Czechoslovak Republic, but being not yet four years after the cessation of the hostilities of WWI, no consulates for the countries deemed by the victors to be the “guilty parties”, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey. So much for moving on!!!…and we all know where that path catastrophically led!
Ad for the Orient Line
Royal Autos in ‘Wilson’s’
The original (1907) Challis House
The “Half-way House” of Blue Mts
Katoomba, the “largest of the mountain tourist resorts” with its “wide choice of charming and picturesque views”. Despite being 68 miles from Sydney, “horses and vehicles are always obtainable” – as this advertisement (left) on page 706 offering trips to the famous Jenolan Caves in luxury Buicks testifies.
Nearby Leura is “celebrated for the beauty of its great showpiece – the Leura Falls…in themselves alone worth the trip to the mountains”. With unfettered enthusiasm the writer goes on to laud the town in extravagant terms: “the place has been so well laid out as a tourist resort that it offers a perfect kaleidoscope of the views”. The object of Wilson’s Director is clearly to sell the Mountains to visitors from Sydney which synergises nicely with the numerous accommodation ads (funny that!) that appear such as this one (right) for Leura’s Hotel Alexandria (still in business in 2018).
The spa town of Medlow Bath, is “a pretty little village, rising rapidly in tourist favour”. The tiny Upper Mountains town is famous for its Hydro-Majestic hotel resort where in the day the better-off citizens of Sydney would periodically retreat to benefit from its therapeutic mineral waters and clean mountain air. Built by retailer Mark Foy (Jr) as a hydropathic sanatorium, the “Hydro-Maje” in the Twenties was where the cream of Sydney’s elite flocked on the weekends to socialise.
Jenolan tourer (Blackheath)
Mt Victoria, 79 miles by paved road❂ from Sydney, the highest point of the Blue Mountains (the guide gives it at 3,424 feet above sea-level)⍍, is praised for the scenic countryside surrounding the town dotted with charmingly named spots like Fern Cave, Fairy Bower, Fern Tree Gully and Witch’s Glen, for the walker to explore.
Upper Blue Mts map (‘Wilson’s’)
The 1960s Sydney motorist’s Vade mecum
▲ Webber’s “One stop shop”!
▲ Strathfield: free from “Influences of the Sea Air”
▲ The “Digger” Agents at Roseville
Newtown 1922: Hire-a-luxury wedding vehicle
▲ Bulli Motors: cars, motorcycles, bicycles, for Bulli Pass
▲ A horse-intensive removals firm!
Rookwood handiwork
▲ 1922: Home entertainment unit
▲
‘1922 Wilson’s Director’
Curiously there are some variances in the kinds of type-face used in different maps, some use a Gothic font in contrast to the classic style. ◀ The Redfern-Darlington map at left differs from the type used in most maps. On a few seldom occasions maps make reference to the traditional, nineteenth century British land concept of parishes (eg, the Parish of Gordon)…this seems extraneous as the maps and the book largely follow a division by municipalities.
Gordon Rd – in the days before the upgrade to a highway and renaming
The colliery (deepest mine shaft ever sunk in Aust.) in the 1940s (still operating at that time)
The Glebe
Mascot with a racecourse where the airport should be!
East Subs’ residential paradise
The other side of Strathfield municipality
Eastwood map, p235: site of future MQ University just to the south of Lane Cove River
Dee Why
South Kenso & Daceyville
Penrith & the (“world-class”) Nepean
The cover of my edition is long gone but the 1926 edition is very approx.
‘ Gregory’s’ 1st street directory of Sydney 1934
‘William the Dictator’ (1938)
Another factor in the Argonauts Show passing pretty much right under the radar for me was that it was a late afternoon children’s radio program (we spelt it ‘programme’ in those more formal, longhand days) and post-school afternoon and nights during my youth were incontestably reserved for television, then still a relatively novel phenomena. When it came to the wireless I was an avid morning listener to commercial networks like 2UE and 2UW. Gary O’Callaghan and “Sammy Sparrow” was more my style in the sixties. I can’t be sure if there had been a Sammy Sparrow radio club but as I’ve still got a Sammy Sparrow badge kicking round the house somewhere which probably confirms it.
Trireme
Inevitably, the popularity of the Argonauts program waned. In the late sixties the segment was cut to just one hour a week at 5pm on Sunday. In 1972 ABC Radio pulled the plug entirely on the show, apparently because a survey found that most of those still listening were over the age of 40! The inexorable encroachment of television into the lives of children also would have been a massively-significant factor in its ultimate demise [Urania, ibid.].