Chapter 8: Charlton - dancing and other things

As explained in the previous chapter, I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Quambatook producing the Quambatook Times. I was back in Charlton for the rest of the week helping with the Charlton Tribune, the printing jobs and enjoying myself.

As I had learned to dance while in Shepparton (Chapter 6) I loved going to dances and balls doing the Pride of Erin, Fox Trot, Quick Step and best of all the Modern Waltz. I have to be honest and admit that very few girls lusted after me, but I rarely got a “next dance” knock back because I was a reasonably good dancer who wouldn’t tread on a partner’s toes. The females all sat around the edge of the room while the blokes gathered in a cluster, eyeing off their prospects and desperately hoping they wouldn’t get a rejection. On the other hand, the less attractive females and poor dancers had to hope they would get at least one or two invitations onto the dance floor. It could be quite embarrassing at times for both sexes.

Many of the balls had a Belle of the Ball competition where judges, often from out of town so as not to display bias, would choose the best looking girl who would be rewarded with a sash.

It was Six O’Clock Closing in the pubs, so some of the blokes would turn up with a car boot full of booze. The booze was more to give them courage in the dance hall than to quench their thirst. Debutante balls were more posh and formal events with many weeks of preparation for the debutantes and their partners.

There was much travelling with car sharing to dances and balls in neighbouring town such as St Arnaud, Donald, Wycheproof and Wedderburn. The balls were quite protracted events with food served around midnight and I often didn’t get home until the early hours of the morning, particularly if the ball was in a neighbouring town. Not good as I had to be at work at 8am.

There was one person who never missed a dance or ball in Charlton and that was the town’s chief gossip who should remain nameless. Some of my readers will know the offender. She never danced herself. Her pleasure was watching for and recording any blossoming romances.

There were several very successful Big Beat rock ‘n’ roll dances run to raise money for the Charlton Aero Club. These had a glitter ball in the middle of the hall and the very low coloured lighting and decoration were in the style of a discothèque. This displeased the chief gossip because she couldn’t see who was trying to get off with whom. So she went home for a torch which she then shamelessly shone on the dancers.

I got in free to many of the balls and other social events because I was commissioned by the Weekly Times to make a photographic record for that publication. The Weekly Times was full of farming news, but its circulation was enhanced by running pages of photographs of events in rural towns. I was paid 12/6 in old money to provide a set of 12 photos.

Here is one of my sets of photos in the Weekly Times in January 1963:

Victoria and South Australia were the last states to abandon Six O’Clock Closing, imposed during the First World War. Many pubs — including some in Charlton — did their best to ignore the ban on serving drinks after hours. They did so at some risk. The Victoria Police had what was known as the Flying Squad that would turn up in a town without notice and would raid all the pubs simultaneously. Local police were never given any advance of the raids in case they tipped off the pubs in their town. I forget what the fine was but the embarrassment of being caught was worse than the fine.

We had a wonderful Linotype operator, Gilbert Sherrington, at the Tribune. He upset Mum by phoning her one weekend in an inebriated state to report that he was quitting with immediate effect. She was alarmed that it wouldn’t be easy to get a replacement at such short notice, but Gilbert turned up at the usual time on Monday, quite unaware that he had quit. This became almost a routine weekend after weekend, but eventually he and Mum did part ways in a more organised way.

Fashion was never an important part of my life, but I do remember hoping that no-one noticed that I had decided to comb my hair backwards, rather than sideways with a parting. Women closely followed the dictates of the Parisian fashion houses. Unlike the present day where anything goes, most women felt it was important to have the right knee length for skirts, whether it be an inch (2.5cms) above or below or on the knee. Also, there was no such thing as teenage fashion. We all wore pretty much the same style of clothes as our parents. Nothing was thought of teenage girls wearing wearing a hat and gloves like their mothers. Most women looked old before their time. Here’s a photo taken of me with friends, all of us wearing suits:

A sensation was caused when the British model, Jean Shrimpton, was invited to Melbourne in 1965 and was paid £2000 (in old money) to attend turf racing events as the star attraction. Most newsworthy was her attendance at the Victoria Derby wearing a skirt six inches (15 cms) above her knee. Just as shocking was the fact that she wasn’t wearing a hat, gloves or stockings, but was wearing a man’s watch. Due to a dropped line of copy, the Melbourne Herald, I think it was, reported that Shrimpton has turned up at the Victoria Derby “wearing a skirt six inches above her business”.

In January 1948, I was among a large group of Charlton boys sent to the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s holiday camp at the Portsea army base while most soldiers went on holiday. It was great fun. Among other things, we were taken on a tour of an Australian Navy Corvette warship and to a concert in the Melbourne Town Hall starring the English entertainer, George Formby and his ukulele.

A performance of Formby’s most famous song “When I’m Cleaning Windows” is HERE

One of the more important aspects of the Portsea holidays was that every child was given a basic medical check. This must have spotted some important medical problems that had gone undetected and needed attention.

One of my responsibilities around the house in Peel Street was to deal with roosters and hens that no longer earned their place in the chook pen. There was a saying “running around like a headless chicken” and this arose from the fact that to kill a chook, the best way was to chop its head off. Fine, except that it would then run around for a minute or two spurting blood everywhere. Not nice. But I had a solution. (Sensitive souls might like to skip the next bit.) I would catch the chook and put it into a wheat bag which had a corner removed. When the poor chook stuck its head out the hole, I would bring down the axe removing the head. The chook would then withdraw into the bag and flutter about harmless until it was truly deceased and could be removed for plucking, gutting and roasting.

As I mentioned in Chapter 6, my BSA 850 motorbike was almost the death of me. I just loved accelerating towards the raised railway level crossing at the bottom of Mildura Way, causing the bike to fly through the air and land on its back wheel with the front wheel slowly returning to the road. Hooligan behaviour, I must confess, and doing this without coming to harm made me overconfident. One Saturday when I was reporting on a sports event in Charlton Park I was in a hurry to get to a telephone to pass on the results to Radio 3WV. But a car was in my way, so I accelerated past it, unaware that I was riding into loose gravel and heading for a drain. The bike hit the drain and I was sent flying, ripping the back out of my shirt and the seat of my pants and leaving me with some nasty rashes.

Still determined to file my report for 3WV, I climbed over a fence rather than go through an open gate and ran home to 10 Peel Street. My mother was horrified to see her bloodied elder son. Now in a state of shock, I asked her to clean me up because I had to go to that night’s dance (I’d forgotten about 3WV). I then fainted and was taken to the Charlton Bush Nursing Hospital where I remained until I’d been wiped clean of blood and the shock had worn off.

So far so bad. The motor bike needed repairs, and a few weeks later I rode it for some reason to Melbourne. It began raining as I entered the outskirts of the city and came to the first set of traffic lights. They were red. I applied the brakes but the bike kept going — sideways — through the red lights, amazingly not being hit by any vehicles travelling through the green light. I was seriously shaken as I came to a halt on the other side. On examining the bike, I discovered that oil had been dripping from the gear box onto the back tyre which meant it didn’t grip on the wet road. I have no idea how I got myself and the motorbike back to Charlton, but it must have been very carefully. I sold it soon after and bought my first car, which is another story.

A major source of entertainment in Charlton was (and still is) the art deco Rex Theatre, briefly renamed the Roxy. Charlton was one of the small rural towns that had a purpose-built cinema. Most other towns had cinemas set up in existing halls. The Rex is a wonderful asset to the town:

Back in my time, each session at the Rex would include two feature films, a cartoon, a newsreel and sometimes a brief comedy or serial. Here’s an example:

When the appropriately name Rex Allen was a projectionist he would sometimes allowed me to join him in the projection room with its two projectors. He showed me how he put an old penny in each reel which would drop out towards the end of each one, alerting him to make the switch between projectors Done properly, films would be shown without a break.

The equipment at the Rex was rather old and unreliable. On one occasion, a projector broke down just at a crucial moment towards the end of a baseball thriller. The batter braced himself to hit the ball just as the screen went black. Rex Allen or one of the other projectionists rewound the reel while the projector was fixed, then after what seemed an interminable time, the show resumed. We got to the point where the screen had gone black and saw the batter hit the ball high into the air to win the game. Then just a few seconds later up came “The End”. A groan went up around the cinema.

Another Rex-related story: Charlton’s first hamburger joint was in the Rex building and in the early hours one day it caught alight. The volunteer fire brigade turned up. So did most of the town, including the night soil (dunny) collector who was doing his round. Once the fire was extinguished, we all dispersed to return to our beds. The dunny man accidentally put his van into reverse and it hit the pavement, causing many of the cans to overturn onto the footpath. The sight and smell was not nice.

The trots — trotting horse races — were another popular form of entertainment, though they didn’t interest me. But I did follow the Charlton football team when it was playing at home. Most of the fans would try to keep warm by staying in cars facing the ground. I was a scout leader and we would offer savaloys and tomato sauce in bread rolls provided by Allen’s bakery. They were very popular, particularly if the weather was cold, which it often was. We charged a shilling (in old money) with the profits going to the scouts.

More from Charlton in the next chapter.