Soliloquies and Images from Balmain
June 8, 2012
Soliloquies and Images from Balmain
When we moved for the first time to Balmain it did not have a library. Balmain was regarded as a place best avoided, known for its crooks, killers and itinerant rabittos. Apart from those flacid rabbits; milk and bread would also still be delivered. It was also endowed with dozens of pubs with Friday-night booze-ups and fights being very normal. On Saturday mornings same pubs would be hosed down and mopped with hospital strength disinfectant, used as a fumigant against the pervasive odor of drunks and their much loved piss-ups.
Bib-n-Brace overalls would be hanging from Hills Hoists. Walking the streets at those times had the smell of mutton bone inspired poverty and sounds of clunky working boots on their way down to Harry West’s Stevedoring. You would never give your address as Balmain, especially if you wanted a loan from The Bank of New South Wales, except if you knew the local manager. I still remember his name when he gave us a stern warning when buying a house for $ 12.000 with glorious harbour views. His name was Alan Jackson. “You are buying just a shed”, “it’s just a dump”, he said with a smile.
After the advent of the coal-loader and ship’s containerization the Balmain peninsula became a bohemian ‘in-place’ with cheap wine casks slowly replacing long-necks of ale. Properties that were shunned for decades started selling. University lecturers with their lover students started moving in. Dope smoke and songs of Sonny and Cher, ‘I’ve got you Babe’ and later Carly Simon, ‘oh you are so vain’, filtered down onto liberated streets. In with the new.
One such brave man was Larry Lake. (1916-1989) He moved to Balmain from Canberra where he had worked as head of the National Library for many years and also previously as Liaison Officer and Chief Selection Librarian in London. He bought a small workers cottage not far from where we were living at the end of the peninsula and close to the water’s edge. When large boats reversed propellers and their engines, the landmass would shake and our mugs hooked onto the kitchen cupboard wall would do the rattle and shake.
We met Larry Lake through The Balmain Association which had formed during the late sixties. The president of The Association for many years was John Morris, who at the time was also the president of The National Trust. Monthly meetings were held in the Balmain Watch-house which wasn’t used anymore. The ‘Watch-House’ and Police lock-up had fallen into disrepair. Its original purpose was a sleep-over for knock about delinquents and the permanently inebriated rough necks of the Balmain and Inner West during the period that Balmain was one of the roughest neighbourhoods in Sydney. This ‘Watch-House’ designed in the Georgian style by the Colonial architect Edmund Thomas Blacket was rented out to the Balmain Association for a nominal ‘Pepper and Salt ‘fee.
Helvi and I became members of this Association and Larry Lake suggested we could transform one of the Watch House cells into a children’s library. We couldn’t believe our ears. A library? At this time Balmain must have had some books but they would have been far and wide in between. Hooves and Horses more likely with Woman’s Weekly and Pix scattered around some of the more affluent terraces.
It was a hay day for communal living in the truest sense. I am unsure if this ‘community spirit’ is still thriving elsewhere. Perhaps it has and is blossoming in those new mining communities with the influx of so many young couples keen on making it. It certainly has disappeared in Balmain. There are hardly children about with none playing about with Billy-carts. Where are they? Are they perhaps inside with X-boxes or have they been with replaced by remote roll-a-doors and multimillion extensions with huge micro wave ovens and security devices. Both parents are most likely working and pale looking. Children in Child-care at $ 100. -a day, who wouldn’t look pallid? The kids remain well hidden.
But, going back, it was extraordinary how so many good and gifted people got together and all at the same time. Larry Lake, a book expert. John Morris a conservationist and President of National Trust, right at the time of large scale demolition orgies throughout Sydney. The Balmain Watch House and the Children’s Library kept functioning till Leichhardt Council decided to stop the book famine and gave Balmain its own library. There were some odd ball aldermen too, Nick Origlass and Izzy Wyner, ‘spindle legs’ Phillip Bray and so many others.
We went to Larry Lake’s wake. He was a terrific bloke and good friend. He had a hand in saving and restoring “The sentimental Bloke” a very good Australian film.
They were the good times.
Tags: Balmain, Balmain Watch House, John Morris, Larry Lake, NationaLTrust, The Sentimental Bloke, Thomas Blacket.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
When we moved for the first time to Balmain it did not have a library. Balmain was regarded as a place best avoided, known for its crooks, killers and itinerant rabittos. Apart from those flacid rabbits; milk and bread would also still be delivered. It was still endowed with having dozens of pubs with Friday-night booze-ups and fights being very normal. On Saturday mornings same pubs would be hosed down and mopped with hospital strength disinfectant, used as a fumigant against the pervasive odor of drunks and their much loved piss-ups.
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I well remember Larry Lake (lovely bloke), the blood on the walls pub fights, the wine casks (and the de Bortoli flagons), the children’s library in The Watch House and the creation of The Balmain Library . The latter because I was Deputy Mayor when Leichhardt Council established it.
By the way Gerard, I don’t mind being referred to as ‘odd ball’, especially in the company of those wonderful men Nick Origlass and Issy Wyner, but ‘spindle legs’? I’ve always been rather proud of what I thought were a powerful pair of pegs!
As you point out Balmain hasn’t always been seen from outside as a desirable place to live. When Margaret, my then wife, and I moved to Balmain in 1967 people would ask one of two questions; ‘Where?’ and ‘WHY?’. The answer to latter was easy, ‘Great location, very welcoming people and inexpensive houses’,
Balmain was a great place and was a great community back then. But Gerard, it still is! And there are heaps of kids around. The streets, parks and playing fields are full of them….and the music studios and the dance studios.
Certainly there have been changes as the decades have rolled on but there is still a strong sense of community here on the Balmain peninsular. Another thing which hasn’t changed is that after 43 years I’m still behind the counter (or in the office) of Brays Books – and that’s another place you will find the kids of Balmain.
All the best to you Gerard and Helvi, hope you are both ‘travelling well’!
P.S. Don’t forget the horse and cart street cleaners! The kids loved the horses, especially old ‘Dubbo’.
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Hi Phillip,
Talk about ghosts of the past! How nice to hear from you and especially hearing Brays books is still going strong. I remember the shop combo with books- dry-cleaning – lottery tickets at the very beginning. Were the lottery tickets still for the Opera House?
The ‘spindle legs’ tag came from my (late) brother John who together with Geoffry Cooke, Alan Rogers got bashed up during one of those brawling ALP meetings at the Town-Hall. I think John might have been inspired by you heroically turning up as Deputy Mayor in shorts.
Of course, a sure sign of ageing is the assumption that things have irrevocably changed for the worse, so, sorry for my imputation that somehow Balmain is not quite the same as when we were living there. I am sure it is still a community based suburb. ( probably improved since we left back in 1996.)
I have a fleeting image of you bent over a plate at The Berlin cafe many years ago; was it over a plate of Kranskis and sauerkraut? Some people that we both knew are also still around, including Lesley Mackay that we met here in Bowral some time ago and only a few weeks ago Lisa Highton (Williamson) and I exchanged a couple of tweets. Lisa runs Two Roads Books publishing in the UK.
It is still a fascinating world and thank you for your interest in the Pig’s Arms.
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When Mrs A and I were looking for our first abode togeher in the eighties, my mother suggested this place in Birchgrove, listed as circa 1902 with water views front and back. We had a budget of about $60k back then with the bank prepared to load us $55k tops. We looked at the place a terrace, it hadn’t been touched since 1902 even the phone was from that era, you’d have needed to refloor the second storey it leaned in two directions. Much the same down stairs. The toilet was outside, the upstairs bedrooms had gasunders. In other words you were buying a shell and would have had to have spent as much again as you were paying for it. The asking price $115k. Mother didn’t seem to understand that it might just be outside our price range.
Very good story Gerard.
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Yes, amazing. Nothing in Birchgrove with water views would be less than 2 million. The inner city is now becoming very popular, yet there are some who still defend city living on the single block with single house and wonder why they have become unaffordable.
Has anyone seen the plan for Parramatta road? All those years not a single plan has ever come to fruition and yet it screams out for development. Surely the ugliest road in Australia.
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The idea of multi story apartment blocks seems to frighten people. Yet the reality is that three times as many strata lots are registered than suburban blocks of land. Its been that way for two decades.
In our area Ryde council wants to knock down the old Ryde council politburo building and build a twenty five storey apartment building in its place. The old building; an ugly stalinist style building has had its day, yet the locals are up in arms, traffic, transport yadda yadda, most of them have no idea how planning even works. The thing is you can’t keep building out to the boondocks without providing services and as the popluation grows really the only way is up.
As for Parramatta Road, the plan has merit, the reality is it will probably never get up.
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Parramatta Rd development has lots of merit…but depends on the planning. Nothing could be any uglier than what is there now. On the other hand lot of high rise is also ugly. It need not be. Good design and town planning is the answer, incorporating traffic, transport, shops, children, open space, walkways, cycle paths and much more.
People are their own worst enemy. Look at the old tigers club in Rozelle. That whole corner has been a visual blight for decades and now that there are plans to redevelop there are the locals who scream it should be preserved….Unbelievable
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I agree there Gerard, Sydney will become more high density whether people like it or not. And Parramatta Road is not a pretty sight at the best of times.
I get the feeling that the Rozelle site and 32 storeys is ambit. Its in the hands of the state government and the minister is a clueless dolt. Didn’t think through the removing of part 3a with something to take its place in the interim and now we’re seeing construction companies collapsing all over the place. Mynd you the good folk of Rozelle don’t want any change anyway. The old tigers club was as ugly as the old Ryde council chambers.
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Excellent earthy story this. The stuff that history becomes and hardly a word of an exaggeration I’ll wager.
It interests me that a lot of our best Aussie spinners of folk stories are migrants. Having been one in another country I understand it is that keen interest a new chum brings when he/she arrives to find out the ways. It is one of the reasons every country needs a steady supply of new blood to provide stimulus, challenge the status of perceptions and add their voice. I speak not to tell, but to declare myself by this reference. Hats off to the storyteller and a true blue folk yarn.
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Thanks Shoe,
Can’t wait to hear more of your stories. How was your childhood? A happy one? 😉
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…of course I remember John Morris, at Jeff’s birthday party I spilled a half a glass of red wine on his good linen party pants….he just laughed…luckily 🙂
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spilt
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Thanks, Gerard, Old Balmain lives on, through you.
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We sometimes still visit the area. I remember when the trams were still going through the main street to East Balmain which had a steep hill. As the tram went downhill it would drag up underground a huge counterweight by a cable. This weight would then be released and used to help the tram up-hill again. Clever engineering!
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A bloke who worked for the railways once told me that they try and time the electric trains so that one is climbing a hill whilst another is descending a hill close by, so that, the electrics motors work as generators in the descending train, feeding power into the grid, which is immediately taken up by the climbing train. This would require considerable planning, and, if the timing was out, then the climbing train would slow to a crawl, as the grid had insufficient capacity to power it.
The tram/counter-weight idea is more intuitive!
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