Month / August 2015

by Eddie

U can’t touch this

Boys being boys

Boys being boys

Today’s topic is a sensitive one we have touched on before. How can we stop young men from self-abuse? By which we mean spanking the monkey. This was one of the great panics of the 1910s and, perhaps surprisingly, the Scout movement was called to be at the forefront of the war on self-pleasure. But first, a little background.

If you’ve seen Dr Strangelove, you may recall General Ripper ranting about the importance of “precious bodily fluids”. This is a reference to the theory that unused semen has to be reabsorbed back into the body in order to build a manly man.

Any boy who wastes this precious bodily fluid will be giving away his future manhood, and will at best be effeminate, and at worst a homosexual. This was all proved by science. Apparently.

Most importantly, the future of the white race depended on having sufficient masculine men to build empires, fight wars, and the rest. So it was down to the scouting movement to conserve as much semen as possible.

Each Scoutmaster was commanded to tell their charges that under no circumstances whatever must they play or meddle with their sexual organs. Besides being sinful, it was contrary to common sense and the boys’ future interests.

The best instructions to Scoutmasters was to

push prudery on one side, and to take their boys in hand…

That’s actually what it said.

Further advice involved regularly bathing the relevant organs in cold water, not eating heavy food at night, and refusing all stimulants.

If the Scouting movement could succeed in imparting this vital information it will have saved the country and secured the future of the white race.

Who knew it could be so easy?

by Eddie

Bringing a touch of the exotic to Rockingham

How Rockingham imagines itself, allegedly

How Rockingham imagines itself, allegedly

The naming of beaches along the west coast has always been a bit haphazard. Sometimes it was a wrecked ship (Kwinana), or just boringly obvious (City Beach).

But two of the most inexplicable names are from Rockingham: Palm Beach and Waikiki Beach. Although we have to admit the latter now goes by a different designation.

Palm Beach got its name around 1929, and at that time it was just a barren part of Rockingham, a couple of kilometres past the township. There wasn’t a palm in sight, although there were a few bush shacks built by country folk for their holiday homes. And, more importantly, a grove of olive-green cypress pines.

Most of the local roads were badly maintained and full of pot-holes, and only a few roads were actually passable to get to the beach. A local legend says a council workman was instructed to put up a sign for motorists who didn’t want to get bogged down to follow the track to ‘Pine Beach’.

However, he misheard the order and neatly painted a sign with the words ‘To Palm Beach’, along with an arrow directing people to the cypress grove. Hence the beach (allegedly) received its new name. We at Dodgy Perth make no claims as to the truth of this legend, but it is entirely plausible.

But what excuse could be offered for calling a barren windswept part of the coastline past Safety Bay, Waikiki Beach? This was named in 1949 by the developer of a new subdivision, in order to attract buyers to an otherwise bleak landscape. It didn’t last long. Although the developer’s more imaginative name lives on in the suburb they started, by 1952 the government had decided that Waikiki Beach was far too silly and it became the far more prosaic Warnbro Beach.

What’s in a name? Well, a mishearing and a sales opportunity, apparently.

by Eddie

A late visit from Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle pretending to be Sherlock Holmes

Conan Doyle pretending to be Sherlock Holmes

Following on from our recent story about Sherlock Holmes’ creator visiting Perth, we should mention that Arthur Conan Doyle came back to WA in August 1930. That might not seem unusual, until you realise that he had been dead for more than a month.

A Sydney psychic (Psydney psychic?) claimed to be the first to have had a vision of the great man, but this was instantly rubbished by west coast mediums. If Conan Doyle was going to appear anywhere in Australia, it would definitely be in Perth. After all, hadn’t he visited here in 1921, and didn’t he donate £85 to the Spiritualist Church? And wasn’t WA the only place in Australia to actually have a spiritualist church at all?

So, a local apparition of the famous author was needed quickly, and fortunately one came to herbalist and clairvoyant, Maud McDonough. He had no particular message for her on this occasion, but she did see him quite plainly.

However when Conan Doyle returned three years later he had a very clear message for Maud. She was to take charge of all the various smaller spiritualist groups in Perth and Fremantle and unite them under own command. This was to be the grand Spiritualist Church of Western Australia (Inc).

Unsurprisingly, this did not go down well with the other leaders in the movement, who rejected Maud’s unambiguous mission from Conan Doyle. A series of bitter meetings took place, where Maud was roundly condemned and attempts made to expel her from the club.

The church administration fragmented, while numerous lawyers’ letters failed to resolve the situation. In the end, the secretary and treasurer resigned, taking the association’s cash with them.

Apparently the spirit of Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t see that coming.

by Eddie

Speaking to the war dead

Arthur Conan Doyle and friend

Arthur Conan Doyle and friend

What do Sherlock Holmes and speaking to the dead have in common? The answer is, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle, who visited Perth in 1921 as part of a world tour.

But he wasn’t here to plug his books. Instead, Conan Doyle wanted to talk about his latest obsession, spiritualism. And His Majesty’s was packed out for the lunchtime event, with almost everyone in the audience being female. But we’ll come back to that.

Conan Doyle briefly sketched out the history of contacting the deceased, announcing that anyone who denied the existence of life after death was “either ignorant or a moral coward”. Certainly, the audience were receptive to the idea.

Especially when the speaker mentioned that his good friend, the brilliant scientist Oliver Lodge, had talked with the boys who had been killed in World War I. Every person in the audience had either lost a son or a husband in that conflict, or knew someone who had. Their bodies might not have been brought home, but now someone was offering a chance to say farewell.

“That,” said Sir Arthur from the stage, “is the message we have tried to give Australian mothers.” Mothers. Conan Doyle clearly knew who his audience was.

He had even spoken to his own dead son, Kingsley, who died in 1918 from the flu epidemic which raged across the world. A medium had relayed the words to Conan Doyle, who discovered that Kingsley was happy in the afterlife, and he even felt the touch of his son on his forehead.

How much excitement would that have created in an audience of mothers? An undoubtable, serious writer was proclaiming the very real possibility of once again speaking with lost children. How many tried and failed after this, we will never know.

There is no doubting Conan Doyle’s sincerity. He was no con artist, and was prepared to face ridicule for promoting his beliefs. Many of his friends tried to discourage him, not least Harry Houdini, the famous escapologist. But for Sir Arthur, this would mean giving up the belief he had finally said goodbye to his own son.

Speaking to the WWI dead is not usually thought of as part of Anzac history, but it fully deserves a small place in the tales to be told about 1914 to 1918.

by Eddie

Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glass

What a beard!

What a beard!

How many people can claim to have saved a Western Australian icon? And what would WA be without Swan Draught? Ladies and gentlemen, we present Mr Thomas Wall Hardwick.

In 1887 a company bought both the Swan Brewery and the Lion Brewery, and together they (unimaginatively) called themselves the Swan Brewery Company. The outcome was a disaster. For the next two years the business bled money and was on the point of bankruptcy.

Enter Thomas, who spent decades in England running breweries before being enticed to take over the operations at Castlemaine in Victoria. Castlemaine? As if that’s even a beer.

After a couple of other jobs, Thomas was invited to Perth to save the Swan Brewery, which was distinctly on its last legs. He was horrified by the industry he found here, but promised he could work out a more efficient management system which might make it pay.

The directors offered him a very substantial salary if his vision could come true. And it did. His new beers were first sampled in 1891, and they were so popular that the turnover of the company went through the roof.

And now the grand house Thomas built in West Perth is due to face the wrecking ball, so some luxury apartments can be built in its place.

Horrible modern front, but could probably be restored

Horrible modern front, but could probably be restored

There is a function room at the redeveloped Old Brewery named after Thomas, but that is about all the commemoration he gets. While we at Dodgy Perth reserve judgement on the price of progress, it does seem a shame that his house will be lost without raising at least one tinnie of Swan Draft at 37 Mount Street before it is finally lost forever.

Who wants to join us?

by Eddie

Relatively speaking

Not such a genius as to find a decent barber

Not such a genius as to find a decent barber

If you are the sort of person who likes to wear a white lab coat with pens sticking out the pocket, Western Australia was the only place to be in 1922. It was here one of Einstein’s most controversial theories was proved.

The closest we at Dodgy Perth ever get to science is watching reruns of Ghostbusters, but bear with us while we stumble through the technical bit.

Einstein said that light didn’t just travel in straight lines but was affected by gravity. So the light from a star passing near the heavy mass of the sun would make the star appear in a different place than if there was no sun. Smart bloke this Einstein fellow.

Anyway, scientists from all over the world gathered at Eighty Mile Beach between Broome and Port Hedland. Although the beach was called Ninety Mile Beach at the time, and is in fact 140 miles long. Go figure.

Here was the best place on Earth to see the total eclipse of the heart—sorry, sun—and check out the stars on either side of it. But the isolated Eighty Mile Beach was not easily reached by a large group of nerds, along with all their astronomicky gadgets. It is worth noting that five of the geeks were lady scientists.

The group left Freo on-board the Charon, along with a film crew to make a documentary of the trip. Eventually they reached Broome, and unloaded some 60 tons of instruments into the lugger Gwendoline.

Because of the tides, they had to anchor 3km offshore, and the heavy equipment put into whaleboats to take to land. Here, local Aborigines were waiting, and it was they who did all the hard work packing the boxes onto donkeys to travel to the camp sight. This process took more than two days.

Trenches were dug for concrete foundations for the astro-sciencey stuff, and eventually telescopes and cameras were in place, along with aerials so the team could stay in communication with Europe and America. Also included were darkrooms, so the photos could be developed on the spot.

Finally, on 21 September 1922, the observations were made and Herr Einstein was proved—unsurprisingly—to be completely right. The sun did indeed make stars move about. Light was odder than we’d thought.

And that was WA’s role in proving the 20th century’s most important scientific theory.

by Eddie

Dances with trees

It's not the size of your chopper...

It’s not the size of your chopper…

On this day, 12 August, Helena Barbara Dance swung an axe at a tree. And for the most part, that is all most people know about her. First, let’s look at the account as given, very woodenly (see what we did there?), by Charles ‘Rapist’ Fremantle:

The Lieutenant Governor made up his mind to establish a town up the Swan River to be called Perth and to lay the first stone of it on the King’s birthday the 12 August 1829. There being no stone contiguous for our purpose to celebrate the commencement of the new town, Mrs Dance cut down a tree, fired volleys, made speeches and gave several cheers, naming the town Perth according to the wishes of Sir George Murray.

Although Fremantle says Helena cut down the tree herself, Alexander Collie downplayed her role saying she only “gave the first blow”.

And George Pitt Morison didn’t like a woman doing too much manly work either. So in 1929 he paints a bloke waiting to the side ready to finish the job after Helena has tapped the tree with her tiny axe.

We know she was intrepid. It is often claimed Helena was only present because all the other women were giving birth. But that’s not what was said at the time. Hubby William said she was the only female brave enough to leave Garden Island and venture into a ‘savage land’. By which he meant it was full of savages.

The pregnancy excuse was invented by later generations who didn’t want to think their great-great grandmothers were anything other than bold explorers.

And now it gets odd. William Dance has a different description of the foundation of Perth:

By the bye, the laying of the first stone of this town, which took place on August 12, and on which occasion we made as much noise and rejoicing as our limited means would allow, was done by Mrs. Dance.

So Fremantle and Dance disagree on whether or not there were any stones. Perhaps Helena’s husband was being metaphorical. Or had a really bad memory.

The Dances were forced to leave Perth in 1832 when they had to escort James ‘Young Brides’ Stirling back to England so he could desperately try to salvage his failing colony, and the couple never returned.

After living in England and France, Helena died in 1863, never knowing how much her brief moment of fame would later be celebrated.

Incidentally, Dodgy Perth is sceptical about the alleged box made from Mrs Dance’s tree which was miraculously found by the Queen of England herself in a junk shop and gifted back to WA in the 1930s. When a story is too good to be true, it’s always too good to be true. One day we hope the real story about this box will be uncovered.

by Eddie

When electric disco sticks were all the rage

Just feel the power

Just feel the power

In the late 19th century, strange adverts started appearing in Perth newspapers. ‘Electro-galvanic suspensory belts’ were on sale, guaranteed to cure all ‘nervous weaknesses’.

To understand this oddity in the history of quack medicine, it is first necessary to know what causes nervous weaknesses in men. And by nervous weaknesses is meant a whole range of symptoms, but especially impotence.

The cause, you may be surprised to hear, was spermatorrhea, an excessive discharge of semen. Usually brought about through too much playing with yourself when a teenager.

In the 1800s, this imaginary disease caused such a panic that there were reported cases of suicide among men who suffered from it. Spermatorrhea could also damage your internal organs in a variety of horrible ways.

Fortunately, the solution was to wear a patented electric belt. This went round the patient’s waist, and a series of metal pieces would miraculously provide a continuous current of electricity, infusing ‘manly vigour’ into the generative organs.

This makes our eyes water just thinking about it

This makes our eyes water just thinking about it

Seriously. People bought shed loads of these things. And if the belt wasn’t for you, there were plenty of other products advertised to restore the vital forces of manhood.

Naturally, some doctors sneered at the sheer quackery of it all, but men were convinced that applying electricity to their manhood was the only possible solution to their problems.

Now, where can the Dodgy Perth team get one of these wonders?

by Eddie

When alien threads fell from the skies

itwasaliens

Now this is just plain weird. In 1961 ‘angel hair’ fell from twelve UFOs which were sighted near Meekatharra. A number of witnesses were able to verify the mysterious visitation.

On 5 August Edwin P., a 37-year-old shearer, was working in the shearing shed at Mt Hale Station, around 100km west of Meekatharra. At 8.20am, the owner of the station came into the shed to ask Edwin to take a look at objects in the sky.

They were round and coloured bright silver. Edwin estimated them to be around 2,500m altitude. They were travelling in pairs at immense speed, and in all twelve of them were seen, the last around 9.15am.

And this is where it gets stranger. ‘Angel hair’ used to be big in the 1950s and ’60s. Gossamer-like, it was an eerie substance emanating from UFOs. Sometimes it draped fences, utility lines, trees, and in a few cases, entire towns. Angel hair has been compared to ectoplasm, a substance made famous in the 1980s by Ghostbusters. (“He slimed me!”)

Just outside the shearing shed, fine mesh-like streamers began to descend from the sky. As it fell to the ground it took on various shapes. As soon as the astonished shearer touched this extra-terrestrial substance, it simply crumbled to dust in his hands.

By now a small crowd of farm hands had gathered, and all were later to swear that this extraordinary occurrence was all-too real.

When the incident was reported to the local police, Constable Jim Doyle checked with the authorities, but no aircraft were supposed to be in the area at the time. An official from the Air Force almost turned this into our Roswell when he announced to the media that this could be the breakthrough they had been waiting for in their UFO investigations.

It seems unlikely that this outspokenness was approved by his superiors, since this simply became another mysterious entry in WA’s very own Project Blue Book.

by Eddie

When UWA students were naughty

Not overstated at all. Not one bit.

Not overstated at all. Not one bit.

You may recall that a couple of years ago UWA students got into serious trouble for racist jokes in the guild newspaper, PROSH. Hardly the first time student humour was controversial. Won’t be the last either.

Today, we look back to 1931, when the student rag, then called Sruss Sruss, also managed to caused outrage. The editor was Griff Richards, who later went on to edit the West Australian. So it didn’t exactly destroy his career.

Unfortunately, the Dodgy Perth research team has not managed to uncover a copy of this infamous publication. UWA doesn’t appear to have one, and the State Library has lost theirs. There may not be any other copies left.

All we are left with is one joke about a Professor Ross, who taught physics and maths, not being able to have any more children because he’d lost the formula. Hysterical, eh?

And one rather weak poem:

She was only a sportsman’s daughter,
She lived besides the mill:
There were otters in the water,
But she was otter still.

Well, Prof Ross didn’t find these funny, and he rapidly became an enemy of the guild, Sruss Sruss, and its editor.

The week the newspaper was printed, UWA students had not helped their cause by going upstairs at His Majesty’s armed with rotten crayfish, eggs and vegetables. Then proceeded to throw these at the audience below, forcing the curtain to come down and the play to be abandoned.

At first, there was only a small piece in the West Australian about this scandal. But then the Sunday Times had a slow news week. Sruss Sruss, it decided, was the worst thing since Hitler would be a few years later, and it had to be stopped now.

The University authorities, backed by Prof Ross, panicked and fined everyone involved, and ordered every copy of the newspaper to be pulped. They also expelled Griff Richards for one year.

In fact, the Guild went further, and burnt every copy of Sruss Sruss they could lay their hands on.

Kids today, eh? Don’t know they’re born.