Category / Seasonal

by Eddie

Hot stuff

luxor

Surprisingly hot on the inside

This heat is no longer funny. We’re no climate scientists, but can’t someone install sprinklers on the surface of the sun or something? Perhaps the government could offer subsidies for those of us who wish to seek asylum in Alaska.

But WA still has some way to go to beat the severe heatwave which gripped the state in February 1933, which closed schools and caused the cancellation of a fringe show.

The performance was held at the Luxor Theatre on Beaufort Street, previously known as the Shaftsbury Theatre and later as Tivoli and Canterbury Court. Now sadly demolished. You would have seen a vaudeville show including such treats as Lily Burford in a difficult toe tapping dance, Canadian Hank Healy with a demonstration of using a whip, a ballet, and the Melody Quintette.

But not on 9 February 1933. Four women members the company collapsed through the heat and the show was abandoned. Fortunately, they all recovered unlike an unlucky 5-year-old boy who died of sunstroke the same day.

To seek refuge from the oppressive heat, 15,000 cars turned up at Cottesloe Beach that night, and every metropolitan beach was packed with people lolling on the sand, too tired to bathe or sleep. And at nearly every home, mattresses were dragged onto verandahs to escape the indoor conditions.

Which reminds us, it is the absence of verandahs on new housing which means the electric grid is so overloaded nowadays. When will architects and builders realise that houses can be kept cooler with this simple change to a design? Sure, you lose a little floor space, but you don’t have to run the air-conditioning quite so hard.

There are things we can learn from history after all.

by Eddie

Hot in the city

thermo

It got hot in the past too

You may not have noticed, but it’s bloody hot outside. The thermometer has reached the mid-30s and it’s not even 8.30 a.m. No one in the Dodgy Perth office got much sleep last night and we’re all drinking Red Bulls and Coke Zeros like they’re going out of fashion.

This should make us sympathise with the residents of Perth 120 years ago, who had a very bad heatwave. Starting on Christmas Day 1895, the heat continued for more than two weeks, reaching up to 112F (44.5C) in the shade by early January 1896. If you were stupid enough to stand on the street without shade, solar radiation—the heat registered in the sun—was a mind-boggling 169F (76C).

Still, it had not broken Perth’s 25 January 1879 record of 117F (47.2C) in the shade. Which sounds quite hot to us, even though global warming could not yet be blamed.

Five people died of sunstroke, including Mrs Wilson who was staying with friends in Bayswater. By the time the doctor was called the unfortunate woman’s body temperature was 110F (43.3C).

Perhaps this heatwave could have been managed, but thanks to the incompetence of the Water Company, much of Perth had little or even no water to help them. A little water was available at night, and people had to fill their bath and every bucket they owned to get them through the next day.

People with wells had official types call round who ordered their only supply of water to be sealed off or face prosecution.

Naturally the City of Perth Water Supply Co. blamed low reservoir levels (don’t they always?) and then really helped matters by announcing that from now on water would be cut off between 12 p.m. and 5 a.m. No one knew what they meant. Noon to early morning? Midnight to early morning?

In any case, parents had to turn to giving children lemonade and ginger beer as the only source of fluid (there was no bottled water), and Perth suffered and suffered and suffered.

by Eddie

Let there be light

lights

Not all history is just hot air. Honest.

As we approach the hour of the anniversary of the coming of the Christ child, it seems only right to ask the most significant question about God made flesh: When did Perth’s streets first have Christmas lights?

There were, of course, Christmas lights and decorations well before this time. Individual shops and malls had their own displays, and government buildings were beautified. But we are asking when the streets themselves were decorated.

The answer is, for once, easy to come by. Following the lead of overseas cities and the other Australian capitals, Perth finally put up illuminations in 1961, at a cost of more than £4,000. The above scene shows Murray Street at the Forrest Place intersection. A giant balloon, themed on Around the World in 80 Days, dominated the area. Six metres in diameter, it was made by local Olympic yachtsman and sailmaker Rolly Tasker.

And why the ‘around the world’ theme? Because these decorations were to be dug out of the cupboard, dusted down, and reused for the Commonwealth Games (then known as the Empire Games) hosted by Perth in late 1962.

So, dear readers, next time someone asks you about Perth’s Christmas lights, you’ll know how to answer them.

by Eddie

It’s Christmas time

Xmas3

Just don’t ask. Don’t.

Here at Dodgy Perth, we are often asked about Christmas shopping at the turn of the twentieth century. Often, we tell you. So, for the first time 114 years, we present our glorious CBD in December 1901.

Mummified frogs. Mummified. Frogs. One grocer, H. H. Porter, had a window display of the Western Australian parliament recreated in mummified frogs. Which makes us feel all seasonal deep down inside thinking about it right now.

Want to feel the spirit of Xmas even more? Children who stopped too long to peer into the windows of the city’s shops were firmly moved on by the police. No cluttering up the pavements when there are real people with money to spend, thank you very much.

As the twentieth century started, Perth was feeling the full effects of the gold boom. Which meant there was real cash flowing around the city. Which meant shops could jack up their prices and justify it with nice window displays. Doesn’t sound at all like the city we know does it?

There being no holly or ivy locally, decorative greenery was supplied by the “health giving and invigorating” eucalyptus. Every lamp post and verandah post was covered with the stuff giving Perth the scent of the bush. Public buildings were draped with flags of every nation and shops had started to employ professional window dressers.

Take Sandover & Co, whose Hay Street window had a harvesting scene, in which a rosy-cheeked country lassie was reposing amongst sheaves of locally grown wheat. In the background a windmill—driven by an electric fan—turned itself around. How very Christmas. Although Sandover was the place to go for the novelty present everyone wanted that year: table tennis.

Of course, if you had a little more money, you could go to E. J. Bickford & Co, whose premises extended from Hay Street to Murray street. Normally a furniture dealer, in 1901 all sorts of Christmas novelties could be found there, including a display of Armenian glassware. But not needing Armenian glassware, we’ll just pick up one of their luxury ping pong tables.

J. Weidenbach & Co. had a splendid Christmas show that year. The windows were full of beautiful Chinese lanterns and umbrellas, Japanese art drapings and Chinese silk drapings. Beautiful, until you realise that 1901 was the year they passed the Immigration Restriction Act specifically to stop Chinese and Japanese people coming to Australia. Hypocritical bastards our ancestors.

Hughes & Doheny had snowstorms in their window, but much better they had Kinross whisky and Santa Ross wines inside.

And we in the Dodgy Perth office would have loved to have looked in the window of Carter & Co., to check out their “unique” display of ladies’ lingerie. Not for ourselves, you understand. Well, unless it fits nicely.

by Eddie

Reclaiming our multicultural history

Construction of Rivervale Mosque, 1973 (courtesy of ICWA)

Construction of Rivervale Mosque, 1973 (courtesy of ICWA)

A Blessed Eid al-Fitr to all Dodgy Perth Muslim readers.

To acknowledge the long-standing role of the Muslim community in Western Australia we present four articles from our back catalogue:

Halal, is it meat you’re looking for?

Peace, love and barbies

White Australia, I could be one of your kids

Islamophobia, 1832 style

After two centuries, you’d think we’d have made some progress by now. Wouldn’t you?

by Eddie

Peace, love and barbies

Fazal Din and camel, 1904

Smoked camel anyone?

As every Australian knows, all it takes is a barbeque to shatter cultural barriers. Usually.

For what may have been the earliest multicultural festival in Perth, in May 1897 adverts in the local rags announced the ‘Mohammedan Christmas’, Bakreed.*

A camel would be sacrificed at the home of Ahmed Khan, on Vincent Street, Highgate. A camel selected from Ahmed’s personal herd as being the very best.

To make it tempting for the non-Muslims, free camel burgers were on offer for anyone who showed up.

Some fifty members of Perth’s Muslim community arrived, together with the media and a number of interested onlookers.

At 10 o’clock in the morning, Ahmed and his comrades started to pray in Arabic. After the traditional prayers, Mr Khan exclaimed Bismillah, followed by Allahu Akbar as he drew the knife across the hapless camel’s neck. Then the knife was ritually inserted into the beast in three places.

With the formal proceedings out of the way, an experienced butcher cut up the carcase so the barbeque could get going.

Unfortunately for Mr Khan, the westerners turned up their noses at the free barbie, preferring just to watch their Muslim neighbours tuck in. Was it the lack of beer? Or the lack of tomato sauce? Either way, not one unbeliever was willing to try something new.

One journalist was repeatedly pressed to give the burgers a go, but he announced he was “sufficiently bigoted in his tastes” and would not eat anything but the traditional cow. Rudely, after the ceremony, the hack went straight to a restaurant to get a steak.

Despite this clash of tastes, multiculturalism was alive and well 120 years ago, and no one was holding government inquiries into halal labelling.

*Bakri-Id (Eid-al-Adha), to be celebrated in September this year.

by Eddie

Dear Santa, please send me a railway smash

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Stuck for last minute presents for a child in your life? Maybe the Kalgoorlie Western Argus of 1904 can help:

Some very ingenious toys are on sale this year, those of the mechanical order being very predominant and very novel.

Among the expensive things is a perfect model of the Decapod, the huge tank engine built by the Great Eastern Railway this year to cope with suburban traffic.

The child of an energetic disposition will enjoy himself in a motor car, big enough for him to ride in. It is propelled by pedals like a bicycle horse.

There is the diver, a little man arrayed in complete uniform, who takes his plunge, remains below for a while, and then returns to the surface like his human counterpart.

The clockwork ‘airship’ is having a very large sale. It is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and, on being round up, sails round and round in a most realistic fashion.

A remarkable piece of mechanism is a clockwork train which climbs and descends inclines by means of a cogwheel underneath. This cog wheel only comes into action when on an inclined track, where it encounters a rack-rail.

The latest train novelty is called the ‘railway smash.’ This wonderful toy consists of two carriages and a goods van, so constructed that when the train is in motion an accident occurs, and the train smashes up in quite a realistic fashion. Of course it can be put together again.

Another novelty of the year are the electric tram-cars. They meet each other on a single line, with an occasional double track for passing. The first tram to arrive on the double portion of the line comes automatically to a standstill until the other has passed the points safely, and then glides away again.

by Eddie

Stocking up for Xmas

165x215mm

She’s got legs, she knows how to use them

There is a silly media cliché that men are useless at shopping for presents, and usually leave it until 4.30pm on Christmas Eve to start. Unfortunately, the men in the Dodgy Perth office are living examples of this cliché. There is nothing more they would like than a 1930s “office girl” to send out into the hell that is the shopping mall at this time of year.

Speaking of men and shopping, in 1938 the newspapers were full of advice on how to make life easier for the hairier sex.

Christmas comes but once a year—thank heaven! Such is the sentiment of the average man when faced with the annual problem of buying something for ‘her’.

At this time of year miserable specimens wander helplessly among the stocking, handkerchief, perfume and novelty counters, desperately in search of appropriate gifts for women folk. Having failed they either send their office girl out for “anything” or simply buy a couple of pairs of stockings—“you know the sort that women wear nowadays—from a sympathetic saleswoman.

As any woman will tell you, no one can have too many stockings, but there perhaps this year it is time for something different. Something she wouldn’t buy for herself. To our great surprise in this office, it turns out that shops have so many things other than stockings for sale…

not even a mere man should be stumped for ideas this Christmas.

Perth has jewellery counters where you can buy something for even the “most fastidious of wives”. Would you prefer imitation gems or just severely plain? A string of synthetic pearls would make any woman squeal with delight. If not jewellery, how about a dainty evening bag or a handbag in one of the smart new shapes?

Fortunately for us muddle-headed males of the species, it was slowly explained that shops have something called an “assistant” who could aid in the choice of such a gift.

Now, where’s that office girl?