Tag / RAAF

by Eddie

The home of tomorrow, 1944 style

kitchen

Yes, we would like to live here.

We here at Dodgy Perth have lost count of the number of times we’ve been asked “Where was the most futuristic house in Western Australia?” Actually, the number is zero. But that’s never stopped us from imagining people asking such questions.

Anyway, even though you don’t care, the answer is a large residence on First Avenue, Mt Lawley. Unfortunately, the house number appears lost to history, but if you have any additional information please let us know.

In 1944, an RAAF man had some brief leave and decided to turn the family home into something out of Star Trek. The first thing you would notice is that the front door bell automatically triggered a light over your head. Now that’s space-age.

Then he modified the grandfather clock’s pendulum to work with two magnets, meaning it never needed winding and kept perfect time. This clock was wired to half-a-dozen other timepieces around the house, which ensured they always told the same time.

Both husband and wife were musicians, so the house was wired with an amplification system, which was reported as being one of the very best. We’re sure the neighbours would have loved that.

After this, it gets a bit weird. There were many other electric gadgets, all beautifully designed and finished from Tasmanian woods. But part of the house was a self-contained flat leased to tenants. And as the newspaper report cryptically put it:

There are naturally certain domestic offices which have to be shared by householder and tenants. To obviate any embarrassment, electric gadgets flash signals to the house indicating whether or not they are in use.

Embarrassment? What kind of electric devices would cause embarrassment if you were to be discovered using them? So you had to flash signals to the house? What? How? Why?

Get your mind out of the gutter, we’re sure there is an innocent explanation. Surely there must be an innocent explanation.

by Eddie

Above top secret

It's flying. It looks like a saucer. What shall we call it?

It’s flying. It looks like a saucer. What shall we call it?

In January 1953, the Daily News ran an amused, but very short, article on four Dalwallinu residents who saw a flying saucer. Well, it may have been amusing for the journo, but the authorities took it very seriously.

A letter was immediately sent from Air Force high command to the Commissioner of Police demanding that the cops immediately interrogate the witnesses. The letter also stated that the matter was top secret and that the four individuals must not know it was the Air Force investigating their story.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s go back to the original sighting.

Richard H. and Keith M. were foxhunting just northeast of Dalwallinu. A strange object appeared in the sky, surrounded by a ring of white light. It travelled north for a while, before changing direction to the west.

Richard and Keith were able to watch the alien craft for more than twenty minutes before it finally disappeared from view.

In Dalwallinu itself, Les A. and Kenneth J. also saw something weird, this time around 9.30pm. The flying saucer was once again surrounded by a halo, but even after the craft itself had disappeared the ring of light remained in the sky for several minutes.

Les was an excellent witness, because he was an ex-RAAF pilot, and very familiar with estimating speeds and altitudes of flying things.

Just another mysterious entry in WA’s very own Project Blue Book file.

by Eddie

Fifty Shades, 1940s style

spanking

Obviously I’m not doing this for my own good

Today, we go all Dodgy Sydney on you. Why are we abandoning the pleasant sunny shores of Western Australia? Well might you ask. You did ask, didn’t you?

The answer is simple. This letter sent by a serving WWII RAAF officer to his wife back in Sydney is just too good not to share.

Put on your pyjamas. Sit up in bed with a cocoa. And prepare to have Norman Robinson go full-on Fifty Shades on Gloria Constance Robinson:

As you know, dear, married couples often finish up in the Divorce Court through spanking, and in all these cases, dear, I think it’s because the female does not understand the male. She fails to see spanking as an expression of love.

Spanking is introduced into a marriage to terminate an argument, and the husband experiences great heights of exquisite delight and finds an outlet and gives expression to his fierce love for his wife.

The wife (being her first spanking probably since she was a child) experiences only the indignity of it and the physical pain.

But the husband has now found an outlet for his fierce love for his wife, and so he makes mountains out of molehills in order to obtain an excuse to spank her, with the result that the wife finds herself being spanked for every little thing she says or does.

The husband finds he has to spank her harder and longer to get the required results. The husband has to spank his wife for probably ten or more minutes before he begins to feel any reaction.

Darling, if you or any woman could experience the exquisite delight a husband gets from spanking his wife you would submit as often as you were physically capable.

Complete harmony, dear, could be obtained, I think, by regulating the spankings to a minimum of about one per week. If love required, twice weekly.

In our case, dear, as I said in the other letter, I would be fully prepared, should you feel the inclination, to bend over your knee, or lie face downward.