In my childhood, the long, long journey from the joys of one Christmas to the next was punctuated by two other events that could not be fully enjoyed unless a certain amount of money was available. These were the Annual Royal Agricultural Show in October and Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November.
My earliest memories
of the Royal Show are a mixture of merry-go-round rides, Chairaplane rides,
the Octopus, log chopping, Professor Wilkinson doing tricks on a motorcycle,
Dodgem Cars, The Mounted Police galloping at speed with long lances to spear white markers on the grass, displays of food and farm produce in the Centenary Pavilion, bustling crowds,
Sheep Dog Trials, surging crowds, strong animal smells, hot dogs and fairy floss. Free sample bags. Oh, and Sideshow Alley.
In those days, the two big days of the Show were People’s Day on Wednesday and Children’s Day on Thursday. Wednesday was a public holiday and city schools were closed for both days. My father used to used to take our family on People’s Day. I fondly remember the first year we went to the Show. It was 1948. My parents had a block of land in Mt Lawley but building materials were in short supply and you needed a government permit before you could build a house. So, in the meantime, we all lived in a large two storey house at number 8 Aberdeen Street, quite close to Beaufort Street, along with my grandmother, an uncle, two aunties and my two older cousins, Maurie and Raymond.
My parents loaded my my two sisters and me into the family car, a blue Essex Tourer. Dad had folded back the canvas hood and the family set off from Aberdeen Street just like royalty riding down the mall in an open carriage. At the time, my cousins had two dogs. Maurie’s dog was a Scottish terrier he had named GK after G.K. Chesterton. Raymond’s dog, Danny, was a beautiful collie dog just like Lassie. Unfortunately, when Dad drove out of the side lane he did not close the gate. The family’s high-spirited departure had excited both dogs and G.K. and Danny soon set off after the Bourke family making their royal progress along Beaufort Street towards the Barrack Street Bridge. Despite the dogs’ barking and yapping, Dad decided to keep on driving. As he drove passed the Swan Barracks he waved his right hand and yelled at the barking dogs to go back. They took his gestures as a sign of encouragement and continued their bounding and barking alongside our open vehicle.
What started out as a royal procession quickly degenerated into a scene out of Dad and Dave Come to Town. My father drove his family in the open car over the Barrack Street Bridge escorted by the two barking dogs. Startled onlookers in Barrack Street looked at the passing parade convinced that some rich squatter had arrived in town for the Royal Show with his family and farm dogs in tow. By the time the car reached Murray Street, the dogs found other city distractions to occupy their attention and the Bourke family continued on to the Show without their canine escorts.
As soon as the family entered the main gates, Dad picked out a landmark where we were to gather if ever we became lost. He pointed to the main door of the Centenary Pavilion and said, “If you ever get lost, go straight to stairway leading up to those doors and wait for your mother or me to come and get you. Do not go anywhere with anyone else.”
Babe was well aware of “Stranger Danger” long before the term became fashionable. She warned my sisters and me to be particularly wary of ladies offering lollies or any other inducements. Mum told us that quite often, wicked men dressed up as women just to trap little boys and girls. Filled with such foreboding, my sisters and I never wandered far from Mum and Dad. The other reason we did not stray was that Mum and Dad had all the money that was so necessary to obtain full enjoyment of Sideshow Alley.
When
I was about twelve
years old I started going to the Show on my own or with my school
mates. I would save
for several weeks leading up to the show. My main source of income was
the tuppence refund I would get for returning empty cool drink bottles
to the Beaufort Street grocery shop and the five shillings per week I
was paid by Aunty May, who operated the lucky Bunny Lottery Kiosk in
Barrack Street. Each afternoon after school I would catch the tram into
Perth and at 4-30pm I would run the day's taking and the lottery ticket
butts to the Lottery Commission office next to Newspaper House in the
Terrace. Aunty May told me never to travel the same way twice in a row
when carrying the cash and ticket butts.
I would take great delight in counting out my money and working out how many rides, sideshows, cool drinks, hot dogs and serves of fairy floss I could afford. It always seemed like plenty, but invariably by late afternoon I would have only my bus and tram fare in my pocket while still desiring more rides, sideshows and food. At least in those days the show bags, or sample bags as they were then called, were free.
The main attraction at the Show was Sideshow Alley with its rides, dodgem cars, House of Horrors, Ghost Train, the motor cycle Wheel of Death, Blum’s Boxing Troupe and various other sideshow tents. Two sideshows remained etched in Leon’s memory forever; one featuring Big Chief Little Wolf and another featuring the alluring French fan dancer, Paulette.
Big Chief, Little Wolf was a American Red Indian who became very popular in Australia after the war. He was a sensation at the big wrestling matches in Sydney and each year would tour several states attending their annual Shows, putting on exhibitions, demonstrating wrestling holds and talking about his colourful life. He always wore a huge Indian feather headdress and attracted big crowds wherever he went. On one occasion, Dad took me to Reilly’s Hall in Inglewood to see Big Chief Little Wolf stage a boxing and wrestling exhibition against Paddy Boxall, a well-known state champion boxer of the 1940s. Big Chief Little Wolf was a great wrestler but he was an even better entertainer. He was doing the World Championship Wrestling hoopla and bunkum thirty years before it became a Television sensation.
Paulette was an exotic French lady who quite possibly was just a girl from Bayswater named Beryl making pin money at the Show. However, as Paulette, with her sexy "French" accent and exotic dancing, she had a lot of fans. Of course, her two biggest fans were the big feathery blue ones she used so cleverly to keep her naked body covered as she danced around on the small stage inside the tent. She certainly aroused young Leon’s interest in the female form and he spent a great deal of his hard earned pocket money visiting the creamy skinned Paulette, always in the hope that once – just once – she would drop one of those blasted blue fans. She never did.
Ah, yes! Some wonderful memories of those wonderful The Royal Shows of so long ago.
