*TRANSPORTED IN TIME - SINEWS OF SYDNEY



Sydney Ö "Class Tram on its dedicated track on the Harbour Bridge, the track leads along to Wynyard Tram Station on the same level as , and visible from, the Platforms for the Western Suburbs and the North Shore trains

Through all of my school life and into my early  working life, trams were an integral, but increasingly contoversial part of the City's transport life. The network was, in its time , reputedly the second largest in the world.Most people to-day would be surprised at its extent shown in the following map:

The controversy arose after WW II when burgeoning motor vehicle traffic, combined with Sydney's mostly narrow streets, found the old ladies of the tracks too slow and too obstructive as traffic came to a halt each time the tram stopped. Perhaps the campaign was being supported by the bus producers( who knows? In the USA General Motors systematically bought up the tram companies and closed them down in order to promote bus sales!). I was not among the agitators - and I didn't care if it was the modern thing to do, and "the whole world"is getting rid of trams -which wasn't true in any case.

Sydney "O "Class Tram - my favourites.

I loved the trams, especially the older "O "Class on which I most frequently travelled. I loved the two open compartments at either end, sitting on the very side wedged against the curved brass handhold. The Conductors, standing on the footboards, which enabled passengers to step up into the tram, used to have to hold onto these brass fittings as they swung themselves along from compartment to compartment collecting fares. It was fairly dangerous considering cars and trucks whizzing past, and rather unpleasant in rainy weather.

The trams were heavily built and their old, but it seems , reliable electric motors were rather noisy, as were the wheels. It was great to hear the increasing rhythm of the motors, their heavy "run-run, run-run, RUN-RUN,RUN-RUN "sound rising as the matching rhythm of the wheels over the track joints( no spot welded joints then) added to the effect. Trams being what they are , they could manage 90 degree tuns on very tight arcs. My favourite was turning out of George Street in the City into King Street - the Tram car appeared to be well behind the wheels in getting around the bend and described a much wider arc than the track of course. The screech of the wheels was agonising as they protested their treatment.And there was the occasional flash and crack as the power pole contact made the transition from the George Street wires to the King Street wires.

The corner of George St. (L-R) and King street in an earlier era. Note on the right hand corner facing is the then famous Belfield's Hotel. The owner, J.B.Belfield was a famous Billiards Champion, Hotelier and wealthy real estate investor. He was renowned in Sydney society as a very fine Gentleman and doted on his beautiful wife who sadly died early. He was a relative of my wife on her Mother's side. Note that there was at that time no connection between the George Street tramway and the King Street line.

During my last two years of School - at Marist Brothers' Darlinghurst, I travelled daily on the tram from Eddy Street at Central station up to Darlo. It was great. Tram travel gave a real "feel"for the City.The wooden slats of the seats defied any desire for comfort and you were in the midst of everything, noise, weather ( good or bad) and the total ambience of the place. Other tram trips I had made often , but irregularly were to Bronte Beach whenever I went with the Drydens across the street from us.Their son Brien was the same age as me and we had been friends since the beginning of Primary School at St Peter Chanel's Convent School Berala. The trip out to Bronte was long and good fun until we turned into Macpherson Street at Waverley and I got the first whiff of the sea air - a cold chill would settle on my little tummy. I could not swim, and I knew, no matter how pleasant people were, that it was bound to be a background cause of humiliation. Oh well! There was always the Parkland at the back of the Beach to explore AND the ride on train to enjoy!

On one of these visits to Bronte we went across to the Milk Bar, and there I had my first Coca Cola. It had been unavailable during the War and now here it was , the great American treat! I enjoyed it very much.

The Tram Station at Randwick Racecourse.

On rare occasions, about twice a year, I would go with Mum and Dad to the Races.We went both Randwick and Canterbury. Randwick was a great tram ride from Central Station and Canterbury we went to by train and from time to time caught the tram to the City where we would have our evening meal in one of the ubiquitous "Sargeant's Pies Restaurants. If my memory serves me rightly you could get several different accompaniments to your Sargeant's Pie for dinner. There were about eight of these establishments in the City.This was a good indicator of the degree of sophistication of the average Sydneysider's dining choices, at least at our income level.

The tram trip from Canterbury to the City was quite long and somewhat "dampened"by parental supervision and tiredness after a long day. I quite enjoyed, and still do, the actual races, but, particularly as an early teenager I found the waiting between races boring and would read. Teenagers are impossible!

One particularly memorable tram trip was to The Spit and it must have been in 1944 or thereabouts travelling with my Mum and my Aunt Nell. We were headed to Manly - for some reason choosing tram and bus rather than the Ferry. There were four American Servicemen in our open compartment.They were very polite and very pleasant as they helped us down from the tram compartment . They were also very Black! This made a marked impression on me  because I don't believe I had ever met a black person before! I guess Mum and Nell were fearful I might say something out of place, but I didn't. Perhaps the fact that Mum had always drilled into me the equal value of all people before God had its effect.

As you may gather I really enjoyed my times on the trams and regret their having passed away. (P.S. That large lumbering "light rail"thing from Central to wherever doesn't count - it has no character!) And as for the wretched Monorail - don't get me started!)



BERALA STATION FOCUS OF MEMORIES

BERALA STATION LOOKING NORTH TOWARD LIDCOMBE

If only because I used it almost every weekday, from 1950 to 1970, BERALA Railway Station ( the Americanised "Train Station" only came into use with the "SESAME STREET"generations of the 1970's onwards) is the focus of many and varied memories. It looked different then, no blue seats and signs - the seats were Brunswick Green and the signs were Stone coloured with large black lettering. There were no spy cameras either - Big Nanny had yet to arrive.

Can you remember what you were doing on 7th May,1952?  O.K. - most of you were in no condition to do anything : the great "not born yet"majority. But I was walking toward Berala Station up Hyde Park Road just about opposite the three or four local shops ;I noticed something odd around the station.There seemed to be one long train stopped there, overhanging the Platform at both ends. The truth became quickly evident as police and emergency vehicles came into sight, and the full view of the Platform revealed carriages skewed at crazy angles and over the high embankment on which the tracks and Platform (accessed by a curved brick lined tunnel and stairs) stood.

The BERALA train crash cost 10 lives and injuries reported varyingly from 84 to 140. It had been a foggy morning and there was an eight car russet coloured electric train in the Platform heading toward Lidcombe and the City. Stopped at the Red Signal back toward Regents Park , was a similar following train headed for the City also. It was peak hour and there is always pressure to maintain the schedule. The second trains'driver slowly drove his train past the "Stop"Signal and was automatically brought to a halt by the trip lever at ground level. This lever raised itself whenever the Signal turned Red ,so that it would engage the trip lever on any electric train that tried to pass, stopping it(Steam locomotives had no such device). Drivers were allowed, in special circumstances to re-start their train and proceed with extreme caution. This procedure is called "tripping through". This is what the driver did. But here things become complicated to say the least.

The testimony of two men in a truck on the near parallel road observed the following train doing at least 30 -35 mph ( say,50 - 60 kph) at the moment of impact, and the force of the impact which drove the following train to telescope 4 carriages into the standing train attested to that observation. Yet, experts testified that the following train could not have accelerated to that speed from the "Stop"Signal. Press reports highlighted this contradiction. But I believe the following train's driver died in the collision and the mystery was left unresolved.

There were many heroes on that day, but prominent among them was Father John Gallagher from St,Joachim's in Lidcombe (the Parish in which my Mum and Dad had been married in 1927). Father Gallagher with stole about his neck and his Anointing Kit had climbed into the crazily skewed wreckage at considerable danger to himself, helping those in need and anointing those in greater need. He had done what any Priest should, but in those days it was reported, to-day , the reporting might be different.(He was a very interesting person, having brought to Australia the Canadian Antigonish credit union movement.) It was a terrible sight, a grotesque twist of everyday reality. The fact that outdated wooden carriages mixed with the normal modern steel carriages had been totally shattered in the impact, with great loss of life, was not lost on observers and investigators. Within a short time there were rows of them at the wrecking yards. Too late.

Happier Times

One of the great sights to behold at BERALA STATION was the MELBOURNE LIMITED EXPRESS thundering through the Platform on its way to Central Station in the City. Hauled in those days by the mighty green liveried C 38 Class Steam Locomotives and usually composed of very long and heavy Teak Varnished Carriages each  running on two big six wheeled bogies, it was a magnificent sight - especially on a Winter's morning when the exhausting of the 245 lbs psi steam would create quite a show. The great connecting rods of the locomotive used to flash around coming just above Platform level as they passed. This seemed to have an endless fascination for any dogs on the Platform, They would always try to keep up with the locomotive barking and snapping at the rods. Luckily for them they never made contact!



Two C38 Class Locomotives -5 were steamlined, 25 were not.

 To-day our Railway Stations abound with signs forbidding this, that and the other thing,warning that you are being watched and that Nanny thinks you should stand "Here"or "There"and urging you to be P.C. and save the world. 'Twas  not always thus. BERALA STATION like every other station on the New South Wales Government Railways had in its openish, austere Waiting Room two large signs with very fine print,which, when read after you had just missed the 7.30 am to the City and waited for the 7.45 am to the City, revealed that the Penalty for placing objects on the railway lines was up to "Life Imprisonment", and various other misdeeds like walking across the railway tracks carried similarly severe but rarely known penalties. The whole was presented in that marvellous, forbidding language that the lawyers of those days seemed to have inherited from Monarchs of the Middle Ages. Later in life I was to work for the Solicitor for Railways and inter alia ( like that??) had to serve Summonses from the Railway Court which included such phrases when commanding the Defendant's appearance as "Herein fail not!" Great stuff - that would scare the poor citizen witless!

*ALERT - BUT MORE CURIOUS THAN ALARMED

Baby Anthony Dixon Aged about eight months in the then common wicker pram.

No unkind remarks please - how good do you look when you've just woken up? This may be the oldest photo of me. The pram appears to be parked against the edge of the back verandah of our California Bungalow. Note the restraining harness!

In fact, my earliest memories are of being in that very Pram, looking out through lace curtains in the surgery of Doctor Mannion in Kerrs Road Lidcombe.

*1943 -1945 SIRENS AND SEARCHLIGHTS

Air Raid Siren

A monthly , or bi-monthly feature of life in suburban Sydney during World War II, at least in the vicinity of Berala , in what were then Sydney's Western Suburbs ( now the inner Western Suburbs!), was the sonorous wail of the Air Raid Sirens. As far as I am aware the Siren we heard was near the Park in Lidcombe - a brisk 20 minutes walk away. To me it was a marvellous bit of entertainment! We never believed that it could be a genuine air raid, not that that belief was based on any detailed knowledge of the disposition of Japanese Aircraft Carriers - we just knew we were going to be O.K. Similarly, but more irregularly, anti-aircraft searchlights would pierce the night sky - wonderful stuff causing people all around to run onto their verandahs or into their front/back yards to watch the show. There seemed never to be any aircraft around to give the exercise some semblance of reality, and very rarely a second or third searchlight to allow co-ordination exercises.

We had in our backyard a large hole dug as an air raid shelter, but it seemed to me even as a child, somewhat half-hearted and incomplete, and it  was never taken seriously and as time wore on , it was filled in.

WW II Searchlight

The War, so dramatic in the films, and apparently serious in the papers - not that I could read them- was somehow at one remove from our day to day lives.  At least that was true for children like me.

*BEEN THERE TWICE - AND BEEN DONE BY THAT!!

To-day with my dear wife,I went to the movies. We saw "COMPANY MEN".

Without hesitation I urge you to see it. It is very much a story of our times - the shedding of activities and employees by major companies seeking to ride out difficult times. Along the way , we are shown the degrading effects of being "let go" , of family and personal degradation by the rolling consequences of lost position and status. And interestingly and very accurately, we are shown how tough it is even for small business operators to stay afloat in hard times. We are still feeling the "crush of the wagon wheels"which a Wyoming Jesuit once hoped I would avoid.

The acting and direction are brilliant, the whole being very tightly managed and free of unnecessary theatrics, making it so much more effective.

Having been twice a victim of such a situation, though with very different backgrounds, I found the movie very realistic, and telling. In fact, afterwards I could scarcely talk about it without being moved to tears. Go! See it! Please, for my sake and yours - these are uncertain times.You may begin to understand.

I thank God someone has made this movie , and with such integrity.

*JANUARY 1947 - A "CULTURAL ICON" (peeping out!) MANLY BEACH

WITH MY DAD IN PITT STREET,SYDNEY OUTSIDE THE WATER BOARD HEAD OFFICE

 It may seem bizarre, but here I am with my Dad, going to the beach! Yes that was the way we and most others dressed for a casual day out! Did you spot the "Cultural Icon "peeping out? Take a close look at my beach bucket - made in good sturdy tinware - no plastics then. (There was Bakelite - widely used in the ever more popular mantel radios, but it was brittle and far from suitable for any knockabout purposes.) On the bucket you will see the reproduction of the bow of R.M.S. Queen Mary whose image wrapped around the bucket - what more could a boy want! 

"The beach", for us almost invariably meant Manly -"7 Miles from Sydney and 1,000 miles from care!"as the signs inside the stately, steam powered ferries used to say. I loved the trip! The ferries themselves were impressive to me with beach names like "Barrenjoey", "Dee Why", "North Head"and the latest and greatest was "South Steyne"- stories of her sailing out from England ( where else!) were listened to in awe, including the tales of the seating having been burnt when fuel ran low!!These steam ferries had engine rooms that were visible from the passenger decks - looking down onto the tops of the cylinders with glimpses of the great piston rods and the cranks of the driveshaft. Scent of steam, oil, grease, sounds of the engineroom telegraph bell, the hiss of steam and the mechanical throb of the thrusting pistons and turning cranks were all come together most powerfully and enchantingly for this little boy.

As is still the case, nature being what it is, the matter of boarding the ferry was always a changing task as the tides at Circular Quay or at Manly ebbed and flowed. There were pairs of short , simple wooden planks with guard rails on one side only - for the lower or main deck, and very large and heavy steel framed ramps on wheels which the wharfhands moved into place for the Upper Deck.

The scent of the sea water at the Quay was complemented by the salt on the "Smiths Crisps" which were an inevitable complement to the journey.I can taste them now. Calls of "Stand Clear!"and the boarding ramps were withdrawn, the faces of disappointed late arrivers littered the wharf.The engineroom telegraph gave its double ring and gracefully we began to move away as the last of the mooring ropes were being coiled down. Generally we stayed on the Starboard or right side, the better to see the naval vessels at Garden Island Dockyard which is still the largest Naval Dockyard in the Southern Hemisphere, and had and still has, the largest heavy lift crane in the Southern Hemisphere.
As we turned out of Circular Quay and headed East down the Harbour we passed on our right the red brick pile of Fort Macquarie which, its name not withstanding, was a large tram depot.( Someone later had the idea that this would make a fine site for an Opera House....and you know the rest!)

For all my later and continuing interest in the Navy and Naval Vessels, it is a cruel truth that I have no memory at all of the many USN, RAN and even RN ships of all sizes that I must have seen there. However I have a very clear memory of the Hospital Ship "MANUNDA" beautifully white with a green band around her hull and emblazoned with the Red Cross on her sides, passing our ferry on her way back to the war. I can still recall the appalled reaction of my parents when, having heard that "MANUNDA"was her name I, very pleased with my rhyme announced "The "MANUNDA"went under"!.Perhaps it was this audience reaction that led to my disinterest in poetry for very many years.

We swept past the homes of the rich and famous and the next point of interest was the Rose Bay Flying Boat Base - the Flying Boats themselves were sometimes to be seen at their moorings, and joy of joys, very occasionally taking off or landing - quite a show!


A gentle turn to Port (left) around Bradley's Head where I was taught to observe the masthead of HMAS SYDNEY ( I ) and reminded that "the SYDNEY sank the EMDEN"in WW I. No-one mentioned the too-painful mystery of the loss of HMAS SYDNEY ( II ), still unexplained at that time.

Then , by degrees we began to feel the influence of the sea as we ran by the Heads. At times this was almost a non event - a mere tummy tickle, but, at other times the effect could be challenging - everyone looking for a handhold and the occasional person being ill. As the ferry headed some of the heavier waves, water would spray on board , what fun!Sometimes it was necessary to cancel the services due to rough seas.

But "all good things must come to an end"and all too soon we were past the Heads and gliding into Manly wharf.Then we walked off down the Corso past the intriguing string of Milk Bars, Fish and Chip shops etc. etc. to the Promenade which gave onto the beach backed by the tall and pleasant Norfolk Island Pines. Looking up to the right we saw the imposing sandstone bulk of St.Patrick's Seminary. There are several points of departure from this point - but I shall take them up on later occasions.

*1943 - 1945 CULTURAL ICONS

R.M.S. QUEEN MARY

As I grew up, my mental wallpaper in matters civic was without question British. The great icons , cause of our pride were British -  R.M.S.QUEEN MARY. the steam locomotive "FLYING SCOTSMAN", the world's "best"car the ROLLS ROYCE, British crockery, British manufactured goods. Why not! We were British weren't we ?

Of course as Catholics we were just a tad sceptical of the underpinnings of all this. We knew about the English repression of the Irish before Home Rule. And we knew that the establishment in Australia was largely anti- Catholic. We could handle all that. We just knew that everything that was best and good in civic life was British.Of course it was! All the books we had available were published and printed in England ( save for a very few - not popularly distributed- which were published and printed in Australia).Things and people British were "proper"and to be emulated. On the Wireless, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) announcers were selected for their rather prim, well modulated British accents.

All of this worked subtly to establish a cultural "client "mentality in most of the population.Many of us felt our cultural isolation and longed to travel "overseas"- but most of the time, this simply meant London or England more broadly.Travel overseas was 98% by ship , and the ships were British ( of course) and such shipping lines as P&O(Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company), Orient Line, Shaw Savill and Huddart Parker were household names.

Oddly, before the War there had been a great number of American cars on our roads . Names such as Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Ford, Mercury, Willys,Dodge and De Soto were still quite familiar even though restrictions on U.S. currency transactions had long since stopped U.S. car imports. So our cars were Vauxhalls ( who could forget the glittering chromed flutes down the edges of the bonnets), Austins, Morrises,Rovers(Doctors'cars), Wolseleys,Triumphs,Hillmans, and the rarer Lancasters, Alvises, Armstrong-Siddeleys, Humbers , Lagondas, Daimlers( very big with the Royals) and Bentleys etc.

Still other considerations of English origin, re-inforced our above view of the world. Architecture was a leading factor in this way. Most public architecture had its origins at least in the Victorian era. So it was that Government Buildings were designed and constructed to suggest permanence, authority and strength. Other buildings like Banks had developed out of the experience of hard times past. There were usually friendly glass inner doors , but strong, forbidding outer doors - everyone had in mind the runs on the Banks in the Great Depression - only  11-15 years earlier. Windows were high by to-day's standards, further enhancing protection against external assault.

But beneath the surface, there were several subversive streams at work.There had always been American films, movies they called them.As the war effort grew these American films came to be more and more the true mainstream. Their ideas were quite different and...somehow, more ...exciting.The presence of American Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen in Australia greatly expanded the Americanised way of thinking.The failure of the British to come to our aid ( largely due to inability and the failure of what they did try) was commonly known and resented in reality, no matter what the reason. There was a fairly natural affinity between Americans and Australians based upon openness and a lack of British type Class pretensions. We were more like the Americans then, than we are now I think. That may seem paradoxical given to-day's very free communications. But whilst these modern communications have made our cultural links much stronger, they have, it seems to me, facilitated in each society a more rapid development of particular tendencies which are drawing us further apart in essence, if not in superficialities. Hmmm Getting a bit deep. Might try to come back to this later.