Swimming to the Moon Read online

  Are publically spitting mothers now pariahs? I wondered, recalling the ever-ready damp hankie in the days before the existence of moistened tissue-wipes. In my childhood, every decent mother carried a hankie up her sleeve, down her cleavage or in her handbag – and a ready supply of saliva to go with it.

  Mother-spit was used to eliminate Vegemite, milk and chocolate from youthful lips, and dirt and lipstick on cheeks. Mother-spit tamed cowlicks and flyaway hair. Mother-spit cleaned dusty shoes and conditioned your swimming goggles. If you’d been eating a Choo-Choo bar or drinking Milo, your mother needed litres of it. Back then, the American writer Erma Bombeck opined that new mothers were fortunately endowed with an extra spit supply, like milk glands, at pregnancy.

  Did we children mind being smeared with maternal saliva? Speaking for myself – yes, a bit – but it was a ‘mother thing’ and you had to cop it. But let anyone else do the hankie-spit routine (an aunt, grandmother or, even worse, a female neighbour or friend) and you couldn’t get to the bathroom quick enough to scour your face. Male hankie-spitters? They simply didn’t exist. A father would rather die than do it. They instinctively knew that father-spit was too disgusting for words. Besides, they didn’t care if you had a dirty face.

  Sometimes, a grandmother, her feelings hurt by sullen resistance to her soggy hankie, and announcing that you were clearly ‘going down with something’, might attempt to restore healthy cheerfulness with an all-purpose remedy from her past: a big dose of castor oil or, worse, Hypol cod-liver oil. At the approach of the brimming fishy tablespoon, any child on earth would willingly turn back to that grandma hankie smelling of 4711 cologne.

  At least cod-liver oil, in its modern form of omega-3 fatty-acid tablets, has prevailed as a health remedy. I’m not so sure of Reckitt’s blue-bags, for bee-stings, or Ford pills, for constipation, although the senna would probably do the trick. (Forget climate change or asylum seekers, irregularity was society’s greatest concern back then.)

  Then there were Dr Williams’ Pink Pills For Pale People. A combination of iron oxide and magnesium sulphate, they were still being advertised in the 1950s as a cure for ‘a pale complexion and all forms of weakness in male or female’. They would also fix your St Vitus Dance, nervous headache, palpitations, rheumatism, influenza, ‘male exhaustion’ and ‘female troubles’.

  ‘Female troubles’, for some reason more prevalent in those days, were the focus of Bex powders as well, with thousands of Australian women in the 1960s being urged by advertisements to have ‘a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie-down’, until it was realised that the aspirin, phenacetin and caffeine combination was causing widespread kidney disease.

  Speaking of yesteryear’s remedies, whatever happened to good old flavine, Mercurochrome and Condy’s crystals? In my childhood, West Australian kids went proudly out into the world with their bare feet and legs painted the customary yellow, red or purple. Reef cuts, stubbed toes, ringworm, tinea and school sores were all given the technicolour antiseptic treatment.

  Feet took a thrashing back then when Perth kids went shoeless. Boys’ feet were painted so boldly with Mercurochrome and flavine they looked like they were wearing bright red and yellow socks. As a six-year-old new to Perth, I found these displays most impressive. Those blackened toenails, grazed ankles, blood-blistered soles, the ingrained dirt and festering reef-cuts crisscrossing their feet, proved a boy’s heroic acquaintance with reefs and searing sand, beach and bush, melting bitumen, doublegees, cliffs and broken glass.

  It was a case for the bath and a stiff scrubbing brush. No mother ever attempted to spit-clean those feet.

  ROMANCE

  How shall I put this? I think there’s an overwhelming reason why West Australians of a certain age regard the beach in a nostalgic light. It’s because they first had sex there.

  For the rest of their lives, therefore, the coast – and in particular Rottnest Island – is not only a regular pleasure and constant balm but an obsession that resurfaces at each critical physical and emotional stage: as new lovers, as honeymooners, as vacationing parents, and as the retired elderly. Everyone remembers their coastal youth.

  While nostalgically visiting places like Rottnest and the towns of the south-west for research recently, I’ve been recalling the ardour and ambitions I had at twenty-one. My West Australianness, for want of a better description, is more accepting than it was back then. Though more sharply tuned by experience, it’s also more romantic and sentimental.

  Some things don’t change much. If, as I believe, Australians share two central myths, the myth of landscape and the myth of character, West Australians are, without question, inheritors of the myth of landscape.

  The myth of landscape itself divides into two opposing myths: the Beach or the Bush, or, as I like to think of it, the Shark versus the Dingo. It’s this paradox, the sometimes uneasy relationship between people’s coastal and country natures, their sensual and pragmatic sides, that makes WA such an idiosyncratic and interesting place.

  On the sensual side, West Australians are, above all, hedonists who live for their casual and invariably coastal pleasures. My friend Bruce Petty, the cartoonist, once satirised Perth in an illustration where a suntanned couple was holding a deep and meaningful conversation. One line of dialogue went: ‘Another nice day then.’ The other was: ‘Sorry, am I standing in your sun, Ken?’

  The first thing a returning expatriate notices is the vast number of boats stacked along the shores, surely more per capita than anywhere in Australia. Access to the Indian Ocean and Swan River is vital to the WA lifestyle. The boat, whether tin dinghy, racing yacht or luxury cruiser, is king. It’s the first essential purchase for Mr Suburbia after the motor car. Such a pity that apart from Rottnest there’s nowhere much to sail to.

  Another standout feature is the relative sophistication of the south-west towns – their cool cafes and well-stocked delicatessens, and the good coffee available – compared to, say, most Greasy Spoon efforts in similar sized towns in country NSW. (Or in regional America or Britain, for that matter.) The continuing process of Margaret-Riverisation in the state’s psyche means that West Australians drink and eat well.

  This sensual side of their natures used to stop short at any mention of the arts. Nowadays, the arts seem less scary. Let’s hope so. The state’s primal settings have always lent themselves superbly to poetry and prose. D. H. Lawrence saw this eighty years ago, even if his European eyes found a ‘spirit of place’ in the West Australian bush that evoked sheer terror in him. These days the harsh beauty of the western landscape appeals hugely and internationally (think Red Dog, Japanese Story, Bran Nue Dae) as the backdrop of the state’s burgeoning film industry.

  Maybe the opposing country soul of West

  Australians is evident in their chauvinistic pragmatism. Can we put the vociferous lauding of local businessmen and sportspeople down to this? A Martian visitor might wonder if there had ever been any humans so entrepreneurially adventurous and athletically gifted as West Australians. And has any football team in history ever enjoyed such huge press space as the Eagles? (Whoops, showing my Docker bias there.)

  Perth congratulates itself on producing more national sporting champions per capita than any other capital. And, seriously, West Australians are indeed sporty spartans, often physically brave, who take pleasure in vigorous activities spiced with discomfort: flies, wind, swirling sand, and even danger.

  Few urban Australians are more at ease with both outdoor and country pursuits. For that matter, few big cities offer such close proximity to both bush and beach. Always you sense that just over that pale sandhill is the bush, and back over that dune lies the beach. Only a blaze of dandelions and pigface separates them. And there is the essence of my personal Australia: the Indian Ocean shimmering through the branches of a flowering gum.

  WINDY HARBOUR

  I have a new favourite spot: a tiny south-west settlement in the D’Entrecasteaux National Park on the shores of the Southern Ocean. For al
l sorts of reasons Windy Harbour is my perfect place.

  It looks like a coastline that would harbour smugglers, the kind of setting where Enid Blyton’s Famous Five would be quite at home. It ticks all my nostalgic boxes: cosy holiday shacks, untamed physical beauty, pounding surf, pristine sandy beaches, rugged limestone cliffs, few people, no mobile phone reception or electricity, and good fishing.

  There is also abundant native wildlife and, to gorge on it, apparently, the obligatory panther, puma or cougar that Australian country townsfolk and rural newspapers so adore. Those mysterious big cats that are frequently spotted padding along country roads at night but, sadly, never manage to stay in focus for a photograph, make their presence felt even as you pass through Pemberton on your way south.

  A recent issue of the Pemberton Community News announces it is ‘on the lookout for the Pemberton Puma’ and features a news story of the Harding family – Darren, Jessica and Leona – who say they saw one on July 21 at 8.30 p.m.

  Darren Harding described to the staff of the Pemberton Visitor Centre what they saw that night. ‘Having turned left onto the South West Highway from the Vasse Highway, we saw a large black four-legged creature with reflective eyes. It had the swagger of a cat. We hit the brakes and stopped to see if we could get a closer look, but it disappeared into the night.’

  Darren is convinced that what they saw was a large feline. ‘It was at least a metre tall, with the characteristic lumber of a cat.’ Further identification might not have been improved, however, by the newspaper’s illustration of a sabre-toothed tiger.

  Fifty-seven kilometres on, my companion and I arrived at Windy Harbour to be met by a sign on the settlement’s Information Board: ‘If you have any unusual stock losses, or sightings of these animals: cougar or black panther, contact Sharon. I have a huge database of sightings of these mysterious big cats.’

  Sharon left an email address which I couldn’t wait to contact once I returned to Perth a few days later. Alas, the mail dispatch system announced brusquely that my email couldn’t be delivered. I can only hope Sharon’s avid big-cat interest hasn’t ended gruesomely.

  They have warm hearts and long memories in Windy Harbour. We were given fresh abalone just off the boat, and helpful assistance with a generator. We were also intrigued by a ferocious handpainted sign along the front wall of one of the settlement’s otherwise neater huts: ‘Michael Cooke* Is No Longer Welcome in This House!’ For the rest of our stay we entertained ourselves wondering what dreadful deed Michael Cooke had done. It must have been pretty bad.

  Windy Harbour especially fascinated me for its folklore, particularly the wreck of the SS Michael J. Goulandris in December 1944, the most exciting and lucrative event in the lives of the locals last century, strewing, as it did, 2000 tons of general cargo – a month’s wartime supplies for Perth – along Windy Harbour’s beaches.

  Everything from American canned meats, Milo and Glaxo baby food to fur coats, benzol in forty-four-gallon drums, medical supplies, tanned leather and half a hectare of lead pencils floated ashore. There were automotive parts, typewriters, axe handles, soap, cosmetics, timber, torpedoes and elastoplasts.

  As the salvage mania grew, people from nearby Northcliffe began hiding their booty in the sandhills so they could return to the shore for more. Apparently you could judge the IQ of the scavengers on the goods they coveted. Those folk who hankered after axe handles and lead pencils, and their descendants two generations later, are still mocked today – as are those who blew up their car engines with salvaged benzol, or hid drums of benzol in the bush just before the area’s worst summer bushfires raced through.

  For extra energy, some of the greedier scavengers, not stopping to eat meals, scoffed packet after packet of this new American chocolate they found. Laxettes, they were called. Soon there were scores of people squatting and moaning in the dunes. Windy Harbour indeed.

  * Not his real name.

  GETTING ON THE MAP

  Returning regularly to my home town, it has gradually dawned that something’s missing. No longer do you hear that optimistic provincial phrase: ‘This will put Perth on the map’.

  Finally, politicians, civic boosters and editorial writers can relax. The most niggling worry in Perth’s 185 years has been settled. Thanks to luck, minerals, entrepreneurial energy and China we are the map.

  But it was touch and go. We’ve imagined ourselves on the map many times before, only to have our dreams dashed by Federal Government intransigence, Test cricket selectors, American twelve-metre yachtsmen and Eastern-States and overseas ignorance.

  We believed, mistakenly, that we were on the map in 1892, 1903, 1933, 1952, 1953, 1961 and 1969. In 1962 we thought we were on the map twice, and in July 1979 we managed to creep onto the map only to slide off it again a week later.

  In 1892 we thought our gold would put us on the map; and in 1933, our vote to secede from the Commonwealth. In 1952 and 1953 we thought oil and bomb tests would do the trick; in 1961 and 1969, our iron ore and nickel. In 1983, Australia II sailed us onto the map – for four years.

  Early in the Australian film ‘renaissance’, a memorable film, Nickel Queen, endeavoured to enhance our map adhesion. Despite featuring the State Cabinet of the day self-consciously assembled on the Parmelia Hotel roof, rubicund and stagestruck in their pinstripes and RSL badges, it’s remembered more for its keen product placement. (Motorist pulling alongside an MTT bus: ‘Mate, what’s the best hotel in town?’ Bus driver: ‘Oh, you mean the Parmelia!’) And above all for the love scene between Googie Withers and John Laws. (Seriously.)

  Some optimists believed our map inclusion problems were over in July 13, 1979, when Skylab fell on us and Time magazine sat up and took notice. These enthusiasts, hoping to dignify this visitation a week later with the full panoply of the Miss Universe pageant (previous host city, Guerro, Mexico), saw their ambitions dissolve in tears when, before the international TV cameras, the stage collapsed beneath Misses Malta and Turkey.

  For many, 1962 was when we lost our innocence. For years we’d been eagerly tiptoeing map-wards while planning the Commonwealth Games. We never dreamed an event of this magnitude could be eclipsed, that our city would literally beam from the globe.

  We hadn’t reckoned on the power of John Glenn orbiting the earth, and on our direct participation in the adventure. Everyone turned on all their lights, in every room, all night, to welcome Colonel Glenn. And, yes, he saw the glow and remarked on it.

  Premier Dave Brand had earlier asked the American vice-consul to ask the State Department to ask NASA to ask Colonel Glenn if he’d put in a plug for the Commonwealth Games as he passed over Perth. That was pushing it, but he did say ‘Thank everyone for turning on the lights.’

  As the West Australian’s headline summed up:

  Glenn Orbits Earth,

  Says Thanks to Perth.

  ‘His reported sighting of the lights of Perth was ample reward,’ Dave Brand said, making the best of it. ‘Perth will be favourably remembered by America and the rest of the world.’

  An American newspaper dubbed Perth the City of Light. We were definitely on the map now. Some of us became misty-eyed when the thank-you was repeated by Ed Harris, playing Glenn in the film The Right Stuff.

  There were other heroes in the City of Light. Lord Mayor Sir Harry Howard wanted Glenn to drop everything and visit immediately. A quick tour ‘would put Perth even more firmly on the map as far as overseas countries are concerned’.

  Glenn couldn’t make it, but Sir Harry found it incumbent on him to accept NASA’s invitation to an honoured position in the astronaut’s motorcade through New York. Back home this was seen as sporting of the lord mayor, since he’d originally opposed turning on any lights at all.

  But as every old Perth reporter knows, the real man of the hour was Bill King, town hall roundsman for the West, who’d suggested to the lord mayor turning on the lights in the first place.

  TOURIST TIPS

  Commentators like offe
ring advice to foreign tourists visiting Australia. Occasionally it’s wicked advice given in the spirit of Gerard Hoffnung’s guidance fifty years ago to foreigners in Britain for the first time. Hoffnung told them to try the famous echo in the Reading Room of the British Museum.

  He also said that free zebra parking was available on most roads, and that on entering an English railway compartment it was customary to shake hands with everyone present. All London brothels, he said, displayed a blue lamp.

  Recently my friend, the ABC’s Richard Glover, has offered similar advice for first-time tourists in Sydney. Taking a leaf out of their books, I thought the following twenty-point Hoffnung-and-Glover-style tips should be provided for foreigners visiting Perth:

  1. Public transport fares are negotiable; it’s polite to haggle with the bus or cab driver.

  2. Taxis are readily available everywhere, at all hours. Just hail one on the street. The driver will be quite familiar with your destination.

  3. Regard Stirling Highway as you would the autobahn or autostrade, especially at 8.15 a.m.

  4. West Australians have a traditional and sentimental fondness for the Eastern States. Stress how good life is over there, and proffer advice on how aspects of WA could be improved if only their example was followed.

  5. Bemoan the fact that WA cricketers can’t match their prowess, and indeed are lucky to have ever been selected in the national team – fortunately, only by the good grace of the selectors.

  6. ‘Poofter’ is a term of endearment to Australian sportsmen when they’re drinking. Go the rounds of Perth nightclubs and the casino at 2.00 a.m. shouting cheerfully ‘All Eagles players are poofters!’

  7. Do the same in Fremantle. Here, it’s appreciated if you substitute the catchcry ‘Dockers’.

  8. Perth nightclub bouncers like a little friendly sparring and cheek-tapping before allowing you entry. As a polite overture to ensure entry, say ‘Good evening, my good poofter!’