Church Street Richmond Childhood by Derek Kosbab

Part of my childhood during 1952-1962 centred around Church Street Richmond since where we lived in Alban Street was adjacent to Church Street. The nearest major intersection to Alban Street is Church Street and Bridge Road.

Bridge Road was named for the bridge over the Yarra river at its eastern end; and, Church street for its churches. Most famous of the churches, at Richmond’s highest point, is a large Catholic church, St Ignatius’, that had its foundation stone laid in 1867; and, next to St Ignatius’ on the south side is a smaller Anglican church, St Stephen’s, that today on its website boasts: Serving the Richmond community since 1850. On the corners of the Church Street and Bridge Road intersection were clockwise, from the south-west corner: Alexanders, a menswear store; an ANZ bank; a pharmacy then known as a chemist shop; and, the Vine Hotel.

Alexanders mens wear store features in my childhood memory—or rather, adult memory—for my disgraceful behaviour when my mother, Doris, accompanied me to a Saturday morning sale event for me to purchase my first business suit. We looked at all of the suits on sale and I tried several for fit and comfort and appearance. I selected one suit as clearly superior and I was about to take it to the register when Doris noticed that it was not a sale item but regularly priced at more than double the suit sale price. I was extremely disappointed; so, I carefully peeled a label from a sale suit and pasted it over the high-priced label. Then, I noticed that some of the salespeople were, in fact, kids I went to school with who had been hired only to cope with the numbers of sale shoppers. I presented my suit with the cheaper sale sticker attached to one of the school kids and was able to purchase the suit of my choice. Doris was so disgraced at my behaviour she left me in the store to finalise the sale.

The Vine Hotel also features in my childhood memories. During the long school holidays over Christmas and New Year I had worked full time in the office of an engineering firm, Smith and Searles. The manager who hired me was Orme Johnstone. Orme had a staunchly religious wife who was an upstanding member of the religious community in Box Hill and imposed on Orme her moralistic and religious dictates. On Friday afternoons at the end of the working week, Orme was allowed to walk the one hundred yards to the Vine Hotel and have one glass of beer before driving home. One Friday evening while enjoying his glass of beer Orme struck up a conversation with another drinker who also supported the Richmond Football Club: the Tigers. On the strength of this shared support for the Tigers, they decided to put in two shillings and sixpence each and Orme would purchase a ticket for them in the Tattersalls weekly draw: first prize 10,000 pounds. As it happened the ticket won the first prize but Orme didn’t even know the drinker’s name to contact him to notify him of their luck and 10,000 pounds. Orme put 5,000 pounds of the winnings aside in a bank account and then re-visited the Vine Hotel after work, every weeknight, for eighteen months before he found the man standing at the bar. In all of those visits, with the exception of Friday nights, Orme never had a beer. On the night Orme located the man he told him of their luck and winnings; and, they enjoyed a beer together even though it was a Tuesday night.

Much of my childhood was associated with St Stephen’s church where my parents attended services. I sang in the choir, attended Fellowship; and, occasionally taught Sunday School classes. I was a member of St Stephen’s harriers who had their training and events on the Richmond Football Ground. During an inter-club competition I was hand-clocked at ten seconds over 100 yards. Impressive; but, I ran third. I was also a member of St Stephen’s Gym club which met each Wednesday evening in the huge hall in the grounds behind St Stephen’s church. I was hopeless as a gymnast: unable to perform handstands or headstands, unable to pike above the horizontal bar, too weak to perform any meaningful exercises on the parallel bars, Roman rings or pommel horse; and, unable to somersault over the vaulting horse. Although, I must have been able to get over a vaulting horse in some manner since when I was a student at Richmond Technical School—which happened to be in Church Street—and midway through a vault over a vaulting horse, someone called out ‘look, there’s Ron Barassi.’ Ron Barassi was one of the best known league footballers of the time. Unfortunately, despite being mid-vault, I turned my head to look and landed awkwardly head-first on the mat. But, fortunately, the first person to run to me, to massage my neck and to enquire as to whether or not I was alright was none other than Ron Barassi. Regardless of my gymnastic ineptitude, at the annual end-of-year gym club display I was awarded the trophy for Most Improved Gymnast. This was to be the only trophy I would win until I was in my mid-thirties.

One of my earliest memories of being physically aroused in a sexual sense was when blonde twins started attending church services and the youth activities associated with the church. I cannot remember their names; but, I do remember that each twin had a pale but healthy complexion and had long straight blonde hair. They had beautiful happy smiles and wore short cut dresses exposing their long tanned legs. My physical arousal in their proximity was exceedingly difficult to conceal and I had to keep my hands in my pockets to hold everything down. They were probably around twelve or thirteen years of age and exuded happy confidence and, to my way of thinking, came from a more upper class family than my own. I remember being invited to their huge double storey house which was on the east side of Church Street. I now know that it is called Lalor House since it was the residence of Peter Lalor the man who led the miners in the infamous Eureka Stockade. I have a vague recollection of being in the front room of the imposing house: it had high ceilings with curtains that hung heavily from ceiling to floor; there was antique looking furniture and a large fireplace with marble surrounds. I cannot remember anyone else being there, even the twins. I cannot remember why I was invited or what happened when I was there. And, I have no memory of ever seeing the twins after that day. I seem to remember that their father went overseas and they went with him.

Jack Dyer, the famous Victorian league footballer had a milk bar in Church Street and in the window of the milk bar were displayed many of Jack’s awards and trophies. I remember it as a poor example of a milk bar with not a lot of stock and more empty space than shelves and counters. In 2005 I went to Church Street Richmond to deliver a workplace-based traineeship in an art supplies business only to discover that the art shop was, in fact, Jack Dyer’s milk bar premises renovated and fitted-out as an art supplies shop.

There was also a milk bar on the same side of Church Street as Jack Dyer’s milk bar but further north and just five minutes walk from where we lived in Alban Street. The feature I remember about this milk bar was their malted milk shakes. Strawberry flavour, with double malt, was my favourite; and, in the winter months, they would steam heat the milk so that I could drink hot double-malted strawberry milk shakes. I loved to drink them. So much so that one day, I enjoyed the malted milk shake so much, I ordered a second. Of course, I only drank about half before I felt obscenely full and on the point of vomiting.

There was a football ground on Church Street next to the Maternal Care Centre which was next door to Richmond Technical School were I spent an unpleasant year or so being bullied, which was next door to Smith and Searles engineering factory and yard where I worked in the office during school holidays and my father, late in his life, worked for fifteen years. On Sunday afternoons during winter I would go to watch local teams play Australian Rules football; and as I watched I also collected empty beer bottles that I stacked near the rear of the Maternal Care Centre. Sometime after the end of the football match a man with a small truck would arrive at where I had stacked the bottles. He would count the bottles and pay me for them before I helped him load them into his truck. I have no memory of how many bottles I collected, how much money I was paid or what I spent the money on. At the far edge of the football ground was a building that housed athletic equipment for local athletes. For a short period of time I had taken to entering the athletics equipment building and doing a little weight lifting. Little being the apt word since I was a skinny weak individual. One day I found a javelin in a cupboard. I took the javelin out onto the oval and did what I had seen athletes do at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. I ran a few steps and tossed the javelin as far as I could. I repeated this for several weeks and felt that I was learning to throw it further and further. Then, one day when I arrived at the athletics building I saw a young blonde muscular Adonis going onto the oval with the javelin. As I watched, he did some warm-up stretching and running, and then he took a run and tossed the javelin. By my estimation the javelin went 10 times higher in the air than my efforts with the javelin had ever achieved and travelled perhaps fifty times further. I never threw the javelin again. I also had a go with the shot put. My best effort almost landed on my own foot as it travelled almost vertically upwards before thudding to the ground. I also had a go at the high jump using the method commonly used in those days: the scissor jump. With no knowledge of technique I perhaps managed a jump of three feet. One thing I knew about myself in those days, and I know it of myself now in my mid-sixties: I was not, and am not an athlete.

On Saturday mornings, the tradition was: parents, with children in tow, do the weekend shopping. This involved being out of the house by 10am. There was an open-air market, only on Saturday mornings, alongside the Church Street football ground running along Highett Street. There, mum and dad would purchase fruit and vegetables; and, on mum’s birthday a live chicken. When we got home dad would kill the chicken and remove its feathers by dunking the chicken in water heated in the chip-heater in the bathroom adjacent to the laundry. We always had that delicacy, roast chicken, on mum’s birthday and Christmas day. Getting out of the house by 10am to get to the market always seemed to be marked with urgency and drama. On one occasion, before leaving the house, Mum had just poured boiling hot water into a cup with tea-leaves and had turned away to get milk when my very small brother Brian reached up and poured he boiling hot water down his front. He screamed piercingly and while mum rushed off to find some burn cream I ripped his clothing off. Mum squeezed burn cream onto my fingers which I massaged gently into the red and inflamed skin on his chest. Again he screamed as the skin on his chest rolled into little balls onto my fingers. I picked him up in my arms and with mum running behind ran the half-mile to the doctor’s house in Church Street. Dr Mecoles immediately called us into his rooms and after examining Brian announced that the effects of the burn cream and skin removal had probably prevented permanent scarring. The doctor applied some additional cream and bandaging before sending us home. On another Saturday morning we had locked the house and as my mother put my brother Brian into the pusher she pushed down the footrest without noticing that my brother’s fingers were in the footrest arms. The action of pushing down the footrest amputated the top of one of his fingers. Not surprisingly he let out a piercing scream and once again we ran to Dr Mecoles in Church Street to have him dress the wound.

Richmond Technical School fronts onto Church Street and is a two-storey red brick building comprised of classrooms around a quadrangle. Behind the classrooms are playground areas and technical workshops for carpentry, fitting and turning and tin-smithing: all of which were compulsory subjects. I was good at mathematics, English geography and art. In fact, I did practically all of the art-work for everyone in the class: most probably with the teacher’s knowledge. I also wrote an essay titled The Old Jalopy about an old car in a tip for another kid in class who had assisted me by swapping my pathetic attempts at tin-smithing with something in tin that he had expertly crafted. The kid entered the jalopy story into a competition and it won first prize with his name on it. I was also poor at turning and fitting. It is fortunate that, regardless of the ultimate shape, a plumb bob will always hang vertically straight down, even when the pointy bit at the bottom is not quite at the centre. At the end of the year, the wood-working teacher assessed my four pieces of carpentry: a tooth-brush holder, a shoe-rest, a pencil case and a pen-rest. The teacher collected my work together and took it to the nearest drill and proceeded to drill holes in each one. Collectively, they are only good enough to be tooth-brush holders he declared as he handed them back to me.

The Globe Picture Theatre used to be on the south-eastern side of Church Street and is now the Richmond Library. As I remember it, the Globe was art-deco in style with lots of pink and gold. The theatre had a comfortable dress circle and on Thursday nights few patrons. This is where I saw my first glimpses of Europe though I cannot remember a single memorable movie from this time. In the street running off Church Street with the Globe Theatre on the corner lived a man and woman with several children who mum and dad had somehow befriended. The dad once took us in his car to Geelong and back: the longest most boring trip I can remember as a child. As we drove towards Geelong, and again on the way home, he pointed to an Altona oil refinery in the distance and described to us his work there; and, how he had designed and installed all of the lighting one sees on a refinery at night. Although this couple from New Zealand had lived together for years and had three or four children they had not married. But, during their friendship with mum and dad they decided to get married and mum and dad went to their wedding. If we kids went to the wedding I remember nothing of it. The only thing I remember is that in less than a year following their marriage, they split and she and the kids returned to New Zealand.

While at Brighton Street State School in Grade 6, in the same class as me there were two kids with the same name: Russell Brown. One Russell Brown was a tall, languid and somewhat slow kid; the other Russell Brown was a skinny red-headed kid who lived above a shop in Church Street Richmond, almost opposite the East Richmond Station. The year following Grade 6 we found that we were both enrolled as students at the prestigious Toorak Central School that I reached through two tram rides and a long walk. More often than not, Russell rode his bicycle to school and home. Once, I sat on the handlebars of his bicycle and he dinked me home from Toorak to Richmond after school: a terrifyingly funny adventure as we wobbled unsteadily up hills through heavy traffic and exceedingly fast—both screaming—down hills. When we got to where he lived above a radio-repair shop he took me upstairs to the living quarters and showed me with pride, his new air-rifle. He also explained to me how he used the passengers leaving the East Richmond Station across the road from his bedroom window for target practice. He claimed to have knocked the hat from a passenger leaving the station with a pellet from his air-gun. The thought of using a rifle frightened me and I did not accept his invitation to fire a shot or two from his bedroom window although I watched as he fired two pellets at a bird on the roof of a shop across Church Street; but, without hitting the bird.

As my memory has been drawn backwards to all of the times and events associated with Church Street Richmond, probably in period 1953 to 1960, at no time can I remember my brother Michael who is five years younger than me. Most probably, Mike would have accompanied me to church, the gymnasium and church picnics, the local football ground; but, I have no memory of him during this time. Neither do I have any memories associated with my brother Brian who is thirteen years younger than me; or, my sister Wendy who was fourteen and a half years younger than me. Nor do I have any outstanding memory of my parents during this time except for the particular events explained in the paragraphs above. Perhaps this memory lack can be explained by my transition from adolescence into young adulthood: an extensive period for me since I really only achieved some sort of adulthood when I was in my early thirties. This late development occurred despite the occurrence on the morning of my fourteenth birthday. As I was about to leave for work my mother Doris stopped me in the hallway just inside the front door. She pressed something into my hand with the words: you are fourteen years old today; you are working fulltime and are an adult. This is the key to the front door. You can now leave and come home as you wish. But, if you ever get in to trouble, don’t come to see me.

Acrylic on canvas: 1015mm x 1015mm