delving into the early 70s... gradually...

i guess you've gathered by now that i lose track, go off on tangents, procrastinate, etc. etc. - i've just had a look through my 60s posts (and i didn't get very far, did i?!) so don't think the 70s will be any different! (except hopefully i will get through to the end of this decade)!!! a post here, one there... lots of other topics thrown in... but that's what blogging's all about isn't it!!!!

the problem is always where to start, but having 'touched on' 1970 in my last post, i may as well continue with that year...

Germaine Greer had 'arrived'... "The female eunuch" had just been published... she was an anarchist, a womyn's liberationist, radical and outspoken - i was 15, had just started work and was on my 'journey of discovery', and she would become a major role model for me (and many others)...

two of australia's 'political foremothers' died this year - Jessie Street (suffragist, human rights activist and pacifist) and Doris Blackburn, politician, peace campaigner and civil rights activist...







Jean McLean, Joan Coxsedge, Irene Miller, Chris Cathie and Jo McLaine Ross - founding members of the Save our sons movement in the 60s - were to play a major role in the anti-vietnam moratoriums of 1970 and became household names, and in 1971 were to become known as the Fairlea Five)..

how could you not be political in this era - there was an amazing energy in melbourne - the vietnam moratorium in May had over 100,000 people taking to the streets in Melbourne alone... it was estimated that 200,000 participated Australia-wide... ahhh melbourne - the most political city...

it was still a 'boys own' club on the domestic political front - John Gorton was prime minister - Gough Whitlam was opposition leader - and Bob Hawke had just been elected ACTU president.





we had a major disaster in Victoria... the collapse of the west gate bridge... 35 construction workers died...

unfortunately, they're not the only deaths associated with the bridge - according to wikipedia "police data show up to one suicide happens every three weeks at the west gate bridge."

the 1970 radio ban .. "a dispute between commercial radio stations and major record labels resulting in major UK and Australian pop songs being refused play time on Australian commercial radio stations" .. was to last from May until October.


this is a sample of what australians were watching on television...

Lassie
Gunsmoke
Australian Bandstand
Black & White Minstrel show (!!!!)
Z cars
My three sons
Four corners
Dr Who
Bewitched
Till death us do part
Homicide
Hogan's heroes
Get smart
Mission impossible
Bellbird
This day tonight
Mod squad
Dad's army
It's academic
Hawaii five-0
Sesame street
Monty Python's flying circus
The Partridge family

I have to admit, I was a Mod Squad fan... and check out the clothes... those cardigans are in the shops now for this coming winter - if you just take a look around out there you'll see all the clothes i wore in the 60s and 70s - oh no, i'm living in a timeloop!!!!

I used to go out with my brother a lot in the late 60s/early 70s... we had a good relationship at this time - the parents had split up when i was 8 and Darrell was 11 and i'd gone to live with our mum, and he lived with our dad for a while, and then our grandparents (he was an angry boy when they split up) so we hadn't had a great deal of 'sibling intimacy' for a while - we liked the same music, both had similar (sick) senses of humour and enjoyed each others' company... of course it helped that me mum thought i was safe with me brother, and there was the mandatory midnight 'curfew' - why did parents think that what could be done after midnight couldn't be done before?? (ha, little did she know we often walked out the front door together, occasionally went to the venue together, and then met up afterwards somewhere on the way home!!!)

we used to go to a lot of venues, but one of the best for aussie bands was st kilda town hall (which i'm sure was called Opus at the time, but can't find any mention of it - will have to talk to the local history librarian) where people like Geoff Crozier (aka the Mad Magician) played along with a lot of the others i've mentioned in previous posts - Jeff St John, Wendy Saddington, etc - there was also the likes of Ronnie Burns, John English, Russell Morris, Allison Durbin, Leo De Castro & Black Harvest, Freshwater - there are just too many to name but check out the Milesago website - "Milesago is a work in progress. Our mission is to compile a comprehensive, web-based resource about Australasian (i.e. Australian and New Zealand) popular music, popular culture and social history in the 12 year period from 1 January 1964 to 31 December 1975"... they're doing a good job!!!

we both enjoyed other styles of music too, and went to Winston Charles night club in South Yarra quite often... according to a Stonnington local history document on the social life of Prahran 1950-1990 "by the late 1960s the place that had once been Claridges had become Winston Charles: 'alcohol was quite legal... there was a discotheque... girls used to dance in cages... strobe lighting..." - we both particularly liked one of the resident bands there - a group called the Vibrants - and this was where i got to feel 'grown up and sophisticated' and drink cocktails like brandy crustas and grasshoppers... and no, i never had a problem getting into any of these venues - Darrell was around 17/18 and 6 foot tall, and i looked older than 14/15 (even though I was only 5 foot 2'ish (but i think i'm shrinking!!!!) - and it was a 'different world' then (can't find a photo of us together during this time - we really weren't big on taking photos then - it was a different technological world too!!!)

okay, i'm going to 'call it a day' for blogging and leave you with a couple of cocktail recipes...

Brandy crusta
(this is just one of the many versions out there, but it looks most like the ones they made at winston charles - check out the 'original' version here)

Ingredients:
Sugar for rimming
2 oz brandy
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
dash of bitters
1/2 oz curacao
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice

Rim chilled cocktail glass with sugar - shake all other ingredients with ice - strain into glass and garnish with a twist of lemon peel - quite potent!!! I used to love sucking the sugar off the glass...



Grasshopper

Ingredients:
3/4 oz creme de menthe
3/4 oz white creme de cacao
3/4 oz cream (edit - reading this today, 7/2/2017 - this ingredient would be just that, an ingredient, not something stolen from someone who was enslaved, raped and brutalized - any plant-based cream, e.g. coconut, no 'dairy' horror involved...)

Pour ingredients into shaker along with ice - shake, pour into glass and enjoy!!!


(oooh, sounds a bit rich these days... but i was young and loved the thought that i was doing something i shouldn't be - oooh, so rebellious (said with tongue planted firmly in cheek!!!) - but i felt soooo cool, sophisticated and adult - decadent even!!

and here're some 'germaine quotes'... cheers...

"Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother."

"I have always been principally interested in men for sex. I've always thought any sane woman would be a lover of women because loving men is such a mess. I have always wished I'd fall in love with a woman. Damn."

"Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it won't be for our benefit but for the authorities. To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it."

"Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism."

"Revolution is the festival of the oppressed."