Across the pages of The Mercury this past week there has, to be sure, been some rather big news stories: shootings and sadly more shootings, and promises and promises.
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And I wonder what we’ll remember of these things, when, in 40 years hence, from under the lino comes the yellowing newspaper with a record of these days.
I recently spent an afternoon trawling the archives of the 1968 Maitland Mercury, I discovered old friends, and learnt something of how we lived. Hitherto dark parts of my brain were lit by the simplicity and magnificence of so many of the stories, by so much of what was our news.
It was the springtime of that year, and in the space of a few weeks I saw that the then PM, Mr John Gorton had visited the Maitland Town Hall, that TJ Wilks were selling LP records for $1.99 and at that the top sellers were, ‘The sound of music’, ‘The Red Army Choir’ [Maitland was clearly a good communist town in those days] and ‘the poems of Judith Wright’.
Hillman Hunter and Morris Minor motor vehicle sales were strong, there was a fire at Four Mile Creek mine site and the Cessnock Gaol was on target for completion in 1970.
The Maitland Library was moving from its east end home opposite the Town Hall to its current address and the Chelsea Theatre in Melbourne Street was screening a ‘housewives matinee‘ of “The Happy Street Walker of Piraus,” a ribald tale of an encounter between a girl of the street and a sailor who wants to rescue her.
Communism had clearly infected the wholesome minds of Maitland’s evidently racy housewife ranks.
The Marist Brothers were fund raising for the starving children of Biafra, a packet of 10 Razor Blades cost 45c and there was a special on Camp Pie and Devilled Ham - which no doubt the house wives would have been right onto as soon as they stopped blushing and got out of the Chelsea.
At Tenambit, school kids Mick Mears, Glenn Whaler, Steve Brossman and Robert Finch receive sports awards from Pumpkin Pickers legends Terry Pannowitz, Brian Burke and Allan Powel - beautiful.
And down at the old Police Boys Club, on Sept 27, the Mercury reported that little Maitland boy Joe Edwards put up a game fight against a visiting State Boxing Champion from Sydney.
And in the photo I noticed little Joe’s shoes, old gym boots I think, the type we all wore back then, tattered and plain, not like the flash boots of the champ.
I knew the photo was real, he was one of us - and something made me smile at the sight of that little fella fighting so gamely there in James Street, in his old worn-out boots...
And so it goes. Goodnight
