I guess it is too late to wish the world a happy Christmas. I don't really go in for tradition though, our Christmas window display this year says as much. There was no tinsel in sight, no holly, no snow, no Santa. I always feel sorry for anyone having to wear the red suit in the antipodean heat.
My Christmas display was simple and understated but it caught a lot of people's attention and plenty of comments. I found an old Lockhart newspaper from December 1952 which featured advertisements placed by the Lockhart and district business people and shopkeepers wishing their customers a happy Christmas. I cut these advertisements out and pasted them kindergarten style onto cardboard with the heading. Happy Christmas from the businesses of Lockhart in 1952, do you remember these shops and where they were in the street? Plenty of people let me know what they remembered and it was interesting which memories stood out. For instance Alf Watson the milkman was also the night soil collector..although not I think, at the same time. He must have been an early riser all his working career because both jobs took place in the dark while most of the town would have still been sleeping.
Les Paterson mended shoes and people remembered him for his wooden leg and his drinking habits. There were a few names remembered as returned diggers from the war who had suffered wounds and were never quite the same. The publicans were well remembered although most people commented that the pubs, The Gunyah, The Railway and The Commercial, changed hands that often that it would have been tricky to remember who was where at which time without the confirmation that the ads were from 1952.
The Monterey and The Blue Bird cafes were well remembered of course. They were at the height of their rivalry for top Greek cafe in town at the time. Leo Vakas was basking in his newly decorated fine example of a Hollywood style milk bar and the Veneris family was settling in to running The Blue Bird without the help of their Matis cousins.
My interest was caught by the first mention I have come across about two other cafes in Lockhart. Mrs Biscaya's Aussie Cafe and Fred Winnell's Lattice Cafe. Where were they and how well did they go against the fierce competition from the two Greek cafes? Most people remembered The Aussie Cafe. It was down the western end of Green Street and at least one person mentioned that there was also a fish and chip shop somewhere nearby. The Aussie Cafe seemed to do all the same things that the Greek cafes did, light luncheons, morning and afternoon teas, dinners. People were more vague about The Lattice Cafe. It seemed to have been in a two storeyed building on the opposite side of the road and up the Blue Bird end. I wondered (and still do), if it was the business that took over from The Paragon Cafe when it was vacated by the Veneris and Matis families. No one seems to remember what happened to either cafe or to the building. They are very clear about many places and landmarks but the fate of The Paragon building seems to have slipped from the collective Lockhart memory. And it makes me curious. What happened to the building? Why was it demolished or destroyed? And why can no one tell me what was built in its place. The theory seems to be that the old Paragon site is still vacant land to this day. There are two on that side of the street but if so, why has it never been developed and who owns it. The detective in me wants to know but until someone with a better memory than most in town comes forth, I may have to go on theorising. Was it the site of some disaster or tragedy? Is there a dark past to it? Is there a story that the town at the time wanted to forget and now it is so far in the past that it really has been forgotten? As Alice in Wonderland once said, curiouser and curiouser.
