Many moons ago I was in a choir. In the year 2000 we performed a concert at Wollongong Town Hall, ‘In bed with the Wollongong Gay and Lesbian Solidarity Quior’. This is a recording from that show, Sweet Dreams.
I post this with love and respect to Ros and Cecily. x x
You can hear the song by clicking below.
With thanks to Vanessa Webb who sent along this photo, and who is, in her own words, “Second from the left – completely star struck!”
I was one of those lucky kids whose parents were fine with me watching Number 96.
To me it was high camp, absurdist, drama, vaudeville, and I loved it. The next day my best girlfriend and I would sit in class and relive the previous nights episode. We would pass back and forth our text books, and where onto historical photographs we had drawn speech bubbles with quotes from Dorrie, so you would have a dinosaur saying, ‘Herbert, it’s all too much, I’m at the point of going Beresk!!’.
Yes it’s true I’m not very good at maths, but as a ten year old, Number 96 shaped me far more into the man I would become, than endless repetitions of times tables. Little did my ten year old self know that when I was proclaiming everything to be ‘Bona’, I was actually speaking my future heritage of Polari.
For more on Number 96 please visit the fantastic Facebook group HERE
I wrote this in 1996, which is like . . twenty years ago now (gulp!).
All these songs are posted with the clear knowledge and understanding on my part, that at no time am i under any illusion that i’m actually a ‘singer’. So, with that in mind, take any of these indulgences i post with a healthy pinch of salt.
Seeing this photo reminds me of the time when i was nine years old. I’d just walked out of this David Jones department store with my brother. In the above pic you can see a large white wall with black lettering on it, this wall was made up of large white tiles.
My brother was walking ahead of me, as i followed, a large section of the tile wall collapsed, it literally fell all around me. Somehow, and it was only fate and good fortune, not one of the tiles hit me. I stood there in shock, people were just staring, i remember one lady saying ‘How did that miss you!?’.
Weird, and something i hadn’t really thought about too much until i just saw this photo, in hindsight, that really was a lucky escape.
