SIGNPOSTS

[Neville Briggs]

This story will probably only be a memory for those of us who remember the 50s and 60s.

Back on the days of my youthful opacity, I began a career in the New South Wales Police.

For a period between 1966 and 1981, I performed beat duty in what was then the rundown,
seedy end of Sydney; from Victoria Park and Broadway to Liverpool Street; the location of the old Central Police Court.
That Central Court and the dusty grey streets of downtown Sydney were the natural range of some very colourful fauna among the prostitutes, warbs and wierdos. I can still recall three of the well known ones.

Bea Miles was a highly educated woman from an upper class family. She had apparently ( or allegedly ) succumbed to some sort of personality disorder or mental illness. Dressed in an assortment of op-shop fashions, complete with sandshoes and tennis player's plastic eyeshade, her large bulk would be seen stomping around the streets of downtown Sydney.

Bea Miles' favourite stunt was to jump into a handy taxi whose driver was not vigilant enough to spot her in time to escape. She would then demand transport to some destination where she would refuse to pay the fare. Bea Miles had a firm principle to uphold; that public transport should be a free service.
Bea's displeasure with the taxi drivers and bus drivers often resulted in her causing damage to the vehicle, so her misdemeanors constantly landed her in Central Court.

One one occasion at Central Police Station, Sergeant C., a big blustering bullly of a man, addressed Bea Miles as Beatrice. She exploded in indignation and informed him only her close friends could address her that way. He was told that he was impudent and would address
her as Miss Miles. Sergeant C. retreated in humiliation ( a good result ), after all she was a high born lady.

Bea Miles made her funeral a signpost of Australian nationalism. When she died in 1973, her arrangement was that at her funeral a jazz band played Waltzing Matilda, Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport and Advance Australia Fair.

Another character of those years was Rolando Tapier. An immigrant from Argentina, he was a famous performer at that circus known as Central Court.
Mr. Tapier was often in trouble. he got into trouble with the RSL for joining the ANZAC march while wearing a sandwich board that displayed anti-establishment messages. He got into trouble for defacing tobacco advertising billboards, spraying the letters B.U.G.A.U.P. across them in black paint ( Bill Board Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotion )

Mr. Tapier changed his name by deed poll to; Lord Bloody Wog Rolo. This meant that the court usher had to stand out in the crowded foyer of Central Court and call out the official summons "Lord Bloody Wog Rolo, Lord Bloody Wog Rolo, Lord Bloody Wog, Rolo " . Then inside the court, the announcement " Lord Bloody Wog Rolo before the court, Your Worship "

One Magistrate refused to hear a charge against Rolo, on the grounds that the court was being derided by a silly name. Rolo explained , that was what his workmates called him, so it seemed a suitable name to go by.
The N.S.W. Court of Appeal held that Mr. Rolo could call himself whatever he chose and noted that his name was on the official record of the Registrar General. The case had to go ahead.

Lord Bloody Wog Rolo stood for the Senate in the 1996 election but unfortunately did not get a seat.
Before Rolo died in 2007, no doubt he was pleased that the signposting of tobacco advertising had been abolished.

I never laid eyes on the third character but I often saw his work.

Arthur Stace would walk the streets of Sydney and with a piece of white or yellow blackboard chalk would write on the footpaths, the word " Eternity ".
I remember walking the beat along Eddy Avenue under the colonnades of Central Railway Station and seeing this word " Eternity " written in elegant script on the asphalt pavement.
I suppose it is somewhat poignant that Arthur Stace's sign was marked on the gritty dusty footpaths where thousands of people just heedlessly walked over it.

On New Year's Eve of 1999. Sydney had a huge celebration at the Harbour. At midnight, a giant facsimile of Arthur Stace's handwritten word " Eternity " was displayed on the Sydney Harbour Bridge to usher in the year 2000.

Arthur Stace had died in 1967 and I think he could never have contemplated the amazing sight of New Year 2000. He made a tireless effort to remind people of God, of their accountability to God and their destiny.
I think that Arthur Stace would be gratified that his sign had become the signpost for Sydney for the new millenium.







( some references; The True Blue Trivia Book. Malcom Andrews , ABC Books, 2002)

[manfredvijars]

Delightful, thanks for that Nev.

Did you ever run into or have anythig to do with a "Bumper" Farrell?

[Neville Briggs]

Thanks Manfred.

I know who he was. Only saw him from afar. Bumper Farrell was mainly connected with the Kings Cross/Darlinghurst area of Sydney ( like Fortitude Valley for Brisbanites ) . I didn't work in that area thank goodness.

[Heather]

Thanks for posting those memories Neville. I really enjoyed reading about those colourful characters. You must have met a few in your day.

Heather

[Nerelie Teese]

They're fantastic memory tales or snapshots Neville. They're the sort of thing I ask people to note when I'm doing my local community oral history presentation. I get my audience to remember characters from their community - not family members or friends - and to think about what makes them memorable, especially after a few years or, in many cases, decades. Then at the end of my presentation I refer to the people they've remembered and explain how their stories are part of the community's social history that is in danger of being lost unless the stories are retold or recorded and handed on.

And then that becomes the challenge, will the audience just remember these identities and their stories on this particular occasion or are they going to do something about ensuring that this part of the community's history is recognised and or kept alive.

I finish my presentation with Billy Bell's biographical poem and the ceremony on last year's Remembrance Day when his unmarked grave received a headstone complete with his Boer War and WWI service numbers. We had a beer with Billy that afternoon, it'd been a long time between drinks for him, and we often pop in and say G'day.

I reckon you might be able to do something similar with your stories and I look forward to seeing what happens with these and others I'm sure you have stored away.

Cheers Nerelie

[Frank Daniel]

Goodonya Neville,
As a ten year old bush kid visiting Sydney with my mother I came across Bea Miles. I had heard of her from the Sunday Telegraph stories 'Around the Courts'.
On this occasion, a fruiterer was delivering vegies etc to a shop in Pitt Street. (I think it was Pitt). He was a fore-runner to our well-known 'Con the Fruiterer', big leather apron, note book in the breast pocket etc. On returning from the shop to his truck I heard him cursing loudly as he gathered speed and ran round to the far side of his lorry. That's when the blue started. Bea Miles was helping herself to his goods from the offside of the truck into a canvas shopping cart, she wouldn't back down, he couldn't win, until eventually she departed with as much as she could carry. My Mother told me a few stories about Bea's history.
Ten years later I came across her perched on the steps of the GPO where she was spruiking politics. I remember she was wearing an Army greatcoat.
I remember another character who used to play a sort of a one string violin with a horn attached at one end, he had about a dozen budgerigars who used to whistle away as they took turns in riding on the bow.
In my twenties I used to deliver produce from the Riverina to the Flemington Markets on Sunday mornings. With time to spare until the Monday when I'd backload kegs of beer from Toohey's at Lidcombe, I used to go into the Sydney Domain where I was more than entertained by the spruikers and bible bashers - the best one I remember was Johnny Webster, known as 'Websters Dictionary'. He was a very clever man and delighted in debating with anyone who would take him on. He used to enjoy the Uni students. Politics was his forte. He would create a debate taking the affirmative whilst the students ganged up on him with the negative. Before you knew it, he'd have a large audience, urging him on until it got to the stage where he'd turned the tables and have the uni blokes talking the affirmative, and the audience completely bamboozled.

Joe

[Neville Briggs]

G'day Heather, thanks for the reply. You are right my memory abounds with " characters "
Come to think of it, the bush poets have a collection of characters .

Thanks Nerelie, I took part in a bush poetry performance last Saturday night at Singleton, there were some visitors present as well as locals, I explained a little bit about the infamous bush rangers, the Governors, and how Joe Governor was killed and buried in Singleton. I recited a verse that I had written about the Governors rampage and sticky end.

G'day Frank. That's Bea all right

I remember the speakers' corner at the Domain and Webster. Webster died Dec 2008, aged 95.
We had to escort him to the railway station once because he upset someone in the crowd and they threatened him with violence.
He used to tell the audience that his religion was witchcraft

[Vic Jefferies]

Don't know if they still have the speakers in the Domain on Sundays but it will be a great pity if they don't. Used to regularly spend the afternoon there in the winter listening to the speakers and the mobs they used to attract. Some were dingbats but others were very informative and entertaining.
Very doubtful if many of our current politicians could match some of them on their "soapboxes."
I remember Bea Miles and saw her many times in the city on the trams and once in the back of a taxi arguing with the driver who took her to our local Police Station. She would often jump in a cab stopped at the lights or in traffic whether it was occupied by someone else or not and then refuse to either budge or pay the fare. Taxi Cab drivers hated her because of this and also because of her lack of personal hygene
She was reputed to have been a highly intelligent university student who suffered mental illness and was said to have been from a well to do family.
Also remember seeing Eternity beautifully written on the footpath around Sydney and although I can't be sure I think I saw Arthur Stace just after he had written the word in Pitt Street very late one night. I came around the corner there on the footpath was Eternity and a man in an overcoat was quickly walking away from the sign. He and I were the only two in the street and though I can't be sure I reckon it was him.
Stace was said to have been almost completely illiterate and a reformed alcoholic criminal who attended a church service one night where the preacher used the word eternity in his sermon which then stuck in Arthur's mind and led to his fixation with writing the word in many parts of Sydney.

[Bob Pacey]

I can not remember any of those characters but then again maybe I'm not old enough.


Interesting read though Nev. Sounds like a hard job but with lots of memories.


Bob

[Heather]

In my limited experience Neville, bush poets are characters - mostly.

Heather