SIGNPOSTS
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:05 pm
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)
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)