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remains charming. However, at the time, they
were sensational – especially to someone in
my position.
My parents never owned a car and our
weekend outings were either on foot or by
tram. We opted for activities that did not cost
much, such as long walks to the Coburg Lake,
tram journeys to the Botanical Gardens and,
later, Sunday morning attendance at the
Channel Nine studios in Richmond to watch
the wrestling being taped. Going to the
pictures was a special treat. For my parents, I
think it was reminiscent of their pre-married,
courting days in London, when my Dad, being
an Air Force man, regularly received free
tickets to London theatres. They loved
musicals and, in Melbourne, the movies we
would see as a family tended to be in that
genre: South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Gigi,
Carousel. The point of comparison for my
parents was the extent to which the film
version matched the “real thing” on stage.
The Padua, 614 Sydney Rd. Brunswick c. 1939. Opened 1937; closed 1981.
In the 1950s and for most of the 1960s, I
remember five cinemas along Sydney Road.
In more recent times, I found myself I remember us – and our neighbours – The Empire, the Alhambra, and the Padua
identifying strongly with David, the character gathering outside our homes on Shamrock were in Brunswick, and the Plaza and the
played by Toby Maguire in Gary Ross’ Street one night, hoping to catch a glimpse of Grand were in Coburg. There were other local
brilliant satire, Pleasantville. A bit like Alice in it. Then, when I was ten, the first man went theatres – the Western in Melville Road, West
Wonderland, David and his sister go through into orbit around the planet Earth in Vostok I. Brunswick, the Lygon and the Liberty in
the looking-glass – only in the 1990s, it’s a His name was Yuri Gagarin. Eight years later, Lygon Street, East Brunswick, and the
television screen – and find themselves living I stood outside a shop window in Sydney Progress in West Coburg. I don’t remember
as characters in a 1950s family comedy series. Road, Brunswick, and saw, on TV, a man attending the Liberty or the Lygon – I was
Everyone is idealized – and pleasant – but walking on the Moon. It was more thrilling very much a West Brunswegian and didn’t
David soon learns that nostalgia and reality do than any fictional account I had seen or read – stray into the East that often. My fondest
not always sit comfortably. He learns to because it was real. memories are of the Progress but, for the
engage with reality rather than escape from it majority of local people, the Sydney Road
and, no matter how unpleasant that may be at Feature films did not find it hard keeping up venues were the most popular. The Sydney
times, it at least offers hope for change – and with these incredible developments. Each new Road cinemas were central and represented a
that means being fully human. Like David, I achievement in the real world prompted new geographic point of unification for both East
learned that lesson, and was helped along the leaps into the imaginative one. Had man not and West Brunswegians. They were also quite
way by the reality of conscription for the actually stepped foot on the Moon’s surface, diverse, varying in style, comfort and quality
Vietnam War, but I can still sometimes feel the the chances are that Star Wars would merely and categories of movies. The Alhambra had
sense of magic that came with cinematic be a movie about lunar exploration. The a bad reputation and was a rough and tough
escapism – and I hope it is possible to find a science fiction films that were produced during place whose Western action films attracted
balanced place between it and social the 1950s and 1960s possess a naivety that noisy Bodgies and Widgies.
engagement.

The nature of the universe – all those stars,
comets and planets out there – preoccupied me
during my late childhood and teenage years. I
had seen the night stars from many
perspectives: as a three year old on the other
side of the planet in London, and as a
Brunswick boy, lying on my back on a damp
summer backyard lawn. And I had seen them
from the deck of a huge chunk of iron and
steel, floating through the deep, black,
frightening oceans. The mystery and
incomprehensibility of the universe’s
magnitude excited and scared me, filled me
with awe and curiosity. All those stars, so far
away, provided a sense of connectedness to a
greater scheme of things, a strange, irrational,
sense of comfort. I was a bit like Scott Carey
in The Incredible Shrinking Man: the more
aware I became of my miniscule place in it all,
the more interconnected with life – the bigger
– I felt.

I was, of course, growing up at an incredible
time. When I was six, the Russians sent into
space their Sputnik, the first artificial satellite.
Padua, 614 Sydney Rd. Brunswick c 1939. Opened 1937; closed 1981

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