Perth

by David Whish-Wilson

  As with every major development in Perth, the matter is bitterly divisive. Some mourn the loss of Perth city’s ‘front lawn’, where Anzac Day parades take place and an enormous suburban barbecue was recently held for the Queen, and worry that the project creates a largely commercial zone out of a once public space. Some of those who support the Elizabeth Quay development are happy to see the interests of pedestrians put before traffic, for the first time in living memory – and it’s certainly true that very few pedestrians in the city venture down to the river at Perth Water. During the state election of March 2013, won by incumbent Premier Barnett and the Liberal–National coalition, Labor leader Mark McGowan’s gambit to win the votes of those disaffected by the Elizabeth Quay plans was a vow to compromise the already compromised project and halt the development altogether; he proposed a scaled-down group of structures beside the hurtling traffic of the freeway interchanges.

  Perhaps it’s true, as one senior architect I spoke to about the Elizabeth Quay project remarked, that a consistent development narrative such as ‘Marvellous Melbourne’, a response to and vision of the city in currency since the 1880s, with its implicit undertones of excellence and playfulness, might have made all the difference in Perth, too. Large parts of other cities were sacked in the name of building capacity, of course, but the scars in Perth seem to be deeper, the memories perhaps longer. The result has usually been willing compromise by tentative councils and politicians, and the kind of building characterised by the much derided but capacious Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre on the edge of the foreshore, which has variously been described as a thong, a thing, a barn, a shed, and is in no danger whatsoever of becoming an ornament to the city, in contrast to the new State Theatre Centre in Northbridge, with its finned facade and 1400 gilt bronze tubes hanging in a shimmering curtain inside, or the equally functional but visually playful Perth Arena. The Arena will stand next to the Perth City Link and King’s Square development, which aims to join King Street in the CBD to Lake Street in Northbridge.

  It remains to be seen whether the opportunities garnered by the current boom will be squandered as they were in the 1980s, or whether the incumbent mayor will be supported in guiding through the many projects underway to completion, developing in the meantime a culture of risk-taking with a focus on design quality, and in doing so create a more dynamic and populated city centre, as it was before all the people left and the corporations moved in.

  It’s lunchtime in Kings Square, Fremantle, and I’m sitting on a bench beneath the giant arms of a Moreton Bay fig, eating a Culley’s cheese and salad roll in a poppyseed bun. The Culley family have been baking at their High Street tearooms for more than eighty years, and four generations later it’s still a family business. I close my eyes and inhale the yeasty sweet smell of figs trodden underfoot that rises with the warmth off the brickwork, listening to the shouts of the drunks over by the library and the squeals of the children playing around Greg James’s sculpture of Pietro Porcelli, another of my favourite statues in the city.

  James has captured Perth’s best-known twentieth century sculptor at work with a spatula, shaping a bust in clay; the everyman male head rests on a three-legged workbench at eye-level to its maker, bronze tools and off-cuts of clay laid beneath. The statue of Porcelli is so lifelike that newcomers often do a double-take walking past, and children are especially drawn to it, my own included, who love to reach into Porcelli’s pockets and see what other children have hidden there: wrappers, coins, bottle tops.

  Born in 1872 near Bari, Italy, Porcelli arrived in Australia aged eight, with his mariner father. He studied sculpture in Sydney and Naples, before travelling to Perth during the gold-rush with his father, along with the hundreds of thousands of others trying to escape the economic depression gripping the eastern states. Pietro’s father gave up his life on the sea and instead set himself up in Fremantle on Pakenham Street as an importer of Italian goods. Porcelli junior’s first sculpture was a bust of the premier, John Forrest, although the 1902 life-sized bronze of John’s brother, Alexander Forrest, is better known. Shaped of Guildford clay before it was cast, the statue of Alexander Forrest stands on the corner of Barrack Street and St Georges Terrace, with Forrest dressed in his explorer’s kit, rather than his mayoral garb. Porcelli also carved the beautiful brownstone Celtic Cross that stands in Fremantle beneath the ‘Proclamation Tree’, planted to mark the occasion of the colony being granted responsible government in 1890. He was also commissioned to do war memorials, and my favourite is the figure of Peace trampling on a sword, before the Midland Railway Workshops, memorialising the many rail workers killed in the Great War. Porcelli’s most famous work, however, is his statue of C.Y. O’Connor on the Fremantle Quay. There is a poignant photograph of him standing beneath the clay model of O’Connor, dwarfed by the figure he’s hand-sculpted. Porcelli looks frail, exhausted and slightly awed as he stares up at the model that when cast would be praised by John Forrest as ‘thinking in bronze’.

  Fremantle locals, particularly children, used to drop into Porcelli’s studio to watch him at work sculpting, carving or doing a pour – something that Porcelli apparently never seemed to mind. When I visited Greg James earlier today at his J-Shed studio at the foot of South Mole, a minute’s walk from my own studio, he too didn’t seem to mind visitors. It’s a crisp autumn day, and the air smells of saltbush and the pickled fish aroma of the aquaculture ponds across the street. As a friend of mine joked, only in Perth could a couple of overnight downpours result in the wettest March in forty years (before the hottest April on record), but the cool change and the dampness and tints of green in the heat-weary trees are welcome and refreshing. Down the beach the sculptures forming part of this year’s sculpture@bathers exhibition are positioned along the sand and through the whalers tunnel and along the limestone tracks at the foot of Arthur Head, a sister exhibition to the annual sculptures-by-the-sea at Cottesloe Beach. There’s something playfully appropriate about the scrap-metal statues of two horses gambolling on the beach; further along there’s the lone woman beside the boardwalk, resembling a wistful bow spirit staring out to sea.

  James was working on his latest commission, with the wide doors to his studio open to let in the light and sea breeze, and I asked him to describe a story I’d heard from Ron Davidson. James was working on the Porcelli statue in the 1990s, grinding it off in his Henry Street studio, when he sensed someone enter his room. It was late at night but James was used to visitors entering his studio around the clock. He turned off the angle-grinder so there was no danger of sparks catching in the visitor’s clothes, only to look up and see Porcelli, wearing a blue cotton smock and baggy woollen pants, standing before him. The apparition walked through the nearby workbench on which sat bronze sections of his own torso and disappeared. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, according to James, but, a little spooked, he still invited his neighbour in an adjoining studio to join him for a cup of tea. What James didn’t discover until later was that his studio had once been Porcelli’s, a hundred years earlier.

  A story like this in any other part of the city might seem a stretch, but Fremantle’s old buildings are notorious for similarly phantasmic experiences, especially among artists who are usually the only ones working late at night. When my brother and I visited my aunt Patricia Hines at her silk-screening studio in the Fremantle Arts Centre in the 1970s, in the building that used to house the inmates of the Women’s Asylum (and a place long reputed to be haunted), we were terrified by the skull of a Batavia shipwreck victim that used to be housed in a ground-floor diorama, and by the empty corridors after dark.

  I finish my roll and bin the wrapper, climb onto my bicycle and pedal across the square, casting a glance at another favourite statue of mine: the 2002 Andrew Kay bronze of Hughie Edwards, slightly larger than life and dressed in his airman’s uniform, staring up at the sky. He won the Victoria Cross and eventually became the most highly decorated Australian serviceman in World War II, but when he
returned to Perth and became governor, according to Ron Davidson, none of Hughie’s achievements or wartime excitements had matched the thrill of playing six games for his local team, South Fremantle, which were, he said, ‘the most significant moments of his life’.

  Cycling home to South Fremantle I pass Portuguese street artist Vhils inside a cherry-picker, working on the giant portrait of Fremantleborn Dorothy Tangney that’s going up on the wall of the Norfolk Hotel. Tangney was Australia’s first female senator in the federal parliament, a position she held for the ALP from 1943 to 1968. Vhils has characteristically worked in texture to the portrait by chipping away the layers of built history down to its gritty bedrock of redbrick and lime, in the process revealing a startling bas-relief image beneath the original layering of paint, stucco and cement. Tangney’s face catches the afternoon light and shadows her eyes, making it appear as though she’s watching the artist’s bent back as he kneels and works the chisel.

  It’s getting on for late afternoon, and the light has softened across the sheoak woodland that rises along Blackwall Reach. Just out of our vision, kids are doing bombies from the thirty-foot drop into the blue river, but we’ve decided to take our own children to a northern riverbank to picnic at our favourite park. Around the corner from Chidley Point, the small wedge of grass on the edge of a newly retained shoreline is private enough to be relatively unknown, one of the reasons we like it so much. A few men in the car park are donning wetsuits and scuba gear, in preparation for a nightdiving excursion to catch prawns with scoop nets in the deepest part of the river, and Luka watches amazed as the frogmen finish suiting up and begin to test their gear.

  Down the stairs by the waterline, we share the foreshore with a Nyungar family playing cricket, while Max casts a lure off the end of the jetty, soon hooking and releasing a small tailor. Luka and his sister, Fairlie, wander the riverbank looking for jellyfish in the sepia shallows, but run to the jetty when Max spots a single dolphin, swimming back and forwards through the mussel-encrusted boat moorings. A black swan paddles over to sit quietly beneath the jetty, but is soon disturbed when the giant motorboats begin to return from their day-trip to Rottnest Island. In the rush to get back to their moorings in the exclusive yacht clubs upstream, the private launches speed past the Point Walter sand-spit, disturbing the smaller boats out crabbing in the bay, lashing at the moorings of the graceful old riverboats nearer to shore and grinding over the channel where the dolphin has retreated, finally smashing the otherwise peaceful shore with thigh-deep waves. It’s the equivalent of being allowed to drive a tank down a suburban street, and a reminder that while the beach remains an egalitarian space, the river is less so. As the dusk begins to settle, dozens of the indistin-guishable white giants round the point, one after another, their crew and passengers hidden behind tinted glass. The black swan washes around in the swell, its feet cycling to avoid being tipped.

  Finally the river traffic dies down, and the sun sets over the bluff behind us. In the shadows, my children climb the elderly peppermint trees, counting how long they can hang from the rough branches before dropping. We are all alone now, except for the odd kayaker sweeping home over the still dark waters. The coloured lights of the city come on, and so do the channel markers deeper in the bay. The murmuring of crabbers hauling up nets. Hoots of laughter from across Point Walter, where a fireworks barge is being set up.

  Festival season is nearly over, but there are still a dozen things we could be doing tonight. Perth’s summer arts festival may be Australia’s oldest, but it gets better every year. Tonight, friends are catching bands at an all-day concert, some of the 90 000 people who’ll see music in Perth over the weekend. We’re keeping our powder dry for the Nick Cave concert midweek and don’t feel like we’re missing out.

  Bella returns with the kids’ fish and chips, and while they pile in I wander over to the shoreline to sip my pale ale. I look at the quiet river and the dark ribbon of forest that runs along the limestone cliff; I smell the briny estuary settling on the evening air, ‘perfectly warm, perfectly still’. My children laugh and squabble and scrunch the butcher’s paper, and I’m brought back to them, the centre of my life these past years.

  Perth is the city that I hope will nourish them, challenge and surprise them, growing – as they grow – into a city of commotion, spontaneity and opportunity. But there is more, too, if they want it. As I stand on the riverbank – lapping water at my feet, the smeary lights of the scuba divers edging out into the black depths, the smell of algae and salt and the dry bones of an old jarrah jetty, stars above me – I feel a sense of privilege, for things changing and things remaining the same, for knowing something of this place, feeling this place, and for the quiet gravitational pull of this force called belonging.

  Acknowledgments

  This book was made possible because of the advice, stories and materials shared by the following people: Shane Abdullah, Jeff Atkinson, Ron Bradfield, James Calligaro, Rob Campbell, Brett D’Arcy, Jo Darbyshire, Ron and Dianne Davidson, Brian Dibble, Ron Elliott, John Fielder, Paul Genoni, Maureen Gibbons, Liz Hayden, Ken Hayward, Dennis Haskell, Greg James, Wendy Jenkins, Geoffrey, Joan and Joseph London, Barry McGuire, John Mateer, Ken Miller, Carmelo Miragliotta, Jeannie Morrison, Mark Reid, Georgia Richter, Marty Saxon, Kim Scott, Ted Snell, Jon Stratton, Kerry Trayler and Glenn Hyndes, Brenda Walker, Antionne Yarran.

  I’d also like to acknowledge the generosity of the following people for reading an early draft: Mark Constable, Ron Davidson, Sean Gorman, David Hutchinson and Deborah Robertson. Their suggestions towards a second draft were invaluable.

  Ron Davidson and Barry McGuire were especially generous with their time, meeting with me on a number of occasions.

  I’d also like to thank the librarians at the City of Perth Library, in particular Claire Burton, and the librarians at the Fremantle Library local history collection. As I researched this book, I began to recognise how important local publishers Fremantle Press (formerly Fremantle Arts Centre Press) and UWA Publishing (formerly University of Western Australia Press) have been in communicating and curating local culture over the years. It’s hard to overstate how poor Western Australia would be without their books. Kudos to funding bodies, publishers and editors, past and present.

  For readers interested in pursuing a more comprehensive recent history of Perth than I’ve been able to provide here, I wholly recommend Jenny Gregory’s City of Light: A History of Perth Since the 1950s. I also recommend the various municipal histories of Perth that are too numerous to mention but are often crammed with fascinating detail (they are always available at your local city library). Ron Davidson’s Fremantle Impressions is a brilliant rendering of the port city, its characters and stories, while his High Jinks at the Hot Pool provides a fascinating look at Perth through the history of a newspaper. If you are interested in reading more about the natural history and environment of Perth, I recommend each of George Seddon’s books about Perth as well as Ernest Hodgkin’s Swanland: Estuaries and Coastal Lagoons of South-western Australia by Anne Brearley. The fourteen books that form the 1979 Western Australian Sesquicentenary Celebrations Series are also great resources.

  I would like to acknowledge the following people for their kind permission to publish quotes or for their help to obtain it: Georgia Richter of Fremantle Press, Terri-ann White of UWA Publishing, Robert Drewe, Nicholas Hasluck (all the way from Bolivia), Jenny Gregory, Gail Jones, Stephen Kinnane, Trisha Kotai-Ewers, Niall Lucy, Jan McCahon Marshall, Alsy MacDonald, Mark Reid, Brenda Walker, Dave Warner, Tim Winton, Jo Alach, Abby Page at Mushroom Records, Karen Throssell.

  I’d also like to thank Joromi Mondlane of Mamba Boxing for the use of his boxing gym at all hours, and the noodle gurus at Cafe 55, iPho and Vivisen Teahouse for their sustaining broth.

  Thanks to Phillipa McGuinness for inviting me to write this book and to Uthpala Gunethilake for carrying it through. I couldn’t have hoped for a more thoughtful editor than Natalie Book. Thanks always to my agen
t, Mary Cunnane.

  Thanks to my parents, Rosemary and Tony, for making those 3000-kilometre round-trip long weekends to Perth with a carload of kids (and the rest), and my brother and sister, Peter and Kerri, for their stories and advice. Finally, I’d like to offer my love and gratitude to Belinda and to my children: Max, Fairlie and Luka.

  All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright holders couldn’t be traced. I would welcome all information in this regard.

  Bibliography

  Adams, Simon, The Unforgiving Rope: Murder and Hanging on Australia’s Western Frontier, UWA Publishing, Crawley, 2009.

  Alexander, Alan & France, Victor, Northline, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1987.

  Altmann, Jan & Prott, Julie, Out of the Sitting Room: Western Australian Women’s Art 1829–1914, Press for Success, Fremantle, 1999.

  Anderson, Simon & Nordeck, Meghan (eds), Krantz & Sheldon: Architectural Projects, Cullity Gallery, University of Western Australia, Crawley, 1996.

  Bedford, K.A., Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait, Fremantle Press, Fremantle, 2009.

  Blackburn, Estelle, Broken Lives, Hardie Grant, South Yarra, 2001.

  Bolton, Geoffrey, Land of Vision and Mirage: Western Australia Since 1826, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, 2008.

  Brearley, Anne, Ernest Hodgkin’s Swanland: Estuaries and Coastal Lagoons of South-western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, 2005.

  Bridge, P.J. (ed.), Daisy Bates, My Natives and I: Incorporating the Passing of the Aborigines: A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, 2004.