Your Stories
Published on November 22, 2011
When Sidney Nolan was at Heide during the Second World War he painted a large version of an earlier painting Moon and the Boy (an abstract circular image based on a person sitting on a St Kilda seaside wall silhouetted by the moon on the horizon) on the roof of the cottage.
But due to its circular form, Nolan was ordered by the army to paint out the image as it may have been read by the Japanese as a signal to attack this particular area.
I often wondered if the painting still existed under layers of paint. About 10 years ago when I saw renovations taking place at Heide I was prompted to remind the curators not to replace the roof as there would most likely be a large Nolan with a great social history hidden under paint. They assured me they knew of the painting’s existence however when I drove past some time later the building appeared to have had a new roof fitted. The end of the story is I don’t know what happened to the ‘lost Nolan’.
Published on October 20, 2011
Every month someone at Richmond station gets crafty and puts up some optimistic lettering behind the counter.
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Published on October 9, 2011
We live near the old Channel Nine headquarters in Richmond, which has been sold to Lend Lease and is being developed into an apartment complex. They’re keeping the heritage building on Jago Street with the distinctive “GTV Television Channel 9” sign in red. The other buildings, including this warehouse on the corner of Stawell and Khartoum Streets, are being demolished. This photo was taken on 3 October 2011. A few days later the building was gone. The warehouse was a kind of Atlantis of showbiz kitsch, its relics comprising old studio sets, props and garish costumes. (My girlfriend peeked inside a few months ago and spied a perspex sign from the Price Is Right set, a giant crayon and an over-sized genie’s lamp.) The logo, too, is reminiscent of a particular time – when Channel Nine was “Still The One”, owned and run by Kerry Packer, the dominant force in Australian media and a cultural icon. If you look closely you can see the faded outline of the nine dots of the logo. I think the style of the logo places it in the early 70s.
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Published on June 20, 2011
Source: Herald Sun, May 31, 2011, Steve Perkin
ASK most people what they remember about driving through Dandenong between the 1950s and the early 1980s and you might hear about the Dandy Pig.
This pig was one of Melbourne’s first, and most famous, animated advertising signs, and was installed for what locals referred to as the Dandy Bacon Factory, although its official name was the Gippsland Co-operative Bacon Curing Company.
It started life on top of the shops on the west side of Lonsdale Street, facing traffic which crossed Foster St from Gippsland, but was refurbished and reinstalled at the Dandenong Market in 1996.
During recent redevelopment of the market, the pig has been in storage, but now it’s time to come out and the Greater Dandenong Council isn’t sure where to put it.
Council has identified two locations that it believes would be a suitable permanent home for the Dandy Pig – its original location, or back on the markets – and is calling on pork lovers to cast their vote.
Wherever the pig ends up, we hope the council can spread its sphere of influence and get somebody to show as much enthusiasm for the Nylex clock.
Published the next day:
Ian Rogers saw our item yesterday about the Dandy Pig illuminated sign getting a new home in Dandenong and it brought back memories of his days as a repairman of such signs.
“I got a call later one night in the 1970s … telling me the sign was on fire. Seems somebody had driven past with a rifle and shot him twice in the guts. One of the shots snapped a high-tension wire and all the electrics burned out. It took me a week to get the pig up and running.”
