Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: Secret Tunnel Part III

Is this the secret tunnel that we have been searching for? 

Perhaps my detective skills failed and I gave up too early on the hunt for the secret tunnels, which a young Stephen Hickmott and other boys from the old Marist Brothers College used to explore in the 1960s. 

But that hasn't stopped other history detectives from going on the hunt for the mysterious tunnel that led from Ye Olde Darlinghurst Gaol, beneath Burton and Liverpool streets to the Alexandra Flats on the corner of Darley Street. 

Yesterday I received these sensational and intriguing photographs, which show a tunnel beneath the former jail site, now a technical college.

If you are late on the hunt for the tunnels, see the stories here and here and then come back to this post.

The student who sent me the photographs said there was an excavation contractor working at the technical college this week fixing a sewer main about 5m underground, close to the entrance on Forbes Street . . .

"As they got about 3m down they apparently started to hit the side of some very large lime and sandstone boulders,'' she writes.

"The excavation man said he noticed that they had been carved and wondered why they were so far down.

"It wasn't until later when one of the plumbers was standing in the 5m deep hole that he noticed a gap in the sandstone blocks that were now at his eye level, just big enough to fit your fist threw (above).

"The contractors must have moved one out of place with their digging machine, which then revealed a long tunnel.

"From where I was standing I could see in and I saw exactly what you described about the tunnels: 3 foot-wide limestone walls as far as the torch would shine, going off in to parts which could be those cells you were also talking about."

It certainly looks like the tunnel that Stephen Hickmott described. But until someone crawls inside them and follows them all the way, we might never know where they go.

The student has invited me to go and have a sticky beak TODAY from behind the work-fence, but I am stuck in the office and would never be able to get there. 

Is there anyone who can go and have a look? Perhaps you could distract the workers somehow and then slip into the tunnel when they are not looking and just crawl for dear life.

But just imagine if they filled in the hole while you were inside and you became trapped in there forever, until you died of thirst and starvation.

I could not in good conscience encourage this kind of dangerous behaviour, but if you can go for a sticky from behind the safety of the work-fence, please do and report back with details. 

Darlinghurst Blog: Books: Set in Stone - The Cell Block Theatre, by Deborah Beck

Deborah Beck is an archivist and lecturer at the National Art School, housed in the old Darlinghurst Gaol, and she has developed a passion for the history of her workplace. In 2005 she released the book, Hope in Hell: A History of Darlinghurst Gaol and the National Art School (Allen and Unwin publishers) and now she has followed that up with a pictorial history of the Cell Block Theatre, which was published by the UNSW Press last month.

The Darlinghurst Gaol (built between 1822-1885) was converted into the Sydney Technical College in 1922 but it was only in 1957 that the women's cell block, or D-wing, was restored and transformed into the Cell Block Theatre and over the next two decades it became a cultural hub for alternative and avant garde productions in Sydney. 

Beck traces the sandstone building's history from its days as a women's prison - including the time when French actress Sarah Bernhardt came to tour the facilities in 1891, and when the jail housed such crooks as sly grog dealer Kate Leigh in 1905 - to the late 1970s when it played host to wild parties and performances by people like dominatrix Madame Lash.

Beck has also pieced together some marvellous stories of the women who were jailed there and the women who later studied at the college in the 1930s, who would sneak into the derelict women's cell block to have a snoop around.

In 1955, when the director of the college, WR (Bill) Crisp, was trying to gain support to turn the women's cell block into a theatre, he invited American actress Katherine Hepburn to visit the site in order to generate publicity for his plans. And, she accepted.

This photo shows Australian theatre legend Sir Robert Helpmann puffing on a fag with college director Mr Crisp and Hepburn:

Beck's beautifully illustrated book also includes a lengthy chronology of the dance and theatre performances, parties and music gigs, which were held within its walls from July 5, 1955 to October 21, 2010. 

The chronology includes the book launch of The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, by Murray Waldren, which was held on October 28, 2009. I note this because I was lucky enough to attend that launch and it was one of the most magical nights I have experienced in Sydney. 

When I arrived there were candles, or small lights, dotted through the grounds leading to the Cell Block Theatre and waiters bearing canapes and Champagne. The book was launched by Mambo founder Dare Jennings and Mombassa's band, Dog Trumpet, gave a live performance in the theatre. 

Apart from Beck's fascinating story of the building's history and restoration, my favourite part of her book are the historical photographs. They just have a beautiful silver glow about them.

If you want to see this excellent and well-researched publication, there are nine copies of the book in various libraries in the City of Sydney network, including two copies at Kings Cross Library. Or why not just buy a copy from the publisher's website and support this amazing local historian.

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Set in Stone - The Cell Block Theatre, by Deborah Beck

UNSW Press, 272pp, $49.95

www.unswpress.com.au

Darlinghurst: Reader Story: Stephen Hickmott and the Secret Tunnels

Marist Brothers College Class of 1965

A wonderful story of a boy's own adventure in 1960s Darlinghurst, by reader Stephen Hickmott (front row, last on the right), now aged 59 and living in Tasmania.

I was raised from a baby in a little house in Darlinghurst, on the opposite side of the Green Park Hotel, in Liverpool Street, just up from the corner. I went to Darlinghurst Public School through the years, up until 5th class, when I changed to the Marist Brothers College, on the corner of Liverpool and Darley streets. 

The former Marist Brother College, now the Alexandra Flats.

When I was about five we moved to the downstairs of a terrace house at 96 Surrey Street, which had a massive backyard. We stayed there from about 1955 to 1970, but my father remained there for another ten years.  My old man was a merchant seaman and later drove Green Cabs. 

96 Surrey Street.

The thing I would love to see again one day is a secret probably not many folks know about: the secret passageways that belonged to the old Darlinghurst Gaol. 

The passageways were beneath the Marist Brothers College and the manholes, or entrances to them, were boarded up after the brothers set a trap and caught me another fellow down there. 

You had to go down and along, crawling on your belly, into a small cell, only 3 feet high, which had shackles on its walls.

There was one entrance to the tunnels under the staircase in the school, which at the time was a broom closet, and there was another entryway in a room the brothers’ used briefly for music lessons. We found yet another entrance in the house where the brothers lived - when we accidentally emerged from the tunnel in to their residence. 

We first discovered the tunnels one day in 1968 when we got in to trouble and the brother told us to go and get the biggest cane in the school. As we were always getting into strife we looked ‘’everywhere’’, but of course never went into the other classes to get one.

While we happened to be looking around we opened the broom cupboard and there was a 20 feet long cane with a chimney sweep on it - we decided this was the one.

But as we were getting it out, we noticed a crack in the floorboards, so we lifted them up and discovered a tunnel down in to the dark . . . we put the floorboards back and decided to return later.

We opened the classroom door and started feeding the cane in. After about 15 feet went through, the class was laughing, but the brother jumped up and turned red and spat the dummy. He screamed ‘’Next door! Get a cane!’’. He didn’t see the funny side of it at all.

We got six each and detention for a month. 

About a week later we went back and started investigating the tunnels with a torch.

The tunnels were about 2 feet wide and made of lime and there were small rooms about 8 feet wide with shackles on the wall. I guess it was solitary confinement to the max.

We would mainly access the tunnel through one of the manholes that was in the art class, which was taught by a teacher and not a brother, meaning we could get away during the class by going down the floor under the desk.

We would usually turn our pants and shirts inside-out because we’d be white as soon as we came out, and then we’d turn them back around so it wasn’t noticeable.

This one time, we didn’t bother turning our uniforms inside-out because the old teacher had a 2-hour class and we thought we’d have plenty of time to clean up.

But someone – one of the teacher’s pets – went and told the headmaster we had gone underground, so he turned up with the other brothers to look for us.

We had made our way back to the art class by then and when we got near the entrance we heard the brothers calling to us to come out. They didn’t sound very happy about it either.

After a 15-minute stand-off they got a hammer and nails and threatened to nail us in, which they proceeded to do. 

Rear view of the old college.

We headed back to the broom cupboard exit to escape, but before we could get out the brothers realised they had been outsmarted so a general assembly in the yard was called.

We slipped out of the cupboard and joined in with all the other classes coming down the stairs from level one and two.

In the yard I was in the second row back, and the headmaster walked up each row. We stood out something shocking, covered in white. As the headmaster went past me, he said, ‘’Out!’’ and then he also got my mate up in the back row.

I received six cuts of the cane on each hand. And detention. Which was actually pretty bad because you had to stay until 4.30pm and that made the day really long. 

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Ten years ago I moved down to Tasmania, where I grow cherry trees. I have many great memories of climbing all over the Cross on roofs and riding our billy-carts down Bayswater Road, and I would love to come back and explore the tunnels again.

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NEXT WEEK: Violet Investigates the Secret Tunnels. 

Darlinghurst: Books: The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, by Murray Waldren

Every once in a while a book is published that not only smells, feels and looks good but the story inside surpasses my usual publishing expectations. And so it was with this fine biography about Australian contemporary artist and musician, Reg Mombassa (real name: Chris O'Doherty), by writer and painter Murray Waldren, which was published one year ago. 

I'm not a big reader of biographies of men but I bought this book for three reasons:

1) It was a beautiful, tactile object with lots of pictures:

That Even Has a . . .

 . . . Dust Jacket . . .

 . . . That Unfolds . . .

 . . . To Reveal . . . 

. . . An Art Poster!

2) It was about Reg Mombassa, legendary illustrator and member of excellent band, Mental as Anything, who provided the soundtrack for my youth and who featured numerous time on the cover of Countdown magazine, which I subscribed to as a child:

 

Countdown magazine, February 1986, (from page 204 of the book).

3) It was $75, signed by Mombassa, written by a friend, and I thought, what the hell, if I don't like it, its heft and size could still be useful as a shield against the Mechangaroo.

Mechangaroo, by Reg Mombassa, 2001, (page 227).

So I bought the bio last November and that evening sat down at the dining table to have a look at the pictures in the book and unexpectedly stayed up reading until 3am, compelled by Mombassa's eccentric, rich and creative life. I then slept for about eight hours, woke up and continued reading, right until the very last page. I was so engrossed I even read all the acknowledgments, bibliography, discography, exhibition lists, credits, end-notes and index that are stored at the back of the book and which I would normally skip over. 

By that stage I was endlessly singing the Mentals's song Too Many Times, too many times, wishing I could play an instrument and dreaming of setting up a new Sydney art collective. The only thing I was unhappy about was that within 24 hours of buying the book I had already read every word and there was nothing left of it to read. 

Chris O'Doherty at the rear of his Oxford Street terrace, Paddington, in 1975, (pages 98-99).

Apart from the fascinating story of Mombassa's crazy character and life, the book - set in New Zealand and Sydney - also features a number of pubs, apartments and houses in Darlinghurst and the surrounding suburbs and includes references to various events in the neighbourhood.

Mombassa studied at the National Art School, housed in the Darlinghurst Gaol, and it was there he met many of the Mentals band members.

Mombassa initially lived with his parents - who immigrated to Australia from New Zealand in the late 1960s - at their home in Avalon, on Sydney's northern beaches. 

But commuting to the National Art School ''on a double-decker bus'' for two-hours was tiresome, so in the early 70s Mombassa moved in with a friend to a house in Bondi Junction, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The other flatmates were junkies and crims and one day the house was raided by police. 

Soon after, Mombassa packed up and moved to a house in Paddington Street, Paddington, neighbouring Darlinghurst.

During this time Mombassa played bass and lead guitar in a band called, Bulldog, doing garage-band covers for weddings and parties. His circle of friends and acquaintances grew, and included Maria Hisshion, who lived in a house in Liverpool Street, Surry Hills, neighbouring Darlinghurst. Hisshion was a drug mule for the infamous Mr Asia heroin importer and she was murdered on Christmas Eve, 1975 - her body was found 12 days later in Sydney Harbour, tied to a 7kg anchor.

There are also tales of squats and squatters, wild parties and drugs during this period in Sydney's inner suburbs, with locations including the Excelsior Hotel in Surry Hills, the Cell Block Theatre at Darlinghurst Gaol, and The Settlement community centre in inner-city Chippendale.

Mombassa's future wife, Martina Woodburne, was also involved in the protest/squatter movement on Victoria Street, Potts Point, in the mid-1970s, when developers wanted to demolish historic terraces and a green-ban was imposed by the Builders Labourers Federation. Department store heiress and street-publisher Juanita Nielsen, who was noisily opposed to the development also disappeared, presumed murdered, during this time. 

In early 1972 Mombassa moved in to an ''unpleasant dark and dusty house'' in Boundary Street, Darlinghurst, for a brief spell, before relocating to a flat on Glenmore Road, Paddington.

By the age of 24 Mombassa had held his first art show at Watters Gallery in Darlinghurst's Little Italy district. Around that time he started gigging with his brother Peter O'Doherty, Martin Murphy (who lived in Caldwell Street, Darlinghurst), David Twohill and Andrew ''Greedy'' Smith, with the group soon to become known as Mental as Anything.

The band played regular gigs at Heffron Hall (pictured above), on Burton Street in Darlinghurst, Balmain Town Hall in Sydney's inner-west, and at the Tin Sheds Collective studio on City Road, near inner-city Broadway.

The book paints a picture of a lively, energetic and creative Sydney, and while memory tends to romanticise things, it appears Mombassa really has dedicated his life to art and music in a rather determined, flamboyant and enviable way.

The Mentals also played a gig with Tiny Tim at Iona, the 19th century Darlinghurst villa, in 1989, (page 255).

But this engrossing book is not just about Sydney-centric incidents and escapades. Mombassa went on to become the signature artist for Mambo clothing - thousands of people around the world wore his fashionable prints - and he later designed massive blow-up figures based on his Mambo characters for the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony. The Mentals were also one of the best-selling Australian bands of the 80s and continue to gig today. 

Yet despite these commercial and popular enterprises Mombassa remained a subversive and eccentric individual and after reading this book I now believe he is one of Australia's greatest artists.

Mombassa still plays with the Mentals but a few years ago I saw Dog Trumpet - the band he has with his brother, Peter - at the Illawarra Folk Festival, south of Sydney, and they rocked like happy-folk-hill-billys. Mombassa, using his real name, Chris O'Doherty, also continues to exhibit at the Watters Gallery. With Mombassa's seemingly endless creative output, Waldren will no doubt have to write additional chapters for the book in about 20 years. 

Author Murray Waldren, by Reg Mombassa, 2009, (from the dust jacket).

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In a nice bit of serendipity blog-post-wise, Harper Collins will this week be releasing a second edition of The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, which comes in a classy slip-case and includes a 24-month calendar featuring Mombassa's artwork. The limited edition set, pictured below, costs $50.

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The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa

by Murray Waldren

Harper Collins

432pp

$50/$75

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Reg Mombassa

Murray Waldren

Harper Collins

Mental As Anything

Dog Trumpet

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Watters Gallery

109 Riley Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 9331 2556

http://www.wattersgallery.com/

Darlinghurst: Street Art: Concrete Penis Gun

This concrete penis gun sculpture was well-camouflaged on the sandstone walls of ye old Darlinghurst Gaol. The gun is just one of many concrete works - including concrete televisions, concrete remote controls and concrete teddy-bears - by artist Will Coles, which he carefully places among the landscape in Darlinghurst, neighbouring Surry Hills and Newtown, in Sydney's inner west.

If you can manage to prise the cock-gun off the wall, you could flog it on eBay or just give it pride of place in your pool-room. But I would never condone such theft.

The work is called, Guns for Wannabe Gangsters (Suck My Cock), and you can read Coles's take on it at his Flickr site here.

I like Coles's work, which seems to be a timely comment on society's endless consumerism: at the moment around Darlinghurst there are loads of old televisions sitting on the footpaths and around garbage bins, as viewers are forced to upgrade to new digital sets before the analog signal is switched off next year. It seems like such a waste and it's a shame they can not be recycled.

Darlinghurst: Food: Forbes and Burton

After a week of cold weather and a few days of gales, Spring finally stuck its head out from under a rug of clouds to make Sunday a fabulous day to head outdoors again. I spent the morning running errands and by 2pm I still hadn't eaten a scrap, so when Ruby Molteno called and suggested a late lunch, I swung by, scooped her up and we landed promptly at the doorway of Forbes and Burton cafe.

On such a lovely day we were surprised at first to discover an available outdoor table, so we donned hats and sat in the sun . . . until we became so sickeningly hot from its rays, and realised why most diners were sitting inside.

We placed our order and moved inside too:

Forbes and Burton is located in an 1850s building that stretches all the way from 238-252 Forbes Street, and is listed on the Register of the National Estate. I'll be doing a post soon about the history of the building, known as the Belgrave Terrace.

But I still can't talk about its 21st Century life without mentioning the building's historical sandstone walls with their chip marks from the workers' picks. The building is right across the road from the National Art School and former Darlinghurst Gaol, which is mainly built from sandstone that was dug out from the local area by convict workers.

The gaol was constructed between 1821 to 1841 and I wonder if the sandstone used on the Belgrave Terrace was hacked out by its convict neighbours or was left-overs.

The interior design of Forbes and Burton makes the most of the building's heritage aspects, but also includes nice modern embellishments, such as this crimson-pink, reflective panel:

The building was home to the very trendy Dov cafe until 2006 when David Pegrum, a former head chef at the internationally acclaimed Sydney restaurant Tetsuyas, took over the kitchen.

I ordered the special of the day, which the waiter incorrectly recited to me, and which turned out to be Braised Chicory and Salmon Fillet en Papillote with Asparagus ($22). The waiter wasn't far off the mark though (he thought the chicory was witlof) and he was right when he said it was a good-looking dish:

It tasted great too and there was some wilted greens, drenched in deliciously fattening butter, hidden beneath the fish. Ms Molteno, the all-day breakfast queen, ordered poached eggs with whole-grain toast, bacon and tomato:

I asked Ruby why on earth she always orders bacon and eggs when she could easily cook them at home. She said it's because she doesn't like to have bacon in the fridge as she wants to keep fatty temptations right out of sight. I suspect the real reason is because she doesn't much like cooking. Ruby then went on a discourse about how such a seemingly simple dish can be cooked so many ways and how each cafe's bacon and eggs tasted completely different.

Ruby said she didn't truly realise this until she went to London many years ago and discovered to her horror that some cafes didn't know how to cook bacon and eggs. As for the Forbes and Burton version, Ruby was full of admiration: the eggs were plump and free range, the tomatoes were Roma and the bacon wasn't too salty.

Then because I hadn't eaten all day and because I had to work in the evening and life is too short to say no to anything, I ordered the Chocolate Brownie with Raspberry Coulis and Yoghurt:

We weren't quite sure about the yoghurt blob - surely it should have been double cream - but the sourish yoghurt and raspberry were a good foil for the sweet chocolate.

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Forbes and Burton

252 Forbes Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 9356 8788

http://forbesandburton.wordpress.com/