Remember our past in Old Hobart

It is worth looking back to move forward, writes Greg Cure

THERE was once a place called Cananore (or Old Hobart if you like). It was a place with trolley buses, trams and suburban trains. Like every other capital city in Australia we had a major train station. From outside the GPO in Elizabeth St it seemed like the ships were berthed in the street itself. We had wharfies disgorging apples from trucks that were skilfully piloted around the narrow mountain road from the Huon Valley.

We had a floating bridge. People fished off Elizabeth Pier or speared flounder at Short

Beach. We had Cox Brothers, Palfreymans,

Charles Davis, the Australia Cafe, Coles, the Green Gate, the Trocadero and the wonderful Imperial Hotel with its huge log fire. One got dressed up to go to the original beautiful art deco

Wrest Point for drinks on Friday night. We even had our own palace – it was pink and our own Empress. We had Max Griffiths, the triumvirate of Payne/Pascoe/Powell and John Leedham. Our football grand finals were brimming with patrons. For cricket we had Garrys Brakey and Maynard. Eventually we won a Gillette Cup at the TCA ground – I was there, who wasn’t? We had greyhound races in the dead of winter with heating from wood burnt in 44-gallon drums and local bookies hand wrote our bets on bizarre pieces of cardboard.

We had the Show, the Regatta and the Hobart Cup and quirky half day holidays and they were well attended.

We dined at the Dutch Inn, Stucki’s, Mona Lisa, the Beefeater, Dirty Dicks, or the Venezia. Our politicians were characters like ‘Spot’ Turnbull, Billie Nielsen, or Michael Hodgman. We had Max Bound who was brave enough to stand every election for the Communist Party even at the height of cold war hysteria.

We had our tragedies: Lucille Butterworth, the ‘67 fires, the Mt Saint Canice explosions, the Tasman Bridge and the sinking of the Blythe Star.

Hydro clerks in cardigans stalked the cavernous bookies club on the site of the old Arcadia hotel. We made boots here and jams and we had foundries and canneries.

Ken Short and Bob Cure and Cooke and Moore were on the wireless and Helene Chung and Judy Tierney gave us “current affairs’ on the new medium that was television. Don Closs, Harry Ward and Nunky Ayres gave us our TV

sport. Generations of students took booze cruises on the Cartela and the May Queen was still then a working vessel.

We drank at the Lord Nelson, Maloney’s, the Royal O’Brien, the Ingomar, the Mustard Pot, the Springs Hotel, Black Prince, the Ship, McLaren’s, the Park Hotel, Stoppys, the Downtowner, Travs and the Clarendon.

The brother of one deputy premier of the state was a wood carter, with that tell-tale missing finger, such was the uniqueness of Canannore.

Our foothills were all wooded, except for the Keen’s Curry sign and university pranks on Commemoration Day were both innovative and outrageous. We met future partners on the GPO steps and talked to them in the porticoes of public phones that once graced the GPO building by inserting coins in a slot. We must remember too we built this city on the ruins of a place called Nipaluna and if some of us are a little gun-shy about change, remember, we still need to walk where there are places linking us with our past.