After seven years of both sweet and bitter learning experiences in Adelaide I returned to Sydney and President Nixon ordered the bombing of Haiphong harbour in North Vietnam. It was 1970.
These two events proceeded from their own dynamic initially then became a unity. No big deal that's just how life is. The Sydney Moratorium against the war called for a demo outside the yank embassy in Pitt St. near Circular Quay. A fair sized mob turned up and we stood round while the coppers cleared the street of parked cars in anticipation of bigger things to come and they weren't wrong.
We waited for the students to arrive. Someone said they were assembling at Sydney Uni intending to link with others on a march through town. All the better to create the greatest disruption in lunch-hour Sydney. A reasonable point of view if you wanted the maximum numbers witness the passion you felt.
First you could hear them, then see them as they came down past Martin Place.
You know, the old 1, 2, 3, 4 chant followed by whatever turns you on. In this case, ONE TWO THREE FOUR - WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKIN WAR. And HO HO HO CHI MINH - THE VIET CONG ARE GONNA WIN. Good stuff, shock the bastards into listening. As far as governments were concerned we were dialoguing with the deaf.
Somewhere they'd nicked one of those big expressway signs TURN BACK YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY, and a front row of about twenty carried it. They were too. Down one way Pitt St., against the traffic.
By the time they arrived, several thousand were milling around the building. The speeches started and some of us were crammed under the footpath overhang. Behind were a couple of fit blokes in suits looking like Special Branch or ASIO. Then one of them said something. If there's one accent I can't stand it's amerikan. A dead give away. They were from the embassy upstairs. We began a slanging match with ripostes like, from Claude Jones.
"You know why these hoons are called septic tanks don't you."
"They're a gutless lot. Women and kids are belting the shit out of them in Vietnam."
The CIA at first kept aloof from these pleasantries. Probably with a watch/listen brief but no talkie no touchie. This was worth a test. Stepping back I put the heel of my boot around about where the big blokes little toe might have been. He grunted and snarled something. Heartened, someone gave him a shove from the other side. I gave him another serve on the other foot.
The big Sergeant standing nearby had been listening to the flattering remarks and made to intervene. The yank broke. "You and us around the corner, arseholes," he snapped, "and we'll see who's gutless."
The Sarg. stepped towards him and said, "I think you should move on, we don't want any trouble do we?". The other yank tugged at his mate's sleeve and they melted away. The copper watched them go and turned back, gazed steadily into the far distance for a bit, nodded at us kind like and moved on.
The meeting expired in a torrent of verbosity. People began to drift away. The 'ultra-lefts' spread the word and a raggedly procession headed towards Pan-Am in Elizabeth St. On the corner about a thousand gathered.
More speeches as the police started to form circular ranks around the intersection. The Specials and ASIO turkeys were doing what they do, standing around in pairs (why always two? Surely they trust each other. No?) while people imitated an ants nest. No apparent cohesion yet driven by agreed on or inherited impulses.
Some started pressing on the locked plate glass doors to the building. Brian Aarons, carrying a Vietnamese National Liberation Front flag came up. "Why don't we try and fix this to the top of the light standard?"
"Good thinking, Comrade. Hop up," and I leant back against the pole, he stepped into my cupped hands and on to my shoulders. Then my hands steadied the calves of his legs. I was defenceless. One copper walked straight up and ripped a short one into my guts. I folded and hit the deck. Brian flew off and I saw him no more.
A minute later I'm being marched off between two custodians through the first circle of uniforms. At the outer ring, while my consorts held me open, another servant of the Australian public left me gasping with another rib bender. I was not actually unrelieved to be tossed into the waggon with some other miscreants. And so to Central.
The old Central Police HQ was a funny place. In Central Lane, between Pitt and George, it had hosted some of the most famous and notorious. The central holding cell caged dozens while we were processed, photographed, fingerprinted and identified. Smokes were a premium, gone in a flash.
A young bloke, wearing an old army tunic asked for cigarette papers. In the collar roll he had a small cylinder of hash. Nothing to roll it in. Bummer.
"Toilet paper," a future ideas man in an Ad. agency said.
"Won't work." This from the old derro who had been a bit stunned by the sudden entry into his quiet-sleeping-it-off-afternoon of over thirty weirds who talked a lot and a lot of crap at that. Commanding attention he carefully explained why.
"Goes up in a flash and all the terbakker falls out. Wastertime." Then as one friend to others. "Ask the desk jockey fer a form."
After protracted negotiations, led by some future Justice of the High Court, we ended up with a fingerprint sheet. A bit rough mind you and inclined to unravel despite liberal lots of golly but adequate for the occasion. It got us there.
Later on the whole event got me eight days out at Malabar Mansions, Long Bay. And all because Constables Goodie and Watt perjured themselves blind that I had called them 'a pair of fucking cunts'. 'Unseemly words'. Not true, not even when they held me out for the thump. How could I? I was speechless.
These two events proceeded from their own dynamic initially then became a unity. No big deal that's just how life is. The Sydney Moratorium against the war called for a demo outside the yank embassy in Pitt St. near Circular Quay. A fair sized mob turned up and we stood round while the coppers cleared the street of parked cars in anticipation of bigger things to come and they weren't wrong.
We waited for the students to arrive. Someone said they were assembling at Sydney Uni intending to link with others on a march through town. All the better to create the greatest disruption in lunch-hour Sydney. A reasonable point of view if you wanted the maximum numbers witness the passion you felt.
First you could hear them, then see them as they came down past Martin Place.
You know, the old 1, 2, 3, 4 chant followed by whatever turns you on. In this case, ONE TWO THREE FOUR - WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKIN WAR. And HO HO HO CHI MINH - THE VIET CONG ARE GONNA WIN. Good stuff, shock the bastards into listening. As far as governments were concerned we were dialoguing with the deaf.
Somewhere they'd nicked one of those big expressway signs TURN BACK YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY, and a front row of about twenty carried it. They were too. Down one way Pitt St., against the traffic.
By the time they arrived, several thousand were milling around the building. The speeches started and some of us were crammed under the footpath overhang. Behind were a couple of fit blokes in suits looking like Special Branch or ASIO. Then one of them said something. If there's one accent I can't stand it's amerikan. A dead give away. They were from the embassy upstairs. We began a slanging match with ripostes like, from Claude Jones.
"You know why these hoons are called septic tanks don't you."
"They're a gutless lot. Women and kids are belting the shit out of them in Vietnam."
The CIA at first kept aloof from these pleasantries. Probably with a watch/listen brief but no talkie no touchie. This was worth a test. Stepping back I put the heel of my boot around about where the big blokes little toe might have been. He grunted and snarled something. Heartened, someone gave him a shove from the other side. I gave him another serve on the other foot.
The big Sergeant standing nearby had been listening to the flattering remarks and made to intervene. The yank broke. "You and us around the corner, arseholes," he snapped, "and we'll see who's gutless."
The Sarg. stepped towards him and said, "I think you should move on, we don't want any trouble do we?". The other yank tugged at his mate's sleeve and they melted away. The copper watched them go and turned back, gazed steadily into the far distance for a bit, nodded at us kind like and moved on.
The meeting expired in a torrent of verbosity. People began to drift away. The 'ultra-lefts' spread the word and a raggedly procession headed towards Pan-Am in Elizabeth St. On the corner about a thousand gathered.
More speeches as the police started to form circular ranks around the intersection. The Specials and ASIO turkeys were doing what they do, standing around in pairs (why always two? Surely they trust each other. No?) while people imitated an ants nest. No apparent cohesion yet driven by agreed on or inherited impulses.
Some started pressing on the locked plate glass doors to the building. Brian Aarons, carrying a Vietnamese National Liberation Front flag came up. "Why don't we try and fix this to the top of the light standard?"
"Good thinking, Comrade. Hop up," and I leant back against the pole, he stepped into my cupped hands and on to my shoulders. Then my hands steadied the calves of his legs. I was defenceless. One copper walked straight up and ripped a short one into my guts. I folded and hit the deck. Brian flew off and I saw him no more.
A minute later I'm being marched off between two custodians through the first circle of uniforms. At the outer ring, while my consorts held me open, another servant of the Australian public left me gasping with another rib bender. I was not actually unrelieved to be tossed into the waggon with some other miscreants. And so to Central.
The old Central Police HQ was a funny place. In Central Lane, between Pitt and George, it had hosted some of the most famous and notorious. The central holding cell caged dozens while we were processed, photographed, fingerprinted and identified. Smokes were a premium, gone in a flash.
A young bloke, wearing an old army tunic asked for cigarette papers. In the collar roll he had a small cylinder of hash. Nothing to roll it in. Bummer.
"Toilet paper," a future ideas man in an Ad. agency said.
"Won't work." This from the old derro who had been a bit stunned by the sudden entry into his quiet-sleeping-it-off-afternoon of over thirty weirds who talked a lot and a lot of crap at that. Commanding attention he carefully explained why.
"Goes up in a flash and all the terbakker falls out. Wastertime." Then as one friend to others. "Ask the desk jockey fer a form."
After protracted negotiations, led by some future Justice of the High Court, we ended up with a fingerprint sheet. A bit rough mind you and inclined to unravel despite liberal lots of golly but adequate for the occasion. It got us there.
Later on the whole event got me eight days out at Malabar Mansions, Long Bay. And all because Constables Goodie and Watt perjured themselves blind that I had called them 'a pair of fucking cunts'. 'Unseemly words'. Not true, not even when they held me out for the thump. How could I? I was speechless.
