SHORT STORY 2
(1946 - 1948)
THE LOST DREAMS -
OUT THE BACK OF THE PUB,
A TOSS OF A COIN, AND A SINGALONG
(Written by Warren Maloney - July 2015)
Everybody was restless. The War was over and the World, their World, was
not the same. It had to be
offering more.
My Mum, Dot, always said and truly believed that if Dad, her Ray, had had
his way he would have stayed on in the Northern Territory – driving or
mining or whatever! His War up there had been an endless time of adventures
and a sense of belonging with your mates.
Ray Maloney in front row - Tenant Creek 1943
But that was not going to work for Dot or for their daughter, Denise, born
twenty days before the Japanese surrender and two months after Ray was
discharged and resumed work in the Hilton’s Hosiery factory in West
Brunswick as the only bread winner now.
I can imagine the chats the new parents had in the second bedroom of “Old
Ma’s” West Brunswick house – chats about money, rations, money, what others
were doing and always back to money.
They had the energy. They had a child. They wanted to have at least one
other child, perhaps a boy. They wanted a roll of the dice their way but,
without a trade or a wealthy parent, it had to be luck.
You do what you know how to do. Ray, like his brothers, had earned a quid
as a penciller and runner with his godfather, the bookie, Jock Woodburn.
Whilst Jock had moved to the New South Wales tracks in the late 1930s, Ray
had an inkling that they could earn some extra by SP bookmaking at the local
pubs.
In the 1940s every hotel, and probably nearly every street, had an SP
bookie or two – all illegal – but all offering gambling fun for the working
class families. SP stood for “Starting Price”. The understanding was that
you chose your horse, usually for a win or a place, and, if successful, the
SP bookie guaranteed to pay you the odds shown as the Racetrack Starting
Price in the Herald newspaper that night. There was no legal betting allowed
off-course and the demand was great. The police largely turned a blind eye
unless they were forced into an appearance.
Ray, as a good Catholic schoolkid, had also worked as a “cockatoo” for one
of the John Wren SP shops in Carlton. His role for the Wren outlet was to
sit on a shed roof just at the end of the Faraday Street laneway and yell as
loudly as possible an agreed call if he spotted any Copper. A shilling for
an afternoon’s work was the agreed rate for a ten year old “cockatoo” in
1923 – an amount he handed to his grandmother, Flo, most Saturday
nights.
So, if you have been a cockatoo and a penciller, then it didn’t take long
in early 1946 for Ray to convince Dot of an extra income possible down the
back lane of the Carrington Hotel as well as in their own Dalgety Street.
They had no money to fund the start-up business but a good mate, the
bricklayer Jimmy Davis, was able to loan £20 and the “Open for Business”
word was passed around the front bar on a February Saturday morning.
Favourites winning are the curse of SP bookies as that is where the
majority of punters focus. What you need to build a pile was a Saturday or
two of roughies getting home; and that February and March 1946 were very
good for the Maloney bag.
Mum was at ease with figures so she controlled the money. Dad was a punter
at heart so he collected the bets, spruiked the opportunity and pencilled
the tickets. Within six weeks they were able to repay Jimmy and with a bit
of interest.
With the confidence of two good months under their belts, the entrepreneurs
were gaining in confidence and looking to expand. Dad reckoned that he could
easily keep up his piece-work numbers on the stocking presses at Hilton’s
Hosiery whilst running an extra service during the breaks to cater for the
mid-week punting interests of his workmates.
In addition Dalgety Street had 15 houses and Mum knew all the house-bound
young wives and their mothers – so she could do some pencilling as well
during the week. It was just a matter of being careful and attentive.
By the beginning of the 1946 Spring Carnival, the knots had been unknotted,
the trusts had been cemented, Ray, Dot and even old Ma had not only a bit of
surplus cash but were starting to feel confident about expanding the
family.
October/November is always the best time to place a bet in Melbourne and
generally also a lucrative time for Bookies. Much to look forward to!
But there is always a hurdle, yes a large hurdle, for new entrepreneurs. In
1946, it was the fact that the races were broadcast only at the track and
the results were conveyed by telephone to the pubs, the workplaces and the
SP bookies. That delay of knowing had to be in your calculation.
Alas, it was not fully on Ray and Dot’s radar! With the combination of the
delay and a family distraction, Mum had accepted a sizeable bet from Jock
McInnes, the local newsagent. The wily Jock may have got in with a known
result before Dot realised the race had started. It was not so much the
payout of £48 as the loss of her confidence, the loss of trust in her
punters and the hit of reality for them both that they were probably
emotionally not suited to what might happen often in the tough business of
Gambling.
Debts were paid and the dream was wound up. Mum started to talk about going
back to work in the factory after Christmas. Doors of Opportunity were
closing.
Plan B emerged in Ray’s mind.
Both of them had a decade or more experience
in Hosiery manufacture. Whilst they could never finance the big steaming
machines, they could source a few over-locking sewing machines. As this was
the fashion demand (the need to have a clear and straight stitched seam at
the back of the stocking), the factories were desperate for experienced
overlockers.
Dot chatted to her sister, Norma, who then chatted to a few “girls at the
factory”. There was an amber light from a potential workforce of a dozen or
more who would be prepared to follow Ray and Dot into a small
sub-contracting factory of overlockers. Of course, the friendships and the
promise of a higher hourly rate were the deal clinchers. But it was also
true that everyone was restless post-war and most were open to the idea that
women would be both the bosses and the workers. By 1947, the foreladies of
the war years at Hilton’s Hosiery had been replaced by the returning male
labour, the re-appointed foremen.
Ray negotiated a rate and a handshake commitment from the bosses at Hilton
and Holeproof factories. The next step was to find a factory premises
suitable for the new venture. This was not easy as the demand was great and
landlords, agents and departing tenants had devised an opportunistic
response – “Key money”. Key money was a negotiable extra amount before the
payment of a rent or bond. Put simply, it was a bribe to leave and to gain
access.
The best option for an affordable premises was down a cobblestone laneway
off Gore Street Fitzroy – a ramshackle brick two-storey add-on at the right
rent. But the exiting tenant, a rag trader, Solly, wanted £100 for key
money.
Ray was a punter at heart and, without telling Dot, he said to Solly: “Sol,
I’ll give you a sporting chance even though this is highway robbery. Let’s
toss a coin. If your call wins, I pay £150 today. If your call loses, I move
in today without paying any key money.”
Sol walked to the end of the laneway and back, thinking, thinking, before
he responded with “Alright Ray. But on the condition it is my penny we
toss.”
Ray agreed. Ray’s brother, Roy, was called over to witness. Solly and Ray
shook hands and Roy checked the penny before handing it back to Solly. Not sure
if Dad muttered a silent Hail Mary before Solly’s toss, but for once the
luck was with him as the penny lay with heads face up after Solly called
tails. Dad remembered – “We both smiled at each other and Solly handed over
the key with a generous ‘Good luck, you lucky Irish bastard’!”
Ray and Roy of course adjourned to the Builders Arms Hotel on the corner
and used up £20 that afternoon, the only cash Ray had with him that “toss of
a coin” day.
Maloney’s Overlocking Factory settled in well throughout 1947 and by
November Norma and 11 other women were working over two shifts, stitching
the nylons and pleasing the factories. Roy looked after freight to and from
Hilton’s and Holeproof utilising a borrowed-for-the-day Fitzroy Council
truck. Ray kept the orders coming and Dot did the books. It all seemed to
work. Rent was paid. The girls were paid and there was a chance of the “bit
over” increasing next year.
Roy Maloney in the Fitzroy Factory
|
Ray, in his way, then tackled the next problem – What to do for a Christmas
break-up function? This was a little out of his league as he had really only
celebrated with blokes before, and he was aware that the sheilas probably
would want more than a couple of barrels of beer on a Saturday afternoon. So
Ray turned again to his good mate, Jimmy Davis, who had developed his
bricklaying business into leading a gang of 7 brickies & 3 labourers –
brick houses were in demand after the War. The numbers looked good so why
not combine the Christmas break-ups – the male Brickies and the female
Overlockers – a few barrels plus some tucker organised by Dot and a bit of
music – what could be better?
And how right Ray was! It was apparently a Christmas break-up, a Singalong,
that went down in the collective memories of the celebrants and their
families as one of the best. Most of the “Sheilas” and most of the “Blokes”
were married but not to each other, so the repercussions of getting to their
homes around dawn on the Sunday, the offered apologies, and the blushing
faces for some time afterwards, filled many a funny (or angry) story.
Alas, reality hit the Maloney enterprise before Easter in 1948 and the
handshakes with the factories collapsed as sub-contracts were undercut and
fashions in nylons and cottons began to change.
The factory closed in June 1948. The fun times, the dreams were over. Dot
was four months pregnant and Ray needed to have a regular income again.
Norma and the girls returned to Hilton’s. Roy gave himself an extended
sabbatical and the grind of piece-work and rationing once again took control
in Dalgety Street West Brunswick.
Dad was not lucky on the exiting key money. There just was not the demand
now for a run-down back-lane factory where the last tenant had failed.
Dot and Ray - When the Dreams were still possible
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