“The Arab and the Summer of ’56”
Part One — The Concept

In a departure from the weekly stand-alone articles on this Committee for Lorne [CfL] page and recognising the wave of nostalgia sweeping Lorne surrounding GORCAPA’s imminent and brutal slaying of local memory at Point Grey, a three-part series will appear, week on week, to hero the stories of two other cherished but long-gone echoes from Lorne’s past—The Arab and The Wild Colonial Club.

With only minor editing, the series will feature “The Arab and the Summer of ’56: An exercise in myth-making”, an article published in The National Times [15.02.1981]. The author of this insightful article is Kristin Williamson, married to Australian playwright, David Williamson.

The three weekly segments, once a single, seamless peon to the brothers Smith and their peerless creations—The Arab and The Wild Colonial Club—have been arbitrarily divided and lightly edited, given the limited weekly space available. As they may appear to stop and start mid-flight, can I suggest you save each piece for reading continuity with the next instalment.

But … this story must never be allowed to fade, for Lorne and the broader national Australian culture of the 50s, 60s and 70s both owe ‘the Smith boys’ a memory debt that can never be repaid.

Part One — The Concept

Before beatniks and cuffless trousers, when there were only three espresso machines in Victoria and LP records were rare, in 1956—the year that television came to Australia, just in time for the Melbourne Olympics—something else important was happening. Seventy miles away, down the Great Ocean Road, “The Arab” was opening at Lorne.

It was a bit of a shock to the locals. Lorne was a sedate resort full of guest houses where western district graziers and their families spent their annual holidays playing tennis and croquet, surfing on clumsy wooden “body boards”, being served vegetable soup, roast beef and queen pudding by waitresses in starched white caps at the Stribling’s Lorne Hotel and going to dances at the Pacific Hotel in dinner suits and taffeta.

Strange rumours were surfacing about a new cafe in the main street. The fishermen said it had been built by odd-looking people, ‘probably New Australians’, who worked 14 hours a day in bare feet and did a lot of singing. In fact, they were the Smith brothers, Alistair, Robin and Graham with Reno, an ebullient Italian canecutter, who’d told them all about coffee bars “on the Continent”.

The Smith brothers weren’t very old. They lived with their parents at Cinema Point, five miles from Lorne, in a solitary cottage looking out towards the lighthouse that had once belonged to the 20s – 30s gardening guru, Edna Walling. On a balcony far above the ocean, where the waves rolled in like slow-motion lines of circus horses, they dreamed up every detail of the Arab.

It would be built from bluestone, striped canvas, and glass, and would look like a butterfly. It would feel like a circus, with scaffolding covered in tiny blue globes that shone like jugglers’ balls in the dark.

There would be little round tables on the footpath, a 20-foot surfboard with “Arab” written large on it, standing outside. There would be huge flat wicker baskets full of real fruit that anyone could steal and which, as they revolved slowly, would make eerie shadows to the amplified sound of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

The kitchen would be a long open passage right in the middle of the restaurant so that the customers could see everything that was happening and feel part of the place. The staff would be young and tanned and would wear striped things. They would be the floor show. They would come out from behind the counter and invite people in off the street. They would even feed them spaghetti.

The Arab was a fantasy world. There were sundaes called Harem Girls with astonishing nipples made of strawberries, and strong cappuccino that was said to be a drug. Once you’d had one, you needed another.

If you peered into the depths of The Arab, you could see the decadent part, “the snake pit” up the back, where people were sprawled on cushions around low cane tables with sophisticated first-year university students discussing Plato’s Republic. If you lay down up there, it was said, you’d never get up.

What was most wonderful about the boys’ concept for The Arab wasn’t the music or the atmosphere, or even the food—it was the waitresses. They weren’t exactly glamorous, but they were slim, suntanned and confident. Natural. They laughed a lot, had genteel accents and wore nothing but bikinis.

They tucked roses into their buttocks on special occasions, like New Year’s Eve. No one ever dared to pinch their bottoms. Every boy who entered the place fell in love with at least one Arab waitress, and every girl longed to become one.

Hundreds of girls would write to the Smith brothers during the year asking for a job. In November, just before the season, they would be interviewed in their parents’ homes with the parents present. The Smiths didn’t want any embarrassing scenes with waitresses being dragged out by irate fathers who didn’t understand what the Arab was about.

It might look like a den of vice, but it was, in fact, rather moral, they explained. “The girls have to look so innocent that most boys won’t dare ask them out, just keep coming back to The Arab and yearning for them,” said Alistair, who was always practical.

The Smith brothers were charming. Boyish, extroverted and charismatic. Most parents had no hesitation entrusting their well-brought-up daughters to them for a six-week season at Lorne. The girls, they were assured, would live together in a pretty cottage decorated by Mrs Smith.

“Fiona will be driven back there every night after work, either by Alistair or me.” Robin would say earnestly. And she usually was. With her hair blowing wildly in the back of a white Sunbeam Talbot sports car as the sun was rising—like Isadora Duncan [minus the scarf]— and yelling above the wind about the dance of the seven veils she’d just performed up the back of The Arab in three tea towels.

The Arab was unabashedly sexist, but in those days, no one knew what sexism was, so it didn’t matter. “If a girl is beautiful enough, we must have her, no matter how dreadful a waitress she is,” Graham Smith advised his younger brothers.

[… to be continued next week]

Article by Kristin Williamson

Editing by John Agar, Feature Writer

 

A word from the chairman

Hello

As we tick over into June, winter has arrived in Lorne. The visitors are gone, the shorts are gone (apart from tradies and diehards), the puffer vests are out and smoke is curling from chimneys. By the time you read this, the water temperatures will have dropped below 16 degrees, nippy but still above average for this time of year. Has that deterred the mermaids? Certainly not, there’s just a bit more chatter! Come and join them for an exhilarating start to your day!
*****
This week GORCAPA released the draft Urban Design Framework (UDF) for the Point Grey redevelopment for community input. Over the next week GORCAPA will be holding information sessions with community groups regarding the draft UDF. There are also a number of drop-in sessions over the June long-weekend and some on-line sessions. Please go to haveyoursay.greatoceanroadauthority.vic.gov.au/point-grey-development for further information. Please make the time if you can, to attend one or more of these sessions to understand more of what is proposed for Point Grey, what the concerns of the community are, and to share your views with GORCAPA and your fellow community members. Please also make sure that you put in a written submission before the closing date of June 22.
The draft UDF is deficient in a number of respects including:
• It is focussed around a large open plaza which eliminates more than half the existing car parking. Given the intention of the precinct redevelopment is to attract visitors to the site, the removal of already stretched car parking can only lead to traffic congestion and visitor frustration. The pier is the plaza, we don’t need another one!

• While the draft UDF pays appropriate respect to the aboriginal cultural heritage of the site, there is minimal reference to the site’s maritime, tourism, timber and fishing heritage.

• There are no boat washing facilities. It has long been a tradition to watch the fishing boats unload and clean the day’s catch next to the Aquatic Clubhouse. We are now being told that there cannot be a boat wash in the current location due to traffic and safety issues, and there can’t be one elsewhere on the site due to environmental, coastal hazard or financial reasons. The solution proposed by GORCAPA and their consultants, is to take your boat to a commercial carwash (think Colac or Torquay) or wash it on your lawn at home! The Aquatic Club regards the boat wash as an integral part of its operations, does not accept the position adopted in the draft UDF, and has proposed an on-site solution which GORCAPA have agreed to consider.

Please note that the Community Reference Group (CRG) had no significant input into the draft UDF and does not endorse it.
Please let GORCAPA know that we will not accept development at Point Grey which does not reflect the heritage of the site or the needs of our local and visitor communities.

Cheers

John

Lorne Ward Events Calendar

June

7 – Lorne Market, 9am-3pm www.lornemarkets.com/

7 – Lorne Dolphins Football and Netball V Colac Imperials, at Stribling Reserve, juniors match from 8:45am, seniors at 2pm

7 – Author Christine Keighery Reading, Q & A and Book Signing at Lorne Books Tix $40 (drinks, nibbles and copy of book) @4pm

8 – Lorne Aquatic & Angling Club – Major Fishing Competition No 4, Weigh cut off 12.30pm. Free roast lunch for competitors, $10 non-fishing members.

21 – Lorne Dolphins Football and Netball V Birregurra, at Stribling Reserve, juniors match from 8:45am, seniors at 2pm

July

6 – LAAC Winter Comp No 2. lines down after 6am, weigh in at the Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club at 12:30 followed by BBQ lunch.

19 – Lorne Dolphins Football and Netball V Otway Districts at Stribling Reserve, juniors match from 8:45am, seniors at 2pm