This old photo from the 'sixties of the Hotel Civic and its Civic Lounge (aka Star Crest Lounge) on the corner of Northbourne Avenue and Alinga Street in Canberra brings back many memories. Let's see if they amount to a thousand words:
Somehow my memories of the Civic Lounge are not so much of alcoholic drinks as of milk because at the time I stayed at Barton House on the other side of the lake and, being a poorly paid Bank Johnny, relied on mates with cars to take me into Civic at night. One of those mates was a Danish cheesemaker whose name I only remembered after finding an old Barton House guestlist from 1967: "HANSEN Kurt milk plant foreman"
Being fellow-migrants, Kurt and I hit it off almost immediately after we must've bumped into each other in the dark corridors of Barton House, although it was only after searching the National Archives recently that I came to realise how closely our migrant experiences had resembled each other: like me he had migrated at the tender age of twenty; like me he had arrived by ship from Bremerhaven; and like me he had gone through the Bonegilla Migrant Centre, albeit five years before me.
Unlike me who had spent only two nights there, he had lingered on for almost a month before being shipped off to Villawood, another migrant hostel in Sydney. By the time we met in 1966 in yet another hostel, this time the privately-run Barton House in Canberra, he had already been in Australia for six years and could afford a single room (I occupied a much cheaper share-room) as well as his own car which brings me back to the beginning of the story (I'm trying to flesh this out to a thousand words).
I'd been in Australia for less than a year, but perhaps because the years I had already been away from home had equipped me better to mix with people, or because Kurt while tending his cheeses never got much chance to practise his English, it was left to me to chat up the girls when we hit the Civic Hotel's Star Crest Lounge on a Saturday night.
To gain entry to this venue, one had to pass muster at the door guarded by László, a bald-headed bouncer of uncertain ethnic origin; and to gain acceptance with the girls inside, one ordered a bottle of Barossa Pearl.
not only Australia's drinking habits but also its demography, click here
I still remember the night we joined two girls at their table. They were young public service recruits, also new to Canberra - in those days everyone was "new" to Canberra - and staying at Gowrie Hostel, colloquially known as the "Twin Towers of Sin". For me, it was just another good night out and I don't remember anything else, not even the names of the girls, but it must've been more to Kurt because I heard later that one of the girls had changed her last name to "Hansen".
I left again for Germany in late 1967. When I came back in April 1969 and checked back into Barton House, Kurt was no longer there. The story went that they'd gone for their honeymoon to Europe and come back on separate flights, a month apart, as things hadn't worked out.
At just over five hundred words, this is perhaps only half the story; the other half is for Kurt to tell. So, Kurt, if you read this, let me know.
