THE SUN SHONE IN 1934

 

Hanging on the fence was a large plastic bag with a scrawled notice: “Free.  Help yourself.”  I resisted at first and passed by; then returned to see what it was that had so little value that it was being given away, but so much value that the householder couldn’t bear to throw it in the bin.  It was a bag of old newspapers, by then only three remaining.  Now, somewhere I have a sizeable box of historical newspapers, some quite intact (apart from the inevitable yellowing); some disassembled, having emerged in sheets from underneath about-to-be-turfed linoleum.  And, to be honest, since having been rescued by me they have been perused very rarely.  However, the combination of curiosity and gratis was not to be ignored!  I selected one paper only:  The Sun News-Pictorial of Saturday, September 15, 1934 - 36 pages.  Sadly, the four-page weekend supplement was missing.                                                                                                                                                                      

 

The price, near 90 years ago, was one and a half pennies (as spoken: pen-e hay-pen-e), equivalent of 1.25 cents today.  

 

The weather forecast for that day was: “Chiefly fine.  Cloudy later.”  This should have been welcome news for the end of season football fans, but those fans were mightily neglected by the paper in 1934: working backwards from page 36 (as you do!), there was no mention of football, indeed of any sport, until page 29.  Horse racing and the day’s Moonee Valley fixture features for most of page 20, with page 21 hosting some coverage of today’s Rose Hill meeting, plus some other sporting news: E. Naismith won the golf yesterday at Metropolitan, and Kingston Heath have appointed a new Manager.  There are a number of items on coursing, including results from several “straight track” and “circular track” races at Maribyrnong and at White City (whippets raced at Flemington Bridge); and for the third successive year, Prahran and North Melbourne will meet in the final of the Catholic Basketball Association competition.  And, provided weather conditions are favourable, fast times are expected in today’s two Victorian Homing Association’s “old birds” races from Mooroopna (100 miles) and Dunolly (93 miles).  Notwithstanding this burst of sporting activity, on these two pages there was still room for a display advertisement for Richmond Pilsner, The Better Pilsner, 100% Pure, indeed The King of All Beers,

positioned a column away from Whatever party you vote for, don’t forget to vote for Ballarat Stout. No party complete without it! 

 

And there’s more sport on pages 15 and 16:  there will be 39 riders in today’s Gippsland 100-miles cycling road race; and arrangements are almost finalised for the upcoming (October) 1089-miles Centenary Road Race.  And Hakoah will be premiers after finishing top of the soccer ladder, with remaining placings being determined in the final two rounds.

 

Returning to the football on page 29, the surprising if not horrifying news is that AFL football (then VFL) occupies a mere one column (out of five).  Eight teams are vying for the final four.  The semi-finals begin next Saturday.  That’s all.  The balance of the page holds small news items about boxing, croquet, VFA football, and Amateur football.  The most exciting six-round bout of the year - Harry Summers’ points victory over Lan Fay - had last night attracted a shower of coins into the ring; and club officials at Richmond City are so pleased with the footy team’s form that they are treating the team to a week-end trip to Rye.   

 

So, taken altogether, there was very little sporting news.   When did Melbourne’s obsession with sport become so dominant as to occupy today so much of the public’s imagination and so much daily newspaper space?    

The 1934 format had a photographic spread on both the front and rear pages, with no clue whatever to the breaking news stories of the day.  Instead, the front cover page features three photographs of a St. John’s Toorak wedding, with four garland-wearing bridesmaids attending bride Miss Jocelyn Outhwaite and bridegroom Mr. Gibson Shaw, the bride’s veil “a victim of the north wind’s pranks”. 

The rear cover page is a mixed bunch of photos referencing (without page numbers) news items appearing somewhere inside – go seek. 

 

 

And there is the Stop Press in the bottom corner.  No longer today a feature of the daily papers, the Stop Press was once the first go-to for all readers – a small bulletin in red ink, added after the paper had begun printing, of sufficient moment or interest for the presses to be stopped for the last-minute insertion.  In this case, the Stop Press advised that the touring Australians were 7 for 104 in response to North Scotland’s first innings score of 48 [this coming off the recent Bill Woodfull-led Australia/England five-test series in England, with Australia 2, England 1, and 2 tests drawn]. 

 

The “pictorial” flavour of the paper re-emerges in the centre pages, pages 18 and 19, featuring:  scenes from the picnic golf gymkhana at Peninsula Club in aid of the Children’s Hospital at Frankston; bathers at St. Kilda encouraged by yesterday’s warm temperature; a model wearing a “new season’s blouse of rucked blue-grey crepe silk with jabot neck finish”; a Royal Air Force plane flying over tanks in manoeuvres mimicking warfare on Salisbury Plain, plus gas-masked artillerymen man-handling guns into position at Aldershot; and three photos showing preparations for today’s general election.

 

Speaking of which, that election was sufficiently transfixing as to occupy all of page 10 on election day……..apart, that is, from the Melbourne Tyre Co. advertisement for “brand new throughout” batteries and “brand new” re-tread tyres, and the four-panel strip of the cartoon Pop.  There is a listing of the eight Victorian Senate candidates (for the three vacant seats), and the 70 candidates for the 20 Victorian House of Representatives electorates.  We read that “eleven schools of political thought are represented” by those 78 candidates.  Notwithstanding The Sun’s apparent laid-back attitude on election day it nevertheless made its editorial sentiments clear in its page 6 cartoon:

Incidentally, this cartoon of the day shares the page with the Sun’s Editorials (including a recommendation for Lyons' re-election), and with the Fifty-Fifty letters to the editor.

 

Prime Minister Joseph Lyons had been a member of the James Scullin Australian Labor Party government, but during a tumultuous 1931 he defected, and emerged as leader of the newly-formed United Australia Party; and under Lyons that party won government in December that year.  [Lyons remained Prime Minister until his death in April 1939.]  Lyons’ Australian Labor Party rival on September 15, 1934 was again the indefatigable James Scullin, who’d lost the Prime Ministership nearly four years earlier; and page 3 of The Sun tells us that “Mr, Scullin Shows Confidence”, notwithstanding the accompanying headline “Non-Labor Victory Expected at Election Today”!  Why say “Non-Labor” instead of “Government”? 

 

Moreover, as if to show that politics is relatively unimportant, page 3’s political prophesying is sufficiently brief to leave enough space on the page also to advise that the price of a gallon of petrol was expected next week to rise to one shilling and sixpence (15 cents) and one shilling and sevenpence (16 cents) respectively for the two grades available.  Also, a seventeen-year-old youth was accidentally killed near Mornington yesterday evening by a pea rifle fired by his brother; a South Australian farmer was yesterday gored to death by a bull; and a man died at South-West Rocks N.S.W. after being stung on the foot by a bee while walking on the beach.  These snippets of news are characteristic of the entire publication - there are literally dozens of reports.    

 

Page 17 and part of page 16 comprise advertisements for the theatre and the talking pictures.  On stage at His Majesty’s was the “stupendous spectacular musical production” White Horse Inn, with a company of 140 artists - but no mention of the composer and lyricist.   Across the road at the Comedy Theatre was “London’s Longest Run and Most Thrilling Play”, Ten-Minute Alibi (prices ranging from two shillings to six shillings – that is, twenty cents to sixty cents).  Alice Delysia was starring in “The Hilarious Comedy”, Her Past, at the Princess; and at the Apollo The Merry Malones were into their 12^th Record Week of “Musical Comedy Supreme”, a.k.a. “George M. Cohan’s bewitching pageant of glamorous gaiety”.  More music was to be had at King’s Theatre: first time in Australia, Tantivy Towers, presented by the Melba Conservatorium of Music Opera Society; while the Town Hall anticipated the return next Saturday night of the miracle boy of the piano, Philip Hargrave (who 20 months later, at age 14 ½ aborted a proposed study trip to London, and announced that he was giving up a musical career to study medicine).  The world of opera will be inhabiting Central Hall next Monday night when Manzoni’s Orchestra with artists and chorus, all conducted by Contessa Fulippini, present Grand Opera.  

 

The big opera news, however – half a page of it - is that later this year, from 29 September, the Royal Grand Opera Company will be presenting Grand Opera in English, at the Apollo [presuming that The Merry Malones have terminated their bewitching pageant]: a season of Aida, Madame Butterfly, Il Trovatore and La Tosca.  The first appearance in Australia of conductor, Robert Ainsworth, sometime conductor of the British National Opera, and Royal Opera Covent Garden, and a most impressive cast of singers, including Florence Austral, Walter Widdop, Muriel Brunskill (as it happens, Mrs Ainsworth), Norman Allin and Browning Mummery.  In the opera world each of these names would be well remembered today, so a stellar company indeed.  First among equals, and featured in Aida and Tosca, I expect that Florence Austral was the linchpin of the season.  Born in Richmond (Melbourne) in 1892, Austral was one of the prominent sopranos of her era, principally starring in Wagnerian roles.  The multiple sclerosis which she endured from as early as 1930 forced her retirement in 1940.  The last word to Wikipedia: “By general critical consent, she remains the finest dramatic soprano ever produced by Australia.”

 

The city centre movie roll-call:  Morning Glory at the Regent, Catherine the Great at the Plaza, The Bowery at the Hoyts de Luxe, King of Jazz at the Mayfair, Tarzan and His Mate at the Metro, Melody in Spring at the Capitol, Once to Every Woman at the Lyceum, That’s a Good Girl at the Athenaeum, Mandalay at the State, Footlight Parade at the Melba, and The Battle at the Majestic.  Clearly a number of these films have sunk without trace over the intervening 90 years, as have most of the theatres.

 

The custom of the times in 1934 apparently decreed that a number of pages should be quite advertisement-free:  pages 2, 3 and 4, page 12, pages 18 and 19 (the centre pages, as already mentioned), pages 22 to 25, pages 29 to 32, and page 34.  Oh, except that page 32 has an advertisement about which I make no editorial comment: “Reduce Bust – Quickly!  New Discovery Slenderises Oversize Bust – Takes off One to Three Inches”, followed by the photograph of a comely maiden set against her rather more ample former self, plus accompanying testimonial, plus a coupon encouraging a plain-wrapper envelope communication with a Sydney address to request an “amazing something”.  

 

Page 35 – the final inside page - has a couple of columns of advertisements, but these are births, deaths, etc., and they hardly interrupt the page's general news – actually, 16 bits of news crammed into three columns.  Judge the diversity:  13-year old cyclist struck by tram in Lygon Street; in Sydney, Australian billiard player Walter Lindrum has a break of 759 (unfinished) in response to Englishman Joe Davis’ 747; two youths were yesterday admitted to hospital after suffering poisoning from carbon monoxide fumes at a banana ripening room at Victoria Market; the Premier thinks the Yarra River is dangerous for oil tankers, and that “if the cost of laying a pipe line to the city, and other essentials, were not too high, it would probably be much better to have Westernport the oil port for Victoria”; and more than 200 lantern slides which it is alleged were Communist propaganda…. were seized…..at Victoria Dock this week……Although the slides are not considered to be of a seditious character some of them are said to be unfit for public exhibition……A charge of smuggling has been laid.”

 

There are three full-page advertisements.  On page 9, Hartleys Sports Stores (Melbourne or Your Country Dealer) illustrates a range of 12 tennis rackets price-pointed in order from the Balmoral 15/6 ($1.55) to the Silver King 75/- ($7.50). The smashing illustrated player wears long trousers.  

 

 

On page 11, the Richmond Furnishing Company are celebrating their fiftieth year in business, with the suggestion that you “exchange your home worn goods for new designs”, such as a settee and two armchairs for £6/17/6 ($13.75). 

 

And on page 33: “……for those occasions when you must look your best”…..Berlei Figure Foundations, offers three images, two in their full-body foundation garments complete with suspender straps.

 

There are a couple of display advertisements (not full page): one comprising a testimonial to Malvern Star bicycles, by Hubert Opperman; one for the “Argosy” four valve battery radio in veneered walnut cabinet, complete with batteries, accumulator, aerial and earth £15/10/- ($31.00).   There are a couple of columns of Shipping news, and three pages of Classified Advertisements (pages 26 through 28) - providing, as much as any other part of the paper, a window into the 1934 past, rich pickings indeed for the curious and for the sentimental.  A couple of for instances: Brash’s of Elizabeth Street have player pianos (pianolas) priced from £75  ($150.00) to £98 ($196.00), with rolls and stool free…….nota bene: this is not a display advertisement, it is a one inch classified ad.   And, available freight-free from Hughesdale, at 5/- (50 cents) each, are Black Orpington and Rhode Island Red chickens.  Furthermore, there’s a 1931 Pontiac coupe as brand new with genuine 23000 mileage, a bargain at £65 ($130.00).  

The classifieds include a couple of columns of Medical ads. (at 8 pence a line, 9 pence on Saturdays): touts from “practitioners” claiming to have the good oil on the incurables (deafness, constipation, nerves, rheumatism), and the unmentionables (acquired genito-urinary diseases of both male and female) - with invitations to access “plain-wrapped medical goods for married men”.   No, I don’t know either!

 

And, so it goes.  Thousands of words – informative for the daily reader in 1934, fascinating today for its comprehensive portrait of past times.  A full page of “social” news; a full page of “Varied Items to Interest the Home Woman” (from what I can see, informative and not patronising); and two pages of “Magazine Section”, including short stories and poetry.  And not to forget three pages of Country Town and Farm; and a page of Money & Mining, including yesterday’s stock-market quotes.  It’s all there.

 

How to conclude this wallow?  Perhaps with an item to bring us back to just how long ago 80 years was.  “The customary 100 yards handicap to end Australia’s Test tour has been arranged at Forres tomorrow, but the prospects of catching an early train to London may cause either its abandonment or postponement.  Handicaps are:  Wall scratch, O’Reilly 2 yards, Bradman 3 yds, Brown 5 yds, Ponsford 6 yds, Barnett 7 yds, Darling 8 yds, Ebeling, Chipperfield, and Grimmett 9 yds, Woodfull, Oldfield, and Kippax 10 yds.”

 

Gary Andrews