Perth Voice Interactive

AS the last train to stop at the old Bayswater railway platform pulled away last Friday, a new generation of trainspotters came out to mark the rainy, late-night milestone. 

The 1960s-built island platform is being demolished for a new larger one as part of Metronet upgrades for the airport line.

YouTuber Mark Steffens runs the channel @TransportofPerth, and turned out on March 31 at 12.28am to catch the last train along with a few devoted young transport YouTubers like @ RileyTheDude and @Pegion_ journey.

Mark is still in high school, but he’s uploaded more than 200 videos since founding the channel in 2020, filming and producing clips at every station in Perth.

“I was really excited for the day of the last train for like over a month since it was announced when the shutdown would start,” Mark says.

“It was something that I was really looking forward to and allowed me to push through weeks of school easily knowing that it was coming up.”

He’s part of a new generation of “Transport Enthusiasts”, mostly in their mid-teens who are a separate community from the traditional railfans or trainspotting crowds, using online chat servers to build a community and video platforms to share content.

“I’d say there are two types of transport enthusiasts: historic ones, and modern ones,” Mark says.

“Historic ones are much more interested in olden day transport and would spend their time at a place like the Bassendean Railway Museum and take photos of things with professional cameras – but not really share about it online.”

Mark’s been interested in transport as long as he can remember: “Ever since I could speak as a child, I would guide my parents around the roads of Perth as I had already memorised the layout even at a very young age. 

Memorised

“After that I started to discover our transport network further online and quite quickly I knew all of it fully, and it was always of great interest to me.”

But he didn’t realise how many other people shared his interest until a couple years into making his videos.

In August 2022 one of Mark’s viewers set up an online chat to hang out, discuss the videos, and talk transport. Two hundred people quickly joined, and today it’s a rapid stream of transport news and debates about favourite stations.

More than 30 people came along to an in-person meet-up in January 2023, and so far Mark’s met about 45 of the other transport enthusiasts in person.

“I discovered how many people actually have the same interest as me, and this sparked the start of the many friendships I have now,” Mark tells us via the chat.

Many other young people have since been inspired to set up their own channels on YouTube or TikTok. 

“I believe there are over 50 different channels now, ranging from 10, to several hundreds of subscribers,” and his is still the largest at more than 1300 subscribers.

Mark says many people “are normally very surprised or confused as to why we do what we do.

“People always say ‘why are you interested in how metal moves around?’

“But really, it can be so much more than that. Just like on the surface sports just look like a ball being moved around, but for the people that enjoy it there is so much greater detail in it? Why does the majority of the population get to enjoy sports and not be criticised about it, but for us having a unique hobby, [we] are usually frowned upon by fellow teenagers?”

Mark says he and his friends were excited to document the last train to stop at the Bayswater platform, and for them it wasn’t a sombre moment.

“It’s cool to be the last person to ever experience something like this, but we are not necessarily sad about it like the historic enthusiasts would be.

“We very much look forward to all the new projects being built in the city and usually try to be the first people to ride on a new line and put a video up about it.”

THIS week from the Vincent library we have a guest piece by Friends of Local History volunteer MICHELLE VERCOE, who’s delved into the archives (and some old Voice newspapers) to bring us the story of a prominent lost building, the 1897-built Norwood Hotel.

THE Norwood Hotel stood on the corner of Windsor and Lord streets (formerly Old Guildford Road) for more than 100 years.

The hotel was built in 1897 by contractor Samuel Moore.  

The original brick and iron Federation-style hotel had 17 bedrooms, four sitting rooms, two bars and a drawing room, kitchen, laundry, stables and wrap-around verandas. Mr Moore applied for a publican’s licence on August 17, 1897, but by May 1898, he applied to transfer his licence to the Empire Hotel (corner of Murray and George streets Perth).

By December 1898, Mr Moore was facing bankruptcy.  

The hotel went into the receivership of Thomas Coombe who ran a financing company which leased the hotel to Swan Brewery Company.  

From 1898, the Swan Brewery operated the hotel under a succession of different publicans including Robert Howson, Septimus Hughes and David Mulcahy.  

In 1903, the pub was bought by competitors, the Stanley Brewery Company (which later became the Emu Brewery).

The company continued leasing the pub to David Mulcahy who remained publican until 1911.  

From 1912 onwards, there was a frequent turnover of publicans at the Norwood. 

As with many Federation-era Perth hotels, the Norwood served more than food and drink. 

It also provided accommodation for the many newcomers arriving in Perth en-route to the Eastern goldfields looking to find fortune in the early 20th century.  

The Norwood was also used as a meeting place by various politicians and clubs, such as the Perth Harriers’ Club and the East Perth branch of the Perth Ratepayers Association.   

Given its proximity to the East Perth Locomotive Depot, which operated from 1917 until the early 1970s, the Norwood was a popular drinking place for many railway employees. 

In the 1920s, it was also the finish line for the Beverley to Perth and Northam to Perth road races, which attracted thousands of thirsty cycling enthusiasts who gathered to cheer on the winners.  

In 1928, extensive alterations were made to the Norwood including an extension of the public bar, reinforcing of veranda posts and partial tiling of the exterior.  

Architectural plans show the ground floor consisted of a public bar, a saloon bar, two parlours, a billiard room, two stores, an office, toilets, kitchen, wash house and the manager’s private residence.  

Upstairs was filled with guest accommodation. 

Further alterations were made in 1937, with more updates in the 1950s and 1970s.     

From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, the hotel was run by Steve Spanbrook.  

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Norwood was “a hot bed of indie culture hosting such acts as bluesman Dave Hole and punk band The Saints”.  (Perth Voice, 16 February 2008)

In 1999, the National Trust and the Town of Vincent assessed the hotel’s heritage value as part of a State-wide Survey of Hotels 1829-1937.  

Given much of the original building and details were removed in alterations or destroyed by vagrants, it was not considered to be of state heritage significance. 

It was however listed on Vincent’s Municipal Heritage Inventory and continued to operate as a hotel until 2001, when it was renamed Jackson’s.  

After the hotel’s closure in 2001, the building fell into disrepair.

In 2003, a proposal for a three-storey mixed residential and commercial development was submitted but did not eventuate.  

The building was removed from the Municipal Heritage Inventory in 2006 and knocked down in June 2008.  

In 2015, the site was redeveloped by Finbar into the Norwood apartment complex, comprising 59 apartments, gym, pool deck and resident’s lounge.

KIDS from Circus WA will be bringing back a colourful, century-old piece of Perth’s history for the Boorloo Heritage Festival on Saturday April 15.

The circus’s youth training arm Level Up Academy is recreating acts from Uglieland, a carnival operated by the charitable Ugly Men’s Association from 1922 to the early ‘30s on what is now Elizabeth Quay.

The association raised funds for needy causes across Perth, from supporting war widows to purchasing new x-ray machines for Royal Perth Hospital.

It was highly popular and attracted thousands through its circular gates, which were described by the Weekly Herald in 1923 as “ablaze with myriads of electric lights”.

An enthused Herald continued to be impressed inside: “On entering the grounds one is dazzled by the scene that meets the eye.

“The large dance floor – smooth glassy surface and decorated with hundreds of coloured lights and streamers – at once attracts attention.

“Side shows included swinging boats, hoop-la, fishing ponds, chocolate wheels, skittles, ‘Darto’, ‘Whirligig’, joy wheel, merry-go-round, fortune tellers and numerous other side shows.”

An indication of Uglieland’s popularity was the “popular lady competition” decided by visitors’ votes. In its first year Claremont’s “Nurse Bond” polled in an Instagram-worthy 24,277 votes, with Miss M Gray of West Guildford not too far behind on just over 22,000.

There was also plenty of entertainment, including log-chopping and dancing competitions, boxing bouts, rodeo “buckjumping”, tight-rope walkers, and even snake charmer Rocky Vane, a colourful performer whose wife Annie was fatally bitten during a show despite getting a dose of his own anti-venom. Admittedly the charming Vane did send Ms Vane, who performed as “Cleopatra” to hospital, but she checked herself out soon after to return to the stage where her condition deteriorated. 

A new assistant Harry Melrose didn’t last the year before following Cleopatra into the afterlife, and soon after snake shows were banned and Vane is rumoured to have dumped all his reptiles on Carnac Island.

The Perth City Band was a regular performer at the festivals of the 1920s, and will be joining Level Up Academy at the Boorloo Festival as part of its 100th anniversary.

Veteran circus performer Nel Simpson has recently stepped up to directing shows and will be leading the youngsters as they recreate Uglieland’s popular sheep shearing competition, high-flying trapeze acts and unusual characters such as Lizard Man.

The original Uglieland featured Flaro in 1927, a brave soul who dived 15 metres into a tank of water encased in a blazing sack.

“Exploring intriguing characters and quirky side shows of Uglieland productions over the last few years with CircusWA’s youth troupe has been a delight,” Simpson said.

“The roaring ‘20s lends itself so well to daring feats, celebration, young, independent and strong women… and slapstick; all of which we have in spades at CircusWA.

“The troupe’s antics have also been captured with our own Chaplinesque silent films which you can view on the day through our miniature cinema.”

The original Uglieland wasn’t without its detractors, and the Voice discovered it has a direct link to one of Western Australia’s most popular fundraisers – Lotto!

Housie Housie, which we’d now call Bingo, was extremely popular at Uglieland, but some like The West Australian’s letter writer CF Argyll-Saxby were outraged that it was flouting a prohibition on gambling as well as attracting no-gooders.

“The amount of good done with the money raised… is infinitesimal compared with the havoc wrought on the morals of the youth in our town,” CF wrote in 1930.

“… I say unhesitatingly that gambling is probably one of the least of the evils which are let loose wherever these White City institutions exist.”

Exhorting Rotary to “purge the city of this Uglieland (aptly named) excrescence” CF says the club must be aware of other dins of iniquity “being rampant in High Street, South Terrace and elsewhere” as an Uglieland operated in Fremantle as well.

Fremantle-based newspaper The Advocate proudly announced it had refused to take an advert from Uglieland’s organisers in protest at the playing of Housie Housie and “other games of chance”.

These concerns about gambling prompted railways minister John Scaddan to introduce the Lotteries (Control) Bill in 1932, paving 

the way for the creation of the Lotteries Commission, which these days we know as Lotterywest. 

Uglieland petered out by 1934.

CircusWA’s Uglieland
Victoria Gardens Royal St, East Perth
April 15 1.30pm, 2.30pm, 4pm

by STEVE GRANT

MT HAWTHORN Primary School has parents on board with its decision to ban Prime hydration drinks sold by YouTube stars KSI and Logan Paul.

The decision follows a frenzy of young adolescents storming Woolworths stores around Perth to get their hands on a bottle of Prime earlier this week. 

Mt Hawthorn parent Dan Loden said he had no problem with banning the drinks from his children’s school as they carry warnings they should not be consumed by children under the age of 15.

Mr Loden said banning the drink was the “right move”.

“[A drink] targeted to children over the age of 15 doesn’t need to be in a school where all of the students are under the age of 15 years,” the Vincent councillor said.

Mr Loden said Prime wasn’t being unfairly targetted, given that there are plenty of other sugary drinks on the market.

“Not every sugary drink has advice that under 15 year old’s shouldn’t drink them.”

Mr Loden doesn’t believe there’s been any problems in the playground with kids trying to emulate Paul – a pro wrestler/boxer – and the ban was more to do with its sugary content.

Sugar

But Paul, who has 23 million YouTube subscribers, has an aggressive marketing campaign comparing his drink’s meagre 2mg of sugar to global hydration behemoth Gatorade’s 36mg.

He’s able to do that because Prime uses the artificial sweetener sucralose, which is about 600 times sweeter than sugar, has no calories and is made by replacing hydrogen-oxygen molecules in sugar with chlorine groups.

Numerous studies have determined that sucralose is safe to consume in low doses, but George Washington University research in 2018 found that if you overdo it, the sweetener could increase a glucose transporter in the body known as GLUT4 which delivers more fat to its cells and increases the risk of obesity and diabetes.

According to the Victorian government’s BetterHealth website, giving kids artificially-sweetened drinks also contributes to a habit of seeking a sugar fix, while adding little nutrition to their diets. Their acid content can also lead to dental problems.

Prime also comes in an “energy” version, which has twice the caffeine content permitted in Australia and can’t be found on supermarket shelves, but the Chook found plenty of online websites offering to ship it to your door, including dicksmith.com.au which had a single can of the orange mango version on sale for a eye-watering $29.95 plus postage.

In response to hearing of a school banning his drink, KSI – whose real name is Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunki – threatened to send them a “truckload” of the product.

by GEORGIE BEVAN 

IT’S six months into Vincent council’s trial to abolish first hour-free parking, and small business owners are saying it’s had a brutal impact.

Last year a majority of Vincent councillors voted to end the long-running first hour free parking in its main off-street carparks, and started charging $1 for the first hour and $3.20 for every hour after that (“Paid parking backlash,” Voice, July 8, 2022).

It was partly done to avoid having to increase rates, and council staff estimated it’d earn them at least a million dollars a year in revenue per year.

But six months in and revenue’s half of the low end of what they predicted, only just hitting $250,000.

There’s also been 50,000 fewer car visits in that time, a drop of about 16 per cent.

A staff report describing this as a “slight” reduction recommends councillors vote to keep charging for the first hour.

The report says consumer spending is growing in Mount Hawthorn, Leederville, and North Perth, and only seems to be lower in Mount Lawley.

But some stalwart business owners who’ve borne the brunt of that “slight” reduction dispute the claim that spending is growing.

“That’s rubbish, it’s not happening. I can tell you from my own business’s experience,” Greg Johnson from Mount Hawthorn’s Tredways told us. 

“I have grave concerns, and so do a lot of small business people who’ve contacted me since [the paid parking trial] first came up.

“If the council doesn’t respond positively I can see this becoming a much bigger issue. It’s not going to become as big an issue as it is in Israel or in France, but it’s going to be big. Businesses are fed up with not being listened to.”

At the March 28 council briefing Mr Johnson held up images of free parking signs in other suburbs, saying Vincent had given away its “competitive advantage” to places like Subiaco which still had free parking periods. 

“You gave it away – we want it back, we want it back. We don’t want our businesses destroyed. 

Shawn Offer is director of Fresh Provisions in Mount Lawley, and told councillors that losing the first hour free parking was “making conditions so much harder for our business than they need to be at the moment”.

He estimates they’ve lost 15,000 customers across the six-month period.

“We’re losing 300 people a week out of that carpark at the moment.”

Heavy hitter property investor Gerard O’Brien also spoke at the briefing and presented a nuclear option if the council didn’t restore free parking. His company Silverleaf Investments owns the Alexander Building at the corner of Walcott and Beaufort Street, and for 30 years the company has leased land to the council providing roughly 35 extra carbays. 

He said under that agreement the council must give Silverleaf at least one month’s notice if it ever wanted to charge a fee for parking there, which he says they failed to do, “and if agreement is not reached this deed will end”.

Mr O’Brien said his tenants were suffering due to the paid parking introduction and he’d pull out of the deal if the first hour free wasn’t reinstated.

“We will not support you charging for this,” he said. 

“You’re destroying our tenants for no net gain,” Mr O’Brien said, pointing out they’d lose far more in rates if those businesses closed down.

“These people provide a great amenity to Mount Lawley, and you’ll end up with just vacant buildings with a carpark that commuters might use going to Perth.”

Councillors vote on whether to continue the trial at the April 4 council meeting.

Councillor Ron Alexander, who last year voted against the new fee along with Crs Ross Ioppolo and Suzanne Worner, said they should end the trial immediately.

“I think it’s a disastrous road that we’ve taken and I’ll just foreshadow that I’ll be proposing an amendment next week to see the first hour free reinstated as soon as possible,” Cr Alexander said.

by DAVID BELL

COOLBINIA residents are crossing their fingers the WA government’s Development Assessment Panel rejects plans for 33 units and six shops at the corner of Adair Parade and Walcott Street this week.

The five-storey building will be the first of its stature in the low-lying, mostly residential area.

The owner of the empty block, developer Willing Property, reckons they deserve five storeys instead of the usual limit of three because of the “excellent design, along with the provision of high quality public spaces, verge upgrades, sustainable design principles, and a mix of land uses within the local centre,” being the shops downstairs.

Residents firmly disagreed, with more than a dozen turning up to the March 21 Stirling council meeting to protest the extra height and even more submitting written complaints.

Height

The council doesn’t get to make the final decision, but can make a recommendation to the DAP and hope it’s followed. 

That milquetoast recommendation for refusal didn’t go far enough for a lot of residents, because Stirling council’s planning staff said the building height was fine for that corner site, and they only opposed the plans on other technicalities like a lack of carparking, and the awkward location of the rubbish bins which would make trash pickup tricky.

Those smaller sticking points are easier to convince the DAP to overlook on the grounds they can be managed down the line. 

Nearby resident Shawn Pearson pointed out that 263 submissions opposed the project, and “by far” the biggest problem raised was building height and bulk. 

Resident Belinda Seydel asked the council “how the height scale of the development can be supported when it not only exceeds a three-storey limit on builds in that zone, but will impact residents’ privacy and neighbouring lots and increase the noise to unacceptable levels?”

Councillors heeded the public’s outcry and rewrote a sterner recommendation to the DAP, saying the height wasn’t okay and five storeys “is not consistent with the streetscape and will impact on the amenity of the local area,” given the surrounding area is a heritage protection zone.

The DAP was due to vote on the matter on March 30 just after we went to print.

by DAVID BELL