Freddie sold my beautiful George hotel, I couldn’t move anywhere this was my home decaying as it was but the new owners seemed ok. But I would remember Freddie 1 and Freddie 2 as the first Freddie could see me and acknowledge me and second Freddie taught me to read and speak a bit more proper when I went to school with him. I would miss them both. It was a quite place for a while as the Us and Canadian armies went back home some leavin lovers and maybe unborn sprogs.  Rent was cheap as boarding houses were rundown this attracted a lot of artists and musicians for cheap housing.  Although the soldiers had gone there was an influx of refugees from the war. Acland Street became very European with fancy cake shops opening and delicatessens offering very funny food. A great café society was reborn but this time with a cosmopolitan European flavour.  Melbourne had the largest population of Holocaust survivors than any other place in the world.

One morning everyone was talking about the aliens landing here in St Kilda as many folks had seen strange lights over the bay the night before, we were ready, I could do with a ride in a rocket but the scientists said it was only the southern lights. Best days after everyone had settled in were the days at the beach on weekends you could walk along the sand and see families from all over the world. The Italians would play guitars and sing songs from their country. Germans singing and having picnics with their funny food. But it was the best, they even rented deck chairs. it was a sea change for St Kilda, continental Sundays on the bay, nationalities intertwined. The government was really good giving them a hands up when they arrived, jobs, houses and they all had to learn another language but they were alive and with family that’s what mattered now after the hell they had experienced. A Latvian café, I didn’t even know of a country called Latvia, anyway they introduced Iced coffee to the mouths of the tea drinkers. it looked so good, again I wished I could eat and taste but it was really popular. An Italian restaurant opened on Fitzroy Street, called Leo’s. Its still there were it began all those years ago.  Earls court held dances still but it was turned into of all things a table tennis court. They still had bookings when it was taken over so they just moved the tables around for the balls and dances.

Movie making had completely died, like me here in St Kilda a big film was made with American stars, it was called on the beach but it didn’t happen here.  There was a big population of my country men the Irish, they were rebel rousers and caused a stir in the workers movement these Irish nationals. But when I heard them talkin I’d get so homesick and miss my country. They had a big Irish festival there was hurling and Irish dancing which I joined in bustle an all it was a good day with me country folk, I missed Jimmy so much that day.  The former mess and barracks for the Rand R  guys in the war became a café called Banff, its still here in the same place and thriving.

St Kilda footy team were called perennial cellar dwellers with moments of triumph, they got a new coach in 1956 after being wooden spooners for 3 years and at the bottom of the ladder for the other years. The new coach said no one will laugh at St Kilda again  He got them to the middle of the ladder. And then there were the Olympic games and with it a new thing called Television, it was like when the radio came to town all those years ago. But this had moving pictures, like a small movie theatre in your own home and people were buying them putting them in their lounge rooms so because of this a lot of theatres closed, The Memo did that was at the army and Navy Club where Id watch and dance to jazz most nights during the war.

 Women were dressin up more now fashion was readily available, pencil skirts sometimes I wished I could have ripped off me bustle and be in a pencil skirt with my hair flicked back. There was talk a lot of talk about building a library near the town hall, I would love to look at books but it was out of my area of ghostly wanderings.  I loved the smell of fresh bread but that all changed when TipTop bread, it was the first national brand of sliced bread in a bag everyone wanted sliced bread and a TV. Even though St Kilda was full of new colour and zest the migrants had brought it was still a seedy area because of the cheap boarding houses and a few girls of the night started plying their trade on Grey Street, girls after my own heart, I understood why they did what they did.   Seedy as it was it was still the best place to be especially at the beach on a weekend eating salami and listening to the new locals singing songs from their birthplace.

They call it bohemian the new St Kilda of the 60’s no longer seedy so many arty farty types trooped in and stayed a lot of the migrants now flush with work moved to the suburbs to raise their families the beach was now full of long-haired men and girls with braids and floaty skirts sitting cross-legged playing guitars.

My beloved George was not the fancy establishment it once was but it was certainly colourful. They had strip tease cabarets nightly. It attracted many men; I was in my element. As much as I thought I could no way would I get my kit off for them blokes dancing around in me birthday suit.  One of the shows was called Vanessa the Undresser, I loved watchin her and sometimes just sometimes mind I reckon she felt my presence in her dressing room ‘cause she’d turn and say I know you are there Freddie, yep that’s right she thought I was the ghost of Freddie, I’d try and move things with me mind like I’d seen at a few magic shows. But that was a failure. The ladies of the night all plied their wares on Grey Street. I got to know them all  I’d stand with ‘em till they got a client, they’d jump in the cars and off they’d go . some I noticed were very fidgety and I’d heard they were on bad things, like injecting heroin, I’d see them up the alleyways puttin needles in their arms. There was a lot in the paper about the drug problems.

I’d go to Whisky agogo or Les Girls at the Ritz. how life had changed in so many ways since I arrived but people still wanted to laugh, dance and listen to music and be in company.  The dances now, they twisted themselves and stomped around but I really liked the rock’n’roll dances they were more my style. It became a haven for men who loved men and women who loved women, I couldn’t get my head around it to begin with apparently it had been going on for centuries all over the world but I had never encountered it. I grew with the times and embraced the changes. It was a new community of people who were really lovely as I sat in on many a conversation, men talking about clothes and hairstyles so foreign but it became the norm. I liked the gay men so caring and sensitive.  There was a craft market on the Esplanade on a Sunday, it was a lovely stroll I’d mingle with the stall holders selling their crafts as the hippies and the tourists sauntered in the sunny  Sunday mornings.

They weren’t makin films but there was a film festival at the Palais de Dance and the next year it burnt down, they rebuilt it to its former glory.

A band from England came, all the girls were in a frenzy over them they were called the Beatles. A few of the crowd at the George had gone, they said Paul looked at them, how I don’t know as there were thousands of screaming and crying girls. I saw their picture in the paper, not my type at all with their funny hair.

The footie club were doin ok they made it to the final in 1961 but lost, in 1965 they won the premiership, first time in 92 years the town went crazy with happiness, red white and black streamers flew from windows and car aerials it was like the best party ever.

 There was a lot of protests over another war, the Vietnam war the young protesters wore jeans, yes girls in jeans it was hard to find any in-shift dresses all a bit scruffy in my opinion but they’d ply onto the trams to take them to the protests, young men were being conscripted 18 and off to war.

A model from England had been asked to attend the Melbourne cup and horror of horror she wore a very short dress, bare legs, how disgusting I thought until I realised, I was now sounding like those righteous women of the benevolent society. the papers all said the legs that stopped the nation, it used to be the race that stopped the nation.

By 1970 they named the George the Seaview. Its name when I first moved here. There was a family that had lived there since the 20’s, the Moran family they had 3 girls only one was alive to see the change for the worse. The name Seaview didn’t catch on but if you were to mention the George it conjured up prostitutes, drug deals and ultimate St Kilda seediness. They turned the ballroom into the Crystal ballroom and many new post-punk bands came to play. I loved the punks they dressed outrageously danced like mad people but they were a tribe and I liked them.

One day when I was walking back home, I saw Miss Moran reading a poster outside The George, advertising  Topless barmaids, sayin   Getcha gear off, oh the horror on her face, poor dear she was so old school. There was a bit of a tado when they proposed to pull the George down and turn it into a 17-storey building that would house Melbourne’s first casino thankfully the new council poo-pooed it otherwise I’d be lyin on a crap table now instead of my beautiful horse.

 Finally in Fitzroy Street they planted a lot of trees makin it a real boulevard. After it was all dollars and cents now, they changed feet and inches to centimetres and metres. Glad I wasn’t at school then.  The 70’s slid into the 80’s.

The Victory closed and it was resurrected as the National Theatre, there was ballet and drama classes I would often go and try my hand at Ballet but me bustle got in the way.

The all-night bars and strip clubs still attracted the crowds, the George ballroom became a haven for alternative music  Ioved watching the costumes of the punks, everyone had their own style. I don’t think bustles would ever return to fashion but the hippies wore long flowing dresses so I didn’t feel out of place. The last of the Moran sisters died and with them the history of living at the George, they didn’t leave a memoir so it’s up to me, I guess.

 There is a movie Dogs in Space made about the scene here in St Kilda, I’ve never seen it.

Acland Street was a crush on a Sunday afternoon, after a day at the beach or just in need of cake people would crowd the street. I would wait in line for cakes with all the Sunday tourists, one day I overheard the two black-clad old women in front of me say

“Who would have thought that when we line up for morsel of bread during the war in Poland, we would be lining up years later for cake in St Kilda. I followed them into Monarch cakes and they bought Gugelhupf and cheesecake, I’d love a bit of that Kugel thing it looked so fancy. All the cakes looked exotic to me it was a cornucopia of European confectionary.

 Dance music and disco with its sparkling ball and fluoro clothes. Such a mix of music was available . The Prince and the Esplanade began having bands so St Kilda was the place to be. On the beach were families, scantily clad girls on roller blades how they did that I don’t know maybe they learnt it skating at St Moritz the ice rink, I’d never been skating the thought of ice made me cold.

The Georges reputation hadn’t improved at it was rundown like I’d never seen it before, full of wastrels and druggies, I’d step over spent syringes in the alleyway behind the George or over drunks on the corner.  Adult sex shops, who would have thought the street now had them selling weird sex toys, my my.  A lot of the rundown guest houses were now full of squatters, many musicians and artists all living together in them broken-down houses.

The George was in such a state it was shut down lost it licence, it had become a derelict squat, and I lived in it. Imagine how that felt to me all alone in the dust of despair the druggies and drunks cleared out. I was really lonely in those days just me the fading furniture and my memories of the glory days. Not even a fellow ghost to keep me company. If a ghost such as myself could get depressed I would have. I sat and waited for something to happen to my beloved home. I felt no joy in those few years, even walking along the beach with its happy people or going to sit under the Corroboree tree, it was the only thing that hadn’t changed in my 150 years in the colony. Sometimes I would see the Elders sitting around it talking, they were the only ones that remained from the tribes that I first saw all those years ago. It was so peaceful and I did a lot of thinking under that tree of what happened to Jimmy and what would have happened if I hadn’t been killed on my wedding day,  I call those years my years of reflection. But I’d arrive home to such sadness to my empty derelict George.

Suddenly in early 1990 a new man  Donleavy Fitzpatrick, what a strong name, bought the building to transform it into a chic complex of apartments, bars a restaurant and a cinema. But he kept that raffish seen better days look to the place. it was well done That’s what my digs were turned into a cinema. All modern and shiny and there were people to follow, sit with and listen to. St Kilda was becoming a bit more gentrified like it was 100 years before. The renovations took a few years but the cinema opened in 1994. It was so good watching the fancy cocktails being drunk by patrons that dressed up a bit  The George Cinema was a fancy movie theatre, very posh. I saw all the movies there one called Pulp Fiction was the first I saw I like that John fella he was hot as they say now.

 Finally Brothels were legalised but plying your wares on the street wasn’t. The poor girls with their drug habits couldn’t work in them fancy bordellos so they ran the risk of getting a fine. just up the road on the corner of Dalgety and Grey was known as Hookers corner  I’d go hang out with the girls sometimes wishin I could help them overcome this drug nightmare they were livin. They had to charge less than the bordello to feed their habit, cops would come cruising the streets arrestin them but they’d be back the next day  poor girls so scruffy and desperate.

The beaches were busy as was Acland Street on a weekend swimming and buyin cakes. The clothes were a bit less hippy and more classic I guess you could say. People complained about rents and rates but the wage was good so people were a bit less cash-poor. Music still blurted out of cafes and bars, I would go out dancing, the amount of dancing I had learnt in my time the mind boggles, lucky I was a natural from those early days. I missed the punks with their spiky hair safety pins and chains, there were still a few around as were the hippies but there was no definite new band of folks to change the world.

I’d seen people with telephones in their ear on the street talkin’ imagine that after electricity, land phones, radio and TV something else was invented by some genius, then there was these things called Computers and you could find out anything on them.

The footy club made it to the finals but not to the top sadly I couldn’t watch them anymore as they had moved to some other lace out of me range.

2000’s

The  George cinema my new home was thriving until it wasn’t, so again I was alone in my salon waiting. They tried to revive it but it closed by the end of the decade.  The streets were full of this new young urban professionals moving into the fancy apartments that were built. I’d see them rushing to the tram for their commute with their morning coffee in takeaway cups and fancy suits men and women all in a hurry, they would arrive back later and have a glass of wine in one of the many new little bars that opened in Fitzroy Street.

 One rainy day when I was forlornly waiting for something to happen it finally did ‘ like when Donleavy came and saved me brain from turnin to mush in walked Mr Alexander Vass, he saved the day. he bought the Theatre and best of all he brought me my horse the King of Siam. He turned the cinema into a live theatre again and his first play was one of his own, versatile new arts hub off-Broadway productions that’s what he wanted to create. It was a new era for the George Hotel as well with Donleavy’s renovations these new young urbanites would call in for drinks at Freddie’s bar, yes, they remembered Freddie the only human to ever feel my presence as well as Vanessa the undresser. Until Mr Allen Rendall arrived into my life he was the first person in decades to see and feel my ghostly self.

There were rehearsals that I loved to be apart off playin the lead of course bein the most experienced actress around. There was singin and dancing plays. The cocktail bar was always a favourite of mine on opening night of a great play, the buzz and excitement after all the rehearsals. I’d dart from front of house to backstage makin sure everyone was ready, anyone nervous I’d touch their shoulders and wish them well.  The place was buzzin and me and horse would watch all the happenings, piano playin in my salon.

Allen would always say good morning to me every day, it was great to be seen after all this time.

Then in early 2020 everything got quite again, plays were cancelled, no rehearsals no one came and if they did, they all stood apart from each other wearing masks, oh no not another plague but yes it was. At least I had horse to be with. All very scary but Mr K told me to tell my story so here it is.