Oooooooo!!!!!

Early arrival at Perth to be met by Eleanor, then off to her and Bernard’s home in the suburb of Carlisle. Unfortunately, we won’t see Bernard this trip as our visit coincides with him performing at festivals in the east of the country. He will return a few hours after we are due to fly to Adelaide.

The first thing that we notice as we emerge from the airport is the massive change in temperature from that experienced in Hong Kong, where we were comfortable in shirt sleeves. Thirty plus and rising, (apologies to the snow bound).

Morning tea, dumping our bags and family chat catch up was followed by a trip around the locality taking in some of the local sights. Again a huge contrast to Hong Kong where buildings are high and crammed together, here other than a few tall city centre blocks there is more space and openness to the civic layout. Once out of the relatively small city centre the feeling of space is palpable. Residential areas are marked by their low-rise nature, two storey buildings being a rarity.

King’s Park would be our venue for lunch where it was a pleasure to get under cover and escape the by now intense heat. Siesta was invented for conditions like this so we duly obliged.

Zamia Restaurant King's Park

Ladies wot lunch

Perth City and Swan River

One for the cricket fans

Dreams of party time (here by mistake)

Eleanor mentioned the fact that she had an invitation to the house of some friends who held weekly film nights where people gathered to sit outside, maybe picnic and enjoy a film together. Intrigued by this prospect we decided that it sounded like an interesting prospect for post dinner entertainment and so it turned out to be.

The Last Drive In

A short drive took us to an area where hills overlooked the city. We left the main road to follow a narrow paved section that quickly ran out of tarmac. A hand painted sign indicated where to turn in and park the car. Half buried antique metal film canisters marked out the boundaries of the parking area, a clue to the former life of one of the occupants of the property that we were about to enter. Emerging from the car into the empty car park we spotted the second hand painted sign that indicated the route that we should take down to the house, again marked off by a further batch of film canisters lining the red earth track. At this point a figure appeared round the corner of the building and we all stopped in our tracks as we puzzled over what this person was wearing. Was this person really dressed in toga and laurel leaves? Meet our host, Frank, who came forward to greet us wreathed in bed sheet toga, a hand made facsimile of a laurel crown, his underpants and nothing else. He was soon followed by a similarly attired lady, his wife Edith. The costume was our clue to the proposed entertainment for the evening, a screening of the Frankie Howerd classic, Up Pompeii. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here let’s complete the introductions. Frank and Edith are a retired Dutch couple both of whom are in their late seventies. Frank had worked in film distribution, which explained the unique line in boundary making materials.

Projectionist and Usherette

At the front of the house, the couple had laid out a flat area covered in sand leading to the trees standing at the perimeter of the property. Suspended on the trees was the screen to be used for the projection of the evening’s movie. The view from the deck was spectacular as the sun set yellows, orange and a lovely range of violets that the camera can’t capture in any adequate fashion. Things looked set fair for the commencement of proceedings. As we luxuriated in the evening light a half dozen other souls arrived to share the show, and what an interesting bunch they turned out to be.

Lipstick Sunset (prize for first one to come up with name of person who coined title)

We took our seats as the light died and the projector whirred into life, then spluttered and arrested. The projector mechanics in our small audience gathered around the machine and their ministrations achieved a stuttering, spluttering vision of Frankie leading his donkey through the Forum prior to coming to a complete stop. Another attempt or two and it became clear that someone had got right up Pompeii and it was dead for the night. However, our genial host was not to be beaten and he declared that he had many other films stored that he would now use. The first reel of Summer Holiday had the audience singing along with Cliff till it ended abruptly with no second reel to follow. Rumours of an Elvis epic were greatly exaggerated as he had clearly left the building. An apologetic Frank now dressed in a fetching assemblage of t-shirt and Y- fronts, a more appropriate theme since the earlier eruption of Vesuvius, went in search of a complete movie. Meanwhile, Edith distributed pink champagne and party poppers while the audience conversation became ever more surreal. Intimate revelations that would not get past the censor reared their head during this passage of play. You just couldn’t make this stuff up. At last we settled back and rejoiced in the antics of Laurel and Hardy, a fitting pair of partners to our nocturne in Forest Fields.

Pink Champers works for us girls

Surveying the debris

We are still damaging ourselves laughing as we reflect on one of the weirdest evenings that we have ever experienced.

Sons of the Desert