On with the show
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday September 27, 2014

When I was 11, Mum and I moved into a duplex in Graylands. In 1978, the posh people of Claremont liked to call Graylands ‘the wrong side of the tracks.’

It was hemmed in between bushland and the railway line at Karrakatta. My nearest park was the cemetery. But it was the maximum security mental hospital that gave Graylands its ignominious reputation.

In those unenlightened days, Mrs Watson, who lived in the front duplex next door, would refer to the hospital in hushed tones as the “lunatic asylum.” Mr Wheeler, the Vietnam War vet from two doors down, liked to spook me by pointing out some bloke swaying up our street towards the corner bottle shop. “Reckon he’s escaped from the loony bin?” he’d whisper.

I’d spin around on my rollerskates to get a better look, just as Mrs Wheeler began scolding her husband. “Ron! Don’t talk like that! No-one gets out of the funny farm unless they’re ‘sposed to.” (Compassion was slow to catch on in Graylands). When anyone asked where I lived, I’d say “Claremont.”

But then Septembers came and for one week, the Royal Show brought Graylands fleeting respectability. I could boast I lived one street behind the Wild Mouse rollercoaster. Kids envied me. And suddenly every adult wanted to park on our verge.

The week before the show, I could smell the change in the air. Perched astride our brick front fence, I’d survey the procession of dilapidated trucks rumbling past, venting grey fumes from grimy rears. Sometimes it was easy to guess what was inside – the lorry carrying the ghost train always had a ghoul’s head skewered on its aerial. Sometimes, the driver would pull a scary face. Sometimes that was his face.

On Saturday mornings, I’d ring my friend Jane in the next street: “Wanna go see the carnie’s?” We’d hang around the showgrounds fence and watch the Carnival people go in and out of their caravans.

The carnie’s liked a Coke and a smoke by day, a bottle of bourbon by night. They rarely sought shelter when dark clouds scudded over Sideshow Alley and the rain sheeted down. As Jane and I huddled under a box tree, the carny crew held fast to flapping tarpaulins while their wet hair plastered their faces and the grass paddock turned to mushy puddles.

The carnies transformed the empty field in front of the Ferris Wheel into rows of rainbow-coloured pavilions. The amusement rides sprang tentacle-arms strung with flashing lights. Lairy signboards shouted names like The Octopus, The Hurricane and Sky Screamer.

Two days before the Show opened, the food vans arrived. Their generators cranked to life and the smell of chip fat and popcorn hung in the air. V8’s pulled horse floats up our street. Prized cows and sheep jostled against yard railings. The reek of so much animal effluvia gave me a runny nose and watery eyes.

At home, I roped off our front verge with a makeshift fence. I painted a parking sign with a big arrow: “CHEAP SHOW PARKING!! ONLY $5.”

The morning before the Show opened, I rode my bike around the neighbourhood making nonchalant inquiries about what my competitors would be charging. Then I sped home and rustled up a new sign: “ALL DAY PARKING ONLY $4.50.” Underneath I scrawled my new slogan: DON’T BLOW YOUR DOUGH BEFORE U GET TO THE SHOW.

“Wish I’d thought of that one!” said Mr Wheeler, the veteran, as he roped off his own verge.

Then he undercut me and slashed his parking rate to $4. After that, I couldn’t even look at him.

On opening day, the first carfuls of show-goers cruised by at 8am and our verge was seven-cars full by nine. I admired the guy opposite inviting scores of cars into his bare backyard, parking them in rows all the way to his back door. I figured he was making $150 a day.

Day and night, the shrill screams of teenage girls aboard the scariest rides would puncture the air. Those screams, pitched between exhilaration and terror, became the soundtrack to our lives during Show Week.

On the rare warm evenings, I’d lean a stepladder against the gutter and climb onto our roof to watch the fireworks. I never tired of the fizz and crackle as the night exploded with stars.

But I soon got bored with my parking business. I’d wake early to discover three cheeky buggers had already snuck their cars under my rope fence and parked for free. Four feet apart.

Thirty-six years later, the showground hasn’t changed much. People still hire out their verges, the hospital’s still open, but Graylands as a suburb is long gone. My teenage home now sits in the re-named “Mount Claremont.” For $700k, you could probably buy it.