My 1968

If memory serves me correctly, (and it often doesn't these days) when Kelly was in high school she was given a history assignment to research a particular year. I don't remember what the parameters were, but I immediately suggested she choose 1968 - a momentous year. The student riots in May in Paris, the Democratic Convention riots in Chicago, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the uprising in Prague so cruelly put down by the Soviets, the Tet Offensive and God-knows-what else in Vietnam, and God-knows-what elsewhere. Recently there have been many press articles on this forty year anniversary.

Well, I thought I'd muse on my own personal 1968 - it was quite a momentous year for me, too. Amongst other things, it was the year I left Australian soil for the first time.

At the start of that year I was living a very comfortable double life. Having moved out of home at Strathfield at last, I was living in a smart terrace house in East Balmain, down by the wharf, with flatmate Bill Kirwin, a chemist and sometime tenor (He was for a little while, a Delltone - for those of you who can remember.)

By day I was a mild-mannered schoolteacher at St Pat's Strathfield - albeit driving a very sexy white Triumph Spitfire. I had started at St Pat's in 1964 with a fifth class of 56 pupils(!!) but in 1967 was "promoted" to the secondary school, where I was class teacher to a year 8 group and teaching English and history - and also non-examinable music to a year 10 group who scared the pants off me.

Years later, climbing the stairs to a gay club on Oxford St, a young man called Marcus stopped me and said, " You're Mr O'Keefe. You taught me at St Pat's. You wore a different suit every day, but we never thought you were gay!" Yes, teachers wore suits in those days - on some winter's days I kept my overcoat on, the classrooms were so cold.

Let's get rid of something else here. too. My first day at St Pat's I was issued with a strap and told to use it. I can't believe I used to hit kids. Eventually I stopped using it, not from any moral scruples (not many of those around then - certainly not with the "Christian" Brothers) but because on the follow-through I used to catch myself on the shin. Never were truer words, "This will hurt me more than it hurts you"! (NB: I don't want to be down on the Christian Bros, some of them were great friends and good teachers. But for the record I must point out that for years (five in my case), we lay staff were paying into a superannuation fund which was ultimately found to be non-existent - the brothers had never signed it. We got our money back, but no interest. Brother Trinks was thoroughly and rightly embarrassed.)

But by night, you are asking? Well, that was so much fun. I was out in Sydney's closeted gay world, having a ball - or several! (I really will try not to be tacky, but you have been warned.) We used to go to the Dugout Bar in the Rex Hotel in Castlereagh St (no longer there). The Mariner's Tavern next door was for the straights, and ne'er the twain did meet. That was the days of ten o'clock closing and one night the cheeky bar useful called out, "Time please, girls." and a room full of steely eyes and pursed lips were lasered on him until Merle the barmaid called out, "Don't worry loves, he's fuckin' camp his fuckin' self!" Tensions were eased.

Eventually our outrageous presence became too much for the no doubt Catholic hoteliers of the city. But they still wanted our custom, so they pushed us on to the the Rex at the Cross - much more salubrious for our type. Same chain, safer venue.

Now as I think Robert has written somewhere, with ten o'clock closing there was a Saturday ritual where you armed yourself with half-a-dozen DA bottles (that's long necks to you youngies), brcause someone was sure to announce at ten to ten, "There's a party at Ashfield/Leichhardt/Mosman, here's the address, bring your own." In those days, of course, one drove all over town pissed as a fart without a care. (Once, while still living in Strathfield, I went to a party in Mosman and then one in Coogee. I fully remember being at both parties, but have no memory of travelling in between. Surely, at some stage I must have crossed the Harbour Bridge?)

So what if there wasn't a party. Well, then you went to the Purple Onion. What a place! On Anzac Parade, now the Kensington Steam Baths, next to Grotta Capri, this was a drag club par excellence. Run by Candy Johnson and later Beartrice Williams (both drags, of course), it was an unlicensed nightclub (hence the BYO) with the most exotic floorshows. A $2 cover charge as I recall, and if you were wise you took a milk crate so that if the bitch on the door said, "Sorry, love, no more chairs," you proudly produced your own and were admitted. Rose Jackson and Karen Chant were headliners and there was a fine troupe of pre-Les Girls performers. In between acts you'd get on the dance floor and maybe get lucky.

Another great spot was the Petersham Dispensary Hall on Parramatta Road where once a month a committee run by Donnie Smith (later the Chameleons) put on a 50-50 dance. A real old time dance band, trestle tables topped with butcher's paper, barn dance, gipsy tap, Pride of Erin and lots of jitterbugging. When the barn dance became progressive, (butch on the outside, bitch on the inside) you'd progress until you reached a partner you fancied and then it was quite de rigeur to drop out of the circle and dance in the middle.

The third major venue was Chez Ivy's wine bar at Bondi Junction. In those days the alternative to pubs and restaurants was a wine bar, where only wine products could be served - including a ruinous concoction of brandy and wine called Brandivino - lethal! Run by Ivy Benson, a straight woman with more jewellery than I've ever seen on one perso, it wasn't quite glamorous, but it had its moments. One night a young lad came up to me and said, "You watch us playing football in the park from your balcony". Sprung! Yes, on Sundays I'd sit on the back balcony in Balmain and watch the young footballers. I hasten to add, your honour, they weren't schoolkids. but nineteens and twenty-somethings. I drove home and this one followed on his motorbike.

Look, this has gone on far too long and we haven't even got near a passport or an airport yet, so I'll close before you all doze off. But more soon, promise.