What I miss about 1960s Australia
There’s much to celebrate about modern life, but I miss bits of the old Australia, too. Like the sense of being part of a loving community.
When I was 11 in the late 1960s our family was invited to a 21st birthday celebration for the daughter of family friends. It was held in the Boorcan hall near Terang in Western Victoria. My mother contributed a plate of scones. O’Shannessey’s band provided the (lively) music. There was dancing, chatter and laughter. The Boorcan hall brimmed with goodwill that night. The hosts were genial, lovely people. I remember the occasion with great fondness.
Towards the end of the night, after the speeches and the communal singing of happy birthday and For She’s a Jolly Good Lassie, there was a lull followed a boom-tish from the drummer that got everyone’s attention. The host moved to centre stage and announced there was one more piece of good news: the birthday girl and her beau were announcing their engagement. Much rejoicing ensued.
Looking back at this event, it was seminal for several reasons. It encapsulated the essence of an era that was about to change. The average age at first marriage for Australian women at this time was indeed 21. Today it’s closer to 28. Those seven years are now given over to education, training, gap years and the road-testing of jobs and relationships.
In the late 1980s another seminal shift took place when the three-bedroom, one-bathroom houses of the 1960s started to be reimagined by prosperity and pragmatism. Greater workforce participation by women injected much more spending into the family home. Two-income households wanted a place where food could be prepped and consumed, and where family chitchat could be communed. The kitchen and the parlour immediately fused, creating a bold new concept called the kitchen-family room replete with access to remote controlled television. The island bench became something akin to a Mission Control configuration from which the flight-director parents could see and command household operations.
Over the next 30 years this model of the two-income household continued with both partners working, commuting, doing their best to manage kids and other commitments. Communal, familial events also evolved via extended family get-togethers in parks, at restaurants, at camping grounds and perhaps at the home of grandparents for a lunch where aunties effortlessly co-ordinate who is to bring what course. (Aunty Rosie’s sticky date pudding is a favourite at our get-togethers.)
And while there is much to celebrate about our modern way of life, there are bits of that old world – that world encapsulated by the 21st birthday celebration in the Boorcan hall – that maybe we could makeover and repurpose. The bits that I think worked so well back then were the tribal, local get-togethers. It was the affirmation of the community, the support of the village, the goodwill expressed by those who aren’t connected by blood, that I saw writ large that night in Boorcan. It was powerful. It was galvanising. It was loving.
To be loved by a family is expected. To feel part of a loving community delivers a greater sense of belonging and creates a greater sense of responsibility. It builds better, stronger, more resilient communities in the long run. Let’s have even more of this going forward.
More Coverage
It’s a parent’s choice. But you don’t have to live with it
Gough Whitlam would always cross out one of my l’s on personal or official correspondence, insisting that Philip was suitable only as a prenom, and Phillip was for surnames. But I’m not to blame.
With so many switches, driving this car is like flying a plane
I disliked this car intensely at first, but then ended up driving more than 600km in it – after which it still had a third of a tank of fuel left, thanks to its clever hybrid set-up.