In the early 80s I was fresh out of high school and working at the Rural & Industries Bank of Western Australia, on the corner of Barrack and Hay Streets in Perth. My team mate and new friend Deana had shown me the ropes at work and taken me under her wing. Although just a year older than I was, Deana, with her jet-black Pixi cut hair, enormous brown eyes and super-pale English complexion, was far more sophisticated than this suburban rebel without a pause and she was truly, madly, deeply in love with Cameron, a Teller on the ground floor, who was a dead ringer for Clark Kent. I, on the other hand, used to spend every stolen moment writing love letters to Michael Jackson. A practice not approved of by my boyfriend, but that was his problem.
On our lunch breaks, Deana took me to hidden-away little shops only the really ‘authentic’ people knew about. Authenticity was of the highest importance to Deana. Thanks to her, I learned of a tiny shop, upstairs in Bon Marche Arcade, where one could procure such things as vintage dresses, fingerless lace gloves AND CORSETS!! A significant amount of what I earned in the 80s was spent there.
A couple of blocks away, the Basement Records store stocked all the latest ‘new romantic’ singles from the UK, like Duran Duran (my favourite!), Boy George, Adam Ant… Oh, and Human League of course.. “DON’T YOU WANT ME BABY?” And then there was the British clothing designer neither of us could afford, whose cool windows we pressed our hands and faces up against on a weekly basis, fogging up the glass with our teenage fashion lust and envy.
One of the shop assistants was Cyril, a fashionable twenty-something, fresh from London, who shared lots of wild stories of nightclubbing in the UK. Cyril had met George Michael, Boy George and others Deana and I could only dream about. We hung on every word he spoke.
The absolute BEST of the best discoveries though.. was a sparsely furnished room with worn, creaky floor boards, on the 2nd floor of a decrepit building on the corner of Wellington and William Streets, across from the train station. I swear, every time we ventured up that rickety staircase we thought it would collapse under us. Nevertheless, up the stairs-of-death we’d go….holding hands and shrieking…. and we’d be met on the landing by Katy, a girl barely older than we were, who would usher us inside and show us her latest ‘designs’…. which consisted of VERY poorly sewn tops and skirts …..some hand-painted….mostly cheap bits of fabric strategically tacked here and there so as to adhere to one’s body just long enough for one night of dancing… before falling apart. At a flat $5 per item, we couldn’t complain.
We had run there one rainy winter Friday during our lunch break. It had been pouring down all morning and the air was fresh and slightly salty from an early afternoon breeze coming in over the Swan river. Deana and I scuttled up the stairs to find sunlight streaming in the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sound of midday traffic on Wellington Street two floors below us was almost deafening. Suddenly the hit song by Souxie and the Banshees began playing on the radio with its instantly recognisable intro… DING DING DING D-D-D-D-DINGGG… OH-OH-OH-OH
“OOh… Hong Kong Garden!” Katy squealed, turning it up full blast as the three of us started dancing.
“WOOT!” Deana yelled above the din, ”SOUXIE AND THE BANSHEES! I LOVE THIS SONG!!”
“ME TOO!!” I said, “Can you believe it’s already fours years old?”
