Launceston humor: Put on your dancing shoes, I'm reminiscing

Put on your dancing shoes, I'm reminiscing

They did not serve drinks at the bank in Launceston from where I got my first home loan.

I only mention this because I was home on holidays the other week and walked past the building that used to house that bank – and realised it had turned into a nightclub. Hmm, maybe someone had a premonition when they put bars on the tellers’ windows? Only then you never, ever got a drink when you gave them money.

I was born in Launceston in 1958 but I moved to the other side of the pond 10 years ago.

I get home every couple of years and find that time has marched on. Progress is a good thing in my book. This time, however, I noticed many more changes to Launceston.

Some of these I found a little unsettling:

I bought a pair of shoes from another building that also used to be a bank;
I had a cup of coffee from what used to be my barber shop; and the biggie
I discovered that the landmark Launceston post office is now a restaurant, albeit one with a bloody great big clock.

Sometimes I think someone is trying to erase all my old footsteps.

I got used to, years ago, that they had done away with the the QV Hospital where I was born.

I was baptised at a little church in Scottsdale and that was replaced by something grander long ago.

One of my earliest memories is being hoisted on my dad’s shoulders at the old York Park bike track to see the likes of Sid Patterson in the six-day races there.

Well, that was bulldozed yonks ago, too, and now seems to be a vacant piece of ground between Aurora Stadium, nee York Park, and the museum at the old railyards.

What an excellent development at the old Inveresk railyards!

It used to be just an eyesore.

Ditto for the Seaport at the mouth of the North-Esk.

It is an asset to the city.

I took a nostalgic peek at York Park. Don’t tell anyone but I sneaked in through a back gate.

I have been there many, many times as a spectator or football reporter, possibly even as a vigoro reporter, and it wasn’t hard for me to recall exactly where on the ground some of my early footy heroes had taken screamers.

But as sad as I was to see the old wooden East Launceston changerooms were no more (I still remember going into the rooms at half-time and seeing signs on the wall that would make no sense in today’s colourful game, that The Man In White Is Always Right) and the disappearance of the hedge at the northern end which no doubt gave thousands of youngsters much climbing and hiding fun over the years, it was thrilling to see the grandstands just about all the way around.

I was happy to note that not every thing has changed in Launceston.

The gates outside York Park still seem to be the ones I remember from my childhood.

And Prince’s Square still seems to be a constant.

When I was 16 or 17 my mates and I used to sneakily buy a few cans of beer and consume them even more sneakily on a certain bench seat at the side of the park.

That’s another thing not to tell anyone about though. I’d hate to come back to Launceston in 2007 and find they’ve turned the seat into the John Martin Memorial Disco.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it