Tony Birch

It was related to particular forms of entertainment like the gambling clubs, occasionally espresso bars, a bit of street dealing, a bit of street prostitution.

But it was largely confined to those strips.

So, again, you could, you know, come down to Atherton Street where we live, which was probably, you know, in...

a couple of hundred metres off Gertrude Street, and it would be relatively quiet on most occasions.

I mean, people might have a drink and a bit of a party now and then, but I don't remember it being particularly wild.

It would be up on those main strips that you'd really see the action, and that would be pretty wild because of the fact that there were so many activities in the 60s in particular...

that were either illegal or what we might call sub-legal, that were very widely known and very widely practised and enjoyed, but were technically illegal.

So they relied on fairly strong relationships between police and cafe owners, pubs, slug-rog shop owners, et cetera.

So it was a very intricate and fairly organised chaos in a strange sort of way.

Well, firstly, the need.

The need was obvious.

I mean, obviously, until the end of six o'clock clothing, which was in the mid-60s, I mean, it was ridiculous to think that people would stop drinking at six o'clock of a day.

And you particularly imagine, you know, Thursday night was pay night, Friday night was usually the end of the working week, and Saturday, you know, it could be after the football or, you know, Saturdays in summer that people weren't going to stop drinking.

So the reality was that people had to be able to get alcohol from somewhere.

And we know that some of the pubs continue to sell illegally after hours.

That's widely known.

But people would establish slug rug shops or just, you know, when you say shops, people like my grandmother and many others would sell alcohol from the back gate or a side door.

And what they really did was simply often sell only beer, some wine, and they would sell it at a markup that justified them having a business, but at a markup that people regarded as an acceptable markup for being able to buy alcohol outside hours.

But even when 10 o'clock closing came in so people could drink from the mid-60s up until 10pm, there was still no Sunday trading.

And again, even though 10pm seems relatively late, if people didn't get themselves organised, they would want to buy alcohol from a sly grog.