by John Gray, from Bulletin 1/2012 (March)

My Latin teacher would vince. As he had a lisp he said ‘w’s like ‘v’s and the reverse; ‘r’s became ‘w’s also. So we learned to conjugate the verb to prepare and shout it out pwouldly as: … pawo, pawas, pawa. You get the picture. So eventually did our new teacher in gales of laughter.

I digress, which is what graffiti encourages. The joy of them is in their angst, bathos and twist in meaning. My brief article in the last Bulletin encouraged correspondence. I have limited it to Glebe and Forest Lodge graffiti.

Grahame Budd remembers that he saw the election graffiti for the Students’ Representative Council at University of Sydney on the steps of the overpass. One line per riser:

Never forgive
The Left or the Right
Vote out of spite
Vote Otto
(You know it makes sense).

The romantic in Grahame permits him to name graffiti:

Tender Reminiscence – One Summer Night (Under the Railway Arches, Jubilee Park)
Broken date – Where is she? (Base of a seat in Victoria Park)

Ted McKeown writes, ‘The ones I remember with particular affection, all on or around the old Stalag wall of Harold Park on the Crescent, were:

1. AUSTRALIA SUX (Different hand): NEW ZEALAND NIL

2. GOD HATES HOMOS (Different hand): BUT HE LOVES TABOULEH

3. PIG-IRON BOB (I think still visible if you look hard on the cliff face)

4. AUSTRALIAN VOTERS ARE BLOODY-MINDED SHEEP (the day after the 1975 Federal election)’.

These graffiti are all part of the warp and the woof of old Glebe. If you have any more send them to me at vice-president@glebesociety.org.au