Hail on Grand Final Day (and related matters)

Some years ago I was looking for an illustration of the Flinders and Swanston Streets intersections to make a point about how Melbourne is many different sorts of city. I found this one on the State Library of Victoria's Pictures Catalogue. http://catalogue.slv.vic.gov.au/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=1727880 This is a photograph taken on 8 October 1921 and shows a very bleak intersection. The photograph was taken from outside St Paul's Cathedral and shows the Flinders Street Railway Station (then still quite a new building) and the Princes Bridge Hotel (better know as Young and Jackson's). When I first looked at the catalogue record for this picture, it stated that it showed the aftermath of a snow storm in the city. This rather puzzled me as 8 October seemed very late for a snow storm even in Melbourne's outer suburbs, much less in the centre of the city. so I checked the newspaper reports. The Sun news pictorial didn't begin publishing until 1922 and the then three daily newspapers in Melbourne - The Argus, The Age and The Herald - carried few if any photographs which were thought to be too frivolous for serious daily newspapers (as well as being too expensive to print). Photographs were confined to the three weeklies which came out of the same stables as the dailies - The Australasian, The Leader and The Weekly times. (The success of The Sun - initially published in opposition to The Herald - would put paid to this sniffiness about photographs.) What the newspaper reports revealed (even without photographs) was that there was not a snow storm in the city on Saturday 8 October 1921 but a severe hail storm. The white material covering the intersection is drifts of hail not snow. The catalogue record (at my instigation) has now been corrected to reflect this. This is perhaps a little sad; the only pictures now on the State Library of Victoria's catalogue which records snow in the central city area are http://catalogue.slv.vic.gov.au/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=1776678 and http://catalogue.slv.vic.gov.au/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=1764220 Both of these date from August 1882 (the first from 12th August and the second from 5th August) and are wood engravings from weekly newspapers - the first from the The Australasian sketcher with pen and pencil and the second from The Illustrated Australian news. (These were the forerunners respectively of The Australasian and The Leader.) My point in all this being that only with good cataloguing records, can users (of all sorts) find the material which they need. But what about the grand-final? If you read the newspapers for Saturday 8 October 1921, they will tell you that the final was being played that day between Carlton and Richmond. (Carlton had dominated the nine team competition all season, had soundly beaten Richmond twice and finished well clear on top of the ladder.) If, however, you look at an Internet site which gives the results of all VFL games in 1921 http://stats.rleague.com/afl/seas/1921.html you will see that the 8 October 1921 match is labelled as a preliminary final and that the grand final was played on 15 October 1921 also between Carlton and Richmond. Why did the same two teams contest both the preliminary and the grand final? Finals in 1921 were conducted according the modified Argus system. This provided that if the team which had finished the home-and-away season at the top of the ladder lost the final, the final was replayed the following week to give it a second chance. The Wikipedia article on Early VFL final systems may tell you more than you want to know about this system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_VFL_Final_systems#The_amended_.22Argus_system.22_.281902.29 On Saturday 8 October 1921 (before a crowd of 42,866), Carlton and Richmond played a tight game which ended with Richmond winning 67 to 59. However, because Carton had topped the ladder and therefore had a second chance, the match had to be played all over again the following Saturday. Richmond still ran out winners but by a much smaller margin - 36 to 32. But what about the hail? During the final on 8 October 1921, the driving hail storm caused the second half to be postponed. It was eventually played in deep mud with the MCG covered in pools of water six inches deep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_VFL_season Is this an omen for today's final between St Kilda and Geelong? At least they won't have to turn out again next week if Geelong is successful today. And what about that photograph? Have a good look at it. It can suggest a lot of stories. Not just the story of the grand final and the hail. Note that there are still cable cars in Flinders Street. They would have been open to the weather. Were people packed in them going to the MCG or is it later in the day? Are all those men outside the pub waiting to get a drink? Who is driving the car (which appears to have no side windows) on the right? And who is the mysterious lonely woman in black on the left doggedly crossing Swanston Street?

Deafness and other grumpinesses

This blog is being set up because it's required as part of my training programme at the State Library of Victoria. Frankly, I find it a waste of time. I'd much rather be writing something substantial which could be of enduring significance than posting my random meanderings for all to read. I'd much rather spend my time reading a good (well-edited) book or an interesting (well-edited) journal than a blog.

I'm late in starting the programme because I've been off work with a ruptured eardrum. I am now deaf in my left ear and am finding this both salutary and annoying. Salutary because it is giving me some insight into what it is like to be deaf. Annoying because I can't hear what people are saying. Most of my colleagues are sympathetic and remember that I've told them that if they want to be on my right side they have to be on my right side but is surprising the number of people who simply ignore the fact that I've told them I'm deaf and that they need to speak to my right ear. More forgivable, but still annoying, is the assumption that the way to speak to a deaf person is LOUDLY. No, it's not. Speaking clearly and facing the person is the best method.

Being deaf is not just an absence of sound; it's a constant buzzing in your ear, it's an inability to hear small (normally unregistered) sounds which tell you that someone is just behind you or just to your left when walking in the street, it's the fact that your own voice booms around your head and you have no idea whether you're shouting or whispering, it's the fact that you can't tell where a sound is coming from, it's the fact that certain types of noise particularly low-pitched machinery sounds reverberate in your head to the exclusion of all else, it's the fact that you can no longer listen to classical music.

As you might have gathered from the first paragraph, I'm not enamoured of being required to write a blog and I have no idea what I'll put in mine. Perhaps a few observations and anecdotes from Rare Books. As it's highly unlikely anybody will read my comments it probably doesn't matter very much.