Another ghost sign

“What are you looking at? Is there something wrong?” asked the lady. I suppose I cut a strange figure, standing in a laneway peering into the mid-distance. I explained I was trying to decipher the lettering above the side doorway to the factory. I could make out COO but was struggling with the other letters. “Oh that was Sidney Cooke Fasteners” she said, blithely. “And before that it was a woodshed. Now it is a dry cleaning factory.” And in the future it will be a massive apartment complex, I thought.

“My parents live just here, have done for the past sixty years and so we know. Yes, it used to be a wood yard.”

Winter solstice

“Ich geh mit meiner Laterne, und meine Laterne mit mir..”

This lovely children’s song is traditionally sung at the lantern parade on St Martin’s Day in Germany. In the dark November evening, children clutching their school made lanterns walk along narrow cobbled streets behind a man riding a white horse. He represents the fourth century figure Martin of Tours, the Roman soldier who became a convert to Christianity and reluctantly became a bishop after his whereabouts were betrayed by the loud cackling of geese. Tonight I was reminded of this custom when Brunswick South Primary School held a Winter Solstice festival.

Sydney Road Fabric Shops

 

A few months ago I did a little stroll along Sydney Road with an old friend. Whilst I thought she would like the bookshops and the mediterranean food, I did not realise she would be enthused by the row of fabric shops which extends from the Glenlyon to Albion Street corners. She bought several lengths of fabric and I have not caught up with her since to see whether they have become beautiful garments.

Eleanor or Hildegard?

Not much time left until Medieval Day at school. So I sauntered down to Centre Stage in Lygon Street to get a costume. I was undecided as to whether to go as Eleanor of Aquitaine or Hildegard of Bingen. Upon entering the cavernous shop, housed in an old factory building, the tall, dark, bearded young man in a long red leather coat ushered me to the racks labelled “Medieval”.

The Little Teapot

Recently I met up with a friend at a very trendy café up on Lygon Street, but on the way I was amazed to see this little teapot painted on the bricks of an old building. This would have to be my favourite ghost sign so far! It is short and stout with a handle and a spout, just like in the children’s song. 

Methven Park

This is a small park just off Lygon Street, with magnificent old elm trees and a path that winds through it from one corner to the other, causing the beholder to wonder: where did it used to lead to? Surely not just from one street to the next? The destination and the story have disappeared.

Ghost signs

 

Well, I knew that my interest in bricks and twentieth century industrial buildings is shared at least by Thomas Ryan in Tasmania, but I thought this was perhaps a rather obscure interest. As also my eye for what I called in an earlier post "bricks with vanishing signage". Then I heard on the radio about a recent conference and followed this lead on the internet. To my delight I learned that there are a whole community of people documenting what are officially known as “ghost signs”.  And I discovered the websites of Dr Stefan Schutt of Victoria University.