I dropped out of university, and my visits to Oxford Street declined. As it was in the late 1960s and so it is now, in Oxford Street gay men have become the victims. Bashing was a sport for those afraid of any form of difference. After a few minutes they ran off, we helped Frank up, and continued on our way. They continued to viciously kick him, and I felt the impacts reverberating through his body. I promptly raced to his aid, flinging myself down on the pavement and cradling his head in my lap, shouting at these short-haired thugs. We were strolling down Oxford Street feeling very chilled when a group of three or four young thugs set upon one of our little party, a tall, lanky guy called Frank, with long shoulder-length hair and glasses. Our next destination was the usual party, this time in Darlinghurst. One Saturday night we had gone from Whitty’s to the Greenwood Tree. Although not aware of it, we were stalked. The British pop music scene brought a trend of long hair and hippy gear. Near Whitty’s was Martin’s wine bar, which for some reason was off-limits to us – I thought that possibly it was a first gay bar, but on the other hand, as I have recently learned, it was rather risqué and upmarket, so I am no longer sure about that guess – but whatever, it was above our student price range. Bearing in mind closing time was 10pm, we started early at the wine bars and then went on to the Greenwood Tree in Paddington or sometimes the Oxford Tavern, depending on the starting point. However, the star venues were Whitty’s wine bar and French’s, also a wine bar with live jug band music. Eating Greek food, dancing and clapping to exotic Mediterranean bouzoukis, discovering rough red, plotting the coming revolution (the communist one, not flower power) – it was (literally) heady stuff for a girl from Punchbowl.
It was gestated at the Olympia Club around the corner of Oxford Street in Palmer Street, as a faint memory serves me. Of course we smoked dope and dropped acid, although not excessively. There had been no culture of drinking wine in those early days, especially among us ordinary young suburbanites who were ushering in a new wave of excitement and change. We certainly hung out in pubs, but the real ‘it’ places to be at were wine bars. It was becoming a hub of student activism, live music and ‘ethnic’ restaurants.
Oxford Street had been in almost terminal decline. This was a wonderful, edgy strip where a teenager just starting university life could discover her emergent identity and make new friends. Share Opinion by SUE HANLEY The main CBD night strip in 1966 stretched from the corner of Sussex and Liverpool Streets up Oxford Street and to what is now the Greenwood Hotel in Paddington.