Bodgies And Widgies Stage Their First Jazz “Jamboree”
By A STAFF CORRESPONDENT
T’HE Sydney Town Hall last night was the scene of the largest gathering of “bodgies” and “widgies” yet assembled in Sydney.
(Bodgies are youths who wear long hair and American-style clothes. Widgies are their female associates. They are devotees of jazz music.)
The occasion was a jazz concert billed as “The Bodgie and Widgie Jamboree,” and was the first function of the newly formed Bodgie and Widgie Association of Australia.
A fairly large proportion of the audience of 2,000 appeared to consist of authentic bodgies and widgies, wearing the distinctive clothing of the cult.
Many of the males were in long, loosely cut coats, without lapels, and trousers tight at the ankles. Large numbers of the girls wore blouses, some of them off-the-shoulder, and tightly fitting skirts.
A number of the young people present, however, were in non-bodgie or unwidgie garments, while some seemed to be borderline cases.
A few parents were there with bodgie or widgie sons and daughters.
The programme consisted mainly of dance music. There was loud applause when a singer named Edwin Duff, a popular figure among the cult members, embraced the microphone stand in amorous attitudes while he sang.
Behind the orchestra was an object draped in black, carrying a placard “The Thing.”
In charge of the proceedings was Mr W McColl, who runs a recorded music session for a radio station and is the director of the Bodgie and Widgie Association of Australia Between items he reminded the audience that entry forms for the association could be obtained in the foyer.
Balga checked the date of the old Sydney Newspaper. It was from 1951 and now it was 1955 and not much was happening in his life at all. He had tried to look like Phillip Marlowe but the clothes he felt weren’t all that stylish, not like this “Bodgie” clothing at all. But where could he get such stuff?
He had been reading the paper in the city library. This was one of the few places opened on a Sunday. He left to prowl the deserted city, went through and up to King’s Park where there was a bit of life. White faces cast suspicious glances at him. He took refuge in the wild part and stood confronting his plant mate, a tall old Black Boy. He smiled and thought at him: ‘My life, you know, is continuing on a track t’rough the Great Sandy Desert and I ain’t got no particular place to reach. T’ere’s a desert wind ablowing and I’m edging into edging into manhood without friends and a social life except talking to the two old women where I kip. T’ey give me tucker, but I need somet’ing else Well, work fills my week days, but I hate t’at boss and one day, I know, I’ll just get up and leave. Maybe I need the country, get out with you lot and let the sun bake me dry. No feeling, no feelings at all.’ He brightened up feeling better for the chat and suddenly knew his life was about to change. He saluted the Black Boy, ‘You Balga,’ he said, ‘you ain’t no black boy, you a big warrior so send me some, well, some action.’
Back into the empty city streets. He moved putting one foot carefully in front of him and then he saw him, his first bodgie and he was with not one but two Widgies.
Balga took a long gander at the young bloke, not caring if he knew it or not. Yes, this was a real Bodgie.
There was the American style draped coat. A long lime green sports coat with heavily padded shoulders over a black shirt with a white horizontally black striped narrow tie. The single button coat was finger tip length and undone so that Balga could see the trousers pleated at the top and decorated by a white leather belt threaded through tunnel loops. A long chain was fastened to the right front tunnel belt loop and descended in a glittering arc before entering the slanted hip pocket. His examination took about five minutes. The bloke had stopped. Now he twisted his lips and snarled. Balga had had his share of fights in the orphanage and wasn’t scared. The kid was a head shorter and a bit fat. He had meat on his bones and that meant he would be a bit slow. So Balga stared boldly into his round and pink face and then suddenly winked and grinned while his brown eyes locked with to the blue eyes. He waited daring him to make his move. This kid with his long blonde hair slick with oil and styled so that a curl hung over the middle of his forehead couldn’t take him.
‘Well, well,’ Balga exclaimed cheekily, ‘I remember you from somewhere. You Phillip Morris?’
‘Ain’t a cigarette?’ the kid retorted. He undid his wrist watch, handed it to one of the two girls and then took off his sports coat. He carefully folded it over the arm of the second widgie.
He cracked his knuckles. He might have been fattish and white and clad all in black, but he was very self possessed. Balga wanted to know him, not fight him; but he had to play the show through. He boldly stared at the widgies. Perth didn’t have such molls as these? They were like the sexy girls not of Raymond Chandler, but Carter Brown. He liked them. He wanted them. Their hostile blank faces cast him off, but he wanted them. Their bloke was waiting for him to make his move; but the dolls held him spell bound. Both had short hair, the smaller and cuter one dark and the other ash blonde. They had smeared their mouths with vivid red lipstick and rouged their cheeks with some pink stuff. The small one wore a mid calf length tight skirt and a long sweater while the blond was wearing what he knew from his reading to be pedal pushers, that is quite tight trousers that ended mid calf. These were pink and went with a soft pink sweater that reached mid thigh. Both wore slipper type shoes and short socks, and both were gorgeous.
‘Don’t ya t’ink t’at it’s a bit too warm for t’ose sweaters,’ Balga drawled in his best Private Eye voice at the widgies then snarled his next words at the bloke: ‘Same for yer coat too. No wonder ya took it off. Last time I saw t’at sort of gear, it was on kids from England. You lot must be pommies too.’
‘Ever hear of Melbourne,’ the bloke snarled back.
‘Nah, only Sydney…’
‘I’m from there and I have a hundred and eight that’ll back me up.’
‘What’d ya mean?’ Balga asked, mystified at his number. Well, whatever, he wasn’t going to back down. He began enjoying the confrontation. He could do him. Hadn’t he almost made it to the Western Australian School Boy Boxing Championships?
‘You heard of the Saints?’ the bloke said and Balga knew that he wasn’t ready to scrap. The prelims were over and now he wanted to gas and skite.
‘Heard about the Saint?! Fancy dresser, fancy talker and you know he carries something like this,’ Balga retorted and flashed the stiletto blade he had stuck in his sock a direct copy from his hero.
‘It takes more than a shiv to scare me,’ the bodgie sneered.
‘Not trying to, just showing you t’at I’m like t’at Saint bloke. He has one of t’ese in his sock too. T’at t’e fellow you talking about, ain’t you?’
‘You know this,’ the bloke retorted, pushing up the sleeve of shirt to show a tattoo. Balga flashed on it and saw the sticklike figure he knew from Leslie Charteris.
‘Too right I know t’at,’ he retorted. ‘You t’ink I’m dumb or somet’ing.’
‘Well, maybe, for sure you ain’t a saint. You look and dress real square. Are you being inconspicuous, like hiding out from the cops? You’re no cool cat, for no cool cat dresses like that. My God, man, I can’t fight a yokel like you,’ he sneered, ‘I’ve got standards to maintain.’
‘T’ere aren’t no corners on me,’ Balga replied tartly and invented an identity for himself. ‘T’ere sure ain’t. Ya know my fad’er was a Yank and his brad’er a famous blues singer, you know: Robert Johnson from New Orleans.’
‘Never heard of him,’ snapped the bloke, but obviously impressed.
‘He plays rock’n’roll,’ Balga shot back, though he had only read about the music and as far as he knew had never heard it.
What he had asserted must have been impressive. It bridged the gap between them. The bloke introduced himself as Eddy Grant and said the girls were his sisters going by the names of Audrey and Leslie. ‘You know Leslie Caron and Audrey Hepburn,’ Eddy said with a wink.
Balga walked along with them as Eddy told him that he was he was a progressive dresser and not a Bodgie as “bodgie” was slang for a wrong one and he considered himself a right one. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘when I saw you I knew you were one of us inspite of those awful threads you’re wearing and that haircut. With hair like that you need a bit of style to make it, it “hep”.
Balga modeling his clothes on Phillip Marlowe, felt anger at the bloke’s remarks, but let it go to say: ‘Can’t help t’at when I ain’t got t’e dough just yet and as for t’e haircut, t’ey gave it to me. I’ll get it fixed soon.’
‘Yeah,’ the Progressive Dresser replied, ‘dough’s always a problem. Must be a bugger to live in this town. Gee, it’s so small I bet that the cops get to call you by your first name in no time at all.’
‘Yeah,’ the blonde girl, Leslie, agreed coming into the conversation. ‘I want to get back East. Sydney, Melbourne—anywhere but here.’
‘No peeping, chick, be a cool doll, eh’ Eddie drawled. ‘The dough’s coming in and soon we’ll be out, so keep your britches down until we’ve made a roll.’
‘I’m outa here, Eddie, soon, soon, soon,’ the dark-haired, Audrey threatened.
Balga thought they didn’t look like brother and sisters but then what did he know about family matters? He nodded as Eddie evaded any arguments by turning his attention his way. He said: ‘We have this hangout: the Royale milk bar. It’s allowed to stay open on Sundays to sell milk. The cat that owns it—maybe is old, but don’t let that fool you. He’s really hep and knows his sounds. A Ted from London!’
‘A Ted,’ Balga had to ask.
‘What they call a Teddy boy, though he’s a bloke. A little bit like us’ but they look back to the Edwardian period to get their style. They wear coats with velvet collars and ain’t real gone progressive dressers like us.’
‘Yeah, ‘Balga replied completely out of his depth.
They took a right and went from Hay to Murray then turned into Wellington Street going along it towards the hospital until just past an army disposal store they reached the only shop open: The Royale, the one and only Bodgie hangout in Perth as Balga soon found out. He followed after Eddie and his sisters and winced as he was hit by a loud music he had never heard before. His introduction to rock’n’roll. He would never forget it. The one and only: ‘One two three o’clock rock; four five six o’clock rock. We’re going to rock around the clock tonight. We’re going to rock rock rock until the broad daylight.’ The rhythm took over his feet as he glided into the joint each foot hitting a beat. He was getting into something at long last.