Australia's alcohol history - Sunday trading and the 6 'o'clock swill

But back in the day, it wasn’t so straightforward – especially if you wanted a drink on a Sunday.

We were having a yarn with Mount Hutton’s John Ure, who shared his memories of those days.

“Before we had Sunday trading, you couldn’t go to a pub unless it was, I think, 10 miles from town,” John said.

You had to be a “bona fide traveller”.

“Minmi Hotel was a favourite haunt. Of course, this was before RBT,” John, a former detective, said.

“You’d come in and sign the book [in the pub] as a bona fide traveller.” (How’s that for a strange form of government-sanctioned drink driving.)

Other pubs that were packed on Sundays in those days included the Traveller’s Rest at Hexham (now a McDonald’s, John believes) and Catho Pub at Catherine Hill Bay.

“They were the main three pubs on a Sunday around Newcastle,” John said.

Mind you, some pubs found a way around the laws.

When Sunday trading was eventually allowed, John recalled asking the publican at Argenton what difference it would make.

“He said it just meant all the customers can park out the front, instead of having to park out the back,” John said.

“At a lot of pubs, you could sneak in the back door on a Sunday.”

But the law said you couldn’t. 

“It was a church thing. Sunday was a day of rest, the day you went to church. Pubs simply didn’t trade on a Sunday. They only traded Monday to Saturday,” John said.

And you couldn’t just nip down to the bottlo, either.

“In those days, the bottle shop was attached to the pub. If you wanted takeaway grog you went to the pub,” John said.

The Australian Hotels Association says Sunday trading wasn’t introduced until 1979.

And who could forget the six o’clock swill. Most pubs had to shut at 6pm, while most workers knocked off at 5pm. This liquor law lasted until 1954 in NSW.

The punters would pile into the nearest local, before partaking in a bit of old-fashioned Aussie binge drinking. Australian artist John Brack captured this culture in his painting The Bar in 1954. The painting sold for $3.17 million in 2006.

We wrote yesterday about the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Was this the Beatles’ best album, we asked. Mick from Maitland says no.

“Without taking anything away from Sgt Peppers’ anniversary milestone, please note that Abbey Road stands repeated plays and lives on as the Beatles' best,” Mick said.

The readers of Rolling Stone took a vote back in 2011 on the top Beatles’ albums. Revolver claimed top spot, followed by Abbey Road, The White Album, Sgt. Pepper and Rubber Soul.

Bar Beach’s Mark Robinson said Sgt. Peppers was his top album in the ‘60s. 

As for the ‘70s,  he couldn’t go past Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. The album was recorded at (where else but) Abbey Road Studios in London.

Toronto’s John Carr told us a Beatles’ story of his own.

“I was so keen to purchase a Beatles’ record I saved up for a 45 extended play (EP) of All My Loving in 1964, before my parents had a record player,” John said.

“A little badgering forced them to purchase one some weeks later.”

A band called The Royal Teens famously wrote the 1957 song, Short Shorts. That song was about cut-off jeans worn by teenage girls during a New Jersey summer.

But as Topics noted in recent articles about male fashion habits, Aussie men also like to wear short shorts like Stubbies and Ruggers.

There had been some question about whether Ruggers still existed.

Dudley’s Bruce Rankin set us right.

“I have to say that I bought two brand new pairs of these Ruggers ‘short shorts’ from Lowes in Charlestown a couple of weeks ago,” Bruce said.

“They still exist, are available for purchase and are still worn.”

Glad to hear it, Bruce.