Jack Johnson is the author of when The Clock Strikes, a fascinating account of growing up in Dandenong, his years tending to the city’s pipes and drains as a plumber and bringing up a family with wife Frances in their beloved home in Macpherson Street.
WE HEARD every scary story imaginable from the big kids and some immature adults intent on frightening the daylights out of us.
And this they did, for when we were at such an innocent and impressionable age, beginning to explore Our Place, we were very susceptible to these mythical tales of horror about the buildings and streets of central Dandenong.
They could not frighten us about the bush, however, for we were born to the bush from generations of men and women who had pioneered Gippsland and Heathcote and parts of New South Wales.
However, with the buildings of Our Place, we were not yet experienced enough to understand the mysteries and myths that surrounded them.
We soon learnt to sneak past Laurel Lodge where the Witch sat in the bay window weaving nets of cobwebs and watching, through black horn-rimmed glasses, down the gravel driveway to Langhorne Street.
She was always clad in a long black dress with a high collar and on her head was a small bonnet tied beneath her chin with black ribbon.
A hat pin the size of a small stiletto with a large emblem at the end pierced the bonnet and over her shoulders she wore a black three-quarter length cloak with a stand-up collar tied at the throat with black ribbon.
The story was that if you did not cross the road to the old police station house and jail she would direct her goblins and lackeys, who lived in the giant Moreton Bay Fig trees, to jump out and throw their sticky nets of heavy woven cobwebs over us.
They would then drag us up the driveway into the cellar of Laurel Lodge where they witch would keep us imprisoned until she was ready to give us the Hansel and Gretel test.
We were also told that the old underground brick well out the back had no water in it and that this was where she kept kids when she had too many for the cellar.
We also avoided the thick bush that grew within the grounds of Laurel Lodge.
Goblins lived there, but were controlled by the good spirits next door at St James.
We avoided the east side of Langhorne Street on our way to Crump’s Store or the old post office unless mum asked us to cut through the school and through the connecting back gate of Merlin, a private hospital run by Sister Ahern.
She was a close friend of mum and dad and we often picked up goods or prescriptions for her from Mr Titcher’s chemist shop in the main street.
Sadly, Titcher’s did not escape the scary stories.
We were convinced by the big kids that there was a mad scientist, like Dr X in the movies, who worked for Fu Man Chu and who came at night, after Mr Titcher went home, to make evil concoctions.
When we became older and more worldly, we discovered the Witch of Laurel Lodge was a kindly old lady sitting in the sun in the bay window crocheting woollen shawls, not cobweb nets.
