Back in 1978, a year of my childhood was spent living above The Albion Hotel on Lygon Street Carlton. My father was a publican and at the time, he was managing this pub that was a notorious place for students, “musos” and petty crims.

“You could get stabbed for breathing in there”

I was shielded from lots of the goings on in that place as I remember the doors were locked so that we couldn’t go downstairs nor through the heavy glass doors that separated the residential area upstairs from the other rooms (which were vacant and had wooden furniture such as wardrobes and iron framed beds). I remember the fights that broke out downstairs late at night that would spill out over the street, or in the laneways, at closing time. There was always glasses being smashed, police sirens that would stop outside (their lights shining into the rooms above) or someone vomiting on the tiled walls outside. Some nights we would open the window above and look out over the brawls below.

Today I visited Lygon Street Carlton with Fiona (@white_owly) and as we were nearby, I had to go to the hotel to see how it was today in 2022. I couldn’t recognise it but the more I think about it, the more I remember it as it comes back to me in flashes.

The hotel is long gone now as it’s a shop front. Part of me wishes it was still like it was back in the day. Dark entry and wooden panelling but those years are long gone. You’d be hard pressed to find a place like this anymore as most pubs have been renovated and gentrified.

Fiona and I walked down the side alleyway (a place where I recalled looking down from the window above to watch in fascination, junkies shooting up). The window of the same room, the lounge room, where I recall my mum told me she fed me lambs brains for breakfast that morning and I didn’t know they were brains.

Isn’t it strange what we remember?

Living above pubs as a child and looking down on a world I didn’t understand – a world surrounded by cigarette smoke, loud music, sticky carpets and perpetual smell of booze – was fascinating but also fantastical.

I remember looking down (from windows above) or looking out (usually whisked away quickly and shielded from drunken characters who would frequent the pub). I have glimpses in my mind’s eye remembering old drunks with red noses looking over from their drinks at the bar waving and yelling hello to “Mrs P and the kids”.

I did a bit of a search online and found a YouTube clip of The Albion which was typical of what would happen there on most nights. The place was a Melbourne “institution” apparently and when my father talks about it, he remembers he was introduced to many of Australia’s well known musicians and bands of the 70s who played there or hung out there.

Many times we would be watching TV, my father would see a famous Australian musician and say “ah there’s so and so! He was at the Albion”. He would then recount a story about them that seemed to me wonderful. After all, I grew up listening to their music or saw them on television and here was my father serving them drinks or organising their gigs at the Albion!

I decided to do a bit of research to see what else went down at the Albion over the years. Here’s what I found. Liquor license transgressions, dubious characters tampering with bird cages, kidnappings and an abandoned baby…all from the 1880s to 1954. I’m sure there are a tonne more stories from the 70s and 80s but they’re either now long gone and forgotten or just as someone’s memories – mainly people who are now in their 50s and 60s reminiscing about their youth there.

In some way, I wish I had my own stories to recall about such places and the characters who frequented them who are now long gone. At the time, I was too young, an observer, someone passing through a point in time and place but not of it, or in it. The stories I heard have been my parents stories or my own snippets of memories that come back to me at odd times. I wish I could go back in time to revisit it all.

Photos: with thanks @white_owly – the cover photo is the laneway besides the hotel