Pictures 1959
Catalogue / Memoir
Introduction
Pictures
Objects
Animations
PICTURES are both finished and ephemeral works made for animations.
1949---- 1950---- 1951---- 1952---- 1953---- 1954---- 1955---- 1956---- 1957---- 1958---- 1959---- 1960---- 1961---- 1962---- 1963---- 1964---- 1965---- 1966---- 1967---- 1968---- 1969---- 1970---- 1971---- 1972---- 1973---- 1974---- 1975---- 1976---- 1977---- 1978---- 1979---- 1980---- 1981---- 1982---- 1983---- 1984---- 1985---- 1986---- 1987---- 1988---- 1989---- 1990---- 1991---- 1992---- 1993---- 1994---- 1995---- 1996---- 1997---- 1998---- 1999---- 2000---- 2001---- 2002---- 2003---- 2004---- 2005---- 2006---- 2007---- 2008---- 2009---- 2010---- 2011---- 2012---- 2013---- 2014---- 2015---- 2016---- 2017---- 2018---- 2019---- 2020---- 2021---- 2022---- 2023---- 2024---- 2025---- 2026----
Love, Hate, Skate, Fly
I kiss a boy.
I storm out of school.
1959. I learn to skate, I fly.
Chelmsford School, Glen Iris
Photo: Noel
1959. Me (top) at Chelmsford School, Glen Iris
Nadya and I go to a small school called Chelmsford in Glen Iris, for children who don't fit into so-called normal schools. The school is in a big old weatherboard house set in a large garden. In a corner of the garden is a cubby house we built with materials we dragged off the street. That's where I first kiss a boy, in this makeshift sanctuary.
The teachers were two old spinsters, Miss Taylor and Miss Harper. Miss Taylor had permed hair with a blue rinse. Miss Harper's hair was dead straight and white. I don't think Miss Harper did anything to her hair. I liked that about her. She was no phoney, trying to be someone she wasn't.
Nadya and I travelled together by train from Glen Waverley. One day a boy got into our carriage - one of those dog-box carriages that you couldn't escape from while the train was going - and he started playing with his penis and staring at us.
Another day, Nadya chased another student through the staff room with a hose and was expelled. The staff room was built into a verandah with a door at each end.
After Nadya left Chelmsford, Noel took to dropping me off at school early, on his way to work, before school started. I would sit high up in a tree and eat Twisties until the school doors opened. One morning I looked down from the tree and saw Miss Taylor reprimanding a small child. I got really angry with Miss Taylor and shouted at her. I climbed down the tree and walked out the school gate and never came back.
1959. Photo. Me with my brother Tom
on the front porch of our new house
Glen Waverley
Larundel Mental Hospital was proclaimed as an independent mental hospital in 1953. Its proclamation as a Mental Hospital was published in the Government Gazette on June 10, 1953 (No. 497, p. 2857). It was located on Plenty Road, Bundoora.
A mental hospital was any public building proclaimed by the Governor-in-Council and published in the Government Gazette as a place for the reception of lunatics.
Ref. Research Data Australia
https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/VA5082
Accessed Mon Oct 26, 2026
1959. Here's my brother Tom
visiting Nadya with me and Mum,
Laurundel Hospital,
Plenty Road Bundoora
EVENTS
1959: Australia's population reaches 10 million
1959: The Australian Almanac, Pub. Angus & Robertson 1985
1959: The Cuban Revolution brings Fidel Castro to power after toppling Fulgencio Batista;
1959: construction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail begins, later crucial in the Vietnam War;
1959: The Day the Music Died plane crash kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson;
1959: Miss Baker becomes one of the first animals to survive spaceflight;
The squirrel monkey who was to become known as Miss Baker was purchased along with 25 other squirrel monkeys at a pet shop in Miami, Florida, and brought to the Naval Aviation Medical School in Pensacola. Fourteen of the candidates tolerated confinement for periods up to 24 hours, electrodes all over their bodies, and monitoring at all hours. Miss Baker "stood out from the rest because of her intelligence and loving, docile manner", relayed Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs in their 2007 book Animals In Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle. For this, and her apparent pleasure at being handled with tender loving care, she earned the nickname TLC
Ref. Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Baker
Accessed Mon Oct 26, 2026
1959: the Kitchen Debate reflects Cold War tensions between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev;
1959: the 1959 Tibetan uprising forces the 14th Dalai Lama into exile; the Leopoldville riots ignite unrest in the Congo;
1959: the Malpasset Dam collapse kills hundreds in France;
1959: Typhoon Vera devastates Japan.
DUMB MACHINES SHED HUMANITY
Written by me, Lisa Roberts/Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill), on
16/04/2026
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