Published on Tuesday, 14 October 2025 at 11:26:45 AM
Welcome to #TimeWarpTuesday and the beginning of our look into the poetical entries in our recent 2025 Local History Awards.
Display Cover Page for Graham’s poem “Westminster Street”
The category of Original Poetry or Performance Work was introduced to the Local History Awards following the 2021 Awards. In these Awards Mr Graham Carpenter entered a poem, which he also made into song lyrics, all about the social history of car saleyards along the Albany Highway. The youthful antics of wheels, grease and oil and arcade games was told in a captivating poem called “Boulevard of Broken Cars”. Graham had entered his poem into the Personal Memoirs category as they were memories of his childhood, yet it didn’t seem a good fit to judge a poem alongside written memories in narrative form, so the idea came to include a category for poems and perhaps in the future a play and the like.
In the 2023 Local History Awards, we introduced the ‘Original Poetry or Performance Work’ category, and were very pleased with the results, with five poems being entered. The judges couldn’t decide who should take out first prize that year, so we awarded joint first place to Erica Keijzer for her poem entitled “The Great Sewage Debate” and joint first prize to Pat Saunders for her poem entitled “McCallum Park Lockdown”. All of these poems and the others entered can be read and enjoyed on the Library’s website here: https://www.victoriaparklibrary.wa.gov.au/local-history/local-history-awards
Poems entered in our recent 2025 Local History Awards did not fail to impress the judges either, and it is these poems that we will feature in #TimeWarpTuesday over the coming weeks.
PH00480-01 Graham Carpenter taking a break from restoration work outside his house in Westminster Street
This photograph was included at the end of Graham’s entry into the Awards.
This week, the man who inspired the category in the first place, Graham Carpenter….
Original Poetry or Performance Work
‘Westminster Street’ by Graham Carpenter
The warm morning winter sun
Embraced me seduced me
As I gazed at The glistening deadly blue
And I drifted into daydream
This blue asbestos would be gone
Weatherboard in its place
This house would stand proud with elegance and grace
Bull nose verandah sash windows tin walls high skirts an dado
14 foot ceilings
These features restored returned replaced
Built in 1915 when the World was at War for the first time
Before an much later this Southern Land
Was recognised as Whadjuk land
But at this time it was the Time of European arrival
And this War embodied it’s the spirit of the Colony
And its fight for identity an survival
Great Grandmother would make cushions an doylies an write heart felt poetry
To celebrate the Reign of the Monarchy
Later these items would be mailed to the Royal family
Gifts from the far flung Antipodes
Such were the ties that bound
My girlfriend’s mates said my house was a dump
These stones that were thrown bore no scars
An couldn’t damage the cheapest guitars
They came from the outskirts
Lived in Cream double brick an tiles that yawned on for miles an miles
With feature sunken lounges an aluminium windows
They couldn’t see what I saw
Its simply a case of each to their own
We’re Staring down the barrel of of a Banana Republic!
It’s the Recession that we have to have!
Interest rates will hit 17 percent!
If you cant make a go of it in Private Business
Go an work for somebody else!
These words weren’t Bravado delivered by a Silver screen hero
A Stallone Van Dam or Robert Deniro
They came from the highest level of Government
Who had little concern for the effectuated part of the Electorate
If you were starting out an in Debt
You were truly on your own
Mum said its easier for a Camel to pass through the eye of a needle
Than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven
She worked for the Church
We roamed from Town to Town
An after Rent food Tithes and offerings
There was enough money left for hand-me-downs
An the neighbours second hand shoes
We were well known as the Evangelists who spread the word of God
An hand written I OWE YOU S
She said our riches would be laid up in Heaven all these things would be added unto us
I saw Heaven as a Subjective thing
I saw things in a different light
It could well be under this roof I slept under every night
Thous house was my home this home that I owned
This house on Westminster st
Its hard to believe
And the warm morning Winter sun
Embraced me seduced me
As I gazed at the Deadly Blue
An I drifted into daydream….
Graham Desmond Carpenter
In memory
Beryl Muriel Stella Carpenter*
We hope you enjoyed rhyming your way back through time. Don’t forget to check back next week for more poems. It’s also never to early to start thinking about researching and or preparing an entry for the 2027 Local History Awards, just check out the ‘Past Awards’ page on the Local History section of the Library’s website for inspiration and ideas. Please also feel free to reach out to our Local History Coordinator if you want to find out more about entering, what’s involved or to brainstorm research ideas. We Need You to help preserve our local history so please consider how you can get involved…
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via telephone: 08 9373 5500, email: vicparklibrary@vicpark.wa.gov.au, by mail: PO Box 1109, East Victoria Park WA 6981 or in person at 27 Sussex Street, East Victoria Park.
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“Westminster Street” by Graham Carpenter as displayed in the 2025 Local History Awards Exhibition
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