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SOUNDS OF OUR TOWN

KETCH YORLYE DAUN PARADISE: MEMORIES OF LIVE MUSIC AT THE PARADISE HOTEL

From late 2020–2024, Sarah and Zel undertook an Australian Research Council-funded project, 'Reimagining Norfolk Island's Kingston and Arthur's Vale Historic Area'. This research was not focused on popular music heritage, but rather set out to explore the relationships Pitcairn Settler descendants have with Kingston, Norfolk Island. Since 2010, Kingston has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Australian Convict Sites property. As an entry point into the research Sarah and Zel began with a focus on the Paradise Hotel. The "Paradise", as it is affectionately known, began life in the c.1930s as Dewville, one of the first commercial accommodation providers on the island. It went through numerous expansions and name changes before becoming Hotel Paradise in c.1960. Located on Quality Row, a street renowned for its Georgian buildings, by the early 1970s the Paradise had drawn the attention of the Australian Council of National Trusts which called for the Hotel to be demolished. By the early 1980s – and with Australia's bicentenary celebrations fast approaching – the Australian Heritage Commission emphasised the urgency around the removal of the Paradise buildings. The Paradise was dismantled in 1987 and the site where it had been located became a landscaped green area.

This study draws on place-based and photo-elicitation interviews with people connected to the Paradise, as well as arts-based zine-making workshops, to unpack how the Paradise might have been significant in the everyday lives of Norfolk Islanders. The research revealed the many ways in which the Paradise and its precursors (Dewville, Oceanside) had local, cultural, social and historical significance to the Norfolk Island community. Their stories pointed to the value of the Paradise as a twentieth-century heritage place in the Island's Pitcairn settlement which, if it were still standing, may today have been afforded the kinds of protections and respect that were bestowed on the penal settlement buildings of Quality Row. 

While the project did not focus specifically on music, the interviews and zine-making workshops revealed participants' strong memories of live music at the Paradise. On Friday nights, locals descended on the hotel to drink, congregate and 'listen to a live band 'til late' (Allan). Participants recounted the instruments that were played, the names of the regular musicians featured at the venue and memorable songs. Their stories captured a shift in the type of music played by the musicians over time – from tunes you could foxtrot and waltz to, to popular music like 'Gloria' and 'Bad moon rising'. The music was reported to be loud and it accompanied patrons' flirting and fighting. When closing time came around, the final tune of the night was 'Show me the way to go home'. 

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SELECTED OUTPUT

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Sarah Baker and Zelmarie Cantillon (eds)

This zine illustrates the many ways the Paradise Hotel held a dynamic, vital place in the heart of the Norfolk Island community. It was a home for its managers’ children and numerous employees, as well as a home away from home for tourists. It was a venue to dance and listen to live music. It was a place to work, to meet up with friends and family, to find love, but also for mischief and fights. Even in being dismantled, its material remnants became repurposed in homes across Norfolk Island. In both material and symbolic ways, the Paradise lives on.

RESOURCES

If you want to learn more about the Paradise Hotel you might be interested in exploring the following resources:

FURTHER READING

Articles from the Reimagining KAVHA research

  • Baker, S and Cantillon, Z 2022, 'Zines as community archive', Archival Science 22: 539–561.

  • Cantillon, Z and Baker, S 2022, 'Ketch yorlye daun Paradise: sense of place, heritage and belonging in Norfolk Island's Kingston and Arthur's Vale Historic Area', Thesis Eleven 172(1): 93–113.

Historical sources

  • Commonwealth of Australia 1985, Australian Heritage Commission Annual Report 1983–84. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

  • Australian Council of National Trusts 1971, The Historic Buildings of Norfolk Island: Their Restoration, Preservation and Maintenance. Sydney: The National Trust of Australia.

  • Philip Cox Richardson Taylor and Partners 1987, Demolition and landscaping of Paradise Hotel Suite. Department of Housing and Construction NSW Region, Kingston ACT.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative grant SR200200711, with additional funding provided by Griffith University's Arts, Education and Law Group and the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.

©2020–2024 Sounds of Our Town Collective.

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