Who Remembers the Skipping Girl?

This is my homage to a Melbourne icon, the Skipping Girl, a neon sign advertising vinegar, and originally known as Little Audrey. How I loved to see her skipping away against the dark of the night! She always seemed so merry to me. I used to beg dad to drive home along Victoria St just so I could see her, and he always indulged me. 

I was rather chuffed when I opened my pantry yesterday and found a bottle of Cornwell’s wine vinegar – and there was Audrey prominent on the label!  

In May this year the National Trust launched an appeal for public donations so that the sign could be restored to its former glory. Let’s hope Audrey skips again.

Below is an extract of a poem I wrote years ago about her…

Driving in the rainy dark
recalls memories of childhood
cocooned in a small capsule,
gliding through the night,
surrounded by the city yellow
of the lights in an alien street.

Who remembers the skipping girl?
she’s pink and green and red,
jumping up and down
advertising vinegar.

And who remembers
sweeping down the silent roads,
with golden light filling the air
like a haze, the black sky overlaid
so the stars disappeared?

Who remembers tipping their head back
against the seat and looking
at the lights flashing past
on the back windscreen
flashing past like shooting stars,
leaving trails of white and
neon pink and green and blue?

Who remembers the lights
multiplied in every raindrop,
shimmering on the window,
and trickling down the glass
in rivers like colored paint?

I remember, I remember.