Not an Easy Street
In January 1977 two women, a teacher at Melbourne’s Collingwood High School (now Collingwood College), Susan Bartlett, and her housemate, Suzanne Armstrong, were killed by multiple stabbings and Armstrong was also raped. These are the notorious Easey Street murders, which have remained unsolved until this month. A couple of days ago, suspect Perry Kouroumblis, now 65, was arrested at Rome’s Fiumicino airport and work is now underway to have him extradited to stand trial in Victoria. Kouroumblis was a student at the school where Bartlett taught.
Today’s blog is by my friend Ann de Hugard, who taught at the same school as her friend and colleague Susan Bartlett. Over to you, Ann.
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It’s impossible to talk about the Easey Street murders without the context of those times, especially the new freedoms women were experiencing. So much has been made of these ‘easy women’ living in a rundown inner suburban house, doors open, strange men coming and going at all hours. They ‘liked to party’, one was an ‘unmarried mother’. Reading between the lines one could almost think they deserved it.
The simple response would be of course they didn’t. But the advice from a senior member of the Police Force at the time was to warn women to lock their doors and windows. And I, like so many young women, took heed of his words and made sure my doors were always locked from that time on. Yet it was more personal for me, for I had known one of these murdered women, Susan Bartlett. We taught at the same school, Collingwood Education Centre, lived close by, and partied together with other teachers at Greek dances and at her house in Richmond before she moved to Easey Street.
The early Seventies heralded the possibility for new freedoms for women. The Women’s Liberation Movement had gained many followers, me included, and we met together in consciousness raising circles, examined our cervixes, discussed our relationships, and decided that it was time to rid ourselves from the restrictions imposed by the patriarchy. We had seen the lives our mothers had lived and wanted none of that.
This was also the time of sexual liberation, and like many young women I took advantage of the Pill. We no longer feared unwanted pregnancies. No shot gun weddings for us, or even worse, risking an illegal abortion (if you could afford it).
It is impossible to retrospectively look back at those times and convey the excitement, the energy and fervour of living. The day Whitlam was sacked, our Principal announced that school was closing early, and staff and many students hurriedly departed to join the huge Melbourne demonstration. At that time classes were being held in portables in the Darling Gardens, Clifton Hill, before we moved to a purpose-built school in Collingwood. The students in my ‘Unit’ had spent much of the year erecting cubby houses, maths was measuring wood to build the houses, and we probably instructed our students to write poems about the homeless. Somewhere along the way teachers had thrown out the old curriculum and were creating a new one.
I met Susan Bartlett after the school moved to its new premises. She was a striking woman, often dressed flamboyantly in clothes she had made herself. There were strong elements of Greek culture celebrated at the school. And many of the students, and some of the teachers, were of Greek heritage. One of Susan’s closest teacher friends, married to a Greek Union leader, organised cultural and political events and there was always an open invitation to attend. Our social life centred around these celebrations, plus lunches and evenings at local pubs, and parties at each other’s houses. It was as if we were all gulping down life with every breath we inhaled. The word ‘vibrant’ derived from the Latin vibrant- (shaking to and fro, moving rapidly), is a word that comes to my mind to describe Susan. She was always there, simply enjoying life and moving through it.
I was in India when Susan and her friend, Suzanne, were murdered, and I was only told about it when I returned a few weeks later. It was the first news my then boyfriend greeted me with. He had saved all the newspapers for me. I was shocked. My mind kept returning to her dresses, those beautiful garments she had created. It’s a memory I try to hold on to, but is difficult now, after all those years and images of blood-stained walls and sleazy stories about women who leave their doors open. Despite our ‘liberation’, the double standard still applies, as it did then, and probably always will. And we keep our doors locked, because the powerful men who warn us know all about male dominance and male violence.
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