Today it’s a small three-bedroom house in a ‘rat run’ street on the southern side of Canterbury. It’s one of a number of smallish 1920s houses stepping down towards the concrete lined drain that today is the Cup and Saucer Creek. Its frontage onto the narrow road has been modestly updated – the brick front fence cement rendered, security blinds fitted to the windows, a varnished horizontal wooden slat gate, a scattering of ‘fashionable’ plants in the small front yard – and inside a young man sat earnestly working away at a laptop computer. But half a century ago this slice of 2020s Sydney inner-west urbanity was a hot bed of motor racing ingenuity and good times for a floating population of financially strapped young enthusiasts determined to wring the most life possible from every minute.
This was the Party House. At the House’s height there were at least 20 members of the ‘inner circle’ and a further 30-odd who might roll in happily and be greeted as one of the team. Today their numbers are dwindling as the ravages of time, frail bodies and past excesses take their toll but, as they all agree, while few of their number these days leave black lines of rubber, scrapes on Armco or engage in all-night rebuilding sessions to make the grid on Sunday, the Party House is still alive and thriving in their hearts and will do so until the last of their number checks out.
The Party House was a product of circumstance. Alf Simmons started working as a self-employed mechanic from a large shed in the back yard of 76 Fore Street, Canterbury after the Second World War. When his wife passed away in 1963 and then he followed in 1965, at the age of just 50 years, the house and its shed were inherited by his children: twin brothers John and Geoff and their sister Pam. The sons moved back into the old family home and pressed reset on their lives. The boys were just 21, Pam was 19, and suddenly all things became possible.
Mates were welcome to drop in any time they liked, and stay for as long as they liked. The fridge could be half filled with beer, and as long as everyone was prepared to tolerate the shortage of sleep before turning up for work the next day there seemed no reason to change those arrangements.
"AUSTRALIA WASN'T GOVERNED AND REGULATED THE WAY IT IS NOW. NOBODY SAID YOU COULDN'T BUILD A CAR IN THE GARAGE, USING YOUR OWN IDEAS AND SECOND-HAND BITS, AND THEN GO OUT AND RACE IT."
“There were no parents involved,” Geoff Simmons explains. “It was like a frat house or student
