The Unsuspected Slums: Revisiting the Slums of 1930s Melbourne

the truth will cost you a shilling

just one shilling

will you come along to listen?

Living on the susso. Losing yourself to rotgut and the metho. Living cheek by jowl with neighbours, using a tin tub for bathing and washing your clothes. Confusing flea bites for measles . . .

Welcome to the inner-city Melbourne slums of the 1930s.

In The Unsuspected Slums, Frank Prem revisits Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood, Port Melbourne and the other slum areas of Melbourne that were later torn down and rebuilt after sustained agitation led by accountant and Methodist lay preacher F. Oswald Barnett and his colleagues.

Drawing on Barnett's original photographs, Prem reproduces and poetically interprets these stark records of daily life inside Melbourne's apparently "unsuspected" slum pockets scattered throughout the inner city.

In contemporary, mid-2020s Melbourne, agitation over housing has returned as a pressing social issue, with the High-Rise estates that once replaced the slums now themselves slated for demolition.

The world has changed - and yet, some things remain the same.

eight shillings and sixpence

for a house made out of packing case wood

still

it's a roof over our heads

isn't it?

1149233227
The Unsuspected Slums: Revisiting the Slums of 1930s Melbourne

the truth will cost you a shilling

just one shilling

will you come along to listen?

Living on the susso. Losing yourself to rotgut and the metho. Living cheek by jowl with neighbours, using a tin tub for bathing and washing your clothes. Confusing flea bites for measles . . .

Welcome to the inner-city Melbourne slums of the 1930s.

In The Unsuspected Slums, Frank Prem revisits Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood, Port Melbourne and the other slum areas of Melbourne that were later torn down and rebuilt after sustained agitation led by accountant and Methodist lay preacher F. Oswald Barnett and his colleagues.

Drawing on Barnett's original photographs, Prem reproduces and poetically interprets these stark records of daily life inside Melbourne's apparently "unsuspected" slum pockets scattered throughout the inner city.

In contemporary, mid-2020s Melbourne, agitation over housing has returned as a pressing social issue, with the High-Rise estates that once replaced the slums now themselves slated for demolition.

The world has changed - and yet, some things remain the same.

eight shillings and sixpence

for a house made out of packing case wood

still

it's a roof over our heads

isn't it?

31.99 Pre Order
The Unsuspected Slums: Revisiting the Slums of 1930s Melbourne

The Unsuspected Slums: Revisiting the Slums of 1930s Melbourne

by Frank Prem
The Unsuspected Slums: Revisiting the Slums of 1930s Melbourne

The Unsuspected Slums: Revisiting the Slums of 1930s Melbourne

by Frank Prem

Overview

the truth will cost you a shilling

just one shilling

will you come along to listen?

Living on the susso. Losing yourself to rotgut and the metho. Living cheek by jowl with neighbours, using a tin tub for bathing and washing your clothes. Confusing flea bites for measles . . .

Welcome to the inner-city Melbourne slums of the 1930s.

In The Unsuspected Slums, Frank Prem revisits Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood, Port Melbourne and the other slum areas of Melbourne that were later torn down and rebuilt after sustained agitation led by accountant and Methodist lay preacher F. Oswald Barnett and his colleagues.

Drawing on Barnett's original photographs, Prem reproduces and poetically interprets these stark records of daily life inside Melbourne's apparently "unsuspected" slum pockets scattered throughout the inner city.

In contemporary, mid-2020s Melbourne, agitation over housing has returned as a pressing social issue, with the High-Rise estates that once replaced the slums now themselves slated for demolition.

The world has changed - and yet, some things remain the same.

eight shillings and sixpence

for a house made out of packing case wood

still

it's a roof over our heads

isn't it?

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781923166486
Publisher: Wild Arancini Press
Publication date: 02/16/2026
Series: Picture Poetry
Pages: 344
Product dimensions: 8.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Frank Prem has been a storytelling poet for more than forty years, and spent his professional working life as a psychiatric nurse in various parts of the public psychiatry system in Victoria (Australia). His poetry has been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies, in Australia and in a number of other countries, and has both performed and recorded his work as 'spoken word', and he has published in excess of thirty poetry collections and books.Frank is an Adjunct Research Associate of the School of Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia.He and his wife live in the beautiful township of Beechworth in the North East of Victoria.His web page is located at: www.frankprem.com.
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