I am thinking about starting the day with an adventure - catching the train in to Fed Square with the Thomastown Sharps, I am sure to cop some shit over it, rival gang and all that, but just think of the story!Nick Tolewski a mixed martial arts fighter from Thomastown recently published "ONCE WERE SHARPS - The Colourful Life And Times Of The Thomastown Sharps"
I met Nick at the skinsnsharps exhibition last year and couldn't wait to add his book to my Sharpie book collection (which my husband and daughter will burn when I die, as part of their 'scorched earth, obliterate mum's personality conspiracy'). I have been to Nick's home recently to work on SECRET SHARPIE STUFF and last time I turned up lugging a vintage suitcase, which I have restored and lined with a vintage leopard skin sarong, and said "Hi Family, I am moving in!" Now, without using the WOG word and getting myself in trouble, even though I am married to one and have a wog surname (obviously not Mac!), I love spending time with non-Skippy families - the hospitality and being plied with food and drink makes my soul happy. Anyway, this post isn't about Nick's wife's peppermint cream cake or her home made pizza or ginger lettuce salad, it's about the book, or the book review.
It was harder than I thought to review Once Were Sharps. Although I knew their leader during his Melbourne Sharp days, the rest of the gang was the enemy. My inner teenager feels like a suck or a crawler, saying good things about a rival gang!
Our Bobby Tatts, a Melbourne Sharp of ‘Kevin Pappas Tear out Postcard’ fame said of Once Were Sharps: “I read it in one sit, extremely fascinating, made me cry, made me laugh. Made me want to catch a train to Thomastown, Box Hill, Frankston, Bentleigh, Jacana, & even Laburnum! (just so I could beat the shit out of somebody) again”.
It is a book about blokes, written by blokes, for blokes. So am I really qualified to review it? Dunno, but I will do my best.
Hard and gritty, it’s a book for top fellas – it made me crave an unfiltered Camel cigarette and a frosty VB while listening to Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. As well as being about the Thomastown Sharps, it is a story about mates and loyalty, about surviving in a hostile environment of cops and enemies, punch ups, ambushes and chases – all set in Melbourne.
“A universal thread emerges, that is, the gang as de-facto family. In lower socio-economic areas where gangs proliferate and families are frequently torn asunder by the ravages of drugs, crime and domestic violence, a gang often serves as a second home for its members, providing a sense of safety and security that may be lacking in their own lives. In that respect, the Thomastown Sharps were no different, and while they may not have been involved in a level of criminal activity to match some of their overseas brethren, the bonds within the gang were as strong as in any gang you’ll find anywhere. Strong enough to render traditional ethnic differences as completely immaterial. While they may have drifted in and out of each other’s lives in the years that have passed since the Thomastown Sharps’ existence, the passion and reverence with which the core members refer to that time leaves me in no double that when they say that they “were there” for their brothers in the gang, they mean it. It just reinforces the notion that gang ties and blood ties are often all but indistinguishable. It’s also worth noting that whereas gangs like Westside and Melbourne had members from all over Melbourne, the Thomo Sharps were all from the same neighbourhood. It just intensified the bond between them. After all, it’s pretty hard leaving a guy there to cop a beating unassisted when you live in the same street and will have to look him in they eye every day.”
The violence in the story is cleverly delivered and in a Jacky-Chan-movie kind of way, in parts it is hilarious. Nick and Dean have captured the history of the gang neatly, the good and the bad.
While there is great dispute over which gang was the most notorious in Melbourne, Thomastown Sharps were all from the same area which has made them famous to people in the Northern suburbs, where people with six degrees of separation have bragging rights on the net and other comments are posted like “Wow I live in Thomastown now. I’m 17 years old & the stories I hear are absolutely amazing, I can sit there and listen all day. Whenever I’m on the streets of Thomastown with a group of boys I feel real heavy cos I always think of the sharps. Ha-ha I wish I was born back then, these days are all Broady & Reservoir boys taking over. Argh. I wish the old sharpies came back”
Other Melbourne gangs remember them too, with comments like "Thomastown Sharps were infamous for their Chinese burns and nipple cripples yeah?"
Like them or hate them, the Thomastown Sharps did go out with a bang, and at the legendary AC/DC concert at the Myer Music Bowl in 1981 where they were the largest gang left of our sharpie days.
