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Some Wellington café personalities
by
New Zealand in the 1940s and 1950s has been described as a drab and uniform place. From the late 1950s, however, a café culture was established throughout the country. Coffee shops played a critical role in the general opening up of New Zealand. There were people in Wellington actively seeking to change the social milieu to provide alternatives to the ethos of 'rugby, racing and beer' accepted by many, but not all, New Zealanders. This essay will examine the roles of three of these people—Harry Seresin, Mary Seddon and Carmen—and the cafés they established in Wellington.
Harry Seresin
Born in Hamburg in 1919, Harry Seresin was the son of Russian Jewish parents. He was nineteen when he arrived in New Zealand just before the outbreak of the Second World War, a refugee from Nazism. Seresin was struck by the arid nature of cultural life and the lack of social amenities such as cafés. He was the first person to introduce a really stylish coffee shop to Wellington.
Seresin's coffee shop was situated on the balcony above Parsons Bookshop, located on the ground floor of Massey House at 158 Lambton Quay. The bookshop and café quickly became a cultural and intellectual haven in the city. Later Seresin was responsible for setting up the restaurant associated with Downstage theatre, and in the early 1970s he established the Settlement, which combined a café/restaurant and art gallery.
Seresin was a man of imagination, good taste, strong opinion and vision. He catered to the fledgling art and literary community in Wellington and established a cultural haven in the city. Seresin's influence on the city and café culture in Wellington is summed up in an obituary: 'if there is one person Wellingtonians can thank for the professional theatres and countless cafés that enliven the city then that person is Harry Seresin.'
Mary Seddon
Like Harry Seresin, Mary Seddon was a colourful, larger-than-life figure. Unlike him she was New Zealand-born. Staunchly independent, Seddon travelled alone throughout Europe when it was still considered a daring and unconventional thing for a woman to do. Back in New Zealand in 1950 after four years in Europe, Mary Seddon was filled with 'utter despair'. After the lively European lifestyles she had become accustomed to, Wellington seemed dull and boring.
Like Harry Seresin she perceived a gap in New Zealand society, and decided to establish a café, the Monde Marie, where people could go to just sit and talk. The Monde Marie soon became a mecca for folk music enthusiasts. The environment attracted an educated, bohemian crowd.
Seddon's European travels also influenced the choice of food she served to customers. The coffee was Cona, patrons could purchase cheese cake and yoghurt, chili con carne and spaghetti bolognaise, meals were served with a buttered roll and salad, and everything was priced reasonably. At a time when the menu of most coffee bars consisted of toasted sandwiches the Monde was considered to be European and sophisticated.
Carmen
Carmen, the founder of Carmen's International Coffee Lounge, was another flamboyant personality. A transsexual with a colourful past, her reasons for establishing her coffee lounge differed from the more benevolent social aims of either Harry Seresin or Mary Seddon. Returning to Wellington from Sydney in 1967, and approaching middle age, Carmen decided she needed her 'own stage' on which to star. She took the right of first refusal on a clothing factory with a four-bedroom flat on the upper floor. It was, ironically, located at 86 Vivian Street, next door to the Salvation Army.
In many ways Carmen's was like other coffee bars of the era. The opening hours were long, initially from 8 am to 3 am, and later from 6 pm to 3 am. The menu was straightforward but adequate—coffee, tea, soft drinks and a great variety of toasted sandwiches, cakes, pastries and scones. The difference was in the décor, the staff and the availability of sex. Carmen refers to her waitresses as hostesses: 'that is what they were, and with the exception of the lesbians, all my girls were boys or had been boys at some time. They had to be beautiful. That was the mark of my establishment.' While she gathered around her people of all sexual persuasions, it was never a rule that her entertainers and coffee shop workers had to be prostitutes.
Staff were encouraged to sit and talk with the customers to make them feel relaxed and comfortable. A ritual known as 'the cups' was devised whereby a customer could signal his sexual preference without needing to engage in a potentially embarrassing conversation. Regular customers were also able to liven up their coffee by purchasing a nip of brandy.
The café phenomenon in New Zealand in the 1950s helped open up more choices for New Zealanders and led to the relaxation of licensing laws and an increase in numbers and types of restaurants. Wellington forged a distinctive café culture in the 1950s and 1960s partly because of the prominent personalities behind the cafés. Harry Seresin, Mary Seddon and Carmen were all individuals of passion and vision who created alternative forms of entertainment and diversion in an otherwise conformist society.