Earl's Court in
London had the nickname "Kangaroo Valley" or "Roo Valley", although many Australian visitors now go to cheaper districts to the north or west. When
Barry Humphries went (by sea) to London in 1959, he and then wife Rosalind lived in
Ladbroke Grove in Kensington. He made an impromptu visit to "an
Earl's Court pub, in the middle of Kangaroo Valley, as it was sometimes called. He fell physically ill and frightened by what he saw. The packs of loutish Australian youths swilling beer and swearing revived painful memories of the bullies at Melbourne Grammar." This theme re-emerged more affectionately from 1964 in Humphries'
Barry McKenzie series; the character lived in an Earl's Court flat. In 1962,
Clive James went (also by sea; only one friend could afford to fly) to London with a week's accommodation booked in Earl's Court, which "in those days was still nicknamed 'Kangaroo Valley'". He said that there was no mistaking the Earl's Court Australians, with "jug ears, short haircuts ... and open, freckled, eyeless faces" despite their "navy-blue English duffle-coats; though they had not yet taken to carrying twelve-packs of
Foster's Lager, and the broad-brimmed
Akubra hat with corks dangling from the brim was never to be more than a myth". After he moved, he "vowed never to enter Earl's Court again". == Whistler, British Columbia ==