Kwinana Army Camp - Ding Dong Club

During the Second World War, the bush south of Perth around Medina was used by the military and contained huts, service areas and technical installations located throughout the bush. The area later became associated with the Ding Dong Club.

 

Local memory and piecemeal records suggest that radar detection huts were erected here during WWII. They were typically lightweight timber structures, sometimes raised and sometimes slab-based, designed for rapid construction and short-term use.

 

The camp was never intended to be permanent. Once the war ended, most structures were stripped, salvaged or left to decay in place, particularly in areas that were not immediately redeveloped.

 

Remembering Norm Corker

By the 1950s, parts of the former camp land had passed into private hands. According to multiple recollections shared on the History Rockingham | Kwinana Facebook group, the land was owned by Norm Corker, a well-known local figure. He was remembered as:

• Owner and operator of the deli at the old Medina Shopping Centre.

• Heavily involved in Western Australian baseball.

• The person behind the transformation of part of the former camp into a social venue.

 

Rather than constructing an entirely new building, Corker appears to have reused or adapted some of the surviving WWII structures.

 

The Ding Dong Club

The venue operated primarily through the 1950s and into the 1960s and functioned as a bush dance hall. Accounts from former patrons and their families consistently describe it as informal, noisy and very popular. Details remembered by locals include:

• A timber dance floor, recalled by Karla Denton as being outside.

• Live music, with Jenni Barnes believing her father played drums at dances there.

• Regular attendance by young people from Kwinana, Rockingham and surrounding districts.

• Norm Corker was said to have built a dance floor “over the road”.

 

This was the era of modified cars, Beetles, Goggomobil Darts, Studebakers and Holden 48-215s and a certain amount of hooning would’ve been inevitable. The separation of buildings and dance space by a narrow road fits both memory and logic.

 

What survives today

Ruins from the army’s infrastructure can still be seen today, although it‘s unclear what, if anything, remains from the Ding Dong Club or was adapted for its use, aside from the toilet block.

 

Scattered nearby are a number of concrete pads, footings and remains from former hut bases, service structures, a water tank and power-related installations.

 

The surrounding bush has started to reclaim the site, with trees, dense bush and fungi working their way through concrete and brick, softening the remains and making the place feel a lot older than it actually is.