SATURDAY BREAKFAST #18: MURRUMBEENA STATION PRECINCT (NEERIM ROAD and MURRUMBEENA ROAD)

Visited 28 January, 2012

Who wrote this stuff? – this “stuff” being the Murrumbeena entry in Wikipedia.   Wikipedia is one of the great achievements of mankind – in 283 languages the attempted repository of all human knowledge, readily accessible on the World Wide Web, and free to all.  Sure it has its detractors, and sure its entries are capable of manipulation and vandalism, but founder Jimmy Wales and the 1500 or so volunteer administrators are ever vigilant to those contributors (out of the 82000 or so) who wish to push their particular slant on events.  The entries on current affairs and living politicians are the ones most likely to be subjected to interference and re-interpretation, but the bulk of Wikipedia’s content is non-contentious. 

Although my specific gripe is with the entry for Murrumbeena, the Melbourne suburb hosting today’s walk and breakfast, I’ve seen similar shortcomings in entries for other small-time locations.  The Murrumbeena entry is pathetic.  In short, there is nothing to say, so the writer says it!  Harsh I may be, but there must be a way to outline modest features and accomplishments without making them sound lame.  Better to say nothing than to claim as an achievement something that is mundane.  Instance:   Under “Sport” the entry states that the local junior football team was formed in 1918, and has both senior and junior sides [oh, come on!].   Check the heading “History” and learn that the railway station opened in 1879 [that’s all the history there is!]; and under “Schools” is the news that there are two primary schools, and that “the High School was closed by the Kennett Government in the 1990s” [in order to score a political point the writer highlights a community shortcoming].  Under “Notable people” we are informed that this includes “many” Australian Rules footballers, then the entry names six (only), all of whom played for Melbourne Demons [a club name that didn’t exist when any of the six was playing].   And the Federal Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Bill Shorten, was a local lad who “attended Mass at the Good Shepherd Convent, on the current site of Chadstone Shopping Centre” [Holy moly!  Just ponder:  this gem now graces one of Wikipedia’s 26 million English language pages, one of the 3.5 million English language entries………..vandalism by stupidity.].   Under the heading “Transport” the Wikipedia entry says that the main roads passing through Murrumbeena are Dandenong Road, Neerim Road and Murrumbeena Road [telling us nothing, but encouraging us to keep on passing through];  and it says that there is a railway station providing regular services to the city [the railway station wouldn’t be much use if it didn’t]; and that the Neerim Road level crossing has ben identified as one of the most congested in metropolitan Melbourne [what an extraordinary thing to publicize about your suburb!]. The litany of inanity could have gone further, I suppose, and highlighted the local railway’s propensity for disaster.  On 28 April 2007 a man ducked under the Murrumbeena Road boom gates and took the fast track to meet his maker.  The normally congested railway crossing…….…well you can imagine.  Then on 11 November 2009 a (another) man was trapped by a train in Murrumbeena Station and had an arm severed.  And on 5 April 2011, as a result of an accident in the car park, a car crashed through mesh fencing on to the Station platform and on to the tracks.  Trains were delayed!

Poor Murrumbeena.  Even the origin of its name is a mess.  It derives from an aboriginal word – that much seems to be certain - but that word may have meant “land of frogs” or “moss growing on decayed wood”, or it may have been derived from the name of an Aboriginal elder.  Whatever the truth of the meaning, none of the original connection remains today, at least not that I could see.

Neerim Road, described as the main street, was dreary, and Murrumbeena Road was drearier.  There was a building with the date 1921 embossed on its façade, a clue to the vintage of the region; and there was a business, Lichfield, that promoted itself as “shirtmakers since 1916” – albeit, as its website explains, in New Zealand.  There was an opp shop run by the Lions Club of Oakleigh, occupying three adjacent shops backing on to the railway reserve.  The volunteer confirmed that these and adjacent buildings used to be 99-year leasehold from the Government railways, but the leases have now been converted to freehold.  I was given no clue as to the Lions’ present landlord.   And there was a long-closed milk bar in Murrumbeena Road, with weeds creeping up the inside of the shop windows.  On inspection we saw that the premises had been gutted – floor taken out, roof mostly removed, internal walls gone.  Why not a full demolition?  Anyway, nature was reclaiming the shell of the building with considerable vigour.

Murrumbeena today may be vin ordinaire, but it does have something in its past worth noting.  It was once the home of the potter Merric Boyd and his family.  This is referred to briefly in the Wikipedia entry, but again in a ham-fisted way – mainly to say that because of Boyd’s residency Murrumbeena was visited by a number of other notable artists [and, presumably, a bunch of other suburbs are weak at the knees because Boyd visited them!].  Often described as Victoria’s greatest potter, Boyd lived in Murrumbeena from 1913 to his death in 1959.  “Open Country” was the name of the home he built in Wahroongaa Crescent; and he created his pottery there.  Over the years various members of the family lived nearby; for a time in the 1920s the one side of Wahroongaa Crescent was totally occupied by members of the extended Boyd family.

The Boyds have been awesome ornaments to the arts in Australia.  Arthur Merric Boyd, watercolorist,  and Emma Minnie Boyd (nee a’Beckett), landscape painter, produced Merric the potter, Martin the novelist, Penleigh the painter and etcher, and Helen the painter (married successively to John Perceval and Sidney Nolan, both painters).   Penleigh’s son Robin was the architect, and author of the 1960 classic The Australian Ugliness.  Of Merric’s children there was Guy the sculptor, David the potter and sculptor (who died as recently as last November, aged 87), and Arthur. Commentators agree that Arthur Boyd was one of Australia’s greatest painters; and the Australian Encyclopaedia says that he was “easily the most beloved artist of his generation”.  In 1944, together with brother-in-law John Perceval, he created a pottery workshop in Murrumbeena Road.  In 1975 he presented several thousand of his works to the National Gallery of Australia.  He died in 1999.

 If Murrumbeena, courtesy of Wikipedia or otherwise, wants to say something upbeat about itself, it should simply focus on the Boyds.  Forget the station, forget other notables (there aren’t any), forget the non-existent High School, and forget the level crossing.  The Boyds invite celebration.  Oh, by the way, it’s okay to mention Boyd Park, the sliver of green that was formerly part of the Outer Circle railway allotment; but be thoughtful about mentioning the blocks of flats that today occupy the sites of Merric Boyd’s house and Arthur Boyd’s pottery workshop.

 Breakfast was at the World of Food Café in Neerim Road.  It was the only place serving breakfast.  The Bircher was excellent.  The oatmeal base had been mixed with yoghurt rather than apple juice, and the shredded green apple was part of the mixture rather than placed on top.  Instead, placed on top were poached peaches, and sprinkled around were toasted hazelnuts.  Yum!  The coffee was fine, although not quite hot enough; so we had our seconds at the kiosk on the opposite side of the station.  This is a free-standing timber building, until about a year ago a shoe repairs business.  Several tables and sets of chairs were scattered nearby in the open air.

Positioned to catch commuters, and with splendid coffee and a range of cakes and pastries, this little enterprise has more life than the rest of the area combined.

Gary Andrews

 

SATURDAY BREAKFAST #17: NEPEAN HIGHWAY, McCRAE

Visited 7 January, 2012

As we strolled the street I was thinking about the geography of McCrae:  the strip of white Bay-beach sand merging into tea-tree scrub; the Nepean Highway separating that scrub from the flat-land commercial and residential area; the freeway at the back of settlement, elevated but with the hill behind; and that hill, with scrub different from the shoreline version, harbouring residences blessed with a view.  Then later I was thinking about the hill, and wondering whether it was simply a large coastal sand dune or, rather, a rocky formation; and I sought the answer in my school text, The Phisiography of Victoria by E. Sherbon Hills.  Professor Hills, he of the unusual given name, was Professor of Geology at The University of Melbourne, and doubtless had to contend with jokes about being a geologist named Hills; and was doubtless consoled somewhat by his  book being prescribed and placed on the secondary school geography curriculum.  The book was published in 1940, and my copy is of the Third Edition 1951.  The five intervening years before I acquired my copy in 1956 hadn’t produced a further revision, and I wondered whether a revised edition had ever again hit the streets; after all, geology (or physiography) doesn’t suffer from obsolescence or technological advancement.  Having said that, I’m wondering at what stage the geology of Victoria was “known”.  Professor Hills’s book is packed with certainties – as should be any learned dissertation – but query whether there has indeed been significant advancement in geological knowledge in the most recent 60 years.

Regardless, Hills was helpful.   “The high land of the Mornington Peninsula is a horst, bounded on the west by Selwyn’s Fault, and on the east by the Tyabb Fault.  The geological structure of the Peninsula is complex, and differential erosion explains the existence of the three chief mountains, Mr. Eliza, Mt. Martha and Arthur’s Seat, which are composed of resistant granitic rocks.  From the southern end of the peninsula a long, low promontory, composed mainly of Pleistocene sand dunes, extends to Point Nepean.”  So, question answered:  the rise behind McCrae is an ancient sand dune.

And I am chastened for my foregoing flippancy about geology and Professor Hills – because, as I put down his book out of it fell his obituary, a clipping I’d saved from the University’s alumni magazine.  Professor Hills, who was known as Edwin (why did he publish under the name Sherbon?) was clearly greatly respected and loved.  Born in 1906, he was associated with the University for his whole adult life.  Professor of Geology from 1944, he formally retired in 1971, but stayed as Emeritus Professor and Honorary Research Professor until his death in 1986.  He was much honoured throughout the world, and published 113 scientific papers in a range of fields.  “All were characterized by his command of language……Such a spread of research leadership will probably never be achieved again”.  The Physiography of Victoria did indeed continue to be revised, until its Fifth Edition in 1975.  In this book, the obituary states, “Hills developed and illustrated concepts of landscape evolution with respect to the gamut of geological processes, in particular the control by geological structure.  This was a new approach in the 1940s, and found wide acceptance……[it was] of international significance.”  Humble pie is not meant to be tasty, but I must eat some.

Followers of these Saturday Breakfast pieces will know that I am not averse to a long preamble, and today’s has been longer than most; but regard it as – literally - before the walk, the pre amble…………because the walk itself had little of interest.

The McCrae shopping strip is short.  Short is not a politically correct word, I know, but it’s impossible to ascribe the words “vertically challenged” to something that’s horizontal.    In truth, the strip is stunted.  One hundred metres maybe:  medical rooms, no place to buy vegetables or bread or groceries; and an abandoned mini golf course, overgrown, and a challenge even if armed with a wedge instead of a putter.  However, there are four breakfast places, each with the same clear message:  that local residents, while “doing their shopping” at nearby Rosebud, are happy enough to have breakfast coffee and cakes on the McCrae foreshore; that the area has lots of weekend visitors who do the same; but that these businesses are seasonal, and depend for their lifeblood on the summertime campers along the Peninsula.

We breakfasted at The Pavillion.  A huge place, so huge as to cast doubt on my assumptions about the patterns of trade at McCrae; or perhaps to reinforce them.  I can envisage the proprietors closing in winter, forced into an extended break in Tuscany.  The Bircher muesli at The Pavillion was good, not the usual rolled oats but oats seeds (unrolled), soaked in apple juice, and served with yoghurt, stewed rhubarb and a few currants.  The coffee was fine, and the service excellent.  There was as much seating in the front outdoors as inside and, in acknowledgement of the significant outdoor seating, there was a kiosk near the front from which the tables were set, and from where the light refreshments were dispensed.

McCrae has a place in family memory, because we had several summer breaks there, staying at the vacation home of friends.  The house was located away from the beach, on the edge of settlement, with bushland behind.  It was on a steep slope, jutting out from the hill.  It was suspended on metal poles with wire stays, and moved a little during strong winds.  Footsteps were audible on the wooden floor with airspace rather than earth beneath.   The full-length balcony facing the sea, with spectacular views, was a great feature – loved, in particular, by our dog Sheff…………………..a poshly-named Sheffield when we got him, but such a faithful and loving mutt that he soon became Sheff.  The one shortcoming of the house was its distance from the beach, but that didn’t worry the kids – all downhill, under the freeway, past the houses, over the Highway, through the tea-trees, on to the sand, into the water (apologies to Dr. Seuss).  If the kids were lucky they were collected by the folks and driven home; and if so, the usual collection point was near the lighthouse.

Yes, McCrae had, and still has, a lighthouse.  This is McCrae on Port Phillip, at sea level – no rocky promontory, no storm-lashed rocks, no remote location.  And no stone column either – it’s made of steel.  On the sand a little inland from the water, at its base about 12 metres above sea level, it was fabricated in England in 1874, and shipped to Australia and erected in 1883.  There had been a predecessor, a wooden structure built in 1854 – later dismantled and taken to Arthur’s Seat for a lookout tower.  Modern-day navigational aids have rendered the present lighthouse redundant, and it was decommissioned in 1994.  111 years of service isn’t bad, though; and there has been restoration so that the structure can continue to stand as a reminder to the community of McCrae, and the community at large, that great service was once given here.

That service was not showy and dramatic, not the keeping of sailors off the rocks, merely the safe guidance of countless ships along the south channel of Port Phillip into the port of Melbourne.  The lighthouse, more properly called the South Channel Lighthouse, was powered by mains electricity, and flashed every 15 seconds.  At about 34 metres it was the tallest lighthouse in Victoria.  The structural framework is external, and the central column has a diameter of 1.5 metres only, housing a spiral staircase of 120 steps – the effect said to be like climbing inside a 44 gallon drum. 

Those who enjoyed Professor Hills’s technical description of the geology of the Mornington Peninsula might enjoy the technical description of the lighthouse lamp:  it not only had dioptric, but also catadioptric and holophotal lens systems.

Gary Andrews

 

SATURDAY BREAKFAST #16: HIGHETT ROAD, HIGHETT

Visited 14 January, 2012

At today’s destination, Highett Road, Highett, we saw at work the corrupting influence of power.  We chose a couple of bits at the OzChild opp shop and took them to the counter.   Our subsequent banter with the two volunteers was shaped by their freely-expressed complaints about “that Tuesday woman”.  One of the Tuesday volunteers had “taken charge”.  She had gradually increased prices; she had re-arranged the fittings, including switching back portable racks that had been re-located by other staff for customer safety; she had ditched perfectly good goods with the comment that “we don’t want to handle that stuff any more” – instance cutlery, all gone.  Bed linen now has to be wrapped in cellophane and sealed, meaning customers won’t buy because they can’t inspect.  She now works alone on Tuesdays because no other team member will work with her – and she has the ear of the absentee manager, who has been convinced that all her ideas are spot on.  The damage that the self-assumed power of one person has caused to the demeanour and enthusiasm of the two Saturday volunteers was palpable; and, by their account, the former harmony of the place has been quite destroyed. 

The story of the opp shop experience caused me to remember Lord Acton’s adage that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  Not that the opp shop situation is quite that dire, but it’s certainly an example of power corrupting. 

Then I got to thinking about adages generally.  We call them adages, or maxims, or pithy sayings, or aphorisms, or proverbs – although “proverb”, because of its Biblical connotation, occupies more profound ground than the others.  Who, educated in the State of Victoria public schools system, has ever forgotten the three proverbs reproduced in the Victorian Readers Second Book?  Well I have, actually!  Reference to my boxed set has reminded me that there were three proverbs in the Second Book, and three proverbs in the Third Book.  There’s a curious doubling up though, with Waste not, want not and A stitch in time saves nine appearing in both the Second Book and the Third Book.  The third proverb in the set is different, respectively Set a stout heart to a steep hill and Little brooks make great rivers.  These latter two have me flummoxed.   I don’t recall them from schooldays – but I do remember A rolling stone gathers no moss.  The answer may be that the boxed set comprises facsimiles of the 1930 first editions, and that by the time I was at school in the 1940s the more obscure proverbs had been swapped for ones more attuned to the kids of the day.

I am not alone in my liking for maxims,  and somewhere I have a lifetime collection of clever sayings, buried no doubt under a pile of “to be sorted” post-retirement stuff.  When the moment of re-discovery comes I shall have the dilemma of what to do with them anyway.  Anybody with an interest in pithy sayings can access hundreds of them through Google, so my collection can at best be described as a personal compilation, albeit incomplete.

The thing about proverbs and such is that while they always sound clever and seem to be stating an obvious truth, their truth is rarely an invariable truth.   Closer examination shows that many proverbs are of dubious veracity.  Also, many are meant to be “clever” rather than a universal truth; but where’s the harm?

Most railway stations in metropolitan Melbourne have a cluster of shops nearby.  There’s a sort of either/or rule.  Either the shopping strip is in a street running parallel to the line, or – where a major thoroughfare crosses the railway line close to the station – the commercial focus is in the bisecting street.  Highett, where Highett Road runs at right angles near to the station, has a bit of both, although the shops running along the railway line are few in number, and doubtless find it hard to compete.  One cluttered bric-a-brac establishment deserves to succeed for its name alone: Buy it in Highett. 

In Highett Road there’s the usual assortment of businesses, and a small paved square featuring a free-standing public library, a branch of the City of Kingston municipal library.  It is set back from the street line, with architecture of indeterminate parentage.   Nine out of ten for convenience, but only two out of ten for charm.

 At one end of the shopping strip a huge re-development is under way.  The site is more than a hectare, and will be occupied by a Woolworths supermarket with parking for 460 vehicles, plus 125 residential units.  A major transformation is in progress, not only of Highett Road, but also of the surrounding region.  Some existing local businesses will thrive as a consequence; others will perish.  The two butchers are already competitive, with their Saturday sausages being barbecued in the street – thus far they have survived each other, but will they survive the attraction of one-stop shopping?   I must say the smell of cooking sausages, accompanied by the waft of fried onions, almost deflected us from our mission to find a sit-down breakfast venue.

I wonder whether the coffee shop cafes will survive.  Surely they can’t; or they all can’t - because there will be eating places in the Woolworths complex.  However, there’s hope for the main street businesses if enough of the new trade that Woolworths brings to the area spills into Highett Road.  What’s amazing is that there are already so many breakfast cafes.  The strip is no more than 200 metres, and there must be six or seven of them.  Sure you expect such density in Lygon Street Carlton, or Puckle Street Moonee Ponds, or Toorak Road South Yarra – but Highett Road Highett?  And they were busy!  And each one had its menu pasted in the window.  Brilliant!

We selected a café with Bircher muesli on offer, number 519.  It had no name on its frontage, instead signage about the free trade coffee to be found inside.  There were chalk-board notices promoting “5 senses coffee”.  It’s an attractive thought that their coffee appeals to your sight, hearing, and touch as well as to your taste and smell.  The house coffee is a blend of free trade coffee sourced through the “Rain Forest Alliance”, from Nicaragua, Columbia, Bali and Papua-New Guinea. 

We asked, and were told that the name of the business is F.I.G. tree Espresso-Café.  But the Asian lady, who seemed to be the proprietor (and whom I presumed to be Chinese), advised that a name change was in process, and that the place is soon to be named Monkey Can Fly.  Such an odd name; and my thoughts went to the fictional character, Monkey.  The ensuing conversation was lost on the lady, although the barista happily included himself as we tried to recall the characters:  Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, Horse and Tripitaka – all fondly remembered from the 1978 Japanese television series.   Not well known to most watchers at the time is that the series was based on the 16^th century book by the Chinese writer Wu Ch’eng’en, the book named Journey to the West, the story of the pilgrimage to India of a Buddhist monk (Tripitaka).    The book was a great read during my university days, and my copy is of the Arthur Waley translation.   This is one of the few Penguins with a yellow cover, and its 50 years on my shelf has turned the pages yellow as well.  I see that it was given to me by my friend Colin Doxford (claimed in his fifties by the booze and various weeds), with the inscription: “If you have it, change it at Cheshires.  If not, a merry read along with the Chinese.”   It was a merry read, indeed.

I’m still wondering about the choice of the name Monkey Can Fly for the coffee shop.  The muesli was delicious, by the way, with lots of almonds and macadamias and topped with shredded green apple.  The oatmeal had been soaked in something other than the usual apple juice, not sure what.  And the free trade coffee was very smooth.

I have found my missing file (I hear groans), and I’m able to round out this piece with a list of some of my favourite modern-day proverbs.   I call these ones proverbs because most of them contain a somewhat serious message, they’re not just cute.  But there are so many from which to choose.  In the world of tennis, tournament organizers used to nominate the 10 top seeded players.  Now 10 is no longer enough, and in the Australian Open starting this week we are told there are 32 seeds, indeed 32 seeds in the women’s draw and 32 seeds in the men’s draw.  Given the tournament limit of 128 players this means that 25% are seeded.  Since the seedings are based on international rankings compiled elsewhere it wouldn’t be hard to limit the lists to 10 only as once was the case; but because of the random ballot for the remaining contestants this could result in too many of the unseeded but high-ranking players meeting each other in early rounds, thus rendering the tournament less climactic, and rendering the gate receipts less robust.

Taking my lead from the Australian Open, I give you 32:

·         You can get to the ends of the Earth on a lie, but you cannot return.

·         If you believe you can do something, you are probably right.  If you believe you can’t do something, you are probably right.

·         The cheerful loser is a winner.

·         We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

·         No one ever hurt their eyesight looking on the bright side of life.

·         You are young only once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.

·         It’s not the fairest face that has the sweetest disposition.

·         Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

·         Live every day as though it’s your last.  One day you’ll be right!

·         The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

·         People forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well you did it.

·         Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.

·         Words that soar into the brain are not shouted, they are whispered.

·         Most of the stuff people worry about isn’t going to happen anyway.

·         If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

·         The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

·         It is not enough to have an aim in life.  You have to pull the trigger.

·         You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

·         A closed mouth gathers no feet.

·         When you hire people who are smarter than you are you may well be smarter than they are.

·         Great minds discuss ideas.  Average minds discuss events.  Small minds discuss people.

·         The only time you realize you have a reputation is when you fail to live up to it.

·         A person without imagination is a person without wings.

·         The secret to success without hard work………is still a secret.

·         Life is simpler when you plough around the stump.

·         A “no” uttered from deepest conviction is greater than a “yes” merely uttered to please.

·         No-one tests the depth of a pool with both feet.

·         There is no natural defence – except stupidity – against the power of a new idea.

·         The best exercise is to lean over backwards for someone else.

·         We are continually faced with great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

And on a lighter note –

·         If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

·         If you look like your passport photograph you probably need the trip.

Gary Andrews

SATURDAY BREAKFAST #15: LALOR SHOPPING CENTRE, STATION STREET, LALOR

Visited 24 September, 2011

At its simplest, a visit to an unfamiliar suburb can merely be a social occasion.  But it can also - or instead - be a learning experience.  Today was a learning experience, and the lesson for today at Lalor was exemplified by the set of four metal sculptures affixed high up the rear wall of the local Coles supermarket.  The sculptures are named Pride of Place, and the dedicatory bronze plaque describes them as:  “A relief mural comprising four metal sculptural elements which represent Lalor residents’ love of home, their journey and sense of community.”

The Coles wall is long, and the sculptures are spaced well apart.  Beneath each, at eye level, is a descriptive panel, each panel inscribed in two languages; and each language being different there are hence eight languages in all.  The words are the same on each panel, and in English they read:

The aim of the artwork is to represent the love of home and the great sense of community displayed by Lalor people.

The design features municipal boundaries comprising road, rail and Merri Creek.  Each sculpture is framed by one of the four house plans from the Peter Lalor Estate.  The Estate was established by Lalor residents in the late 1940s to provide low cost homes resulting in a significantly strengthened Lalor identity and sense of community.

Materials used in the artwork reflect the personality and strength of character of the people of Lalor – stainless steel is strong and durable, while the copper and brass sections will adapt to changing conditions, just as the local residents have done over the years.

Fairly mawkish words; but as I have reflected a bit more deeply I have come to see the words and the sculptures they describe rather differently.  As works of art I expect that the sculptures are inconsequential, but as indicators of the local community – described, remember, in eight different tongues - they are powerfully significant……………for what we have at Lalor is a community that is culturally and ethnically very diverse – a community of people most of whom had their origins far away.

Lalor is a suburb within the City of Whittlesea, and there are census statistics available not only for the municipality but also for the suburb.  The 2006 census indicates that 46.1% of Lalor residents were born outside Australia, 43.6% in non-English speaking countries – 8.3% in Italy, 7.1% in Greece, 7.0% in the Macedonian region of former Yugoslavia, 3.5% in Vietnam, and between 1% and 2% each in Iraq, Lebanon, India, Malta and Turkey [the figures don’t seem to add up].  An even more telling indicator to cultural diversity is the response to the census question: “Does the person speak a language other than English at home?”  The answer for Lalor is that 63.9% of its residents, when at home, speak a language other than English – that language being 13.0% Macedonian, 12.1% Italian, 9.6% Greek, 8.3% Arabic, 4.9% Vietnamese, 2.5% Turkish, and around 1.0% each for Maltese, Samoan, Cantonese and Punjabi.  Again, the figures don’t seem to add up but, regardless, this is in astonishing contrast to the Anglo monoculture of the south-eastern part of Melbourne that I inhabit.

Faced with these statistics I get an Election Day prickling of the scalp.  On the day of each general election I am newly amazed at Australia’s political system, and its ability to embrace our ethnic and cultural diversity.  This is the day when all citizens participate in the process of electing a government.  We do it peacefully, we do it openly, we do it fearlessly, we do it without coercion, and we do it in the knowledge that there will be no fraud – and we have been doing it thus for more than 100 years…………….and the vote of each one of the citizens of Lalor who does not speak English at home is counted as one vote just like mine.  Doesn’t that make the hair on your head stand up a little with wonder and pride?   

So, against this backdrop I was not about to be too judgmental about Lalor.  Nevertheless, I have to say that the shops and the products they offered were matched to the economic circumstances of the residents.

The Station Street shopping strip faces the railway line, and is one-sided.  But there’s a street to the rear as well, May Road, and the whole rectangular area is known as Lalor Shopping Centre.  It includes the aforementioned Coles.  Half way along, connecting front to back, is an arcade, Peter Lalor Walk.  Somewhat incongruously, the Lalor station is about half a kilometre to the north, consequently the Shopping Centre is about half way between Lalor and Thomastown.

The shops were not very “good”, but the prices for fresh produce seemed to be cheap.  There was a large greengrocer in the arcade – really an emporium of fruit and veg - and three other greengrocers in Station Street; and unfamiliar produce on the footpath in front of several Viet grocers, although not what you’d call fresh. 

There’s not much else to say about retailing in Lalor, except that we couldn’t find anywhere to have breakfast; or, at least, not our accustomed sort of breakfast.  So we departed Lalor, heading south and a little west, and found a coffee shop in a small cluster of businesses in Spring Street, Regent a few kilometres away.

The coffee shop was a very recent enhancement to what is essentially a ladies’ hairdresser.  The proprietor explained that he had been an interstate haulier for years, and that he and his hairdresser wife had made a sea change, and opened their own business.  Once the hairdressing side had become established he had given up trucking, and was attempting to provide an adjunct service for his wife’s customers and all comers.  The wife was not working on the Saturday morning, but the husband was on the job.  Having told his story he then made two points – first, he makes the best coffee that money can buy; second, he wasn’t yet set up to provide breakfast!  We weren’t left hanging, though, because he strongly recommended Jackson Dodds nearby in Gilbert Road, Preston, as “the best” breakfast place in the district.  And so it was.   The café was packed; and the Bircher muesli was arranged under a pointed pile of shredded green apple, with date puree and yoghurt, surrounded by toasted hazel nuts.  Bliss!  We headed back to the hairdresser coffee shop to thank our friend, and to sample his brew.  It was good.

We did not complete the circuit and return to Lalor, but that won’t stop me from alluding to Peter Lalor, from whom the suburb’s name derives.  Peter Lalor is a prominent figure in Australia’s history, a man who weathered a period of adversity to become a leading citizen [pronounced Lawler, by the way].   Lalor was one of the leaders of the Eureka Rebellion, when the gold miners of Ballarat rebelled against the Government’s mining licence fee, and fought the soldiers from behind the stockade built at Eureka. 

The early history of the Australian gold rushes is colourful.  There had been a number of discoveries by explorers and surveyors, but the news was suppressed.  Governor Gipps, when shown a specimen in 1844, famously said: “Put it away, Mr. Clarke, or we shall all have our throats cut.”  But transportation of convicts to New South Wales had ceased in 1840, and by 1850 the convict proportion of the population had substantially reduced.  The discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to mass emigration from New South Wales, and coupled with a string of bad seasons and economic downturn, led to a reappraisal of the government’s attitude and the appointment in 1849 of a Government Geologist.  So when Edward Hargraves found gold at Ophir near Orange in 1851 the rush was on – so much so that to encourage Victorians to return home a 200 pounds reward was offered  for the finder of a payable field within 190 miles (320 km) of Melbourne. The situation was not only fluid but fast moving, and before the close of 1851 there were discoveries, and thousands of would-be miners, at Ballarat, Clunes, Mt. Alexander (Castlemaine) and Sandhurst (Bendigo).  At the end of 1851 the Victorian population was estimated to be a little over 70000, but in 1852 nearly 95000 more arrived by boat.  The population increased fourfold in three years.   

Clearly no government or government service could cope with such growth.  Specifically, the police and the military were undermanned and inexperienced - desertion to go prospecting was commonplace.  Add to this the government licence fee, and you have the grounds for unrest.  There was no way in which the miners (the successful ones) could be identified let alone taxed a proportion of their gains, so the licence fee was a reasonable enough response from Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe to the need for public finance.  But paying for the right to mine was in effect a poll tax, but no miner had the right to vote.  There was a Legislative Council in Victoria in 1851, elected courtesy of land-owners only. 

The licence fee was initially 30 shillings (1 ½ pounds) per month, later reduced to one pound (twenty shillings).   Non-compliance led to a fine of 5 pounds for the first offence, and up to six months imprisonment for the second offence.  Miners were subject to arrest if they did not have a licence on their person.  No wonder there was unrest.  The police were the enforcers of the system, and there were frequent raids on miners’ camps.  Under what was a piece of administrative madness, the arresting officer was entitled to half the fine (although, I surmise, not to half the jail sentence!).  This was the backdrop to the insurrection, but there was a lot of lead-up to Eureka. 

Early in November 1854 the miners formed the Ballarat Reform League.  Peter Lalor was one of the prime movers.  Among other things, the League stood for universal suffrage and voting by ballot, plus reforms to the administration of the goldfields and the abolition of the licence fee.  The flashpoint occurred on 29 November when the miners made a bonfire of their licences; and next day the Goldfields Commissioner ordered a licence inspection.  A riot ensued, and the military intervened.  About 500 men took an oath to “fight to defend our rights and liberties”, Lalor was elected leader and commander-in-chief, a stockade was hastily built on the Eureka claim, and the blue flag embossed with the stars of the Southern Cross was raised.

The diggers drifted in and out to their campsites, and when the police and army attacked on 3 December there were fewer than 150 men in the stockade.  The battle was over in 15 minutes, but the mounted troopers were brutal in the aftermath.  There were about 30 deaths, including six on the government side.  Lalor escaped, although shot in the shoulder, and stayed in hiding until after a general amnesty was proclaimed.  The arm was amputated at the shoulder. Most of the captured miners were quickly released.  Thirteen were tried for treason, and all were acquitted.  The licence fee was abolished and replaced by an annual one pound miner’s right; and in 1855, within a year, Lalor was elected to the Legislative Council; then the next year elected to the newly-established Legislative Assembly, the house of universal suffrage (at the time male suffrage only).  Lalor was eligible to stand for the Legislative Council because he’d been able to acquire 160 acres (65 hectares) of land near Ballarat with funds raised for him by public subscription.

Lalor was Irish, and educated.  He was a civil engineer by training.  He migrated to Victoria in 1852, and initially worked on the Melbourne-Geelong railway.  His time at Ballarat was short, but influential - he staked his claim on the Eureka lead early in 1854, and was gone from Ballarat in December of that very year.  He remained a parliamentarian until ill health forced his retirement in 1887.  He was, not surprisingly, described as an enemy of injustice.  What better role model for the people of Lalor?

While breakfasting at Jackson Dodds my mind turned to tramway employees and their bodily functions.  The cafe is right at the terminus stop of the West Preston tram route, and I looked around – and couldn’t see – the lavatory “tramway employees for the use of”.  I know there’s such a lavatory in Bridge Road where the (now discontinued) Richmond service used to terminate, and I know there’s one where the Wattle Park service terminates.  But what about all the other end-of-the-line stops?  Do the trammies have an exclusive dunny, or do they have to pop into a nearby coffee shop?

Gary Andrews

 

SATURDAY BREAKFAST #14: NORTH ROAD, ORMOND

Visited 31 December, 2011

I had read it years ago, in a book about Jonathan Binns Were, but I needed to verify.  Were was the founder of J.B. Were & Son, for many years Melbourne’s (and, most would concede, Australia’s) leading stockbroking firm.  In 1954 the Weres firm self-published The House of Were 1839-1954, a full-scale history of the broking house to date, including the biography of the founder.  But my attempt to verify was thwarted, because the book was missing from my shelves.   I recall that the book had been secured by my sister, Margaret, who worked for a time at Weres; and while that memory is clear, what is not so clear is whether Margaret gave the book to me, or whether it was simply borrowed.  If the latter, I am now in trouble – a confession I needn’t have made; a book that’s not mine and should be returned; a book that’s missing and cannot be returned. 

And what is it that I needed to verify?  Were arrived in Melbourne in 1839, a mere three years after the initial white settlement, and not only did he bring with him his family and a pre-fabricated house, but he brought about 1500 pounds (value) of merchandise for sale.  From day one he was a significant merchant in the colony, trading in diverse products - including gold after 1851, and stocks and shares after 1853.  The elusive bit of information, triggered as we drove along North Road and crossed East Boundary Road, is that Mr. J.B. Were, late of Wellington, Somerset, England at one time owned all the land bounded from top to bottom by North Road and South Road, and from side to side by East Boundary Road, and the sea!   

Whether you know the precise location or not, this is an arresting proposition.  The area includes some of today’s most desirable real estate, but that hardly matters – it comprises eight square miles, 2072 hectares.  Were had nine surviving children, and there are presumably descendants today, descendants who do not own all of Bentleigh, Bentleigh East, McKinnon, Brighton East and Brighton.  The family motto is surely:  “If only……”

Now we pause for a small correction.  My researches have established that the original 1840 land grant was not to Were but to one Henry Dendy.  However in 1841 Were became Dendy’s agent, and although both Dendy and Were were later bankrupted by an economic collapse (and Dendy eventually died a pauper) “the Were family acquired the land for highly profitable resale after the depression”.  This quotation is from the “Brighton” entry on the www.onlymelbourne.com.au website; but Michael Cannon, in his The Land Boomers, tells a more modest story.  He says that Were acquired (only) “nearly one half” of the Dendy land – however, most of this was not by way of purchase, but by way of foreclosure against mortgagors.  Through the depression of the 1840s Were the financier became Were the land-owner.  Cannon also notes the incongruity of Were, the first president of the British and Foreign Bible Society, being the first importer of whisky into Victoria.  Still, Were was a moral man, and maintained a lifelong campaign against brokers speculating for personal profit.  Brokers are merely agents for investors, Were insisted, and their advice would never be trusted fully unless it was known to be impartial.

Francis Ormond was another remarkable figure.  Not self-made like Were, but with the acumen to turn his father’s heritage from good to better.  The senior Ormond was a sea-captain who in the early 1840s bought a ship and migrated with his family to Melbourne.  He established a substantial inn, the first such on the road between Geelong and Hamilton.  Within a few years he had a 30000 acre (12148 hectare) sheep property near Skipton.  The younger Ormond managed the property and other properties that he and his father later acquired.  Francis Ormond’s biographers describe him as grazier and philanthropist.  He was co-founder and elder of the Toorak Presbyterian Church, he funded a major part of the construction of St. Paul’s Cathedral, he largely paid for Ormond College at The University of Melbourne (to the tune of 112000 pounds), and he founded the Ormond chair of music at the same institution.  His lifelong crusade to educate the poor led to the founding of the Working Men’s College in Melbourne (now R.M.I.T.) – Ormond put up 5000 pounds on condition that the public raised a similar sum, and the College opened in June 1887, Ormond’s contribution having grown to more than 200000 pounds.  Ormond was also a co-sponsor of the Gordon Institute of Technology in Geelong.  Numerous organizations were beneficiaries under Ormond’s will when he died in 1889……………despite Ormond’s years of extraordinary philanthropy, the estate was still valued at nearly 2 million pounds ($4 million).  

In addition to the university college and the university professorship, Francis Ormond is memorialized in the suburb that bears his name.

North Road, Ormond, specifically the commercial strip on either side of the railway line, is not one of Melbourne’s premier locations; far from it.  There is quite an assortment of businesses and shops, but I don’t know whether the locals are happy enough with the range available to them.  The reasonably-sized IGA supermarket in the middle of the strip may or may not act as the anchor point for the street.

Breakfast was at Bakery@Copper Café, a specialist bread shop which, under new ownership a fortnight ago, now provides cooked breakfasts.  The coffees were good, but the giant-sized cups, with rims about five millimetres thick, were grotesque.  The food was pretty tasteless, the chipolatas being so bland that we asked for some sweet chili sauce to give them a kick.  The new owner was interested in our observations, including the suggestion that he add to each serve a gratuitous slice of toast with the explanation that it’s a type of loaf stocked in the bakery.

The medical clinic has suffered a recent fire and, although still serving its patients, needs quickly to replace the burnt-out windows, and have the damage repaired.  There are a number of other professional suites, including a psychiatrist.  Speaking of whom, I got the feeling that the North Road air resonates with the power of healing for body and soul.  In addition to the physicians, the psychiatrist and a podiatrist, there’s Sunnybrook Health Store and Healing Centre with its stock of food products variously free from a dozen different allergens, plus “the largest range of gluten free products in Australia”.  Sunnybrook stocks over 2000 product lines.

Then there’s Equilibrium, stocking books music and gifts for the mind body and spirit, plus an extended family gathering of Hindu statues in the window.  And close by is Fidelity Books & Pieties, proudly serving the Catholic community for over 25 years, and suppliers of the full range of Catholic devotional  items – books, CDs, DVDs, statues, rosaries and other pieties.  “Our main aim is to foster loyalty to the Magisterium”, the magisterium being the authority to teach religious doctrine.

So, as I say, the air seemed to be alive with competing claims on body and spirit……….and to clinch it all, there was the Melbourne Rosicrucian Centre. 

Wikipedia has seven pages on Rosicrucianism.  It’s not boring, but it is dense.  So, instead, I quote from the much shorter entry in Columbia Encyclopedia:  “Rosicrucians are members of an esoteric society, who claim that their order has been in existence since the days of ancient Egypt……….Their secret learning deals with occult symbols – notably the rose and the cross, the swastika and the pyramid – and with mystical writings.”  The origins of Rosicrucianism were more likely not in ancient Egypt, however, but in the writings of Johan Valentin Andres (1586-1654) who used the pseudonym Christian Rosenkreuz [rose cross].   At times the movement has been a secret brotherhood of alchemists and sages, at times a society of philosophers astronomers and mathematicians, and at times there has been close contact with Freemasonry (indeed the development of Freemasonry in Scotland was strongly influenced by Rosicrucian ritual).  Today the movement takes several forms; and, in the U.S.A., “Christian Rosicrucian” schools “provide esoteric knowledge related to the inner teachings of Christianity” – leading to the “harmonious development of mind and heart in a spirit of unselfish service to mankind and an all-embracing altruism.”  Wouldn’t “love thy neighbor” say it just as well? 

As to the beliefs and practices of the Rosicrucians who meet at North Road, Ormond:  “The Rosicrucian Order is not a religion and does not constitute a socio-political movement.  Neither is it a sect.”  Its precept:  “The greatest tolerance within the strictest independence.”   “The Rosicrucian Order is not the only way to enlightenment, but it is quite possibly the surest and most comprehensive way available today.” These three quotes are from the website of the grand Lodge for Australia of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, and if they accurately portray Rosicrucianism then the movement in Australia poses no threat to anything except closed minds.  In a sense the Rosicrucians sound like little more than a debating society – but that is an oversimplification.  The Manifesto of the Rosicrucians (in Australia at least) is a very comprehensive document, spelling out their considered thoughts on economics, the sphere of politics, science, technology, the great religions, morality, art, people’s relationship with their fellows, humanity’s relationship with nature, and humanity’s relationship with the universe.  They certainly cover the waterfront. 

I arrived to scoff, and I leave thinking that the Rosicrucians might have quite a bit to offer.  But tell me:  after all these centuries, how do they recruit young members?  Aren’t they doomed to fade away through lack of interest?

Interestingly, the Rosicrucian Centre is the only one of the places I mention in this Piece that is on the south side of North Road, and hence the only one - this is where we came in - sited on the original Henry Dendy land grant.  Well, not so interesting really – I simply neglected to mention the specialist musical instrument retailer Brass ‘n Woodwind, also on the south side.

Gary Andrews