SATURDAY BREAKFAST #3: SYDNEY ROAD, BRUNSWICK (BETWEEN ALBION STREET and MORELAND ROAD)

Visited 4 June, 2011

If you Google "Sydney Road Brunswick" you quickly find the sydneyroad.com.au web site.  This site is sponsored jointly by an authority of the Victorian Government and the Sydney Road Business Association, and is clearly orientated towards business and tourism.  It is a vibrant site, full of colour and movement, and gives the impression that Sydney Road could well be more exciting than Rio de Janeiro and Las Vegas combined.  It is not.  But like the curate’s egg it is good in parts – or, of more relevance to today’s visit, it is not so good in parts.

 Sydney Road, as its name signifies, is the road out of Melbourne to Sydney.  It doesn’t bear that name for the whole 950 kilometres or so; and, even if it did, at very least it would have to become Melbourne Road at the half-way point.  In fact the name Sydney Road persists only through the few northern suburbs of the metropolis, and then it becomes the Hume Highway. 

Moreover, Sydney Road doesn't even begin at the edge of Melbourne’s central business district.  The road that originates at the edge of the city is the appropriately named Royal Parade – fringed by the elegant Parkville on the west, and by the parklands of Carlton on the east.  This grand boulevard (complemented by St. Kilda Road to the south of the city) is Jekyll to the Hyde of Sydney Road, which it becomes upon reaching the suburb of Brunswick.  Not that Sydney Road Brunswick hasn't had plenty of affluence in its time, but at half the width of Royal Parade, it was foredestined to be “trade” rather than “profession”.  And trade it was and is. 

The shopping strip of Sydney Road stretches for some four kilometres, through all of Brunswick and a fair bit of Coburg, undeniably the longest such nineteenth century retail and commercial stretch in Melbourne.  And like an old stretched out and abused coronary artery it has its weak spots, and it has not been able to maintain vigour over its whole length. 

We had already, on previous occasions, walked sections of Sydney Road, and today we were covering the 600 metres between Albion Street and Moreland Road……..and seeing Sydney Road at its saddest.  To the north and the south there are energetic and interesting shopping sections, and ethnic shopping to delight, but the Albion Street to Moreland Road section has all but been abandoned.

Sydney Road runs parallel and close to the Upfield railway line.  There are a number of railway stations complementing Sydney Road, including Anstey near Albion Street and Moreland near Moreland Road. 

Moreland station opened on 9 September 1884, and took its name from the already-named location.  In 1839, a mere four years after the first white settlement at Bearbrass in 1835 (Bearbrass had its name changed to Melbourne in March 1837), the Scottish surgeon, Farquhar McCrae took up 600 acres of land, and named it Moreland after his grandfather’s estate in Jamaica.  True!  And 45 years later the McCrae farm was a Melbourne suburb, with its own railway station.

The Anstey station – although closer down the line to the city – dates from 15 December, 1926, much later than Moreland.  The original name, North Brunswick, was changed to Anstey on 1 December 1942.  It is named after Frank Anstey, tramway union representative, Labor member of the Victorian Parliament, later a member of the Federal Parliament, Australian nationalist, anti-Semite, and likely as corrupt as they come.  He was a mate of the power-monger and general all-round crook, John Wren, and features as a major character in Frank Hardy’s Power Without Glory.  Hardy’s book was a cause celebre when it appeared in 1950 – published privately by Hardy, who assembled and bound the pages in his garage with the help of Communist Party friends.  Nearly all the characters were “real”, but had thinly-disguised names – John Wren was John West in the book, and Frank Anstey was Frank Ashton.  I doubt that any Government today would have the gall to re-name a railway station after one of its stalwarts, shady or otherwise.  [Incidentally, my copy of  Power Without Glory, although the second edition, was clearly one of those printed and put together by Hardy and his cohorts, because they mucked it up – pages 353 to 384 are missing, and pages 321 to 352 are duplicated.] 

So, what of our Saturday excursion?  In truth, the extent of my foregoing digression is directly related to the lack of interesting features in the shopping strip.  Many premises were closed, maybe 40%.  The effect was to give a general air of neglect.  Those businesses that remain are not feeling comfortable.  Having said this, our breakfast place (one of the two that presented) was first-rate.  We had figured that despite the closed businesses in Sydney Road there must be loads of people living in the streets behind, and surely there is café and restaurant trade for the taking.  And so it was.  Minimo Cafe was busy and alive - six staff, a thoughtful breakfast menu, and food preparation in the public space rather than in some back kitchen.  The porridge was served with a drizzle of honey, and shaved almonds on top.  There was no call to add sugar, but the porridge was thick, and the jug of milk was helpful. 

The morning was cold, and the bleak wind added a significant chill factor; but inside Minimo Cafe we, and the numerous other patrons, received a very warm welcome

Gary Andrews