scott st for gazettal

So I am writing a new lecture - half of one, really - to inform my students about the purpose and value of their first piece of assessment, which is about the house where they grew up. To this end I am doing a little bit of research about where I grew up, which I know sounds egotistical but I'm trying hard to make sure it's not. 

I got the gazettal (whatever the word is)* of the street where I 'grew up' (or at least lived between 1973-1983). It was created in 1939 which is late for East Hawthorn (all the other streets were basically late 19th century I think, some even older) but it seems the land was just vacant for fifty years or more. The house where we lived, 1 Scott St, was apparently not built until 1960, or at least that's the first date for it in the rate book. 

That house, I have probably told you previously, is no longer there - it was built 1960, apparently, remodelled extensively in about 1978-9, demolished comprehensively in I think 1988. My parents bought the site for $20 000 in 1973 and I don't know how much they sold it for but I do know that the most recent sale of the land and the building(s?) on it now fetched $2.9 million. The moral of this story is, be born just before or early in the Second World War and be able to buy a house and if you didn't do that it's your own fault! 
 

*I think that is the word, but spellcheck doesn't know it

early morning fairview park and surrounds

This morning Perry and I got up early, as it was going to be a hot day, and we wanted to be active before it was too hot to be active. 

Personally I find the best excursions are where we're not actually sure where we're going to end up and the decision to go to Fairview Park, Hawthorn was a thoroughly random one. I think the last time I was in Fairview Park - and this is just a guess based on a very vague memory - was around 1983 i.e. after I finished high school and before I moved to Sydney. In any case I had definitely been there before and it intrigued me in some way or other but not enough to ever do anything else about the intriguedness. Or even really think about it much at all in the intervening 40 years. 

Yet, when I got back there it was actually really great:

So apparently it was mainly landscaped and delineated by the Hawthorn council in the early1930s primarily from a piece of land that was known as/contained the Hawthorn Tea Gardens. There's a fair bit of information on it here (pp. 15-16 I think) though i have to admit this document is unusual in that the person who wrote it seems to have failed to notice/care that their history is basically notes in parts. Never mind. It's implied that the park was created in 1935 but there is an article in the Age for 26 October 1934 p. 7 relating to major flooding of the Yarra which remarks that 'a considerable amount of money' had been recently spent on 'forming and equipping' Fairview Park which was at that time completely underwater. So it predates 1935 but not by much I'm going to guess. 

So when you enter from Riversdale Road, you come down steep steps presented ornately and come to what is, I suppose, a bridge over a small creek (above) which has presumably done its time collecting street runoff for a while by the time it sees daylight. 

This (above) is one of the apartment blocks, probably c. 1935, that overlooks the park. 

Here above is a piece of unsympathetic white plastic pipe across the creek - don't know what this would be doing but it's doing it. 

Small paths, etc in the more leafy part of the Riversdale Road side of the park, before it gets to big open spaces (and then the river). 

More apartments, above, these ones much more recent and not bashful about craning to get a 'fair view'. The document linked earlier seems to imply in its delightfully fractured way that these were built on old tramway land. 

Creek/drain again

I think this above is the foliage around the river, but to be honest I don't remember taking this picture. I did though. 

Above: The open space. It's really good. It's certainly very open and spacious. I have nothing to say about it obviously. 

On leaving Fairview Park we encountered this very nice construction (above and below). So, as mentioned Fairview Park and a lot of the area around it has on occasion (I'm going to guess every 40-50 years since invasion) been flooded considerably, and so I guess there are requirements if you want to build a house near the river you have to do it on stilts. This one is really a one-storey house elevated, I think, with a garage underneath. 

Something like that anyway. We didn't knock on the door to find out, or to thank them for the water. 

Some kind of event going on in this extra little parklet (above) - I can't imagine what or why. I mean there was no-one there at this time (6:30 am-ish) so this was definitely set up the day before. 

This, above, won't mean much to you if you don't know Hawthorn (and I don't know this part of Hawthorn at all well) but this house struck me as being exceptionally humble for its surrounds. I mean it's not insubstantial, but nor is it large really or even mega-renovated like many houses of its generation have been, with twice as much house added at the back etc etc. I just thought that was interesting, but sorry, I now realise it wasn't. 

Above: Perry in the river. 

Above: A house we saw, which was exciting. 

Above: This is just dregsy. I wonder if the neighbours wring their hands over it. 

Above: These flats are not attractive. See the city in the background? That's the apple stretching and yawning. Yeah, Melbourne is known as the big apple. 

Above: This is the sort of house you'd expect to see in Hawthorn. I like it a lot, I'd love to see the inside. 

Above: I love this too - it's an addition to a Victorian home on Riversdale Road. Obviously someone forty plus years ago saw they had the possibility of an amazing view of the apple. 

These flats just look cool don't they. 

Above you see the backs of them. I guess the view here is of the river, except the lower ones which have a view of the trees grown in the park to block them. I do like these utterly utilitarian back verandahs etc - seems people put their dryers on them and so on. 

Finally, just as we get back to the car, another home in Riversdale Court which is one of those very stupid cul-de-sac streets that go forever and go very close to Fairview Park but obviously a decision was made that it would never do to allow a walkway through to the park. 

All in all, a successful enterprise. 10/10 would do again. 

memory lane

This is one of the weirdest Homicide moments ever for me. Delaney and Mac pile into their vehicle with an informant (played by Max Osbiston) to find a house in Carlton. What do you know, they end up in the street I 'grew up in', which is actually in Hawthorn not anywhere near Carlton, but there you go. We don't see any more of the street except the street sign - very obvious, unusually obvious for Homicide (and I don't know much about the old postcode system in Melbourne, but I do know that 'E2' is definitely not Carlton). But... 

We do get a shot of Auburn road, the main road that Scott St led off, and the gasometer at the end of the street, which really towers over the area in a way I genuinely don't remember, but I'm sure that's it. 

That's all I know. But it's something. 

 

is dis a system

Crazy situation that I now find myself in of having a sore throat (woke me up a couple of times) and unemotional tearing up so I bit the bullet and went and got a covid test. Ridiculous, because I am fully vaccinated despite the best efforts of the federal government to withhold that option. I gather there is a small percentage of people who can get the virus anyway despite being vaccinated (but it doesn't kill them - is that how it's supposed to work?) but the only way I could possibly have got it is if someone from the government crept into the house and sprayed me with germs as I slept, because I have never not been eminently sensible re: covid caution. Anyway, the actual test was every bit as gross as I imagined it would be, and very uncomfortable but whatever. It was easy to walk into the Royal Melbourne (thank you Elizabite, Queen of Australia)* and took no time whatsoever. The weirdest thing was having to give my name, DOB and phone number thrice in ten minutes but the second time being asked if I still lived at 1 Scott St, Hawthorn. Well, I last lived there in 1984 (I actually told them 1982 but that was just because I was so surprised, I couldn't do the maths). (I guess if it ever comes up again and someone reads off a screen that I hadn't lived there since 1982 I'll know dis is a system). Apparently the RMH has merged its records with the Children's; I was last a patient at the Children's in 1977 when I was 12. (Some RCH records overrode the RMH records, but that's a moot point for me as I have never been an RMH patient, though I have been a visitor there eg when my father had his car accident two years ago). 

So anyway now I'm self-isolating, so send hopes and prayers. I expect to get a result later today, I'm told they are super-speedy at RMH. My phone is charging downstairs so who knows perhaps they are already calling me to say pack your bags you're going to covid detention. Speaking of which, this is probably not the way to deal with possible illness, but I am half way through reading the profile of Michaelia Cash in the Good Weekend today. Fuck me ragged, what a comprehensively horrible person. I cannot but see her as the epitome of awfulness. But the article (by Jane Cadzow) feels fair. Michaelia C seems very Perth. I admit I kind of like that (Cadzow takes MC to task for the way she speaks, which I find interesting, seems to be an unspoken Pru-Tru thing to it ('She pronounces “to” as “toe”, and “you” as “yoe”.') I have known Perth people who do this and tbh initially I thought they were putting it on but ultimately I figured it's just a way of talking. It's not illegal. OK so I will say that MC's love of cats is a plus, but you know, H****** loved cats didn't he, or at least, that's the kind of thing people say to get out of regarding some people as irredeemable. Which btw from my pov she probably is, but you know what I mean. 

* I went on a search for the real Elizabite and I was surprised to find only this image of the book's cover:

Now, that is the book I remember having as a child, but the subtitle I'm almost certain was not a part of my copy and it seems to spoil the overall, I guess I would think that, as it's a disgusting intrusion on my treasured childhood. Makes me want to get a copy of this book, which I enjoyed, and definitely no subtitle on the cover, if I can only get one with a subtitle, I'll white it out. 

Update: got the result back, I don't have the coronavirus.