East Kew Primary School

At the same time Perry and I walked the Outer Circle, four days ago, we also took a little deviation at Kew to have a look at my old Primary School, which Perry was very keen to see. He probably imagined it as a bit like Doggy Day Care and he couldn't have been more accurate. 

On the way we went past the East Kew Baby Health Centre which was not my Baby Health Centre thank you very much* but it is a nice building extremely similar to the Heidelberg one. I note it was opened by the Countess of Stradbroke whoever she the hell was, a newspaper check reveals that she was forever opening baby health centres in the 1920s in the company of the Governor which suggests either that they were married or that she was, well, hanging around with him a lot. But by the time it got to opening the East Kew one the press were no longer interested and it was not reported. Shame, because I can't read the date on that foundation stone. 

I wonder what they did (do) when they have a very nice foundation stone all ready and then the person dies or takes a mental health day and the stone doesn't actually accurately record the event. Surely they just use it. 

This is St Anne's, the church opposite my school from 1969-72, there is also a school attached. But it's the catholic school not the government school. 

You may wonder what I am doing photographing this stupid building below. Well, it's a thing that has long interested me. When I was attending East Kew primary there was some kind of building which 'the caretaker and his wife' (I mean, I'm pretty sure they were both caretakers) used to spend their days in, with an incinerator or something. This is a child's memory and no doubt terribly inaccurate. I remember this couple as very, very old (they were probably IRL younger than I am now, though who knows) and I seem to remember that there was some kind of impression amongst the stupid kids in the schoolyard (of which I was one) that they lived in this building, but that of course is impossible. Anyway, I wanted to see this building and decide for myself, and this is where I thought it was, but if it was, this is now there instead. 

I actually think (going by the chimney) that if there was any kind of place with an incinerator in it, it was this (largely obscured by trees, as you can see) which is part of the actual junior school building. I mean my memory is of a standalone, very shabby structure but this has a chimney on it and it's also the right orientation towards the school building, so... 

I was thinking later, do I actually have any positive memories of this school? The only thing I remember enjoying was when Miss Chivers put a smiley face on our pies with sauce. That would happen when we were sitting at tables out the back of this building, which is the junior school. I would really like to see inside sometime not so much for nostalgia but because it's an intriguing design, schools like this, of which no doubt there are thousands around Victoria. Anyway, I don't overall remember East Kew as being a miserable place to be, although, christ, that warm school milk... so horrible. But I think I just remember the injustices/grievances. I could be wrong but I don't even think that's a quirk of mine, surely most people only remember things like that. 

This is the front of the building, which in my memory fifty years ago was a very formal area that no child would ever go to, but now it seems to be a play area. Which is the way it should be. 

And this? This is nothing. It's the back of an apartment building seen from a small park nearby. 

I just liked its sun room with a row of shabby chairs (you probably can't see those) and a picture on the wall and its very dwarfish hills hoist.

Bye East Kew, you're nothing special! You like it that way! 

outer circle walk

Perry and I parked in Canterbury a few days ago and went for a walk to Kew along the Outer Circle trail. You may recall I blogged about this almost a decade ago, well, time for a refresh.

This is a mural in the Deepdene Primary School grounds. I want to know what's on the left. Are they three bricked-in tunnels? Because that would be weird. 

I'm not one to get awfully sentimental about my father's father, but I do like the idea that, as a young boy straight out of school and working his first job, he used to take the train along some part of this line.  I don't know what the job was. 

This is the Deepdene street library, not particularly inspiring...

Particularly once I had taken the most interesting looking book out of it...

I'll report back. If it's good. Or, if I actually read any of it. 

Here's the old briquette dispensary. You know this is now a cafe right? I have never frequented them because they're always closed when I visit, although the fact that they reputedly provided a publicity photo location for Josh Frydenburg at the last election makes me less keen to than I might otherwise be. 

This photograph is placed wrongly, next to Mont Albert Rd rather than Canterbury Road - so if you're not paying attention you think you could just stand back and imagine this was where that station was. But nah. It's about three minutes' walk south. 

Still the Outer Circle rail trail is pretty freakin' nice. I favour it.

glutton for punishment

A second trip to the Palace cinemas at Balwyn. I know, why? But then… why not. Inside Llewyn Davis was on there and I really wanted to see it. The heatwave is over, but the inside of buildings are still disgustingly overheated. I wanted to take the Brompton somewhere new it hadn’t seen before and hear some interesting tales from my early life, as well as some important transport history which doubles as economic or social or urban or just plain history.

Balwyn is on the old Outer Circle Railway, much of which (the bits they couldn't do anything else with) has been turned into park/ bike path. You can find out heaps more about the Outer Circle really easily than I can tell you here or frankly than I want to be bothered telling you. Suffice it to say it was a huge white elephant of a railway line that was built in the early 1890s and it ran for a couple of years with very few passengers.

This is the old APM building. There used to be a tiny bit of railway line that was kept to service the paper mill here but it is gone now. That building is a modernist masterpiece btw.

This is the Kew Fire Station or perhaps the East Kew Fire Station, I was once walked home from school by a girl who lived here (I guess her father was a fireman). Long story. I think I just told it then though.

This is where the railway line hit Harp Road Kew. Now strangely what must once have been a railway bridge is now just a cutting with a wall across it, and it has been uselessly thus for the last hundred and twenty five years presumably. 

The Dunning timber yard was here for a long time and this is its last little relic, the old briquette dispensary. My family lived in Kew from when I was two to when I was seven and I do remember coming up to this little building in the early 1970s with my father to buy briquettes from the machine.

 If you squint you can see Bernie Briquette under the paint and rust.

 When you get bored you can always enjoy the bike path hieroglyphs

The Palace at Balwyn by the way was being run by two teenagers who got the job that day. Inside Llewyn Davis was in Cinema 5 and when I finally got up there (after being kept in two queues for too long) everyone was waiting to go in because this sign was out the front:

After a while it became clear that in fact there was no cleaning going on and that the pre-movie ads were starting so we all went in and the funny thing was the cinema was actually filthy with bottles, napkins and other rubbish everywhere.

The film was great but that's a given. Brompton didn't mind waiting outside because it had had such an exciting trip there, and the trip back to look forward to.