Harold Betson and Pastor Doug Nicholls. The photo was taken in 1966 and is from the Riverine Herald archives.
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Happy new year!
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My eagerness to get apartments built, for people who need them, elicited a response from Roger (who frequently intervenes when I get too excited about something).
Hello Marnie
I have to respond to your Town Talk today.
This proposal to build housing commission in the CBD is as crazy as building ACE college in the same area on one house block. Totally absurd with no thought gone into it at all. The idea is that the residents can shop easier and are away from objecting residential areas. Commercial owners have no right to object, according to COGS.
The car park at the back of council would be perfect for this as it is four times bigger and owned by the state government. So no buying air space to build. It is just as close to shops and in full view of the bleeding heart councillors to look over their work.
This current idea is so flawed — being an L-shaped block and having to build a car park above a car park before starting on the housing. There are many more suitable sites to do this without building next to this huge mall upgrade they are overspending on.
Regards, Roger
Sounds like a great idea to me, Roger. Bigger car park, more apartments. I don’t really care which car park it is — as long as it happens. However, I take objection to your reference to ‘the bleeding heart councillors’. (There was a typo in it and I didn’t realise what you were saying until right now!)
Are their hearts ‘bleeding’ because they care about what is happening to the residents of Shepp? Would you prefer a council that doesn’t give a damn about people? There are more than 1000 families who can no longer afford to pay increasingly high rentals — or can’t find anywhere at all to live. That bothers me; it bothers most of the councillors; and I reckon it should bother you.
As for the businesses objecting, I really don’t understand that! (And I ran retail stores in this city for almost 15 years.) I’m sure that 30 decent, deserving families can be found — or 100 — or 500. (I took serious objection to a councillor who referred to prospective residents as ‘those people’ — no bleeding heart there.)
Roger has used a pejorative term — but I’ll happily add my name to that list.
And now The Mall
I have no opinion on the mall, at this stage. I know the trees are remaining (thank goodness), which means there is not much parking. Perhaps angle parking would have been preferable, as it is only on one side of the street? But I have high hopes for Fraser St. Perhaps it will be a shady haven for shoppers to have a chat and a coffee? Perhaps it will be our version of a Town Square — which I have been wanting for many years. I’m all for a busy and bustling CBD with a resting place for the weary. I’m also aware of the impossibility of pleasing all of us!
Is it over-priced, Roger? Possibly! (I’m not across the cost of streetscaping.) But, maybe, it will do what most of us want it to do — and be priceless.
A memorable encounter
It was the early ’80s. I was visiting a friend who wasn’t feeling well.
We were chatting when the doorbell rang, and she asked me to open the door.
“It’s just my brother,” she said.
I opened the door to an elderly man with a walking stick. I recognised Pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls and stood back to allow him to join his sister.
I can see him now — standing with his back to the fireplace, still holding his walking stick — inquiring about his sister’s well-being. I asked her if I should return on another day but he replied that he wasn’t staying long.
I knew quite a bit about him (but not that he was my friend’s brother). I knew that he was a sportsman — an athlete, a boxer, a VFL footballer and a first rate boomerang thrower. I knew that he was an ordained pastor and had been Governor of South Australia. I knew that he was the first Aboriginal person to be knighted. I was also very much aware of the huge role he had played in the Constitutional Referendum of 1967.
But I was quite overwhelmed by his persona — reserved yet warm, dignified yet humble.
His sister said that Doug could tell me a lot of stories I really should hear, and I said something like ‘I’m sure that’s true’. However, as he had declined a chair and a cup of tea, I asked no questions. I mean, what does one say? Tell me about your life? And, truthfully, I felt humbled by his presence.
Later, I was told how he had been ostracised by the Fitzroy players; sitting alone on a bench with the white-skinned players on the other side of the room. And that it was Hayden Bunton Sr who encouraged the players to overcome their resistance. And I learned how their 16-year-old sister had been forcibly removed from the family, taken away to be trained as a domestic servant. And I was told about a massacre that had occurred in their parents’ lifetime.
Dignified: Sir Doug Nicholls
These are not comfortable stories for a white Australian — but I wanted to hear them.
Around 25 years later, I was working out of an office in Fitzroy. I gave Sir Doug a lot of thought in those days because, from the upstairs windows, I was looking out at the Gore Street Mission Centre, which was his first church. I remembered marvelling at the 1967 referendum, when 90 per cent of Australians voted for change. Aboriginal Australians became full citizens. (‘Indigenous’ was not in use at that time.)
It is difficult to imagine any referendum getting that much support, in this country, ever again.
It took him 30 patient years, but Pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls changed Australia. He died in 1988, aged 82, in Grutzner House Nursing Home — which brings me to the Historical Society of Mooroopna.
The Historical Society of Mooroopna
The Historical Society of Mooroopna’s small group of hard-working people is based in the building that was previously Grutzner House (behind the hospital building, in Park St), and their spacious museum is well worth a visit.
The group’s secretary, Barry Campbell, told me that the broad hallways and large rooms make it an ideal home for their many historical items. Visitors in wheelchairs will have no difficulty.
One of the goals of the society is to promote the many wonders of Mooroopna’s past to all Victorians.
By supporting the society you are helping it to ensure that your grandchildren’s grandchildren learn about and enjoy the treasures of Mooroopna’s past.
Historical Society of Mooroopna is open Wednesdays from 11am to 3pm and Sundays from 1.30pm to 3.30pm. However, if those days don’t suit you, give Barry a call on 0428 252 144. The website, www.hsm.org.au, tells us of many significant people who lived in Mooroopna — including Sir Douglas and Matron Elsie Jones (who many of you will remember).
Under the clock
April 6, 1914
A mean thief
Mr R. Boulton keeps in his office at the sawmills at Violet Town a ‘lemonade bottle’ money box into which all odd pennies are put for the hospital, and one day last week this was removed by some sneak thief. Mr Bolton is offering three pounds reward for the detection of the fellow.
That’s all for now. We have certainly had a warm start to the year we have warmly — and hopefully — welcomed. As the PM has promised, we are learning to ‘live with the virus’ — around 100 cases in our region and the number appears to be reasonably steady.
13°C