Town Talk

Perfectly fine to promenade

By Marnie

Feb 9, 2026

Good day to you.

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Recent reads of family histories caused me to think about the changes in our community over the years, and how different we are to our ancestors.

Doreen Leahy (née Halpin) described the promenading of Shepparton’s ladies, on the grass near the jetty.

“On fine Sundays, the band would play on the jetty and ladies in long skirts, veiled and hatted — and with parasols — would stroll up and down on the grass, under the gum trees.”

I had always associated promenading with London and Hyde Park.

However, research indicates that this activity also took place in Scottish and Irish seaside locations, revealing that our early families were bringing at least some of their culture with them; no matter that the gum trees were a long way from home.

By the late Victorian era, the activity was fading in the United Kingdom — but here, it was thriving.

On Sundays, the Queen’s Gardens was also a popular place to be seen.

It was a site for family picnics and parties.

Small boys would be dressed in suits with sailor collars.

They also sported straw sailor hats with blue ribbons and the name of a ship, in gold letters.

The little girls wore white frocks with lace-trimmed drawers — and white lacy socks with buttoned shoes.

The Queen’s Gardens was surrounded by a high picket fence and contained a weather observatory which, Doreen has written, “was a great mystery to me, which no-one explained”.

There was usually a photographer using a large camera on a tripod, which was fed with large glass plates; and the photographer disappeared under a black cloth.

I’ve been describing activities I have never associated with our city.

All of this amuses me no end; however, as a friend has pointed out, there was nothing else to do.

Someday in the future, on some anniversary, it would be fun for people to dress up and promenade around the lake — and have a community picnic in the gardens.

I have written in the past about how tough it all was for the women — and I’m sure it was.

Imagine getting the family ready for church, promenading and picnicking; the washing and ironing involved.

I’m not convinced these activities were for every family.

Women raised their children, took care of the house, fed everybody, helped with the husband’s business — be it a farm or a store.

They also volunteered for church organisations and good causes, and became social hostesses.

But there were divisions caused by finances and their religions.

The Catholic fraternity rarely mixed with the Protestant groups; yet another example of ‘bringing it from home’.

My family history

In my family history, a young widow emigrated from Dublin to Australia.

Her husband was a Catholic and she was not.

Apparently, this didn’t bother either of them.

However, he was an architect working on large-scale renovations to the Dublin Cathedral, and fell from the steeple to his death.

His very well-off parents offered her and their grandchildren a home — in their spacious manor house.

The only condition being that the children, aged four and six, were to be raised Catholic.

So, my great-great-grandmother packed up her goods and her children.

After travelling around Victoria for a while, they landed in Congupna, where she bought a property.

The divisions between Christian religions were strong.

So were the women.

Anger, fear and division

When Ellen Halpin began riding a bike, for convenience and fun, she was abused by several women, one attempting to knock her off the bike, with a whip.

Anger comes from fear, and fear is born in differences (or jealousy).

Whatever caused this abuse, we don’t know — but it could have been because Ellen was Catholic.

It didn’t matter that, as well as working for her church, she was also involved with the hospital and the Red Cross — and visited people in need, whether Catholic or not.

She was different, and she dared to ride a bike.