10.3.11 – Familiar names

Rutherglen wine region event

'Glasgow House'

10.3.11 – Familiar names (Albury to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)

Place names are fascinating here.  There are the descriptive names – Ten Mile Creek, Swamp Creek, Long Beach, Flat Top Hill.  Then the magnificent Aboriginal names – Wagga Wagga, Tumbarumba, Wodonga, Kurri Kurri, Woolgoolga, Quorrobolong, Walla Walla.  Names redolent of a very different culture and history to mine.  And then, right beside these, names so familiar to any Scot –Broadford, Inverary, Berridale, Helensburgh, Kenmore, Glasgow, Rutherglen, Jordanhill, Cessnock – I could go on and on.  These conjure up the images of a century and a half of immigrants, who still held in their heart a vivid image of a home that many of them probably never saw again.  There are Welsh, Irish and English names too, but so very, very many Scots ones.  The very long and very straight roads to Melbourne were punctuated by these fascinating road signs, each telling their poignant story. 

Another poignant story we came across was that of Ned Kelly.  He is remembered as Australia’s outlaw, who was finally captured after a shoot out in which he and his gang wore a contraption of handmade armour.  We came across a display about him - a life-sized model in his intimidating metal outfit.  But the information next to him outlined his history – his childhood in the 1850’s within a family of impoverished Irish immigrants, probably fleeing the potato famine; the early death of his father; his own prosecution when only a young boy, for supposedly stealing a piece of leather, and for this receiving a pistol whipping; repeated examples of his attempts to ‘go straight’; the repeated corruption and drunkenness of the quasi-police force of the day, harassing him, his mother and sisters; his eventual descent into lawlessness and murder; his capture and execution at 26.  He wrote a letter to be printed in the newspaper, but it remained unprinted until 1930.  In this, one sentence stands out, the exact words of which I cannot recall, but the gist of which was that his life would not have been in vain if it could be realised how easily frustration and injustice could make a man mad.  As a social worker, I have seen this all too often – children born into harsh circumstances, who make early mistakes which more fortunate people hold against them forever, and set higher and higher the bar that they have to jump to be accepted, until at last they give up the unequal struggle and accept what self-esteem they can grasp from a life outside ‘respectable’ society.  ‘Meeting’ Ned Kelly was a sobering encounter.

Long straight road to Melbourne

The trip to Melbourne started in the pouring rain that had battered the caravan all night – never saw a picture of that in the tourist brochures.  It was early evening as we drove through the city, following the six lane highways that rolled up and down over hill and valley, like a huge series of gently rolling ocean waves.  Tomorrow we’ll see what the city looks like close to.