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The White Hat Melbourne NewsletterArchived Newsletter No.76 - 30 April 2004ContentsBuddha’s Day +----------------------------------------------------+ BUDDHA’S DAY & MULTICULTURAL FESTIVAL +----------------------------------------------------+ MARKET INFORMATION +----------------------------------------------------+ TASTINGS +----------------------------------------------------+ Melbourne's Hidden Gems“You must love history” say the people on the tour. I’m not sure what that statement means. I’ve always been interested in how things work and how our society got the way it is (I suspect it was designed by Bruce Petty and Heath Robinson) and what happens when someone pulls one of the levers and how you can change it for the better and what it looks like when viewed through the pinhole cameras of those who want simple answers to complex problems and how to bring to life the drama and humour of important (and not so important) events long past and would they have acted differently had they known what we know now and would we act differently if we knew what they knew then. I ponder how to convey this in my answer. “Yes, I love history” I say. But depending on the inflection with which the words “you must love history” are said you soon recognise that can be code for a number of things such as “history is like a bower bird’s nest – it is made up of shiny unrelated objects or facts picked up over time“ or “give me a couple of stories to use at my next dinner party” or “if you love something you just ‘pick it up’ and there is no need for formal, systematic study or research”. In real life anyone with understanding of history is going to spend hundreds & thousands of hours researching, but when you are genuinely interested in how things work then this time is usually fun. There are two places in Melbourne that are gems for anyone with an interest in Melbourne history. These are the La Trobe Library and the Victorian Archives Centre. (Surprisingly the Melbourne Museum hides away most of its Melbourne treasures, but maybe more of that in another newsletter). In the past the gatekeepers to such places were invariably men in brown cardigans. You would pass in your request, they would study it, then appraise you over the top of their glasses, return their gaze to your submission slip, and finally deciding there was no bylaw or regulation which could be invoked to prevent you from seeing the documents in question would reluctantly pass on the submission. Fortunately those days are long past. The La Trobe Library is housed in the State Library building and contains many Melbourne gems. You may find yourself surrounded by lecturers with leather elbow patches disapproving of the great unwashed having access to the primary sources, sprightly seniors researching their family history who are happy to show the young ones how to use the computer, po-faced researchers determined to prove they are interesting people by unearthing someone from the past who had a less dreary life than themselves and me chuckling in a corner over some gem I am holding in my hands. Some of my favourites include the last notes written by the explorers on the Burke & Wills expedition, the Henty Diaries, the 1853 gold petition, copies of Ned’s Jerilderie Letter, archives relating to Stephen Murray Smith, Peter Carey, John & Sunday Reid, Bert Tucker, Sidney Myer and G.J. Cole Patsy Adam Smith’s collection of WW1 diaries, ALP & DLP archives and The Diary of a Welsh Swagman. The Victorian Archives Centre in North Melbourne also contains many gems, but generally you need to know what you are looking for. If your image of an archive is a dingy place then the bright modern stylish building is likely to surprise you. It currently has a small exhibition of items form the archive including money boxes from the State Bank (from back in the last century when the people of Victoria owned a bank) and some beautiful maps (did you know that there is an inner suburb of Melbourne that used to be called Cut Paw Paw?) At these sorts of places there is no longer a brown cardigan in sight. I submit my request to the young woman with cropped hair, sensible clumpy heels and an ill-made black suit worn in protest. She examines it through her small black-rimmed glasses with obvious disapproval. I briefly ponder how Norman Lindsay would have portrayed her. “So you want this one – you must love history.” I nod in agreement. +----------------------------------------------------+ COUNTRY FESTIVALS +----------------------------------------------------+ THEATRE IN THE PUB +----------------------------------------------------+ READER FEEDBACK “Thank you so much for your garden backdrop in your newsletter. I have it on my computer at work and it has a most soothing effect. Prue”
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