Bendigo Magazine - Issue 55 - Winter 2019 by Bendigo Magazine

ISSUE 55 | WINTER 2019 www.bendigomagazine.com.au

ON BORROWED TIME LOCALS LAUNCH A LIBRARY

CATMAN MEOWS FOOTY FAN ON THE PROWL

grand plans THE KEYS TO GOOD HEALTH

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dear reader, We’ve got a wonderful mix of stories for you this issue. Consider the Catman, the Hemp House, the Flash Farm, if you will. As its name suggests, Flash Farm is a place with superpowers. It’s been over 12 months since Kristy Kemp opened her family farm up to kids and teens. Her aim was to create a tranquil setting where young people could improve their social, emotional and cognitive abilities. Through her work and experiences with her own son she knew there were local students struggling to fit in to the traditional education system and that there was very little on offer to help. Writer Dale Webster and photographer Leon Schoots went along to find out just how far she’s come. We also bring you Maggie Jackson at the grand piano, Women of Note at the YMCA, Jessica Fitzgerald at the house she drew and Stephnie Croft with the plants she grew – all 80 of them, inside the house! Locals finding their place and purpose via creativity is a strong theme this winter. As someone wise said to me, being creative is the secret to happiness. When you’re doing what you love, creating something, making things happen, you’re living in the moment, and there is no better form of mindfulness than that. Give it a go! “It’s the sort of thing that everyone should do. It’s got ‘wellness’ written all over it,” says choir member Natalie Rhook on the simple power of singing.

LAUREN MITCHELL 4

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EDITOR Lauren Mitchell PHOTOGRAPHER Leon Schoots CREATIVE DIRECTOR Dustin Schilling WRITERS Sarah Harris, Geoff Hocking, John Holton, Kate O’Connor, Raelee Tuckerman, Dale Webster and Marina Williams CONTRIBUTORS Beau Cook, Lisa Chesters, Tamara Marwood, Justin McPhail and Colin Thompson EVENTS PHOTOGRAPHER Ashley Taylor PRINT MANAGER Nigel Quirk ADVERTISING advertising@bendigomagazine.com.au PO Box 5003 Bendigo, VIC 3550 Phone: 0438 393 198

Bendigo Magazine takes all care but accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Bendigo Magazine holds copyright to all content unless otherwise stated. ISSN 1833-1289. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the publisher accepts no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions or resultant consequences including any loss or damage arising from reliance on information in this publication. The views expressed are not necessarily endorsed by the editor or the publisher.

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events

PEOPLE & LIFE 32

contents

Duelling passions - Dr Cristina Keightley For the love of the game - Jessie Rennie Bringing a lot to Bendigo - Library Of Things Well in tune - Bendigo Hospital’s Cancer Centre Flash of brilliance - Flash Farm

March 16 - July 14 Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits Bendigo Art Gallery www.bendigoartgallery.com.au

Building a future - Lisa Chesters The green house - Stephnie Croft

May 1 - August 31 Flights of Fantasy Living Arts Space www.bendigotourism.com

102 A home truly grown

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

106 Children on the oddest of jobs

Riding the royal wave - The Royal Train

Finding their market - Meet the makers

- Hemp house

- Geoff Hocking

108 Winter blues no problem

Young guns - Write on the Fringe Festival

- Blues & Roots Festival

- Troy West

At home with art - Jessica Fitzgerald Dying for a coffee - Colin King

May 31 - July 28 Perspective: A View of the SMIMM Collection Soldiers Memorial Museum www.bendigotourism.com June 15, 22 & July 6,13 The Royal Train Castlemaine Railway Station www.bendigotourism.com

110 Feline fanatic

It’s all noteworthy - The Women of Note choir

March 16 - July 14 The Royal Pop Up Tram Bendigo Piazza www.bendigotramways.com

June 22 British Car Show Hargreaves Mall, Bendigo June 28 Bendigo Comedy Festival Presents: Women of Wit Vol. 4 The Engine Room www.gotix.com.au

Creative moves - CreateAbility

July 5 Business Luncheon Raceday - Featuring Kevin Sheedy Bendigo Jockey Club - Silks Dining Room country.racing.com/bendigo July 6 - 7 Barrel Wine Tasting Weekend www.bendigowine.org.au/events July 13 & August 10 Blues Tram Central Deborah Gold Mine www.bendigotourism.com

FOOD & WINE 82

Fizzy pop - Justin McPhail Cheeky does it - Beau Cook From grapes to glass - Local wines

July 28 Members Raceday Bendigo Jockey Club country.racing.com/bendigo August 25 Beauty & The Beast Ulumbarra Theatre www.bendigoregion.com.au August 2-10 Write on the Fringe Festival www.ncgrl.vic.gov.au July 19 The Women of Wool Bendigo Showgrounds www.womenofwool.com.au

ON THE COVER While the current trend for indoor plants is flourishing, local designer and green thumb Stephnie Croft is a fan from way back. She’s been collecting pot plants since her 20s and has amassed a collection of more than 80 living, breathing beauties, adding colour and life to her Bendigo home. Photographer Leon Schoots and writer Marina Williams went along to bask in their glory. 6

16 March – 14 July 2019 British Royal Portraits. Exhibition organised by the National Portrait Gallery, London. Tickets www.bendigoartgallery.com.au

Prince William, (later Duke of Cambridge), Prince Harry (later Duke of Sussex) By Nicola Jane (‘Nicky’) Philipps, 2009. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

#TudorsToWindsors

Dovima with Sacha, cloche and suit by Balenciaga, Café des Deux Magots, Paris, 1955, - © The Richard Avedon Foundation

bow-wow winter

Every woman, man and dog is catered for in the to-do stakes this season, with high fashion, deep blues and the lowdown on who’s writing what featuring in local events and festivals. SECRETS TO SHAPING FASHION ON SHOW Bendigo Art Gallery is set to showcase the work of revolutionary fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga in a masterful exhibition from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Balenciaga: shaping fashion, open from August 17 to November 10, will explore the work and legacy of the couturier, who is hailed as one of the most innovative and influential fashion designers of the 20th century.

in San Sebastian, and the 80th anniversary of the opening of his famous fashion house in Paris, so is a timely reminder of how influential and enduring Balenciaga’s work remains.” Highlights of the international exhibition include garments crafted by Balenciaga from the 1950s and 1960s through to pieces designed by protégés and contemporary designers in the same innovative way.

Balenciaga’s craftsmanship and pioneering use of fabrics are said to have revolutionised the female silhouette, setting the scene for modern design. His shapes – the tunic, sack, baby doll and shift dresses – remain style staples today. His garments have a sculptural quality, deft manipulation of textiles and dramatic use of colour and texture, says Gaye Harrington, Bendigo Art Gallery acting director.

Curated by Cassie Davies-Strodder, the exhibition also explores the lasting impact of Balenciaga, tracing his influence through the work of more than 30 fashion designers across the past 50 years. On display will be ensembles Balenciaga made for Hollywood actress Ava Gardner, dresses and hats belonging to socialite and 1960s fashion icon Gloria Guinness, and pieces worn by one of the world’s wealthiest women, Mona von Bismarck, who commissioned ballgowns to gardening shorts from the couturier.

“The exhibition marks the centenary of the opening of Balenciaga’s first fashion house

Balenciaga: shaping fashion, visit bendigoartgallery.com.au for details.

Silk taffeta evening dress, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Paris, 1955 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

2019 Bendigo Writers Festival

All that glitters August 9-11

More than 90 events in 10 venues featuring a glittering line-up of 150 writers, with topics including food and health, science and politics, plus stories that shine a light on what it means to be alive.

Festival passes and early bird tickets on sale May 8

bendigowritersfestival.com.au #bendigowritersfestival PROUDLY PRESENTED BY

FOOD, FASHION AND FIBRE The Women of Wool presents a series of events that celebrate the natural fibre at the annual Australian Sheep & Wool Show. These include a sold-out luncheon, fashion parades and a national Woolcraft Competition and display. The luncheon, to be held on July 19, is a fabulous fusion of fashion, food and good company. Over lunch, guests can enjoy an exclusive fashion parade and hear from inspiring speakers about Australian enterprise. They also have access to the show’s vendors, fashion parades, the Festival of Lamb and craft areas. The Australian Sheep & Wool Show is held at Bendigo’s Prince of Wales Showground each July. It’s the largest event of its type in the world, and hosts Australia’s most extensive wool and fibre market with hundreds of retailers selling gorgeous woollen clothing, and a diverse range of high-quality yarns and designs. For more details, visit womenofwool.com.au

STUDENTS GO BIG IN MUSIC SHOW The new performing arts facility at Catherine McAuley College is getting a full work out as students prepare for their upcoming musical production, Rock of Ages: High School Edition. The rock and roll musical fairytale is set to take the audience back to the 1980s’ when musicians of the era thought bigger was better: from sporting overly teased and outlandish hair to performing big guitar solos and belting out some soul-searching ballads. For the student performers, rehearsing in a big space enables them to polish their acting, singing and dancing while learning more about the technical aspects of theatre, such as lighting and sound. Expect to hear popular hits from artists Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister and more. Rock of Ages: High School Edition is on June 14 and 15 at Ulumbarra Theatre, book at www.gotix.com.au.

TIME FOR TEA Raise a glass of bubbly to the British after your visit to the Tudors to Windsors exhibition with a sumptuous high tea at the Bendigo Art Gallery. Every Tuesday and Thursday until June 27, the High Tea with Wedgwood package will offer entry to the exhibition at 1pm followed by afternoon tea in the Sculpture Annexe at 2.30pm. Tickets are $60 for members and $75 for non-members, with the set menu of tasty delights served on exquisite Wedgwood teaware. Guests can also enjoy a glass of something sparkling along with the traditional fare. If you have dietary requirements, the Gallery Café can cater to your needs, with a selection of gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan options for your enjoyment. Contact the Gallery Café to make a reservation.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Claudio and Hero are deeply in love. Beatrice and Benedick would rather swap sassy insults than sweet nothings. Much Ado About Nothing is a saucy and razor-sharp battle of wits between the bickering Beatrice and Benedick, who wield words as weapons, their banter betraying their love and loathing of each other. However Claudio, is quickly seduced by envy and this idyllic world threatens to come tumbling down as he humiliates Hero. Beatrice and Benedick must join forces to defend true love – even if they can’t recognise it in themselves. But will truth and honesty win the day, and does love really conquer all? Directed by Bell Shakespeare’s Associate Director, James Evans (Julius Caesar) and starring Zindzi Okenyo (Antony and Cleopatra, MTC’s An Ideal Husband) as Beatrice, this Much Ado About Nothing will be a powerful exploration of the struggle for identity and self-knowledge in a male-dominated world. The pursuit of love is framed in a social context that enhances the darker themes in this timeless comic gem. Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s contemporary comedies where romance is thwarted by dastardly plots, misinformation, false accusations, broken promises and bumbling cops. Or is it? Ulumbarra Theatre - Saturday August 3, 8.00pm Book tickets at gotix.com.au

CELEBRATE LIVE MUSIC

LOOK WHO’S TALKING

If winter really brings the blues then let it rain, say organisers of the Bendigo Blues & Roots Music Festival.

Bendigo’s annual weekend festival for readers and writers returns on August 9-11.

For June and July, they have scheduled some must-see gigs featuring local and visiting musicians.

With the theme ‘All That Glitters’, the 2019 Bendigo Writers Festival will offer a program of 150 Australian and international writers talking on everything from poetry to politics.

On June 7, Geoff Achison & The Souldiggers bring their celebratory 25-year anniversary show to the All Seasons, following a successful tour of the US and UK. Then on June 8, John McNamara + Jess Parker & The Troubled Waters will roll through the city on the famous Blues Tram, with Andrea Robertson & Band, from Ocean Grove, playing at Bendigo’s The Old Church on the Hill. The Blues Tram runs on the second Saturday of every month. Since 2011, Greater Bendigo has hosted a four-day music event in November that celebrates both music genres. Recently organisers established a Dinner & Blues night at ROCKS on Rosalind to be held on the last Friday of every month. “So far, the diners, who are music fans, have been very happy with the experience,” says festival founder and director Colin Thompson. “We have had some packed crowds and the list of festival-involved artists playing the remainder of the roster for this year looks like a who’s-who of the Melbourne and Bendigo blues scene collectively.”

For three days, the popular gathering for lovers of words fills the arts venues of View Street and Ulumbarra Theatre. The extensive program is designed to get people thinking and talking, something British philosopher and commentator A.C. Grayling is sure to do. Grayling has written more than 30 books on society and politics. His latest offering, Democracy and Its Crisis, was written in response to the threats posed by the EU referendum in the UK and Trump’s victory in the United States. He will speak about democracy and our yearning to keep it on August 9 and 10. Other speakers include novelists, songwriters, journalists, social commentators and advocates, such as Min Jin Lee, Jane Caro, Don Walker, Chloe Hooper, Clementine Ford and Kate Forsyth.

“The list of quality grass-roots events being staged between now and November contributes to Bendigo’s thriving arts culture,” Colin says.

This year’s daily keynote sessions include Maeve O’Meara talking about the world of food on Friday; Paul Davies discussing ‘what is life?’ on Saturday; and on Sunday human rights advocate and world-renowned limb replacement surgeon Munjed Al Muderis will share his life story.

For more information visit bendigobluesandroots.com.au.

Visit bendigowritersfestival.com.au for more information.

The festival’s Winter Showcase/Fundraiser opens on the first weekend in July with 16 acts performing at the Hotel Shamrock.

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talking business

Stay up-to-date with what’s on offer from our business community, including accommodation options, unique event opportunities and the latest in homewares. STAY, RELAX AND ENJOY With its prime position opposite Lake Weeroona, the Comfort Inn Julie-Anna covets one of the most desired holiday spots in Bendigo. It offers four-star accommodation, casual dining and a conference space all under the one roof. The conference room and restaurant have one of the best views in the city, overlooking the picturesque lake, which is a welcoming and ideal ‘front yard’ for guests wanting to stretch their legs with a walk or relax outdoors with a picnic. If staying for business, the motel is within walking distance of Bendigo’s CBD; and plenty of tourist attractions are just a short tram or car ride away. The Slattery and Thurgood families took ownership of the motel three years ago, and have a combined hospitality industry experience of more than 60 years. They pride themselves on offering guests a warm welcome. “We want guests to feel like they’re at home,” says Kristyn Slattery, General Manager. “We pride ourselves on making sure everything about your stay, our rooms and service are of a high quality that will meet your needs. Our dedicated team and valued guests are an extension of our family.”

SUITE SPOT GIVES ADDED LUXURY Cheering on a game of AFL, international cricket, soccer or singing along with your favourite performer on their latest concert tour can be taken to the next level if experiencing the moment in the comfort of your private, corporate suite. Top Shelf Management (TSM) has been creating the ultimate luxury experience in corporate entertainment and special event celebrations at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Marvel Stadium for more than 25 years. It offers five suites, each featuring a specific theme – Hollywood, sport, history and Art Deco design – and decorated with rare and unique sporting and historical memorabilia. TSM’s Justin Kirwan says the themed suites are the perfect space for business owners or managers to create the ideal networking event at which to build lasting memories and relationships, “Each of our suites is unique and fully themed, showcasing some incredible, one-ofa-kind memorabilia that will dazzle clients, friends or family for a particular celebration, and have them talking about the event for

quite a while and wanting to return,” Justin says. Up to 16 people can be catered for in Marvel Stadium’s corporate box themes of: • The History Suite with an array of relics and historical artefacts, and • The Sporting Suite and its collection of sports memorabilia. • At the MCG, up to 14 people can be hosted in: • The Hollywood Suite, filled with movie photographs, posters and press clippings, plus a working jukebox; • The Field of Dreams Suite, which features medals and awards won by past sporting champions, and • The Sporting Suite with its sports memorabilia. Catering can be provided for and underground parking is available. “We pride ourselves on providing our clients with a unique, once-ina-lifetime feeling that can only come with watching an epic footy match or event in style,” Justin says. Find out more at www.topshelfmanagement.com.au

#COINSFORCHANGE On any given night of the year, there are up to 40 people sleeping rough across Bendigo, while hundreds more men, women and children are forced to stay in short-term or emergency accommodation. And the numbers are rising. That’s why homelessness services provider Haven; Home, Safe has launched its #CoinsForChange Workplace Giving program to support and help house the most vulnerable people in our community.

The motel has 33 spacious rooms – all recently renovated and with courtyard access and views of the outdoor pool.

With your support, HHS can provide muchneeded assistance to those that need it most. For example:

Kristyn encourages people wanting to stay a night or more in Bendigo to book directly with the motel. “It’s just the same as shopping local,” she says.

$20 – prepaid phone card for a month.

Visit www.julieanna.com.au for more information.

$40 – Myki card and travel or fuel for a week. $100 – Food and essentials for a family for a week. $500 – Two weeks’ rent in advance to secure permanent housing options. Through Workplace Giving, you can make small, regular donations through your pre-tax pay. Many employers also choose to enhance the collective impact of Workplace Giving through donation matching. For more information www.havenhomesafe.org.au/ coinsforchange

STYLISH ITEMS FOR LITTLE ONES For the team at Tiny Sprout, delightful things come in tiny packages. Tiny Sprout specialises in unique items to wear, gift and play for the tiny people in your life. They consider tiny people as ‘very precious cargo’, so source unique and affordable items that are either organic, handmade, Australian designed and manufactured or kind to the earth. They even have even plenty of items for mum. Brands include Jamie Kay, Jellycat, Nature Baby, Wilson and Frenchy, Frankly Eco, Write to Me, Sapling, Snuggle Hunny and Miniland. Order online for free delivery in Bendigo, follow them on social media and keep an eye out for one of their regular pop-up shops. To shop, go to www.tinysprout.com.au.

RECRUITING MADE EASY For more than 15 years ESE Consulting have been helping regional Victoria recruit the best people for business. Bendigo owned and operated, ESE Consulting provides executive search, permanent, contract and temporary recruitment services, as well as a range of human resource services to support businesses. They also offer bespoke training, staff development and facilitation services. Understanding local business is key to ESE Consulting’s success, with the recruitment team active in the community. They recently welcomed new HR Assistant Virginia Morris. A Bendigo local, Virginia graduated from La Trobe University last year, majoring in marketing and human resources. ESE Consulting’s mission is to offer quality Recruitment, HR and Training through the delivery of tailored, innovative and outstanding services. To find out more visit www.eseconsulting.com.au.

STYLISH CHOICES FOR YOUR HOME Brimming with stylish homewares, quality appliances and outdoor decor, Living Quarters is the store when buying for your home. The friendly and knowledgeable staff have been helping decorate Bendigo homes since 2002, and has just set up their new premises at 7 Adam Street, Quarry Hill, where they’ll continue to offer the same quality service and bigname brands. The new display yard showcases the latest in pots, Bali huts and play equipment that includes trampolines, cubbies, forts and swings. Inside is filled with a beautiful range of homewares, gifts and art supplies, plus a large choice of big-name electrical brands. In working to lower margins and fighting hard for a better price, they are genuine in offering you the best deals on the latest whitegoods and appliances. They deal directly with suppliers, as per the larger electrical stores, to offer you the same warranties and conditions on brands such as Electrolux, Heller, LG, Hisense, Chef, Di Lusso, Chiq and Simpson. As passionate supporters of other small businesses, they also offer a collection of locally made jewellery, handbags, terrariums, soaps, jams and chutneys and other items in store. 14

Get more for your home for less at Living Quarters, 7 Adam Street, Quarry Hill. Open Monday to Saturday.

riding the

royal wave Travel the goldfields in the lap of last-century luxury, on board a train custom-built for a king, queen, prince and princess. It’s true the train service from Bendigo to Castlemaine is a popular one, but travellers don’t usually purchase their tickets months in advance. One local service has proved so popular, the seats are all taken, and it’s causing tongues to talk in the mother country. “It’s gotten quite a bit of attention in the UK,” Steve Strangward says on the royal train currently chugging the goldfields line. Steve is the president of the Victorian Goldfields Railway, which is the organisation that initiated and coordinated the restoration of a

number of carriages and engines used to transport the royal family around Victoria, some from as far back as 1912. In 1954, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were ferried here and there and in 1983, Prince Charles and Princess Diana hopped onboard and famously waved to the masses from the rear platform. The restored locomotives were built in the 1950s and are pulling a 1912 state car, a 1928 dining car, a 1937 first-class sitting car, a parlour car and 1952 state car. 17

“The fact that we’ve done this and allowed the public to travel on royal carriages is quite unusual around the world,” Steve says. “In most cases royal state cars are only seen in museums. One of the beauties of it is the fact that we can expose the general public to it and show them, this is how the royals travelled. This is the cream of the crop.” Think dining cars and sleepers with ornate timbers, plush upholstery, pressed metal ceilings and varnished mirrors. They’re quite literally fit for a queen. The project started when Bendigo Tourism approached the Victorian Goldfields Railway to request a photo shoot on board the carriages to promote the current Tudors to Windsors exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery. “We proposed we could do a lot better than that and restore the royal train,” Steve says. Some mechanical work had already been done, and measures to restore the end platform were also already underway, however finishing the job in an “incredibly short” timeframe of just a few months meant enlisting tradespeople to work with the volunteer restorers. Victrack provided the funding to achieve that, with further support from V/Line. “It’s been a really exciting and rewarding project to get so many organisations working together for a great community outcome,” Steve says. “For me personally, this project has really strengthened the connections between regional organisations and demonstrated that a volunteer group can work with local government.” The carriages had been under wraps and out of action for decades in a shed in Seymour before this project provided the impetus to restore them. And now that’s complete, Steve says they will have a life beyond the gallery exhibition – currently the train travels only for the duration of the show. Passengers are partaking in high tea and tours of the lavish carriages where royalty ate, slept and bathed. “The feedback has been fantastic,” Steve says of the unique experience. “And now they’ve been restored they can be used for future royal visits, governor visits or tourism purposes.” For now until July 13, passengers are travelling in royal or first class between Castlemaine and Bendigo, partaking in high tea in the dining car and exploring the train during the layover at the Bendigo Station.

GUESTS LINGER FOR LONGEST LUNCH

Deidre Marshall and Carolyn Hamilton

Mavis Lindsay, Shirley Lock, John Lindsay, Tony and Helen Lindrea

Heather and Paul Burgess

Jeff White, Vicki Lugg, Amanda Anderson and Andrew Simpson

Jill Vigushin, Robert Codato and Colin Stear

Joan and Ian Vlaeminck

Rosalind Park looked its magical finest as it hosted the Regional World’s Longest Lunch Bendigo. Nestled under elms and oaks, a single long table hosted guests, who toasted the day with regional wines while enjoying a six-course menu from the chefs at Wine Bank on View. The lunch was part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

Rule Britannia, the Golden City: royal visits to Bendigo 12 April – 1 September 2019 The eventful visits of the British Royal family to Bendigo.

(Image credit) Allan Doney, Untitled (Long Live Our Queen, Alexandra Fountain, Bendigo) 1954, gelatin silver print. Courtesy National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Bendigo branch

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Anna Lange, Hayden Lange and Sebastian Mansfield

Connor Sutton and Issy Orel

PLENTY OF CHEERS FOR PARADE Elijah Hinton, Claudia Hinton and Maddi MacKay

Hudson, Kaela, Harper and Isaac Lenten

Henry, Tania and Oscar Connolly

With the uniting theme of ‘We Are One’, families lined the main street of Eaglehawk to celebrate the 48th Dahlia and Arts Festival. In turn, schools, bands, sporting and community groups gave them a colourful and engaging parade that was part of the 10-day celebration of cultural activities.

Kirsty Adams-Howie and Lucy Nadort

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Beautiful gifts l

Discover quality souvenirs made in Bendigo and the region. Indulge with artisan gifts and delicious treats to take home and savour your Bendigo experience. Can’t decide on a gift for that special person in your life? Come in and let us help you create a one of a kind, Uniquely Bendigo gift hamper. www.uniquelybendigo.com.au

Flights of Fantasy Living Arts Space exhibition

MAY 1 – AUGUST 31, 2019 ‘Flights of Fantasy’ is a magical exhibition which presents a selection of work from three local artists that combines the photo montage images of artist and illustrator Lorena Carrington, individual designed art jewellery pieces from Milton Long and the latest collection from fashion, set and costume designer Ulrike Barbara Von Radichevich.

Find us on

BENDIGO VISITOR CENTRE Open 9am to 5pm daily (except Christmas Day) 51-67 Pall Mall, Bendigo • 03 5434 6060 • tourism@bendigo.vic.gov.au www.bendigotourism.com • #Explore Bendigo • Find us on

finding their market Meet the people – and one pooch – behind two local creative businesses taking their wares to the masses through The Creators Market. By Lauren Mitchell – Photography by Leon Schoots Inside the DAP Jewellery School, tiny tools rule. There are hammers and files, saws and clamps, pliers and vices, and then there’s Sprocket, the champagne poodle and unofficial business mascot. The other names behind this new-to-town business are Dan Cox and Branden Courtois. They settled in their funky 1960s cedar timber home in Bendigo in January, having fallen for the cool outdoor ‘room’ at the centre of the house, and the shed out back. The boys had been on the road for 12 months beforehand, having sold their Brisbane home to shake the mortgage shackles and travel Australia, all the while running their mobile business, making oneoff pieces of jewellery and teaching others how to do the same. Dan, Branden and Sprocket made it to Central Victoria in time for the Kyneton Lost Trades Fair last year and liked what they found here; a growing community of artists and makers, and most importantly, an appreciative public.

“Bendigo seems to definitely have a really strong focus on the handmade. A strong focus on artists and on wanting to know who we are. You see that through The Creators Market and other markets like the Trove Market,” Dan says. The trio now have a great home base in Bendigo. They converted the shed into a teaching studio and have opened the doors for private students and workshops for anyone who would like to learn the skills of jewellery making; from wax carving to stone setting, silversmithing to casting. Dan has been teaching the trade for the past ten years. He studied visual arts at the Queensland College of Art in his mid-20s, where he found an affinity with jewellery making. For Dan, the pieces were akin to small sculptures and wearable art. “It became the major I studied. I got a job teaching in my final year of uni through Brisbane Institute of Art, worked as a production jeweller 23

with renowned jeweller Barbara Heath, then opened my own school in Brisbane about six years ago. It all just seemed to snowball from there.” In 2010 Dan started working for Flying Arts, travelling regional Queensland teaching jewellery making to teens and adults. It’s this role that showed him rural and regional communities were hungry for creative experiences. Alongside a growing teaching schedule, at home in Bendigo and on the road, is Dan’s own creative practice. He has a variety of influences and mediums, finding surprising uses for industrial and what would be considered waste materials, as well as traditional silver and gold. “I used to try and predict what the market is going to do,” he says. “A lot of people talk about looking at what’s happening overseas because that eventually transfers to Australia. I used to try and make to that market but with maturing I now make what I make and the market can follow me and people either like what I create or they don’t. Jewellery is very personal.” Right now he’s working on a range of masculine pieces depicting mythical creatures like a giant octopus ring and dragons, “classic and well-constructed without being bikerish”. Another series are badges based on 1950s sci-fi posters. “I’m also doing some landscape pieces,” Dan says. “Looking at the Australian landscape, the outback, looking at rural settings.” Tiny framed pieces of bush huts and gumtrees will become pendants. A tiny water tank is made from a bullet casing. “I like to use a variety of materials. I work in base metals, such as copper and brass, through to silver, titanium and gold. I also use a lot of recycled material. I’ll pull old pieces apart that have been sitting around for a while and create something new. I like to use different bits and pieces that can be made into something wearable that people don’t recognise straight away, like spoons and forks and hand-carved pieces of shell.” Dan says getting involved with the local markets has been a great way to meet people. Their stall is easy to spot; it’s the one that uses an ornate antique organ as a display case.

“Because we are hand makers, we do everything by hand. Iit’s a really good opportunity through those markets to show what we make, which is completely different from what anybody else offers, and it’s a good opportunity to say to people that they can also make something for themselves.” Branden says five months in, they’re proud to call Bendigo home. “We’ve had friends and students come to visit us from Queensland, NSW, Victoria and overseas with more on the way,” he says. “They’re seeing that Bendigo’s a really cool little city. As newbies we’re quite proud of it too, because we’re introducing people who might not have thought about Bendigo before to experience what it’s like here. We have felt very welcomed by so many people and we have had a fabulous time so far.”

For Victoria Herbert, all the good things happen under a full moon. Babies are born, the night becomes light and crystals are cleansed and charged. Victoria’s third daughter, Luca, was born when the moon was at its fullest. Victoria knows this because she’s in tune with the lunar cycle. Knowing whether the moon is waxing or waning is an essential part of her business, the Isabelle Jayde Candle Co. “I make candles infused with crystals, dried flowers and botanicals,” Victoria says. “The idea is each candle has its own purpose, whether that’s to promote love, happiness, healing, or other benefits.” Victoria hand picks each crystal, then waits until a full moon to “cleanse and charge” them under the night sky. “My partner thinks 26

I’m nuts, but I do it anyway,” she laughs, adding her hand-poured soy wax candles appeal to those who believe in the healing qualities of the stones, and to people who simply like the comfort of a small flickering flame. Victoria was one of the latter when she began making candles as a hobby with her eldest daughter six years ago. “We were making more than we needed so I thought, why not share them with others? And the business has grown from there. Then my daughter brought home a pouch of crystals her teacher had given her with the words ‘you’re a gem’ on it and it inspired me to start putting crystals in my candles. “I set the crystals in the top of the wax to set and as the candle burns the crystals

sink down. When the candle is finished with, you can wash the crystals and have them to keep.” Victoria has been a regular at the Creators Market for the past two years. “It’s just full of good vibes and everyone is friendly and happy. It’s the biggest market I do and it was always my goal to be a part of it. It’s been fantastic and has really helped my business to grow.” As such, she’s taken over the family rumpus room for her studio and committed to running a home-based business, which fits in with being a mum to soon-to-be-four children. “I’m lucky to do what I do from home,” she says. “I have my youngest, Luca, at my feet most days helping me do things. It’s what I always wanted.” Victoria is expecting her fourth baby in July. At what point in the lunar cycle the wee one arrives is yet to be seen, but Victoria will know. “I remember when it’s going to be a new moon and a full moon. It’s at the forefront of my mind and I find that really peaceful,” she says. The next Bendigo Creators Market is on Saturday, July 6, from 9am until 2pm at the Bendigo Stadium. It will feature a curated selection of local and interstate artists, designers, crafters and culinary creators.

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Fatemeh Seyedi, Omid Seyedi, Marina Sharifi, Arash Seyedi and Behnoush Seyedi

Jessie Jackson, Nathan Jackson, Mary Scalzo, David Goebbels and Ashlee Pirzadeh

Penny, Pippa, Gina, Lauren Macaulay and Rob Wrigley

Shane Carey, Inika Carey, Jessica Lambert and Maeve Carey

Sierra, Kelly and Shelby Stansall, Taryn and Vienna Fagan

ALIVE AND LIVELY IN BENDIGO It was a friendly March night of music, dance, food and art as thousands of people gathered to celebrate what they love about multicultural Bendigo at the annual Zinda Night in the Park. The family-friendly event was part of the week-long Zinda Festival that this year coincided with Cultural Diversity Week.

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Lucy, Frankie and Sophia Nugent

Dean, Talia and Freya Cosgriff

HELPING CREATORS THRIVE Gwen and Megan Luscombe

Campbells Creek turned on the sunshine as it hosted an array of talented artisans to showcase their craft, design skills and culinary creations at The Creators Market.

Mike Dwyer, Anne Travers, Gary Barlow and Rita Dwyer

Shoppers made a day of it, browsing more than 40 indoor stalls and enjoying the tasty offerings from food trucks set up outdoors.

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duelling passions While pursuing her passion for science, La Trobe University molecular biologist, Dr Cristina Keightley, had another career waiting in the wings – opera singing. By Kate O’Connor - Photography by AJ Taylor Images While this propelled her into a lifetime of scientific research, Cristina says it also fuelled years of music study, vocal training, and performing at famous opera houses throughout the world.

“And while acoustics, and the way that vocal chords work, is definitely a scientific field, the practice of singing varies dramatically for each person and often remains very much a mystery.”

“My fascination with singing, for a while, was the challenge of establishing a resilient vocal technique. Because singing is actually very mysterious.

Despite completing a PhD in molecular biology, the challenge of interpreting vocal compositions and expressing them in new and interesting ways kept luring Cristina back to music.

“We have just two little vocal folds in our larynx – and they are completely hidden from view. “It’s not as though a vocal teacher can say to move your body like this, or train these muscles, or undergo this fitness regime. With the voice, no one can really see what you’re doing. 32

“At the end of my PhD I thought, ‘well there’s nothing stopping me from getting my music degree now’. I was accepted into the Victorian College of the Arts to do a performance-based degree in opera.” When it came to choosing the location for the

next stage of her scientific career, Cristina had one stipulation. “I knew I wanted to move overseas to do my post-doctoral studies – but I also knew that wherever I moved, it had to be somewhere with a top tier opera house. I finally chose the offer from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.” Cristina quickly found herself fully immersed in her singing, training alongside well-known stars from The Met and with some of the best conductors in the world. She performed at prestigious venues in the United States and Italy, including Wortham Theater in Houston, and Carnegie Hall in New York.

“With music, what is on the written page is just the beginning. It’s up to you to use your own individual insight, creativity and skill to interpret those bars of music and words on a page into the telling of a story, which can differ from performance to performance. “With science, what is on the page is the result of peer-reviewed rigorous scientific enquiry – it’s not open to emotional interpretation. “Creativity in science is having the flexibility to think in new ways in order to solve questions of interest. This is what leads you to a new hypothesis in search of a scientific truth. “Unlike music, however, when it comes to testing a hypothesis it’s consistency we’re after. We need to get exactly the same result many times across different laboratories before a new scientific truth is accepted.” Despite her life-long passion for opera, Cristina has no regrets about ultimately choosing science. “The human body is just phenomenal – the number of processes, the number of things that are happening in our cells and tissues that occur completely outside of our awareness. And we only understand a minute amount of all that there is to know.” In terms of lasting impact, Cristina would like to make a strong contribution to her field of molecular and cellular biology. “It’s certainly appealing to know that you might be doing something that is genuinely helpful down the line but scientific research is rarely about instant gratification. We all stand on the shoulders of others. “When you publish in the highest-tier journals there’s a certain cachet and peer recognition that can help attract more funding for your work.

“The real wow factor for me was thinking about who had sung on those stages before me; the fact that I was treading the same boards as my revered idols in the opera world.”

“But all papers – even those that don’t get as much of the limelight in the moment – can have an impact, sometimes years later.

After more than a decade on the stage, Cristina realised she was missing science, and made the conscious decision to make a full-time return. She moved from New York back to Melbourne for a post-doctoral position in a research lab, before taking up her role at La Trobe’s Bendigo campus. Cristina now leads her research program investigating white blood cell development and also lectures in La Trobe’s Bachelor of Biomedical Science and Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Medical) courses. “I’m really interested in how the body makes immune cells; when and how they are made, and what types – and how that all ties into blood diseases such as leukaemia.”

These days she performs with Melbourne Opera and several orchestras, both in Melbourne and in regional cities like Bendigo. Although opera has taken a back seat, Cristina still relishes being creative and finds that outlet through her science. “Usually the best way to look at a scientific problem is from all possible angles. And that’s where the creativity comes in; how do you test, really thoroughly, if what you think might be going on, is what happens in actuality?” She also enjoys the thrill of developing challenging hypotheses.

“As you’re searching the literature, you can come across a modest study that completely changes the direction of your work. “That’s why basic science is so crucial. Because there’s still so much we don’t understand and you never know what piece of information is suddenly going to be the missing piece of the puzzle that clicks together to reveal a scientific breakthrough.” It’s that mysterious nature of scientific enquiry that keeps Cristina’s curious mind captivated – just as opera singing did for so many years. “I’m very lucky in my lifetime to have found not only one, but two careers that are so challenging yet satisfying.” 33

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Jenny Mann, Rob Nelson, Bron Nelson, Mal Ward and Bev McPhee

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RELAY GIVES HOPE There was laughter, tears and lots of chatter as friends, family and strangers united in their fight against cancer to walk thousands of steps around Backhaus Oval. The annual walk, now in its 20th year, remembers and honours people touched by cancer and raises funds for the Cancer Council’s vital research, prevention and support programs.

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Tara and Anthony Tripley, Keith and Carolyn Foxlow

Hayley Edwards, Sally Austin and Narelle Sherwood

RACE DAY A WINNER Jarrod Chatfield and Emma Ellis

Michelle Phillips, Maddie Ray and Taylor French

Jeff Swan, Jacqui Swan, Jane and Rose Taylor and Anita King

Nikki Ryan and Sara McCann

As eyes turned to the winning post to watch young galloper Haripour take home this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bendigo Golden Mile, there was also plenty of action trackside for racegoers of all ages. Families embraced the casual dress code, with picnics on the lawn a popular choice, and kids relished having their own entertainment zone with plenty of live music also featuring at the Bendigo Jockey Club.

for the love of the game For this Bendigo Senior Secondary College alumna and WNBL basketballer, the world is about to get a whole lot bigger. By John Holton Jessie Rennie is a life-long basketball fan. She lives and breathes the game. So her recent signing with the University of Tennessee Vols is a dream come true.

going to go away… it’s just a part of who I am.”

For this Bendigo Senior Secondary College alumna, it’s all the sweeter for the challenges she’s faced to get there.

“Moving to Knoxville in the United States by myself as a 19-year-old, to live for four years… it’s going to be a massive learning curve,” Jessie says. “I’m really looking forward to training and playing with some of the best basketballers in the country. I know it’s going to improve my game dramatically.”

After the thrill of winning the State Schools Victoria Basketball title in 2017 alongside her BSSC team-mates, she tore her ACL and MCL while representing the college in the Australian School Championships later that year.

It certainly won’t be on her mind when she takes to the court with the University of Tennessee Vols.

It was a bitter blow for Jessie, who had been in the Bendigo Braves system since Under-14 level and was in her third year as a WNBL development player.

Jessie is no stranger to playing with some of the superstars of the game. While captaining her Bendigo Senior Secondary College team in 2017, she was also playing alongside the likes of Kelly Wilson, Gabe Richards and Kelsey Griffin in the WNBL.

“When I received the news that I needed a full knee reconstruction, it wasn’t just the thought of being out of the game for over 12 months that affected me,” Jessie remembers. “I really lost the motivation for my school work as well.

“To be part of a team with players of that calibre was just amazing,” Jessie says. “They obviously know the game inside-out and are constantly giving you tips. Having them as team-mates made me really proud.

“After a couple of months I realised that as much as the injury was extremely disappointing, it was also a really good chance for me to knuckle down and focus on my schooling to achieve the ATAR score I was after.” That’s exactly what Jessie did; an achievement she hopes will lead to a career in exercise science or nutrition, post basketball. “I’m fascinated by how the body functions to perform at an elite level,” she says, “and how important it is to fuel the body for the best possible performance.” For Jessie, nutrition is a vital part of her preparation, given that she has been living with Type 1 Diabetes since the age of five. Despite the seriousness of the condition, it’s not something she dwells on. “I’ve never seen it as a barrier or something negative,” she says. “It’s like any other challenge, I’ve just got to deal with it. It’s not

“But I was equally proud to represent my school. They gave me an opportunity to work on my leadership skills, and I know that’s something I’ll draw on in the future.” Jessie says her recruitment would not have been possible without the help and support of Samantha Tomlinson, director of Aussie Basketball USA, the organisation responsible for connecting Australian athletes with scholarship opportunities in the US. She also praised the role of her parents, Dave and Sharon, and her previous two Braves coaches, current leader and 2018 championship coach Megan Moody, and Jonathan Goodman, who guided the club to a grand final in 2017. “My mum and dad have been an incredible support,” she says. “They’ve driven me everywhere over the years for my basketball and they’re just as excited as I am about the next chapter. They made the trip with me to Knoxville in May for introductions.

“Megan Moody has been there through this whole experience and I’ve been grateful for everything she has done. And Jono Goodman — even though I haven’t seen him in a while — helped me make a video, which started off the whole process.” And while it’s a long way from the University of Tennessee to Bendigo’s old school on the hill, Jessie is grateful for her time at BSSC. “If you want to achieve something great, Bendigo Senior gives you the opportunities and the endless support to do it,” she says. “The Specialist Sports Program at the college gave me the chance to train and work on my game during school hours with extremely good coaches. “I’m proud that I was able to balance my VCE and my sport to get to this point. “Obviously it’s been a long haul, but the knee is good, I’m back in full training, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Photograph by Leon Schoots

Ben Reidy, Tanya Koch, Carolyn Starr, Lauren Starr and Nathan Starr

Bree Hocking, Janae Treble and Jenni Gibson

Brittany Trindall, Amy Gillett and Jasmin Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Sullivan

Emilie Johnston and Samantha Hommelhoff

Greg Panther, Kerry Panther and Mary Hogarth

Heather Huxtable, Inga McMillan, Julie Bacon and Shirley Knight

CHEERS TO REGIONAL WINE With a festive atmosphere and offerings of fabulous wines and regional food, it was a fantastic autumn day out for more than 2000 people attending the annual Strategem Bendigo Winemakers Festival in early April. Rosalind Park was transformed into the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest alfresco wine garden, with a lively crowd enjoying live music and sampling more than 60 different regional wines.

Clare Shiell, Andrew Sumner, Kim Sumner, Patrick and Margot Falconer

Jo Taylor, Nicole Van Zeyl, Philippa Spurling and Rebecca Chalmers

GLITTER, GLAMOUR AND GIVING BACK Nathan and Janelle Willits, Byron Perrin, Tim Noonan and Robyn Lindsay

Nola Tranter, Bruce Tranter, Jenny Fitzpatrick and Andy Mason

Nick Scullie and Brendan Chalmers

Scott Hosking and Julianna Farrell

It was a night of dinner, dance and music for supporters of the Bendigo Health Foundation and Ulumbarra Foundation at the inaugural Take the Stage for Arts and Health event. The black-tie fundraiser had a theatrical theme, with guests gleefully adding a touch of glitter to their glamourous attire.

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bringing a lot to Bendigo A group of locals are focussed on the things that matter; community, sustainability and trust. You can soon access them via the Library of Things. By Lauren Mitchell - Photography by Leon Schoots Things. We’re drowning in them. We’re spending money on them. We’re manufacturing them at unsustainable rates. We’re throwing them away and hoarding them up, using, abusing and obsessing over choosing them. These are all facts contributing to dire outcomes for our ecosystem, and something Jana van der Schoot has thought much about. Jana has always tried to tread lightly and sustainably. She recycles, chooses the treadlie over the car as much as practical, chooses cloth nappies and op shop clothes and mending and making do. “I’d always considered myself a greenie but I wasn’t doing anything specific,” she says. “I felt I wanted to do something concrete. When I was pregnant with Cullen I started thinking, how can I make this a better world?” Jana’s answer was to establish a Library of Things for Bendigo. The LoT is a growing movement world-wide to foster a sharing economy and sense of community while cutting down on the sheer volume of stuff we individually accumulate. “Essentially it’s like a book library except there are things rather than books,” Jana says. “It’s about people having access to things, rather than ownership of things.” She says she sees three criteria for a ‘thing’ to be considered library worthy. “If it’s expensive to buy, if it takes up a lot of space in your house or if it’s something you only need to use a couple of times throughout its or your lifetime.” Think tools, kitchen appliances, party supplies, camping gear, instruments, gardening equipment, art and craft and recreational goods. The list could go on. Jana points to the ice cream maker on a low shelf in her kitchen, sitting dormant for the winter. “It’s been great to use, to try out and to show the kids how to make ice cream. I don’t want to get rid of it because we might use it again but now it’s just in the way,” she says. Perfect fodder for a LoT. Meet Jana and you’d think she’s the perfect person to start such a library, to know how few things we really need to own in life. “Actually, I suck at it,” she laughs. “Even now. It wasn’t until we watched Marie Kondo in February that it really clicked. It’s been a journey that started when I travelled.” Jana arrived in Australia six years ago. At that point in her life she’d spent two-and-a-half years living out of a backpack, having left her Netherlands home to travel throughout Europe, Asia and Australia. She says a tent, sleeping bag, basic toiletries, clothes and books were the must-carry things. But still the stuff piled up. “I was travelling with 40

my brother, sharing rooms in backpackers. At one stage he said to me, ‘you really need to do something about this mess you make everywhere we stop’.” Jana is now making great headway into doing something about the stuff — hers and the wider community’s. She knew there were like-minded people in Bendigo, evidenced by initiatives such as Boomerang Bag making and the Repair Café. She started talking about her idea and soon rallied half a dozen others to help, including fellow ex-pat Jay Walker. “To me, this is one of those no-brainer, obvious things we should already be doing,” Jay says of the LoT. “A big part for me is bringing back that element of connection and trust between people because a library is based on trust. Bringing that back to a socially closed-off and individualistic society is a beautiful thing.” For Jay, it’s also about giving back to his chosen community. “I’ve had such a good experience in Australia and I’ve felt so welcome that I want to do something, and this is something practical that I can help with.” Jay, an artist and self-employed IT professional, moved to Australia from London in 1999. “I got to a point in life where I wanted to make a change and coming to Australia seemed like the obvious thing to do,” he says. “The people I always got on best with were Australians and Kiwis. They’re the sort of people who don’t get stuck in dogma and traditions. They’ll explore things and get things wrong and aren’t worried about failure.” He says in his two years in Bendigo he’s met many such people willing to give ideas a red hot go, such as through his volunteer work with the Bendigo Sustainability Group. “The best way to get to know people is to meet them where they’re at. In the process of becoming involved with the community you automatically become part of that community, by giving first.” Jay laughs he’s never actually considered what he would borrow from a local LoT. He’s more interested in seeing it up and running. To achieve that the group will need donations, grants, insurance and a permanent space. Jana, her “unofficial mascot” Cullen, Jay and co are currently working on that. “We’ve got a great to-do list, a business plan and a philosophy,” Jana says. “We’re also asking the question, as a local library, how can we help make this an international thing? Like toy libraries and repair cafes.” In the meantime, they’re asking for suggestions on the type of things Bendigo people might want to borrow. Have your say and follow their progress on the Library of Things Bendigo Facebook page.

Chelsea, Dakota and Nicola Pollard

Chloe Adams and Varley Bobart

Holly Harding and Jesse Thacker

Tracy Kulbars and Craig Valentine

Sebastian Freer, Jordan Mathews and Joel Riordan

Sienna Rosendale and Ava Scott

EASTER DELIGHTS The Bendigo Easter Festival and its annual parade is a must-see event on many a calendar. This year was extra special, with crowd favourite Sun Loong making his last regular parade journey while welcoming the city’s newest dragon Dai Gum Loong. Local bands and floats filled with dance troupes, school kids and cultural groups added to the colour and action, while artisans showcased their skills at exhibitions.

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Daniel, Caleb and Jakob Eltringham

Debra, Terry, Sandy, Steve and Tess

GOOD VIBES, GOOD DESIGNS Enya Murray, Lisa Gladman and Meika Gladman

Kelsey Pearce, Melisa Cardinal, Tyler Pearce and Lyn Pearce

Leonie Stead, Cooper Gledhill and Kate Stead

Michelle, Jasper and Caleb Caldwell

Basketball was benched as The Creators Market took over the Bendigo Stadium in April to celebrate a curated selection of wares from some seriously talented artists, designers, crafters and culinary creators. It was good vibes all round as visitors spent the day supporting the small business creators.

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Music eases the stress and lightens the atmosphere in one of the most unlikeliest places, the Bendigo Hospital’s Cancer Centre. By Lauren Mitchell – Photography by AJ Taylor Where can you go to hear a black grand piano being played on a Bendigo Thursday morning? To hear Irish tunester Maggie Jackson seamlessly fuse Bach, jazz and blues while the world carries on beyond. We’re at the Cancer Centre in the Bendigo Hospital. Maggie is seated at the Yamaha with her back to the room and her hands dancing.

through music. Her O’Dowd Family Show Band toured and recorded for 35 years. She’s opened gigs for James Morrison and played impromptu with the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar. Later this year she’s going to New York to play a song she wrote and recorded for Australian artist Catherine Tait, at Catherine’s Upper West Side exhibition opening.

“I like to play facing the clouds,” she says. “I just try to send my heart gently into the room to wrap the people up in music. It’s one of the most sacred times.”

“Of all the beautiful places I’ve played, and I have done some beautiful things, I love playing here,” Maggie says. “There are lots of beautiful moments of shared spirit. That’s what music’s all about. I feel the nod of someone, or people come and they touch my shoulder. I feel the presence. Without getting too Irish, I think, please God, be gentle with them all.”

For the past nine months, Maggie has been coming here to play most weeks. She’s part of a loose roster of musicians to volunteer their time and talents at this piano. Maggie has spent her life uplifting others 44

Maggie says she touches the keys with such lightness here, it takes all her heart to help project the music. “I do huge gigs but this is the gig that really wears me out,” she says. “I walk out of the room when I’m finished and go (sigh).” The piano has been here for the past 18 months, thanks to a community fundraising campaign that saw $25,000 raised for its purchase. It all started with a question from oncologist Dr Rob Blum’s youngest son, then eight-year-old Spencer. He asked his dad, “Is your job fun?” “I said, it can be funny,” says Rob, “Fun’s not probably a word I’d use for what we do but actually there should be a bit more fun in it.” An obvious way to bring lightness and life into the centre for Rob was through music.

better and this has health benefits on many levels. It’s also good for the staff as well.” Dr Tom De Vries can vouch for that. He first played this piano after a stressful shift in obstetrics, having expressed his interest and made it onto the list of musicians encouraged to play. He’s now a regular at the keys, sometimes for oncology patients and sometimes for himself, after his shifts in the dark of the night. “It’s much easier to remove yourself from work after you’ve immersed yourself in the music, I think,” Tom says. “It’s a mindful practice. When you’re playing music you’re there in that moment and you can’t really be anywhere else. It makes it much easier to put things aside.” Piano has been a constant companion throughout Tom’s life, even while studying to become a doctor, during which he played concertos with the Monash Medical Orchestra. “It provides the best stress relief of any of my hobbies,” he says, adding working on the paediatrics ward comes with its fair share of big moments. “It can get pretty stressful, especially some of the “Music is something I’ve done my entire life,” he says. “My plans when I was 17 was to go to the Con (Sydney Conservatorium) and study music and then I changed my career choice, but music’s always been really important to me. “There are other music programs being run, and in particular the Royal Children’s has a very famous music program, so I thought, maybe we could have some musicians playing for our patients to make being here less anxiety-producing.” Rob says the piano is serving that purpose, and more. “It’s done a couple of things,” he says. “It does change the ambience of the place, so for patients that have to sit for their examinations, especially for the first time, it makes it seem less clinical, but we also recently had a gathering of staff around the piano on a Friday evening, so it’s also linked people as well. “We’re trying to connect to the community. The hospital’s where people come to get smaller babies. They can drop their bundle pretty fast.” “This is a beautiful instrument,” Tom adds. “This is really, really nice. I’ve played a lot of pianos before and it’s amazing to have something like this in a public hospital. It’s very impressive.” As such, Rob hopes to expand the music program beyond the Cancer Centre. He envisages music for mental health patients and the children’s ward, and carols at Christmas for the whole community. “There’s a real shift here to thinking about wellness,” he says. “We can focus on some of the other health benefits as well as fixing the health problems.” He says live music is a wonderful way to do that. Rob is looking for more volunteers to play the piano. For more information contact Bendigo Health. 45

Andrew and Bianca Myers

Ashdon and Lilly Beesley

Bernadette Maney and Fiona Borchardt

Simon, Elias, Sarah and Lora Djurdjevic

Hugo, Xabi, Heather and Remi Felix

Janette Ockenden, Will Redmond, Summer Redmond and Georgie Redmond

MARVELLOUS MALDON SHINES Handmade and home grown is the endearing theme of the Maldon Market, with plenty of gorgeous products and produce tempting visitors to the historic township each month. The April crowds werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t disappointed, with the fertile heart of Victoria offering up stalls laden with fruit and vegies, and locally made goods that included soaps, jewellery and clothing.

Alannah Sheridan and Tiana Arentz

Jill Kong, Sandy Platt and Sharyn Sutton

Bec Fisher and Alice Rowbottom

Lauren Varma, Penelope Maw, Birdie Maw, Poppy Maw, Kymberly Maw and James Maw

A CLASSIC MORNING It was no leisurely morning for some mums on Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day as they happily joined friends and family to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Lyn Fletcher, Julianne Baldock and Lauren Richardson

Nicolas, Sierra and Michelle Davies

Clad in pink they walked or ran the 4km or 8km course at Kennington Reservoir for the 11th Bendigo Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day Classic.

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youngguns A popular exhibition again calls for the city’s young artists to get creative for Write on the Fringe. A giant chicken, a girl called Matilda, a boy called Specky Magee, the Big Bad Wolf and more formed The Books We Love, an exhibition featuring the work of ten young artists shown at last year’s Write on the Fringe festival. The exhibition began when an invitation went out for children aged 12 and under to submit a drawing or painting of a book they love. Almost 50 entries were received from children as young as five years old, living across the City of Greater Bendigo. The books that inspired the artwork were varied, including classics like The BFG, The Hobbit and The Folk of the Faraway Tree, series like Mr Chicken, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rainbow Magic and Tom Gates, but the most popular was Roald Dahl’s Matilda, which inspired five entries. The entries were sent to a selection panel including members of the City of Greater Bendigo’s Arts and Culture team and Early Years team, the Bendigo Library and Dymocks, which supported the event with vouchers for the selected artists. 48

Once the works were selected, they were framed and installed in the Exhibit B gallery at Bendigo Bank Central. This space has been available to artists since mid-2017, and has hosted a range of professional, emerging and community artists and art groups, however these were by far the youngest artists to exhibit there. The launch event saw all ten artists and a great collection of family and friends come to celebrate the work. For nine-year-old Indiana Quenault the launch was especially memorable as she was able to invite her grandmother, who was visiting from Brisbane, and her great Aunty Trish. Indiana’s work “The City”, which was inspired by Mr Huff, is now framed and hanging at the entrance of her home. The Books We Love is returning to the 2019 Write on the Fringe, however this year (inspired by the recent Tudors to Windsors exhibition) the theme is The Royal Books We Love. Young artists inspired by kings and queens, princes and princesses, and the odd magic frog, are invited to take part. Go to the Write on the Fringe or Exhibit B Facebook page. Applications close June 28. 49

Bronte Turner, Maddi Grinter and Jenny Stone

Cate, Darren, Nicholas and Joshua Hetherington

Kasey Frost and Kala Toppinen

Kathryn Symons, Kayla Bergmann and Glenn Symons

Sam Cook and Mick Zealley

Simon Hanns, Brady Threlfall and Xavier Meade

MARATHON EFFORT It was the biggest and fastest Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keefe Challenge so far with a record 800 runners and riders competing for honours that saw them race between Bendigo and Heathcote. Four new records were set on a course that wove through bushland, open fields, farms and past Lake Eppalock. The eight races ranged from 500m through to the 42.195km marathon.

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At Weeroona College Bendigo we care about our students and help them to thrive. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve recently welcomed a new member to our staff to help connect our whole school community. We are proud to be partnered with the Dogs Connect program to assist us in working with Yindi to help bring our shared vision to life.

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Amy Rayner, Vanessa Campi and Claire Dunstone

Catherine Dorer, Clive Dorer, Max Dorer and Zoya Makarova

APPLAUSE FOR CREATIVES Ella Webb, Olivia Ryan and Riley Darmody

Maggie Pratt-White, Charlie Pratt-White, Daisy PrattWhite, Alex Spenceley and Kelly Pratt-White

Rachel, Brooke and Robyn McGregor

Sarah and Kingsley Morse-McNabb

The talents of regional young artists continue to be applauded through the Raw Arts Awards. From 117 entries, eight artists were recognised in four categories: visual arts, literature, digital media and performing arts. Some stunning works from the visual arts entries were later displayed at Dudley House.

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GROW YOUR CAREER AT BENDIGO HEALTH Rachel Drummond is a first year Psychiatry Registrar at Bendigo Health. It’s her third year at Bendigo Health and the programs offered have supported her to find her dream career. “My time at Bendigo Health has been fantastic, they care and try and make things work for you. If you’re interested in doing something they try and help facilitate this interest,” Rachel says. “As a resident I had such a great experience in psychiatry, which makes the fact that I can stay in Bendigo for my entire psychiatry training even better. “Bendigo is a great community and place to live, and nice and close to Melbourne for those weekend trips. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else and recommend Bendigo Health to everyone.”

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it's all noteworthy When you think of the music that’s been made over two decades from the Women of Note, it’s something to write home about. By Lauren Mitchell – Photography by Leon Schoots The Women of Note choir has come a long way since its first performance in the YMCA carpark 20 years ago. Member Murene Cassai remembers dragging her family along for the makeshift audience on the asphalt. “Since then we’ve developed quite a performance history,” she says. Murene is one of five founding Women of Note members to still be singing each week in the YMCA Hall in Mundy Street. In 1999, she responded to a newspaper ad calling on Bendigo women to form a choir. “The idea was to improve the health and confidence of women. I came along because I thought it would be nice to sing.” What’s kept Murene coming back is the joyous camaraderie that goes hand-in-hand with singing in a group, as opposed to solo

in the car! She says through the choir she’s made life-long friends and enjoyed trips to sing in America, New Zealand and South Africa. “And next year we’re going to Italy and Austria.” When fellow singer Val Lovejoy heard about these overseas adventures, she thought it would be just the choir for her. “That was one of the things that attracted me,” Val says. “I’d also heard Women of Note sing at The Capital and I’d wanted to join ever since. I used to sing with my sister when I was young — we used to sing harmonies together. I’ve just always loved singing and thought I’d join a choir one day. I just love coming along. You can be as tired and low as you like and you always go away on a high, just from the endorphins from singing.

“Singing together has lots of rewards and you really do feel absorbed into something greater than you. It’s just a wonderful group of women.” This year the honorary associate at La Trobe University is juggling a few history book projects with organising the choir’s 20th anniversary celebrations. Val has been a lecturer in the local education department for many years. She says she relishes being on the flip side of learning at choir. When Bendigo Magazine drops into choir practice, musical director Laura Dusseljee is teaching them to sing in Russian. Also on tonight’s bill is the classic When I Fall in Love, made famous by Doris Day in 1952. “I just love this song, but I also love the 53

challenge of singing in different languages,” Val says. As an ex-pat from South Africa, Laura has brought an international flavour to the choir in her ten years as director, plus an everrising level of performing excellence. Laura studied music at The University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, majoring in piano studies. In her graduate year as a teacher she was assigned to the choir because she could play the piano. Her passion for directing has become her life’s work. Laura currently teaches at Girton Grammar School, where she is head of junior school music and assistant head of music. She also leads the much-loved over-65s rock choir Forever Young. “It is said that there are two types of people in this world and people in a choir are better than both of them. I agree,” Laura says. “Being involved with the Women of Note has been a magical and joyous experience

for me. I never knew when I started ten years ago as the choir’s director that I would come to love our weekly sessions together. While the music making has been a particular joy, it is the friendships and the memories that we make together that are most significant. The Women of Note is a fine example of community music making at its best.” When Kat Meadows decided to join a choir this year, she asked her children’s school music teacher, Laura, if she knew of one. Women of Note’s weekly rehearsal was only two hours away, and so Kat came on a whim. “It was an opportunity that came with moving to a new town,” she says, having recently shifted from Ballarat. “What’s the point of moving somewhere new if you’re going to do the same old things? It’s lovely fun. It’s just brilliant. There are some really talented people here. Peter (on piano) is amazing, Laura is amazing. I feel like I get to watch a show every week and sometimes join in with the music.” The choir’s newest member is Natalie Rhook. This is her third rehearsal. Natalie is also a newcomer to Bendigo. She moved from Melbourne in January for a change of pace. “I’d been looking for a choir in Bendigo and this one seemed like fun,” she says. Natalie’s partner is a bluegrass musician, meaning sweet tunes are part and parcel of her life. “But me as a singer, without wine and without friends, this is the first time,” she laughs. Three weeks in, and she’s hooked. “The synapses in the brain go berserk. It’s the sort of thing that everyone should do. It’s got ‘wellness’ written all over it.” And so the choir’s original intent continues to deliver. Women of Note will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a “choral spectacular” called Come to the Music, featuring choirs from around Victoria, singing workshops and an evening performance at Ulumbarra Theatre on Saturday, August 24. For details go to www.wonbendigo.org

Celebrating 40 years in the community

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GEOFF HOCKING An exhibition | SOMEWHERE NEAR HERE Contemporary Victorian Landscapes A regular contributor to Bendigo Magazine Geoff has shared his ‘Bendigo Memories’ since the first issue was published just over ten years ago. Over all that time Geoff has continued to paint, publish and make public artworks. Geoff has been showing some recent works in the City by The Bay, at the prestigious Metropolis Gallery in Geelong. By the time this issue of Bendigo Magazine hits the shops his current exhibition ‘Contemporary Victorian Landscapes’ may be over but the works will still be able to be viewed on the Metropolis website at: http://www.metropolisgallery.com.au 64 RYRIE STREET GEELONG | T: 03 5221 6505 | 25 MAY — 16 JUNE 2019

Ange Rothacker, Barb Beattie and Tara Beattie

Jamie Gough, Latte and Griffin Millar

Kieren Henderson and Nicole Dellar

Maya Gerber, Ollie and Ava Gerber

Nick Mason, Sarah Fellows and Caleb Farrer

Sally Handley and Melissa Hawking

SUPPORT FOR CANINE CAUSE Any given Sunday, owners and dogs can be seen going for a walk; but this one in May was all for a special cause â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Million Paws Walk. And they stepped lively, with dozens of furry friends leading their owners on a brisk wander around Lake Weeroona. As the hounds mingled, so did the humans, together raising money for the RSPCA.

Brendan Mitchell, Kylie Mitchell and Alan Blackley

Dannalee Doyle, Kayti Tresize, Jahliya Doyle, Mick Doyle, Paige Dawson, Hayley Dawson and Julie Doyle

WALK GIVES HOPE Janene Reidy, Bella Rogers, Tahlar Veitch and Chase Stevenson

Kaylah, Jessica and Debbie Theobold

Jett, Sam, Ann Fallon, Larissa Gawthrop and Tom Fallon

Leigh Mellberg, Alannah McGregor, Jennie Mellberg, Jasper and Frank Reid

United in grief and hope, friends and families gathered to walk and ride through Bendigo CBD, remember loved ones lost to suicide and raise awareness of mental health issues. Since 2011, the Suicide Prevention Awareness Network walk has been helping start conversations about suicide, and this year incorporated Bendigo Ride4Life in spreading its message of hope.

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at home with art

An artist captures the quirk and character of Bendigo’s urban landscape in her quest to transform her life through creativity. By Lauren Mitchell - Photography by Leon Schoots Forget photographs; Jessica Fitzgerald can trace her travels via fineliner. When the local artist was backpacking in her early 20s, she began doodling in pen to pass the time on her slow journey through Spain and Latin America. “It was mostly patterns and mandalas to begin with – I was in a lot of hippy towns,” Jessica laughs. Those early intuitive artworks ignited an old love, and so Jessica returned home to Bendigo to take her first tentative steps to becoming an artist. Jessica was one of those kids who constantly drew, but her creativity took a back step during 58

VCE and her years spent studying speech pathology at university. She went on to work as a speechie at both Bendigo and Castlemaine Health, but once she rediscovered her passion for drawing, there was no turning back. Jessica began researching drawing tutorials online when she came across the Urban Sketchers community; a movement of people around the world who love to draw on location and then share their artwork online. The interest led her to attend an Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore, where she did workshops with Australian artists Jane Blundell and Liz Steel. “After that, I took a

solo trip to India and did a lot of sketching on location – capturing the urban landscape and stopping in cafés to draw people, teacups and other items that sparked my interest.” She enrolled in a visual arts course at a Melbourne TAFE and split her time between classes in the city and working as a barista at Get Naked Espresso in Bendigo – it was a job that would prove advantageous for her art career. Jessica’s first commission was from a customer who’d seen her whimsical works of houses posted online. That piece became the first of many much-loved Bendigo homes she’s committed to ink and watercolour.

She says she particularly loves painting the city’s Victorian and Edwardian homes. “Older houses often come up really nice because of the details and the beautiful gardens.” The piece Jessica is holding here is her latest local work. It’s also the home of keen coffee drinkers. The commission was an engagement present for a couple of coffee shop customers who’d recently bought their first home, a cute mid-century weatherboard in Kennington just crying out for Jessica’s creative touch. “I start by doing an ink drawing and then I fill it in with watercolour. At some point I let go of the technical side of things, and of perfectionism, and with curiosity I allow the house’s character to develop. And I love to add sneaky touches of turquoise.” In the Kennington home the blue-green tinge is in tiny paint splatters in the trees. “It’s minimal but it’s there,” Jessica says. “I’m definitely influenced by Liz Steel’s style. Initially, you choose your colour palette and inspiration, and your style will evolve from there. I do think my drawing and painting skills are getting better over time. It’s true that people are born with natural talent, but it’s something that can be built on through keen observation and practice.” Jessica says the significance of drawing people’s homes is something she holds dear. “For me, a home is a personal retreat, somewhere to treasure, form memories in and enjoy returning to every day,” she says. “To be able to capture the character of someone’s home and give them a personal and creative

reminder of it is an absolute joy. Particularly for those who are downsizing and leaving family homes after many years.” Jessica has also built a whole new career thanks to art. After the TAFE course, she went back to La Trobe University in Bundoora to study a Master of Art Therapy. “I thought I’d go on to study fine art, but I didn’t think the lifestyle would suit me, so I went into art therapy instead as a way to combine my passion for creative practice with my therapeutic background. It was hard going back to uni as a mature-age student, but it was worth it.” Jessica now combines her own practice with a job as an art therapist at a private Melbourne hospital, working with patients undergoing mental health care. “Art therapy offers a nonverbal means of exploring emotions and inner experiences,” she says. “We place equal, if not more, importance on the art process than the final product. Some individuals will discover key personal insights, while others are simply looking for a relaxed, creative escape.” Jessica says she’d love to see art therapy offered more widely, as so far it’s more prevalent in the private system. “It doesn’t have a large research base, which is why it’s not funded well, and the benefits are often difficult to quantify.” But for Jessica, those benefits are clear. Her own life is the perfect example of the transformative influence of art. She says drawing, and particularly drawing on

location, promotes mindfulness. “It gives you a greater appreciation of your surroundings, I think. It really gets you to notice a place and its character. The more you draw, the more you notice things in your everyday life. I carry a little book around with me so I can do quick sketches and portraits. It’s all practice for me. And to be away from your phone and lost in

something for an hour or so is really lovely. “Getting back in touch with my creative identity has opened up all sorts of possibilities for me. Having work that is meaningful to me is something I really value and I feel fortunate for having the opportunity to be able to follow and share my passion.” 61

GUIDING FUTURES It could have been billed as Bendigoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest Q&A session, as people of all ages sought career advice at Tomorrow Bound. The career and training expo, hosted at Bendigo TAFE, featured a range of education providers, employers and industry experts to guide and inspire attendees with learning and job opportunities.

Emma Primrose, Molly Humphries, Victoria Biggs and Abbey Cockerell

Harry Pitson and Adam Wild

Emily Heislers, Emma Purcell, Grace Flaherty and Jack Cripps

Michael Waterworth and Ben Robins

Natalie Embleton, Isobelle Botheras, Zac Runnalls, Sophie Hay and Alicia Jefferis

Tilly Opie, Mia Mudge and Prue Wilkinson

Alicia and Grant villiers

Rob Haub, Heidi and Damien Smith and Pettina Haub

Brady and Leanne Fitzpatrick

Jack sellers, Angus Payne and Lachlan Stirling

GROOVIN IN THE ‘GO Billie Eilish, Hermitude and Sofi Tukker were among the list of 31 artists leading the charge at this year’s Groovin’ The Moo.

Rebecca Turnbull, Jack Vincent and Molly Rule

Patty O’Brien, Caitlinnames Butler and Chris Guinane

Thousands of music lovers made Bendigo Showgrounds party central, with visitors from across the state joining locals for the all-ages music festival.

BSSC Alumni

Outstanding leaders in their field

Joel Selwood – Class of 2006: Captain of Geelong Football Club

Josh Wilson – Class of 1991: Commanding Officer HMAS Brisbane (III)

At Bendigo Senior Secondary College we’re incredibly proud to see our Alumni succeeding in their chosen fields all around the world. We also love that so many of our former students bring their skills and knowledge back to BSSC to help build the aspirations of our current students. If you’re a former student of Bendigo High or BSSC, there are so many ways you can still be involved in the life of the college; whether it’s taking part in college events, sharing your career and life experiences with students, or supporting them by sponsoring awards or scholarships.

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dying for a coffee What you are about to read is a work of fiction, and one of 11 wonderful short stories to feature in the anthology Goldfields; A Collection of Treasures by Local Authors, published by Accidental Publishing this August. By Colin King - Photograph by Kate Monotti - Illustration by Tania Ryan Several historic buildings could be dubbed the pride of View Street, but for Detective Sergeant Rory James, that honour always sat with the Wine Bank cafe. The grand former bank—one of six uphill of Charing Cross—served what Rory swore was the best coffee in Bendigo. Its Corinthian columns may have been fewer and a tad shorter than the Capital Theatre’s, but the Wine Bank’s beckoning aromas led him blinkered past rival splendours. He hunkered on under threatening cloud and fast-ebbing willpower. Plainly, website writers who insisted Sigrid Dobell’s “The Manse” B&B was within easy walking distance of the View Street cafes had never spent the night going toe-to-toe with Sigrid through a bottle of single malt. Avoiding a pain-steeped morning recovery expedition was as inconceivable as cars making a comeback in Hargreaves Mall. Moreover, he avoided graver impairment by not staying put and ingesting the brake fluid taste-alike that Sigrid passed off as coffee. Rory stood watching the Wine Bank owner place a “CLOSED” signboard at the entrance. Rain arrived on cue and song lyrics, near tailored for the moment, spilled from the café sound system. 64

Standing at Charing Cross in the rain … His misery was un-ignorable. The owner offered a what-can-you-do shrug. ‘Sorry mate. The cops have shut us down. We found dead bodies inside.’ Survival kicked in ahead of disbelief. ‘Is the coffee machine still on?’ Rory rasped. ‘Nah, and I couldn’t make you one if it was. There really are two dead bodies. This place will be crawling with cops.’ ‘Where are these cops then?’ ‘To tell the truth, that bit really pisses me off. Plumbers found the bodies—and a basement we never knew we had—while they were replacing a burst pipe. Nothing grizzly though … it’s like they’ve been there forever. Borderline archaeological I reckon. The cops ordered a special forensic team from Melbourne, strung up crime scene tape, then bolted. Dunno when they’ll show up.’ He repeated the what-can-you-do gesture. ‘Bastards. You can tell they’ve never been in business.’

‘Turn the coffee machine back on and give me a look.’ The owner’s bemusement hung. ‘I’m a homicide cop. Detective Sergeant Rory James … from Melbourne,’ he saw fit to add. He showed his ID. ‘Am I allowed to do that?’ he asked Rory. ‘You’re not allowed not to, including not turning the coffee machine on. Now, what’s your name?’ ‘Mark Coffey.’ Rory hesitated a beat, then decided not to expend pre-coffee words clarifying if that was a barista’s real surname. ‘Just show me the bodies,’ he said. They stared into the unwelcome abyss in the café floor. A massive sheet of slate flagstones, fixed together on the underside, had been lifted at one end and propped with a solid length of timber. Rory pointed to the unlit tradie light dangling at the end of a yellow extension cord — word free communication of the coffee-deprived. ‘I’ll turn it on,’ Mark twigged. He found the switch and began showing Rory. ‘There’s this bloke here, sort of crumpled below where they lifted the slate. His mate’s sitting against the back wall. And here’s the thing, there’s no way in or out. The other cops, sorry police, were totally baffled.’ The next track kicked in on the café speakers: No fortune to be made, Gold filled these shallow graves. ‘You want me to turn that off? Penny plays it when she’s cleaning up the kitchen.’ ‘Just make sure she’s got the coffee machine on.’ Rory somehow descended to his knees with the speed—if that’s not the wrong word—of a praying mantis on dope. He scanned the underside of the flagstones for a good while before taking in the scene below. The chalky brick-lined space was too small to be a usable room. It was also too low to stand in without stooping. The figures were skeletal but still draped in their clothes. One had indeed accepted his fate sitting against the back wall. The other body was a contorted heap below the opening. The floor, and some indiscernible debris, was black with damp from the leak. Higher up, the dust laden bodies and walls had morphed to a uniform light-grey. ‘The plumbers reckon rats got into them. This bloke has had fingers chewed off one hand.’ ‘Hmm. Did you have any idea this cavity existed?’ ‘Shit no. I spent a lot of time and money restoring the place myself and I can tell you it’s not on the old plans. And I don’t think the National Trust knew about it. They bought and owned the building for a long while after the ANZ branch closed in the nineteenseventies. It’s probably a basement remnant from the original chambers they knocked down to create this classic in the eighteenseventies.’ Money goes out quicker than it comes in … That’s our cash grab. Rory noticed the band had added horns and Hammond organ on this track, evoking the might of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. ‘Who’s the band …’ he asked Penny as she came past with a bag of rubbish, ‘…and have you got that coffee machine going?’ ‘It’s the Four Lions. Their “Vahland” album, I think. Fiercely-local musos if you hadn’t guessed … and yeah, the machines’ warming up.’ Rory gave an unsmiling thumb-up and turned back to Mark. ‘Anything else you can tell me about when the place was being built?’ ‘Not really. You won’t find much in the archives either because the builder shot through a day or two before the bank moved in. It must have been one of those jobs that sends a builder broke. These slate flagstones for instance were literally worth their weight in gold. The whole lot was brought from England as ships’ ballast. When it was offloaded in Port Melbourne, they restored the ship’s balance for the return journey with vaultfuls of Bendigo gold.’

Rory unfolded his body from its kneeling position even more slowly than he’d gone down. He continued studying the subterranean scene as he thought aloud. ‘I reckon Penny’s Four Lions nailed it. This was an attempted cash grab. These blokes went in there intending to emerge a couple of nights after the bank moved in and help themselves. And it has to be your missing builder. No one else would have access to the space, or know it even existed. Trouble was, one of them got his hand caught under the slate as they lowered it. It would have been too heavy for the other bloke to lift it off on his own … they died trapped in a soundproof tomb. The body of this poor bugger eventually fell away from his fingers. They’re still up here.’ He pointed. Mark bent under the propped sheet of slate. The white insides of four finger bones were adhered to its underside lip. They had split apart like pea shells when the slate was lifted. No doubt the other half of the finger bones remained fixed to the ledge where the slate had rested for nigh on a century and a half — somewhere under the plumber’s mud-caked boot prints. Mark straightened, clearly impressed. Rory spoke first. ‘Now, how about a double-shot long black?’ Disclaimer and acknowledgements: The historic crime portrayed in this story, and its perpetrators, are entirely fictitious. The Wine Bank was actually built by the muchrespected George Pallett who also built Bendigo’s town hall and railway station. Pallett Street in Golden Square is named after him. The Wine Bank architects, Alfred Smith and Arthur Johnson, also designed Melbourne’s Supreme Court and St Kilda’s famous music venue, the Esplanade “Espy” Hotel. Thank you to Bendigo’s fab Four Lions for permission to use their song lyrics. Thank you too to Wine Bank owner, Mark Coffey, for allowing himself to be portrayed fictionally. Colin’s story features in the book Goldfields: A Collection of Treasures by Local Authors, alongside work by Sally Abbott, Jess Anastasi, Carmel Bird, John Charalambous, Dianne Dempsey, Amy Doak, Pam Harvey, Colin King, Lauren Mitchell, Katrina Nannestad and Steve Proposch, with illustrations by Tania Ryan and a foreword by Rosemary Sorensen. Each author was asked to write a piece set in Central Victoria. The results include heartbreaking fiction, twisty mysteries and funny tales. The book, published by the Bendigo-based Accidental Publishing, will be launched on Monday, August 5 at the Bendigo Visitor Information Centre, just in time to go on sale during the Bendigo Writers Festival. You can also hear Colin talk about his journey to writing at the Eaglehawk Library at 11am on Saturday, July 27.

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flash of brilliance There’s a farm just past Eaglehawk helping children and teens shine, thanks to some very special animals and one remarkable woman. By Dale Webster – Photography by Leon Schoots Buried in a paddock a few kilometres north of Eaglehawk is a pony called Flash. By the time Kristy Kemp — the fifth child in a line-up of seven — was old enough to ride, he knew what kids were about and was a rock-solid mount for the little girl who was not much older than a toddler when she first climbed aboard. By age six, she and Flash were regulars helping at Riding for the Disabled with her dad, Charlie. “These little kids who couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t see, would hop up there on Flash and their whole life would light up – there was no more disability,” Kristy explains. “That was probably where I got my first taste of how important animals are.”

According to Kristy, Flash’s defining characteristic was that he would never give up. He lived to 28 and she can still remember the date of when her family had to make the hard decision to put him to sleep when his health began to fail. His final resting place is on the family farm where Kristy grew up and now operates an animal therapy business she has called Flash Farm. The name is not only symbolic of the contribution the pony made to the lives of disabled children, but is also a quiet nod to Kristy’s own story and fighting spirit in the face of nearinsurmountable odds. Kristy was 23, nine weeks’ pregnant and with two children under four, when she

was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia on Valentine’s Day 2004. She had presented at the emergency department 24 hours earlier with excruciating pain in her shoulder, thinking she had pulled a muscle. After a barrage of tests it was discovered her spleen was 10 times bigger than it should have been and that she had a form of leukaemia. “The doctor said, ‘we can’t tell you what type it is yet but you have blast cells in your blood and we are flying you to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre’,” Kristy recalls. “The next thing she said was, ‘where is your husband because you have a really difficult decision that you need to make’. 67

“The doctor explained that if I chose to continue with the pregnancy, I would die before it progressed much further, or I could terminate the pregnancy so I could have treatment. “That was a pretty hard choice to make. I had two little children – they were three and two at the time. For me it seemed like a selfish option to put an unborn baby ahead of two kids who needed a mum. I chose to have the chemotherapy.” Kristy went into remission quite quickly but was told that the chances of the cancer returning were extremely high without a bone marrow transplant. Fortunately a match was found in her younger brother, Shaun. On May 11, 2005, after just over a year of treatment – during which her husband left her – Kristy had the transplant that saved 68

her life. It was her son’s fifth birthday. The family celebrated with a cake in her room at Royal Melbourne Hospital before she was wheeled away to the operating theatre. “What are you going to do when you beat this thing?” It was a question Kristy hadn’t thought about until the social worker who had been at her side for much of her cancer journey asked one day during her recovery. “This was a woman who, while I was in the fight of my life, was helping me to raise my children from a hospital room. She arranged support for my parents to help tell my kids what was happening to me, bought birthday presents when I couldn’t, organised a phone with a screen in my room so I could read them bedtime stories … she was amazing. “I said, ‘I want to do what you do’.”

Even while completing her Bachelor of Social Work at La Trobe University, Kristy was talking about setting up an animal therapy farm. She wanted children to have a taste of her own experiences on the same land where she and her siblings grew up milking cows, riding horses and ferreting down the creek. But there was another reason gnawing away at her that was even closer to home – an angry little boy she just didn’t know how to be a mother to. “I had a son I couldn’t understand until, at nine, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome,” she said. “We were told we needed to work on his social skills so we bought him a puppy and it was lovely seeing the interaction between them. When he got older, he developed an interest in cattle through my father and brother. He saved up and bought his own calf and began showing it – this was a kid who didn’t want to talk to people.” Kristy finished her degree in 2013 but it

wasn’t until last year, after working for a number of welfare organisations, that she bit the bullet, quit her full-time job and started setting up Flash Farm. Her aim was to create a tranquil setting where young people could undertake educational activities to improve their social, emotional and cognitive abilities. Through her work and experiences with her own son, she knew there were children and teenagers in the Bendigo region who were struggling to fit into the traditional education system and that there was very little on offer in the way of help. In the 12 months she has been operating, 40 participants aged four to 19 have come through Flash Farm, with Kristy working with them individually or in groups capped at six, one day a week. The reasons they are there are varied – some have been referred by schools because of disruptive behaviour but there are private clients who have sought help because their children are so anxious they can’t even get them through

the school gate. Many are on the autism spectrum or have attention disorders. Kristy has carefully selected the animals for their temperaments as well as their stories, which she uses to help kids connect. Rescues particularly resonate with children in out-of-home care, she says. After the first term, painstakingly planned programs were “thrown out the window” in preference of a more organic process based on each child’s needs. “The kids are the experts,” she says. “I try to meet with every child that comes in here before they join one of the groups and I listen to what they want and where they are feeling they are not being heard. I listen to the parents as well – parents are pretty good – but the kids have got a better story. The parents can’t change the kids – the kids are the ones who are going to take this away.” With Flash Farm’s first birthday under her belt, Kristy has no regrets about the direction her life has taken. “It’s the best decision I ever made,” she says. “We had a girl out here last year whose family was getting calls from her school about her behaviour three times a day. After she’d been here for a term her grandmother came out to speak to me. “She said, ‘I don’t know what you do or how you do it but you have changed our world – we used to just sit waiting for the next call, wondering what it would be this time, but we’ve only had one call for the entire term’. “That resonated with me because I used to be that mum. “It’s amazing to see animals, dirt and all this stuff come together – it gives these kids a sense of innocence again and helps them to understand who they are.”

creative moves A local theatre company is getting noticed for its groundbreaking use of personal stories, and in turn connecting the community through its art. By Tamara Marwood – Photography by Leon Schoots

CreateAbility’s powerful productions are devised and performed by the company members. Their recent successful touring shows No Hands and DENDRON – The Forest In Us are contemporary productions that draw on the experiences and perceptions of ensemble members, who include people living with disability. “Our work draws in our audience emotionally,” says creative producer John Willis. “When people are invited to experience the world through a different lens they are often deeply moved and new connections between people emerge. “As a culture, quite often we think words convey all the meaning.But there are so many ways to convey meaning – we use our bodies, sound, movement and visual images.” The thriving arts precinct of View Street is the 72

home of the CreateAbility studio. Established in Bendigo in 2002, CreateAbility has been creating art that challenges and delights both performers and audience members. Performer Sarah Goninon.has been with CreateAbility for 15 years. “It’s tough leading up to performances,” she says. “A lot of work goes on before we go on stage.” Sarah plays a prisoner in the show DENDRON – The Forest In Us, which premiered at Ulumbarra Theatre in December. It’s inspired by the Box Ironbark forests surrounding Bendigo. “I am a prisoner bound by rope. At night, creatures come and untie me, but even when I am free I don’t know how to join in with everyone else who is free,” Sarah says.

The creative team includes experienced local artists Sam Thomas and Kate Stones, as well as musician and composer Eliza Hull. The creative team collaborates with ensemble members to draw out their contributions to the performance. “In DENDRON, Sarah’s idea was about a prisoner in the forest. We wanted to come up with ways to share the stories of historical images of our interaction with the land but also personal, internal feelings about connections to the environment,” John says. “The forest is a community and in all the things that happen, connections are happening — seen and unseen.” Theatre manager David Lloyd says CreatAbility is proving to be the next big thing for regional Victorian theatre. “I can’t help but be moved by the energy of this company,” he says.

Connecting to land and environment is important to Ben Dubbuc-Timson, a performer who has recently joined the artistic ensemble. In the lead-up to the creation of DENDRON he spent a lot of time with Indigenous elders in the forest. “We went out into the bush to see stuff and to learn,” Ben says. “I found out that in the Dja Dja Wurrung language the same word is used for bark on a tree as is for the skin on our body.” Ben uses movement and dance to express his ideas. “When we first come into the studio we move around and warm up. Then we take turns leading movement. Each of us decides, using movement, what the group is going to do.” “CreateAbility is all about people working together,” John says. The tagline for 73

CreateAbility – ‘expressing ourselves and connecting with others’ – is still relevant. “Once you start finding ways to express yourself, you discover connections with people and other ideas and this keeps on building connections,” John says. “The more ways you can express yourself, the more ways you can connect.” Lead investor of CreateAbility is Golden City Support Services. Its mission is to support people to live a good life in the community. Golden City Support Services CEO Ian McLean says: “We value the arts in our organisation. We see the impact of the arts experience in people’s lives. We know when people see themselves represented on stage or screen it changes everything about how an artist and how an audience member thinks about diversity and what is possible.” “Our audience is growing and they are excited by the kind of performance we do,” says John. CreateAbility has made connections in sharing their work beyond Bendigo, to surrounding regions and into Melbourne. There is a growing recognition that ‘culture’ is not just something exported from metropolitan centres. Follow CreateAbility at facebook.com/createability and Instagram @createability

Brianna & Patrick Take one couple, add a black Labrador, a host of help from family, a stunning central Victorian backdrop, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a wedding day to remember. Photography by Cassie Johnson - Koko Photography How’s this for a smooth proposal… “We were just hanging out having some afternoon drinks and playing darts in our backyard when one of Pat’s darts fell to the ground,” Brianna says. “He bent to pick it up but picked up an engagement ring instead.”

It was a beautiful setting, the staff were friendly and very accommodating and the wine was delicious. It didn’t have any special significance when we chose it, but it definitely does now and we’re looking forward to visiting in the years to come.”

Brianna and Patrick met when they both moved into St Mary’s College to study at Melbourne University. “We were friends for a while before we got together, but that was eight years ago and we haven’t looked back,” Brianna says.

Brianna’s chose a dress from Fifi and Edga in Bendigo, Patrick’s suit was from Formal Red and their rings from Blue Nile. Sisters Three did hair and makeup, The Baker Boys provided the music, celebrant Geoff Haw took care of proceedings and Cassie Johnson from Koko Photography caught the day on camera. Brianna’s cousin Abbey Conway at Mitchell Street Florist did the flowers, while her aunty, Anne Hives, designed and made the cake,

The couple tied the knot on April 6 this year at Sutton Grange Winery. “We fell in love with Sutton Grange when we went there one Sunday for some wine and cheese. 76

carrying on a family tradition. “She also did my parents’ wedding cake back in the day,” Brianna says. Another special touch included the couple’s black Labrador, Huxley, as one of the groomsmen. “His official title was ‘The Goodest Boy’. He held the rings for us,” Brianna says, although he almost didn’t make it as he was ill before the ceremony “Thankfully we have several vets in the family and he was able to make it to the ceremony, albeit a little off his usual self. Huxley’s illness was kept secret from me until I got to the end of the aisle and then it was pretty much the first thing Pat said to me.”

Brianna’s sister and Patrick’s brother choreographed a dance for their entrance into the reception to the song ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’. “It was hilarious,” Brianna says. Pat’s brother and groomsman Ben had to leave the reception early to catch a flight to Japan that night to continue his studies as part of a scholarship. “We set up a sparkler guard of honour for his exit.” Above all, Brianna and Patrick say the love that was in the air that night will stay with them forever. “There’s no one memory, just a feeling of utter contentment.” After a honeymoon in Port Douglas and the Daintree, the couple is now settling in to married life. “It still feels surreal when we hear the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, but in a wonderful way. It’s nice to be back at work and to come home to each other each night.”

W E DDI NGS PRIVATE FUNCTIONS CONFERE NCE S C ONCERTS & FE STI VAL S SPECI AL EVE NTS

To arrange an appointment to view our venue and discuss your wedding or function requirements please call Jenny on 5448 4209 or email j.rawiller@bendigo.countryracing.com.au |

building a future

How do you build a house? One brick at a time, thanks to the generosity of those in support of Bendigo’s wonderful Karen community. By Lisa Chesters - Photograph by AJ Taylor Bendigo has a wonderful history of digging deep and helping those who are most in need. Our local Karen community is running a campaign called Buy a Brick, and I’m a big fan. They’re asking residents and businesses to donate funds to help build a three-bedroom temporary home for refugee families who are resettling in Bendigo. Refugees would stay there for an initial period to enable them to settle in and start to learn about Australian culture, before moving out into private rental. These people are navigating paths to employment, healthcare, access to food, and most importantly housing, which can be a struggle, particularly when you know little English. This refugee home would give them a safe and homely space when they first arrive, offering them connections with other Karen people and organisations like Bendigo Community Health Services. The first seven Karen Burmese refugees arrived in Bendigo in May 2007. Since then,

many more have come directly from refugee camps in Thailand or relocated from other places in Australia to live in Bendigo. Forced to leave their country of birth because of violence and war, the Karen of Bendigo are proud to call this city their home.

Over the years, the Karen community has built great relationships with local real estate agents, having bought around 185 properties since 2011. They also have great support from local heath providers, preschools and primary schools.

Many refugees choose to come to Bendigo because they have heard from others that this is a welcoming community with lots of opportunities. Many also like Bendigo because they originate from smaller towns and are used to life in a smaller, regional city surrounded by farmland. Bendigo is more relatable for them than life in a big city like Melbourne or Sydney.

Bendigo has a rich multicultural history that dates back to the gold rush of the 1850s. Many people have moved to Greater Bendigo and enrich the region by sharing their culture. Just look at the love the whole of Bendigo has for our Chinese dragons and Chinese community.

Over the past decade, the Karen community has grown to more than 2500 people and it is expanding. Older Karen refugees who have problems learning English have been able to get work on farms, giving their lives dignity and meaning as well as income. Many others have secured work at places like Hazeldene’s, Moira Mac’s and Don KR. Their economic contribution to the local economy has been recognised at the national level.

The wider Bendigo community benefit from interaction with the Karen community and you can learn more about their culture at the Karen New Year celebrations and Thingyan (Water Festival). The Buy a Brick campaign means residents can contribute as little as $50 (one brick) towards the refugee home in Eaglehawk. If you cannot ‘Buy a Brick’ but would like to help out in other ways, the community is also looking for English teachers for as little as one hour a week. Visit www.kcssf.org.au for more information. 79

MUSIC, WINE OF NOTE

Ann Nicholson and Dietmar Konstanty

Asa Hasselgard, Ian McRae, Gunilla Berglie and Lars Berglie

Erika, Hugh and Margaret Lambert

Mark Hunter and Tony Hunter

Matthew Toulim, Nick Reynolds, Mary Reynolds, Peter Yuill, Margaret Yuill and Peter Sullivan

Steve Wright, Sara Macliver, Natsuko Yoshimoto and Jonathan Kelly

It was a weekend of classical notes as the Sanguine Estate Music Festival brought wine and music lovers to Heathcote in early May. This year, the oboe took centre stage as the instrument featuring prominently across a weekend of concerts, wine and fine food at the family-owned winery.

Jasmin, Rhonda and Isabella Byrne

Jenny Grant, Janet Tucker and Annie Mulyoto

LIGHT ON HARMONY Jessie Harrison, Amina Banda, Sarah Harrison and Elaine Harrison

Sequoia Ireland, Meridian Ireland-Smith and Shantae Tonkin

Lauren, Pippa and Wade Barker

Wayne, Sarah, Chelsea and Danielle Tobin

With cultural performances, light sculptures and fireworks, ILLUMIN8 is a welcoming two-day celebration of peace and harmony. It brings together people of all faiths at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, where they can relax and watch roving performers, wander the Peace Park, browse market stalls and share in vegetarian and vegan fare. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment and passing of Buddha.

Cellar Door Open Daily 11am-5pm Taste and Purchase Current and OlderVintages | Boutique Accommodation Now Available 156 Forest Drive Marong,Victoria Australia | Phone: (03) 5435 2534 | Fax: (03) 5435 2548 | wine@sandhurstridge.com.au

fizzy pop Got something to celebrate? Pop a bottle of Toolleen bornand-brewed Berliner Rosa, among other beers... By Justin McPhail - Photography by Leon Schoots BALTER – CAPTAIN SENSIBLE

MOYLANS – OLD BLARNEY BARLEYWINE

SIERRA NEVADA – TORPEDO

CORNELLA – BERLINER ROSA

Who makes it? Award-winning brewer Scott Hargrave is at the helm, and is making some damn fine booze. One of the owners is the guy that punched a shark, Mick Fanning. Along with legendary surfers Joel Parkinson, Josh Kerr and Bede Durbidge.

Who makes it? Moylans, based in North California. Known for its heavy-hitting beers and hop-heavy IPAs.

Who makes it? Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California. Godfathers of the American brewing scene.

Who makes it? Just out of Heathcote, there’s a town called Toolleen. Just out of Toolleen, there’s a brewery called Cornella Real that is operated on the site of the Shiraz Republic.

What is it? As the name suggests, it’s a sensible beer at 3.5 per cent ABV, or one standard drink per can. Perfect for a couple if you’re driving, or if you just want to be Captain Sensible. Try with: Lunch.

What is it? A Barleywine – a rich ale at 10 per cent ABV that can be described as the brandy of the beer world – a definite ‘sipper’. Think of stewed fruits, candied orange, and dark chocolate. Try with: Stilton & walnuts!

What is it? A beer that forced a brewery to invent a new machine just to add more hop aroma without adding bitterness. What started as a sketch on a napkin in a pub turned into a new way to dry hop a beer! Expect big citrus, pine and herbal aromas when you open the can. Try with: Nashville hot chicken.

What is it? A shiraz sour! A Berliner-weisse (lightly soured ale) aged in Shiraz Republic barrels. The lightly refreshing beer style melds with oak and rich berries to produce a spritzy, refreshing beer/wine hybrid. Try with: A toast! Berlinerweisse was known as the ‘Champagne of the North’, so pop a bottle of this to celebrate, and enjoy with cheese and cured meats.

Bonnie, Megan, Belle and Eden Howes

David Chalmers, Bruce McClure, Rod Hosking and Ian De Bruyn

Tha Zin Oo, Asher Geddes and Daniel Bullen

Eva Chalmer, Julie Drechsler and Helen Byrne

Maxine Campbell and Adeline Uhe

Daniel, Ava and Nicole Scott

BENDIGO REMEMBERS Families, friends and strangers gathered at numerous commemorative ANZAC Day services across the city on April 25. Following the morning march in Bendigo, a moving service commemorating the sacrifices of those who died in war was held at the forecourt of the Soldiers Memorial Institute.

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Jayde McConville and Delaynie Caldwell

Ned Harris, Meg Taylor and Harley Harris

Mikayla, Janine, Andrew and Isabella White

Nena Madigan, Blake Killen and Chrissy Madigan

ONE DOOR OPENS â&#x20AC;Ś It was an exhibition open to interpretation and thousands of people stepped through 1000 Doors to see what all the fuss was about.

Paul McPherson and Jemille McKenzie

Barbara Westhead and Nieve Paterson

The art installation, created by the team behind the wildly popular House of Mirrors, popped up in Rosalind Park for three weeks in April.

cheeky does it How about a serving or six of red wine beef cheeks with cauliflower puree and gremolata to warm up with this winter? By Beau Cook - Photography by Leon Schoots

BEEF CHEEKS:

Method:

Serves 6

1. Preheat oven to 120°C, prep all ingredients for beef cheeks.

Ingredients: • 1kg trimmed beef cheeks (approx. 4 cheeks), cut into halves • 1 tsp. sea salt flakes • 1 tsp. cracked black pepper • ½ tsp. chilli flakes • 1 tbl. plain flour • 2 tbl. olive oil • 2 medium carrots, finely diced • 1 large brown onion, finely diced • 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped • 3 bay leaves • 400g tin of crushed or chopped tomatoes • 500ml red wine (shiraz is good) • 400ml low-salt beef stock • 1 tbl. brown sugar

CAULIFLOWER PUREE Ingredients: • 1kg cauliflower, roughly chopped • 200ml pure cream • 800ml chicken stock • 25g unsalted butter • Sea salt flakes

GREMOLATA Ingredients: • 1 cup of fresh parsley, finely chopped • Zest of 1 lemon

2. In a large bowl combine beef with salt, pepper, chilli and flour. Toss until beef is coated all over. 3. Heat a heavy-based, oven-proof pot to a high heat, add olive oil then fry beef cheeks for 2min on each side or until browned nicely. Set aside. 4. Reduce to a low/medium heat, add carrot, onion, garlic and bay leaves and sauté for 5min or until vegetables have softened. 5. Now add tomatoes, red wine, stock and brown sugar. Bring to a simmer and stir to dissolve sugar. 6. Stir through beef, cover with lid then place in oven and roast for 4 hours until the cheeks are super soft and the sauce has thickened. Stir the pot once every hour, add more water if required. 7. Meanwhile (with one hour to go): Place the cauliflower, cream and stock in a large saucepan over a high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes or until tender. Drain the cauliflower. 8. Place the cauliflower into a food processor with butter and a generous pinch of sea salt, process until smooth. Return puree to the pot and keep warm over a very low heat until ready to serve. 9. Mix chopped parsley with lemon zest in a small bowl and set aside. 10. To serve, place some cauliflower puree on a plate followed by the slow roasted beef cheeks. Garnish with gremolata *This could also be served with mashed potato or pasta as an alternative to cauliflower puree.

from grapes to glass Trace the trail of the grape from the vine and experience its timely journey in a well-stocked barrel. Photography by Leon Schoots Just as foodies celebrate the paddock-to-plate experience, wine lovers can follow production of their favourite drop with a tour behind the cellar door. For two glorious days in July, the vintners at seven of Bendigo’s finest wineries will host a Barrel Tasting Weekend during which they’ll unveil the mystery of making a fine drop of local wine. They’ll share their vineyard’s story and offer wine sampling straight from the barrel so guests can taste differences between the stages of maturation and the bottled product.

Wineries offering the behind-the-scenes tour and unique insight are Mandurang Valley Wine, Sandhurst Ridge, Connor Park Winery, BlackJack Wines, Sutton Grange Winery, Balgownie Estate and Killiecrankie Wines. The Barrel Tasting Weekend is on July 6 and 7, with tours at 11am, 1pm and 3pm. Choose one, two or better yet, make a day of it and visit a few. The sessions are free, but bookings are essential. Visit bendigowine.org.au to register.

ELLIS WINES 2016 HEATHCOTE SHIRAZ

MANDURANG VALLEY G.S.M. 2018

SANDHURST RIDGE 2012 RESERVE SHIRAZ

Who Makes it? Ellis Wines is a family-owned business growing more than 123.5 acres of vines in the red soil of Colbinabbin. Their offering includes Shiraz, Merlot, Viognier, Moscato and Cabernet.

Who Makes it? Wes and Pamela Vine, who have become leading winemakers since they first planted vines on their thenhobby farm in 1976. Vintage has increased each year since 1996.

Who Makes it? The Greblos, using grapes grown on vines on the western side of a line of hills on the fringe of Bendigo. The outcome is richlyflavoured fruit with very fine tannins.

What is it? A rich, fruit-driven wine with a heady aroma of dark cherry, blackcurrant and vanilla with a hint of mocha. It’s been matured in a mix of new and seasoned French and American oak barriques for 12 months.

What is it? Bright ruby red in colour, showing spicy fruit on the nose yet a soft, subtle palate. The overtones of raspberries and black cherries give added complexity from 12 months in French and American oak.

What is it? Made with grapes sourced from the winery’s oldest and lowest-yielding vines, the shiraz delivers a savoury, yet restrained edge of chocolate and plummy undertones with a light hint of pepper.

Try with: Enjoy now with a hearty beef dish or cellar for up to five years.

Try with: If ageing it for five to eight years is not for you, then enjoy while grazing a tasting platter.

Try with: You could reward yourself with cellaring for up to 10 years but enjoy the now with a glass or two.

Morgan and Tom From teenagers to married couple, two locals stay the course and set the scene for a wonderful life as husband and wife, having celebrated their wedding in true Bendigo style. Photography by Ildiko Gagyor - Ildiko Photography Childhood sweethearts Morgan and Tom knew they wanted a traditional wedding, but with a laid-back, relaxed format to suit their characters. Choosing Waratah Weddings in Huntly gave them just that, with a classic Bendigo bush setting to match their earthy colour scheme. “It was a beautiful sunny day with the temperature in the mid-20s, so our overseas guests basked in the sunlight while our Aussie guests enjoyed the dappled shade,” Morgan says of November 10 last year. “It was the perfect setting.” Morgan and Tom grew up as platonic family friends, but once they hit the ages of 16 and 18, all of that changed. “Our first romantic 90

liaison was a surreptitious kiss on a garden bench followed by an announcement of undying love to our family and friends, who were gathered indoors enjoying a Friday night get-together,” Morgan says. “It was 2010 and we were just teenagers.” They knew it was a bond to last the ages and so Tom got down on one knee and proposed in the couple’s kitchen before they headed out for a romantic dinner. “Tom was then freed of his burden and we enjoyed an evening of celebration,” Morgan says. There was much to celebrate on the wedding day and the couple did so in style, thanks to local businesses. Morgan’s dress was from Fifi and Edga Bridal, Tom’s suit was from

Peter Anthony Menswear and their rings were from Stearns Showcase Jewellers. Ildiko Photography captured the day, Style by Ashleigh K ensured the flowers and styling was spot on, Tom’s Aunty Jill made the cake, The Boardwalk Bendigo kept everyone well fed, while the band, Snake and Rooster, got them grooving. Morgan says the dance she had with her dad was particularly memorable; think air guitar to Silverchair’s Straight Lines. “Daniel Johns would be proud,” Morgan laughs. Other memorable moments for Morgan and Tom include seeing each other at the altar, partying with nearest and dearest and their

first dance as husband and wife. “Life now is wonderful as husband and wife and I am so grateful that we get to experience this together,” Morgan says. “Even when we were childhood sweethearts, we always knew that we would be together for a long time. But for us to have now made the commitment of marriage is the most wonderful feeling in the world. We don’t know what life has in store for us, but we do know that we will both wake up each day choosing each other and exploring life together.” And their advice to other couples planning a wedding? “Relax. Be true to yourselves. It’s your day, plan it your way.”

Betty Morris, Gail Fowler and Vikki Townsend

Dr DeNardo, Helen Wansink, Rosemary Stipanov, Julie Walsh and Lorraine McKerrow

Eleanor Haring and Gabrielle Richards

James Gallagher and Marina Damijanic

John and Sue Williams

Louise Dobinson and David Sheehan

SHOWCASE OF DYNASTIES Many turned out in March to be the first to explore the who’s who of the British monarchy at the Tudors to Windsors exhibition. The intriguing mix of royal portraits, fashion and armour spans more than 500 years of history and continues at the Bendigo Art Gallery until July 14. Family secrets anyone?

WINE. FOOD. FUNCTIONS, WEDDINGS & CONFERENCES Visit our Cellar Door and Gallery. You can relax and enjoy wine tasting in air conditioned comfort or relax outdoors in the gardens.

“AN EXCELLENT WINERY, PRODUCING WINES OF HIGH TO VERY HIGH QUALITY” JAMES HALLIDAY Open at weekends, at other times by appointment - (03) 5439 5367 - 77 Faderson’s Lane, Mandurang - (9km South - East of Bendigo, Off Tannery Lane)

Sydney on our doorstep With QANTAS LINK direct flights now available from Bendigo to Sydney, central Victorians can experience a long weekend in one of the world’s great cities. Bendigo locals, Peter McGregor and Vicki Vincent, give us the run down on their latest weekend getaway. Normally a 7.40am flight to Sydney would entail a 4.45am wake up call, but with our travel time just eight minutes to the Bendigo airport, we started our short break rested and ready to go. At the terminal we enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee from Carlo Barrie, and with luggage quickly checked in, we boarded our QANTAS LINK Dash 300. With the sun rising over the Wellsford forest we were soon in the air and enjoying a bird’s eye view of Bendigo as we headed towards

Sydney. Our flight was smooth and on schedule, arriving in less time than it would take us to drive to Melbourne. Leaving by train from Sydney airport, we were soon heading into Sydney’s CBD, passing the iconic harbour bridge and the cruise ship Carnivale Spirit. A short walk from the train station we entered the magnificent Queen Victoria Building and made our way to the Swiss-inspired Swissotel. The five-star art-deco inspired hotel is next to the Sydney Tower in the heart of the shopping

precinct and was originally built for the Sydney Olympics. While there we enjoyed dining at the famous JPB restaurant and their ‘Rocketman’ cocktails, a tribute to the Elton John film playing at the adjacent Regent Theatre. Friday night we headed to the Sydney Cricket Ground to watch Sydney v Collingwood, in a thrilling match the Magpies surged late in the last quarter to win by seven points. Saturday, our sporting theme continued, and time to get into our finest attire and head to Royal

Randwick races, to dine in the Grandview restaurant overlooking the finishing straight, the scene of Winx’s many wins. On Sunday, with echoes of Aussie Crawl’s ‘reckless’, we caught the Manly ferry from Circular Quay arriving at Manly Wharf harbour. In perfect weather our 40-minute ferry trip included a sailing regatta and spectacular water views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. By sheer luck the Manly Food and Wine festival was underway, and we were treated to an afternoon of live music, craft markets, regional wines and freshly-shucked oysters. On our evening ferry return we experienced the start of Sydney’s Vivid Festival, a spectacular light and music festival using the Opera House and Harbour bridge as projection backdrops. Circular Quay and the botanic gardens came alive with light shows and interactive creative displays. Finally, no trip to Sydney would be complete without a morning’s walk along Darling Harbour and into Chinatown to sample the famous Emperor’s cream puffs, made fresh in the Emperors Garden restaurant and served through a small window to the waiting public. Our Monday evening return flight was on the Pixie Rourke, a QANTAS LINK Dash 200, that left on time at near-seating capacity. It was an unusual but welcoming feeling being greeted by the lights of Bendigo rather than Melbourne Airport, and knowing we were only minutes from home made the feeling even better! With Sydney on our door step, Central Victorians now have a stepping stone to an iconic harbour, Royal Randwick, the QVB, international festivals, the SCG, cruise departures, and even a touch of Switzerland. 94

Ashlei Droney and Zac Allen

Les, Sharon, Jasmine, Jack Kulesza and Maureen Butler

Badraa Al-Darkazly, Zain and Moustafa Al-Rawi

Linda Fothergill, Ruby and Shelley McCarron

ROYAL FEVER BREWS Bendigo is in the grip of royal fever and plenty of people have been keen to hop on board and toast the British monarchy – with a brew, of course!

Maeve and Bernard O’Shaughnessy

eplus@eplusarchitecture.com.au

Theodore, Erin and Mackenzie Pethybridge

www.eplusarchitecture.com.au

The ideal spot is proving to be the Union Jack-clad Royal Pop-up Tram Café, parked opposite Alexandra Fountain. All aboard!

the green house Take a leaf through a local plant-lover’s abode, where the air is cleaner, the art is greener and the vibe is unashamedly retro. By Marina Williams – Photography by Leon Schoots On entering the home of graphic designer Stephnie Croft you immediately know she loves her plants – lots of them. At last count, 80 of varying size and species adorn the main living areas of her home that overlooks Bendigo’s tree-drenched skyline. Living with the ‘green stuff’, Stephnie says, helps keep her happy and healthy. “I can tell that the air quality is definitely better when you have inside plants – they make you feel so much better and more energised. Sitting among them helps you feel refreshed and alive.” 96

They include a large Monsteria Deliciosa, hoya, devil’s ivy, assorted rubber plants and figs, a String-of-pearls and a giant bird of paradise, which is “a good choice for low care”. Plus, numerous potted cacti styled to make an eye-catching wall feature. “Who needs art when there’s hoya,” she laughs, pointing to a plant making a striking impression against a white wall. “Everything is a piece of art here – rather than a lot of knick-knacks in rooms, I like to have plants. And as with art, I can arrange and play with the composition and scale.”

“I find it meditative, and I might spend an hour a week tending to them. I finish work, pour a glass of wine and then see what they need – each is individual. Obviously, cacti like to dry out, but the big, green lush plants need to stay moist and need a little more attention. My husband thinks I am a little bit crazy, but can see they are a good for my mental health and he loves how the home looks. Growing pants is a confidence thing, but you won’t know how you go unless you give it a try.”

It’s the monsteria that’s clearly making an impression on its owner and home since “moving in as a leaf, plucked from a garden” last year. “He is a monster. He is my favourite feature plant and happily sits in his oversized pot in the corner to deliver the ‘wow’ factor in my garden room.” The co-owner of design studio Griffin Grace began collecting plants when living in Sydney in her early 20s. She credits her mum and nan for her green thumb, and has fond memories of the family home in Wagga Wagga being filled with greenery. “There was always plants in the home, and we had the quintessential fernery that was popular of the time; but Mum thinks she has created a monster with me,” she laughs. “Although my sister is a little bit mad for plants, too.” The architecture of the home she shares with husband Jayde and son Sam, five, provides an ideal canvas to showcase her passion. “Indoor plants were such a trend in the 1970s and ‘80s, so this home really suits the genre and plays to that with its large windows and slate floors that help create a sort-of hot house environment but with dry air. We get the afternoon sun in summer but the sheer curtains filter and soften the light so they don’t get overwhelmed with direct heat.” A few carefully placed macramé hanging baskets, woven from natural materials, give a nod to the retro indoor plant vibe. To protect carpets and furnishings, each pot is lined; and plants are regularly rotated around rooms to catch the best light. “I don’t know the scientific names of plants; I just know that I enjoy helping and watching them grow and flourish,” Stephnie says. To ensure each thrives, watering is alternated with feeding. “A plant in a pot eventually runs out of nutrients, so unless you keep putting nutrients back in to the soil the plant is not going to grow.” If pests invade, the plant is taken outside for a spray of white oil. Caring for so many is not a chore, she says, just the opposite.

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a home truly grown On the road to Castlemaine sits the house that hemp built – a showcase for the sustainable eco-home of the future. By Sarah Harris – Photography by Leon Schoots When the first walls of Dom Crinson and Brenna Jensen’s home went up, it stopped traffic on the Midland Highway.

2012, out of hempcrete. It is 42 percent more energy efficient and produces 40 percent fewer carbon emissions than an equivalent store.

“People would pull over and get out of their cars for a chat if they saw us working there,” Dom recalls. They were keen to know about the building material which was so clearly not your average bricks and mortar. Is it rammed earth, limestone, sandstone? they’d ask. The answer always surprised.

While Dom and Brenna’s home is the equivalent to a box in the M & S shoe department in scale, it is big on environmental savings with its solar passive design.

“It’s hempcrete and no, it won’t go up in smoke,” explains Dom, who’s by now completely immune to corny Cheech and Chong references from over 50s.

Mixing hemp’s woody core, known as hurds or shiv, with lime and water produces a natural, light concrete-like material which was then formed on site.

There are only a handful of hemp houses in Victoria and fewer than 50 Australia-wide, Dom believes.

“You form the hempcrete inside the timber frame, tampering it into place in layers. I added oxide to give it different colours,” explains Dom who, having done a course in hempcrete construction, laboured alongside the team from House Workshop.

But, one of the oldest, most sustainable materials on the planet is set for a comeback after decades of being lost behind a marijuana-fuelled smokescreen.

“The hemp is excellent insulation and it has this property called thermal inertia so it is like a thermal mass and is good in winter and summer.

With the impact of climate change being felt across large swathes of the country, hemp has been identified as a new and emerging plant industry by AgriFutures Australia.

“Even on those 40-degree days it was amazing how cool the house stayed,’’ Brenna adds. “When it gets hot we close all the windows to keep the cool in and then, in the evenings, you just open up the high window-low window ventilation which circulates the air.”

In 1998 Victoria became the first Australian state to allow industrial hemp production under regulation. However, it was not until two years ago, when the Council of Australian Governments approved the sale of low-THC seed (tetrahydrocannabinol being the psychoactive ingredient of cannabis sativa), that the door to the full range of hemp by-products sprang open. The benefits to growers, consumers and the environment are myriad. Hemp grows from seed to harvest more vigorously than corn, requires less water, no chemicals or pesticides and can be produced across a range of latitudes. As the strongest natural fibre in the world it can be used in building materials, to replace moulded plastic or fibreglass as well as to make clothes and paper.

The couple, who met when Brenna, a textile artist originally from Brisbane, was doing the young-Australian-abroad-thing in London, shared a strong belief their home should be eco-friendly long before they discovered the perfect block overlooking the Forest Creek diggings. “We came to do a walk through the pine forest when we found this,” Brenna, who runs her own online organic children’s clothing business Woollykins, recalls. “We had been looking at properties in the bush, but they felt quite isolated and dangerous with the kids. This had that bush feel with the advantage of being close to town.

The seeds and oil are highly nutritious and can be used in beauty and health products as well as food.

“We would have like to be totally off the grid with a self-composting toilet and everything, but because we are on a town block we have had to be connected,’ Brenna says. ‘Still there is quite a lot you can do off grid, without technically being so.”

Dom, a ceramicist and tile designer, originally became interested in hemp in the UK from where he hails. “It has been used in England for a long time,” he says. Mainstream retailer Marks & Spencer, for example, built its flagship new UK store that opened in Cheshire in

Features include a heat pump that extracts heat from the air to provide hot water while a flying fox which running down to the bottom of the property will help burn off the energy of the couple’s three sons – Merlin,10, Emrys,6, and toddler Lailoken.

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There’s a grey water system that will eventually run through a reed bed into swales to irrigate the vegetable gardens and orchard. Inside the home is as beautiful and interesting as you might expect from two artists who have used recycled materials and found objects wherever possible. One wall is studded with polished pieces of granite found by their sons, remnants of the old hotel that used to occupy the site in gold rush days. The bathroom finished in tadelakt – a traditional Moroccan lime-based render polished with olive oil soap – features a stunning blue and white 19th century pottery toilet bought at a car boot sale in London for £20 ($36). In the main living area a beautiful cache of wall-mounted antique cotton threads on wooden spindles flips to reveal a screen for family movie nights. The parquetry flooring they laid themselves using offcuts and surplus picked up from Gumtree, while the external cladding is actually made out of an old squash court floor. The striking weathered steel (corten) carport-cum-mudroom cleverly ties all the earthy tones of the house and surrounding landscape together. They have been in the property barely six months, but it has none of the rawness of a new build. “We wanted to be able to appreciate the textures and let natural materials speak for themselves,’ Brenna says. And speak of what can be achieved with an environmentally conscious build, they do, most eloquently. 105

children on the oddest of jobs

When I was a young chap there was a bloke who lived over the road who seemed to be very good at gaining employment for some bottom-of-the-barrel opportunities. Words and illustrations by Geoff Hocking I don’t know how he got on to them. Maybe they were notices in the Bendigo Advertiser, or pinned up on a noticeboard at the Commonwealth Employment Centre (I think that is called Centrelink now), but whatever, he did seem to arrange quite a bit of casual employment. Trouble is, well for him that is, he usually had only a limited amount of time in which to complete any given task, and therefore, needed assistance. This is where we 106

came in. Now, we already had experience in casual labour on the weekends. From an early age, my brother and I had accompanied our father on Saturday afternoon floor-covering installations right around the central Victorian goldfields region, laying the Axminster in some of the grandest farmhouse loungerooms from Bears Lagoon to Birchip, Wedderburn to Welshmans Reef. But this was familycentred teamwork from which we all benefitted, with Dad taking the lion’s share

home while we got a 10-bob note to stuff into our piggy banks. But working outside the family was an entirely different gig. Financial reward was the motivator, with some of the old ‘all blokes together’ camaraderie included — all in all, each employment opportunity was an opportunity for an unusual afternoon’s experience. The bloke got the job to clean paint drips from the upper clerestory windows on the

new Girls’ Secondary School that was about to be opened in Flora Hill. (This school building is no longer there. It was knocked down a few years ago to make way for the current Bendigo South East College). So, we climbed up our long ladder onto the flat roofs, with our buckets of warm water laced with methylated spirits and our scraping tools and spent the afternoon in the sun, on our knees, scratching away at the windows. Then he got the job to waterproof the roof of the newly constructed, architect-designed Beaurepaires Tyre Centre in Hargreaves Street. (This is the home of The Good Loaf now). Even today this mushroom-inspired building still looks ultra-modern, but when built it was a bold imposition on the classic Victorian landscape of the city of Bendigo. So, we stood on a very long and quite unstable extension ladder up against the outer circle and climbed up onto the roof. I do recall actually stepping from the ladder over the rim and dropping down into the well of the roof. It is like a huge donut up there. We splashed bituminous paint all over the place all one Saturday afternoon — job done. We also once travelled to Elmore with this chap to engage in some freelance tomato picking, which ended badly. After a brief disagreement over the quality of our work, no one got paid. So we stamped on all the tomatoes we had picked on our way back to

the car, just to make sure that the grower didn’t gather them up after we had driven off and send them to the sauce factory anyway. We made them into sauce first. So back to family business. When a Dickens supermarket was opened, next to Myer in Pall Mall, more than half a century ago, the management was in a desperate hurry to open before Christmas. A concrete floor had been laid and vinyl tiles chosen to cover the wide expanse of this building before the fittings were installed. My father and I have told you this many times before, he was employed at the Myer store all his working life) advised them to wait a bit longer to allow the concrete to sweat out any moisture within the slab. The management wouldn’t wait and the floor was laid. Within a few days, tiles started to lift off the floor. The vinyl glue had not taken where any moisture remained. The entire floor had to be ripped up; the tiles peeled off and delivered to a large stockroom deep within the Myer building. My brother and I were offered the task of cleaning the glue from the back of hundreds of tiles. We sat in this windowless stockroom, armed with a trough of hot, soapy water and a bristle brush each and scrubbed away at these tiles for several weeks, every day after school until they were all clean and ready to be laid

again on the now fully cured, cement floor of Dickens. This today is the area in Myer where the children’s clothing is displayed. I must go in and see what the floor covering looks like. On another occasion we were tasked with vacuuming the space between the ceiling and the roof of the old cast-iron, Victorian veranda that spanned the footpath outside Myer in Pall Mall. This was one of those old decorative jobs with cast-iron detail, a metal roof and a series of lovely leadlight glass ‘gondola-styled’ illuminated display case windows facing the street. So we climbed up inside the roof space with a couple of buckets and a vacuum cleaner and sucked out, probably, 100 years of dust and assorted bits of rubbish. Bits and pieces from the old veranda grace one of the buildings at the Epsom Pottery today, so not all of Bendigo’s heritage has been lost. When one examines the Myer façade today, one can only wonder why such a decision to modernise was ever taken. Children as young as we were then would not be allowed to do such jobs today. We had no safety training, no harnesses, no hard-hats or visibility vests, no dust masks, although I recall tying a handkerchief over my nose at times. There was no such thing as WorkSafe or OH&S. Yet we survived, whereas only a few of the places we worked on did the same.

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winter blues no problem

Bendigo’s winter music gig guide highlights, brought to you by the people in the business. By Colin Thompson, Bendigo Blues & Roots Music Festival Founder & Director Photographs by Sean Clohesy

There’s a lot to be excited about on the local music scene this season, but here are some highlights for fans of blues, jazz, soul, folk and funk, put together by the volunteer team at Bendigo Blues & Roots Music Festival and a handful of their valued partner venues: Winter kicks off with Geoff Achison & The Souldiggers’ 25-year anniversary show on Friday, June 7, at the All Seasons Hotel. That same weekend, on June 8, two intimate gigs are being staged in two very different spaces: The Blues Tram features John McNamara, of Ballarat, with Melbourne’s Jess Parker & The Troubled Waters from 2pm, and from 7pm Bendigo ex-pat Aaron Wales will return to The Old Church on the Hill to play the opening set for Andrea Robertson & Band, who are coming from Ocean Grove to launch 108

their new album, Live at New Hall. Soulful NSW singer-songwriter Kelly Brouhaha is also playing the Bendigo leg of her album launch tour at The Old Church, supported by talented young locals Luke Harrington and Steph Bitter. This one will be an uplifting evening for music lovers and doors open at 7pm on Saturday, June 15. In early July the always-amazing Nardia Brancatisano will visit Bendigo, with her talent-packed band in tow, to perform as one of the headline acts of BB&RMF’s Winter Showacse/Fundraiser at the Hotel Shamrock on Sunday, July 7. On the Saturday evening of that same weekend, Nardia will play a warm-up show

at Bendigo’s newest dedicated live music venue, Entree Music Bar. Entry is free and fans of jazz, blues and funk should definitely get in to hear one of Victoria’s best young blues divas and her topclass accompanists. The BB&RMF crew’s Winter Showcase at the Shamrock will feature more than 16 acts across three stages, from 11.30am to 8pm on Sunday, July 7. The day will feature a Busking and Street Jam Stage, hosted and run by funky local duo Honk Tank. The list of artists performing includes Electric Blues Collective, 40 Thieves, Orange Whip, Slap Back Jack & The Magic 8-Balls, Daniel Aaron, Jarrod Shaw, Sarah Wilkinson,

The Flannos, Spiritus, Rhyley McGrath, JadeByrd, Funk Junkies, Andy Garlilck, Deus Sax and the Bendigo South East College Stage Band. Organisers suggest you should expect a “New Orleansy vibe” upon arrival at the Shamrock on July 7th, especially with the music spilling out onto the street. With an entry fee of only $20 for over 8 hours of entertainment from some of Victoria’s best Blues & Roots artists, it’ll be money well spent. You’ll be supporting central Victoria’s biggest home-grown music festival, providing opportunities for artists to share great music with the community throughout the year. For more information visit www.bendigobluesandroots.com.au

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feline fanatic

Roy West was a Geelong premiership champion, now his son has become legendary among Cats fans without even pulling on footy boots, thanks to his famous feline alter-ego. By Raelee Tuckerman - Photography by Leon Schoots There’s no pussyfooting around it – Troy West is a confessed attention seeker. “I come from the Boy George era, which was all about dressing up, and I’ve done that since I was a little boy,” he says. “Putting on suits, frocks, wigs, raiding the cupboard for Mum’s high heels, singing in front of mirrors...” It’s the perfect personality for a man who spends winter weekends transforming into the flamboyant football character known as Catman, complete with full face make-up and home-made, headto-toe costume honouring the AFL club he was born into. You’ll find him sitting in the cheer squad behind the goals at every Geelong game in Victoria, proudly supporting his players and loudly leading the surrounding crowd. The metamorphosis from Cats fan to Catman began with a pair of platform shoes Troy bought from an op shop and painted blue and white to wear to the 1992 grand final. “Bit by bit, I added to it,” says the 53-year-old former professional make-up artist. “I got a denim vest and put some badges on it, then more badges until I ran out of room and had to add a denim jacket underneath. Then came the pants, the make-up and now I’m totally covered. “I had no name for myself, but a stranger walking through the crowd at the MCG one day called out, ‘Oh look, it’s Catman’. I liked that, so 110

I adopted it.” The cult figure first appeared only during finals campaigns, then also at blockbuster matches. “Soon, everybody started looking for me and asking where was Catman, so I have done it virtually every week since 2007.” It takes Troy three hours on match day to become Catman, a painstaking task he performs inside his “Catcave”, a shrine to Geelong housed in a shed on the 45-acre Harcourt hills property he shares with partner Aad van Dyk. The pair ran the historic Ravenswood Homestead as a B&B and function venue for two decades before building a stunning home featured on Grand Designs Australia, on the site of a heritage-listed former quarry. They share many interests, though football is not one of them. “Aad is not into football at all and doesn’t come near it,” laughs Troy. “We’ve been together 25 years and it is probably why we work so well – we are polar opposites on that.” Troy’s earliest football memory is of attending matches with his mum as a child, oblivious to the revered status dad Roy held in Geelong as a best-and-fairest winner and premiership player. “I grew up with football celebrities like Doug Wade and Polly Farmer around me and they were like uncles and family friends. I had no clue they were famous and didn’t realise Dad was, too, until I was much older.

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“We had a unique lifestyle, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Dad died eight weeks after the 2011 premiership, which was very bittersweet. I learnt to compartmentalise things because he was dying and it was the worst private time of my life, but it was the best time for Catman because it was our premiership era.” Despite his pedigree, Troy never desired to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I did play one game at school, kicked seven goals, and that was it. I didn’t like contact sports.” What he adores about football, is its tribal vibe and electric atmosphere. “I love the energy and adrenaline you get from the game and excitement and buzz of being at the ground. All your friends fanatically screaming for your team. It’s a community, a lifestyle.” But with his brash persona and stand-out-in-the-crowd kit, Troy has suffered some vilification. “I get homophobic abuse as well as general abuse,” he shrugs. “On game day at the football, 95 percent of people are great; but online, it’s 95 percent hate. “I cop it positively as well – there are so many fantastic people I have met and friends I have made because of what I do.” Though retired, Troy remains heavily involved in volunteer work in Central Victoria. “I was bingo boy at Golden Oaks for 20 years and did one-on-one care as well. Now I volunteer in the specialist outpatient clinics at Bendigo Hospital. “I also take my 95-year-old friend Joyce out every Tuesday afternoon to do her shopping and have lunch. We have such a close bond and I love her dearly. She inspires me that it’s okay to get old because she has such an amazing attitude.” Troy has contemplated hanging up his Catman costume, but doesn’t want to let down his many supporters, from whom he receives about 30 messages daily. “Sometimes I’d like to go to the football just as Troy, but then I’ll get a Facebook message from someone in Queensland bringing their child down to meet me, so it’s easier to do it every time. But I’ll have to give it up eventually. “I don’t want to be a wrinkly old man still doing it. I definitely don’t want to be CatPa – dread the thought!”

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