villagenews
An Englishman in New Farm
A life spent journeying to foreign places has brought Christopher Alderson to New Farm, where he’s fiercely proud of his new home. CHRISTOPHER Alderson was an Englishman to the core. Now he is a fair dinkum Australian, and he unabashedly loves Brisbane – so much so that he delights in being part of the Brisbane Greeters program, a group of volunteers who guides tourists around and shows them the sights, the best Brisbane has to offer.
villagepeople by Gary Balkin
Born in the affluent commuter town of Harpenden, 45km north of London, Christopher was educated at Westminster, “one of the great public schools of England”, and studied French and German at Cambridge. After an exchange year teaching in Austria – “which was good for my German” – he returned to the UK and taught at Brighton College for 20 years. Along the way he met and married Catherine, an Australian nurse working in London. In 1986 the Aldersons made the great career and family move to Australia, where Christopher was appointed deputy principal of The Southport School, also teaching English. Seventeen years later, Christopher and Catherine both retired and made their home in Brisbane, with the past 10 years spent at Cutters Landing, New Farm, by the Powerhouse. To mark their retirement in 2002 the couple, with Christopher’s brother-in-law, walked the famed French Way, or Camino Frances as the Spanish call it. This ancient Christian pilgrimage begins in France and extends to Spain’s Santiago de Compostella, the reported burial place of St James. The Aldersons began on the French side and walked 750km to the border, and
then another 750km to Santiago de Compostella. Christopher’s sister joined them for the final 200km. The walk typically takes about four weeks to complete. “We walked only 22km daily, on average,” he said, “which gave us time to enjoy and explore. The walk can otherwise become quite abrasive and we didn’t want to wear ourselves down. “In 2010 we returned, this time to walk the Via de la Plata from Seville to Santiago, a 1000km trek. A fascinating history there – covering the periods of the Romans up to the fifth century, the Visigoths, the Moors and then the Spanish after the Reconquest in the fifteenth century.” Each morning the Aldersons walk about seven kilometres, often along the riverside to Newstead. Christopher and Catherine have a long history of volunteering, and have given their time at Ronald McDonald House. They returned to London to volunteer during last year’s Olympics. “We were both assigned to Greenwich for the Games period, the site of the equestrian events – show jumping, dressage, the three day event, and the modern pentathlon – so we were always out in the open,” Christopher recalled. “Our time at Greenwich was busy and most satisfying, receiving athletes, meeting the press and other media as their buses arrived, being at the front gate for TV interviews, or at the VIP car park to meet members of the royal family,” he said. “Catherine, in particular, saw a lot of Zara Phillips and of Princess Benedikte, sister of the Queen of Denmark, whose daughter was competing at Greenwich.” Last year, Christopher became part of the Brisbane Greeters program. “I get to use my French and German in specialist language tours,” he said. “One experience was to show around the wife of a German skin specialist here for a skin cancer convention. I
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villagenews May 2013
English born Christopher Alderson is now one of the Brisbane Greeters took her around (heritage) parts of Paddington and Fortitude Valley and St John’s Cathedral. Most recently a Swiss gentleman and family requested a tour and wanted to see ‘my Brisbane’ which again was very rewarding,” Christopher said. Christopher leads City Hall tours following the building’s restoration and reopening to citizens and tourists. Escorted tours through City Hall are popular with about 60 other Brisbane Greeters taking tours. Christopher’s favourite Brisbane spots are New Farm Park, the Oxford Street Bulimba Heritage Trail, the City Botanic Gardens, Old Government House, and “The Cube” on the ground floor of the new Science Building at QUT. They are all close by the river. Christopher walks along the Brisbane River regularly and he said Words to Walk By, by Todd Barr and Rodney Sullivan, had captured his imagination by allowing him to see the river, amongst other parts of Brisbane, through the eyes of Brisbane writers. “Where some early on saw the river as a ‘problem’ more than an ‘asset’, in 1926 Nettie Palmer writes in the Brisbane Courier-Mail of its ‘beautiful and wayward lines’ as a source of ‘elegance’,” he said. “Later, David Malouf revisits the notion of ‘waywardness’ in pointing out that its
meanders give it an ‘inescapability’,” he said. “That ‘inescapability’ singles it out from other great city rivers, like the Thames and the Seine that separate their cities neatly into a north and a south side with easily recognised left and right banks. “Kevin Hart suggests the Brisbane River “twists and turns like someone unable to sleep”. Venaro Armanno in The Volcano brings us up to date by describing how an old Brisbane man now wakes to the sound of “magpies, the low hum of cicadas, and the even lower hum of the first CityCat, ferrying workers to their offices”,” Christopher said. “But it was Mary-Rose MacColl in 2003 who captured the spirit of the re-opening of City Hall and its appeal when she suggests: “If buildings were relations, perhaps City Hall would be its grandmother, magic and mysterious, extending her arms to hug Brisbane’s people in a way a grandmother would”.” For Christopher, a well-read and highly educated man who has seen and experienced so much all over the world, to list Brisbane sights as among his favourite is high regard indeed, considering the source. And he certainly gives the impression of a satisfied man enjoying this part of his retirement.