Still under Covid restrictions? My city is heading for the dubious honour of longest in lockdown. However, if you count pre-modern sieges, the north African town of Ceuta takes the prize for enduring a 30 year blockade (1694-1727)! History has a way of putting the present in perspective.
But enough of that. This edition of the Scroll is making lemonade with lockdown lemons, and offers you pleasures from my immediate vicinity. You might like:
a short suburban tale of buried treasure
to brew up a taste of colonial history
a new source of free audiobooks
First of all, thank you! Particularly if you were one of the many who told me they enjoyed last edition’s short story, Nest Egg. I was really encouraged. I’ve been keeping your feedback in mind, as I plan another novel. I’m thinking of a romance aspect… It’s early days, but the story might involve a housekeeper in a wealthy colonial household, who’s facing a lifetime alone in the servants quarters, while upstairs the state politicians try to figure out whether they will go it alone at the state level, or join together in federation. There will be an unexpected love interest for the housekeeper, but he hasn’t morphed onto my mental scene yet.
Secondly, apologies. Last edition, the ‘comment’ links misfired. Let’s try again, if you like. Suggest who might fall for the housekeeper, or anything else you’d like to see in a turn-of-the-century story:
Buried Treasure
An update on the ‘room of her own’
Since the last Scroll, spring blew into my backyard with a burst of warmth, then sulked behind scudding clouds and fits of rain. My new writing cabin was reached only by tromping through a patch of mud. Not good for yet-unpainted floorboards. Spring here in Melbourne is brash and fickle. It tempts me into backyard projects, then pours cold water on them. I searched Youtube to learn how to pave.
Our backyard had a pile of half-buried bricks leftover from landscaping by previous owners. Thrifty me thought it would be a good idea to use these — anyway, they match the existing paving. And guess what I found?
A piece of history. A dated brick, with raised Olympic rings, from 1956, when the Melbourne Olympic village was just a few kilometres down the road.
You can see the bricks, the same colour as mine, behind the Hungarian athletes in the middle picture above. The village set ‘a new standard in Olympic housing’, according to the ABC in 1956. ‘Every athlete and official will sleep in a new modern brick and concrete home unit. This has cost a lot of money.’1 Looks like the cost may have been offset by repurposing bricks further out in suburbia.
You can’t tell from their poses, but the Hungarian team had just left their homeland in chaos, following the uprising and Soviet invasion. Imagine the pressure those athletes were under, wondering what was happening to their loved ones and deciding whether to defect. (About half didn’t return home) The middle, dark-haired guy above even looks like the Hungarian water polo player on the right. That third photo was taken at the same Olympics, during the infamous ‘blood in the water’ semi-final between Hungary and the Soviet Union. The Hungarians beat the Soviets and went on to win the gold medal.
As for me, when I found the brick, I felt like an archaeologist who’d discovered buried treasure. Why do I like old stuff so much? If I can philosophise for a moment: we’re all bricks, connected in a human mosaic, back into the past and forward into the future… So, I washed off my find, turned it face up and gave it pride of place. A yellow brick road now leads to my cabin door. It’s my own bit of Olympic gold.
A taste of our colonial past
I have been researching the history of Australia’s Federation. (See intro above for why). Federation, and Australia as we know it, almost didn’t happen. In 1847, Britain’s Secretary of State for the Colonies was the first to suggest an Australian federation, amongst other political reforms. However his proposals were howled down by the colonials. Partly this was because the Secretary also wanted to send convicts out here again. Nobody in the antipodes was having a bar of that. It took another 54 years of argy-bargy to establish the nation of Australia.
The Secretary, or at least his family, made another, more welcome, contribution to Australian life. Colonial Australians were prodigious tea-drinkers. In the days of cholera epidemics, it was safer to boil water, for one thing. Also, early nineteenth century colonials often collected their water off bark roofs into a barrel. This imparted a strong tannin flavour, but was still better than what the sheep had puddled around in, down at the billabong. People had to drink, and tea improved the taste.
The 1847 Colonial Secretary went by the aristocratic title of Earl Grey. The tea blend was probably named for him or his politician father — a nineteenth-century celebrity brand.
I love the fragrance of a steaming mug of Earl Grey. Below I’m sharing a recipe that uses the tea in another staple of colonial cuisine — a pudding.
On voyages to Australia, puddings sometimes got boiled in salt water, if fresh water supplies were running low on board. I don’t know how anyone ate such a briny beast. I promise this old recipe involves no sea water and is definitely comfort food. It cuts down washing up, too, by not using a mixing bowl.
All-in-together Earl Grey Pudding
1 cup dates, chopped
1 t grated lemon rind
30g (1oz) butter
1 cup strong, fresh Earl Grey tea
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour (or plain flour with 1 1/2 t baking powder)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 t mixed spice
extra 2/3 cup brown sugar
extra cup hot Earl Grey tea
Sprinkle dates over base of a round casserole dish. Add lemon rind and butter and pour over warm tea. Stir to melt butter. Add sugar, flour, spice and eggs and mix thoroughly. Scrape down sides of dish. Sprinkle over extra brown sugar and gently pour extra cup of tea over the top (do NOT mix this time — the batter will rise up through the liquid as it cooks, like Nessie from the loch, and you’ll get a sticky-sweet sauce under the pud). Bake 180C (375F) for 40 minutes. Serve hot with cream.
From my Bookshelf
If you missed my ‘Nest Egg’ story last month, it is now officially published! If you like reading short stories — all new, all Australian — I recommend the Newcastle Short Story Award 2021 collection, in which it was shortlisted. Not just because I’m in it ;) , but because I think the overall standard was really readable. (Although I couldn’t quite figure out the winning story. My favourite is probably ‘Baby Oil’.)
You can buy the book on Amazon, or my contribution can be downloaded from my website:
Books to Bike/Walk/Cook with
If you haven’t got time to sit and read a book, you can to listen to one. I was happy to discover that ABC radio has launched a set of 36 Australian audiobooks. They range from Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, set in early colonial Australia, to the true story behind the film Lion, and lots more. For free! And no expiry date, unlike a local library loan.
Find them on the ABC Listen app via your device or click below:
I’m open to suggestions about what you’d like to read or know about in the Scroll. And of course you’re welcome to pass this newsletter on.
Best wishes until next time — may you find gold in your own garden!
ABC Weekly, 1 September 1956. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1241644043/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1317691084&searchTerm=Heidelberg+Olympic+brick&partId=nla.obj-1241695884#page/n10/mode/1up/search/Heidelberg+Olympic+brick