Emoh ruo

Farms usually have names. When I was growing up, I lived on a farm called 'Dolwendee', named after the town in Wales from which my maternal grandmother came as a war-bride in 1919. Houses, though, don't usually have a name. Not nowadays. However, in the '20s and '30s they seemed to. In my suburb of Paddington, many of the name plates date from that period.

When I was in my late teens I read a series of Australian books by George Johnstone, beginning with 'My Brother Jack'. This was set in Melbourne. This is when I first came across the house name which I use as my title for this post.

Elizabeth Bay - The beauty of crumbling age

Elizabeth Bay is like an ageing matron who wastes before one’s eyes. With hay-stalk hair, and sagging bosom, she slashes the lipstick where once fulsome lips puckered. Desperate for that one last fling at the ball, she throws herself at everyone, but only the rapacious are remotely interested.


The footings of each apartment building cling to the rocky outcrops of the ridge that runs down to the Bay. The footings cling, the buildings huddle – and, together, they slowly subside. The suburb is peopled with the ageing bodies of European mid-century devastation. They are the character and the soul of the suburb, but they are rapidly diminishing. It is a suburb of those without dependants – families need space. The pleasures of Elizabeth Bay reside in this very jumbledness. It is a melange of buildings, of styles, of socioeconomics, and of culture. Most emphatically of all, it is NOT boring.