Life on the ocean waves

He married, he died, and in between, he fathered children. But he was never born, at least not according to the records I have consulted. His parents and his two older brothers arrived in Port Jackson 13 May, 1839, as Bounty Migrants aboard 'The Spartan', which departed Falmouth 22 February, 1839. Christopher is not on the passenger list, nor is he recorded on the New South Wales 'BDM' data-base. Perhaps, he stood on Platform 9¾ and whistled. His father, John, is my 3rd great-grandfather on my mother's side.

A leap into the unknown

The old General Section, Botany Cemetery

Blood and bone

A city is a ravenous beast that feeds on its own entrails to survive. Land on the outskirts, that hitherto had been prime tillable acres, is cut'n'diced into building blocks for McMansions. Denuded of trees, cut and filled to within an inch of its life, arable loam is subsumed during the expansion. And, yet, it is not just on the fringes, but small overlooked pockets within the urban conglomeration.


In the last month, two situations have received publicity where the encroachment has been to advance the dead, rather than the living.

The trustees of Rookwood Cemetery were said to be sounding out their counterparts in a Strathfield gold club for tandem use of their greens. Just how this would work boggles the brain.

And then again today, I note the ongoing saga of the market gardens of La Perouse and the rapacious Botany Cemetery. I am frequently down at Botany Cemetery, and itch to wander the tilled rows of chinese vegetables that fill the adjacent gully. The trustees prosecute their case against the market gardeners with zeal as can be seen by this report last year about their testing the chemical composition of the water used by the gardeners.


You can see the attraction for the cemetery trustees. And the state government is wiping its hands of the responsibility and throwing the decision back to the municipal authorities. However, within another 25 years, the cemetery will have its eye on the Yarra Recreation Reserve. Once the beast is fed, it is insatiable.

In this grab from Google Maps, the glaring white in the centre is the sand pits. Above the sand pits are the tilled rows, and stretching above them is the massive cemetery.

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Taphophile Tragics # 14 -From the Demon-drink to Eternity

Up to 50 times a day he wrote it: the word ‘Eternity’, in waterproof chalk, in a flowing Copperplate hand. Fifty times per day for 35 years, is a powerful message. Upwards of half a million examples, and it is typical that the one original supposed to still exist is difficult to prove. You see, it is inside the bell within the Martin Place GPO clock tower. Taken down as a precaution during WW2, the bell was cleaned and replaced in the 1960s, and THAT is when it was discovered that Stace had been there. There are two replicas: the one on the foot of his grave in Botany Cemetery, and the one beside the Cascade, within the NY Metro Cafe in the Town Hall Arcade.

What drove Arthur Stace to a life on the streets?
Poverty. Alcohol. WW1. Self-image. Finding God.
That would pretty much do it.


He was born in Redfern, lived most of his life in Bulwarra Road, Pyrmont, and died in the Hammondville Nursing Home out at Liverpool. Pretty much a flat-lined activity. He served in WW1, probably as a stretcher bearer, where, upon enlistment, his vital statistics indicated he was ‘weedy’. He hit the skids upon being demobbed, and in a highly impressionable state, came within the orbit of a fire’n’brimstone pastor at either St Barnabas’ Broadway, or the Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle in about 1930, in his mid-40s. He did not marry until he was 58.

There are four authenticated photographs of Stace in existence, all taken by Trevor Dallen from the old Sydney Sun. Stace was hard to track down, shunned publicity, and was, effectively, defacing public property. Dallen pinned him down for an interview, but after four shots, ran out of film. Of course, when he returned with more, Stace had etherised – again.


The year 2000 was shaping as massive for Sydney, what with the Olympics and all. The Y2K bug was going to shut down life as we knew it. Sydney’s NYE fireworks featured Stace’s copperplate trademark, this time writ large for all the world to see.

I hope he found it.

This is my contribution to the Taphophile Tragics community.

Taphophile Tragics # 13 - Sleeping like an Angel

Anastasios was not quite four years of age when he slipped off this mortal coil. His father 35. It took his father, Dimitrios, another 40 years to join his son. Look at the photograph of the young lad. The apple of everyones' eye, no doubt. Well cared for, religious, middle class, from a close, loving family. Devastation all round. Son, brother, nephew, and uncle already. But all categories of families are devastaed when a child dies. What sets this family apart is that they had the income to attempt to put their tender mourning into art.


For me the eye-catching element of this marker is the prone angel. Eye-catching literally. I was stomping out the rows going down a rather steep incline with a rough path beneath my feet. Out of the corner of my eye I caught this sheen of whiteness and was stopped in my tracks.


Although this is Section 15 General in Botany Cemetery, it is rife with the memorials to departed Greeks. It seems to me, that Botany is riddled with departed Greeks, with as many Greeks as there are Anglos. Maybe the Greek markers are just more obvious. This black style is replcated in many other rows and sections. The Greeks however, are obliged to tend to their departed on a regular basis. And one of their methods is to leave copious flowers. So maybe I am simply seeing more Greek markers because they are tended more assiduously.


There is no initials on this marker. No Mason company. No number. No nothing. Next time I am there, I will ask at the office if his sort of information is held in their system.

This is my contribution to the Taphophile Tragics community.

Taphophile Tragics # 4 - Botany's Pioneer Park

A well-worn epitaph for the deceased is 'Rest in Peace' (Requiescat in pace). However, in the first century of this city, we denied the dead a restful peace. We were a gaol, a convict colony. We did not treat our dead venerably, and we had no expectation that the colony would thrive. So we plonked our boot-hill in the middle of the town. Not once, but twice. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to mislocate one burial ground may be regarded as a misfortune; to mislocate two smells distinctly like a lack of vision.


Many of the original inhabitants of the city (and, by definition, the nation) were not left to rest peacefully, but were moved around willy-nilly. It beggars belief that mortal remains were kept intact, were relocated with correct head and foot stones. In total 2,285 plots were relocated from where they were originally interred. Here at Pioneer Park in Botany Cemetery (originally Bunnerong Cemetery) just 746 gravestones have been preserved. No mention of the remains. The rest of the stones were worn away by weather and neglect. Although the park lacks a graveyard authenticity (no need to worry about where one treads here), it is a very moving experience to walk up the rise through Botany Cemetery into this distinctly different area of commemoration.


The first official burying ground for Sydney was in the area now occupied by the Town Hall and St Andrews (Anglican) Cathedral. However, this was not cared for and became full and foul by 1819. So most (but not all, as we gloriously discovered just a few short years ago when digging up the basement of the Town Hall) of the bodies and headstones were moved down to the Devonshire Street (Sandhills) Burial Ground.

However, in 1901 it was determined that the main railway station of Sydney was to be erected on this self-same site. So, all the bodies were, once again, exhumed and relocated. However, this time, they had to be relocated where space (and descendants) permitted. Some remains were devolved to Rookwood Cemetery to the West, some to Gore Hill Cemetery to the North, some to both South Head and Waverley Cemeteries to the East, and still others to Bunnerong Cemetery to the South. Scattered to the four winds, if you will ...

View Cemeteries in Sydney in a larger map

Recognition

Last week, my father, who died in May, was granted an Official War Grave by The Australian Office of War Graves in Canberra. So, on Friday I journeyed down to Botany Cemetery again to discuss niches and wording. It is an engrossing place which I have featured before.

Dormitory of the Dead

There was a time I would not countenance this. 'Ashes to ashes' is good and well. But, let them be scattered to the four corners. What cannot be brought to memory, is well left to eternity.

So many once-people rest here, with nary a visitor. Nary a soft word, nor tender touch on the sandstone. Chiselled words erased by the passage of time, if they were there to begin with. Perhaps an unmarked grave. I walk the row, weaving my still warm body through the dormitory.

Widow's waeds

They set a cracking pace, chattering as they scurried, throwing hurry-ups over their shoulder to ensure none was tardy. Checking that I, the intruder, didn't miss my step over the gutter, I snatched a glimpse as they ducked around the back of the crematorium. Luckily, I caught the hem of the black sheep as he stepped in behind the Eastern Wall. An unexpected vista opened before me.


Could they have internalised Robert Frost's 'Mending Wall'? In this small section, maybe half a dozen rows, there they were, laid cheek-by-jowl, peas-in-a-pod, not an inch between them. One big, happy family with bountiful tending and respect. I heard the tumbling gush of ancient-tongue, the bustle as bouquets unfurled, and water fetched. The tsk-ing and the tut-ing as the week's embarrassments were confided.

I moved on, with a spring and a smile. Not only Frost, but Dylan Thomas as well:

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

Paying one's respects

As the bus meandered down the peninsula, it increasingly filled with passengers who, to me, were all very similar. I took a wild punt that they were going my way. And sure enough, the bus emptied at the Botany Cemetery stop.

Mostly the other passengers were in their 70s, short and a little overweight, wearing black. Predominantly they were female, but not exclusively. I followed them; they were all in a jolly mood; and, they all seemed to know each other well.

Mostly, they were Greek. Am I supposed to say 'of Greek extraction'? Anyways, they were Greek. They led me to the most beautifully maintained section of any cemetery I have ever visited. *whispers* I think they compete with each other. *shhh*

Shall show you more over the next few days.

Botany Cemetery - Statuary

Botany Cemetery is dominated by fresh-air and sunlight. It is open and it is expansive, not in the least maudlin and dark.


As befits the Australian self-concept, I found it to be an egalitarian graveyard. There are maybe half a dozen mausoleum(s), but mostly graves are unpretensious. It goes without saying, therefore, that the statuary is not of a personal nature. It is of this ethereal, heavenly bent. Unlike somewhere like Pere LaChaise which is replete with representations meant to aggrandise the individual.


All four photos were taken on the same day. The deep blue were facing to the south, the grey was facing to the north - towards the city.

Botany Cemetery - Grave adornments

Having long been a 'graveyard tragic', this week provided an opportunity to explore yet another cemeteryy, this time Botany Cemetery on the shores of Botany Bay, otherwise marketed as Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park. It is both burial ground and crematorium, with the first burial in 1893. It does contain a heritage section, but all these graves have been removed to Botany from inner city burial grounds destined for 're-use'.


Except for the first one, these grave adornments are usually ceramic or porcelain. Artificial flowers like this were much used in each of the Parisian cemeteries that I visited last month: Pere LaChaise, Montparnesse, Montmatre and Passy. The use of REAL flowers in and around graves in Australia is nowhere near as frequent as in the Parisian cemeteries. In comparison, our cemeteries here in Sydney are uptight - well kempt and regular, sprawling laterally rather than vertically.


The first image in this post is a 'bandaged bear' used by hospitals to raise funds which appears to have been deposited by some sort of 40 day flood.

Watching for the ferryman

Botany Cemetery and Crematorium overlooks the entrance to Botany Bay, a stretch of water that resonates finely with the start of European settlement in this wide, brown land. This is where my immediate and extended family gathered on Wednesday to farewell my father who took his last breath in the early, dark hours of last Monday.

I returned yesterday for a tour and discussion of the options available to me for a lasting memorial to him. I would think that a view like this would be to die for.