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This was published 9 years ago
Gang-gang: Rond Pond captured in readers' vintage photographs
By Ian Warden
Intrepid ducks perhaps, but no people (except perhaps police frogmen looking for something unspeakable) would venture into today's Rond Pond. It is the murky man-made billabong at the junction of Anzac Parade and Parkes Way.
But once upon a time, as you can see from our quaint photograph, it was a sweet little family picnic spot, complete with its own ornamental fountain.
Summer: Marilyn and Bill Gillard's entry to The Canberra Times' "Lake Memories" photo competition. Both remember the Rond Pond as a very popular picnic and paddling place.Credit: Marilyn and Bill Gillard
Veteran Canberrans Marilyn and Bill Gillard (born here, they lived here for 60 years, now live at Batemans Bay, but have three married daughters and seven grandchildren here and come here a lot) have sent us two olde Rond Pond photographs with a batch of others. This was in response to The Canberra Times' "Lake Memories" photo competition which has us asking for photographs of Canberra in the days before the boon of the ornamental waters of Lake Burley Griffin.
The Gillards think the picture was taken in the summer of 1961/1962. Bill and Marilyn were still courting and Marilyn had just bought Bill a swish new camera for his 21st birthday. He's 74 now. She remembers how in his enthusiasm for his new toy he took picture after picture of the city and hardly ever put it down long enough for anyone to take a picture of him!
Both remember the Rond Pond as a very popular picnic and paddling place. There was a kind of grassy basin there and obviously so little traffic that parents thought it safe to bring children there.
"There was no lake and on lovely sunny days it was the ideal place to go on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon," Bill Gillard reminisces.
"The Cotter was popular but it was a long drive away and cars weren't so good then. There were sometimes one or two swimming spots on the Molonglo River (and me and my mates, and the leeches, used to sometimes canoe along it in a canoe made out of sheets of corrugated iron) but it wasn't safe. The Rond Pond was convenient [not far to go from suburbs like Reid and Ainslie] and it was shallow so it was safe for little children, safe for little kids. It was a beautiful spot. As you can see, it was the place to be. The grass and the water were clean."
Both are a little despondent about what has become of the once-idyllic pond today. When Marilyn saw it last week she thought it "quite sad".
Shiny Bum Singers rehearse their "bum bow".Credit: Looming: The Shiny Bum Singers rehearse their "bum bow".
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Hakas for all occasions
This column has been far too elegant lately. And so here, to break up the monotony of all that dignity is an inelegant image of Canberra's fabled Shiny Bum singers (the public service parody troupe).
They have a concert looming and during this week's rehearsals also rehearsed (pictured) the signature "bum bow" with which they end their concerts.
Back to the coming concert in just a few, elegant sentences. But first, haven't we all felt, watching New Zealand's scary All Blacks performing their war-like, testosterone-stoking haka before their matches, that this is an idea too good to be left just to a cohort of rugby footballers? Don't we all have times in our lives when a war-like chant and dance would boost us and prepare us for a looming ordeal? Why, one might even be able to face the horror of Floriade if (as part of a team of native plant gardening enthusiasts) if one could do a haka on its threshhold.
Now, setting us all a haka example the Shiny Bum Singers have composed a haka for a team of public servants. It is for the team to perform as it braces itself for a bruising encounter. It is the Haka Before Battle In Senate Estimates Committee.
Choir member Caroline Quinn explains that in the show it's led by Bronwyn, FAS in the Department of Ageing, and chanted by the female staff members as they prepare for Battle. It's performed (think of the All Blacks) with all the appropriate gestures and roars.
Bronwyn: Warrior queens of this bureaucrat city,
Are we afraid of the Senate Committee?
NO!!!!!!
Female ensemble: Committee, Committee, Senate Committee Questioning, questioning, Senate Committee
We'll give no quarter, so ask for no pity
Here are our battle lines drawn, so tough titty! Ugh!
Back-pocket briefings we'll wave in your faces
Ask us for figures, and we'll find no traces! Ugh!
Poke out our tongues at you, glare in your eyes
Stonewall the files and stop just short of lies.
Hold the line!
Hold the line!
Hold the line!
Til you're vexed
And call the next! …
To the Committee, Committee, Senate Committee.
Ahrrrrgrrhhrr!
"It's very scary and always gets a laugh!" Quinn promises.
This haka is part of the musical melodrama Rampant Bureaucracy, all about a failed government program. Musical adaptations include Shirley Bassey's Hey Big Spender now sung (inevitably in the present fiscal climate) as Hey Small Spender and Elvis' Love me Tender – Love Me True now warbled as Love My Tender – Love My Quote.
Rampant Bureaucracy is at the Weston Creek Community Centre (Parkinson Street) at 1.30pm on Saturday, November 1. Tickets are $15 (including afternoon tea) and all proceeds will go to Pegasus Riding for the Disabled ACT. Tickets from Annette on 0412 101 543 or Joan on 6281 4833.