August 2023
Yesterday I was surprised and delighted to be invited to join the Heritage Committee of the Woodlands Golf Club.
Ever since I wrote the article about the fascinating story of the Mayfield Estate that used to be on the golf course grounds since the mid-1800s and demolished in 2002, I’ve had members come up to me and say how much they enjoyed the intriguing (but sad) story of the family who lived there.
The story of Mayfield captured my attention that I had gone down a rabbit hole to learn more. My curiosity had me searching on Trove archives for more. I pulled everything I could find and then wrote the story and included some pictures of the man deemed a lunatic by the state and who locked himself up in his grilled jail cell of a bedroom to prevent himself from wandering the woodland bush in the area.
My article was first published in the Women’s Newsletter then the main newsletter that went out to every member by email. People called me, sent me text messages and approached me at the club to introduce themselves and say their thank you for the story.
In some way, I’m glad I kept the story of Edward and his mother, a Brazilian sugar plant heiress, the mistress to his father, a French Count and explorer whose work is in the Melbourne Museum. Stories fascinate me and it’s one that had to be re-told and kept alive.
Before I was due to tee-off one day this week, I expressed to a fellow player how it’s the stories and anecdotes that are lost in history. I said to them,
“We will be someone’s history tomorrow. Our stories need to be captured so they don’t get lost. We can have formal minutes of meetings, trinkets and photographs but what we don’t have are the stories of how, what and why they happened.”
That then made them think of current long term members who have these stories. Who have experienced the changes of a club that evolves through the changes in society. It would be wonderful to capture the oral history and stories of these people do that they’re not lost.
I have ideas of how to do this through audio and video recording and I have the skills to do this however, I’m not going to prompt and be proactive anymore. Instead I’d like to simply observe and then contribute where I can. I get excited when it comes to ideas that overtake me and I need to temper that and think of others first.
I’ll be meeting with the committee next week to learn more about my new role. It’s wonderful to find something that aligns to what I wanted to do. I’ll be exploring the archives, collecting and collating historic items, discovering and researching and then making and keeping history.
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