Reflections on twenty one years of Berowra locality

 

 

 

Reflections on twenty one years of Berowra locality 

Immigrant stories are many. Ours, while not spectacular certainly has a few constants and reoccurring themes within it. It also seems to echo much of the received knowledge of what migrants do when they arrive in a new place. Perhaps the most regular theme  is our association with Berowra and in particular the area around the old La Mancha Caravan Park. It is often said that  migrants tend to settle very close the original place where they arrive in the country. In our case the point is very relevant because we now live just 200 metres, as the crow flies, from the very first place we started out in Australia twenty one years ago!

Arrival

Leaving London as immigrants in March 1992 the main contact we had in Sydney Australia was Terries brother John Cassidy. In what was a life changing shift, he gave us some great advice in what to do as newcomers arriving in Sydney. John and his family lived in Hornsby, so it was quite natural for him to give local knowledge on where to start. Terrie, myself and our two young children, Dan 3 and Cassie 18 months, would require somewhere to rent. While Sydney, like London was in the throes of recession in 92' it was still an expensive place to live as the prime destination for immigrants.

Caravan Park start

What John suggested was that rather than rent a house when we arrived, it would be more sensible to take a twelve week contract on a local caravan park while we got an idea of what and where we wanted to  settle. This would help us avoid locking ourselves in for a year somewhere we might not like. At the time there were three main options in terms of caravan parks. One up in Ryde which was the closest to urban Sydney, a second up on Mona Vale Road, relatively close to the northern beaches and a third up in the north at Berowra which was surrounded by bush. As it turned out John chose the third option for us and we started off at La Mancha Caravan Park, just as you come along the Pacific Highway and enter Berowra. This choice made by John unwittingly shaped our future life and direction in Australia. Largely because I'm sure that urban Ryde would have been closest in lifestyle to central London where we came from, while Mona Vale would have directed us down the 'beach lifestyle' route.  Berowra, surrounded, by bush was much more like living in the 'country' to us Londoners.

La Mancha Caravan Park Berowra

 

La Mancha was an old established caravan park from 1973, housing a mixture of resident types. 

Some 43 were permanent people living in mobile homes fixed on the site. Others were holiday makers either towing vans or booking a few days while traveling through. We came under a third group who stayed for a few months on a short term contract in one of the furnished cabins on the site. Altogether La Mancha could house up to one hundred or so non-permanent vans in addition the cabins and 'permanent' mobile homes.

Arial view of a La Mancha / Illoura, Berowra

 

La Mancha

 

I still remember being driven by John up along the dark Pacific Highway along the sweeping road that eventually enters Berowra....La Mancha is immediately at the top of the hill on the left. The sizeable site actually being at one of the highest points in Sydney perched, surrounded by and overlooking large tracts of bushland. When we arrived on the evening of 18th March 1992 we were met and shown by the site owners to a small cabin with a double bed, a set of bunk beds and a small kitchen / dining area. I also clearly remember that evening standing with Terrie looking out over the Berowra valley with houses below and an unfamiliar star filled sky. Immediate thoughts were. 'what have we done?' Here we were, in an unknown place with two young children and we had no jobs!

Dan and Cass 1st week at La Mancha March 92'

As I've said many times to others my experience of being an immigrant was one where you had a raised sense of urgency and awareness. You are driven by a mixture adrenaline and fear. The twelve weeks we had up at La Mancha provided us with experiences and contacts that have stayed with us for the following twenty one years. There were many young families on the site, Kiwi's Neville and Kerry, Scottish Joe and his wife Chris being just a few. All the kids played out the front and in the rough and ready swing park across the way. The cabins were toward the middle of the site while the more permanent mobile homes were on the outside of the perimeter pathway. The caravan park was also known for it's multiple squash courts.

Berowra network / football

The site did have a small store but we tended to walk down along the highway to the BP petrol garage because it had a wider range of supplies. Fatefully it was in this place that in the first week since our arrival I saw a small note displayed advertising 'Over 30's football players wanted'....come to Berowra Oval.....Well it is certainly true that finding familiar things / activities helps people settle in new places and this was an opportunity to do just that. It is true to say our time in Australia was shaped in many ways by going to the oval that night and meeting up with other prospective Over 30's footballers. In the event I met three Englishmen,, Colin Strang and brothers John and Jimmy Everitt. These guys remain some of our closest friends even now in 2014! For me it was sport connection but also for Terrie in making initial friends in Berowra and also securing several of her first jobs. There she was stuck on the caravan park with two youngsters on what emerged as one of the wettest months Sydney had seen in years. Colin's wife Bernie is part of a large Dublin family of which six of the brothers and sisters lived in the area. In that first week Bernie invited Terrie and the kids on a barbeque with other Berowra people including another Englishman Paul Squires. Paul was to give Terrie her first job. This external relief of meeting other families was great for an immigrant couple with few Australian contacts. Eight percent of Berowra residents are originally from Britain /Ireland and we fell right into the ex-pat network in the town.

Finding work

La Mancha was a safe place to start our immigrant life but although I had been accepted as a High School teacher the actual work had to be found by myself. In the first few days I took the scatter gun approach to job applications...not really knowing where the schools were in NSW just sending out as many CV's a s possible. In addition I went in person to schools in Sydney to hand in resumes. One in particular was to play a large part later in my life. It was a catholic school in Chatswood which had the seemingly strange name of ST PLUS! At the time I just thought it was some particular Australian Saints name....not realising I had misread it from the actual St Pius (where I have now worked for 17 years!) Waiting for approval for State schools actually took me many months but fortunately I'd  previously worked in Catholic schools and they sorted out my paperwork in just three hours!
Initially, it was my task each morning to go down to the solitary Caravan park call box to phone some local schools to seek casual work on a day to day basis. I'm not sure why, but a particular Deputy out at Mater Maria College Warriewood must have taken pity on me. One rainy day at 8.00am he said to me "How quickly can you get here?" I plucked 30 minutes from somewhere in my head and promised to be there in no time. Well Warriewood is at least 45 minutes from Berowra and I drove (what turned out to be a very iffy Mazda) in driving rain to get there. The School Deputy, Andy Martin was a gruff northerner who must have somehow recognised desperation in my voice. He brought me in to help minimize a potential disaster at Mater Maria....it was the day of their School fete, many staff were away and it was pelting with rain. Andy placed me in charge of 30 odd year 12 students and just asked me to keep them out of trouble as the rainy day threatened to descend into soggy farce.

Mater Maria College, Warriewood



The college itself was in lovely surrounds overlooking the sea....I honestly felt that I had walked into set from Home & Away. Surviving that first day I had obviously impressed Andy because he brought me in regularly in the next 2 months. Eight o'clock each morning I'd get on the La Mancha pay-phone to ask if I was needed and if so, drive like a lunatic to get there before 8.45.

Where next ? Berowra soon.....

We stayed on La Mancha for 12 weeks in all but were unable to find a house to rent in Berowra and had to go elsewhere for 7 months to a rented house at Normanhurst. Regardless, our precious initial contacts had been made in Berowra and soon we were able move back to a place in Berowra Heights at Woodcourt Road. Again we stayed for  7 months there before moving on again across Berowra to our own place in 1993 in Yallambee Road....a small redbrick house which was the existing property in a sub-division. We stayed there for seven years before buying a newer larger place at Helvetia Avenue in 2001 which was a street just down below the old caravan park at La Mancha!
Living near where we started was certainly a reminder of how far we had come in Australia...only a couple of hundred metres but oh so far :)

Closure of La Mancha

Sadly, Berowra was like so many other places and under pressure for development. In 2003 La Mancha closed down and was sold off for private housing development. A report on why Caravan Parks were tending to disappear revealed that at La Mancha the arithmetic was as follows.

As a caravan park             = $130 x 125 x 52 =$845,000 per annum
As a housing subdivision = $510,000 houses x 33 = $16,830,000

http://www.unsworks.unsw.edu.au/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=UNSWORKS&docId=unsworks_4490&fromSitemap=1&afterPDS=true

Illoura Estate

Masterbuilt the builders, took advantage of existing planning permission to close the La Mancha site down and build big new houses. As nearby residents of Helvetia Avenue we received all of the plans and in truth the development looked to be well set out....we made no objection to what would eventually be 60 homes on the multi-acre site. As fate would have it serious bush fires in the area meant that it became tougher to meet building regulations in what was a 'fire zone'. Masterbuilt changed their plan to take account of the new 50 metre fire exclusion zone around the site.

 

In order to still get their money it was decided to add a number of four story units to the development. This in our mind altered the plan in an unacceptable way. Berowra is a bush suburb and surely didn't need multi-story  buildings dominating the area...being in a high up area they would be seen right across the city!

 The road on Illoura where our cabin stood in 1992

Gateway to the modern Illoura Development, Berowra

 

Battle for the right Illoura

In the event Terrie and I got together with our next door neighbours to fight the plan. We collected several thousand signatures locally and presented the petition to the council. Now while State Government needs to meet its ongoing 'medium density' housing commitments the development still had to be appropriate. To us multi storey units were not for Berowra...they were 1 1/2 km from the station in a bush setting. As is often the way the local council feels pressured by developers. We forced the issue to a Hornsby Council meeting. Their position was that even if they voted against the proposal Masterbuilt would appeal to the Land & Environment court and win. Well at a packed public meeting we won the vote and eventually Hornsby went on to defeat the appeal as well! The plan for redevelopment at La Mancha was to be a 60 House estate called Illoura. No building was over two stories and all the houses were to be free standing with Torrens title. Community features would include an tennis court, a swimming pool, bike track and environmental works which included a wind mill. This work started in 2007.

                                           Looking down from the modern Illoura to our Helvetia Avenue house

 

                                                                  Looking up from  our Helvetia Avenue house to Illoura /La Mancha

The future is the past is the future

Now six years later fate has again intervened for us as earlier this year we actually purchased a house on Illoura through our superannuation to rent out! Hopefully, when eventually retire we plan to move up to that house on Illoura. Our life in Australia seems to have gone almost full circle. In our time here our story has revolved largely around Berowra but more particularly around La Mancha / Illoura. That original cabin, our Helvetia Avenue home and the new Illoura property make up a triangle with sides of no more than several hundred metres! We certainly fit the profile of what immigrants do in a new country in terms of settlement.

http://www.washingtonbrown.com.au/documents/news/thebill01.pdf

 



Sometimes some Spurs events are just beyond explanation but I'll have a go................

I have had several heart felt messages this week from friends around the world who genuinely feel for me. After an initial awkward silence the bush telegraph got into full swing and football friends and foes have weighed in with their thoughts on Tottenham's shocking 0-6 reverse against Manchester City.
Now for someone who has followed the side since 1962 big defeats are not unique or no longer unexpected from time to time. Probably my first mind numbing experience of such a defeat occurred at Highbury in September 67' when lost 0-4 to Arsenal. What was so upsetting to this 12 year old was that it was all so unexpected....it was just my first big reverse!

My hero Pat Jennings picking the ball out of the net four times...especially as we were standing right at the front of the North Bank and Pat had to face a penalty right in front of us.
It was in 73' against Derby County before the next big shock came along. In this FA Cup replay we had taken the mid-landers back to WHL after a 1-1 draw up at the old Baseball Ground. Twelve minutes to go and there we were leading 3-1. Then, inexplicably, we allowed a long streak called Roger Davies to score a hat-trick against us in just a few minutes, 52,000 fans walked away failing to comprehend how Spurs could just capitulate.

That same Derby side were no respecters of reputation and within just three seasons had beaten us up at their place 8-2.....little to say here other than the Spurs supporters took the 'football special' train apart on the way home and ended up stranded between villages as the driver refused for a while to take the train any further. As far as I recall Nicholson didn't actually make the disgraced team walk home :)

Just when Spurs fans are at their most optimistic the football gods usually combine to put us in our place. Such was the story in September 78' when laden with our two Argentinian World Cup winners, Ossie and Ricky, we went to Anfield and got smashed 0-7 by the scousers.

History will show that we have such catastrophes at Tottenham occur every few seasons but also sometimes in one season. Thus, being beaten 0-5 at home by Arsenal, with the little wizard Brady being our main chief tormentor,  occurred just a few months later in December 78'. Worse than that, it was a day when me and a mate had tickets for the Arsenal end and had to stand in silence through the whole debacle:(

Manchester United have had the wood on Tottenham for many years. So when you race to a 3-0 home half-time lead you may foolishly slip into a bit of complacency. Forty five minutes later we ended up 3-5 losers shipping five goals in that time. Hard to explain and almost as hard to take. That game was in September 2001.
In more recent times we have gone down 2-5 twice to Arsenal at their Emirates ground, not a good look! What made this worse was that these two results were actually in the same calendar year, February and November 2012.
As I have outlined here, we have indeed been hammered numerous times before. So what was it that brought about Sunday's 0-6 score-line against Manchester City? I think there were several reasons. The first that needs to be acknowledged is the ruthless brilliance of their main forward Aguero. Strong, quick and with a low centre of gravity, one of my friends said he made our centre backs look like over 35's in comparison. On the day he was unplayable. For me a major reason for the defeat was AVB's tendency to over analyse. We had had to endure several non-EPL weeks with the international break which closely followed the 0-1 reverse to Newcastle at home. In his wisdom AVB scanned the World Cup games / results and decided that a few of our blokes had had  a busy / disappointing time. Because of this, he left out Townsend, Vlad, and Dembele. To me all of these had performed well in previous weeks and merited a start. In came Kaboul who was lacking match fitness, Holtby who is not a number ten and Sandro who although a hearty player is unlikely to score for us in the next decade. It didn't help conceding a comical goal in 14 seconds and the own goal we scored was the only time one of ours bothered the score keeper on the day. Unfortunately, working in a school with 1100 students can result in you receiving a similar message once or twice in the same day. Try 50 times! Six nil Sir! What happened there? Manchester City....6-0 Sir!
As it turns out after a short sojourn to the Artic circle on Thursday against Tromso, we have a great opportunity to make amends when we take on the red side of Manchester on Sunday. Hope springs eternal when you support a team. Supporting Tottenham is no exception. We have been put in our place....expectations allowed us to get ahead of ourselves. My old adage of
'Following Spurs involving a lifetime of nearlyness punctuated by the occasional actuality' has some merit.'
I was never very comfortable with us being likened in defensive stinginess to the old 1-0 Arsenal sides. I suppose a 0-6 loss has now put that comparison out of peoples minds for the time being!

Old St St Bernard's pics 1983ish

The Australian Football season is over.....time for a Northern Hemisphere focus ...Come on you Spurs!

Season 2013. Well there it is then. Over. Last Saturday out at Castle Hill,  St Pius X College 1st XI wrapped up the ISA Championship with a 3-1 win against Oakhill College. Already Minor Premiers, SPX finished up with a Grand Final victory being unbeaten in the ISA Competition winning ten games and drawing two. Pleasingly this leaves the side unbeaten in 23 ISA competition games stretching to the first match of 2012 when we went down to St Patrick's.

Well the first thing to say is that 2012 had been a hard act to follow! 

Claudio v St Patricks

Following on from a record breaking side, in a record setting year, is invariably difficult. Our 2013 St Pius X 1^st XI Football team were faced with exactly this challenge and may I say from the outset they made a wonderful attempt at doing just this.

We played ten trials in all before the end of Term one. Beating club sides Northbridge 5-3 and Lindfield 1-0,

St Augustine's 3-1 and downing GPS hotshots Riverview 2-1. Further wins came against Forest Killarney 11-0 and men's All age team Homenetmen, 3-1. Two tough games against Knox Grammar and the SPX Old Boys both ended in a draw.

SPX 1st XI v SPX Old Boys 2013 5-5 Draw!

In our pre-season we took on all comers ranging from local State school Asquith to the expansive fields of The Kings School out at North Parramatta on their historic ‘Wanderers Oval’ which was the acknowledged site of the first ever football match played in Sydney in 1880. We played and won at all these places.

 

Measuring ourselves against GPS and CAS opponents is always a good test.

Our only defeat in Term 1 was a surprise 0-2 reverse to St Aloysius on a quagmire pitch at Tyneside. Here we went behind early then lost someone to a red card, a blow we could not recover from. In truth we learnt more about ourselves in this defeat than in any other game up to that point.

As in previous years we participated in the two day St Andrew’s Cup competition down at Oakhill College emerging from 5 matches as Plate winners with a 1-0 win over Barker College. 

The 16 trial matches played by SPX 1^st XI set us up well for the ISA season. Regular competition wins were recorded against Redlands 3-0; Chevalier 3-0;  St Andrew’s 4-1; Redlands again 5-0, Chevalier again 3-0 only being punctuated by a hard fought draw 1-1 at home to St Patrick’s College. Before the end of Term two we also managed a 5-0 victory against Hills Grammar in the CIS Cup Competition  where we were 2012 holders.

As we came to the half-way point of the year we headed off up to Brisbane to participate in the annual Southern Skies Tournament. Here we

played sides from Sydney Brisbane, Country Queensland and for the first time opponents from French Caledonia. Over the week away

we downed Sydney Grammar 2-0; Shore 2-0; Barker College 1-0; Scots College 2-0; and previous year’s winners St Peter Claver 5-0 with our single loss coming against the French Caledonians by 1-0.

St Pius X and New Caledonia. Queensland Tour

This was a great match allowing our players to experience a style of opponent who was quick, skilled and tricky. As things emerged later, these South Pacific boys won the whole thing with their energetic play that won the hearts of everyone who saw them. Unfortunately for us, progress was not to extend beyond the semi-final stage because although we had comprehensively accounted for them earlier on, we were thwarted by Scots College in the semi-final, the game finishing 0-0. In the ensuing penalty shootout we were beaten missing out on a chance to play a final against the French Caledonians. We finished 3^rd overall beating CAS based Barker 4-2.

In spite of our disappointment at falling over at the penultimate stage we returned to Sydney ready and prepared for the second half of the ISA season.

Once again we produced some fine performances. Wins over Oakhill 3-1; St Andrew’s 10-0 and Oakhill 2-1 were again punctuated by a 2-2 away draw with St Patrick’s College.

In cup football St Pius 1^st XI were again thwarted in a penalty shoot-out when drawing 2-2 with Knox Grammar. Oh what might have been! We led here until virtually the last minute and a good opportunity to retain the CIS Cup was gone.

As is the way in football we were soon made to refocus because we were also in the semi-finals of the ISA Competition. Oxford Falls the venue and a comprehensive 3-0 victory over St Andrew’s saw us reach the ISA final for third year in a row.

As are the vagaries of Finals football as ISA Minor Premiers we were actually required to play our ISA Final against Oakhill out at their facility! This had indeed been the situation in 2012 when we won the Premiership the previous season.

ISA Final action 2013

 

                                  All over

ISA victory against Oakhill
On a warm afternoon the Grand Final was played at the unusual time of 3.00 O’clock in the afternoon. Several hundred supporters were on hand to witness a tense affair.  After twenty minutes of tight chanceless football striker Claudio Rosano announced his entry into the match with a cracking strike from his first touch of the ball! Just when St Pius X looked likely to add to this score Oakhill pounced on a hesitant defence to equalise just before the half time break.

Captain Nick Morabito with ISA Shield

In a stop start second half tension seemed to be influencing the flow of the game until Rosano snuck in with a deft touch to put St Pius X back in front, 2-1. Oakhill were now down a man and were wilting on the big pitch. Vice-captain Luke Capra soon put the game beyond doubt with an unstoppable drive from 20 yards, 3-1. Now at last St Pius X were beginning to play their confident possession based game and could have extended their lead but for some brave keeping from the Oakhill custodian.

St Pius X College Unbeaten ISA Champions 2013

 

Relief was the most tangible emotion for everyone at the end of the ISA Grand Final. In a season that had involved 38 matches we had secured a major trophy, the ISA Shield was ours for the second successive season, the first time we had achieved this.

 

Captain Nicholas Morabito was our man of the match, while Claudio Rosano was named the ‘Shahab  Kargarian’ most valuable player in the game by the match officials.

                             SPX 1st XI Season 2013

P 38 W 29 D 6 L3 F 113 A 36

 

So as it ends again, it all begins. My boys Spurs have made a steady start to the new EPL Season. Two 1-0 victories both where new boy Soldado scored form the penalty spot. On Sunday (early Monday morning here in oz) we play the Arsenal. It will be an interesting tussle for Tottenham have invested massively in new players while the hero formerly known as Gareth Bale will probably have left the building by then.

I'm optimistic for Spurs....hope springs eternal....Soldado, Erikson, Lamela, Capoue and Paulino will make the side very competitive. Yes, football is truly an all  year around, twenty four hour pre-occupation for many of  us around the world. This was my fiftieth year of playing just finished and thirtieth year of coaching. It's great being fully involved in what is truly the world game!

 

 

 

 

Selling Gareth Bale gets us a lot for our money :)