Attachment ‘C’

Queens Park

So why the title ‘Queens Park’?

The word ‘Queen’ means different things to different people. Staunch monarchists will be glad to have the name as part of their suburb. Republicans, while quietly relishing the increased property values will be ideologically opposed to any connection with royalty?

And it’s the diverse reaction to a name that brings out the history and life stories of the residents who live in this block of units just across the road from Centennial Park. None of them moved to ‘Queens Park’. They were contently living in Bondi Junction when the Geographic Names Board decided to change its name. They went to bed one night in Bondi Junction and woke up the next morning in Queens Park. You know that feeling after a one night stand!

Anyone who’s lived in a block of units will know what it’s like living with people with whom you have no choice. Well, you’re not exactly living with them. But your lives become intertwined. Especially, if like our six Queens Park residents, you’re living in one of those buildings of a certain age. You know - the ones where you hear the toilets flush, the doors creak, the snores and coughs and everyone else’s bad taste in music. Before you know it, a sign will appear ‘In consideration of fellow residents please restrain from farting between the hours of 9.00 p.m. and 7.00 a.m.’

And there’s always one person who’s the moral conscience and arbiter of good taste and propriety. In this story, it’s Mrs Cruickshank, widow and retired manager of David Jones button counter.

The other residents represent the whole gamut - hetero, homo, bi, transsexual and asexual, talented, pedestrian, Aussie, Jewish, Italian and Eurasian and so on. Through Mrs Cruikshank’s eyes they’re not worthy of the Queens imprimatur.

The sharp discordant twangs from Harold Solomon’s violin grate on her nerves. He may be a famous concert performer but that doesn’t give him the right to impose his music on other people, especially when they suffer from migraine.

Anthony Carpenter, our immaculately groomed and aspiring young lawyer, has earned her respect however. He considerately pops out to Centennial Park loos rather than flushing the toilet at home late at night. Ever ready to hand out his business card, Anthony often returns with a new client.

And then we have Ronald Cheong, quiet living, successful dentist but attracts nothing but disdain from Mrs Cruikshank because he has the temerity to fly the Eureka flag, symbol of his gold-digging ancestors.

Mrs Cruikshank takes comfort from the presence of Linda Peterson, a career woman not unlike a younger version of herself. But there the similarity ends because Mrs Cruickshank would never entertain her dinner guests in a grass skirt and a whalestooth necklace dangling between her breasts.