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Stone Upon A Stone is a travelling exhibition that tells the story of
Dry-Stone-Walling in south-east Australia.
A Stone
Upon A Stone is a large exhibition that consists of collected memorabilia,
artefacts and of a series of twenty-four narrative panels each 1metre
wide x 2metres high. It was developed in collaboration with eleven Victorian
Local Government councils together with Parks Victoria, the Royal Botanic
Gardens in Sydney and Mt Annan and the Shire of Kiama in NSW. The curator
Raelene Marshall worked closely with each council and associated individuals
and key interest groups to facilitate the broader community consultation.
Until this time this was a story that had never been told.
The consultation process was fundamental to the development of the exhibition.
It included input from over four hundred people who contributed in a
variety of ways to gathering the overall story about the valuable contribution
made by the early immigrants to the shaping of our cultural landscape.
More information
can be found about this exhibition at the Stone Upon A Stone website.
<www.astoneuponastone.com>
Short Story – by V. Edwards
About a dry stone wall at Altona 76 years ago (1926)
The Edwards Family, comprising 7 boys and 2 girls lived in Upton Street,
Altona, now known as Altona Meadows.
On a mushrooming season we would go together on a cold and foggy morning
to pick mushrooms for this was the way of life to get extra pocket money
(its not like today). We would sell the mushrooms to the stores in Footscray
and Melbourne.
One little boy, about eight (8) years old then, on one morning came
across a dry stone wall when he was mushrooming in the field. This dry
stone wall was to come to be a great help to me in my life to come.
For it was built so strong I wondered who built it so many years ago.
Where was the person who built this wonderful wall so strong and tall,
for what use? I said to myself I would like to be like this wall so
solid and strong and be around for a long time.
When I was 14 years of age I went away by myself to work in the country.
I worked many places in Australia. At times I would be down in myself,
lonely and missing family and mother and friends still living in Altona.
But I would always think of the dry stone wall that I looked at some
years ago. To be strong like that wall and stand strong in oneself and
keep going on is to be happy again.
So after many years away I came back to Melbourne to live at Altona
again and to visit and look at my dry stone wall again. But my sadness,
the stone was gone owing to the building development in this area called
Altona Meadows.
I often think about this wall, what was it used for, did the home owners
take the stones to use for their garden surrounds, it may be so.
I met a wonderful girl called Renee Barnes, came from a place called
Bianden (???) in the country. We married and had two children, Lorraine
and Carol. I built a home at 35 McBain Street, Altona for the family
to live in, wonderful family very much like my stone, strong and tall
in many ways.
My partner after 58 years together is at rest now. Renee has given me
great strength to live on. Time will come for me to go just like my
wonderful dry stone wall so it be life.
This ends the story about a dry stone wall many years ago.
V. Edwards.
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