Gold and Graffiti: Tales of Melbourne: Rich man, poor man

For a little zen to go with our long lovely sleep we drank delicious coffee at the Buddhist-influenced Cafe Bliss this morning. The coffee shop is part of an old estate now offering Buddhist studies and is tucked away deep on the hidden edge of one of the many parks greening the eastern part of our suburb which we explored today. Landcox park. Frequented only by coffee-carrying yummy-mummies and their under fives actively developing their muscles on the park playground equipment.

We passed their homes on our lazy walk. Many of them characterful, thought some vacant estate relics are in dire need of love and new drains. And some have done away with the old completely and replaced it all with the super modern. I particularly liked this garage idea on one of them: black paint and black ripple texture cladding: quite a clever camouflage.

For lunch we walked the very upmarket and busy Brighton town and there learned the tale of what a new nation with very little money does to boost the bank. In 1840 the struggling New South Wales government offered several packages of land allotments for sale in parts of the new colony: to stimulate development; to raise finance. One of them, an 8 square mile block in total, occupies what now is called Brighton. A block, comprised some 5,000 acres, for £1 an acre.

This was snapped up by a fellow called Henry Dendy in the UK. A trusting soul. Sight unseen, he bought it. Not ever wise. Nonetheless, Henry hopped on a ship and came out to Australia to sell off little bits of his 5,000 acres which was then called Waterville, in order to make a profit and claw back his outlay.

Sadly, Waterville was a slight misnomer. There was no water. The early settlers who were looking for land were looking for water too, to grow their produce. The block lost its Waterville name and became Dendy. But, too late, poor Henry Dendy who had built himself a smart house on the terrace overlooking the Dendy street waterfront became a bankrupt within just 5 years of his arrival in Australia. He died a pauper.

His agent, however, took over the land, which eventually came to be called Brighton, and it all managed not only to sell well, but to become one of the most expensive, even exclusive sections, in all of Melbourne.

The Brighton shopping street today is a charming enclave of expensive dress shops, smart gift shops and stylish restaurants; many hyper inflated -- but busy in spite of that, and all with a somewhat traditional air, still. Quaint in a way. Insulated. The rest of the world is out there. Somewhere. And remnant pieces of traditional architecture are highlights, especially this lovely old set of terraced shops from the 1880s which once housed a glamorous cinema.

Henry's name lives on in the little suburban townstrip. There is a Dendy Diner, selling bagels stacked with pastrami and pickle, a taste of New York, for variety, and a cosmopolitan air. And there are Dendy theatres all over Australia, today; quite popular. The cinema name likely comes via Henry, as the first Dendy cinema was founded here in Brighton where the name lingers still, and from such little things big things grow. The Dendy theatre group today is owned by Mel Gibson, aiming to encourage wide-spread cinema-going in Australia. I think Henry might have approved his entrepreneurship, albeit risky for the times.