Want to see a cemetery at night? Four good reasons why you should see it on a Moonlight Tour

So maybe you're thinking of taking a night tour of a Brisbane cemetery? Well, maybe not, but some strange interesting people do from time to time. Fortunately, I'm one of those strange helpful people who can arrange it for you. Legally. 

In a couple of months the wet summer season will just about be over and the Moonlight Tours 2012 season will begin. Weather permitting, our first night tour of South Brisbane Cemetery this year will take place on Friday 13 April - one of three Black Fridays this year.* We love doing the tours. Some are quiet, some are busy, but they are all really enjoyable. The cemetery is a special place to be at night, it has an atmosphere all of its own, and showing it to people who have interest enough to actually come along on a tour is always a pleasure.

As you will see below there are a couple of choices for taking a cemetery night tour in this city, and this article will spell out four very solid reasons why you should take your tour with us: 

1. You save money

Down to the nitty-gritty to begin with. Moonlight Tours only cost $15 per adult ($12.50 kids), which comparatively speaking is bloody cheap. That comparison being of course the only other night tour available at the cemetery, the ghost tour, which costs $35 (did you know Brisbane has the most expensive basic ghost tours in Australia?**). So for two people that's a saving of $40 right there, enough to round out the night with some food, drink or a movie afterwards.

What's more, there are free juice and biccies after the tour. Also, if tour has to be cancelled because of the weather (there's nothing "atmospheric" about  hiding under an umbrella not being able to hear the guide over the noise of the rain, or having a tree fall on you during a gale) we won't keep your money if you've pre-paid. 

2. You can actually talk to us

There are two kinds of guided tours. The first is the type where the guide is 'in character' and strictly sticks to a script. Usually this character is maintained before, during and after the event, so you can't ask questions or chat about the things that most interested you during the tour. This is theatre-restaurant-type infotainment which can be enjoyable enough, but rather one-dimensional information-wise.   

The other type of tour is what we do. The hosts are 'themselves' (actual historians) and know enough on the subject area to engage you on an individual level, taking your questions and responding to discussion. We believe this to be one of the best qualities of the Moonlight Tours. Tracey Olivieri, the lead tour guide, grew up in the area and knows the cemetery like the back of her hand, and its always great to listen to her fielding questions from the tour groups and having a chat. After the tour you can hang around and have a follow-up chat with the guides if you want. 

It just depends which type of tour you prefer. Diff'rent strokes and all that.

 

3. You'll get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but...

We respect your intelligence, and work hard to make sure that what we tell people is actually true and backed up by the historical record. We aren't going to make up stories. When we first started the tours in 2010 Cameron 'Jack' Sim of Ghost Tours, upset that a not-for-profit community group was 'competing' with his small business, wrote an email to Brisbane City Council complaining that on our first tour (and I quote):

"Several stories were clearly directed at undermining old ghost stories of the cemetery with historical 'facts'." 

Let's be clear about this. The only thing that facts undermine is fiction. You have to have serious doubts about a so-called history tour that is undermined by historical facts. 

Anyway, we're not the only people to notice these problems. A distinctly unimpressed reviewer in Qweekender (24-25 September 2011) pointed out (among other complaints) a series of historical inaccuracies in the tour's 'flawed' stories, and found that 'accuracy was wanting'. This kind of thing has been covered before (try here and here for example), but on a 'history' tour you really need to be sure that you are hearing fact and not fiction. Otherwise what's the point?

4. What we do with the money

Our tour license with the Brisbane City Council requires us to spend the majority of all tour revenue on heritage projects, so even you think the tour was the worst rubbish you've heard in your entire life then at least the money is doing some good. Last year we produced the booklet South Brisbane Cemetery A-Z of R.I.P., featuring short biographies of some of the cemetery's residents. The thinking behind this was that the more people know about places like this, the more inclined they are to protect them. 

We used the rest of the cash to give our cat a
money bath on board the Moonlight Tours yacht.

So there you have four good reasons to take a tour with us. It's affordable, interactive, factual, and for a good cause.

If you're convinced, you can book your tour by popping off an email to one of these addresses:

info@boggoroadgaol.com.au

info@southbrisbanecemetery.org

As for money, you can pay at the gate on the night. Too easy.

* That's about as many Black Fridays as you can get in one year (there was only one last year). The last time there was three was in 2009, and the next will be 2015. It won't happen again during a leap year until 2040).

**For example, a ghost tour of a top-shelf (and World Heritage-listed) place like Port Arthur only costs $22, while mainland Australia's longest-running ghost tours, in Melbourne, cost $20.

From Boggo to Bangalore: The day the gaol became an Indian street market

There have many great movies made in Australia. Sunday Too Far Away, My Brilliant Career, Gallipoli, The Year My Voice Broke, Some Phone Ad with Mahatma Cote. I was lucky enough to be present at the filming of the last one, which took place at Boggo Road circa 2004. 

It was actually an ad for a phone card (or something) to be screened only in India. Why they filmed it at Boggo Road I don't know, but one day the production company moved in and transformed the gatehouse and inner compound into an Indian street market. The ad starred ex-cricketer Greg Ritchie as his 'Mahatma Cote' comedy Punjabi Sikh character, a regular guest on 1990s TV sports shows. He was all very It Ain't Half Hot Mum, (see his work here), and I honestly don't know how it would have gone down in India. Anyway, it was a strange situation, with a fake Indian man in a fake Indian street making an ad that was only intended for viewing in India itself.

The museum staff were blown away by the effort put into filming, which went over a few days. The first step was transforming the prison, and in came tables and bright colours and market produce, finished off with dust thrown all over the floor.

The gatehouse (© BRGHS)

Old cars and bikes were dragged into the 'quad', and buntings tied up everywhere.

The 'quad' (© BRGHS)

All of the pink and blue building you can see to the left here was in fact just a temporary facade.
 

(© BRGHS)

Directly across from the above was this building, which housed the office of the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society and normally looked like this... 

(© BRGHS)

 ...but ended up looking like this:

(© BRGHS)

I've been to India, and have to say the production crew did a surprisingly good job. Best of all, during the shoot, the museum staff were kindly invited into the huge on-set catering trailer for a series of delicious all-you-can-politely-eat smorgasbords of great Indian food (which just happens to be my favourite food in the world). I was as happy as a pig in mud. And speaking of animals, what's an Indian street scene without a Brahman bull?

(© BRGHS)

If anybody has a copy of the ad which came out of all this, I'd love to have a look at it too. Or if any of the production crew have any pics or stories they'd like to share, that would also be great.

Anyway, strange days indeed at Boggo Road.

Reservation Life in Dutton Park

Dutton Park is only a small suburb, and many people around Brisbane don't know where it is (it lies between Woolloongabba, Highgate Hill and Fairfield), but it has a surprisingly rich and unique heritage because back in the 19th century the colonial government set aside most of the local land as reserves. Queensland was still a brand new colony and Brisbane was beginning to expand rapidly, and the government required land close to the city for a number of government facilities. The area they choose is shown here:

Original reserves (green) overlaid on modern suburb map.

A survey was undertaken there by Charles Rawnsley in 1863. A huge complex of reserves was created, covering almost 140 hectares between the modern Annerley and Ipswich roads and the river.

There were up to ten different reserves, and I’ll run through a list of some of them and how they were used:

South Brisbane Cemetery (1866 - )

The first reserve to be actively used was the cemetery, which was reserved in 1866 and first used in 1870, and is now the oldest surviving municipal cemetery in Brisbane. About 100,000 people have been buried there.

South Brisbane Cemetery, circa 1898 (John Oxley Library, #APE-047-01-0025)

Deaf, Dumb & Blind School (1883 - 1988)

This school opened in 1883 as the 'Brisbane Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, Deaf & Dumb'. It later became the Queensland School for the Deaf and this old building was demolished when a new school opened on the same site (next to Dutton Park railway station) in 1973. The school closed in 1988 when the children were placed into the mainstream school system.

Queensland School for the Deaf, circa 1935 (JOL #151056)

Orphanage/Diamantina Hospital (1883-)

The Diamantina Orphanage was established in 1883, and after several changes of function it became a hospital for chronic diseases in 1897. After a major rebuilding programme it was renamed the Princess Alexandra Hospital in 1959. The Diamantina Museum, in the only original building left from the first hospital, is worth a visit.

On the verandah of the Diamantina Hospital, 1925 (JOL #64641)

The prisons (1883 - 2000)

There were a number of different prison buildings that came and went on this site over time. The first, shown below, was built in 1883 for male prisoners.And a new prison opened next door to the first prison in 1903 to hold female prisoners. This is now the only remaining prison building left at the site.

No.1 Division, Brisbane Prison (replaced in early 1970s) (JOL #65256)

Dutton Park State School (1884 -)

The school reserve next to the prison was cleared by prison labour, and the school opened in 1884 as the Woolloongabba Mixed School, later becoming the Dutton Park school.

The Class of 1895

Dutton Park recreation reserve (1884 -)

This park is where the suburb gets its name from. It was set aside as a recreation reserve in 1884 by Charles Dutton, who was the secretary of lands, and was leased by the Brisbane Tramway company in the 1900s. Their trams ran to a nearby stop and the company tried to boost patronage by turning the park into a leisure resort by building kiosks and organising attractions such as the ‘Continentals’, outdoor shows which combined live acts and silent movie screening.

The park became so popular that nearby housing became known as the name ‘Dutton Park Estate’. This name was soon being used for the local train station and school, and although it became a distinct area within the suburb of Woolloongabba, the modern suburb was not formed until the 1970s.

Village Fair at Dutton Park, 1909 (JOL #145927)

 

Animal pound (1887-1920s)

The next reserve to be used was the animal pound, seen below in green, which was used for confining stray animals, including stray cattle and horses which were wandering around the suburbs. This opened in 1887 across from the cemetery. This was under the charge of a police-appointed poundkeeper, a position originally paid for through animal sales. There was originally no water at the pound, and the animals had to be driven twice a day to nearby waterholes before a trough and water mains were installed in the 1890s. It was closed in the 1920s and its former presence is marked in the name of Pound Street.

Some other reserves  

Other reserves included ones for the police, a school of arts, and a road metal quarry (now Quarry Street). 

Yellow: School of Arts
Red: Road metal quarry
Green: Animal pound
Blue: Police reserve
Pink: Sanitary works

Although it was not on a reserve as such, the sanitation works are shown here as another interesting aspect of the local history. Operating from the 1880s until 1907, this was a large industrial facility where the 'night soil' from outside toilets in South Brisbane was destroyed in incinerators. Locals often complained of the smell arising from this facility, as you can imagine. Household waste was also dumped in trenches in the nearby park, which was the scene of an archaeological dig recently which turned up household objects from the 1890s and World War 2.

Some of the reserve land was later developed into streets, but places such as the hospital and school have survived and are still being used for their original purposes, as of course is the cemetery, which along with Boggo Road Gaol is one of Queensland's important heritage places.

It might only be small, and you can drive through it in 30 seconds, but when it comes to heritage, Dutton Park (and a bit of Buranda) is the mouse that roared.

The Truth About Those Tours "Around" Boggo Road Gaol

A few months back I had a problem with members of the public thinking that the Boggo Road Markets were actually being held inside the old prison, when in fact they are just outside it. They're very good markets and all, well worth a visit, but this was a misconception that left me having to personally inform many disappointed people of the truth.

So I just had to roll my eyes when queries came in last week asking about the tours inside the gaol that weekend. 'What tours?', I asked. 'The tours during the markets', I was told. That can't be right, I thought, and so checked their source of information on this. There, on the Brisbane 'Ghost Tours' Facebook page, was a status update announcing that tours would be held "around the Boggo Road Gaol" on Sunday.

The word to note here is around, because in common English usage it implies a certain meaning. When you look around a house, a garden, a town, a museum, etc, you look INSIDE it. When you have spent an afternoon hanging around the house, you haven't been circling the perimeter fence.

However, what readers of the post would not readily understand was that in this case the word was being used in the literal sense - the tours walked around the outside of the gaol. Was it deliberate use of uncertain language? After all, these tours are (unbelievably) not free. Well, how about this comment under the post:

"Thanks heaps to Daniel at Ghost Tours for all the info today about these tours tomorrow, and the updates about future happenings...much appreciated, I'm looking forward to seeing this site in all it's sinister glory!"

So somebody claims to have contacted Ghost Tours for further information about these tours, and then posted a comment clearly reinforcing the impression that they were going to see the site 'in all it's glory'. I can tell you that this glory is not best viewed from outside the seven-metre-high perimeter brick wall. Again, its all vague, ambiguous language when it would actually be easier to make the message clear and correct (i.e. "tours will be held around the outside of the gaol wall').

"Hello everybody. This tour will require the use of your
(finger quotes) "imagination"."

The thing is, not only is it easy to get these things right, its a responsibility. People don't like feeling they've been duped.

(Speaking of which, I notice that Ghost Tours are STILL refusing to answer people's questions about when the gaol will reopen. Best government estimate: late 2013. You're welcome, ghost tours).

This all relates back to when the markets first opened last year and the advertising described them as being AT the gaol. The word 'at' is another ambiguous term that in this context could easily be interpreted as 'inside', but in that case it was just a simple mistake in promotional material for the markets. The wash-up of that little mistake was that for the first few weeks of the markets we had a regular stream of visitors with huge cameras around their necks rocking up to the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society market stall and asking how they could get inside the gaol. Most times their response to the news that they couldn't get inside the place was disappointment, although a few times it was outright anger. Some people had made special trips across town just to go inside.

That's why we posted a comment on the Facebook page for Boggo Road Gaol explaining exactly where the markets were located. We were at the coalface and saw the disappointment that ambiguous advertising was causing, and that's why I find myself having to do it again in this blog. Except this time I'm a lot less prepared to believe it was a mistake. Either way, it was quite unprofessional.

What Would Win in a Fight Between a Tiger and a Bull?

Sometimes historical research can go off on a tangent when something interesting catches your eye. When I was writing my article 'Tigers, Roller-Coasters and Special Effects: Brisbane's 19th-century Dreamworld', which mentioned the story of a tiger on the loose in Brisbane's George Street, I came across some old newspaper reports of staged fights between bulls and tigers, and quite frankly I was interested in the result.* The result was, however, that people can be very stupid and very cruel, and animals can be reluctant to fight upon demand. 

1950 Topps card - 'Terror of the Jungle'

I will cover three reports of tiger/bull fights here, although an earlier and supposedly fictional account had featured in the 1858 novel Jack of all Trades by Charles Reade. I say 'supposedly' because judging by later reports of actual fights, Reade's account was based on reality. After being placed in the arena, the two animals were reluctant to fight, and so Reade's protagonist poked the tiger with a red-hot iron to try and provoke it. As will be seen below, this behaviour was all-too-normal at these events.

 

The first account of an actual fight to appear in a Queensland newspaper was in 1898, and told of a fight between a Bengal tiger ('Cesar') and an Adalusian fighting bull in front of 1,300 spectators at the Plaza de Madrid. A seventeen-metre-square cage was erected in the middle of the arena, and the bull was the first to be released into the enclosure:

"The brute immediately began to run round and round his prison, bellowing and throwing up sand and gravel with his hoofs. The instant the tiger entered the cage he gave a roar and bounded on the bull, avoiding the horns, and fixed on his flanks and belly with both teeth and claws. The bull remained still for a few seconds, and then seemed to be sinking backwards to the ground. The spectators thought that all was over, but the tiger let go for a second to take another hold, and in the brief interval was kicked over by the wild plunges of the bull. Before the tiger had time to recover the bull was on him, and, staking his horns into the striped hide, it tossed the tiger into the air. This was repeated four or five times, the bull varying his tactics occasionally by banging his adversary against the bars. When the bull stopped the tiger lay limp on the ground, and the crowd, thinking he was dead, cried 'Bravo, toro.' The bull stood stamping for a moment in the middle of the cage, and then, seeing the tiger did not move, approached and smelt him. But Cesar was only shamming death, and seized the bull's muzzle in his powerful jaws so the animal could not move. Eventually, however, he was released, and, after stamping furiously on the tiger, again caught him on his horns. This time the tossing, stamping, and banging apparently ended in Cesar's death. The cage was then opened, and the bull rushed out and back to his stable. For precaution's sake, the tiger's van was brought up, and, to the general surprise, Cesar rose to his feet, glanced round as if afraid the bull was still there, and then bounded into the van. The tiger was found to have five ribs broken, besides having a number of wounds from the bull's horns. He is expected, nevertheless, to survive. It is said that all wild animals - bears, lions, panthers, and tigers - fare badly in combat with the Spanish fighting bull. Man and the elephant are the only sure victors over these active and ferocious beasts."
(The Capricornian, 12 March 1898)

Detail from Henri Rosseau, 'Struggle between a tiger and a bull', c.1900

Another bull vs tiger fight took place in front of a huge crowd in a bullring at San Sebastian, Spain, in 1904. The fight was staged in a large cage in the centre of the arena. A cameraman was set up behind a barrier to film the event, but he fled in terror when the bull charged him. The Bengal tiger was reluctant to enter the arena, and when it did the Andalusian bull charged him down and gored him, but the tiger caught him in the neck before retreating and positioned himself to pounce. This was repeated occasionally over half an hour before the crowd grew impatient at the lack of action. A photographer climbed into the arena and prodded the tiger with an iron rod through the bars, but the animals simply stood and stared at each other. 

At this point the furious Homer-Simpsonesque spectators "jumped into the arena and shouted all the names they could think of at the animals, hissed, lit squibs, and danced like mad creatures round the cage". This caused the bull to once more gore the tiger against the side of the cage, which made the wall fall over. Now the heroic bogans who had been taunting the animals fled in hysterical terror, and the Gendarme and everyone with a gun "blazed away indiscriminately" at the tiger. One report had eleven people wounded, but another had fifty being hit with bullets, with fourteen severely wounded, three in a critical condition, and one woman dead. The tiger, which had been too badly injured by the bull to attack anyone anyway, was also shot dead. After this it was torn to shreds by 'souvenir hunters', cutting off parts of the tiger's body as keepsakes. All of which proves that the most dangerous animal of all etc, etc. 

'Tiger and Bull' by Alton S. Tobey

The French government moved to ban these fights from taking place in France, although several hundred people gathered in a private enclosure in Marseilles in 1908 to watch just such a fight, this one staged with the intention of filming it. Not all went to plan because although the bull was ready for a fight, the tiger retreated to a corner and stayed there, prompting yet more human stupidity and cruelty. The impatient crowd pelted the animal with bricks and stones, and the attendants prodded it with an iron bar, turned a hose on it, and finally exploded fireworks in its face, but the tiger could not be provoked. It was returned to the cages and a second tiger produced. This one was much hungrier and instantly attacked the bull, which turned and ripped the tiger's shoulder open. The wounded tiger crawled back to its den, after which it was too dark to film any more and the fight was postponed until the next morning. However, when the time came and a tiger was about to be driven into the enclosure again, the police arrived and arrested the promoters, smashed the photographer's cameras, and led the cinematographer away in handcuffs.

Despite the cameraman's problems at San Sebastian in 1904, a silent movie short of that event called 'Tiger and Bull Fighting' was produced and screened to Australian audiences in 1906. The filming had reached the point where the tiger was pressed against the cage, but audiences were informed that the scene in which the bull supposedly killed the tiger was 'missing'. This movie was in circulation for a few years, and was quite possibly shown in Brisbane, but in 1909 the Sunday Times of Perth advised the film's distributor that they would...

"do well to drop such films as "Bull and Tiger Fighting," "Bear hunting in Russia", these exhibitions being anything but of an elevating character. Usually the "savage tiger" is an ancient, toothless, doped animal, which can't get out of its own way, and seems glad to crawl into a corner, and die of disembowelment."

Tiger attacking a calf, Roman mosaic, 4th century CE

The movie itself seems to have died of disembowelment and disappeared, as did the staging of bull and tiger fights in general. For the record, it looks like bulls generally got the better of the tigers, but then these were contests between bulls trained to fight and tigers trained to be docile. There were always plenty of idiots to watch them, however, and if the producers of Reality TV shows were given half a chance, they would quite happily stage animal fights and no doubt they would find a huge audience too.