© Warren Fahey

It is difficult to believe we celebrated Australia’s bicentenary twenty years ago. So many things have changed and so many things we had hoped would change have not.

Change is something we appear to take for granted as we brutishly dismiss our heritage. More historic buildings tumble, ratbag politicians come and go, important aspects of our social life continue to go unrecorded, our language bends to the demands of usually unacceptable cultural imports and our tall poppies wilt as we gleefully cut them down. Sadly we appear not to learn from history, nature, family experience or even our mistakes. Australia Day, this far down the wallaby track, provides a good opportunity for all of us to review, revise and, most importantly, to get this century’s goal posts in sight.

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Jane Austen Festival, Canberra, Australia
Thursday 16th to Sunday 19th April 2009

The National Jane Austen Festival was the idea of Aylwen Gardiner-Garden and the first Festival took place in 2008.

“My aim,” said Aylwen, “was to hold an annual celebration where Austen fans from all over Australia could come and indulge themselves in everything Regency - including dancing,music, food, games, costumes and books.”

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In January 1859 both Aboriginal people and missionaries began clearing the Mallee scrub and native cypress from the site of the new mission station at Ebenezer, which meant “the rock of hope”. Situated on the vast, flat Wimmera region of Victoria, this area was one of the last to be settled by Europeans. It also saw its share of violence against the Aboriginal people. Innocent native blood had been spilt on the very site where Ebenezer was located.

Ebenezer Mission Church 2008

Expressions of concern from sympathetic setters had alerted the London branch of the Moravian Missionaries to the plight of Australia’s indigenous people and they responded by sending their missionaries. The Moravian missionaries from Saxony, Germany, had chosen this site for the Ebenezer Station Mission the previous year. Although near the Wimmera River, the site was a traditional meeting place and corroboree ground and was safely located on a limestone rise. Its isolation was of paramount importance to the missionaries. They firmly believed that the mission had to be located far away from the influence of European settlement for any chance of future prosperity.

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MP3:

Singing in the mission church
One Anzac Day around about noon
Remembering songs from Sunday School
Indelible words, indelible tunes.

Chorus:
“My cup is full and running over”,
“Be valiant, be very strong
“Resist the power of sin”, I sing
Words from days long gone.

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