Under the Elms

On Sunday 11 November the University of New England will be hosting an event called “Under the Elms”, at which an opportunity to sample some of the best food and cool climate wines that Armidale has to offer will be presented, together with “a living art gallery under the trees”. It sounds like a great idea to me – a lovely setting for the occasion. For details and tickets see here.

Elm Avenue will be closed for the occasion for the first time in its history (apart that is, for the odd occasions when a flood in the Dumaresq Creek would cut off what was then the only route to town, isolating the University for a few hours until the waters subsided).

My mental image of Elm Avenue dates of course from the 1960s when I was living in Wright College – the sort of scene which these three photos illustrate.

My memory goes further back, however. A couple of days ago I discovered in a battered old photo album a photo that I took with a Box Brownie in about 1953, when I was still at primary school; I travelled this route often because it was the way from home to the University, where both my parents worked. If you look closely at this photo you can see that not a sod has as yet been turned to develop the colleges, starting with Wright College (first occupied 1956) – the left hand side of the road is still fenced. Note that this photo is taken looking north, whereas the ones above were taken looking south.