Opinion
Life in the ’burbs is a series that highlights the good, bad and beautiful of Brisbane suburbs. Writers from around the city are penning love letters (mostly) to their suburbs every week.
What is true volunteer spirit? I’ll tell you.
When Cannon Hill State School first opened in 1915, a series of drowning tragedies rocked the community. Children seeking to cool off in a local flooded quarry were losing their lives.
Determined to have a safe space to teach kids how to swim, the parents raised money for a pool by growing potatoes on the school oval. The government architect drew up a design, and the parents and kids dug the pool by hand.
A hundred years and several refurbs later, the pool was named after alumna and Commonwealth and Olympic medallist Hayley Lewis. It’s still there.
The volunteer spirit lives on at the school, with parents showing up to serve free school breakfasts, and to run the tuckshop and disco nights. I’ve made friends with many of them at school pick-up. We’ve been to each others’ places for birthdays.
I sometimes think that if it wasn’t for the school, I wouldn’t have much of a social life.
Cannon Hill marks arguably the last outpost of the southern inner city. Beyond it, you’re on your way bayside.
The heart of it lies between Wynnum Road and Richmond Road, the latter a lengthy rat-run, handily devoid of traffic lights or roundabouts, spanning Morningside Station all the way to Creek Road.
Wedged between are attractive Queenslanders, bungalows, schools, daycare centres. The Friendly Grocer on Molloy Road teems on Friday afternoons with pupils buying ice blocks, and it serves their parents coffees all day long. There’s a brewery, a bike shop, a Vinnie’s, a banh mi shop.
On the eastern end sits the Cannon Hill Shopping Plaza, which is where I spend a large chunk of every weekend.
Let’s be honest. Cannon Hill Shopping Plaza (est. 1973) is a nightmare for drivers and pedestrians alike. Almost every car trying to exit the place must get past zebra crossings used by almost every pedestrian trying to get to the shops.
Vehicles bank up left and right, and heading out on foot is dicey, as there are few designated walkways; you’ll find yourself pushing a shopping cart among aggressive SUV owners. Shade is scarce because Cyclone Alfred tore down the tarpaulins.
It’s hard to see how it can be improved, short of knocking it all down and starting again.
In a doctors’ waiting room recently I found a photo of the place in the year it opened. It doesn’t seem to have changed much. The main difference is that instead of a Bunnings, there used to be a drive-in cinema. My sister-in-law was taken there to see John Carpenter’s The Thing as a small child in 1982 and swears she still hasn’t recovered.
These days, the eastern wing is a “ghost mall”, dominated by the empty shells of failed businesses: a former butcher shop, a long-dead cafe. A bizarre tourist attraction involving hologram animals operates here, as well as a 24-hour golf simulator. The building is eerily quiet and underlit. It’s like an abandoned mall in a zombie movie.
I kind of love it.
Yet Cannon Hill’s militaristic name worries me. Was it coined after a frontier war against the Indigenous owners, a massacre? Streets near the Cannon Hill Anglican College like Grenade Street, Gatling Street and Shrapnel Road likewise seem to memorialise WWI horrors.
Happily, the answer seems to be more comical. According to a letter to the Brisbane Courier dated June 1930, a boy travelling home to Tingalpa in 1864 took shelter during a storm inside a large hollow log that resembled a cannon. A log! The author claims this is the origin of the name of the Weedon family’s stately home, Cannon Hill House, which burnt down in 1926 – although it’s just as likely to have come from a park in Birmingham.
Several elevations in the area have joyous views of the city skyline, but if you want to see a really steep hill, check out a graph of Cannon Hill house prices. The suburb has taken its place behind Morningside on Brisbane’s relentless conga line into unattainable ritziness.
Neighbouring Murarrie wants to join the party. Park Hill, the newer Paris end of Murarrie built over former Cannon Hill cattle yards, has sought re-designation as Cannon Hill for more than a decade. Residents point to historical links and the close proximity of the Cannon Hill train station.
Meanwhile, the corner block of Wynnum and Creek roads has lain empty for years awaiting a $600 million redevelopment into “East Village”, with retail, dining, cinemas, apartments and a hotel.
The developers look forward to “unlocking new height allowances and delivering a cohesive, well-planned precinct that will grow in stages over the coming years”. The local Facebook group is looking on with impatient scepticism.
But don’t doubt that Cannon Hill is moving up in the world. It boasts a golf course – Brisbane’s newest. Minnippi Parklands have a lavish new housing estate and manicured new golf club, and large houses are springing up here faster than you can tee up.
Loudly as I complain about Cannon Hill Shopping Plaza, I would be bereft without it. My kids love sushi trains, and heaven forbid we should have to venture as far as Westfield Carindale.
And I love the school. I’ve seen the principal playing handball with kids after the final bell. At a recent Diwali festival, I watched teachers submit to being slimed while the students cheered wildly.
The uncle of Hayley Lewis, NRL legend Wally, is another proud graduate, winning a district premiership for the school in 1968. He visited his alma mater last year to induct the school captains.
If Lang Park won’t accept the King’s bones, perhaps they can find a spot for him on the school oval, where sporting dreams have germinated, along with the potatoes.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Nick Dent is a Culture Reporter at Brisbane Times, covering arts and things to do in the city.Connect via email.
