Photos: Supplied.
BY SHANI DOIG
When I was a child my grandparents – Nan and Da – lived in a modest red and white house right on the corner of 1 Charlotte Street and the Esplanade just across from the water.
One of my most beautiful memories of the time I spent at Wynnum was when Da and I walked along the foreshore to the jetty (now in Bayside Park) built by convict labour in a bygone century. I remember him taking my hand and leading me up the jetty saying hello to fisherman until we reached the end where we would stop for a moment and look out to St Helena Island – that grand but sad place across the water.
Of equal joy were the afternoons spent on the swings across from Nan and Da’s house. I loved the swings because Da was a great pusher and I remember that feeling of almost flying. But whatever other childhood memories I have of Wynnum I think my greatest was the foreshore itself.
And it was on the foreshore that I got one of my first lessons in civic responsibility. Nan and Da used to encourage both my brother and I to pick up litter from the foreshore every afternoon.
I vividly remember them going out in the mud in the afternoon to pick up old fishing lines and soft drink cans and other pieces of muck showing us how the rubbish blew into the sea if it was dropped recklessly on the shore, and telling us about the damage it could cause to the fish and birdlife.
As I write this in front of me is a picture of my beloved Da and Nanna taken outside of 1 Charlotte Street on their Golden Wedding Anniversary on the 4 February 1982. It would be their last.
Whatever changes have taken place between now and then there is something about that foreshore that makes it very much my spiritual home.
While many thoughts of how to mark their time on earth presented themselves I did have to remember that at the end of the day my Nan and Da were quiet people who would not have liked a lot of fanfare. I do however think that what would honour their memory most would be to do that simple act of community responsibility that they took upon themselves every day – a walk of the foreshore to pick up litter.
And so if you love the Esplanade of Wynnum as much as I do, then, in the name of my Nan and Da look around you when next time you visit and check it for litter. All being well there will be nothing to pick up but if there is – I think you know what to do.
