Last week one of the newest houses to be erected in Gunning arrived on the corner of Nelanglo and Biala streets, the first to be erected on what was the old dairy farm. The old house still stands and was home to the Power family until the death of Maisie Power in October 2009.
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Morgan Power was the first to arrive in Australia. He arrived at Botany Bay on May 27 1797 on the convict ship Britannia. He was convicted in Ireland of buying 26 sheep suspected of being stolen. He married Ann Goode and raised their two sons, Morgan junior and Timothy, in the Toongabbie area. Timothy's son George married Eleanor Cobban and they moved to Gunning in the 1850s, where they lived in a slab and stringy bark building on what is now the golf course.
Eleanor bought blocks of land in Biala Street and by the 1870s owned nine half-acre blocks. She borrowed 100 pounds and built a house that was left to her son, Wesley Avrill, who by about 1900 was operating a dairy farm. In 1910 he married Nettie Edna Gozzard and they raised six boys and two girls in this house.
The new residents, Sam and Tess with a son and another child on the way, hope to move in by Christmas.
Keeping the cattle comfortable
If you are familiar with some of Canberra's public art you will probably know the sculpture Ainslie’s Sheep by Les Kossatz. It is a satirical salute to early pastoralist James Ainslie and shows a sheep reclining in an armchair.
I would like to think that the person who has placed a couch in the cattle shed at the Gunning Showground was thinking of the comfort of the cattle that will be tethered there at the 2013 Gunning Show. Perhaps one of Annie Hurst's Tickelara Angus Stud heifers could loll on it?
However the less palatable truth is that someone has just dumped it and expects council to deal it. Bit of a shame really!
The Pakistan-Gunning connection
When in Pakistan a 14-year-old girl was shot and gravely wounded for daring to attend school and openly advocating education for girls, it is easy to think that this is the real situation for the whole country.
So what does Gunning have to do with this? One of the book selections for a local book club was Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. This amazing story tells of one man's mission to promote peace, one school at a time.
Mortenson, an avid mountaineer, owed his life to a small impoverished community in the north of Pakistan and promised to help them build a school. The book debunks the idea that education is not valued and that tribal chiefs do not allow their girls to be educated.
Check it out in our local library. The book club is embarking on a new year of terrific reading and there are some vacancies in the group so why not talk to Ros Medway at the Gunning Library.
Coming up
November
25: Collector Memorial Hall 60th Birthday, 1950s theme, info Gary 0423 672 153
December
2: Wesley Choir sings Christmas carols, Old Gunning Courthouse, 5.30pm followed by tea at the Uniting Church. All welcome.
3: Focus Group AGM, Old Gunning Courthouse, 7.30pm. Info and membership forms 0417 663 045
6: Garden Club Christmas lunch, Cellar Door Café, Gundaroo, RSVP by December 3 on 4845 1021.
