Merri Creek Oral History Project

The Merri Creek flows through Melbourne's northern suburbs through the Cities of Moreland, Whittlesea and Darebin.   The Friends of Merri Creek (Inc.) is a community group working to support the creek since 1988. They are represented on the Merri Creek Management Committee along with council representatives and organise regular clean-ups and activities.

Des and Ruth Shiel are members of the Friends group and between 2012 and 2014 they undertook the Merri Creek Oral History Project, interviewing residents who have lived on the Creek before 1970. The transcriptions of nine of these interviews together with some photographs have recently been added to Wikinorthia. The site publishes personal reminiscences and more reflecting life in Melbourne's north. Leave a comment and add your own memories. 

Residents often grew up near the creek and tell stories of a wild inaccessible waterway, pretty much ignored by everybody including the local council.  But it was a place to play and explore, catch eels or see snakes and frogs:

"..We spent our life down the Creek.  Some of the more vivid things would be finding places where we made our cubby houses, we would go out and do things like camping or parasailing, or what we called parasailing.  What looked like huge cliffs back then, were only about two or three meters high, we would be throwing ropes up, pretending we were climbing over it and doing silly things like that.  Huge areas of box thorn, we would cut out tunnels and an opening in the middle that were like super cubby houses.  We would catch  yabbies,  couple of guys liked to get down there yabbying.  All sorts of mischief.  I have a scar on my hand from grabbing some corrugated iron, I was sliding down the hill on some corrugated iron, stuff like that.  Riding bikes along the paths, always down there on a bike as well..." - Georgio De Nola

Interviews can be accessed by searching the tag "merri creek oral history project".  Leave a comment and add your own memories.

600 Stories and growing

Have a piece of cake on us! In celebration of the milestone of 600 stories on Wikinorthia.

In its 10 year history this collaborative project that collects and collates local community stories and photographs has published personal reminiscences, local World War One service profiles and more of life in Melbourne's north both past and present.

The project grew out of a partnership between Darebin Libraries, Moreland Libraries and Yarra Plenty Regional Library, representing Darebin, Moreland, Banyule, Nillumbik and Whittlesea Local Government areas in Melbourne’s north.

The 600th story features the background to an interesting gravestone in Yan Yean Cemetery of one Harriet Wright. - Portrait of Harriet

Other local contributions include

Paper manufacture at Fairfield (in the City of Heidelberg in 1937)

South Morang’s Futuro House

Visitors are encouraged to leave comments on the website.

If you would like to contribute an article to Wikinorthia please contact Yarra Plenty Regional Library's Local History Librarian at localhistorygene@yprl.vic.gov.au.

Wikinorthia re-imagined

Darebin Libraries, Moreland City Libraries and Yarra Plenty Regional Library, serving the Nillumbik, Banyule and Whittlesea municipalities are partners in the Wikinorthia project designed to document life in Melbourne’s north. 

The re-imagined site was launched on Monday at Mill Park Library.

Although most public libraries have local history collections, a wealth of reminiscences of individuals about their own lives, as well as the histories of local clubs, organisations and businesses are being lost, because so little of it is being documented and preserved for future generations.

WikiNorthia allows histories, reminiscences and stories about the current lives of people in Melbourne’s north to be captured on a very wide scale; they are preserved and made accessible, locally, nationally and internationally via our online portal.

The site includes a diverse amount of subjects. As a result we have articles relating to art and literature, buildings, community, events, environment, places, sports, recreation and transport.

In 2011 the partner libraries decided that the site needed refreshing and updating. The digital team Portable came on board. The new site has a completely new design that has more functionality and is easier to use. 

Stories have a close connection to place.  Stories are pinned on a map, contributors add their text but also photographs, web links and reading lists if they like as well as descriptive tags to enhance the search facility.

You can comment on a story via your Facebook login and share online your social networking accounts such as twitter and Google Plus.

Much of the content from the archives site has been transferred over to our new site. Everybody has a story.  Wikinorthia is all about stories and we invite your contribution today.

Origins of local street names

Among the new content on Wikinorthia this month are three articles hightlighting the origins of street names in our three municipalities. It is hoped that these articles will grow. Please include your source of information whereever possible.

Banyule Street Names

Nillumbik Street names

Whittlesea Street Names

These articles can also be navigated by browsing Places - Roads, lanes and pathways

Other new articles include:
Growing up in West Heidelberg

Ern and Lill's home

Hursts Family Cemetery

Sharing experiences of Black Saturday

During the next couple of weeks local libraries will be collecting stories of Black Saturday to be preserved on Wikinorthia

Jim recently shared his story of loosing his beloved horse Henry.

For more information about recording your story on Wikinorthia visit the website or your local library.

Batman Apple Tree

An interesting article has just been posted to Wikinorthia: documenting life in Melbourne's north on the old apple tree by the banks of the Plenty River in Greensborough known locally as the Batman Apple tree. It is a very old tree, and could be Victoria's oldest apple tree. It is assocaited with John Batman the so called founder of the City of Melbourne

Thanks to local historian Bruce Draper for permission to include his article on Wikinorthia.

Our neighbouring area of Templestowe in the City of Manningham has a heritage of apple growing. Petty's Orchard now operated by Parks Victoria is a great place to visit.

Documenting the worst bushfires in Australia's history

Residents of Whittlesea, Banyule and Nillumbik, Darebin and Moreland are encouraged to memoralise the recent tragedy online via Wikinorthia, along with personal reminiscences in whatever way the fires may have touched you. You can place these under the disasters (events) and reminiscences (people) subcategories. Wikinorthia uses wiki technology similiar to Wikipedia where individuals are able to add and edit their own content. Wikipedia already has an article about Black Saturday with a number of links.

Please contact your local library if you need assistance with uploading your article. YPRL will be having workshops later in the year which you will also be able to attend.

Picture Australia is also asking for contributions, via their Flickr project. Details about how to go about this are here.

ABC Online is also collecting, stories, photos and videos.