Community lost
YOUR correspondent Frank Cherry (Herald letters, March 26) suggests that Carmel Mullally’s house could be renovated into a cafe/diner for truckies.
It could, however, serve a much higher purpose as a memorial not only to a brave lady but to a shameful episode in the history of Fremantle when the container port’s expansion overran a whole community, wiping out 300 homes, a substantial railway station and land, and half of the thriving North Fremantle town centre.
A coherent community that existed both sides of the rail line and south of Tydeman Road disappeared, along with many businesses, churches, beautiful buildings and some of the most historic sites in the suburb.
Carmel’s neighbours on Bayly Street were of course devastated at the loss of their community, but they were considered to be of no importance.
A feature in the West Australian of June 1, 1965 explains why.
It describes North Fremantle as “Shack Town”, consisting as viewed from the train of “rusty, dilapidated roofs, untidy backyards and broken fences patched with sheets of corrugated iron”.
But, as the article explained, all of this would soon be replaced by “modern port buildings, a new wharf entrance at De Lisle Street and a modern wide road from Stirling Highway to the ocean”.
Carmel Mullally’s house should be kept exactly where it is, with a street map and aerial showing it in its historic setting, and photographs of the buildings destroyed.
This generation is not responsible for the actions of the perpetrators of historic wrongs, but it does have a responsibility to ensure that if they can’t be righted, they are at least not carelessly forgotten.
Gerard MacGill
Convenor
North Fremantle Community Association
Look south for CAT friends
IN response to last edition’s article detailing Fremantle City Council’s struggles to find a funding partner for the CAT bus, I’d like to suggest we consider collaborating with Cockburn council to investigate extending the route of the existing Blue CAT bus beyond South Beach to connect Coogee Beach to the route.
Both councils could then co-fund the route and I would suspect a “beach bus” route connecting Coogee Beach, South Beach and Bather’s Beach would also be able to attract state government/Tourism WA support due to its attraction as a popular tourism opportunity.
Not only would this potentially generate additional funding to sustain the CAT bus Iink in the long term, it would alleviate some of
the long term traffic challenges that Hampton Road, Marine Terrace etc are starting to experience as a result of the large scale new developments in Coogee and beyond.
We already see many of our neighbours from Cockburn driving into South Fremantle to park and then take the free CAT bus to work or into Fremantle Station putting pressure on Fremantle’s limited parking.
I’d love to see the two councils collaborating to fund and enhance the CAT bus offering for residents and tourists alike.
Tim
South Freo
The Ed says: According to a council staff report Freo reached out to Cockburn, which was quite enthusiastic about having a visiting CAT – until the question of going Dutch came up.
ABC news tells me this evening (March 21, 2022) that there are “164 people in hospital, with 4 in intensive care”.
We are not told whether these people are in hospital because they had serious reactions to the jab protocols; whether they had contracted Covid after being double and triple jabbed, or whether they were unvaccinated.
Surely these are very important details.
Would the Herald please be the valuable, informative newspaper it is to supply us with these details after a journalist has received them from the hospitals in WA in question.
Wouldn’t that be Fiona Stanley anyway? And if those details were kept secret by the hospitals, would our Herald let us know that?
We could draw our own conclusions from whatever facts come to light.
Thanks, brave Fremantle Herald.
Carla van Raay
Willagee
The Ed says: We did ask the Health department who reported that in the last batch of patients, 31 per cent had not vaccinated, 5 per cent had 1 dose, 36 per cent had two doses and 28 per cent had their booster. Unfortunately they didn’t answer the bit about whether anyone had been admitted to hospital as a result of a reaction to the vaccines. We don’t necessarily think they’re being deliberately secretive – it’s a busy time for them at the moment as WA reaches its Covid peak