Ursula says, ‘‘There is no such place as the “Ena Thompson Memorial Gardens” but when I was writing, I was in my mind imagining a mixture of the Royal Botanic Gardens (pictured below) and Rushcutter’s Bay foreshore park.’
The Golden Day is set in Sydney, in a mixture of half-real and half-imagined places. Here are some of the locations that inspired Ursula’s recreated Sydney.
A beautiful, haunting novel from the
award-winning
Ursula Dubosarsky
Fairyland | Royal Botanic Gardens and Rushcutter’s Bay | SCEGGS | Darlinghurst
‘Fairyland’ was still in operation – with its fairytale characters, swings and flying fox – up until at least the late 1960s, although it was already then way past its heyday and in a state of melancholy disrepair.
It now forms part of the Great North Walk.
On the walk there are signposts telling you where in the depths of the overgrown wilderness ‘Fairyland’ used to be . . .
Fairyland
In Chapter 14, Icara and Cubby row a boat down the river, to the site of a disused pleasure-park called ‘Fairyland’.
The once-popular picnic spot was built along the Lane Cove River in the early 1900s. According to the Friends of Lane Cove National Park:
‘It has been suggested that the name Fairyland was arrived at, not only because it was a place of mystery and beauty, but also because it was the practice of the Swan family, who ran the grounds, to place fairytale characters in the tree.’
Royal Botanic Gardens and Rushcutter’s Bay
Ursula says, ‘The Golden Day is set in an inner-city private girls’ primary school in the late 1960s. In so many aspects it must be said that this school is an invention – but it is also true to say it is a creatively reimagined version of the high school I attended from 1973–1978. This was SCEGGS Darlinghurst.
Anyone who knows SCEGGS will realise immediately that the school in The Golden Day is not SCEGGS itself. Its geographical position for one thing defies all logic, and the girls and the teachers too are not portraits of real people, but mixtures of memory, interpretation and sheer imagination. None of the events in the book ever happened and Miss Renshaw herself, of course, is a complete figment.
Yet it is also true that for those who knew SCEGGS in those days there will be moments of recognition. Perhaps the atmosphere of the school, the confusion of progress and decay, and the comfort as well as the tension of the institution. The Golden Day can in no way be described as a memoir, but it is a response to the experience – like a dream, thirty years later . . .
I did not attend primary school at SCEGGS, but arrived in Year 7. In those days, the primary school was tiny compared to now. It was also very different to the state primary schools I’d come from, and I found it fascinating to observe. In my eyes it seemed like a handful of little girls, with their hair tied up in shiny ribbons, trailing after their teacher, all valiantly learning to play the violin. Perhaps this is really where the book began . . .’
SCEGGS Darlinghurst
Darlinghurst, Sydney
‘In the late 60s Oxford Street became akin to Haight-Ashby, with hippies wandering up and down, blues and jug band music drifting from the numerous wine bars and pubs.
One could detect the scent of stained leather wafting from Frank’s Cafe, Indian clothing, trinkets and paraphernalia were displayed for purchase in import stores . . .’
– Source: Taylor Square in the 60s
Ursula says, ‘Memories of SCEGGS are always linked with the school’s inner-city location, so different to the salubrious suburban surroundings of other Sydney private schools. Forbes Street, Darlinghurst, was then famous for crime, corruption, poverty, prostitution, political controversy and counter-culture.
Typically we got off the bus at Taylor Square on Oxford Street and made our way down Forbes Street in the direction of Kings Cross – past the Courthouse, the old gaol, the Christian Science Reading Room and the various sleepy inhabitants of semi-derelict terrace houses, till we reached the safety of the Green Gate that led into our school.’
It was not all like that though!
