In 1993, my uncle bought a piece of land with the inheritance from my grandfather in Glenquarry, NSW. It is a verdant, ritzy, rural locality, 80 minutes' drive down the Hume highway south-west of Sydney. Since my father had a successful legal practice, my uncle got the entire sum of 200,000 aud, which at the time was quite a considerable amount.
The land is a 10 acre parcel which had been historically portioned off a larger, original settler property as a reward from the local Mayor to the landowner. My guess is that this involved a personal donation (i.e. bribe), or some other kind of political support.
The surrounding properties are therefore much larger than my uncle's. Some are 100 acres, some are 150. There are 1000 acre properties out there, too. The area enjoys the highest rainfall in the Sydney region, and a temperate climate. It's briskly cold in winter, and beautifully sunny and warm in summer. All year round, it's vibrantly, vibrantly green.
Glenquarry is nestled in the hills between Bowral and the Kangaroo Valley, sitting above the Wingecarribee Reservoir. From the hillside flow many fresh, clean water springs, forming little rivulets and streams. The area was once the prize dairy district of Sydney, but is now almost exclusively luxury holiday homes whose owners hire someone to "fatten up" beef cattle.
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I visited my uncle last spring and slept the night in his guest room. In the morning, I pulled on my shoes and went for a run outside. The road was narrow, without verges, and the occasional cars were shiny and fast-driving. It was not a friendly pedestrian area, and I didn't see anyone else on foot.
Picking the quietest roads for my exercises, I turned down a narrower dirt track, well-levelled and wide enough for a car to drive comfortably. Tall, monotonous hedges grew up on either side, some with sturdy wooden fences, some with stone walls. I caught glimpses of large, manicured houses, horse stables and well-tended ornamental gardens.
For a long while on my left, there was a particularly tall and dense row of cypresses. It was about 6 m high, and threw the road fully into shadow. The cypresses came to a point, then turned inwards to form an imposing entranceway. A tall iron gate blocked the driveway, and I caught a glimpse of the garden within.
The grass was mown very short. The driveway led up to a large expanse of light brown gravel, around which stood a shed and garages for several cars, built from brown brick. Maples or planes formed an avenue along the driveway (I was still running - it was just a glimpse). The trees were only about 10 years old, or perhaps they were planted that size.
More trees stood oddly-spaced around the garden, alone, without colour or flowers. There was a slight splash of pink on a shrub growing in front of the neat shed - maybe a fuscia. It was not a particularly pleasant or inviting place, and there was no sign of life.
I saw about five other properties as I kept running, each with similarly imposing fences and gateways. One of them had a small orchard of olive trees with a lot of plastic irrigation piping lying around. I was a bit bemused by that. If you can't grow olives with that rainfall...
The lane came to an end, and the vista opened up spectacularly. Suddenly I could see over the edge of the ridge, down into an enormous forested canyon, up the other side, and beyond that all the way to the ocean. It was a marvellous, marvellous sight.
I stayed there for a few minutes, doing stretches and exercises. I sung a song, but quietly. Small, elegant signs hung every few metres on the fences all around the cul-de-sac. They read, "No Entry. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted". I felt a little bit uncomfortable, so I turned around and headed back to my uncle's place. He told me later that the signs were courtesy of Mark Schwarzer, former Australian goalkeeper.
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As I ran back home, I pondered the impression my uncle had shared about his neighbours. Between such high fences and secured gateways, I wondered what made them so paranoid.
My uncle had told me that it was a bit difficult at first for them to move in to the area. With a much smaller plot than the others, the family across the road was initially hostile to a new house being build "so close".
As a musician, my uncle never accumulated a lot of money, but he is pretty well-heeled chap. Over time he was able to improve things and develop a helpful relationship. Now he and the man opposite give each other a hand with various jobs around the place, and have become something like friends.
Many of the locals interact cordially enough around the activities of the local primary school, where my little cousin started a few years earlier. And there was the nice story of a well-off philanthropist who'd funded the repairs for the roof of the village hall.
On the minds of the community recently, however, was a less savoury issue. And I'd realised that it concerned the very property by which I was running.
My uncle had mentioned a row of cypresses that blocked a view. Businesspeople based in Switzerland. The former director of the Commonwealth Bank.
I'd registered no surprise at anti-social behaviour coming from people like that, and didn't think about it too much more.
But now, running along the very hedge he'd mentioned, having just enjoyed the very few he'd meant, I pondered the question more.
That view over onto the valley and the sea, it was really something special. I can understand wanting privacy, but why plant such a tall hedge?
You could plant a dappled hedge so people can still enjoy the view. Or set it back from the road to give the benefit of viewing right over your place into the valley below.
Anyway feeling vindicated in my decision not to pursue a lucrative private-sector career, I asked my uncle about the situation when I got back home. He told me the full story.
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The property was large, several hundred acres, if I recall correctly. It had sold years ago, but only recently had its owners begun to inhabit it. They lived most of the year in Switzerland working private sector jobs. The wife was a businessperson, investor and consultant and the husband, indeed, was a former director of the Commonwealth Bank.
The property goes about 500m down the road I'd run on, but also extends for a longer stretch along the large public road - Range Rd - which connects Glenquarry eastward to Kangaloon and Kangaroo Valley.
Range Rd is the top of the range. It's locally famous for it's stunning views one way towards the eastern ocean, and another way towards the western plains. It was a real favourite of everyone, to drive along the road and catch sight of that astonishing valley that I'd seen during my exercises. "Upper Nepean Conservation Area" is the official name, by the way. A little dry if you ask me.
Like other large properties, there was one residential section with a large house and ornamental garden, and the rest was paddocks where beef cattle grazed on lush green grass. Several managers occupied the property permanently, tending to the residence, mowing the grass, raking the gravel, and also taking care of the cattle.
But one day, things started to change. I learnt that the row of cypresses, as demoralising at it was, was not the owners' first choice of landscaping.
One crisp morning several months earlier, people driving along Range Rd had noticed a couple of large bulldozers doing work. Something was happening along the fenceline between the public road and that beautiful valley view.
By the end of the day, to many people's utter shock, an earthen rampart had appeared, a mound of bare soil about 4 metres tall, the whole way along where that beloved view had once been visible.
Anger, sadness, grief, frustration, lament. The neighbours went to the council.
Relief - there was no planning approval.
The former CBA director had to take his rampart down, so the following week the bulldozers returned. By the end of the day, the rampart was back in the trench whence it came. Yet it was replaced by something else.
There along that favourite stretch of road now stood a row of mature cypresses, planted so close that all vision was blocked.
Anger, sadness, grief, frustration, lament.
No rule against that.
The neighbours met. They argued. They shouted. They didn't know what to do. Some suggested poisoning the trees. Others suggested driving copper nails into them.
Disharmony had arrived to Glenquarry. My uncle was depressed about it. I suggested he bake them anzac biscuits and go deliver as a token to enter in honourable parlay. I assured him that a rational discussion could ameliorate the situation.
He remained hopeless, and said that would never work. They were barely ever home, and there wasn't even a buzzer at the gate. It was designed to repel anyone else. There was no hope.
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Still today, there is a row of cypresses along Range Rd, Glenquarry. It stands there like an ugly, monotonous green "Fuck You". It taunts residents old and new. It has ruined the natural splendour of one of the most magnificent public roads in the country.
When I see things like this, I'm curious to understand the thought process which brought it about. In such a sight as this, I am almost brought to nausea. This hedge contains the most degraded thought possible to inhabit human consciousness.
There, by his actions, the former CBA director says to everyone, "I am better than you. I deserve more. You deserve less. I am superior." And it repeats, in an endless refrain, day after night after day.
Worst of all, it's false. He's not superior. He is as hypnotised as everyone else in "this" civilisation. Only far more paranoid and anxious.
Every economic problem begins with a social problem. Fix ourselves, and we fix our economy.
I still think baking anzac biscuits is a good idea.