Around a year ago Donna Murphy and Dave Rowe bought their house on the corner of Templeton and Adair Streets in Maldon. It’s an old-time shop-plus-residence building with bay windows either side of the front door – which they use regularly for displays commemorating significant days in the calendar year. Donna said, “JoAnn and Ray Moore owned the home prior to us, and it was they who started with the window decorations. I caught the bug after speaking to Jo about her projects.”
Photos: Tarrangower Times
In 2023, there were displays to mark Easter, Anzac Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Halloween/Goldfields Gothic Festival and Christmas. Last Easter, for example, there were chocolate eggs left in the doorway and an invitation to passers-by to help themselves. Donna tells a lovely story of feeling a strong instinct to offer a huge chocolate egg to a mum who stopped with her kids – at which mum told her that she had put eggs out in her garden that morning for an Easter egg hunt, only to lose the lot to opportunistic crows who had got there before the kids.
Dave has a very strong connection to Maldon and is related to the Rewell family, who will be familiar to long-term locals. The TT [Tarrangower Times] hopes to interview Dave’s father Mal at some stage for a future edition. Donna’s dad served in the Navy, and her grandfather was one of the original diggers who landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915 and was shot on that day but (clearly) survived. Quite a story.
Donna and Dave will have an Easter window display again but plan to put maximum energy into their Anzac Day effort this year. Donna is busy making two-and-a-half thousand poppies, which will be glued together to create a waterfall effect, along with photographs, service uniforms and various other things. She is inviting anyone who may have suitable artefacts or photos to contact her for a chat (her number is 0409 766 371). She would also love to hear from anyone with spare time on their hands who can crochet, knit or make paper poppies for the display.
In between displays, the Bushells House window is home to a pair of Russian Blue cats, seven-year-old Boris and six-year-old Natasha: if you’re old enough to remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle show on TV you’ll recognise those names. Boris is the survivor of a Tiger snake bite, a broken leg and an ingestion of Harpic toilet cleaner; a true warrior. The pair love nothing more than curling up in the window to enjoy a sunny day and bask in the admiration of Maldonians walking past.
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 23 February 2024.
