Brabham

Geoff Vivian took this one on Sunday. Everyone had to drive past it to reach the naming ceremony for the new suburb of Brabham. It would be a bit like driving past a broken toilet to the opening of Darch. Or seeing your own car driving off in Rockinhgham – on fire, as you went to the turning of the first Rocky sod.
Did we ever get the reason whySir Jack Brabham was flown over from the Gold Coast, to have a Perth sandpit named after him? Oh here it is. There’s even less connection than I expected.

Brabham entry statement.

About AHC McDonald

Comedian, artist, photographer and critic. From 2007 to 2017 ran the culture and satire site The Worst of Perth
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58 Responses to Brabham

  1. Bob says:

    To further honour the motorsport legend, there will be no public transport servicing the suburb.

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  2. The Legend 101 says:

    Darch sounds like a pretty bad place i dont want to go there anymore.

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  3. Lucky Star says:

    How appropriate! A sign of things to come for this new suburb – a fresh dumping ground for the joyriders of Midland.

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    • rottobloggo says:

      Don’t forget Bennett Springs, which seems to be the new Beechboro…

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      • Bento says:

        From Chongalup in the south, to Jakobarra in the north, Bennet Springs in the east, and Nurry Park in the west, this vibrant city really does demand some geographic Wintoning.

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      • Lucky Star says:

        A hole by any other name is still a hole, and Bennett Springs is definitely a hole. Another haven for CUBs. Nearly rented a house there a couple of years back. The lazy CUB that owned it hadn’t bothered to clean it before showing people through, hadn’t painted any walls, had left gaping holes in the walls, and hadn’t had any finishings put on things like the kitchen islands, which had bare metal edges exposed. The rent might have been cheap, but not worth it.

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        • vegan says:

          you nearly rented that? you actually considered it?

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          • NF#1 says:

            If there’s one thing I detest more than Alexander Heights it’s suburb snobbery.

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            • Bunning Park is the Alexander Heights of Bentley.

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              • orbea says:

                The denizens of “Alexander Heights” changed the name from “Alinjarra” cos it was too blackfella.

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                • RubyRuby says:

                  You’ve mentioned this before. Looking up the wikipedia entry, it seems to back this up.

                  But I got distractedly bemused by this:

                  “The suburb contains the Alinjarra Primary School which covers from years kindergarten to year 7. It hosts a range of sports programs and English courses to help the large amount of recent immigrants, mostly of African, Arabic, Irish or English descent, moving into the area.”

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            • RubyRuby says:

              I have a Dianella question for you, NF#1 – at the side of T_E PUB, there are a couple of restaurants. Why are their signages tied on to the false fronts above them, instead of painted on / stuck on / a more conventional method of application?

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              • Grrr says:

                It’s the vibe of the thing.

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              • NF#1 says:

                RR: I imagine it’s the expectation that any business located there may go broke at any time, ala T_e Pub, hence the temporary signage. The nearby street-side sign bears the marks of having been repainted many times.

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            • vegan says:

              it’s not the suburb, it’s the state of the house.

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          • RubyRuby says:

            The rental market was pretty dire in terms of quality a couple of years back. Seems to be better now, but you have to be actively looking to really know or care at any given time…

            And if I had had even one more person smugly talking about how they got their 4 x 2 house for 80K just 5 years earlier and how I was a mug not to have bought (not that I had even known I would ever be living in Perth back then) “before the boom”… I swear, glassing suddenly makes soo much sense!

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            • Lucky Star says:

              I know the feeling RubyRuby! We went through the same thing back then. At the time we couldn’t even afford to buy the tiny ex-homeswest house we’d been renting in Lockridge. It wasn’t even the height of the boom then.

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          • Lucky Star says:

            Up until we actually walked in, yes. It’s a bit of a long story, but we were desperate for a rental property because we had four weeks to move when our landlord at the time decided not to renew our lease and sell the house we were in. The photos online looked good. It was not so good in person. We ended up renting down the Morley end of Beechboro Road instead, which turned out to be a much better arrangement with awesome landlords anyway.

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  4. pete says:

    Car wasn’t set on fire. Swanky.

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  5. orbea says:

    Shazza is a worst
    but the real worst is the name of the blog itself…

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  6. The Bartender's skills with a Manhatten says:

    “In naming the locality Brabham, Mrs Hayden said it is a great tribute to Sir Jack Brabham and will preserve the history and heritage of the area for future generations.”

    While I applaud any such attempt to preserve history, why does this smack of the Perth development that celebrated the famous drive-in theater it replaced with pictures of same?

    “Here’s what used to be here! Enjoy!”

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  7. rottobloggo says:

    I predict Brabham denizens will soon refer to their patch as ‘Bhammy’, or ‘Bham’, or ‘The ‘Bham’, as their counterparts in Alabama do.

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  8. Rolly says:

    Whatever it’s called, it could well be the “pits”, like so much of the suburbia of recent times.

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  9. skink says:

    there’s going to be a new subdivision in the hills, near the famous tree, which will be called Brockingham.

    worshippers can gather round the tree and plug their racing helmets into the branches to commune with the spirit of Peter, like some sort of bogan Avatar.

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  10. ronggly says:

    Speaking of new suburbs, Beeliar is being renamed as (wait for it) Mev&eacute.
    The promotional website conveniently neglects to mention that it is directly downwind of Cockburn Cement.

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  11. ronggly says:

    I give up

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  12. The Legend 101 says:

    Thats stuffed theres only one place for it the car yard.

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We can handle the worst