Gang-gang: Canberra bombards the Kaiser

He was then for Australians the most hated (and with his silly moustache and funny helmets) most ludicrous man in the world. But how was bombarding him possible? Had the swine dared to show his ugly Prussian face here beside the Molonglo? All will be explained in a moment.

But first we note that, inexplicably, the sports-loving Vikings don't seem to have played golf.

If they had, the golf balls archaeologists would be digging up today at Viking sites would surely look like the time-ravaged, time-blackened golf ball just found during the archaeological dig at Springbank Island. As reported in Thursday's column, two of the finds of the Springbank dig organised by the ANU's School of Archaeology have been a (relatively) ancient golf ball and a golf tee. Looking at the golf ball at Wednesday's post-dig briefing by Dr Duncan Wright we had to take his word that that was what it was. It looked 1000 years old.

But of course, Mark Dawson of ArchivesACT springs to advise us that the golf artefacts found at Springbank Island point to the fact that once upon a time "the southern half of the Island was part of the original location of the Royal Canberra Golf Course".

He's sent us a Google Maps image that he's overlaid with a 1949 map. It shows that Royal Canberra Golf Course, now of course overwhelmed and drowned by that tyrant Lake Burley Griffin, extending from the knoll that became Springbank Island (when the lake filled in 1964) down to Flynn Drive, behind the Albert Hall.

That now submerged golf course opened in 1926. Our very artistic 1933 photograph (one suspects the photographer was influenced by Monet's paintings of the bridge in the Garden at Giverny), supplied by the National Archives of Australia, is of a bridge that enabled golfers to cross the willow-lined Molonglo, thus going from one part of the course to another. The river's constant presence as a ball magnet for wayward shots enabled the course to be a famously challenging one.

While we're down by the river in pre-lake Canberra, and while the events of exactly 100 years ago are very much on our minds, let us time-travel to a momentous event.

With the Gallipoli landings imminent, there was a grand Patriotic Sports Meeting held in infant Canberra 100 years ago today. Of course no one there on the day at what the Queanbeyan Age called "the prettily-situated recreational ground at Canberra" (beside the river, at Acton) knew where the Australian soldiers were. Surely, though, we can imagine there were lots of folk at the Canberra occasion with enlisted loved ones in their hearts and minds.

The Queanbeyan paper's detailed description of the day gives us a snapshot of the quaint way we were. The past is a foreign country - they do things differently there - including holding a Dog and Boy Race.

This Patriotic Sports Meeting at Canberra was held to raise money for the plucky, Hun-ravaged Belgians. The more than 1000 frolicking souls raised £320 for the great humanitarian cause.

The man from the Age enthused that "On Saturday the prettily situated recreation ground at Canberra presented an animated appearance ... the Allies' flags, floating gaily in the breeze, gave a striking appearance to the scene. Numerous side-shows, booths, and games of skill were very much in evidence ... the scene was indeed a busy and picturesque one."

"Large numbers of town and country folk put in an appearance ... motor cars, four-horse drags and every description of vehicle were requisitioned to convey the merry crowd of holiday makers to the convincing ground. There was a lengthy and varied sports programme. There was a galaxy of fun for all."

The fun included trying one's skill at firing a rifle at ("bombarding") target pictures of the despised Kaiser.

Let us hope that somehow, psychically, the Kaiser felt 100 years ago today the wrath and ridicule being directed at him from here in this corner of this loyal (to the Empire) dominion.

Elsewhere at the meeting Mr W. O. Russell's "Russell's Colossal Stadium" was a boxing tent to which all pugilistic men were invited.

The Forces of ACT Correctness no longer allow us to enjoy anything like Russell's Colossal Stadium and as well there were events in the lengthy and varied sports programme that, alas, one never sees today. For example there was the Boy and Dog Race, won by an E. De Smet (his dog doesn't get a mention in the official results). E. De Smet's prize was 10 shillings, with which one hopes he bought his dog a bone. There seems not to have been a Girl and Dog Race.

These were very horsey times and there were equestrian entertainments galore. The reporter thought "The display by the cadets of the Royal Military College was absolutely the best item on the programme ... it included wrestling on horseback, which greatly amused the spectators."

"Throughout the afternoon the Queanbeyan Town Band played an appropriate programme of music, including several patriotic airs [and] throughout the day's proceedings not a discordant note [of behaviour] was struck, and the large crowd was a very orderly and well behaved one indeed."

And all this innocent jollity on the very eve of the Gallipoli landings.