Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year marks a special anniversary for the suburb of Bracken Ridge in my electorate of Petrie. It is 150 years since it was officially settled by Scottish farming families. Now, history as we know it has a tendency to be inaccurate or forgotten altogether. The history of Bracken Ridge has never been fully researched. So this anniversary is a little bit of a surprise. But as someone who grew up in Bracken Ridge I wanted to share this special occasion with other locals and to pass on the stories I heard on Monday from a past Bracken Ridge local, Miss Kris Herron. Kris's family moved to Bracken Ridge in the 1960s, around the same time as my parents, and she knows the area well. We first met when I was only a baby, about 18 months old. Naturally I do not really remember that too well. But she had a baby wear shop for a few years before opening a real estate agency in the 1980s.

For the past few months Kris has been working on a book of the history of Bracken Ridge. We have her to thank for discovering the 150-year anniversary. In Kris's words, it all began with a cob of corn, referring to one of the first crops grown in Bracken Ridge. Her book weaves in and out of the stories of the first settlers through to the naming of the suburb in the early 1980s. And she dispels a few local myths. I would like to leave Bracken Ridge locals with a few of these myth busters. Many Bracken Ridge locals would be familiar with the legend that Bracken Ridge used to be called Rose Hill. This, according to Kris, is not true. The only mention of Rose Hill Sandgate is in the year 1924, when a lady opposed to the Bruce government wrote a series of letters to the editor voicing her opinions. Kris writes that there would have been a property called Rose Hill on the perimeter of Sandgate but this was not an early name for Bracken Ridge. Another myth floating around Bracken Ridge is that the first school was built in 1957. In actual fact, the fundraising activities of Bracken Ridge schoolchildren were written about in the local paper in 1915.

Bracken Ridge has a rich history that has finally been collated and set in print. It includes many names that have been passed on through generations: the McPhersons, the Fergusons, the Herrons. I remember a few local women who I grew up with. One was Leanne McPherson, who said on Facebook recently, 'Scottish migrants included my family dairy farms and our family donated land for a park, namely McPherson Park'—a park that I knocked around in as a kid. Nicole Frances said:

We lived on the hill around the reservoir. I remember all the land with cattle, and the creek at the bottom of that hill … Bracko will always be very special to me.'

It is special to many local Bracken Ridge people, so I congratulate Kris Herron on her work and congratulate to all families, past and present. (Time expired)

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