The Basin, another part of history.

I live at the edge of the metro area in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, at the foothills of the Dandenongs. A small mountain range in our very flat state. It's a lovely green area, protected by the government as proclaimed State forests. Up the road from my house, literally across the street is the suburb named The Basin. On the extreme edge of the municipal council of Knox, it prides itself on being quiet and having a village-like appeal. It is the gateway to the Dandenongs on the western side and has fought successfully to stifle large scale development and is popular amongst day-trippers and cyclists, who flood the cafes and parks on the weekends. The Basin is also one of the earliest settled areas in Melbourne, the hills being a popular place for people to escape the heat and smalls of the ever-growing Melbourne due to the gold rush of the middle 1800s.
When it's smaller neighbour Boronia received a train station in the 1920s development in the Basin halted as proximity to the new station and easy access to the city meant a boom in residential and industry in Boronia which also was a flatter and easier terrain to build.
Once a place of grand mansions and sawmills, the Basin these days is a quiet hamlet that likes everyone to think nothing happens there. Its local historian Rick Coxhill has written and documented a wonderful book that is available online that explores the rise and decline of the suburb over the course of 150 years. There is however some glossing over of certain places and people in Mister Coxhill's book that never seem to be talked about. That's where I come in.

I have contributed a few articles that go against the grain of the "keep everything happy" policy of the local community paper. It also seems the "past is the past" but only if it's not pleasant.

So here are some links to stories that weren't considered "happy" enough for the publication and some other stuff I discovered researching.

First up:

The Bayswater Boys Home   The best thing that happened- in terms of the Basin- is that this horrible institution that has been situated a short walk from the village centre was named after Bayswater the closest railway station at the time. That way the town could just pretend (even though it has existed for over a century) never existed in the Basin. Run by the Salvation Army it has been the subject of both State and Federal Commissions into child abuse.

Rod Braydon's recollections of his youth in the Bayswater Boys Home.

That time a Basin firefighter was the one lighting the fires  When I submitted this, it was the middle of the fire season and it was considered ill-timed. I agreed but when the editor said that there was a conflicting opinion on the result of the case towards the charged, even though it was proved forensically that he caused the blaze AND he confessed to his crime.

Wicks Reserve. The quiet reserve between both the town centre and the old boys home site is a popular cruising site (casual anonymous sex) for Melbourne's gay community.