A year ago today, I travelled to Pinewood shopping centre in Mount Waverley for the second time that month.
The first visit (where I blogged my trip home) was for a medical consultation for a lump in my arm.
The second visit was to have it removed. I travelled to the appointment, and as I passed one station I don’t usually visit, I tweeted a little Blackadder gag.
Why hello there Darling. pic.twitter.com/YFPdsdIj8V
— Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) February 13, 2017
Age reporter Craig Butt got the reference (well, who wouldn’t?*) and replied.
Don't mock the name. It's named after a war hero. pic.twitter.com/XTMSK2muNS
— Craig Butt (@CraigDButt) February 13, 2017
…which got a response from Metro:
…but the station was named well before he attempted to join the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps… @danielbowen
— Metro Trains (@metrotrains) February 13, 2017
Craig:
Was it named after his ancestor, perhaps? pic.twitter.com/x84ROxtVvn
— Craig Butt (@CraigDButt) February 13, 2017
Metro, getting serious for a moment:
'Darling' was actually named after the Governor of Victoria 1863-66, Sir Charles H Darling. https://t.co/eoLRb9vtYD pic.twitter.com/SqBE7fDe5a
— Metro Trains (@metrotrains) February 19, 2017
Since then they’ve been semi-regularly tweeting out potted histories of stations and their names under the #MelbStations tag.
The lump was harmless, by the way. But hey, it seems to have inspired an ongoing local history lesson.
Check out #MelbStations on Twitter.
- *If you’ve never seen Blackadder 4, what have you been doing with your life?!
3 replies on “Short local history lessons, in 280 characters (or less)”
History lessons are good especially when no one can agree on things! Thanks for sharing.
BTW, I love British comedy, but never liked Black Adder.
Since I was a boy I’ve always made double entendres about the “Darling” station name as I grew up on the Glen Waverley line.
Hello darling. Did you know that the original Noble Park station got built because locals got sick of having to travel to Springvale or Dandenong for trains and after failing to convince the government of the day to build a station, they pooled their money together and funded it themselves! Original buildings got destroyed by arson in 1960s
Lol! Commenting on two threads at once here…. #CallMeBaldrick