One Small World: On Writing Independent History

Abstract

One Small World: the history of the Addison Road Community Centre was independently written and funded through a series of grants. While conceived as a history of place, it is also a history of the organisation that presently occupies the site, the Addison Road Community Centre (ARCCO). The Centre has had an ambivalent relationship to its past. After 60 years as an army depot, in 1976 it became a community centre. The strict discipline of the army was replaced by a very different ethos and political outlook; in fact, its antithesis. As a consequence, the Centre had an uneasy relationship to the history of the site, particularly its army past, which was underappreciated and little valued. ARCCO has recently re-engaged with its public history, but in the process it veered off into mythology. The paper explores the ANZAAC Centenary celebration at Addison Road of horses in war in 2015, and the part funding played in creating myth rather than history. It then considers the role of the Department of Urban and Regional Development in the creation of the Centre in 1975-76 and ARCCO’s attachment to its story of radical origins. KEYWORDSAddison Road Community Centre; Department of Urban and Regional Development; ANZAC Centenary; army; Marrickville; multiculturalism