I teased a friend who moved to this daggy suburb. Then I joined her – and fell in love

When a friend told me in the late 1990s that she was moving to Glen Iris, I laughed and snarked, “that’s God’s waiting room, mate”. Having recently moved from Perth, my friend couldn’t possibly (in my view) understand how daggy Glen Iris was, with its “blonde bobs and rich wrinkles” and its dusty, staid culture.

It didn’t help that all I knew about Glen Iris was that it was the home of Barry Humphries’ Sandy Stone, “Australia’s most boring man”, the bizarrely named Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre (who names a pool after a drowned prime minister?) and – with surrounding suburbs – an ongoing Prohibition-era ban on pubs.

I tried to sway her, talking up the benefits of Richmond, South Yarra, even Armadale – closer to the city, cooler and on the right side of Burke Road. But when my friend talked about Glen Iris, her eyes shone. All she saw were wide stretches of green parkland, beautiful 1930s houses, and a breathtaking annual autumnal display from the trees that lined every street. I told her she was wrong; turns out, I was.

Not much later, after a fruitless search in those cooler suburbs, my partner and I ended up in Glen Iris ourselves, buying the smallest house in a street that was also just on the wrong side of Burke Road. Camberwell South Primary School (CSPS) was a few doors down, and having kids was on our to-do list, so we swallowed our pride and stretched our budget. The fences were collapsing under the weight of ivy and spiders, the toilet was outside, there was a shared internal wall, and the backyard had a bungalow that was more asbestos than cement sheeting.

My friend, of course, absolutely ribbed me over our about-turn. But my partner and I were excited to make our first big buy together and didn’t think we would stay in the area long.

Our little house, we soon discovered, was once home to several of our neighbours before they upsized to bigger homes on the same street. That should have been a clue. Twenty-five years and two extensions later, and we are still here.

I’m not 100 per cent sure why. Was Glen Iris cooler than I thought, or were we daggier? I suspect it’s the latter. Either way, we fell in love with our new suburb. It wasn’t just the parks and the leaf show, it was the people too. Tennis, cricket and local footy every weekend, and when our two boys eventually came, they both played.

After games at Ferndale Park (once marked with a plaque as the centre of Melbourne), we piled into Glen Iris Pantry with the rest of the locals. Hands down the best milk bar in Victoria. Phil (a former professional bodybuilder) and her husband Chris fed us and warmed us up and chatted to us like we were family. Their kids grew up with ours, and everyone else’s around here.

Phil and Chris have since moved on but the Pantry is still there, and every time I go in for a cuppa (or a glass of wine, now that prohibition is long gone), a force of habit draws my eyes above the counter, looking for the photos of Phil striking a formidable pose from her bodybuilding days.

By all accounts, we were the first same-sex couple with kids at CSPS and sometimes it felt like we were the first south of the Yarra.

Our friends in Northcote, Preston and Thornbury thought we were crazy. But while we occasionally held our breath, waiting for some prejudice to show itself in our very conservative suburb, it never did.

After more than 25 years of being active in the community through mothers’ group, kinder, primary and high school, the worst comment I ever heard was one that still makes me smile.

It was delivered by a local mum and got back to me via a friend when our oldest son was entering prep. We were meeting other new parents, explaining that no, we weren’t sisters, we were a couple. When faced with a real-life gay couple, this mum apparently winced slightly and observed: “That’s not very Glen Iris.”

She was wrong too.

Our suburb has changed a bit, and while there are still plenty of representatives of “old Glen Iris”, these days our neighbours are mostly young families. We love to share this beautiful suburb with more new people, and when any proposed development is insensitive, it’s nice to see new and old Glen Iris working together to save the uniqueness of the place for future generations to enjoy.

On Sundays now, as we walk our two Heinz 57 variety rescue dogs around the hood (among the sea of “oodles”), there’s a new crop of young footy players and their families piling into the Pantry. There are certainly more gays in our village these days, which feels nice. It turns out friendship, community, respect and a shared love of our beautiful suburb was very Glen Iris indeed.

Lisa Drought is a Melbourne writer.

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