Coronation: Southern Highlands feast fit for a ‘gathering of the Poms’
The tight-knit community of Burrawang is gearing up to host a Coronation lunch fundraiser at their beloved art hall, and they‘re pulling out all the stops to ensure it’s fit for a king.
In the quiet town of Burrawang, tucked away in the NSW Southern Highlands and home to a close-knit community of 231, Poss Keech is hard at work preparing quiches fit for a king for a coronation event to be held at the Burrawang School of Arts on Sunday.
Ms Keech, who worked as a caterer for three decades and now runs the art hall alongside her husband, Mark, said she and “a couple of English girls” came up with the idea of hosting a coronation brunch as a fundraiser for the art hall, which requires $25,000 annually for maintenance.
The roads that wind into Burrawang are lined with tall, bristling trees and pockets of farmland. In May, the air is brisk and tinged with the faint aroma of fireplace smoke, wafting from homes stoking their hearths to keep warm.
“This village is full of Anglophiles. Many have come to the Southern Highlands because the climate and the gardens are so similar to England,” Ms Keech says. “There’s a gathering of the Poms here.”
At the art hall, a beautiful federation-style building erected in 1883 by the Oddfellows Lodge as a billiard room, Ms Keech and her friends have festooned the eaves with Union Jack bunting.
“The community came together, repaired it, and brought it back to life,” said Mark Keech, president of the art hall. “Nowadays, it’s a vibrant hall. We hold concerts there all the time – and an annual ball that’s been going on for years.”
Inside, three long tables are dressed in royal red, white and blue. A projector screen is set up on the stage to replay the coronation, and a vase on each side holds a branch of autumn leaves. The blue and red bunting suspended from the ceiling was left over from the medieval feast that had to be cancelled last year due to Covid. “We had all the red and blue tablecloths from that,” Ms Keech said.
At one side of the hall, a handmade sign reads “Long Live the King!”
Tickets for the event are priced at $20, and Ms Keech notes that people are travelling from the coast and Berry to join in the festivities. “When they rang me, they had Pommy accents. I think they were longing for it,” she says. “I think it’s a really historic occasion. We might not see another coronation. We probably won’t.”
Amanda Menogue, one of the troops Ms Keech rounded up to help with the picnic preparations, notes that most of the people involved in the celebration are not “ardent monarchists”.
“They’re actually probably quite staunch republicans, but they’re sort of saying, ‘look, this is a historic event, let’s celebrate’.”
As Ms Keech heads back home to prepare the coronation quiches, a man approaches her, seeking a paper crown. Ms Keech hands him paper sheets with crown cut-outs on them – “one for a king and one for a queen” – and advises him on how to decorate them. “I contacted a group in England and got the crown templates,” she said.
There will be a prize for the best crown at the coronation lunch, with Ms Keech adding that the frontrunners are “lovely gay boys in the village” who are “going overboard with their crowns”.
As for the nosh, Ms Keech has instructed the girls involved in preparation to bring something different. “Charlie is such a tree hugger, and a veggie too – he’s got his vegetable gardens and everything,” she joked.
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