A Catholic nunnery in a thoroughly Protestant neighbourhood
Apart from the fact that the occupants had nothing to do with the outside world, I didn't know much about the building that lurked behind the ten-foot fence behind Mrs Blakey's elegant Queenslander. A passing reference around forty years after my family relocated Northwards suggested it had been Auchenflower House.
When I started Something About The North, that gave me something else to investigate in the What We Left Behind > Northward Bound > What We Found narrative.
At that point, I was still working on the premise that the elegant Queenslander might have belonged to someone important. I was surprised to learn that really important people — no less than three premiers of Queensland — had lived on the other side of the fence that kept the outside world away from a handful of Carmelite sisters.
The accompanying booklet doesn't yet tell the full story of how one of Brisbane's social hubs became a Carmelite nunnery. Perhaps it never will, and until it does, it will remain a work in progress.
