Rosehill Gardens
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday May 29, 2008
Better known for horses flying around the track, this was where aviation in Australia began, writes Peter FitzSimons.
Back in the old days, of course, racecourses were simply designed so that horses could run around in circles and flash past a winning post in enough order that punters could work out just who had lost what to which bookie. These days, that design feature remains, but they now also come with enormous grandstands, winners' enclosures, sponsors' tents, facilities for television cameras and whatnot. There was an interim period, however, back at the beginning of last century, when racecourses were attractive not just to horses, punters and the beautiful people, but to things of an entirely different nature.Rosehill Gardens is a prime example. Try to picture the scene, way back when, on that sparkling day in late April 1910. There is a buzz around the entire ground, because something extraordinary is about to happen. A man is going to fly. And not just any man - why, it is none other than Harry Houdini! Dinkum, he will fly, the posters all over Sydney blare it. "Aviation Week at Rosehill Racecourse. Mr Harry Rickards, at enormous expense has arranged with the Great Houdini ... [to] positively fly, between the hours of 10am and midday." No joke - he did it just last month down at Diggers Rest, just north-west of Melbourne, making him, they reckon, the first man to fly in this country. Roll up! Roll up! Roll up! Just a shilling to see! The crowds of Sydneysiders continue to roll in and the plane, a Voisin biplane, is rolled out from the canvas hangar at the northern end of the course. That's him! That bloke now climbing into the plane must be Houdini himself. See, he's giving us a wave! And now, someone else steps forward and grips the eight-foot long propeller. The motor coughs, catches, and suddenly roars out "like a thousand maniacs released". Now Houdini guns it and in short order he is accelerating down the paddock, like a Melbourne Cup winner at full gallop. After just 50 yards, the real magic begins and he lifts off the ground! At this instant - as the paper reported it the following day - "men tossed up their hats, women grew hysterical and wept for sheer excitement."The plane circled a couple of times and then, as it landed, "a hundred men rushed towards the biplane, pulled the happy aviator from the seat, and carried him, shoulder-high, mid deafening cheers and salvos".Houdini continued to perform flights for the next week, before progressively larger crowds. Sydney was agog - and the age of aviation in this town had begun.Acknowledgements to The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, by William Kalush and Larry Sloman (Atria Books, 2006).Do you have a historical anecdote about a place in Sydney? Write to Peter FitzSimons at pfitzsimons@smh.com.au.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
