The Stock Exchange.

The Stock Exchange

By Terry Slack
 
Get off your butt, take my hand, we are going for a walk.

Open your eyes, open your mind, ‘tis not the time to talk.

We are traveling ‘thru’ the past, across the sands of time.

Opening up to yesteryear, using the world of rhyme.

I never really thought, a simple block of land I be.

Then people come along and they build buildings over me.

It just so happens though the year is Eighteen seventy one.

They’ve found Gold in Charters Towers; the town is on the run.

Mosman Street in Charters Towers is the place I do reside.

They have found Gold all around me, but I have naught to hide.

There is just an old building, Malcolm’s Building they can’t fix,

Alexander Malcolm bought me for just Two pound seven and six.

But sure enough an Architect, by the name of Mark Day,

With Sydney builders, Sandbrook Brothers, happened by this way.

They built a monster of a building, as if to challenge fate.

The Royal Arcade, came to reside, in Eighteen eighty eight.

I’m not just a block of land, but a building there as well.

Designed to serve the affluent, is easy now to tell.

A lovely glass domed ceiling, with the small shops tucked inside.

Exquisite tiles upon the floor, with beauty you can’t hide.

But things are happening very fast, all destined now for change.

Then in Eighteen ninety, they used me for the Stock Exchange.

They needed just one place, to seal the business dealer’s fate.

Charters Towers, now the second biggest City in the State.

Was in the height of my glory, the deals that all were done.

‘Union Bank’ took over me, in Nineteen hundred and one.

Alexander Malcolm was broke, but no one said out loud.

Moved away to Sydney and there he called himself McLeod.

A bad depression started, back in Eighteen ninety three.

By Nineteen sixteen it had closed the better part of me.

By Nineteen twenty two the Mines had all but disappeared.

No money to maintain me now, was something that I feared.

My glory days are gone and I fall into disrepair,

And those that lost on the stock exchange do not seem to care.

The First World War dominated the thoughts of modern man

And stripped the assets from the land, as only World Wars can.

Amongst the mullock heaps and old mine shafts they left behind,

Only the strongest of heart, are the residents you find.

Etching out a meager living from the farms that surround,

With just the need of water, on this rich and fertile ground.

With the Royal Arcade, now Stock Exchange, crumbling on my back,

There seemed no future deemed for me along the ‘Aussie’ Track.

A few old pensioners living in poverty reside,

No water, gas or basic needs; from Eventide they hide.

The glory of my yesteryears comes crumbling round my ears,

The lack of people coming through portrays my greatest fears.

Two shops in the front a Watchmaker and a Barbers Shop,

Crooked Ass Mc Haggerty rented, for Ten bob a pop.

The place got too dangerous so they had to build a gate.

They had to keep me locked up at night when it got too late.

Those who make this place their home; have to enter from the rear,

Though most of the general public would not come near for fear.

Fortune comes and fortune goes, before long the tide will turn.

The Farmers found new fortune in the money they can earn.

The World Wars have settled down, again peace comes to the land.

The Dalrymple Shire Council, give me a big helping hand.

An Architect, Don Roderick was employed to view my case.

In Nineteen seventy one they begin to repair my face,

Nineteen seventy five looks good, they have done repairs inside.

It did not take them long to restore me back to my pride.

To ensure my future care, is considered as a must.

So this big job is taken over by the National Trust.

Charters Towers, Dalrymple Historic Society

Fund raising restores my confidence, in propriety.

A vast array of different shops so very few the same

All with great ambition to make their fortune or their name,

Slowly they came to make use of the building I am now

And rid me of my sordid past to start again somehow.

So many shops I’ve had within, it hasn’t finished yet,

Hard to name but I’ll remember the ones I don’t forget.

In Nineteen seventy six an Assay room and ‘4GC’,

Bill Browns Duplicators and Blue Light Medicine there be.

The National Trust Office a Showroom and a I too

Visit the Electoral Office or Art Gallery, do.

A Mining Museum and Council Engineers you’ll see,

All Those other businesses wanting to set up in me.

Then in the Nineteen eighties a wicked drought gripped the land.

One of the worst for many years it turned the grass to sand.

They say the stock survived by sucking on a Gidgee stone

But so many cattle ended up simply skin and bone.

Just now money is tight, life is hard, but we will survive.

A  Lingerie and Beauty shop will keep the place alive.

With blind faith, this shop began back in Nineteen eighty nine

It worked, for soon they grew to rent out three shops in a line.

They tidied up the Gallery to get me back on track.

It wasn’t long before more businesses were coming back.

The Physio, a Book Shop and Thrift Shop, take up a space,

When one would leave another one would simply take their place.

I’m happy now I’m busy; once again I’m being used.

Providing space for business and not being abused.

I hear plans are a-foot; there are big changes in the air.

They all include ‘The Stock Exchange’; after minor repair.

A Gold Trail for the Tourist trade in Two thousand and three

It starts off in the Tourist Centre right beside of me.

They have a Gold Rush film in the Orientation Room

Then move next door to hear about the Stock Exchanges boom.

They’ve installed cardboard cut out figures in the open space

To give us an idea of how they used to use this place.

The Calling of the Cards gives us the markets highs and lows,

It’s how the shares were bought and sold so everybody knows.

They’re also holding many social functions in me now,

With Weddings, Formal Dinners, we will manage here somehow.

The Miners Ball with Moulin Rouge as the formal attire.

A Ghost’s Parade of City Elders since they did retire.

By Two thousand and ten I had another overhaul

This time replace the broken tiles and Glass so it won’t fall.

To stop the rising damp, paint and the guttering was done.

Seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars ‘till we won.

But at least I look forward to the future now with pride,

No faults or structural flaws I don’t have anything to hide

With Café, Electoral Office, Real Estate, Book Shop,

Fashion and Museum an ideal meeting place to stop.

Thank you for your attention, this my journey, has been fun,

Don’t think of it as ending for my journey’s just begun.

I apologise for any discrepancies you find,

I blame Poetic Licence or Wanderings of my Mind.

The End.