Tales From Two Cities: new book covers 200 years of Canberra-Queanbeyan rivalry

“When you drink the water, remember those who dug the well.”

It’s the ancient proverb local historian Mark Butz chose to sum up his new book, which covers how Canberra and Queanbeyan have grown up together from 1820 to today.

Including the times we got along surprisingly well.

“The story that surprises people the most is how many times Queanbeyan was seriously considering – or being asked to seriously consider – leaving NSW to join the ACT,” Mark says.

“There’s about four occasions on which it came up over 50 years, and they even had a referendum on it in the 1930s.”

Tales From Two Cities: Canberra-Queanbeyan across two centuries began as the vision of Queanbeyan real estate agent Ian McNamee, who wanted to pull together “stories from and about people who would be forgotten if they weren’t written down”.

Ian approached the Canberra & District Historical Society about two years ago, and that’s how the project ended up in Mark’s hands.

Mark has been fascinated by history for as long as he can remember. In 1980, he moved from his birthplace in Sydney to a home in Canberra and a job with NSW National Parks in Queanbeyan.

“So I’ve done that commute and knew both places, so this book was personally a very interesting thing to do,” he said.

“To get anything significant done, we generally have to work together,” he continued.

“But within that, certain individuals shine.”

The book covers these people, those who have contributed to shaping various aspects of the cities, as well as “some of the people whose contribution has been overlooked, obscured, or forgotten”.

“At the back of the book, there’s more than 200 published references and another 100 or so websites that have furnished information,” he says.

“It’s been a massive harvesting exercise.”

All up, Mark undertook more than 40 interviews, enough for more than 400 pages (or 200,000 words) divided into chronological chapters and about 260 various mini-stories.

But he says it’s not your typical history book.

“You’ll turn a page and go from one aspect of a certain time period to a completely different aspect. It’s not written to be read from front to back. You can dip in and out of it like a magazine.”

He says it’s hard to pick a favourite story, but the number of times Queanbeyan forsook its traditional competitiveness to want to become a part of Canberra “was a complete surprise”.

“What put it all to bed was a big brawl over late-night shopping in the 1960s,” he says.

“Canberra had late night shopping, then it didn’t, then it did, and Queanbeyan was always trying to change its day to match, so there was toing and froing for years – it was absolutely bizarre.”

Shops could be fined for staying open on nights unapproved by the NSW Government, so the relationship between Queanbeyan and the state government quickly soured.

“In the end, people were saying, ‘Look, if the NSW Government wants to be belligerent, and we can’t get a result here, we should just join the ACT.”

There’s an initial run of 400 books, but unlike traditional book sales, they’re available to buy via donation, which is split 50/50 between Treehouse Queanbeyan and The Ricky Stuart Foundation.

The first ‘001’ edition of the book was assigned to ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, but Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council Mayor Kenrick Winchester joked about a better way to decide.

Whoever wins the Canberra Region Rugby League between Queanbeyan and Woden, he said, also scores 001.

“What we see today is the culmination of many, many years of hard work. Some fantastic stories are recorded here,” Mr Barr responded.

“Let’s hope the next century of Canberrra-Queanbeyan relations continue to be friendly, competitive, but I think most importantly, cooperative, On that note, 001 is all yours, Kenrick.”

It seems the rivalry is ripe to continue for another 100 years.

Or, in the words of local Federal member Kristy McBain, “the rivalry between Queanbeyan and Canberra has, and always will be there”.

“It’s like a brother-sister relationship in many ways.”

Contact Treehouse Queanbeyan or the The Ricky Stuart Foundation to donate to buy a book.