What Kostas Kontaxis saw in Whites Creek

Thirty years ago, Kostas Kontaxis looked at Whites Creek and saw what it could be.

Not the creek itself, the community around it. He imagined school kids learning along it. He imagined people in wheelchairs working in raised garden beds. He imagined Aboriginal teachers sharing their knowledge through it. Some of that vision is still waiting to be built. What has happened in the meantime is inspiring and worth knowing about.

If you've walked down Whites Creek Lane near Hudson St, you've already seen his work. Trees thick along the creek edge. A sign that says Pudding Lane. Another, further down, that says Happy Valley. And on his side fence, a couple of shelves lined with toys, an unofficial library that kids come past and use.

Kostas came to Australia from the Greek island of Kos at twenty-four, on a partner visa. He was following a girl he'd met on the island, who later became a Buddhist monk. Back home, his town had a rivulet running through it and was surrounded by trees. The first time he walked down to Whites Creek, he had a single clear thought.

"It's everything here but the trees."

So he did something about it. The council had laid bitumen along the side of the lane. He pulled it out. With a crowbar, in slabs, into the back of his van, off to the tip at Homebush. He didn't ask.

"If I asked them, they would say, No."

In its place he planted basil. Partly because basil is hardy. Partly because of his heritage. And partly to give cover to the tree cuttings he was planting behind it.

"So the basil protected the plantings."

When his son started at Annandale North Public School, Kostas used what was growing in the lane to cook pesto pasta, turning it into a fundraiser for the school. By the time the council's environmental officer wandered down to see what was happening, the bitumen was gone, the basil was up, trees were growing, and the lane was becoming a place of community exchange. Impressed, the officer suggested Kostas apply for a grant through the Port Jackson Catchment Authority. The grant came through, with additional funds for more planting, awarded to an association Kostas had founded: The Annandale Bird Sanctuary.

That was the easier fight.

Kostas had seen first-hand the challenges faced by a friend caring for a child with motor neurone disease, and it stayed with him. He proposed a community garden with raised beds, accessible to wheelchair users. He proposed an allotment for the local schools, to be used in lesson plans. He tried to bring local Aboriginal groups into the project, convinced their knowledge would enrich the whole community.

"I proposed wheelchair gardening facility, and an allotment from there to go to the schools service."

The Port Jackson authority backed the idea. He sat through council meetings. Letters went out. The school and local groups sent expressions of support.

In the end, the council took a different view. The wheelchair beds didn't get built. The school didn't get the allotment. The Aboriginal teaching never happened.

"I still feel sad."

He didn't dwell. Instead, he set up a Sunday market at the back of his garage, where a group of school kids he called the Pudding Club baked cakes and sent the money to the Children's Hospital at Westmead. That's where the lane got its name.

These days his community project lives on his fence. He screwed a shelf to the boards, stocked it with fifty dollars' worth of secondhand toys, and labelled it a toy library.

"I'll do something for the children. It's good for the children to have a space that is not a shop."

He grew up poor on Kos. Christmas presents were rare and small. One he remembers well was a leaping frog on a balloon, a cheap thing.

"That lack of presents made me think, it would be nice for children to come and see something they like."

The project works. The shelves stay roughly full. A wooden car goes out, a puzzle comes back.

"It's good to have good memories when you grow up."

He says it the way he says everything else: as if it's obvious, and slightly surprising that anyone would need it spelt out.

A few weeks ago, Kostas was in Superbarn when a tall young man came up to him.

"He said, I'm Leo… I have such good memories of the pudding club."

Leo had been one of the Pudding Club kids – the boy who planted with Kostas on the other side of the creek, twenty years ago. He's six foot tall now, but he still remembers.

As I was leaving Kostas’ house, he reiterated that his vision was not fully realised. The wheelchair beds were never built. The school never got its allotment. The Aboriginal teaching never happened. If any of that holds weight for you, perhaps you're the person to help see it through!