'It's just distasteful, for my beautiful Queenslander on Glenyon Drive to be so close to... to that place.'
Katherine Whitford (58) is a lifelong Ashgrove resident, and feels the tempo of the suburb flowing through her blood every day. The wealthy, semi-retired commercial property investor enjoys her life in one of Brisbane’s leafiest suburbs, but suggests there is one improvement that could be made.
‘Close The Gap,’ she told us, in a confessional tone akin to a small child telling you they’ve dropped Grandma’s favourite mug, although not as confessional as a so-called ‘Ashgrove’ resident telling you they technically live in Alderley.
‘I just find it uncomfortable that I live so close to The Gap. And to see the residents of The Gap, occasionally venturing into my home turf to enjoy the fine cafe and dining scene on weekends… well, not to be rude, but it makes my skin crawl.’
Obviously, closing a suburb of Brisbane is a fairly mammoth undertaking, particularly if the sole reason is one wealthy citizen’s elitist tendencies.
But Katherine is serious. And so she’s established seven targets that must be met in order to successfully close The Gap. Unfortunately, only two of those targets have been met so far, the first being a trip to The Gap to shake her fist at The Gap Coles and mutter ‘Shame,’ and the second being a strongly-worded letter to her local member, the iconic Kate Jones.
In a speech to a gathering of concerned Ashgrovians, Katherine lamented that only two of the goals for closing The Gap have been met.
Using her oratorical skills to distract from her movement’s failure to succeed in key areas, she proclaimed ‘This is a day of learning, a day of focusing on our future ahead. We mustn’t simply strive to close The Gap, or do our very best - we must dedicate ourselves to this task, and pursue it with reckless abandon.’
Venturing from her Glenlyon Drive house in a rare journey, Katherine recently again travelled to The Gap to try a Filet-O-Fish from their McDonald’s restaurant. Chewing down the sandwich of steamed bread and battered fish, she whispered ‘Sun Tzu’s Art of War. To beat my enemy, I must know them.’
More to come. Go GPS!