Returning to the gardens of Murray Bluffs, a sprawling Dean Street property at the foothills of the Monument, takes David Hamilton back to his childhood.
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The home was built at the beginning of the 1900s by his grandfather, Hamilton Charnock Mott, co-founder of the Border Morning Mail.
“My recollections of this place go back a long time, to the 1930s,” David said.
“There’s photographs of me running around this garden at 18 months old.”
David’s return to the property, alongside brothers Richard and Christopher, comes with a purpose – to tell the story of their family.
Richard believed the best way to do this was through film.
“It started during the making of another film called Wine Line – The Hamilton Story,” he said.
“My father, Burton Hamilton, was the fourth son of Frank and Violet Hamilton of Hamilton’s Ewell Vineyards near Adelaide.
“We’ve been tracing my father’s life through different areas.
“He came to the Albury district to work with his uncle, who had a lovely property north of Jindera called Elm Park.”
It was through this series of events Burton met Aglaia ‘Gida’ Daisy Mott, the fifth-born child of Hamilton and Evelyn Mott.
“My mother apparently took a great fancy to my father immediately,” Richard said.
“He proposed at the monument – they were married at St Matthews Church in 1932.”
While the couple moved to Adelaide soon after, Aglaia would return up to 12 times a year for the Border Morning Mail’s meetings and to visit her family.
She was a shareholder of the paper and a member of the board of directors for about 35 years.
Richard said it was this dedication to Albury, from all in the family, that saw the newspaper become such a hallmark of the Border community.
“It was always known that the Motts were newspaper people,” he said.
“Hamilton was a man of great integrity … fairly early on he passed all of his shares on equally to his children.
“They were great ‘Albury-ites’ and never lost the connection to this part of the world.”
This sense of belonging very much still rings true for the brothers.
David said it was difficult time when the family’s 150-year reign over the paper came to an end in 2006.
“It was a very sad time,” he said.
“The newspaper changed and the ways of gathering news developed.
“We have a very strong affection for The Border Mail.”
It’s something Richard, David and Christopher believe will never change.
