By Ashleigh Fielding | posted on May 10, 2018
SOME drongo has vandalised a sign erected by an octogenarian to commemorate the recently heritage listed spot where his long-gone relative Major Edmund Lockyer raised a flag to claim Frederickstown, later known as Albany, as part of the British Empire.
Colin Lockyer, 81, is three generations removed from his well-known relative, who has a well-known Albany suburb and a well-known Albany avenue named after him.
“I got a call on Sunday morning from the householders of the home here to tell me the plaque that I’d put up has been pulled out, thrown on on the footpath and smashed,” Mr Lockyer said at Parade Street on Monday.
“I came ‘round and saw them and ended up having a lovely cup of coffee with them.
“They are very friendly, and very nice people.”
The framed commemorative information the vandals had so brazenly smashed had only been in place for four months.
The Weekender recently revealed that the site where the flag was raised has now been added to the City of Albany’s heritage list (Heritage list swells by 48, April 12).
“I think that the people of Albany really need to know that this relative of mine, three generations before me, gave the whole western part of Australia to King George IV,” Mr Lockyer said.
“He proclaimed Frederickstown for King and Crown.
“And we’re so proud of that.”
Mr Lockyer said that until his sign went up, a green lectern erected some time before by the city was “in a very poor state”.
“Those two screws, we had to put in because this had fallen off,” he said.
He said the hole where Major Lockyer raised a flagpole still existed, beneath a yellow cap on the road beside the lectern.
“This is a very valuable tourist site and people come here and find something that can’t explain what went on,” he said.
“I’ve done, in layman’s terms, the best I can do to make it a bit more understanding, then we find out that some vandals have come along and ripped this out and smashed it.
“It’s just a bit devastating.”
But heritage buffs never say die.
“I’ll go down to Red Dot and get another A3 frame and cut out another picture, and put it back into place, and screw it up and try to replace this flag that’s gone,” Mr Lockyer said.
