The Gold Coast

The name this district now carries began as an insult about prices — and for the whole span these books are set in, it does not exist.

← The World of the Gold Coast

A painted 1950s Australian shopfront in bright sun. A land agent's plate glass window is filled with hand lettered cards reading FOR SALE, ALLOTMENTS, BEACH FRONTAGE, OCEAN VIEW, EASY TERMS, AUCTION SATURDAY and DEPOSIT, with prices in pounds. A LAND SALES sign runs above the window and a LAND AGENT sign hangs to the right. A bicycle leans against the shopfront, a utility truck stands on the sandy street, two people in hats talk outside a shop, and turquoise surf shows beyond the dunes.

A land agent's window in high season: allotments, beach frontage, ocean view, easy terms, and twenty five pounds down to hold it. The prices behind this glass are the thing the name was coined to mock.

In one line

The name this district now carries began as an insult about prices — and for the whole span these books are set in, it does not exist.

What it is

For every year of these books the district is the South Coast — the coast south of Brisbane. That is the name on the council, on the letterhead and in everybody's mouth.

"The Gold Coast" arrives later, and it arrives as a complaint. It is coined off the prices: the rates being asked for land, for goods, for a room, for a meal, in a district that has discovered after the war that people will pay them. Nobody means it kindly. South Coast locals initially took it as derogatory — the name of the city began as an accusation against it.

An aged printed timeline headed WHAT THE DISTRICT WAS CALLED. A horizontal line carries three marked dates, each with a small sketch above it: 1 DECEMBER 1933, ELSTON BECOMES SURFERS PARADISE, over a shopfront; FROM ABOUT 1950, THE GOLD COAST IS CURRENT AS A COMPLAINT ABOUT PRICES, NOBODY MEANS IT KINDLY, over a beach and headland; and 23 OCTOBER 1958, THE SOUTH COAST TOWN COUNCIL IS RENAMED, CITY STATUS FOLLOWS LESS THAN A YEAR LATER, over a council hall. A shaded band runs the width of the plate reading THROUGHOUT THESE BOOKS, THE SOUTH COAST, the name on the council, the letterhead, and in everybody's mouth. Across the foot: THESE BOOKS ARE SET BEFORE THE NAME.

The dated spine of a name. For every year these books are set in, the district is the South Coast, the name on the council and in everybody's mouth. The Gold Coast is still only a complaint about prices, and nobody means it kindly.

Where it comes from — the dated spine

- Throughout this World's span — the district is the South Coast.

- From about 1950 — "the Gold Coast" is current as a term of complaint about prices.

- 23 October 1958 — it becomes official, when the South Coast Town Council is renamed. City status follows less than a year later.

⚠ A separate renaming, seventeen years earlier, and not to be confused with this one: the town of Elston became Surfers Paradise on 1 December 1933, after a publican's hotel. Different event, different cause — and it is the one the people in these books argue about.

Where you'll meet it

You won't — and that is the point. These books are set on the South Coast before this name was coined, in the district and the years that produced it. What you will meet is the thing the name is an accusation about: the prices, the newcomers, the money arriving faster than the place can absorb it.

Start with A Death in Probate (Tilly Sommerfeld Mysteries, book 1).

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