Carlo and the 'popular culture' magazine 'Table Talk'

We all know about Trove - one of my favourite things of all time - it has (amongst other things) digitised Australian newspapers from 1803  and was designed by Librarians at the National Library of Australia (and I'm a Librarian, so that makes my heart sing). Anyway, one of the more interesting (to me)  newspapers on Trove  is Table Talk: a journal for men and women - in reality, it's not much more than a gossip magazine, it's light entertainment - it had extensive social columns and covers all the Society weddings or fashionable weddings as they call it, a  fashion column and the comings and goings of society folk, theatre and bit of political gossip.   So I wondered did Carlo ever feature in Table Talk?  As it turns out, not very often, but he doesn't sound like the type of person to chase the limelight just for the sake of  it. 

Here's a nice account of  Carlo from February 15, 1912  - a cheery son of Italy, an eye for landscape garden effects and a model of urbanity and discretion and Ministers like him so well that they will be induced to father his road beautification schemes, even when they scarcely know where the money is to come from.

 Table Talk  February 15, 1912

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146573700

Carlo has found for himself a  legitimate war time activity  - that of providing lanoline to the Italians, where there was a shortage according to his  brother, Lieutenant Colonel Catani. I wonder if anyone used his skills as a  intelligent interlocutor to export their lanoline to Italy? We do also find out that he is practical and creative and add that to the urbane and discrete characteristics from the previous article and we are building up quite a nice picture of Carlo and his personality.

Table Talk November 11, 1915
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146640912

This is a report of his retirement  - this is a  great description of him (and a less flattering one of his colleagues) - Catani is about the only man who ever galvanised the Victorian Works Department into anything in the form of aesthetic life. Probably he was able to do so much with the slow moving civil servants around him because he was blessed with unusual vigor himself and could paint a rosy scheme in treble languages. He was about the best story teller the Department ever had, so that in addition to losing an able engineer, the service is parting with a pleasant social light. 

 Table Talk May 3 1917

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146475536

This is an interesting article called Beautiful Victoria: Notes on our Tourists' Resorts and it  talks about Carlo's visionary planned 'motor road' from Melbourne to Sorrento. The article has some neat descriptions of the towns around the Bay, most of which are now suburbs.

Table Talk October 27, 1921

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146318090

What else does Table Talk have to say about the Catani family? It had a lot to say about Carlo's brother, the artist Ugo (or Signor Catani as they refer to him) but that will be a future blog post. I could only find about 15 mentions of the Carlo family - here are some of them - In September 1912, Miss Vera Catani was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Sydney Cullis-Hill and Grace Court. She wore a  pretty pale blue crepe-de chine frock, trimmed with plaited frill and a pearl Juliet cap. There were a few other mentions of Vera at social events, including  one from July 1913 when she attended the St Kilda Dinghy Club Ball - the bright and enjoyable dance was held at the St Kilda Town Hall - Miss Catani wore a white satin frock with geranium red tunic.  You can read a bit about the Dinghy Club here on the St Kilda News website. In January 1918, Mr Catani and the Misses Catani were guests at Erskine House in Lorne. In July 1932, Table Talk announced the engagement of Enid to Keith Kenneth McKenzie of Richmond. In 1932 she was around 33 years of age, fairly old for getting engaged in those days, given the average age of marriage at the time was early 20s (not judging, just stating a fact) She didn't end up marrying the alliteratively named Keith Kenneth McKenzie (or anyone for that matter) There is a Keith Kenneth McKenzie in the Electoral  Roll at 48 Docker Street, Richmond from 1928 to 1937 - occupation Railway employee - and also at the address is a Kenneth McKenzie (occupation Engine driver) - so is this Him? Possibly - but by 1930 Enid and Vera were living in Sydney, so how did they meet? Why was the engagement called off? Don't know and Table Talk does not tell me.

Table Talk July 28, 1932

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/147288448