What is the Question – July

For July’s What is the Question Roland chatted with publican and arts patron Malcom Roberts.

 

What is your name?

Malcolm Roberts

 

What is your occupation?

I run the Canberra Hotel and Tickety Boo Antiques and collectables.

 

What brought you to Ballarat?

I was born in Ballarat then moved to Melbourne for 15 years. I moved back permanently six years ago.

 

What is your favourite spot in the city?

I love Lake Wendouree.  It’s such a pretty spot to sit and watch the world go by.

 

What do you like to cook?

I love to bake old fashioned favourites that my aunty Linda taught me. Ginger fluff, passionfruit sponge, scones, shortbread, biscuits and slices!

 

What building would you choose to be?

I would say a cathedral. They are tall handsome structures that stand tall and proud in all cities and villages around the world.

 

What is your favourite holiday destination?

We do love Santorin. It is the most beautiful city nestled on the crater’s edge with crystal clear water, and picture postcard blue and white buildings.

 

What music and television do you like?

I enjoy most music however I love classical, opera and crooners! Crooners had such pizzazz, they told story and had meaning and soul. I love the fact classical, and opera, can transport you to another world and evoke emotion.

I also love all the English crime dramas (they do them so well); Father Brown, Agatha Raisin, Midsomer Murders, Poirot, or Miss Marple!

 

What is your favourite quote?

“I am a man of simple tastes; I only like the best,” Sir Winston Churchill.

 

What person – living or dead would invite to dinner party?

I would invite Queen Victoria.  What a remarkable woman and to have loved her husband so deeply.  She also loved trying different food!

 

What qualities do you admire in other people?

Humility, honesty, passion and integrity.

 

What did you want to be when you were growing-up?

Funnily enough, an opera singer! However, I can’t sing!

 

What was your favourite toy?

A now politically incorrect named toy, a golliwog which I adore. My aunty Linda knitted it for me when I was born, and I still have him today!

 

What would you do if you could live anywhere in the world and not have to work for money?

I would say UK or Europe. We always feel at home there and to be able to rummage through all those antique fairs and brocantes would be heaven!

 

What would your childhood-self think of you today?

It would be amazed and proud to see how I have flourished in life, and to affirm that with hard work and determination, anything is possible.

 

What is your favourite smell?

I love the smell of spring. Just on dusk when all the fragrance of the garden permeates the air.

 

What is your favourite place in the world and what makes it so special?

I love the ocean. I love being in it, on it and smelling it! Its calming, relaxing and just beautiful.

 

What historical calamity would you choose to reverse?

The Holocaust. It was a terrible time in history, and how some people treated other humans was abysmal.

 

What or who inspires you?

I gain inspiration from those that strive to be better; who give to those less fortunate; and those who are kind to others.

 

What ice cream flavour would you invent?

Gin and soda water flavoured ice cream.

 

What scares you?

Ignorance!

 

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone?

That I loved them every waking minute of my life.