About

At Large
1. Not limited to any place, person, or topic

2. Free from control or restraint, unconfined.

3. At length, fully; also, as a whole, in general.

4. Given a competence ratione materiae, i.e. pertaining to one thematic problem.

Queenie O’Dwyer is very much at large in Collingwood.

You may spot her in Smith Street swapping yarns with the folk who always gather on benches outside supermarkets, closely examining exotic vegetables in the Asian greengrocer, passing the time of day with the Lollipop Man or leaning on the TAB counter putting five bob each way on the grey filly in the fourth race.

 

She seems to have always lived here in Collingwood. There are tales of the last scion of an early Settler family, a hasty flight from the goldfields of Eureka, a Tatts win in 1946, a spectacular shootout with the DLP, perhaps this is all true although there are some who say that Queenie herself has been haunting the streets and the river-flats since 1856.

 

Whatever the case may be Queenie is, essentially, Collingwood itself.