My world changes

It happened slowly, insidiously, and change crept through my life like a thief in the dark.  It all appeared unremarkable, at first, something different happened. Some were little things. Houses were being built. Slowly more and more. The trams went and were replaced by diesel buses – smelly belching double-decker behemoths that had none of the finesse of a tram – and the tram lines were ripped up to widen the available carriageway on Victoria Road. The motor servce station, selling fuel and oil, added a small workshop. Then a car sales business started up next to it on the corner of our street and Victoria road. Next I knew they were all one business with a smart newcar showroom. I didn’t notice the extra cars, at first.

Others were big things. Like town gas being connected to homes – bringing new appliances and heating and doing away with wood fires - sewage reticulation was laid to replace the old ‘pan system’ – I didn’t mind that so much. The telephone came to town, party lines at first, individual numbers later but this impacted on my ‘invisibleness’ – my parents could call down the party line for our area and find out where I was, or was last seen. I was now 'trackable' in a region where before I could move around with impunity.

We got television – thrilling at first for those that could afford it – we peered into the radio shop window of an evening to catch a glimpse of “The Mickey Mouse Show” and the “Mouseketeers”. Dad bought us a TV, it was a huge wooden thing, a console model, with the largest screen available. Mum loved it!

They built a “Mall” at Top Ryde – the Rialto was a ‘hold-out’ for a few years but gradually more and more land was resumed around it and then one day it went too. I asked why? The answer was poor patronage and an inability to compete with television. At the same time all the little corner shops began to close, first the greengrocer and then the butcher, followed by the general stores. Some re-opened in the Mall, others just gave up and surrendered.

The rabbits disappeared!  All these new homes were in-filling their natural environment. I suppose they just ‘moved on’. Didn’t matter, anyway, ‘cos I had no-one to buy the skins as the Grain and Produce store had been pulled down to make way for a new Civic Centre and no-one wanted to buy wild rabbits anyway. My trusty old .22 went up on top of a cupboard and I forgot about it.  One day, decades alter, I remembered it – we wanted it for a prop in “Annie get your gun”, a musical production which we were staging at the hospital – I went looking for it and it wasn’t there. I asked my father where it was and he said he sold it to some mate up the Central Coast who was building a weekender up there and was having problems with snakes!  Thank you very much, I thought, "Thanks mate, that rifle kept you supplied with meat for the table and you don’t waste bullets on snakes anyway – you bang just them on the head with a shovel if they wont move on!"

I used to train a lot by running the road network in our area. They were mostly unmade roads of well worn clay but then I started to find more and more of them being sealed. Stinky bitumen emulsion poured over gravel and then more gravel added on top and loosely rolled in. It hurt my feet and I soon found I had to run in tennis shoes and not barefoot. I remember running past the Brett’s farmhouse one evening and there was a removals van out the front. I stopped for a minute and asked the boys:

 “What’s up? Getting some new furniture?” I asked:

“No!" I was told, "Dad’s sold the farm. There’s no market for his milk and the supermarkets were preferred by householders for fruit and vegetables”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Off up north, Dad’s got his eye on some land up at Mt White, near Gosford. We are going to grow oranges for the local soft drink manufacturer.”

“Good luck!” I called over my shoulder as I ran off down the road, my chest feeling rather ‘funny’. I was sad.

When I got home I had a good look around the backyard. The vegetable garden had gone and we had ‘grass’. The fruit trees were badly in need of pruning and many had scale or mite infestation. The chicken run had long ago been converted into a storage place for unwanted materials and goods. All I could see around us were fences and rooftops. It was a case of "Paradise lost". We had traded it for a quarter acre of grass that needed cutting twice a week in summer and every two weeks in winter.

The next few days, as I ran, I looked around and I could see no ‘green’. Wall-to-wall quarter acre housing blocks with neat little 3 bedroom bungalows had locked off access to any remaining bushland. On Buffalo Road I stopped at the bridge and looked down into what had once been a clear, clean, running Buffalo Creek that I used to swim in. It was a stagnant, still, mosquito infested swamp.

My world had changed forever and it had stolen my innocence. I had grown up in a blinkered existence. I went looking for my mates and was told that they were all out – at the Youth Club at the church, I was told. I caught up with one a few days later and asked:

 “What the go was?”

“Go? Its all go mate! Girls, and lots of them!”

I had never given girls a second glance but here I was well advanced past puberty and once more the world had left me behind. While I had been so pre-occupied with my “bush”, hunting, swimming, training for and playing sport all my male friends had been seduced up to the Youth Club (and I don’t think it took much urging).

On my first visit there I was nervous. I could see all these attractive young girls, laughing and chatting away to the boys, dancing to an old phonograph and they smelt so sweet!  I was dumbfounded. All my mates had a girl on their arm – their ‘squeeze’ – as I was to learn. I felt so awkward, so out of place.

“Hello!  You are John aren’t you,” said a voice from behind me, “You're the wild one, arn't you?”

I turned around and there was this vision of loveliness.

“I’m Barbara. Would you like to dance?’ The words came out like wild honey flowing from a deep hole in a bush eucalyptus, sweet and just oozed around my ears.

I don’t know how to dance.” I replied.

 

“Oh, It’s sooooo easy,” she said, “come on, I’ll teach you!” She reached out and took my hand in hers, sliding her other hand up onto my shoulder. I didn’t know what to do with my hands!  I let go of her hand and put my arm around her waist, so firm and nice feeling, and then put my other hand up on her shoulder. She looked at me, smiled at that, and said “My, you’re a fast worker!”.

I was a ‘goner’!

And that, dear readers, was the end of my youth and the beginning of my growing up!

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Schooling (or lack of it)

I wasn’t very academically attributed. I had a very retentive memory that got me by most assessments. I was good at geography, physics, geometry, and history. I was poor in general mathematics but had a skill for algebra, quadratic equations and long division. Where I failed here was that I did most of my workings in my head so that my teacher frequently failed me for not showing proof of how I reached my conclusions. I would take affront at that and one day I just told him that he was jealous ‘cos I could do in thirty seconds in my head what took him ten minutes to do with pen and paper – and I walked out of the classroom and went swimming!

Then the Marist Brothers found a flaw in my armour. It was 1952 and I was ten years old. For a sports day we were taken to Boronia Park,  a short walk from our Mark Street school – a new area for me – and it was heaven. Not only did it offer more regions to explore it was also situated above the Lane Cove River, a short journey through the scrub from its No.3 oval. Again, I found ‘stash’ areas for my school gear and I would then take off to explore the bush along the upper reaches of the Lane Cove River. Eventually I was again ‘tagged’ for absenting myself from school without permission. I was suspended from school for a week and ‘grounded at home – however, that didn’t work ‘cos there was no-one to supervise my grounding. Useless solution that I made the most of.

Boronia Park had other attractions, however, and an astute Marist Brother spotted it in my make-up. I showed an interest in football (Rugby, i.e.) and Boronia Park was also the home ground for the Hunters Hill Rugby Club and I was soon pestering my parents to be allowed to play Rugby on a weekend during the winter season.  Boronia Park and playing ‘footie’ was my heaven.

The Marist Brothers recognised my sporting talents – I was a good athlete, I competed in the track and field sports days, played cricket and also played football. These were tools that were used to control my frequent ‘absences’ – stay in school or no sport on sports days!

Problem was, Villa Maria did not play Rugby Union Football, they played Rugby League Football and I was finding the rules confusing, switching from one game to another twice a week. At school we played ‘weight rated’ rugby league, based on your weight in stones and pounds set at the seven pound limit of stone weight – 7’”7’s, 8’7”’s, 9’7”’s, etc – and being largish build I was playing above my age, whereas Rugby Union was ‘aged based’, so I was a ‘big boy’ in the right age group. The Brothers approached Dad and suggested I play one code or the other. There was also the problem of getting me from Ryde to Boronia Park two evenings a week for training – something that often didn’t happen and if it were not for the fact that our side was short on the player roster I probably would not of got a game on the weekend. Dad had a friend at the Gladesville Sports and Bowling Club where they played junior rugby league up to “A” grade. He very quickly talked Dad into moving me to weekend rugby league, especially as their training oval was at Ryde Park, just up the road from home!

So there I was, playing cricket in summer, running with “The Harriers” cross country running club in the spring and autumn, playing football once a week for school in winter and on the weekends for the Gladesville Sports Club and also training two nights a week at Ryde Oval. I was in – starting in “F” grade playing as a forward! My youth was loosing its free spirited innocence and I was about to be melded into the discipline of playing club football as a team member! By the time I was fifteen I was playing “D” grade on a Saturday and then backing up to play the “C” grade game on the Sunday. I would then hang around in the hope I could pick up a game with the “A” grade if they were short of players – which they often were. Playing with the 'big boys' I was a 'protected species' with two hulking great prop forwards looking after me as I 'raked' the scrums for them. Touch me and they'd square up the ledger. It also meant I earnt the privilege of drinking beer with them after the game in the locker room and joining in the club songs.

I was as fit as a mallee bull!

What’s a mallee bull:

“From the earliest days of settlement, grazing of sheep and cattle under licence took place throughout the Mallee Region.  Most recorded history refers to sheep but there is ample evidence that cattle were also grazed in substantial numbers.  Inevitably, cattle strayed from the main mobs and set up their own select herds.  In the harsh environment of Mallee summers, the waterholes became the main battlegrounds for the survival of the species.  William Gould reported on finding the “Natural Waterhole”, having to remove the carcass of a dead beast from it before the water could be used.  W.L. Morton of Morton Plains writing of his experiences stated that “no other animal can put on a more fear-inspiring aspect than a full grown wild Mallee Bull”.  Mr. Stephen Laver, lessee of Black 56A comprising of a large tract of land within the Shire of Birchip in the 1890’s, often killed a wild beast for meat which he shared with the Aborigines of the area.”

I go to school (sometimes)

1949 and I start my Primary School education. School itself was not too bad, but, after ahile I would get bored. Where I went to school, my school had a strict code of 'hands off'. All the boys were addressed by the Brothers as "Sir" and all the Brothers were referred to by the boys using that title, shortend to Br. (pronounced Brrr!) as in Brrrr Mark, Brrrr. Peter, etc. Any violence, be that physical or other intimidatory behaviour, was quickly and promptly dealt with, either by the Brothers themselves or school Captains or class monitors. Common areas were well supervised and I think that is a failure today. Today I live next to a catholic high school and the lack of playground supervision is evident by the language that emanates from the schoolyard during routine breaks and sports events on the playing field next to our back fence!

Anyway, two buses on the trip each way but I quickly worked out that if I skipped the second bus, walked from Gladesville to Hunters Hill (and return on the home trip) I could save my bus fare for ‘special treats’ – e.g. the movie theatre –“The Flicks” – on Saturday afternoons. Of course, this lead to other knowledge – I discovered Tarban Creek which flowed past St Joseph’s College rowing sheds into the Lane Cove River and also had the fascinating Gladesville Lunatic Asylum on the opposite bank. Gladesville Lunatic Asylum had been constructed in the 1830’s, principally because it was bounded by two rivers – the Lane Cove and the Parramatta - and early access before the iron bridge was built from Drummoyne was controlled by a ferry with ferrymen who had strict instructions on checking the bona fides of any passengers.  By 1950 it was largely an ‘open’ asylum with only a few closed wards and its grounds were a delight to explore. The main road to Sydney, Victoria Road, ran right past its gates and high stone walls.

Wards 17 and 18 at the Gladesville Lunatic Asylum,

overlooking a splendid cricket oval that was situated

on the Parramatta River.

Many a lazy day was spent exploring the grounds, chatting with wandering inmates and even getting friendly with some of the staff. Tarban Creek also had a weir which formed a great swimming hole in summer. This luxury was soon to be cut short, however, as my frequent absences from school ended with my Dad and myself fronting the headmaster at the Montbel Priory for explanations. Tarban Creek and the Gladesville Asylum were declared ‘off-limits’ and a curfew was placed on my arrival home from school each day! Oh well!  That merely meant I arrived home earlier, shucked my shoes and socks and took off down the bush, to the quarry and places like that where I joined up with new found friends, Kevin, Michael and Peter where we would ‘ambush’ wandering groups of children coming to play on “our turf”! Real ‘Boys Own’ stuff.

Mum and Dad were struggling to make ends meet in the early 1950’s, so Dad went into the ‘barter/exchange’ market. He had located a few people who lived mostly in the inner city area who wanted fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and the odd free-range chicken (killed and dressed) in exchange for things like fresh sea food, piano and violin lessons for my talented sister, etc, but the problem was getting our products to them. It was suggested by Dad that since I was such an adventurous lad I could deliver the trade materials to pre-arranged locations on certain dates and time. This meant at least a weekly trip to the Sydney Fish Markets, then located in the Haymarket area of Central Sydney just adjacent to Dixon Street and Chinatown. Mum would pack a portmanteau with ‘goodies’, march me up to the tram stop at 6am and put me on a tram to Sydney. I was given ‘vouchers’ (Transport Dept money tags – Dad worked for the Tramways) to give to the conductor for my fare in and back. I would alight at Haymarket and walk up to the Fish Markets where I met a manager and handed over the portmanteau and I was told to wait a half an hour. This gave me thirty minutes to explore the fruit and vegetable markets and Chinatown and I found this a fascinating place, full of wondrous things – I even exchanged ‘greetings’ with Chinese shop owners, including the sons of Sydney's infamous Quong Tart – then I would return and collect the portmanteau (by then full of varied products from the fish market floor) and catch another tram back to Ryde, arriving back near home about 7.45am. Mum would meet me, take the portmanteau and give me my schoolbag and lunch and send me on my way to school.

Now this process had some interesting ‘spin-offs’. The conductors were regulars and knew if an Inspector was on their route, so often they would not bother with my travel coupons. I was able to stockpile a heap of coupons which I could use to get myself by government transport to the Sydney beaches – Bondi, Clovelly, Coogee, Maroubra, etc. so that my 'range of absence activities' became extended. One day dad was coming home and spied me at a city tram stop. That night there was hell to pay in our house as explanations were demanded. Afterwards my older sisters wanted to know about the beaches - were they safe, were there sharks, and mostly, were there life guards! As a result they pestered mum and dad to take us to the beach of a weekend, so I started a family tradition - a weekend day trip to Bondi, complete with pre-packed picnic lunches of sandwiches, cakes, fruit and cordial (tea for mum and dad - there were 'free' hot water boilers strategically placed around the beach parkland areas.)

I loved the beaches and quickly took to body surfing and, if I could save up the money, hire and inflatable rubber body  surfer to ride the waves on.  Long board surfing was just in vogue and we would sit and watch the men on their long boards surfing the waves.  It was exciting at times when a shark was spotted and the alarm bell was rung and everyone was called out of the water as the life boat was launched to chase off the intruder. Sometimes some swimmers would get into trouble and we would watch the life guards go through their 'Belt and Line' rescue drill and pull swimmers back on to the beach. Sometimes they needed to have the water pumped out of their lungs and we would struggle for a vantage point in the surrounding crowd of onlookers to watch this marvelous piece of precision resuscitation.

Bondi Beach

Clovelly Beach

Coogee Beach (pronounced “Could Gee”),

view from Dolphin Point at the northern end

Coogee is believed to be derived from and aboriginal word meaning ‘Bad Smell’ caused by decaying seaweed washed up from off-shore weed beds

On my way to the southern beaches, when I was by myself and skipping school, I would pass through the Haymarket and Central Railway and often I would delay for a visit down through the markets to Chinatown.

Paddy’s Markets, Haymarket

Paddy's Markets were an amazing place. The fruit and vegetable markets up the road only operated on some days of the week but Paddy's was open every day bar Sundays. It was a general market in a huge building where stall holders paid for their spot to flog their various wares. I could wander the aisles for hours and marvel at all the stuff on sale.

Dixon Street today – hasn’t changed all that much!

Chinatown was also a colourful and attractive place, more full of Chinese during the day but the Europeans would come down on an evening to dine in the Chinese cafes. In those days, 'Take Away' meant you bought your own containers, a pot or a billycan, in which your order was placed. Australians, at that time, were ultra-conservative and curried chicken or curried prawns and rice were the standard Chinese meals. I got to know the merchants and tasted red pork, smoked duck, steamed dum sums and spring vegetable rolls. I even tried boiled chicken feet - an ugly looking dish but succulent as you sucked off the gelatinous fleshy resin that covered them.

Quong Tart, successful businessman outside

one of his tearooms. Image courtesy of the

City of Sydney and Australian Society of

Genealogists PR6-26-14.

Mei Quong Tart  was a leading nineteenth century Sydney merchant from China. He was one of Sydney's most famous and well-loved personalities and made a significant impact on the social and political scene of Sydney at a time of strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia.

Quong Tart had two sons and four daughters, who, although Anglican himself, baptised in different denominations to avoid charges of prejudice. Quong Tart and his family lived in his mansion, 'Gallop House', in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield, while his four daughters attended the nearby Presbyterian Ladies College at Croyden, the first Asian students to attend the school. I met his sons when I forayed into Chinatown - like their father they had investments in many businesses, particularly import businesses.

He was well known as a uniquely Victorian character, being a Chinese Australian who adopted the dress and manners of an English gentleman, all while performing Scottish songs on his bagpipe. He is distinguished as the first Chinese person in Australia to be initiated into the Society of Freemasons.

Despite the virulent anti-Chinese agitation in Australia at the time, Quong Tart was "as well known as the Governor himself" and "quite as popular among all classes" in NSW (Daily Telegraph, 10 October 1897).

I always had a dog. Dad bought me a little fox terrier but sadly he got ran over by a car. We got a black 'bitser' from a litter that one of the Brett family's bitches threw. It lasted a few years but the paralysis ticks got to it. Dad said no more dogs. Dad was a 'punter', he loved his horse races and most Saturdays he (and often mum) would go to the races at Randwick or Rosehill. This meant he always needed the 'latest form guide', so every Friday and again on Saturday mornings I was sent up the road early to buy the Daily Telegraph with its form guide. It was a mile to the paper shop so in the warmer month it was a pleasant stroll and I found diversions - much to dad's ire who was waiting for his paper - and in the cooler months I would run the two mile trip.  One day I came across this rather hungry looking yellow dog and "He followed me home!" I prevailed on Dad to let me keep him. Dad reckoned he was half dingo and a perfect match for me, so 'Yella' became my dog and went everywhere I went in the district. We were instantly recognised ' "That bugger of a kid .... and his mangy dog!" I kept "Yella" for about 5 years, then one day he just decided to move on, so he left.

Around this time I was also becoming quite enterprising. My bush ventures frequently resulted in the capture of many rabbits, These I skinned and dressed the carcasses. What Mum didn't need for the larder I sold door-to-door in the neighbourhood and I got a penny a skin for the hides from the local Produce and Grain store. I saved up enough money to be able to buy a second hand .22 calibre Lithgow Small Arms single action bolt rifle with fixed sights. I drilled three holes in the top of the stock in which I could locate extra rounds for ease of repeat shooting.  I became a crack shot with this rifle and was the envy of all the boys around the district.

We had a policeman, Senior Constable harry paddock back then, who rode around on a motor cycle and sidecar outfit. He was about six foot six and wore size 12 boots and was not past applying those to the backsides of errant boys. I never had much trouble with him. I got a warning once for playing in the local park with my mates on a Sunday - not allowed in those days of a strict Anglican council who did not allow 'sport' on a Sunday - but I reckon that was only because the cranky old resident caretaker complained to him about 'kids in the park'. Anyway, I was walking down Cressy Road one day with my .22 rifle across my shoulders when up he rode and stopped me. He proceeded to ask me about the rifle and where I got it. I told him I bought it secondhand of 'my uncle, Jack Brett', whom he knew. He wanted to know all sorts of questions about it, what i used it for, where did I use it, did I shoot at buildings with it, etc.  I told him I used it for shooting rabbits and was on my way to the quarry to shoot some. He took the rifle and said he would meet me at the quarry and rode off. I was really peeved at that, so ran after him to the quarry.

When I arrived he was waiting, examining the rifle and looking at the three cartridges inserted into the top of the stock. He asked me why I had done that. I said it made it easier to reload without shifting position. There were rabbits around so he told me to try and shoot some. I lay down in cover and waited:

Bang!, reload, bang!,reload, bang! reload, bang! I had four rabbits in less than a minute.

I walked down and brought them back and he looked at them, all head shots. He asked me what I was going to do with them? I said 'skin them, sell the pelts to the Produce store and the carcasses to neighbours'. He hopped on his motor cycle, kicked started it, lowered his goggles off his soft cap, said 'Be careful with that!" put it into gear and roared off. Itold mum and dad about it when I got home. Dad knew harry Paddock and just laughed. Mum said I shouldn't just walk around with a rifle, it would frighten people. A few days later Mum presented me with an oilskin pouch she had made out of an old tram conductor's raincoat. It was perfect for the .22 and it even had a sling to go over my shoulder. She echoed Harry Paddock's words in my ears - "Be careful with that thing!"

He never bothered me again. Years later I went for my driving test - aged 15 years and 10 months you were eligible for a licence and did the test at the local police station. I turned up in my borrowed car and walked in and in front of me was Sergeant Harry paddock. He looked me in the eye and said "What do you want John?" I told him. He walked over to the window and looked out at the car and asked "How did you get here?" I told him I drove over from North Ryde. He said I shouldn't do that, paused, and said, "Drive around the block, pull up where you are and reverse park it down the hill."  I did that and when I came back the ink was already dry on my licence. He really wasn't that bad a cop!

About my formative years

I was a wild kid – semi-feral some said – who took a lot of controlling. Dad’s big workman’s leather belt was regularly applied. It was interesting times. I learned to snare rabbits, recognise bird calls and identify the different species.

A common variety of rabbit snare on a frosty morning

I found wombat holes and swam in natural pools in the creeks and rivers with the platypus – or is that platypii? The bizarre appearance of this egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate fraud. Only the males are venomous, having a defensive spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.

 A Platypus

I made friends with Chinese market gardeners – even got to see inside their Joss House – sat around with them while they smoked from long-stemmed pipes and jabbered incoherently to my ears, picking up a word here and there. I was frequently given heaps of fresh vegetables to “Take home to Missy!”

A Chinese market gardener

A Joss House (Chinese house of Prayer) in Bendigo,

Victoria that provides a glimpse into the Chinese

culture and tradition.

There were apple and stone fruit orchards and I made friends with the orchardist who would allow me access – a short cut across an orchard saved up to half a mile of walking  - and was allowed to pick some fruit off the ground and sometimes helped with the harvest. I got to know a dairy farmer (who, as it turns out, was friendly with my father, something that brought me unstuck on occasions!) and learnt to milk a cow and squeeze the milk straight from the teat into my mouth – warm cow’s milk, unbelievable stuff! The roads were just unsealed dirt/clay tracks with no drainage and frequently had erosion gullies running down them from where the rains washed through the tyre tracks. Good travelling in barefeet.

I met some of the older families who had been resident in the area for generations and had boys of their own: the Longs – one of their sons, Terry, taught me to ride a Matchless 350cc motorbike and as he and his brother slept in a separate ‘out-building’, I had a safe place to stash my school gear and strip down to just short trousers and shirt. The Dunning boys – who taught me the art of playing rugby and of giving ‘no quarter’ – and, the Brett's on their dairy farm where I learnt to drive a tractor. The Johnston’s – who took me away on holidays with them, riding in the back of Mr Johnston’s Dodge utility truck. Mr Jones, the grocer – who could always find a bagful of broken biscuits for me if I had a penny. Irvine’s – who ran the bakery and allowed me to sit and smell the fresh bread as I ate a newly baked bread roll. I was know to them all and was no stranger.

There was not much about the Ryde locality that I didn’t know and there were few locals who did not recognise me. My world was about to change, however, it was going to get much bigger.

The time had come for me to move on from St Charles Borremeo, no doubt causing the nuns and father Kelly much joy, the question was “where to?” My friends were going to Holy Cross College at Ryde and that was my choice but Dad said “No! Too close to his bush, we would never  keep him in school!”!  I think he did not give the Patrician Brothers enough credit for being the strict disciplinarians that they were.

Holy Cross College, Ryde.

There were the Christian Brothers schools at Rozelle and Balmain were also considered, however, the travel distance and a ‘return’ to the area the family had left were factors against that choice.

Eventually the Marist Brothers School, “Villa Maria”  at Hunters Hill was chosen – far enough away from my rural urges (so they thought), good transport system and a promise of discipline, a case of “Who would break first”, and I was determined it wasn’t going to be me!

About the move to Ryde

I was born during the Battle of the Coral Sea during 1942 and also around that time a Japanese mother submarine launched a mini-sub attack on Sydney Harbour – sinking a moored ferry, HMAS Kuttabul, which was acting as quarters for naval ratings – and then shelled Sydney from off shore.

My father decided “That was enough” and, with the aid of some good fortune as a punter, he bought two blocks of land – one at Ryde and one at Eastwood – on Sydney’s outer western suburbs of that time. He chose to sell the block at Eastwood and used the funds from that to build us a new home at Ryde. He had a part-time (retired) builder do most of the structural work and Dad and Neville, my B-i-L, did the finishing off (with me helping, playing with ‘off-cuts’ and generally keeping out of the way.)

Chick’s Coach Building and Blacksmith shop , circa 1910

Ryde was full of small rural businesses - a carriage maker, a Grain and Produce merchant, butcheries where farm slaughtered animal carcasses were brought in by horse and cart and carved up on huge chopping blocks on the shop floor, where grocers who made their delivery rounds in a horse and cart still served biscuits in paper bags from large tins and the sweet smell of spices filled the air in their shops. I loved Chick's carriage building shop and spent a lot of time there watching the 'smithy' do his work. This business was still operating up to the late 1940’s tho' Mr Chick had jumped on the new 'moving picture' boom industry and built several movie houses in the Ryde, North Ryde and Eastwood area.

Gus Bowe’s Rialto at Ryde

Bowe had owned a string of cinemas in the Ryde area from 1910. In July 1931, it was reported that he intended building a new theatre near the Ryde tram terminus. The theatre was built with he and his brother James as owners. The Rialto was opened on December 15, 1931, and was licensed to show films from January 1, 1932. It seated 1474 patrons. Because of the irregular nature of the block, the cinema incorporated several unusual design features, including a garden forecourt complete with a floodlit fountain. The entrance was flanked by two obelisks capped by gargoyle-type creatures. We sometimes went to the Rialto but generally their movie selections were not as good as "The Palace" at Gladesville, a proper movie house with an elevated balcony floor over-looking the main seating area.

 

My early days were fraught with illness. I had been seriously ill with meningitis and hospitalised for quite a while and at one stage was not expected to survive. I already had four older sisters and then Mum fell pregnant with my brother, Gregory. I spent some time at Newcastle with my grandparents. I don't recall much of that time, merely 'snatches' of memories of Carrington and the shipyards.

The home my Dad built at Ryde was a simple two bedroom fibro house with a brick front verandah which faced the east – lovely place to lie on a hot summers afternoon and cool off – with a huge backyard and even as it was being built the vegetable garden area had been commenced. We boys slept on an open back verandah, at first, on iron frame cots with a wire base, horse hair mattresses, war surplus grey woolen blankets and ticking covered pillows – no linen for us back then. Dad later filled in the back verandah with glass sliding windows in a wooden frame and even walled-off an area that become the proper  “The Boy’s Bedroom”.

Winters were cold and frosty and at night you found every scrap of bed covering you could get your hands on – even old potato sacks, washed of course. On a winter’s morning it was a painful run to the outside washroom and toilet in our bare feet. We were sent down the back of the yard to the chook run to collect the eggs and to make sure the chooks had feed and water. It was often frosty and the ground was hard and our feet were cold but sometimes we were lucky and found some of old Paddy Long’s cows had wandered close to the house, so we would stand in a steaming hot fresh cow pat and warm our feet!

Slowly, Dad fenced off our yard and put in a proper chicken run, planted fruit trees – apple, mulberry, plum, lemon and orange trees – as well as passion fruit vines and he added a huge vegetable plot. We were largely self-sustaining. We traded eggs, fruit and vegetables for milk, fish (that’s another story) and sometimes some meat or sausages. At a time when rationing was still part of life and corner grocery stores served out of bulk containers into paper bags, to have what we had was special and I have no doubt that it kept us fit, well and healthy.

St Annes Church and pioneer cemetery

The first church service on this site was held on 26 August 1798. The present building was commenced in 1826. Many of Ryde's pioneers are buried here.

We had moved out to Ryde in 1948 and I started school at St Charles Borremeo.  St Charles was really a 'Convent School' for girls, however, it took boys up to year three. I don't think the nuns were too keen on having the boys but the parish priest, at the insistence of his parishoners, prevailed on them as there was no other school to cater for junior boys.


I was five years old and I didn’t like it so I often skipped from school. I soon found coming home was not an option ‘cos Mum had her hands full with housekeeping and taking care of Greg and I was just marched straight back, so I soon learnt to go ‘walk-about’, exploring the parks, paddocks and the even the Memorial Stonemason’s Quarries. I roamed the bush areas and discovering, creeks for swimming and ‘tadpoling’ in, fields full of soft lucerne hay, market farm gardens and the fruit orchards of North Ryde.

I became quite knowledgeable of the geography of the area and new all the trails - often made by wandering cows - and was quite good at basic bush skills. I could judge the time of day by the sun, learnt compass points and bearings and managed to get my hands on an old fishing spool and line which came in quite handy. There were lots of spots along Bufflo Creek where one could have a 'dip' to cool off on a hot day and I soon learnt how to handle things like leeches. There was heaps of bush life around, birds, snakes, lizards, rabbits and I would sit and watch them for what seemed like hours.

In the beginning:

George Johnston (1764 - 1823), by unknown artist,

courtesy of State Library of New South Wales. GPO 1 - 06755.

The land that would become the inner city suburb of Annandale was originally part of an estate owned by prominent NSW Corps colonel George Johnson. Johnson came to Australia as a marine aboard the First Fleet responsible for overseeing the transportation of the convicts on the Lady Penrhyn. Jewish woman Esther Abrahams traveled on the ship, becoming his de-facto wife before they were married in 1814. Well-liked and trusted, Johnson was promoted to NSW Corps Colonel in 1790 and in 1793 was granted a large piece of land alongside the inner harbour. He named his estate Annandale after his home of Annan in Scotland and built his grand house on the grounds of what is now Annandale Public School in 1799.

The first municipal elections for newly formed Annandale Council followed the secession from Leichhardt Council, Photo, Annandale, 1894.

Trafalgar Street – mid-1950’s -, Annandale, Sydney, NSW Australia

During the post WWI years, before the hard years of the 1930’s-1940’s, many old houses added little ‘shop fronts’ on to them in an attempt to “Buy cheap and sell at a profit” general goods. In the depression most of these closed and become accommodations.

Former tram service, corner of Booth and Johnston Streets 1955

My family lived in View Street Annandale during the late 1930’s to the late 1940’s. View Street is just above White (sic: White’s) Bay and is fed by White’s Creek wetlands into Sydney Harbour.

Between 1898 and 1938 Whites Creek was converted into one of the earliest Concrete Storm Water Channels in Australia. In 2002, Wetlands were constructed adjacent to the creek. The wetlands are now looking great with vigorous growth and a steady development of the aquatic ecosystem. Insects, tadpoles and many more little creatures are now breeding in the wetlands.

There are three known species of frogs making a loud cacophony of noise at night. Larger water birds are gradually finding the wetlands are a good place to have dinner.

Visitors enjoy the experience of a rare urban wild-space in a crowded highly developed inner Sydney suburb.

Local residents appreciate the fact the pump is quiet, tadpoles eat mosquito larvae, no smells except in the polluted canal water and the flowering water plants give a stunning colour display. During construction some people complained and now opinions have changed and few people object to the wetlands. (Source: Ted Floyd, Friends of the Earth, Eco-Sydney Campaign.)