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According to conventional wisdom, you aren’t really supposed to remember things from your early childhood. Well, I must be an odd bod, because I do remember. I was a happy enough little kid for the first five years of my life, with blond, curly hair,  (whatever happened to it?), and nick-named  ‘Goldilocks’. I was the…

The fear and uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic may feel new to many of us. But it is strangely familiar to those who lived through the polio epidemic of the last century. Polio – the silent killer In the first half of the 20th century, as smallpox began to disappear, polio (infantile paralysis) was the…

The Blue Bird Sewing Machine Bebarfalds, a retailer of home furnishings and manufacturer of furniture, traded for many years from its landmark location opposite the Sydney Town Hall on the corner of George and Park Streets. They are best remembered for their sewing machines, introduced around 1917, and branded as ‘Blue Bird’ from about 1926….

Members of the City of Canada Bay Heritage Society would be aware that No. 1 Bent Street is the address of the Heritage Society’s Museum, located in the former Concord Library. Bent Street was named for Ellis Bent (1783-1815) who, before travelling to Sydney, accepted an appointment as Deputy Judge-Advocate of N.S.W. He arrived aboard…

In December 1916 William Graham Eyles, a former alderman of Drummoyne, was sentenced to death in Sydney’s Central Criminal Court for the murder of his wife, Ellen, who was found hanging by a strap from a bedpost in her house in Courland Street, Five Dock. There were signs of a struggle with numerous bruises on…

Torch The design of the torch reflected three famed areas of Australian culture: the boomerang, the Sydney Opera House, and the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The concept also reflected the elements of earth, fire, and water. This was achieved across three layers of the torch. The first, inner layer contains the fuel system and combustor, the second contains…

The Stores Memoranda In contrast to the paper scrawlings of today, this reusable metal grocery list dates back to at least the early 1900s,  It is inscribed with kitchen staples like bread, butter, milk and tea.  Its movable markers next to each item allowed shoppers to flag when they need to restock on certain items….

Following last month’s articles on Farleigh Nettheim, Peter Bryant has sent another snippet of Concord History. One thing that I didn’t mention before is that the small factory producing Watsons Ink occupied the top of Finch Avenue on the corner with Burwood Road.  Charlie Watson was a well-known figure from my boyhood days in Concord….

The subdivision of land for housing at the end of the nineteenth century fundamentally changed Concord and its surrounding districts, transforming what was essentially a rural district of orchards, small farms and market gardens into an expanding patchwork of industrial and commercial development with its attendant population growth. As houses, factories and businesses increasingly encroached…

Did you see the gypsies on the road to Mlttagong, or Hordern’s tree on Razorback, when it was growing strong?Did you go in search of old Bea Miles when exams loomed near, to sit with her on the Town Hall steps and brush up on Shakespeare?And did you see old Rosies’ flower stall, as first…

A single man decided life would be more fun if he had a pet. So he went to the pet store and told the owner that he wanted to buy an unusual pet. After some discussion, he finally bought a centipede that came in a little white box that served as the bug’s house. He…