The armistice of 11 November 1918 was celebrated in Concord with fervour. Citizens immediately formed tin-can bands and took to the street and within twelve hours of the news of armistice the Western Suburbs Master Carriers’ Association had organised what was then the largest procession in the history of the Western Suburbs. Beginning at Concord…
Alison Gardener Brooks Remembers At age 18, in 1976, I started training as a registered nurse at Concord and graduated as a Registered Nurse by age 21. I think our training group was 119 but might be wrong. There were, I think, 20ish ramp wards at the time: medical, respiratory, renal dialysis and psychiatric; other ramp…
Also known as All Fools’ Day, it is celebrated annually on the first day of April. It is a time for the traditional playing of pranks upon unsuspecting people . . . the victim of such a prank being called an April Fool. The origins of this custom are somewhat uncertain, but may have initially…
The Sydney Icebeg (April Fools’ Day – 1978) On the morning of April 1, 1978, a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman, had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he…
Times were hard, but we survived, just as we will survive the current crisis. By 1931 30% of NSW unionists were unemployed. By 1933 one in three Australian breadwinners was unemployed. Most public works came to a standstill during the Depression, forcing many men onto the unemployment pile. Those who received the dole could be…
Strangers in a strange land is a good title for a sci-fi novel. It also accurately reflects how Australia’s founding fathers, our First Fleet convicts, would have felt on being dumped in an alien landscape on the other side of the world back in 1788. Also springing to mind are the 34 Irish convict rebels…
Cabarita Road has been variously referred to as Cabarita Park Road or Cabarita Point Road. It has had several spellings including “Cabareta” as well as “Cabaritta”. By whatever name it has remained one of the districts most significant thoroughfares and been witness to the changing character of the locality and more broadly of the city…
Murgatroyd! Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognise the word Murgatroyd? Heavens to Murgatroyd! Snagglepuss has gone as well! The other day a not so elderly (I’d say 75) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said, “What the…
With all the news about the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) health alert it doesn’t take much imagination to compare it with the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. The following article by historian Troy Lennon in the Daily Telegraph (27/2/20) points this out. “In 1918 reports of a deadly flu virus began filtering from overseas into Australia. …
Valentine’s Day occurs every February 14. Across Australia and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and where did these traditions come from? The history of Valentine’s Day – and the story of its…
On Valentine’s Day 1966 Australians woke to a brand-new currency. The decision to change from the Australian pound (with its awkward shillings and pence) to a decimal currency — the Australian dollar — had been a pragmatic, economic one. Yet decimalisation became an opportunity for Australia to assert itself as an increasingly self-assured and forward-thinking…
At the time of European settlement the Canada Bay area was part of the traditional lands of the Wangal clan of Aboriginal people. The Wangal were a clan of the larger Darug language group or Aboriginal nation. Their lives were strongly focussed on the harbour and its foreshores, especially in food gathering. Aboriginal people also…
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