I remember when the loo was a dunny, And the pan man came at night; It wasn’t the least bit funny Going out the back with no light. The interesting items we perusedFrom the newspapers cut into squaresAnd hung from a peg in the outhouse –It took little then to keep us amused. The clothes…
Starched circular petticoats which stood up by themselves after being ironed Listening to the “Argonauts” and “Yes What” on the wireless Taking the billy can out to meet the milkman in the morning. It was filled from the huge milk cans on the back of a horse-drawn cart. Catching the tram to school. The fare…
For me, school life began at the start of 1941 – I can still remember my first day at Mortlake School. Even though I only lived three doors down in Archer Street, I still cried my eyes out when Mum left me there with the assurance that she would be back to pick me up…
My mother and father and their three sons arrived from Scotland in 1885 and came by ferry to Bayview Wharf Road, now (Burwood Road, Hen & Chicken Bay). Three more sons were born here. I’m the youngest of the family. All the others are gone now. I was born in Mortlake in 1892, at the Post…
I was very interested in Mr. Stanton’s article on old Concord. I would like to add to it. I have been waiting for an abler pen than mine. I went to Concord School 72 years ago (1889). Concord School then was a small weatherboard building on the corner facing Burwood Road (Wharf Road) about fifty…
Kit Johnston (c1978) I came to Concord 63 years ago and have seen many changes. Our road, Alexandra Street, was not made and we had no kerb and guttering and no concrete footpaths. As a matter of fact, the road was so bad, I was coming home from Burwood and the pram with my young…
Private John Bray and his wife Mary reached Sydney in June 1790 on board the Neptune with the first detachment of the New South Wales Corps. Within three years John Bray had been promoted to the rank of sergeant and on 11th November 1794 he was granted thirty acres of land at the “Entrance of…
My father, Samuel Ashton, owned the Public Baths at Mortlake. As a matter of fact, he built the baths himself, all cut out from solid rock. I was born in Sydney on 10 April, 1885. I don’t remember ever learning to swim, but I know it was at a very early age. My father, Samuel…
A recollection of old Concord by the late Mr. H. Stanton (Mayor of Concord 1951-52) as published in the “Concord Recorder” on 16th March, 1961.
“Now I Confess”, says Frances, 90. It took a tomboy to talk the young ladies of Enfield, Mortlake and Concord into taking swimming lessons back in 1901. The schoolmarms of the day were scandalised when young Frances Ashton, then 16, walked in bold as brass and offered to teach their pupils how to swim. Some…