It’s happened again!
My daughter works in Kensington. (Our Kensington, here in Sydney.)
There was an Open Day today and I had a look around again, like last year.
There’s so much energy in all those people who come to see what NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) is all about. They’re obviously not shy. It was very busy there again today. It’s fun to see the occasional well-known TV actor walking through the crowd, as though he or she is down the street shopping or catching a bus.
Now that I was in the suburbs where I lived in the fifties, sixties and seventies, I drove to Maroubra Beach, of course and then, back home, via the street where we first lived in a very old house, after leaving the migrant hostel. 
The house across the street, where the Russian couple and their two sons, lived, in the fifties, is being demolished. 
I took a photo and saw an elderly man standing in the drive-way, two houses down. My car was parked near him.
I asked him if he’d lived there a long time.
Yes he had. 
I explained that we lived across the road, half a century ago.
Now he knew me: Jopie (he said) (pronounced: Yopee)!!
He remembered the van Hoorns, with whom we shared the old house.
He remembered the daughter. She was pretty and had such a well-tanned skin. 
He remembered how my father (a glass cutter) came to the rescue, when a relative, visiting him and his family, had broken a window.
I have to confess that I cannot remember him from those years.
There’s a good chance that this was because of his occupation.
Garbage collectors used to be up very early in the day and then catch up on sleep later. 
I do remember the Russian family, across the road. I remember that the man was so impressed with my accordion playing that he had said that when he saw me playing like that, he wanted to kiss me.
Must be a cultural thing. 
I only heard later how one of his sons did some real kissing of that pretty young daughter, of the couple with whom we shared that house (under his house).
I remember the Greek family in the other house. Although I remember really only the daughter, Anna, who was friends with the pretty one.
Come to think of it, what a multi-cultural street it was, in those years – the fifties.
On our side of the street: our house, filled with six people, almost fresh from the Netherlands. The Mobilgas Service Station, beside our house, run by a man, called Keith Leggatt and then, further down the street, closer to Bunnerong Road, the market gardens, or Chinese Gardens, as we used to call them. 
Across the road, those four houses, with Australians, Greeks, Yugoslavs and Russians.
What struck me today, was that the man I spoke to, grew up about a kilometer away, when the whole area was still called Matraville. (Now this bit is Hillsdale.)
He is now 83. 
He has seen the land between his present house and where he grew up be converted from just wide open paddocks of duck farms to quite a crowded piece of suburbia.
And he’s been there 83 years.
...
FOOTNOTE:
Thanks to our friend, now back in the Netherlands, (Gerda van Hoorn-Otto) I was reminded that the house between the dustman’s and the Russians is still occupied by the Yugoslav lady, with whose son, I attended South Sydney Boys, Junior High.
...
My memory about him?
Here we go:
At this boys’ high school, we were in the English class, learning about Shakespeare, when he put up his hand and asked the teacher what a whore was.
Reaction from the other young teen-age boys of course. It’s lucky that he asked.
I learnt something too.
More melting years - our neighbour, the garbo.
I asked him if he’d lived there a long time. He had and 50 years ago, was, once again, like yesterday!
DiannaLee, 4 months ago
wow…how fantastic! What a journey you had, its great that your’ve written this down and wonderful that you have these photos:) I love history…huge passion…
Ozcloggie in reply to DiannaLee’s comment, 4 months ago
Flint Street, where we lived, after the four migrant hostels, sharing that old house, later became a concept. It stood for our most intensely active times, for the adults and for us two children.
The very hard work that the adults had to do was never forgotten but we still see it as the Happy Days (No pun intended.)
Yes. I wore a bow tie and, every morning, when our parents had gone off to the various factories, the girl, holding the Mickey Mouse doll and I watched Crusader Rabbit and the Mickey Mouse Club, until it was time to go to school.
Every few months or so, there was an excuse for a party and the carpet was rolled up and the the 45 rpms and the lp records got the dancing going.
Mishaal Sardar, 4 months ago
An excellent!
its really great wriiten by you.
like history and nice pictures too.
huggles
Ozcloggie in reply to Mishaal Sardar’s comment, 4 months ago
Thanks, Mishaal.
It strikes me that, while it’s history, it’s really still within my reach.
I could drive there every day but have no reason.
(For a short while it helped my daughter to drive her to work, in the area. But that is no longer so and the timing was wrong then.)
It still feels like stepping into a time machine, the way it was today.
Thanks, for taking a look!
Mishaal Sardar, 4 months ago
You’re very welcome!
its really seem so wonderful.
your daughter must be lucky cause she is having great father like you
i can better feel that .. cuase i have lost my that assest :(
i like your work a lot and love ,care and concern for your daughter.
huggles
stephaniek, 4 months ago
What a fun and touching bit of your personal neighborhood “History” this is! I enjoyed every minute of it, thank you! The 50’s were so different in every City weren’t they? I played accordian also! My sister and 2 of my cousins! lol It must be fun for you to go back in time every so often!
Thanks! Steph
Karin Taylor, 4 months ago
....hi again, the street my mum and her folks and family lived in, whilst at Maroubra was 28 Mons Avenue….but it’s different now apparently, and Doctor O’Brien lived 2 or 3 doors up, and the Gallaghers lived next door to them in the semi-detached place…...there were 8 of them, 6 kids + mum and dad…..oh, and Mrs Morris lived on the other side….it would be funny if any of these names rang a bell with you!!
Ozcloggie in reply to Karin Taylor’s comment, 4 months ago
Pity, Karin! I was a paper boy for the newsagency, corner Anzac Parade and Holmes Street, Kingsford. Didn’t sell them but collected the money, once a month between Holmes Street and Maroubra Road.
So street names are familiar. The rest because of going to Maroubra Bay High School.
No connection with St Aidens School, except that I partnered at least one girl from there for her debutante ball.
I remember how proud she was and we stopped off at the school, to show the nuns her dress.
I also liked the two red-headed Nay girls so much, who also came to Bob Potter’s Ballroom Dancing Studio, above the corner of Anzac Pde and Maroubra Rd. Their mother worked in the newsagency, below. They attended St Aidens.
I guess there would be more than one Drs O’Brien.
The one that I knew partnered our family doctor, Malle Tohver, whose practice was in Morgan St Beverley Hills.
This Dr O’brien, in the late 90s lived (No doubt still does.) in Beverly Hills.
On radio (Sydney’s ABC, 702), James Valentine has often had listeners ring in to prove that two of them from just anywhere, would soon find that they knew people whom they had in common.
I feel like we are playing that now! :)
Karin Taylor, 4 months ago
Hi, I will have to pass this on to mum next time i’m in touch with her…i rang her this morning to have a chat and squeezed as much information out of her as I could !! thanx for all this, it will be fun to ask her if anything here rings a bell :D ps love James Valentine!
barnsis, 4 days ago
Wonderful story of the old neighborhood, loved the photos, Volkswagen bugs and the huge training wheels on the bike, Excellent work.