Moving to Annerley

Moving to Annerley was quite an event in my life. As far as I know I had not seen the house before arrving there so  everything was new and exciting. As we were to continue at Yeronga State School, Mum had arranged for Alan and me to walk with the Cilento children from school to their home on Ipswich Road. Dad met us there and walked us to the new home in Tarragindi  Road. Thus we now would be able to find our own way to and from school in future! I was only 7 years old so just as well I had an older brother to walk with me.
Most people have one house that seems to be evermore "home" to them and this is the house I always dream about. I think if I drew a floorplan of that house it would be fairly accurate as it was in those years.
This is how the house looked when we first lived there:
(I assume that by now you have learnt that you can click on a photo to enlarge it and some have a magnifying icon to bring it to full size...)


Original house

 At some time in the following years alterations to the exterior were made.


The altered front and side



I dont know if this was regarded as a modernisation or was simply to improve security as Alan and I slept on the veranda at that time. Many Brisbane houses from that era can still be seen with similar window treatment.

Anyhow I still prefer the original appearance!

Recently a friend of Alan took this photo for us and some of the original building can be seen.

I was excited to learn that there were 3 girls living next door on one side of us; we were obviously awaited by them as they were out having a good look! One poked a face at me through a gap in the fence; one was hanging out of an upstairs window having a good look; and the youngest was very friendly and gave us a great smile. I was a very shy little girl and this was all a bit overwhelming.

Now here is a coincidence for you..that youngest little girl much later taught my daughters at High School here in Toowoomba!

Anne, the youngest girl was a bit younger than me, Dorothy the middle one was ,I think ,the same age as Alan and Patsy  the eldest and a few years older than Alan. The young girls were at the local Convent school and I think Patsy was by then at All Hallows Seconday School.

The younger girls and I  became good friends . Their Grandmother lived with them but was an invalid ; the few times I actually went inside their home it was a "must" that one visited Grandmother in her bedroom which was a bit daunting for a young child. Their father had some involvement with a Cycling Club and I remember one occasion when he was officiating and the girls and I were allowed to accompany him in their car as he followed the cyclists.

We rarely went to the pictures (movies) so I relied on these girls to tell me about the films that were popular at that time such as The Wizard of Oz and the Shirley Temple films. I'm not sure if I ever actually saw a Shirley Temple movie as a child but I knew what they were about.

Living on the other side of us were a couple of elderly women...at least I though at that time that they were "old." Their home was a large place that looked like a mansion to me with very large grounds and lots of trees. I can only think of one time that I entered those grounds and went to the back( tradesman's) door but for what reason I dont know. Lois and I used to stand on a railing across the lower part of our wooden side fence and peer over for a look in the grounds. There would be a quick dash out of sight if we saw the groundsman looking our way.



Our own yard was..to my memory... quite large. At the back there was a hedge about 3/4 from the back fence with a gap for passageway to the rear section of the yard. One one side behind the hedge was a large vegetable garden and on the other side the outdoor ( and only) dunny. Do you younger folk know that term? It was the common word for the outdoor toilet.  There was little sewerage in Brisbane suburbs and I knew nobody with an indoor flush "toilet." 

I'll mention here the "toilet block" at the school. This was a buiding some distance from the main school buidlings; one for boys and other for girls. There were about 6 toilets in the block with  a sort of corridor where one queued up. Each cubicle had a half door i.e. a swing door open at top and bottom but for privacy in the middle. Naturally I'm describing the girls' block as I dont know what the boys one was like. At lunchtime, one placed one's lunch ( usually in a brown paper bag) on the ground outside. A teacher was always on duty to keep an eye on everybody but sometimes the older girls somehow managed to swap the lunches around and cause problems for us. The only taps I can remember were under the school buildings. There were long troughs with taps over them . These were for both our drinking water and our ablutions.

I've been interrupted so will come back another day to continue.