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Mum & Dad took pride in the garden, Mum won the “best garden in street” one year. Dad had his vegie patch and chook shed up the back, the little toilet shed was always there, full of intriguing tools and the lawnmower. Dad built the wood shed and later a carport. We had a wonderful black Labrador “Jet” who followed us kids everywhere, even into the pool if Otto was there! We all walked to school and came home each day for lunch. We had the standard 3 bedrooms, small kitchen, dining room with the briquette heater (the Convair) and an open fire in the lounge..At the beginning of the cold weather on a Sunday evening Dad would stuff the fish & chip paper into the fireplace and with a wicked gleam in his eye say “watch this, the fire brigade will be around soon”! Sure enough, the chimney would catch on fire, the accumulated coal dust making a wonderful fuel! The fireplace had an outside opening to the front of the house so you could empty the ashes out from outside. We had a section of small floorboards in the hallway from the lounge room to Mum & Dad’s bedroom, we could pull the carpet back and take the floorboards up and climb down under the house, very musty but great fun. We had a large liquid amber in the front yard, each autumn we would rake up the leaves and pile them up around the base of the tree. Jet would burrow through them and have a great time, a wagging black tail was all you could see. My brother Ian planted an acorn from the huge old oak tree near the picture theatre along the western fence. I think you can still see it in the photo of me standing in what was our yard. The laundry and toilet were in the porch area at the back, we had a built in ironing board that dropped down from the wall next to the back door, we used it to polish our shoes on. Our kichen looked out to the west down Northway towards the Police Station, I can remember watching Mum & Dad walking hand in hand down to the street to do the shopping for dinner. Yallourn was such a good town to grow up in, I used to take Jet for walks at any time of the day or night, sometimes walking right around the whole town. I used to think paved footpaths were normal. We had the best swimming pool – I think Kay and myself spent most days in summer there, either sunbaking and mucking around or training with the swimming club.
Immediate Neighbours: 14 Northway - Roy & Beau Stirling; 10 Northway - Scotts, Dolphin
Nearby Neighbours: Across road on corner - Jim & Mrs Garnett, Robert & Sue. Mr & Mrs Huberts, John, Anna, Tom, Charlie & 2 more (all good swimmers) (my brother Ian was the reason Anna's window was nailed shut!). Cnr of Northway & Maiden St across from the Methodist Church - Mr & Mrs Connor, John and daughter