Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~From the television show The Wonder Years

When I was a little girl we lived in Excelsior St. Guildford from when I was about age 6. It was a small housing commission house that had been painted green and had a wonderful garden at the front. My mother had lived there as a child until she married at age 21 and my grandmother (your great grandmother Mary Goldthorpe) lived at the very same address until 1966 when my parents moved back to live with her. As an adult I can look back through my memories and remember it as an ordinary sized house with three bedroom, a lounge room, a dining/TV room and a kitchenette. At the rear of the house there was a back porch with the combined bathroom and laundry and a separate toilet off it. The entry to the front of the home was by a front porch, which was a small covered entrance large enough for one to stand under out of the rain. I remember that in winter my grandmother use to sit on the front porch in the sunshine and tell us stories of her days living there. By the standards of that era our home was an average sized house with an average sized backyard in an average neighborhood.

There were three steps leading from the rear of the house to a small concreted area with a fernery off it. From there a long narrow path made its way down through the back yard to the garden sheds. The lawns were proudly kept by my father and were a great play area for children. All of this was over shadowed by a great gum tree that provided lovely shade in the summer and loads of leaves to be regularly raked up. As children we made great use of the grass area. We shot balls through a basketball hoop, played red rover and cricket. The basket ball hoop was attached to a swing set and many imaginary netball games were won in the yard. Likewise, the grass made for a great cricket pitch and stumps were set up on the old metal garbage can. When neighboring children joined in cricket games (both boys and girls) all took turns at both fielding and batting and in keeping with world standard rules “over the fence” was six and out.
When I remember back to the days of living in Excelsior St. my memories are those of the simpler days, when the world was not as hectic nor was there so much competition to keep up with the expectations of the community, to have the latest material possessions or be as good as everyone else. Our home was always open to friends and neighbors alike and we gave back to the community as much as we took from it.

The neighborhood represented a diverse cross section of trades and professions which included my father who was a fitter and turner, an accountant, an assembly line worker, a warehouse manager, a teacher and a truck driver. One of our immediate neighbours from next door worked in a warehouse and the lady across the road worked in a bank however, the other wives did not undertake paid work. Their duties were to look after the home, cook meals, do the washing and volunteer at the schools as coaches and fete workers.

Excelsior was a long street that stretched from Guildford all the way to Louis Street in Merrylands and we regularly caught the green bus to travel to Granville to shop or catch the train to the city. Not all that far from our home was a small group of shops that included a milk bar, a butcher, a doctor and a small grocery shop that sold most things that one could want. It was an area where one knew the neighbors well, got to know their children and was safe to walk the streets alone. We played ball games in the front yards, chasings through backyards and built imaginary castles in each other’s bedrooms.

I never had my own bedroom. When we first moved to Excelsior Street I shared a bedroom with my sister. My grandmother slept in the third room and a small area was partitioned off the lounge room for my older brother to sleep in. My parents slept in the main room with my baby brother who was born a year after we moved in. In hindsight it was a very crowded house with three generations residing there but as a child it seemed like a big house with room for all.
My grandmother moved out when I was in year 5 and went to live with her brother in a home unit in Blaxell Street Granville. My two brothers moved into her old bedroom and slept in double bunk beds, as children we thought that was really cool. The lounge area was small by today’s standards and was a long narrow room that housed both a piano and a small organ. My sister learned to play piano, I took guitar lessons and my old brother learned to play the tuba. My sister and I played netball on Saturday mornings and we walked (often unaccompanied) to the local netball courts. Those were the days when children could walk the streets in safety, play at the local playground unsupervised or visit the corner shops without fear of being attacked. Life was much safer then.
When I was in year 4 we went to school at at Granville. My father volunteered to mow lawns and paint classrooms and during the course of these activities he met two fellow volunteers whose children attended the same school; Darcy and Leon. When my father died in 1977 both men attended his funeral and when my son Benjamin died in 2002 both men attended his funeral, I was 42 years old then so you can understand that the friendships created back then lasted a lifetime and into the next generation. Indeed, I can look back at many of the neighbors of Excelsior Street and recall times where they helped one another when times were tough.
I attended school at Granville between 1969 and 1971. Year 4 was spent in an old turn of the century building where the desks sat on steps all looking down onto where our teacher Sister Fabian gave instruction. The entire building was in its original state, except for my father’s painting, and the boys sat to one side with the girls on the other. Sister Fabian was blessed with a gift for creating stories of everything that took place in life. I remember her telling us a bible story each day and we sat absorbed in the vivid detail of the era and what actions had taken place. She also had a beautiful voice (as most nuns did back then) and insisted that we all sing and play instruments to accompany her. Of all my school day teachers Sister Fabian was truly a gifted and natural teacher.
I made friends back then that I went onto attend high school with, was present at their weddings and still meet up with all these decades later. Narelle, Wendy,Irene, Donna and Patricia, were just a few of them. Another name that springs to mind was John G. In year 4 I did not really know him but if the topic of football ever arose in class no one could shut him up…..go the eels! lol.
Anyway, our house still stands in Excelsior St. as we drove past it several years ago to show the children however, it is not green any more nor are the gardens well kept. The neighbors eventually moved to age facilities or passed away and their children married and moved o to different areas. Like everything in life change occurs and the most familiar of environments change to a point of non-recognition. As we drove away I hoped that the new occupants of Excelsior Street are as happy as we were all those years ago.