Abbotsford lies a few kilometres east of Melbourne. In the early sixties it was your typical working class suburb, although migrants had started to arrive in Australia they hadn’t quite reached Abbotsford. This was home of the Aussie meat and 3 veg, the blue-collar worker. Today Abbotsford is as diverse as you can get with a huge multi-cultural population. The Thursday night banger's, mash and a “tallie” of beer has been replaced with pad prik and Sav Blanc. Abbotsford was your old style suburb with “Strip Shopping” and the trams running down the middle of the road. Thankfully this strip remains although with vastly different shops. You bought your groceries from Mitchell’s, a shop the size of the Deli section in a modern supermarket. The biscuits came in big tins and were weighed out by Mr Mitchell. ”Hey Mr Mitchell any broken biscuits today” I am sure there never was but Mr Mitchell always managed to find something for us. There were no aisles, no checkout chicks and certainly no trolleys. Our street, South Auderley Street ran off Church Street and consisted of single fronted terrace houses in rows of seven or eight. All the houses looked the same, all red brick with a slate roof, they had virtually no front yard. In the early days we even had the "thunder box" out the back. It was here we got our first TV and sang with the Salvation Army on a Sunday Night. Different times, but better times? Well I am not sure kid's of today would have liked the thunder box.
in Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia
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