Greetings from Bardon Community Association.

Congratulations on the web site. We are slowly working towards a similar local history project ourselves under the guiding hand of Manfred Cross.

I lived at 630 Coronation Drive from 1953 to 1967 so I witnessed the old Toowong Village being replaced by the post war passion for demolishing everything old.

Next door was Bennett's boot factory. It employed many workers. It was an sump oil stained weatherboard building built behind the ancient shop seen in 1893 pictures of the street. They made Duncan Thompson football boots as well as boots for the police and railways.

Next door was Whipple and Tripcony Shell service station.

Next again was Colledge House, a substantial brick shops and flats which housed O.C. Jones Plumbing business. Oscar Jones was a gifted amateur runner in his youth with Toowong Harriers. Colledge was a well known runner also.

We had a blacksmiths shop opposite, backing onto the rail line, which later became a very successful welding business. The main part of the shop was a C.O.R. petrol station which became a Philip's 66 station before being demolished for an office building.

Next door was a small boys delight. A Porche dealer called Pein Motors which later moved to Taringa to sell Volkswagen also.

Sidney House stood where ABC television is now. It was a very seedy boarding house before demolition.

The house used by ABC radio was intact then. The stables fronted onto Archer Street.

The Toowong Pool was surrounded by an ugly corrugated iron fence. The timber grandstands were almost falling down. We thought James Birrell's roundhouse was very trendy.

The Toowong Library was also awe inspiring during the austere times in which it was built.

The Doctors became Dr Macdonald and the Dentist Mr Rippingale. They were in the same stucco house where the CBA and Commonwealth Bank were, now called 29 High Street.

We collected and sold used newspapers to Bailey and Rodgers butcher shop to wrap up meat. They had sawdust on the floor and used tree trunks as their chopping blocks. Present hygiene inspectors would have a fit.

The shoe repairer was Albert Stanley. He had a strong German accent so he may have anglicised his name. His son was also called Bertie.

Next door was the legendary barber shop of Mr Whittingham. Famous was his "Next gentleman in the chair please" as he discharged his present customer.

I remember Cocks General Store next to the present National Bank. Happily the large tree between Cocks and Albert Stanley's shop still survives. I do not know how.

Cocks General Store disappeared when the BCC, now Woolworths, started to become popular. The staff wore white aprons and weighed and measured the flour and sugar into brown paper bags.There was one of the high ladders on a track to climb up to the high shelving behind the counter.

I worked in a grocers in Benson Street opposite the railway station. If we ran out of something for a customers order it was cheaper for us to buy it from BCC than from Tickles warehouse.

Miss Browns kindergarten was in two old houses facing High Street opposite St Thomas' church. There was part of Ebor Lane giving rear access to the police station next door but not to Miss Browns.

Terry Kratzmann has detailed memories of Toowong during the 1950's. His grandfather had a joinery workshop on the corner of High Street and Ebor Lane.

There was a horse water trough on the island opposite the Royal Exchange. The farmers from Brookfield stopped with their horse carts when returning from the Roma Street markets.

There were still bomb shelters on the old railway platforms up to when it was demolished in the 1950's to build the extra two sets of rail lines.

Regards

John Bray, President Bardon Community Association