6 Livingstone Street

My childhood years were all spent at 6 Livingstone Street, Morwell.  Ron and Val Hardy and their children Yvonne, Sharon and Dale lived across the road, Mr and Mrs Locock (or was it Laycock?) and Patricia lived next door on one side, the Pointers lived on the other side.  Etta Milligan and her husband, whose name I can't remember, lived across the road next to the lane.  There were the Junkers down the street, next to the Smiths - Harry and ? and their children. The Junkers had twin boys - one, Shane, was tall, dark and solid - the other, Dennis, was much shorter, thinner and blonde.  They didn't look like brothers, let alone twins!  Mrs. Chaffey lived across the road between the Hardy's and the Hendersons - Aileen, Jim and Jane were the children.  Mrs. Chaffey was very old and frail - she had LOTS of cats.  I remember Mum often had to go over to help Mrs. Chaffey find something she had 'lost', or to ring the police because there were naughty men in her roof! and there were cats everywhere.  I guess she had dementia.  On the other side of the Henderson's were the Shanklands, and further down on our side were the McPhee's - the wife was a Milligan daughter, sons were Robert and Ross.  The de Lange's, with daughter Helen and sons Kees and ? were right on the corner where the road curved down towards Churchill Road.  There was another family, German I think, with a name something like Merkel.  I think they were either between the Hendersons and the Shanklands, or perhaps next to the Shanklands.

This photo of the house was taken in November 2006.  The front fence, the garage, shed, playhouse and it seems the room Dad added on as my bedroom have been removed - but it also appears that there have been other extensions at the back of the house.
The 'hill' behind the house is the wall of the reservoir - still as tree-less as when I lived there.  The house was always white when we lived in it.

Next to the Pointer's house (I think the people who moved into it later were the Kearns's) - just visible to the right of our house here - was an empty block.  This was an SEC easement I think, and where we used to play, and have bonfires on bonfire night.  Across the road from the empty block was 'the lane' - again, a block wide but it went right through from Livingstone Street to Churchill Road.

Here's the lane - no concrete footpath when I was a kid, in fact we walked down the middle.  Milligan's house is on the left, Hardy's on the right.

The lane was the access to the Rintoull Street shops, which were off Churchill Road, also to the bus stop - turn left when you got to the end of the lane, up the hill to the bus stop.

My goodness - Montague's Pharmacy is still there, after all these years.  But the newsagency used to share a door with the chemists, and be on the right.  They were also the last shops in the block - I see now there are a couple of extras.  The greengrocers has gone, and so has Trevorrow's bike shop which was the first shop in the block.  There's still a butcher's I see, and a mini mart.  We used to have a little shop that sold some groceries - maybe it was the greengrocers too.  I can't remember - but I know we used to go there to buy our lollies.  Especially 'umbrellas' and lucky toffees.