In the 1940s the small group of shops clustered around the Darebin Station on Heidelberg Road was a thriving shopping centre, in the days of one car and no car families. The trek to the Ivanhoe shops from the Fairy Hills-Darebin area was a major exercise up the hill and beyond – especially for people […]
Author: neilsmith
We moved to the Fairy Hills end of Ivanhoe, where the Darebin Creek meets the Yarra River, in 1940 when I was 2 and moved to Heidelberg in 1956. I have self published a book of memoirs titled 'Fairy Hills: A Memoir'.
Duplication of Railway Line across Darebin Creek 1950-4
The year was some time between 1950 and 1954 in the days when I was catching the train to Northcote High School from Darebin to Westgarth Stations. The then single line across the Darebin Creek, through Darebin Station to Ivanhoe Station, was to be duplicated over a single weekend. A miracle, we thought at the […]
Fairy Hills between 1940-1950
Every day between 1940 and around 1950 my life was full of activity due to a constant stream of people who were like shops (before supermarkets) coming to our front door with just about everything we needed. They came in trucks or carts of all shapes and sizes. Most of them were drawn by horses. […]