A Sunday School picnic from Thornbury as a child, used to be to either the Presbyterian church at Epping or Whittlesea.
Epping road was only bitumen barely wide enough for two cars, with gravel on the sides, and most of the side roads were unmade until 1964.
The original (Thomastown) Doctors surgery was a tin shed in Arndell Street, (Dr Harry Jenkins and another Dr) behind the Dentist on the High St corner, the next was built beside the original house and was only pulled down about 2 years ago to enlarge the dentist premises. The third one was the clinic in High Street, which since it was pulled down remains a vacant block with heaps of rubbish on it.
When we came here, the Commonwealth Bank in Thomastown was a tin shed where the Post Office is today. The Post Office was down in the group of shops near Spring Street.
There were only a couple of shops over in Station St Lalor, I think it is the site where the Amcal Chemist is was a Milk Bar come general store style. Mendels Mens Wear, was built out on its own later, then Love & Pollards, a company from Northcote, built the double shop which now houses the Asian peoples shop next door, formerly Fosseys and Target country. There was another Supermarket, which was licensed, and Coles purchased it to get the License then closed it down. Can’t remember the time frame. The other Asian Shop in May Road was Ventures. The Dairy was near it, the horses used to be stabled there.One of the first shops to be built in May Road, was Chris, the Boot repairer, I think it is a Beauty Shop that also sells phones now.
The original chemist shop was up near the Newsagent, before the new premises were built, as was the Haberdashery Shop, that was there for many years,
You should really write all this down, at the times but something you don’t think of. Like the people in our street, once you knew just about every one in a range of 5 houses either side, but now we are lucky if we know the people living next door.
These are just a few things that have come to mind.
Beryl Patullo October 2007.
(Originaly titled: Thornbury – Lalor area)
Photo: Corner of Main Road and High Street, Thomastown has changed over the years. Percival Jervis Blakemore and his wife Christina operated their grocery store from 1928 to 1942. Photo Yarra Plenty Regional Library
Hi Beryl
I would like to correct the section above regarding first Dr’s ,our family home at 26 Main St was first used as a surgery by Dr Harry Jenkins, my job as a young boy of about 10/12 yrs was to organize the lounge room into a waiting room , the usual magazines and probably ” ash trays ” were set up for the evening, the dining room was used as the surgery.
Further to the local shops , a small general store was run by a Mr Hood, it also contained the original telephone exchange, a pyramid 10 line magneto type, Nth cnr spring and High , a garage with tow truck Nth cnr Main and High, later on a small weatherboard building on the Sth entrance to the station was built and occupied by a
Real Estate agent,at this time the primary school was the original brick one, and one teacher , a Mr Brown ?,then Ted Barclay
HI Ian What time line would that be please, Mine commenced in 1961.