Les Roberts – Growing up in Glenroy

Born at Sacred Heart Hospital in Coburg, Les Roberts grew up with his parents and three brothers. In 1956, they all moved from Brunswick to George Street in Glenroy. The family lived there until 1965, although Les left to join the Navy in 1963.

Old school Glenroy

Les remembers the Glenroy he moved to. Around his street, there were unmade roads and open drains with smelly grey water that kids fell into on occasion, creating extra clothes washing for their mothers. Early on there was still no sewage but the ‘pan man’ emptied the outside toilets weekly. At that time, it was still the norm to use newspaper in place of toilet paper. There was a mobile Tuberculosis screening van in Glenroy for a time, offering free voluntary tests as a part of a government effort to eradicate Tuberculosis.

Les studied Grade 6 at Oak Park Primary School for 9 months. There were only open paddocks between his house and the school. He remembers the students were provided free milk each day at school. Les had a friend whose back fence faced empty land near the corner of Pascoe Vale Road and Chapman Avenue. The land was low lying and clay fill had been dumped there to build up the ground level.  One memorable winter’s day, a bulldozer spreading the clay fill had become stuck nearly to the to the top of its tracks in the wet clay and had to be extracted from near his friend’s back fence.

In 1956, Les often rode back and forth on his bike to Brunswick on weekends to visit friends. He remembers the concreted road surface and the bike jarring (rough) bluestone cobble verges of Albion Street. 1956 was also the year of the Melbourne Olympics and Les rode his bike from Glenroy to Royal Park at Parkville, to watch some of the athletes at their practice sessions.

The road in George Street was unmade until 1961.  In 1956 the twenty-five households on the street collected money and bought a load of salamander (a sedimentary rock that’s composed of about 50:50 sand:clay. It breaks down to a sandy state fairly easily with a hammer, but with compacting and watering it sets again to a cement-like product.) The men spread the load over the road themselves, watered it and then drove cars up and down to compact it.

The railway Trestle Bridge which is still across the Moonee Ponds Creek Valley today was a local landmark. Les remembers his Dad taking the four kids on bikes, dinking his toddler brother as they rode along the boards of the walkway under the bridge. One of his brothers warned his dad there were holes in some of the boards ahead of them, revealing that this was not in fact his first time exploring the bridge, which was news to his Dad!

Flying High

Les attended the Glenroy Technical School from 1957 to 1960 and remembers the time fondly. The school was newly built and some of the buildings and the grounds were still being completed.  The school was boys only. His time there proved that he was not going to be a tradesman as his skill of hand was sadly lacking! He rode his bike to school, which was a chilling (literally) experience on frosty mornings without gloves. He joined the Air Training Corps Flight when it was established at the School in 1959.  Cadets from the flight attended camps at various RAAF bases during school holidays. The camps gave him an idea of what service life would be like and the experience stood him in good stead when he joined the Navy. On one occasion at East Sale, he and another cadet were fortunate to get seats in a Dakota (DC3) aircraft on a navigation training flight with four trainee navigators which went for several hours to the South Australian border and return.  A great adventure for a 14-year-old.

Back then from Les’s house on a quiet night, or when the wind was blowing the right way, you could hear the planes from Essendon Airport, which was across the other side of the Moonee Ponds Creek Valley. Les and friends rode bikes to the perimeter fence near the end of the runway to watch the aircraft take off – these were piston engines, not the jets of today. In 1956, he saw his first jet aircraft when a Royal Air Force Vulcan delta wing jet bomber flew low near his house before landing at Essendon Airport. In 1958, Les remembers seeing a Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft after its takeoff at the start of the QANTAS first round the world international service – a historic event in Australian aviation history.

Image credit: Photograph of Les Roberts in 1960 at Glenroy Technical School. Source: Les Roberts personal collection.