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 like my mother with 4 kids in tow. On the train station side, working down the hill, was a barber and tobacconist, a chemist, the station entrance, a newsagent and post office, a grocer and a car mechanic. On the other side of the road was a butcher, a greengrocer and 2 milk bars. A little later a hairdresser arrived on the corner of Merton Street. At the grocer’s very little was pre-packaged and most items were measured out into brown paper bags sitting open on a set of scales. One of my few wartime memories was of my mother presenting ration coupons to Mr Walters, the grocer, for many of her purchases. The last time I drove through, maybe 10 years ago, those shops were there in structure only, like a ghost town compared to the lively shopping centre I remember from when I was a boy in the 1940s.
The thriving Darebin shopping centre in the 1940s
