Some history books in the library can be stuffy. 

It is important to have all the “official” records, facts and figures, but it is the anecdotes which bring history alive.

Someone has lived it, and we can go on the journey with them as we read it.

From our archives:

Pat Gooding recalled going to work at Bradford Kendall Foundry in the 1950s. Access to the foundry wasn't via Osburn Street which ended where the bowling club is now.

"We had to enter via Huon Street and drive through the old railway shunting yards, do a right turn into Queen Anne Street, (now Queen Street), drive down to the foundry which was a big bog and into the foundry yards.

“My brother, who was a little older than me, also worked at the foundry. He worked on the furnace which started no later than 6am and often at 4am in the morning. He was driving through the railway shunting yards in his new second-hand Consul which was the pride of his life, and 'crunch', one of the shunting trains collected him.

“That was the type of hazard we had to go through to get to work in those days."

Mavis Chapple told us about riding a bicycle to Albury for work c.1930.

“When the approaches to the bridges were washed away or dangerous and the dirt was all gone and you couldn't ride your bike over, the drays were there, possibly repair work was being done at the time or they were replacing the bridges, the drays used to pick us up.

“We'd put the bikes onto the dray, scramble onto the dray ourselves and go across.

“The dray wheels were big and could go over the wash-aways. It was scary. We'd be put off when we'd crossed one bridge and ride to the next and if there was another break or crack in the next one, there'd be another dray there to take us over. I think there would be about four bridges across there. We didn't have to pay for it.”

Please share your stories.

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