As a young boy I lived at 171 Queens Road, Connells Point, in a house built over a commercial boatshed. We overlooked Oatley Bay, from Oatley Point to what is now known as the Poulton Park Wetlands. There was (and still is) a bushland nature reserve on the headland at Oatley Point. This remains my favourite place in the district.
My grandfather “George ” decided that they would get into the boat-building business. They moved into the boatshed in the late 1920’s and he and my father “Bill” (aka “Fieldy”), built some boats and they would run the boatshed together, looking after about a dozen small craft.
This house across the bay next to the Oatley Pleasure Grounds, was also built atop a commercial boatshed. It remains pretty much as I remember.
The house was built in the same style as our house, except that our boatshed was made of sandstone and incorporated a machine shop.
Swimming: learnt to swim in a tidal netted rock-pool. Loved the king tides at christmas. Next door was a large rock “pool” (not netted). The rock is still there. King tides made it swimmable, but king tides had a downside. They would flood the boatshed and the workshop, and drown all the machinery. We had to fill sandbags and lay them across the slipway.
Boating: Once rowed across the river heading for Oatley Point. Boat sank in the middle of the bay because being out of the water too long had dried it out, and the clinkers separated.
Dad would take us cruising the Georges River in his motorboat. He would tell us of the times during the depression when he and his father would operate boat-cruises on the Georges River. At the risk of name-dropping, among his patrons were underworld characters Tilly Devine and her cronies.
Fishing: Day trips to Botany Bay with fish traps looking for leatherjackets and blue-swimmer crabs. Cooked and eaten on the return trip. Once nabbed by the inspectors (although fishing wasn’t illegal, the crab-trap was). The inspectors cut-off the trap, giving us a warning.
Our jetty had a hinged landing stage, that would creak and groan with any water movement. A great place to do school homework and catch up with reading, at the same time fishing (and that’s the type of multi-tasking I can appreciate).
Oysters: Nothing was quite like Georges River oysters, picked and eaten fresh off the rocks. So fresh, so delicious. I would keep pestering my parents until they told me they were edible. Alas Georges River oysters are no more.
Sharks: When I was about 9-10 (about 1953?) a pet dog on daily swim across Oatley Bay was taken by big (I think it was about 10 foot long) shark in Oatley Bay. Dad with some of our neighbours caught and shot the shark. Kids were photographed sitting astride it. The jaw was cut-out and it hung in our boatshed for ages. Needless to say, this incident curtailed our swimming for an hour or two. I learned later on that a 14 year old girl had been taken by a shark in three feet of water at Oatley Bay Baths, 10 days before my second birthday.
Bonfire Nights: (Queen Victoria’s birthday, 24th of May, Empire Day). Bonfire nights next door. All the burnable rubbish from the neighborhood went on the bonfire, fireworks were set-off and when the fire died down, the potatoes were thrown in. Lots of fun, fireworks and smoke. The Fun Police have since had different ideas.
Bikes and billycarts: the neighbourhood kids would hold impromptu bike races around the circuit of Queens Road and Connells Point Road. We’d also hold billycart races down Connells Point Road. We were mad crazy back then. Couldn’t do it these days. The up-hills were a bit of a battle and the road surfaces pot-holed, but ….no traffic!!!
Christmas at the Connells Point Reserve (picture): “Santa” would row from Bowdens Crescent to the beach, and distribute presents to the children. In later years he would come in a speedboat.
Schooldays: the Connells Point School was opened in 1934. In the 1940’s and 50’s, Connells Point was a place of baby boomers. I attended until 4th class then moved to OC at Hurstville Primary.
Appliances: mum (Merle, nee: Harvey), would do the washing in a pair of concrete tubs and a mangle. Then she got her magnificent new Thor washing machine, None of our neighbors had such a wonderful machine.
I think one of our neighbours got a kerosene powered refrigerator. Apart from that there were no refrigerators in those days.
As a sideline my dad ran an ice-man delivery service. He would use his old truck to deliver blocks of ice for the neighbours’ ice-chests (something like a stationary Esky).
The ice-works were in Forest Road, Hurstville, where Fergusons Toyota are today. In the summer he would also deliver soft drinks. There weren’t a lot of cars in Connells Point back then.
No hot water at the tap either. To heat the water for our baths, we would use an appliance known as a chip-heater. We would feed it with old newspapers, twigs and driftwood, and it would give us hot water in return.
I recall the time dad used to keep an open drum full of old sump oil and one day I got a brand new pair of gumboots. It wasn’t raining, so I decided to try them out in the drum of sump oil. The chip heater had some tasty dessert that day.
Dad used a hose-powered pump to get the water out of the boats, another thing we couldn’t get away with today.
Entertainment: No television, no PVR’s, no computers or Game-Boys, no portable radio, no music players, no cell phones, (our telephone served four households), how on earth did we survive? Every so often Saturday afternoons would be spent at the Cinema at South Hurstville. Cartoons and serials were the order of the day. Serials were bit disappointing, (because we didn’t go every week, they lost out in continuity).
Some other entertainments were slide nights, where holiday photos were projected onto a convenient wall for all to see, and the radio serials, which let our imaginations run wild. Televisions were a very rare thing. A large one would cost up to 6 months wages, and they needed a huge antenna on a very, very long pole.
Other Memories: Hot days and popping bitumen bubbles, running barefoot through the forest, collecting loose quicksilver from the gas meters, mulberries, plums, loquats, apricots, all there for the picking.
We moved away from the waterfront (sadly) to the top end of Queens Road in 1958. This was an unpopular move. I have always known that my mother was responsible. I believe that she must have been aquaphobic. Everyone else loved the water.
The house in the middle of the picture shows what has happened to the one where I spent my childhood. The rockpool was to the right.
Such changes to the district over the last 20 years have been quite catastrophic. From what was once a beautiful sleepy backwater, Connells Point has been developed into such a place that I would not want to live or raise children there, even if I could afford the three to four million dollar price tags. Architects, developers, builders and real estate agents have a lot to answer for.
Harry Field
