Merryvale

Merryvale (formerly known as Oakleigh) taken in September 1979

Built in the 1870s, Merryvale was a lovely old Victorian house at Minto. It stood adjacent to the old Saggart Fields School that was built in 1870. The house was originally known as Oakleigh.

Merryvale had stuccoed brick walls, open work cast-iron columns on the front verandah and symmetrically placed French windows. The verandah was on three sides of the house, and a timber portion right across the back of the house which included kitchen, bathroom, laundry, pantry, and a bedroom at each end of the verandah running around the brick part. For years it was surrounded by a magnificent garden with many mature trees.

Charles Rudder owned the farm and lived in the house from 1914 to 1920. Jack Westbury purchased it in 1920 and lived there with his wife and two daughters until 1939. He was mayor of Campbelltown from 1936 to 1938. Westbury ran dairy cattle and poultry on the farm before he was forced to sell his farm due to mounting debts.

Mayor Westbury

By the early 1980s the house was still in good condition as it had been occupied until then. Unfortunately, after it became unoccupied during the rest of the decade, vandals destroyed much of the house. At the beginning of 1990 a few Campbelltown councillors pushed for the planning department to ask the NSW Heritage Council to place an Interim Conservation Order on the site. The order never eventuated, despite an inspection later that year. In April 1992 Council approved demolition of the house.

Merryvale stood 200 yards (182 meters) from the intersection of Campbelltown and Redfern Roads, Minto. The site today is 4 Meryyvale Road.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

Grist Mills, Vol. 4, No. 4

Macarthur Advertiser, 21 February 1990 p12

Letter written by Joan Murphy (nee Westbury) to Campbelltown Council, 2 June 1980

Our Oldest Photograph

The oldest photograph is our local studies collection is this one above. It shows the Cadet Corps that was formed at St Mark's Collegiate School at Macquarie Fields House. The house was leased to George Fairfowl Macarthur for use as a boarding school for boys. He moved the St Mark's Collegiate School from Darling Point to Macquarie Fields House in 1858. The school became the most fashionable in the colony. The first school cadet corps in NSW was formed at the school in 1866. The school merged with the King's School in 1868 and moved to Parramatta. The photograph is taken around 1866 and is in sepia. It was purchased by the library in 2007.

Macquarie Field's House deteriorated badly during and after the Second World War. As early as 1951, the National Trust of Australia began moved to have the building restored. Most restoration work took place from 1958 to 1963. It stands proudly restored today close to the suburb of Macquarie Links.

(Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society Collection)

Written by Andrew Allen

Work Safety in the 1960s

This photograph demonstrates how far we have come with Work, Health and Safety! This worker is perched high up on the steel frame of the new council administration building. He has no safety equipment whatsoever! The photograph would be taken in either late 1963 or early 1964. The administration building was the first high rise building built in the Campbelltown CBD and became a notable landmark in many photographs taken in the years to follow. Every other building in this scene has been demolished. The Macquarie Cinema is the large building in the centre of the photo. It was turned into a roller skating a few years after this was taken and continued until 1968. The building went into decay after this. The Queen Street frontage was turned into shops, whilst the auditorium became warehouse space for Downes Department Store. The building was demolished in December 1979.

Written by Andrew Allen

Fiona's Story

This post comes from Dr Ian Willis' excellent blog Camden History Notes. Ian has kindly agreed to share it and the author Fiona Woods has also agreed for it to be republished.

The article demonstrates the power of positive thinking and how a potential negative situation can be turned into a positive. I hope you find Fiona's Story: Memories of Hope enjoyable and inspiring.                                  

         

These memories are a moving personal account of a childhood growing in Airds in the 1970s and 1980s.

This story from former Airds’ resident Fiona Woods acts a counterpoint to stories of despair and loss from these suburbs. In many ways, Airds was a suburb on the fringe of the world. Many residents were living on the edge and faced many challenges.

Woods School Sisters (F Woods)

At the moment many Australian’s have felt a heightened sense of anxiety and need a little hope. Since the bushfires on Australia’s East Coast from September 2019 there are many grim stories.

The uncertainty and lack of control have continued into the Covid crisis, and many feel despair and at a loss.  Fiona’s story provides a ray of sunshine in today’s shadows.

Fiona uses memory as a way of explaining the meaning of past events and peoples involvement in them. She has not created a meaningless collection of unrelated facts.

There are linkages between memory and storytelling.  Each is full of meaning.

Fiona says, ‘Everyone has a story. It’s easy to think of our ancestors as names on a page or a black and white photograph of well-dressed, ‘serious people’.

‘But behind those images is a life that has been lived through both adversity and celebration. With love and pain and all that goes with being human. So many stories that have been untold’.

Fiona’s memories are about a suburb where some residents succeeded and others did not.

This is Fiona’s story and how hope can win through in the end.

Growing up in Airds

Fiona Woods

Growing up in a housing commission estate is not something that traditionally elicits feelings of pride and success. But for me, it does just that. I moved into Airds in 1977, when I was three years old.

My dad had suffered a traumatising work accident, one that would leave him with debilitating, lifelong injuries. My parents already had three small children and were expecting a fourth.

Fiona Woods and brother

I can only imagine how difficult it would have been for them – Dad was in and out of the hospital, and Mum didn’t drive. Here was where their neighbours stepped in, and my earliest memories of the community began.

Back then, neighbours weren’t just people you waved to from the driveway. They were people you could count on, whether it be for food or childcare or even a simple chat over a cup of tea.

I grew up as part of a village, where a lady in my street took my sisters and me to our first gymnastics lessons.  I developed friendships that have stood the test of time. I have even taught alongside my closest childhood friend, an experience that is something I treasure.

Woods Kids at Airds

I laugh with my siblings that we can never shop with Mum in Campbelltown – she remembers everyone who lived remotely near us. But for her, it was the friendship she struck up with her new neighbour the day they both moved in that is the most special.

A friendship that has lasted for over 43 years. It still involves daily coffee catch-ups and phone calls.

I started Kindergarten at John Warby Public School, where I learned more than just academics. It was during this time that I experienced how the love of a teacher extends beyond the classroom.

I truly believe it was these experiences that led me to join the profession. I had so much to give back. I remember some of these teachers visiting our home to check in on our parents and even drive them to appointments.

They really took the home-school connection to a new level! I will be forever grateful for the investment they made in us and their belief that we would all succeed.

Living in Airds during the late 70s and early 80s was a time where friendships were built, and people stuck together. It was the freedom of riding bikes with friends until the street lights came on, building makeshift cubbies and performing concerts for the neighbours.

I can still remember the excitement of walking to the local shops with my sisters to buy a few groceries for Mum. The constant search for ‘bargains’ in the hope there would be twenty cents leftover to buy some mixed lollies.

To this day, I still can’t resist a markdown and resent paying full price for anything. Lollies aside, the mere act walking to the shops was an adventure. Teetering along with the giant concrete snake and pretending we were on a secret journey.

Our simple life ensured we had opportunities to use our imagination and explore the world around us, creating memories with our neighbours and friends.

Airds Shopping Centre 2020 (I Willis)

But life wasn’t always easy. I remember eating dinner and seeing my parents eat toast because there wasn’t enough to go around. 

By this stage, they were raising five children, including my youngest brother, who rarely slept for more than an hour each night. He became a case study for professors looking into hyperactivity disorders.

That was little comfort to my mum, who was also Dad’s primary carer, living on minimal sleep and a frugal budget. Yet she showed up every day, always reminding us about the power of education and instilling a true love of learning in us all.

What we lacked for in material possessions was made up by so much more. We learned to be resilient and grateful, and we learned to be kind. We continue to work hard in our chosen fields, always considering how we can help others.

One of the proudest moments for our parents was seeing all five children graduate from university. That and the ongoing pride they feel for their thirteen grandchildren, who love their Nan and Pop like no one else.

Woods Family Picnic (F Woods)

The roots that were planted back in those early days have been tended with such love and care.

Those trees continue to flourish, branching out into wonderful opportunities. I am forever grateful for the foundations my childhood was built upon.

And I proudly tell everyone about where it is I came from.