These days it is called ‘Freshwater’, but back in the seventies it was simply ‘Harbord’, and it was where I went to school and grew up. Harbord back then was a quiet little village like many that dotted the north shore of Sydney, NSW. The main street, Lawrence Street, had a good variety of shops in an unpretentious setting that stretched from the intersection of Oliver street at the top and wound around to Evans street at the bottom. Starting at the top near Oliver Street you had on one side the chemist shop and the little doctor’s surgery of old Dr Deithe, you had to go along a little passage way to reach his surgery. A dentist opened beside him in the mid-70′s.

On the other side on the corner was the little pre-school which almost every kid who went to school in Harbord had been to. Can anyone remember the name of the lady who ran it…? beside the pre-school was a pathway that led down to the Girl Guides Hall – I was a Guide there in 1976, our Leader was a Scottish lady…anyone remember her name? my squad patrol leader was an Irish girl named Sue Dodd…hi Sue if you ever read this! then there was a small supermarket, cannot remember what was there before it and across the road, on the corner, was the wonderful milk bar. I used to beg mum for something, now forgotten, called a ‘horehound’. It was a kind of soda based on ginger beer if memory serves correct. We bought weis bars (fruito’s) and had milkshakes in the old aluminium containers if you wanted to drink it on the spot. There was the Bank of New South Wales in Lawrence Street, before it became ‘The Wales’ and before it became Westpac and Fielders Bakery in Albert Street.

I need help with filling in some blanks but down from the milk bar on that side of the street was then a butcher shop, then a hobby shop. Across the road was the newsagents, then a florists, then a grocery shop run by an Italian family. Harbord was still small and village-like back then until the developments started. Down from the florists and the newsagent was a hairdresser then…memory becomes vague here. Down at the bottom, near Undercliff Rd was a petrol station which was demolished and a small shopping complex was built in the early 80′s. Across from there was a hardware store then some houses until, opposite the junction with Soldiers Ave, a small general store run by another Italian family. My friend, who lived in Soldiers Ave, and myself used to go there to buy our Paddle Pops. Opposite that shop, on the corner of Soldiers Ave, was another garage. That’s long gone. In Soldiers Ave, down towards the beach end, was a very old ramshackle house owned by an elderly man called ‘Richard’ who was the local eccentric and he used to wander around the village, he was a harmless old man but he scared the heck out of me! he owned dozens of cats too. That house disappeared in the early 80′ when he died, it was falling down in parts but he lived there quietly on his own. God knows how old that house was but old Richard was a local identity and anyone who remembers the old Harbord of the 60s’ and 70′s will remember him. Anyone got any more additions to make…?

I went to St John the Baptist School in Johnson Street, across the road from Jacka park. At lunch time we kids were taken down to play there but we were forbidden to touch the swings. This was when the school was staffed by nuns and Fr Pryke was the priest…before he scandalised the area by leaving the church to get married. He was a wonderful man though and remembered with affection as is his successor Fr Law. St John’s back then was a small school with huge trees around the sides of the playground – one in particular down near the church was one that we played in and we called it ‘the spaceship’. Beside that was the boys playground – a rough surface of pebbles behind the grade six classroom. Across the road from the school was a large vacant block of land with an old fibro cottage on it called ‘the annexe’. It was used as extra class space until it was demolished (I think it burnt down one night…) and the current school building added. This building housed grades four to six, it opened in 1971, and when my class moved into it for grade four in 1972 we were all so excited about the new classrooms and polished floors. Sr Philip was the principal at the time. I remember from these years other teachers: Miss Saunders (kindy), Mrs Cahill, Mrs Flynn  (whose husband sadly died when she was my grade one teacher) and a rather nasty female teacher who taught me in grade three whose name I wont reveal – but she got married. She was spiteful with a long wooden curtain rod she used to cane us with…she finally left the school. And of course lovely Sr Josephine who always sang with the guitar, Sr Raymond, pretty Sr Fidelas who told us stories about her childhood with her little brother Robbie (?) – and who remembers that sweet lady, Miss Blowen, who came to give us elocution lessons each week…? the mums worked the tuck shop and served peanut butter spread on the crusts left over from making the lunch sandwiches – they sold for 2 cents each and provided a good recess snack…nobody had nut allergies back then.

We could order our lunch or, back in those innocent days, we could place an order before school at the little corner shop just down past the church from the school on the corner of Surfers Parade, and at lunch time we could walk down and collect our pies and sausage rolls and bring them back to eat in the playground. Sargents Pies of course – with the ‘S’ stamped on the pie….oh how good those pies tasted! we would not dare try to buy any sweets though. The shop was run by two ladies – one of those old fashioned general stores that sadly have disappeared and been replaced by ‘continental’ style outlets. The teachers never had to supervise us walking to that little shop, even the kindy kids used to walk down for their pies, we went there and came straight back with our lunch. I doubt if such a thing could happen today…

Our church stood,as it does today, in the grounds of the school. I remember when the new pipe organ was built, replacing the older smaller organ played by old Mrs Crowe. The church music was organised by the wonderful Harvey family – Frank and Anne Harvey – who started the church choir and they once gave a performance of the Messiah…my Mum was a soprano in it. This was in 1970/71 I think. All four of the Harvey children did Harbord proud by going on to be prominent musicians in their own right – both in Australia and internationally. I remember the school fetes, First Holy Communions where the nuns organised a little party for us in our classroom afterwards. Bishop Muldoon coming to St Johns to preside over our Confirmations. I remember Concorde, on it’s first flight to Australia, flying over our school in 1972! Johnson Street back then was a street of single-storey brick and fibro homes – nothing fancy, but nice and unpretentious. All our dads went to work and almost all our mums stayed at home. I only knew one child whose parents were divorced.

At the top of Evans Street, overlooking Harbord, the Harbord Diggers Club remains today – the one unchanged aspect of my home town. Just below was the large open air sea pool where I swam every Saturday afternoon for the Freshwater Swimming Club – in 1971 I set a club record for the 50 metres freestyle! On the ocean side of the pool was a large wooden shed which the braver kids used to jump off into the pool – I never had the nerve as the rocks were just below on the other side…and my Mum threatened me with trouble if I was to ever dare try. Later on I switched to Dee Why Swimming Club where Lisa Forrest won all the races before she hit the big time and competed in the Commonwealth Games. I was not a backstroker so did not swim against her, but I envied her her style. It was on Harbord beach – or Freshwater, whichever you chose to call it, where I spent so many happy childhood and teenage years. The clubhouse sold icecreams and pies on the weekend and just down the road from the beach there was a milk bar. Just beyond the sand dunes and right at the beach at the end of Moore Rd, overlooked by the houses up on the cliff, was an old house with large verandahs around it – that house belonged to my friends’s elderly aunt – my god, what that house would sell for today had it not been demolished. It was the house closest to the sand. There were no cafes near the beach back then, just the Harbord Hotel, until a restaurant opened in the early 80′s. That was the start of the gradual loss of the Harbord I knew and loved – all the old shops and houses bought, torn down and replaced by ‘trendy’ boutiques and cafes – and ostentatious two storey homes designed to reflect the ‘new money’ that moved in from further afield around Sydney.

Many of those local kids who swam with me at Freshwater Club, and those who played in the surf, would have learned to swim at Pat Nichols swimming school located at her house in Kooloora Ave that led from Albert Street to the beach. Pat, to me, is a legend. She did not stand any silliness in her pool – any child who stood on the side crying and refusing to get in the water was swiftly thrown in by Pat herself (they had swimming aids on of course) and they quickly overcame their fear of the water with Pat in charge. It was not cruel, it was necessary in her eyes that all children learn to swim. She was of the old school, Pat, and we did not fool around during our lessons! and no parents dared complain to her when their child got tossed in…

Harbord back then was a safe haven for children to grow up – we could play outside, visit the shops without our parents as we knew all the shop keepers and they knew us. It was quiet, friendly and peaceful – typically suburban but idyllic as well. I can still smell the salty sea air that hung heavily in the summer evenings, and remember the brick and fibro homes that dotted the streets: Soldier Ave with it’s memorial trees commemorating our war dead; Surfers Parade, Wyndora and Wyuna Ave’s; Wyadra Ave beside the oval where there was a little brick building which was the local library and to where us kids from St Johns walked once a fortnight to get our library books. That’s probably gone too. So too is Evelyn Cleary, the ‘Cat Lady’, who lived across the road from the oval in Wyadra Ave with all the stray cats she took in, she looked after sick and abandoned cats and was often in the local paper commenting about animal welfare. They call Harbord ‘Freshwater’ now, I supposed it could have been a worse name change, but to me it will always be Harbord – even though the people who I shared my childhood with are no longer living there. The two ladies who ran the little shop beside the school are long gone, so I presume is the lady who ran the pre-school, Dr Deithe has gone, Fr Pryke and Fr Law are both gone, the nuns no longer teach in the school and new people live in the expensive houses that have replaced the old familiar homes. Harbord has changed that’s for sure – but all those newcomers and their million dollar houses wont have what we once had…the Harbord of the 70′s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.