Talk of War

In my last post, I shared a little history behind our flat. Let me share two further tales from the past.

Don't mention The War
On the south side of our street, stretching for several blocks, is a series of four drab, grey, concrete high-rise apartment buildings. In between each tower is a series of equally drab, low-rise apartment complexes. Picture this. Elegant red brick buildings on one side of the street, drab grey monoliths on the other. These buildings are so drab it actually made us think twice about moving into the neighbourhood.

We naturally assumed that these soul-destroying buildings were the misguided vision of a 1960s architect, or the result of some profit-seeking developer hell-bent on demolishing beautiful streetscapes. The truth is some what more sinister. It appears that our area was heavily bombed during the Second World War. Entire sections of our street were literally razed to the ground by German bombers. Effectively, the mismatch of housing on our street is long-forgotten scar of war. Not something you really encounter in Australia.

This photo shows you how it looked in 1906 before a century of death and destruction took hold.

From: www.images-of-london.co.uk.

A limo of ladies
Garry and I ran into our neighbour this morning. The same man that we locked out the day we moved in. He was pruning the roses in our front yard which, to our surprise, are already starting to send out early leaf shoots. Winter is almost over.

"I never hear you," he commented. "You're much quieter than the previous tenants. They were always partying and making noise. Up all hours, day and night. People were always coming and going. We'd watch limousines filled with beautiful women pulling up at 5:00 or 6:00am during the week, dressed in the smallest outfits. They'd disappear inside. Lots of noise. Later we'd find old joints lying around."

Garry and I feel quite dull when compared to endless limos of legless ladies.