Streets full of young families meant there was a friend to play with in nearly every house, you just had to knock on the door.
And play we did, often on the street, riding bikes, roller skating and skateboarding, kicking the footy and using rubbish bins as makeshift wickets for cricket . If we weren’t on the street, we were at “Elephant Park”, named after the enormous iron structure in the shape of an elephant with a slide for a trunk. It was a scary climb to the top and many a child took a tumble onto the unforgiving ground below.
Like a country town, sporting clubs were and still are a big part of the community – the Tennis Club, Golf Club, Bowls Club, Little Athletics and the strong local support for Edithvale Aspendale Football and Netball Club. Better known by the kids as Edi Ass, I had great fun playing footy in what must have been one of the earlier women’s teams in the 1970s, continuing the family tradition where my Dad has been ruckman in the 1960s.
The Main Street shops were on Nepean Highway and all wants and needs were catered for; there were butchers, greengrocers, haberdashery and hardware stores. You chose your allegiance to either Lady Jane’s or Crean’s Cakes; which was the superior bakery is still hotly debated today. We didn’t have much choice for takeaway, with only fish and chips until the much-loved Bayside Pizza appeared in the ’70s and only recently closing its doors.
There was once a cinema, the Unity Theatre. Now long gone, its Art Deco facade can still be seen above the vacant shops beneath. Like many shopping centres, the strip lost some of its vibrancy over the years, including the colourful “Relax, You’re In Edithvale” mural. Now those cream brick veneer houses are getting two-storey extensions or being pulled down to make way for townhouses as new families move in. I don’t see the kids playing in the street like we did, perhaps there are more attractive pursuits inside or in backyards.
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