05/04/2026
The eastern end of Wood Street was mainly paddocks until after WWII ended when it was rapidly settled. Some houses were moved into town from the airport, building rapidly expanded and Housing Commission houses were erected. Growing up in Wood Street in the 1950s was a lot of fun, playing cricket and footy in the street, (there wasn't much four wheeled traffic), cracking the ice in the large gutters at the side of the road on our way to school in the winter, playing outdoors until dark when we were called in for dinner. There were lots of young families so lots of school aged kids to play with and choose our friends from. Our dads were hard working and hard drinking, they referred to themselves as the 'Wood Street Warriors', riding bicycles to work with bicycle clips around their ankles. We all rode bikes, the whole family would go places as a group on their bikes. The gutters were wide and deep and the road was very gravelly, we formed ridges across the road with the gravel and waited for a car to come along and drive through it, sometimes we would get sick of waiting; there wasn't a lot of traffic. Memories of childhood that are so different to life today.
