FROM A WINDOW . . .

listen:

From 1948 to 1970 I lived with my family in High Street, North Sydney. We lived in a rambling old green and white building called Ulleswater. The Ulleswater estate was divided up and sold at public auction in 1921. A Jewish family purchased the Ulleswater home and converted the building into flats. My father was living in one of these flats when he married my mother in 1943.

My brother and I shared a bedroom. From our bedroom window we looked onto High Street and up to the North Sydney skyline. During the time I lived here the scene from my bedroom window was to change dramatically.

This window was to become for us a vantage point from which to observe the dramatic changes that our suburb was undergoing.

Immediately in front of the bedroom window was a landing, the top of the entrance stairway to our flat.

As I look back over childhood photographs, I realise that this landing was obviously one of my father's favourite spots for taking photos of his boys. The background to many of these family snaps clearly shows the view of High Street and the North Sydney skyline.

Besides recording the changes in my brother and me as we grew up, the photographs also inadvertently document the changes to our suburb.