That was brilliant to watch, having grown up and lived most of my life in Adelaide arriving in 1970 - I remember lots of stories my grade 7 Teacher, Mrs Fatchen, the wife of the late Children’s Author and Columnist for the Advertiser News Paper, Max Fatchen, absolutely wonderful people R.I.P. 🙏🏽🕊💞💙 Mrs Jean Fatchen told the class lots of stories about the days of horse and cart, when Main North Road was a dirt road, the Big old Elephant house in Smithfield, she took us on more excursions in one year, than I had been on in all my years at school combined! to explore all lovely places of Adelaide from Beltana in the Flinders Ranges, to Birdwood Museum, to ride a steam train to Belair National Park, the art exhibitions, the Adelaide Museum, the Philharmonic Orchestra at the Adelaide Town Hall, the Torrens, the Festival Theatre for plays, the Choir we all sung in she led (whether we liked it or not) lol 😂 I can’t believe how much she packed in to 1 year, rain hail or shine! And that doesn’t include all the weekend trips her and Max would take a few of us wayward kids all packed into 2 Volvos, up to Whispering wall pouring with rain, fishing, or just drives in the countryside, making Crab apple Jam from the trees in their garden, their home was a home of wonder, a collection of the most beautiful and unique things, all in perfect disarray 😁 ~ all out of the goodness of their own heart, God Bless their Souls 💗 That wouldn’t be allowed these days, yet that year of school was the best year of my whole schooling life. I even went back to tell her and Max, still in the same Post War house in Smithfield after all these years in 2000, they were so thrilled I went to visit them. Not to mention all she taught us about the rest of the world, where we would map the different Countries weather forecast each morning, I never would have known these places existed. Every year her class always had Sponsor children from India and various countries, every Friday we would go around to all the classrooms and collect coin donations, it was called cent-a-week, everybody contributed when they could, how much they could, she would run raffles for everyone who donated would get a raffle ticket and once a month we would draw the winning ticket, the more you donated the more tickets you got, it was a real hit! The sponsor children would send gifts, photos, art work and letters about their school and what they were learning, they were able to attend because we all paid for their schooling. I remember they sent some skeletonise leaves that were beautifully and meticulously hand painted, we would raffle them off too. It was wonderful after all these years to see Mrs Fatchen’s old stories come to life in this film.. 🙏🏽🇦🇺🙋🏼♀️💜
Thankyou so much for taking me home - left Adelaide in 1974 but it holds so many happy memories and being able to see the city when i was young and also when my parents were small is magic. It has whiled away a whole afternoon while coping with a winter lurgy and being confined to barracks!! I hope these films bring as much joy and comfort to all who view them.
Thank you so much for sharing this film, I loved watching our beautiful city in years gone by, I could watch this over and over again. I really enjoyed the Christmas pageants, they were awesome and certainly more original and entertaining than they are nowadays,
Wow. Love this. Fantastic. Loved the Holden woodville plant especially.i worked at Mitsubishi motors tonsley sites doing magnas veraads diameter for export
Thank god someone back in the early part of the 20th century took a camera and filmed this world for posterity keeping forever how towns and people looked back then, irrespective of how they really lived. Just one point about the posters going on about how gorgeous everything was back then (as if they lived in those times) at least one comment rightly revealed only 5% of the richest lived in salubrious areas and shopped on grand streets, and where the huge slums that existed are rarely seen. My own great grandmother who took four of her children from Lancashire to Adelaide in the 1920s, set up a tobacco shop in the poor and tough part of the docks and my few photos of her depict her driving a cart, filled with children, on dirt tracks. I doubt she ever sipped tea from a china cup in one of King William street's fine restaurants or shopped in the few wealthy department stores. Life for most of the working population in Adelaide was poor, tough and hard working and not the lifestyles of characters from Upstairs Downstairs or Anne of Green Gables. They were lucky to get through a long life on the little they had, health permitting without welfare or medical assistance.
Спасибо за этот прекрасный документальный фильм! Было интересно прикоснуться к той жизни, которая была до тебя, посмотреть, как менялась мода и город. Боже, храни Аделаиду - Родину моих внуков!!!
I see a lot of viewers say stuff like "oh simple day. Good old days and etc" but trust me , the people who will be watching our lifestyles after 100 years will praise our days. It's the world going worse and worse day by day. So enjoy the moment you are living in and appreciate it. Peace
It is fantastic to watch Adelaide in the early years. particularly the trams traveling along North Terrace and King William streets. Our present politicians should have watched this video to see that tracks could be laid from King William into North Terrace.
Everyone's saying Adelaide changed for the worse, and yes there is a lot of meth use it's still the 5th most liveable city in the entire world and it's still proud of it's history
@ James O'Hara - Who says I can't have it both ways? You? You're the rule maker now? You're not the boss of me, and I am entitled my opinions. Pft. Don't tell me - you're part of the 'WOKE' crowd - or a Millennial....
Laughing at the comment about the tomboy who will be wanting the vote next. Loved seeing the early footage of the Great Eastern Steeplechase. Thanks for making this available.
The very first scene says its the corner of North Tce and King William St, I say it is the corner of King William St and Rundle St, you are looking down Rundle St to the East End. The Tabacco shop in the frame later became Darrel Lea Chocolate and now it is Charlesworth Nuts.
What interest me is who built all of this infill structures ? A lot of very impressive buildings back in the 1900 even 1850 s ? Great footage in joyed it very much thanks for sharing!
Hi Steven, what an amazing collection of films ! I am curious, where did this footage come from ? in particular I am interested in finding any footage of the Willunga Railway. There is a section of 40 seconds from 1:00:40 to 1:01:20 that I would like to share with a historic railway museum group on Facebook, with your permission. Thanks in advance, Douglas
Brisbane was established in 1823 and only had a population of 600,000 by 1962. So the rate of growth up until 1939 in Adelaide is impressive to say the least.
Notice the car @ around 1.40 the automobile was in its infancy @ this time in Australia& it’s not hard to see as per its speed against the horse drawn vehicles as to its future!
Hi Steven This is great! would you be ok for us to share a clip of this on a clients facebook page re Oakbank racing footage at the 13 minute mark? Happt to name you as the source :) Sars
Hannah Zen . Hannah...you've got to be joking..lived in Darwin, Cairns and Noosa and hated the constant humidity which rotted clothes, furniture and me. Prefer the changes. As they say, " A change is as good as a holiday"
Now the Woodville Plant has been demolished for a Bunnings and Harvey Norman . Women buy the Korean SVU's cars now to go shopping for chinese made products .
Incredibly sanitised view of Adelaide. All of the ugly slums (of which their were dozens and dozens at the time, were never viewed. Not at all a realistic depiction of what life was life for the average adelaidian at the time, which ranged from so/so to truly appalling. Only the richest five percent of the population lived in the housing shown.
perhaps, but people could still use the many parks and have access to the surroundings and weather. Not many people getting stabbed in the neck or fined up the arse by speed cameras. Pretty golden era, i'd say
Yes life up to the early 1970s could be surprisingly tough even in Adelaide. I recall suburbs like Parkside and Beulah Park, parts of Norwood ..all in the desirable eastern suburbs... were very run down and verging on slums in the 1960s. Hard to believe now. We were comfortable but really Adelaide in the early 60s was a pretty Spartan existence.. no fast food, yoghurt was unknown. Most books apart from the Holden owners manual were banned...roads were deserted by 7pm.. hotels shut at 6.30pm. City deserted by 12.30pm on Saturdays... no petrol available on weekends. The only food outlet open late was the Pancake Kitchen in the city ..Lovely !! Still I had a lovely childhood here in the 50s and 60s... so lucky to be born here
The city looks like it existed long before the people arrived. How could there be such grand well designed and magnificent buildings and wide boulevards in a dusty old pioneer town? Many cities in Australia and the US are quite mysterious when examined critically. Are we being told the truth about our history?
It’s great to see old Adelaide. But when you put in sound effects like people walking, and clippity clops of horse’s hooves is just MENTAL! And the music? Good lord! Just the footage would have been great.... not some made up shit.
