From the first day those first Elizabethans arrived in Elizabeth South to receive their housing allocations, having been enticed into the new town following the Chifley Governments "Populate or Perish" campaign launched in 1949, the town of Elizabeth grew rapidly, with the first homes in Elizabeth North being occupied on the 16th of June 1956, Elizabeth Grove on the 12th of January 1957, Elizabeth East on the 12th of July 1958, and Elizabeth Vale on the 8th of February 1960.
By the end of February 1960, just a little more than four years after Elizabeth’s first 78 families moved into the area, Elizabeth’s population was already 15,350, and she was now the biggest town in South Australia outside Adelaide.
Elizabeth That Was
For those first Elizabethans pouring into the new town between 1955 and 1960, what I call the Originals, Life was a mixture of discomfort, inconvenience and isolation, along with hopeful anticipation, endless possibilities and a pioneering spirit not seen since South Australia’s early settlement 100 years prior. It was for many, a stimulating time of Summer days when the north wind blew unchecked across the northern plain to snatch dust from building sites and rough roads, to smear the sky with dirt and lay a gritty film on washing, furniture and eyeballs; winter days of mud and gluey pot-holes when the plank platform at Elizabeth South and Womma Stations were lined all day with walking shoes and gumboots awaiting their owners return from work. There was a sense of pride and dignity too, in being part of a close knit community, a feeling which was, if anything, strengthened by the incomprehension and occasional contempt of acquaintances from Adelaide.
There were no fences at first, and trails to shops and station led through back gardens in the friendliest way. The Jones family kept a cup on their back garden tap for parched overlanders. One day the commuters followed their morning paths to the station as usual, only to find that evening the workmen had been busy all day erecting fences. Too late to search for unfamiliar routes along the footpaths, everyone took the short way home over the fences.
Of the houses, more than half would be semi-detached rental homes, the rest would be detached houses designed in the typical housing trust styles for home buyers. The trust planned to leave about 1 allotment in 3 vacant for people who might wish to buy them and put up houses of their own design, in the hopes of avoiding the appearance of monotony - despite this, monotony would become the main complaint in the appearance of the new town.
Early Transport
The railway was the most important transport link in the early days of Elizabeth, carrying workers to their jobs and secondary school children to their schools in Adelaide or Enfield, as well as bringing migrant families to inspect their new town. One early resident remembers droves of migrants coming each weekend, just off the ship, dragging children with snow-white faces and carrying jackets and macs.
Even this was difficult at first. In early 1956 one family asked at Adelaide Station for tickets to Elizabeth South. The clerk was taken aback, perhaps having never heard of Elizabeth South. After a long search the clerk finally produced the tickets. The next obstacle came at the platform gate, where they were told the train did not stop at the new town. This was overcome by negotiations with the train crew, who agreed to stop and put them off on the heap of earth that was at that time Elizabeth South Station. The trains were not always on time, and such mishaps as cows or sheep on the line were common. The station itself was a source of income for the more enterprising children however, who on hot days used to take water there and sell it for a penny a glass, when they weren’t, that is, selling bunches of soursobs to the newcomers.
Evidence of the farming activities so recently ended was everywhere. The owners of new gardens walking from their homes at Elizabeth Vale to Mr King’s nursery once situated near Philip Highway would have to cross a field of oats. Lucerine persisted in gardens for a long time, and it was common to see people with sacks collecting it along the nature strips. More generally appreciated were the mushrooms, plentiful along Woodford Road.
Muddy roads were a hazard for some time. The stretch from Gawler Street in Salisbury, through to what would become the site of General Motors Holden in Elizabeth South, was called the Gluepot. Judd Road was the only link between Elizabeth South and the Main North Road. Visitors in cars had to be escorted along the tracks to the known territory of the main road. If left to find their own way they were liable to re-appear on their hosts’ door step after an hour or so. Long after most roads in the new town were sealed, Womma Road, being a government road not controlled by the Housing Trust, remained a strip of dirt. The residents complained that they sank in mud to their knees in the winter.
15 окт 2021
