Jenny Wills was Fitzroy Council's first social planner from 1974 to 1981 and helped establish Council's unique Social Planning Office. She describes the development of a unique and innovative approach to community services during the years 1974 into...

Val Noone and Mary Doyle have lived in the same house in Gore Street since the 1970s. They began their time in Fitzroy with an open house which included homeless people and draft resisters in King William Street Fitzroy in late 1971. With others and support from local churches they then established a communal house in Gore Street.

Antoni Shapardanis (Tony) was born in 1938 in Bouf (now Akrita) a small town only a few kilometres from the Yugoslav border. Tony’s father, Chris Shapardanis, emigrated to Melbourne in 1939 leaving his wife and 6-month-old baby behind. The war intervened and Tony’s mother died when he was 4 years old, forcing him to fend for himself.

Tony Birch is a novelist, poet and short story writer who often draws on his childhood growing up around Fitzroy and Collingwood for his writing. Born in 1957 in Carlton, he speaks about the Housing Commission demolitions in Carlton and the Atherton Estate in Fitzroy, both of which dislocated his family, and the deleterious effects of slum demolition on the social fabric of both the extended family and the wider community.

Ted Rush came to Fitzroy in the 1970s and soon became heavily involved with the Council through the ALP, before becoming Mayor after only three years. He talks about the work of the Council, changes to a more socially oriented community agenda and the origins of the Free Kindergarten movement and the work of various activist personalities in the area.

Suzanne Dance completed her Architectural degree before working in the Government Architects office in Sydney where as a recent graduate, she worked in a team designing schools alongside several well-known architects.