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.

Sam Stasinopoulos came to Australia from Kalamata in Greece as a young man. He saved his airfare after he left school at twelve by doing deals with tourists in Athens and landed in Melbourne where he quickly found work as a carpenter.

Beginning in 1972, Sister Bridget and Sister Rosina of the Sisters of Mercy have taught the waves of new migrant children coming to Fitzroy. The children may not have had any English, but they wanted to learn. “They were terrific.”

Sam Marasco came to Fitzroy as an 18-month old from Calabria in the mid-1950s and has lived here ever since. He talks about his childhood, games they played, the street life and selling papers from the age of 6 or 7 and collecting beer bottles for money.

Rose Chong describes herself as “a maker”. She studied dressmaking and then design at an art school in the UK, and opened her costume store on Gertrude Street in 1979, making costumes for the film industry, and for rental for parties or other occasions.

Peter Williams speaks about the history of Moran & Cato’s manufacturing grocers and wholesalers located in Brunswick Street Fitzroy, which was the centre for a large grocery chain throughout Melbourne and Victoria from the 1880s to the 1960s.

Pat DeRango’s mother came from Tipperary in Ireland, and towards the end of their life her parents lived in Hanover Street where she was born. As a child she did not venture far from home and was forbidden by her parents to cross Brunswick Street or go to Gertrude Street due to particular tough men who frequented the Champion and Rob Roy hotels.

Michael Gawenda, a journalist and former editor of The Age, spent his early childhood in Gore Street, where his parents owned a corner store. He particularly remembered the freedom allowed the children, with all parents keeping an eye out for them.

Menka Simmonds arrived in Australia in 1948 from Macedonia and due to the need for her mother to work, left school after only two and a half years to look after her little sister. One of her early employments resulted in Menka organising acceptable working conditions for her work colleagues.

Laurie O’Brien lived at 35 Hanover Street from 1957 to 2002. Laurie is a foundation member of the Fitzroy History Society. The architecturally significant House at 35 Hanover Street with a National Trust Heritage Register State Classification BO 167, came under Housing Commission demolition orders yet it was saved. This is that story.

Ivy Dawson has lived in Fitzroy for 74 years, moving into 62 Gore Street at the age of 12 (a house which she and her husband eventually bought for £1500). She left school at 12 and kept house for her father and by 14 was working in the first of a variety of jobs, including cleaning, cooking, child-minding and waitressing, until she retired at the age of 62.

Dorothy McInroy’s mother left an unhappy marriage in the country and moved with her six children into Argyle Street, Fitzroy when Dot was eleven. She tells of her family, her schooldays and her working and social life, and of the local characters she met during her long and happy marriage to Mac – and the tragedy that exploded into all their lives in 1962.

Chris Friday was a teacher at North Fitzroy and Fitzroy Primary Schools in the 1970s and later trained in Special Education. Chris talks about her time teaching in Fitzroy schools and also about the changes that have taken place in street-scapes and businesses and the general gentrification of the area, including housing and demographics, over the last 45-50 years.

Bruce Pitts opened the first specialized exhaust workshop in Melbourne in the mid-seventies at 67 Johnson Street, Fitzroy where he still operates, making good use of the laneway system behind the building.

Brian and Renata Howe arrived in Fitzroy following their University years and study for the Ministry in Chicago. Interested in Saul David Alinsky and community organisation, Brian began to apply these teachings when appointed to the Ministry in the Methodist Church.

Barry and Margaret Pullen talk about their house purchase in North Fitzroy in 1971 when a young married couple. Significantly they discuss their involvement in the community response to residents’ fear of losing homes through imposed demolition orders from the Housing Commission.

Paul and Anne Coghlan lived in North Fitzroy and Fitzroy in their early family life. They became very involved in community matters and in 1974-75 Paul was Mayor of Fitzroy. Anne was instrumental in the reshaping and relocation of the Isobel Henderson Kindergarten among other community educational improvements.