A bit more nostalgia...

I still can't upload my own photos.  (Think I'll have to sack my personal IT man.)  I've come to realise it doesn't really matter anyway, as I can always find what I want - and lots more - on the Web.  The other day I went to Leichhardt, where I used to go as a child to stay in the school holidays with relatives.  We were all as poor as churchmice and Mum, sister Kay and myself used to travel by steam train from the country where we lived, and pile into a little slum occupied by an aunt and uncle and their hundreds of children.  Today such little slums, tastefully renovated of course, go for at least $A1million.  The PO and Town Hall, built in 1880s, look exactly the same today.

I lived in Leichhardt in the mid 60s (when I was teaching), in a house with an Italian family, found through an ad in 'La Fiamma'.  I had a bedroom and kitchen upstairs and a bathroom way down the back.  Every time I'd go out, the landlord would change the light globes and then I would change them back again to ones that actually gave off light!


By way of contrast, there's a post modern steel and glass monstrosity, designed (?!) by an architect (though it could equally have been a sewer cleaner in my opinion), just down the road.  I'm sure Prince Charles would agree with me!

When I lived there, I was a volunteer for a now-defunct organisation that welcomed migrants and I used to go and visit Italian people to make them welcome and offer any assistance if needed.  That's when I started to learn Italian, though few of them actually spoke it, but a dialect.

Here's another bit of info from the Web:  Italian migration, which had begun in the 1920s, increased rapidly after WWII and Leichhardt became largely influenced by Italian culture, particularly the cafes, but also with the production of the newspaper "La Fiamma". Although the Italian population is decreasing in Leichhardt there is still a strong Italian influence on the suburb. 


On my recent visit I wandered into a wonderful bookshop - part of the ugly cinema complex - and ended up spending almost $100 on books for Emma.  (She and Hugo, together with Mummy and grandparents, arrived back this week from a month in Japan.)


Winifred, re your comments, I never cease to be amazed that there's not just standing room only in UK.  When googling to find our population to compare, I came up with this:

On 2 July 2011 at 12:30:00 (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:
22,640,081

This projection is based on the estimated resident population at 31 December 2010 and assumes growth since then of:

• one births every 1 minute and 46 seconds,
• one death every 3 minutes and 40 seconds ,
• a net gain of one international migration every 3 minute and 05 seconds , leading to
• an overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 37 seconds .

Truly, this sort of thing just blows my mind away!