10 Chester Street.

Yesterday we visited 10 Chester Street. This was my home for quite a few years, and a house that  holds many memories. I had a most unexpected reaction when I saw the house. The street has not changed a lot, but there are more houses at the back of the sections and the front of 10 Chester Street has really changed.

Mum and Dad bought this house in 1963 for the princely sum of about 3,500 pounds. They had little money, so had to borrow the deposit and take out a mortgage for the rest. Mum went to work full time, a thing she had not done since she was married about 20 years earlier. She worked at Begleys factory where they made small household appliances. She hated it with a vengeance, but stuck it out for the  necessary six months. During that time she saved all her money for the house. I think it was 500 pounds that she saved in that six months. At the same time I was working, and for that same time I paid almost all my wages into the household coffers towards the house too.

The house stood on half an acre of flat ground. There were lots of fruit trees, peaches, pears, apples, a couple of fabulous fig trees, an enormous walnut tree and quite a few citrus trees. Mum and Dad were also great gardeners. Mum loved her flower gardens and they had a huge vegie patch out the back. Once established, it  kept them in fruit and veges for the whole year, preserving and freezing the ‘in season’ food for the winter.

I don’t have many of the older photos on this computer yet, and as I am in New Zealand as I write this I can’t access the photo albums at home. I will see what I can find.

10 Chester Street as it is today.

You can see the garage at the back where the line of trees ends. Dad had this garage moved when he sold off the back section. The garage used to be at the end of the driveway. The section got too big for him to manage as he got older. It would take him two days to mow the half acre with his lawn mower, so sold off the back part and a large house was built where the walnut tree once stood. This is a picture of a crane moving the shed.

The teacher at the Greenmeadows school next door brought her class around to watch.

 

The hosue is white with no gardens to speak of.

Mum and Dad kept the house a pale yellow colour. Now it is white and looks really different. There are no colours at all, and no flowers to give it colour.

I got married from this house as did my sister. Here is my bridesmaid, a long life friend. This is taken at the side of the house, and you can see the open section at the back.

 

 The front of the house here had an inset front door. It look quite different now, the white door with the white walls looks like a flat frontage. Mum had flower gardens all along the walls too, all gone now.

The front fence with a sort of ivy plant all over it.

The whole fence is new and the letter box is hardly visible through the plant.



They have also reroofed it. The old tiled roof has gone.

This house would be 60 years old at least I guess, so it is looking good for that age.

These trees are now huge. I don’t think Dad planted these, so they would be at least 50 or 60 years old now.

Around the back of the house Dad built on a large brick sun porch. He's standing by the doors into the porch here.  It became a living area for us and many family gatherings were held here with friends. Dad would sit in this warm porch and play his piano, and he also built a Hawaiian guitar in this porch. He would sit for hours playing his hand made guitar and writing out music.