WHEN Mark Twain visited Adelaide early last century he chose to stay in the city’s finest lodgings, the Grand Central Hotel on the corner of Pulteney and Rundle streets. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes also stayed there and the Prince of Wales (later King Edward Vlll) hosted a royal dinner party in the […]
IN 1973, SAS Channel 10 Adelaide created the Children’s Medical Research Foundation of South Australia and began the annual broadcasts of the Channel 10 Christmas Appeal. Every year, until 1989, on a designated weekend in December, the stars from around the national Ten network, as well as other major showbiz celebrities and personalities, would gather […]
WHEN they first arrived in South Australia on July 25, 1994, poker machines immediately killed off a thriving little tourism industry known as “the pokies tours”. Those who were keen to revel in the heady thrill of legally pursuing a form of gambling that was illegal at home could take an organised poker machine tour […]
It was where your father and grandfather went when they needed hinges to fix a banging door, or to get a piece of cut glass to replace a broken window. You could buy half a dozen nails in a brown paper bag or a single bolt with a nut and washer and nothing was packed […]
IT has lain silent and deserted for years, and musty hallways and darkened rooms have gathered dust and cobwebs that covered the decaying infrastructure within. Still and soundless for so long, Adelaide’s original Central Telephone Exchange is about to bounce back to life and become part of a flashy new food and retail hub. Last week, […]
I WAS invited recently to my grandson’s school to talk to the class about what school was like when I was growing up in the 1950s. I worried about it momentarily, after all, I don’t think I have ever done a presentation for a room full of eight year olds, and I didn’t really know what […]
ADELAIDE’S “Golden Mile” was a stretch of South Rd at Darlington where you could buy petrol at the weekend. That may not seem all that remarkable in these days of 24/7 trading but many Boomers who spent (or misspent) their teenage years in the 1960s and ’70s will recall that city and suburban service stations […]
REMEMBER your first John Martin’s Christmas Pageant? Taking a ride in Samorn’s elephant cart? Leaving Rowley Park Speedway with lumps of clay in your hair? Or an afternoon tea with mum or grandma at Balfours Tearooms? Remember Amscol, Menz Yo-Yo Biscuits, Woodies lemonade, Burger King and the Lightburn Zeta car? What about Rundle Street before it […]
THERE was a time when downtown Adelaide was home to a large number of substantial department stores. Many had commenced trading in the mid to late 1800s and most had disappeared into history by the end of the 20th century. As a child growing up in the middle of last century, chances are you will remember […]
When the new Regent Theatre opened in Rundle Street Adelaide on the night of the 29th of June 1928 it was hailed as “the most glamorous and beautiful picture palace in Australia”. Writing in The Advertiser that day, journalist Valmai Stephens described it as “far more than a mere place of amusement, for there is an […]
