Memories of my Early Years in Malvern

The former Victory Picture Theatre in Wattletree Road, Malvern.

Patronage of suburban picture theatres steadily declined following the introduction of television broadcasting in Melbourne in 1956.

A son of Vincent's recalls attending a night screening at the Victory in about 1957-58 when the audience in the large theatre numbered just six people.

Photo: Google Maps.

 The kitchen in Vincent's Malvern home had a small wood-fired oven recessed into a space under a chimney, similar to the one shown at right.

Water for baths was heated on the stove in a four-gallon bucket made from a kerosene tin.

The bathroom contained a galvanized bath and a cold water shower head.

There was no hand basin. At the time, personal ablutions were carried out in the bedrooms.

Each had a stand on which stood a washbasin and jug set similar to the ones shown at right.

Wooden troughs similar to those at right  were used by Vincent's Mother. However , hers weren't brightly painted in a plastic paint as those shown!

The Coolgardie Safe was a

piece of domestic equipment

widely used in Australia before refrigeration to preserve perishable food in summer. It was an Australian invention used especially in country areas from the 1890s until the middle of the 1900s.
Coolgardie safes were manufactured both commercially and home-made. They worked on the principle

of capillary siphoning and

cooling due to evaporation.

The Trafalgar Safe shown

in the above two photos

was Patented in about 1915 by

W.J. Rawling.

Photos courtesy Museum Victoria.

Photograph : Dr Charlotte Smith

The old iron and trivet on which it rested (shown above) are the actual items used by Vincent's mother at Malvern in the   early 1900s.  The iron was heated on the top of the kitchen wood stove.  Note the initial "W" in the pattern of the trivet.   

The flat irons gave way to a gas iron similar to the one above and eventually to an electric iron ( above right). The electric iron is a "Hotpoint" brand first sold in Australia in 1914.

The lounge and bedrooms in Vincent's house had wood-burning fire places similar to the one shown at right. The kitchen oven and fireplaces were kept in sparkling condition by the regular application and buffing of blacklead.

In 1922, Fred Dunstan (left) helped

Vincent to wire the house at 48 Hunter Street so that electricity could be connected.

A few years later, Fred became Vincent's brother-in-law.

The wash house in Vincent's home included a bricked-in copper, similar to the one shown at left. The copper  sat over a fire space , with a metal flue-pipe venting the smoke.Boiling water was obtained by having a wood fire underneath.

Preservene bar soap was used for washing clothes and dishes.The advertisement ( left ) was displayed in a train carriage of the period.

"Out of the blue comes the whitest wash" was the advertising slogan for Reckitt's Blue Bags (above).

A Coolgardie Safe similar to the one shown (above) was used to keep perishable foods cool in the Malvern Home.

Kerosene was purchased in four-gallon tins ( below) , and decanted using a tin pump for use in small lamps used in bedrooms at night (above).

A similar meat safe to the one shown ( above  left) was also used in Vincent's Malvern home. 

Kerosene tins made handy buckets with their tops removed and a wire handle fitted.

 It remained a popular iron with housewives for many years. Originally from the USA, they were made in Australia from the late 1920s by Australian General Electric Co. Ltd.