Progress on the Peninsula

I suppose I was about five years of age, in 1931, when I first went to Woy Woy.

I do still remember the single-fronted house we stayed in at Orange Grove.

We stayed at that house for several years later.

The township of Woy Woy stayed the same, I suppose, for 20 years - just a few shops.

The cake shop always fascinated me with its window full of flies, crawling over the cakes and pastries.

But it didn't deter the people who went in the shop and bought cakes.

Later, the arcade was built opposite the Railway stairs where the station boat came in.

I had a gift-ware shop in that arcade.

Woolworths was also there about that time.

Then there was the arcade in the centre of town and there, of course, was the shopping complex.

Woy Woy was really only a little fishing town for so many years.

What really opened the town up was the electrification of the train line.

People could live in Woy Woy and work in Sydncy.

When I was going to work in Sydney from Ashfield, it took me an hour.

The journey involved the bus to the station, then the train to Town Hall and of course neither met the other, normally the bus just missed the train.

So, travelling from Woy Woy to Sydney was not much longer.

Such is progress.

Shirley Lawler, Tweed Heads