Tara Murray
Brimbank has always been home for the Keenan family.
Gloria and Ron moved to St Albans in 1957 and built a life there with their two children.
While the two children have grown up and are now great-grandparents themselves, much of the extended family still resides in the area.
Twice, including presently, has there been five generations of the family alive.
Janice Keenan was six when she moved with her parents to the area. She remembers it being a “really good place” to grow up.
“I had a light-hearted, easy childhood,” she recalls. “Being outside a lot, playing with the neighbours kids, an easy life with no pressures.
“I walked to school or biked to school in St Albans. You could walk at night to St Albans.
“I don’t remember any pressures, I used to go to dancing school, calisthenics and it was a casual lifestyle.”
Much has changed in the area, with Brimbank growing dramatically and a change of demographic, but Janice still loves the area.
So much so, she works for Brimbank council.
” I love the community, I love my job, and I love the different things in it,” she said.
“I’ve been in Albanvale, St Albans South and some of our family is in Keilor Downs. I worked at Sunshine, now I work at Brimbank, so we have been involved in the community.
“My brother is highly involved in the sports club, mum was scorer at the sports club for the cricket, her photos are all at the sports club….
“Now there’s the diversity, multicultural diversity. It used to be Italians and Maltese… there’s up in the 90 nationalities.”
When Gloria and her husband moved to St Albans it was a quiet place. Their house was a tiny bungalow with no fences.
“It was in Conrad Street,” the great-great grandmother said.
“St Albans was a small place and before they built the bungalows there was next to nothing there.
“One side of the wall had mason iron, on the other side just had rafters, but it was ours.
“It was only one bedroom and when Janice was getting older, we built a sun room and she used to sleep there
“We got the front put on all together, we paid someone to put on the front, the laundry and back room which we put on.
“There was no bathroom.”
The kids grew up playing in the street. There was no sewage and the road outside their place would flood – Gloria often had to put the kids on a bike to get them to the other side of the road.
Bread and milk would be delivered to the house. Going to Sunshine or Footscray was a “big trip”.
The family had chooks and the whole garden was dedicated to growing vegies.
They managed to buy a fridge early in their time in St Albans to allow the storage of cold and frozen food.
A television soon followed.
“I went to work. I used to leave Janice and Garry with a neighbour two doors down and pay her to look after them,” Gloria recalls.
“Then she said I don’t want to watch them anymore. The boss let me go an hour later to work so I can take the kids to school.
“I thought I’d put the money I was saving on her on a tv to keep the kids entertained.”
When Ron switched jobs and started to work in Footscray, it made sense for the family to stay in the area.
By that stage they were well and truly immersed in the community, including the St Albans sporting club.
Both Gloria and Janice recall the real family vibe of the area growing up, with neighbours more like family than friends.
“Before I was working, the neighbour and I would go down the street and it was a pram brigade. You couldn’t take the pram into the shop, so they were all left outside especially on the Friday.
“On the Tuesday I’d go into her place for a cuppa and she’d come in my place for the cuppa, during the week.
“If didn’t have any onions, or a stamp to post a letter, they’d help you out.”
Janice added: “you made friends with your neighbours. Mum’s neighbour had her baby at home and mum had to run in and sort of help out.
“Back then we called them aunty and uncle and spent more time with them and their extended family.
“You didn’t go out of the area only to visit family.”
Gloria, who is now 90, lives in Taylors Lakes with her son after the house in St Albans became too big for one person.
She regularly catches the bus to Watergardens.
She said only once did they consider moving from Brimbank and that was to Lakes Entrance once the kids had grown up.
Gloria said the changes in Brimbank, especially the past 20 years, had been amazing.
“My husband passed away 20 years ago and I’ll be in the car with Garry and say ‘if dad [Ron] was here now he wouldn’t believe the development’, even before the last 20 years, there wasn’t much at all.
“We used to go mushroom-hunting in Delahey straight down Taylors Road. Dad used to go to Green Gully and shoot rabbits down by the river.”
