STREET MYSTERIES

Sir Joseph Banks Street held a number of mysteries for us kids back in the 1950s and later. The big Engisch family (publisher of the local "Torch" independent newspaper) home among trees on the western side, midway to Stacey Street, and the deserted and abandoned home several blocks up from Rickard Road on the western side (north of where Macca's was later built), had us intrigued. The latter was eventually demolished in preparation for the first high density home construction in the area. It was this area which became infamous when the BLF imposed a green ban on it during the late 1960s. This was (possibly) the first green ban imposed outside of Sydney proper (?).

CORNER SHOP

Frank was one of those wonderful blokes long-remembered by everyone who met him. Forever cheerful and kind-hearted, he treated all of his customers as friends. Although I believe he originally lived over the shop, he later built a house further along the highway towards Chapel Road. The shop still sits on the corner of Jacob Street, remembered by older locals for its fearsome hill and hump about a third of the way to Rickard Road in Bankstown proper. In the days before Liverpool Road access was closed, and a parking area formed off the highway, cars, bikes and all manner of vehicles would descend Jacob Street with various results and sounds. The biggest thrill, or scare, was obtained when descending Jacob Street while sitting at the front upstairs window of a Macvicar's double-decker bus.