A given-up-for-lost photo ... arrives

Just when I think the day is going to be ordinary ... someone sends through wonderful stuff inside an envelope which lands in my letterbox. Such happened today.

Above is a horrible photocopy-of-a-photocopy after who-knows how many generations of copying. This was copied from the old files at the Avondale Community Library way back in the 1980s when I was starting out on my mad quest to gather info on my home suburb. No one knew the Mrs. Mould who was supposed to have had the photo. All I got was shaking heads when I showed the photo to people. I even put a note about it in the very first Avondale Historical Journal in 2001. No go.

And then, while sitting waiting for a train at the station today, I open an envelope. Within, amongst other wonderful images of Avondale's past which came from the collection of a lady who lived here from the 1930s to 1980s (not Mrs Mould, though) ... was this:

Other normal people get excited about new gear at Christmas. Or sports heroes, or pop stars, or new restaurants etc. etc. Me, I get absolutely high and elated and over the flamin' moon on seeing an image I had hoped to see, in photo quality, for more than half my life.

What's it all about? This is a photo from c.1919 (judging by the fact that the name on the cart is D. (Dan) Robertson, who ran a grocery business from a wooden store just across the road from that fine verandahed villa in the centre behind the horse's rump). The villa is that of the Collins family, who owned the corner site, Great North Road and Rosebank Road -- a massive one, which later became four shops and a brick post office over the course of the 1920s-1960s. In 2004, the same scene looked like this: