Every month I try to make Pleasant Hills history new and interesting. I was at the Pleasant Hills patchwork day, and I was asking the ladies for any ideas about what to write about when a lady, Sandra, drove from Canberra for a day trip with her dad, Ron Wooden, and mum Marion.
Ron was born at Coolamon on the 20th May 1935. The family moved to Pleasant Hills when he was about 4 years old. Ron’s father worked on the railways. The family lived at Pleasant Hills in the 1940’s and 50’s. Ron attended the Pleasant Hills Primary School and later worked at the chaff mill. At 17 or 18, he moved to Sydney and joined the NSW Fire Brigade, which became his life’s work for 40 years.
Ron remembered some of the local families of the time: Lindners, Knobles, Pumpa’s, Clancy’s, Grunow’s, Groch’s, Manson’s, Turlich’s, and Gibson’s. The family rented a mud brick home on the north side of the silos.
Fiona Beckett