Neighbourhood Stories

The old fish shop

Photo courtesy of the St Marys Historical Society

The old fish shop by George Ray

“This is the site of the Tony and Maria’s old fish and chip shop located on the Great Western Highway and near Marsden road. It was a favourite pastime on a Friday night to go and buy fish and chips for a quick meal and then catch the bus down to Queen Street to the Crown Theatre to see some of the present films. Tony and Maria had two children, a boy and a girl, and as a family were well liked and had very many friends in the surrounding district. To know them was to like them.

There were only two buses running at night from the area, one down to the theatre and another one after the showing. If you missed the bus it was a mile with a half walk down to the main street which took about 20 minutes. Families with young children found this distance too hard on the little ones so if you missed the bus no pictures that night. Not many people missed that bus.

The Crown Theatre closed its doors in 1967 which was a sad blow to the people at St Marys because the only other place to show pictures in the district was the hall located on old Mt Druitt Road. A lot of people did not have transport to get there and there were no buses going that way.

Tony’s shop was pulled down in the late sixties to make way for a large greengrocer shop which later incorporated a butcher shop.

The corner block on Marsden Road, which was a vacant lot in those days, now houses our local fire station in a modern brick building.” George Ray, June 2010

Photo courtesy of the St Marys Historical Society

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Photos, Text and tagged with Neighbourhood Stories St Marys, stories by George Ray. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.