I used to come down from Ringwood visiting to Port Melbourne [488 Williamstown Road] from when I was about 8. Grandpa [William Devine] used to keep pigeons in the back yard. He used to go off to work down the docks. He was a coalie. He'd go off with his billy and he'd stop at the Station Hotel and fill the billy with beer. There was a seat near the garden there and I used to wait for him after school.

Nana [Mary Devine nee Larkin] died first, she got pneumonia and she died. She must have been 80-something. I can see Nana as plain as day but to describe her. She's a very little person with a sort of a fatty tummy, with long grey hair, long grey curly hair.

Grandpa, he had a big nose like Dad [John Bruce 'Tilly' Devine]. Always wore a cap and always smoked a pipe and he walked bow-legged. He had a very broad English accent and he always used to call her Mary Larkin. They come from County Durham. West Hartlepool.

I don't know when they came out to Australia because both Tilly and Auntie Mag [Margaret Philomena Devine] were born in Hartlepool.

Auntie Mag had a withered arm, her right one. They all had a big nose as far as I know. Dad always said I had a snout like the rest of them but I wasn't one of them. [Tilly and Ivy Mabel Huxford married in 1938 at St Joseph's and later adopted two girls Maureen and Fay]

There was always lots of people in the house, coming and going. I didn't stay there when I was real little, because I was up in Ringwood and then when my foster mother [Ivy] died I came down to live. So that would have been when I was about 9 or 10. I slept out in the bungalow. I know I got pneumonia, nearly died. They were all coming crying over me. I was up in the front room then.

I went to St Joseph's Primary School and then Kilbride Ladies College [in Albert Park]. From Kilbride I started an apprenticeship in hairdressing in Bay Street.

I didn't live in Port the whole time. When Maureen got married, I was about 15 and I ended up living with her in Ringwood. I used to travel down to Port and do the hairdressing. When Maureen shifted out [of Ringwood], I came back to Port until Dad remarried. I was about 18.

The Chadbands lived next door [486 Williamstown Road]. I remember the house was a brown coloured place [similar to other single-fronted weatherboards in the precinct]. They had a nice brown double gate at the back. Very high. I was fascinated the two boys marrying the two girls from next door [490 Williamstown Road]. Keith married Lorraine Smith and Norm married Joan Smith. They had a brother Ronald and a sister Jean. Keith and Lorraine had a son Brett, who played football for Port.

Lorraine and Joan [Smith] were very nice girls. After the Smiths moved out, Mick and Mary McKenzie lived there. Their had a daughter but I can't remember her name.

I can remember Thomas [Albert Thomas, 180 Farrell St]. He was a short man with dark hair and wore glasses, dark coloured glasses. He used to ride his bike everywhere.

I always remember the dairy as Stuart's [Gladesdale Dairy, 273 Bridge St]. I had an odd job that I'd go in there and I'd wash the bottles. It was quite dark in there and had these old stone double troughs and all the bottles and you had this great long bottlebrush and you'd be sloshing away. It was always cold in that place.

I also worked at Woodruff's. I used to make the best milkshakes and spiders. They used to make their own ice creams. Chocolate coated ice creams. We used to block the ice cream, then put the sticks and then melt the chocolate. We'd have trays and trays and trays of chocolate coated ice creams. It was all done by hand. And I used to do ice cream birthday cakes and decorate them. That was when Liana was a baby, 65 or 66.

I remember Patricia McMillan, 'Micky' McMillian was her nickname, who moved in after Stuart's moved out. I went to school with her.

Tommy Taylor [son of Ernest Taylor, 261 Bridge St] lived further along Bridge St. They finished up down in the Esplanade. They had a large family.

I always used to know Edgar Brown's place [247 Bridge St] because he used to have an old Holden or something but he had these beautiful, Collie dogs. Oh they were beautiful and he used to take them everywhere and he'd be out the back there and I used to pat them.

Robbie [Phyllis Robb, 140 Farrell St] used to baby sit Liana. Phyllis and Jock Robb. Peter was their son. There was a little laneway that ran from the back of Robbie's to the lane behind Woodruff's, behind the houses in Derham St for their bins. Greek family Kyiaikou lived in one of those houses [in Derham St] and Tony and Hazel Lock lived next door [Not indicated in the list of residents so this was probably after 1960].

There used to be a little bookmaker down the laneway behind Farrell St [running between Clark and Albert St] and I used to put Grandpa's shilling or sixpence on with the bookie.

I remember some of the shops. John and Val O'Callaghan were in the Milk Bar. There used to be a butchers next to the Milk Bar. I used to go to there and buy a penny worth of suet. Across the road was Estelle Hairdressing. She was a lovely tall thin person with lovely reddy coloured hair. I always remember her with beautiful nails. The shop on the corner of Ross and Farrell, that was Dorothy Baker's parents. I remember it as a fish and chip shop. Blackmore's were in the shop on the corner of Clark St. Auntie Mag used to always go over there and buy me jam cream bun and a custard tart.

Fay Bates (right) with daughter, Liana, in London, May, 2000 (Courtesy Liana Thompson)