As part of Seniors Week the City of Port Phillip called for Seniors in the city to submit poetry, fiction and non-fiction entries to a writing competition. It prompted the blog to think about how our family ended up in Port Melbourne – now more than 50 years ago – and what our experiences here were. This is what the blog entered. It didn’t win!

 After we moved to Port Melbourne more than half a century ago questions about where we lived prompted responses which illustrate the history of Port over those decades.

Initially, when asked where you lived, and you said Port Melbourne, there was a sort of sniff and a rapid change of subject. Years later when asked the same question and giving the same answer the response was “when did you buy there?” So, what happened and what has changed our community had over the years.

After living in a small apartment in Prahran, and starting to think about a family, we decided we ought to move to somewhere else. Our initial plan was to move to the hills. So, one weekend – with the then huge Age real estate listings in the car – we headed out to look at properties. After a long day and a long drive back, we realised outer suburban life was probably not for us.

Back in Melbourne my partner picked up The Age again and started to look at properties for sale closer to the city where we both worked. After a while she asked: “What about Port Melbourne?” I knew where Port was, and remembered farewelling people going overseas on ships, but not much else.

But from after that day we have had 50 years of watching a community being transformed; making new friends; and getting immersed in local history, local politics and local sport.

All from a classified ad in The Age.

The ad was for two small adjoining cottages for sale in Ross Street. It looked interesting so we went to inspect them, made an offer; and bought them both – taking on the tenants in the adjoining house – planning to combine them at some stage.

Yet the smell from Lever & Kitchen was stronger at our end of Ross Street than the sweeter smell of the Swallow and Ariell biscuit factory at the other end and we started to look at other places.

While walking our young son in a pram my partner had frequently passed a large house in Evans Street. It was opposite the shunting yard, set back from the street, but still alongside the train line and the place where briquettes were loaded and unloaded. Some years after the house came up for sale. We didn’t attend the auction at which – probably because of the awful state of the house and garden and some very active shunting work on auction day – it was passed in.

We had expressed interest beforehand but then decided not to go along and bid, thinking it would be beyond our means, and headed off for the weekend. In the pre-mobile phone days, the agent hadn’t been able to contact us after the house was passed in. He finally did on the Monday and asked if were still interested. We were – and with a precursor of the now common help from the banks of Mums and Dads – we bought it.

From then – after a couple of major renovations and much breaking up of concrete backyards to make way for trees and greenery – we created a home.

It was a home from which we saw massive changes and many battles against many things. The plan to build Surfers Paradise by the Bay, complete with canals, at what is now become Beacon Cove unified the community in opposition. The community was saved by a credit squeeze which damaged the development’s viability. The later alternative of Beacon Cove was also regarded suspiciously initially but today it looks attractive and in scale with the community.

The beachfront high rise was another matter. But Australia’s removal of many tariffs and other protections destroyed many industrial uses – and the replacement apartments at least opened up much of the beachfront.  All that’s left of what was there before is the Beacon and one part pillar of Centenary Bridge while Princes Pier is a spot for fishing and roller-blading and Station Pier is only active during cruise ship season.

Back then it would probably have been impossible to imagine the changes which would happen in Port Melbourne and the experiences they brought. Battles with developers and governments – some won some lost. It was as if every weekend we were out protesting and campaigning and every night at meetings planning campaigns.

When the Royal Yacht moored at Station Pier the noise of constant helicopter flights watching over the boat – perhaps fearful that we would launch cruise missiles against it – was unbearable. Complaints to the British High Commission were greeted with the comment that she was your Queen too and got the fierce republican response – “not mine”.

There were many other battles. A planned freeway along the railway line was scrapped, along with the Liberal Government which proposed it, and replaced by a park. The pallet operation closed as part of the national privatisation drive. One fight to stop the amalgamation of Port Melbourne and South Melbourne was won with the slogan – Vintage Port Worth Preserving. But then the later bigger battle was lost, and St Kilda become part of an even bigger mix. An industrial rail line along the Port Melbourne beachfront was scrapped after strong resident opposition. The train line initially stayed but its dogbox carriages were eventually replaced by the light rail.

Then there were the people – both old and new residents. Migrants working in the Fisherman’s Bend industries. People who had lived in Port for generations. Former and current waterside workers. The famous and the infamous. Workers riding their bike – proper bikes not the expensive modern versions – to and from work and around the town.

…and even Council vehicles being pulled by horses refreshed at the troughs around the city.

As the old Aussie would put it – you wouldn’t have missed it for quids.