“When I was a kid, Kembla Radio Service used to build their own bicycles. We used to build them up from scratch – buy the frames, spray paint them ourselves, put on the transfers, make up the wheels. They were ‘Kembla Bikes’.

“My dad had a little black box – I think it was probably an ammo box from the war because he used to buy radio valves off a fellow that used to get war surplus stuff. But this box had all the equipment needed to put the gold lines on the bike. There were two little wheels with a brush on top, so you could run down a perfect line on the bike.

“We built our own wheels. You buy the hubs and spoked up the wheels which is a bit like knitting, you just about do it in your sleep after a while. I used to knit as well but that’s got nothing to do with the shop. My mother was a funny sort of a lady, she taught us how to knit. She taught us how to do a lot of things.”

– Ron Southall, Kembla Radio Service, 12 August 2016

Photo of interior of Kembla Radio Service (1950s) from the collections of the Wollongong City Libraries and the Illawarra Historical Society. (P14644)