“We were the Dale family and we lived next to Port Kembla railway station in an old house but we had to vacate the house because it was being bought by Thirlwell & McKenzie who started a big barge building yard out there. So, my parents found a rental in Wentworth St behind a commercial building (then No.67) which was owned by Mrs Pratt who was the mother-in-law of the then manager of the steelworks, Max Parrish. We lived in the house and our access was the back lane. It was a large, very large weatherboard house and it was cheaper rent in exchange for janitoring the building. It was my parents’ job to open the building in the morning for business, shut it at 5 o-clock, and sweep every night and polish all the floors every weekend. That was where we grew up until each of us married.”

– Peggy Stransky, 21 November 2015

Photo of the Wentworth Street entrance to the Dale family’s house in Wentworth Lane 2017, by Nina Kourea