I always feel a tinge of sadness when I watch old footage like this. When I look at some of the people caught on camera, people that are obviously long gone, I can't help but wonder who they were and what their lives were like. They lived, they loved and they were loved by others. The fact that we'll never know them, that those frozen faces will forever remain anonymous, is kind of sad.
Grace... I always feel somewhat the same way, except I wouldn't exactly call it a "sadness". Instead, I feel it is more like a melancholy experience. Either way, they never fail to bring moisture to my eyes, which makes looking at them in focus that much more difficult. Either way, I'm personally pleased you enjoy viewing them as much as I do.
I don't know where you're from but I feel the same way every time I drive thru a small town in the U.S that's nestled deep in the country and see some of its residents at play or at work. Knowing that I will never see these people again.
Well said Grace K. For me personally, watching footage like this takes me back to the world my parents knew. My Mother and Father were teenagers when this footage was filmed. The images seen here of 1940 Australia is the world of their youth. They did their bit for the war effort, they loved, they married in 1947, worked hard, built a home and raised a family. Mum died in 2012, Dad died in 2016. They were good people and good Australians.
My mother was 20 in 1940, she lived with my grandparents in Clovelly, and on weekdays caught a tram to work in the City at the old AMP building in Pitt St. All these scenes are ones she knew well. I can just imagine her walking through them (in her hat and gloves) along with her family sister and friends. Thanks so much Kailua Kid for uploading them, you've brought a page of my family history back to life.
To Tim Peddy and The California Pioneers of Santa Clara County, I thank you for preserving this record of a time way before I was born. I love my home and I absolutely love the history of Sydney.
Aren't they wonderful? A time when it was a sunlit city, comfortable to live in even as there was a war on and things were getting dangerous. So better than the cold, impersonal pile of rubble it is in 2018, scheduled to be far worse with the oncoming years.
Pubs closed at 6pm. You threw down all you could hold before then and stagged home completely shickered. We all know that. But, I'm talking about the city which had buildings low enough to allow the sunlight to come in. You could find your way around and not get lost. You could actually LIVE in the thing. Have you looked at it lately? There were lots of things it didn't have then, but you don't miss what you never had.
*KailuaKid* I was born May, 1943, went to primary school at "Our Lady Of Peace" in Gladesville, then on to secondary school at Marist Brothers "Villa Maria" at Hunters Hill. My first job was at Dymock's Book Arcade in George Street Sydney. Travelled to work on a double decker bus which came out of Ryde Depot to begin it's working day. I remember well bus number 2264, as it was the fastest. Other numbers spring to mind like 2149, 2083, and 2143. My favorite seat was the very front LHS on the top deck. I recall leaning to my right as the driver wheeled sharply into bus stops along Victoria road Drummoyne, as the top deck was above the footpath awnings and it appeared as if a collision was imminent . I rather think the reason 2264 was so fast, was because the driver was the proverbial lead foot, lol. Whist at Marist Brothers, my best friend and I picked up an NRMA map of the Sydney Metropolitan Area, and each Saturday we'd set out on our push bikes, our goal to cross off each suburb we'd pass through. We did this practically every weekend, when after many months most all the suburbs from Palm Beach to Sutherland, and from Hornsby to Sydney, Parramatta, and Liverpool were crossed off the map. Over 4000 miles clocked on a tiny odometer mounted to the front axel. Thank you sincerely KailuaKid, you've brought back some wonderful memories of my early childhood and working life, and this is one You Tube video that'll be saved permanently. Cheers...
Thanks for posting these old films of Australian scenes KailuaKid, it is not often we get to see these times in colour and they are certainly evocative of the period. It is great that Tim had the foresight to save these images where others would have simply thrown them away and also wonderful that The Californian Pioneers took the interest to convert them to digital images. Cheers to everyone involved.
I was seven years old and living in Willoughby. My father never owned a car, so we always travelled by tram to the City, across the Harbour Bridge and into a tunnel to Wynyard
+John Lee me too John, from Willoughby, walking down to Artarmon station or catching the tram to Chatswood to get the train into town. Long ago and far away eh?
+John Lee Not far from me John in Zara Road, across Willoughby Rd, up to Penkiville on the left. We were there from about 1953, I married and moved out in 1959 on to Mosman. Heck, it feels like centuries ago. :)
Thank you so much for this wonderful video . I thoroughly enjoyed this trip down memory lane and in spite of the fact that it left me feeling somewhat melancholy . It was a nice feeling . This is very much appreciated . Made my day , especially as an immigrant from Greece (came here as a baby in 1949) who grew up here in beautiful Australia . The only place on earth I call home Thank you once again , God bless
As a Kiwi I very much enjoyed watching the New Zealand films - but I also spent many years in Sydney and this footage is very precious. Thank you so very much for preserving this unique recording of our two country's during those early years of WW2. What a gift you have given us.
This footage is pure magic! So is the accompanying music, thanks to everyone involved in preserving it. If it all was filmed during 1940 World War 2, no wonder the beach scenes don't show many people or lifesavers, most young (& not so young) were in the armed forces. The Harbour scenes are particularly wonderful as are the Manly scenes where my family worked and lived. And I'm still v. happily here. Cheers!
Would have been filmed much later than that - the war was over and life was back to normal. You can age it by the Holden you see in one shot. Brings back many memories and I think Sydney was a much nicer place then. Pleased I don't live there any more...
My grandparents were living in Sydney in the 1930's. I told them after I went to Sydney in 1990 that "they definitely saw the best that Sydney will ever be and ever has been". They said "that's correct!".
Thanks for sharing. So many familiar places in spite of the passage of time, although Circular Quay looks utterly different: no Opera House, no Cahill Expressway, no rail station, no skyscrapers. Have been writing a novel based on my mother's diary from this period. Excellent for getting the 'look' of people and places right in the text.
Thats fantastic footage.wonderful that it was found in usa and someone has gone to the trouble of putting it on here.thankyou.i must dig out my 60s stuff and do the same.
Affordable (Kodak) colour film only became available one or two years earlier, however WWII made it a complete luxury almost immediately. Colour footage of Sydney as early as 1940 is EXTREMELY rare. 0:22 Potts Point/Elizabeth Bay, probably taken from Point Piper area. 0:26 North Sydney/Kirribilli in the distance. 0:31 Looking over North Bondi towards Bronte in the distance. 0:42 George Street at Martin Place 0:53 Martin Place looking east 1:10 Pitt Street, now the Pitt Street Mall 2:34 Watsons Bay 2:40 Watsons Bay ferry wharf 2:54 An eight year old Sydney Harbour Bridge 3:25 Spit Bridge 3:44 Manly ferry, either "Burra-Bra", "Barrenjoey" of "Balgowlah" 3:50 Manly ferry "Curl Curl" 4:32 Contrary to titling, this is Bondi Beach 5:01 Ditto 5:09 Bronte Beach 5:16 Clovelly Beach 6:52 Harbour ferry "Lady Scott" 7:04 Manly ferry "Baragoola" at Manly wharf 7:53 Manly harbour pool with Manly ferry wharf in the distance. 8:30 Horse racing, where the unfortunate poor have their money extorted by rigged races Regards
00:26 looks to me as if it's taken from somewhere round about Fairfax Road in Bellevue Hill, with the curve of New South Head Road in the foreground and trees of what is now Blackburn Gardens beyond, with the western side of Point Piper just getting in on the right. That would mean the background is round about Bradleys Head.
its like watching a different place. Sydney today is like a completely different place. different people. different culture. different everything. sad.
Not so. Sydney had an extensive Chinatown from 1850s gold rushes. Chinese also farmed market gardens, ran many laundries and every suburb and country town had at least one Chinese restaurant. Their economic contribution to Australia is very significant.
G WS Actually the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 which goes by the neologism and misnomer ‘ White Australia Policy’ was in direct relation to the negative influence of the Chinese. The Chinese were importing cheap labour undercutting local trade unions and sending gold out tax free. This Act was later repelled in 1958
@G WS The Commonwealth census of 1948 indicated that 98% of Australians were of Anglo-Celtic origin. Of course most of them weren't immigrants but the progeny of the early pioneers.
@Al L Uuuh? And a lot of Irish. Where else did all the Catholics come from? (Not to mention Church of Ireland like my great-grandparents) British means something very specific; pertaining to the Island of Great Britain - England Wales and Scotland, not including the island of Ireland.
At 5:01 the first shot after the Coogee title is Bondi from the south looking to north headland, then the next shot is Bronte viewing from nth to sth, note the tram cutting up in the hillside
The street scene at 00:40 mark showing a constable on point duty directing traffic is actually a scene from Melbourne. The Tram is a "W" Class car of MMTB. Further comment points out the mis-identification of Eastern Suburbs beaches so troll down for more info. I now live in Qld, former RSL taxi owner in Sydney & policeman. These scenes pictured taken two years before I was born. Sydney and Australia has change and not for the better, unfortunately.🌴
Wouldn't it be great to travel on the Harbour Bridge with no traffic like in the film... Couldn't help noticing the people crossing the roads and Jay walking in front of busy traffic.
@ Vintage Mixer: Agree, the first piece is a piece of Multicultural triumphalism in a nation which was 98% Anglo-Celt, seeking to appropriate that reality for its own ends; the last piece is pure English fantasy with, in its favor, no pretensions to be otherwise. The middle piece (today made laughable by the privatised/degenerated QANTAS which used it for commercial purposes) wasn't about 80% of Australians, but those who blew back every now and then from their cosmopolitan jaunts.
That was fascinating!Thank you for posting this awesome historic footage!I wish Sydney still had its trams. Considering the date the film was made and the fact it was found in California I assume it was filmed by a visitor from the US. Is the 1940 date certain because technically Australia would've been at war by then and my parents (who would've been in their early teens in 1940) always led me to believe that thing were fairly grim during the war with shortages and rations and blackouts, and one of my history teachers at school was aboard the Sydney ferry that was sunk in the harbour by a Japanese midget submarine (think there was only one ferry lost that way). The introduction to each location looks professional and the film has a high production value overall so I wonder if it was filmed for promotional purposes of some kind. Love the description that says Australia's beaches are "infested with man-eating sharks"! Sydney was of course where General MacArthur's HQ was - his bunker is in tunnels under Hyde Park and although it's all sealed off now you used to be able to get there from St James Station - and MacArthur was Allied Supreme Commander in the Pacific so during the war the city was full of American military personnel and it was also a destination for R & R, but in 1940 all that was yet to happen since the US was neutral until Pearl Harbour. The last title screen said "Adios Sydney, looks like a rough trip ahead", which made me wonder if that remark was a reference to the war or to the film maker's own trip home across the Pacific? Thank you again for posting this superb footage!
Definitely well post War. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, the Holden in one scene dates it as very late 40s at the earliest. It was a different world then. I used to catch the bus to the ferry terminal at Woolwich, the ferry to the Quay and the tram to school at Moore Park. In the late 50s I would do that trip at least once a week carrying my .303 rifle for shooting competition and no one batted an eyelid. Try doing that now!!
@@stumpor Yes stumpor, things have changed a lot. People tended not to get hysterical about everything in those days. In the 50's my Dad and his mates (in their early teens) would walk through the streets with a 22 rifle, they would shoot rabbits on the edge of town or down the river bank. Just typical behaviour for kids in regional Australia back then...they'd call in the Tactical Response Group today!
08:27 Rosehill platform hasn't changed but I haven't seen an electric train like that since I was a kid in the 1960's. This is an original wooden electric train from 1924, converted from steam hauled around 1927 when the lines were electrified. They were the first of the red rattlers to be withdrawn in the 60's.
Beautiful footage when Sydney was exciting and the folk very pleasant and everyone used to ask if you need a hand,strip shopping was exciting and you knew your local shop keepers always with service with a smile and a yarn,the cars the architecture, loved the milkbars miss those days love the footage can watch for hours
She was a fine country back then. The second gemstone of the Empire. Now look at it my family’s been in Queensland for 140 Years. It’s gone to shit. On the verge of not only giving our military but even our form of Government’s to the Yanks with AUKUS and the Republican Movement it really is a shame. 300,000 Homeless in Queensland alone bloody awful
Then at 5:22 is Clovelly gulch and after that not sure whether the net fence is Coogee but probably is as next shots before 'The Gap title are Coogee streets.
the song that plays at 8:29, does anybody by any chance know where a version of it is online? Ive tried searching lyrics and all but cant find anything - no mention of it existing which is a shame because its a beautiful song
If people don't like it , don't watch. Why waste your time . When people like to pick on , people , places & things . One has to assume that as I said ,they have time to waste. Or maybe they are Jealous...
Today, 20/7/2024, Sydney is an extremely dark city at night. Street lighting is so poor in the suburbs some times while driving, its hard to see people in dark clothes crossing midd street. Then hospitality with non professional waiters on working visas, coffee shops closing at 3 pm and kirchens at 9 pm, and pubs at 12 am, make Sydney a very BORING place....too late to move to Melbourne....🤣🧉
¿Cuál es el propósito de la película? Los segmentos cortos que suman menos de un minuto en total se pueden utilizar para fines de cine educativo. Dar crédito a: 'Rick Helin y los Pioneros de California del Condado de Santa Clara "
Wonderful old footage of the city of my birth. However, Bronte looked suspiciously like Bondi to me. As for the musical accompaniment - truly awful. A little more imagination required to do the glorious imagery justice.
@@ivorbiggon9494 Looks more like the lower end of Coogee Bay Road. The film-maker has moved south showing Bondi, Bronte, Coogee Baths, Coogee Bay and Coogee Beach. It does not look like he has gone any further than that, Malabar Point and the rifle range are way off in the distance in the shots of Coogee. The wooden tram stop ( now a bus stop ) would be visible if it was Maroubra.
AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA PRIOR TO 2001 WAS THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET "EARTH" NOW DAYS THAT COMPLEMENT IS ONLY A MEMORY WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS MAYBE IT CAN BE THE GREATEST NATION ON THE PLANET ONCE MORE WHO KNOWS MAYBE I AM DREAMING AND MAYBE I AM NOT WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE LET US KEEP HOPE AS ALIVE AT LEAST AND DO A LITTLE DREAMING NEVER GIVE UP NEVER GIVE IN KEEP HOPE ALIVE FOR WHILE THERE IS {LIFE} THERE IS HOPE 💖☝👍
How quaint the original trams were. Now the main street of Sydney is a railway with eight car trains running up and down it every couple of minutes. Thank you Clover for all your stupidity. Hopefully they will be ripped out as the old ones where. Billions wasted.
+Ariel Cohen i'm sure you made a typo , surely you mean " it looks MUCH BETTER without the Cahill E''sway " which it does . the worlds best harbour blighted by an ugly eyesore !
Why did you have to stuff up brilliant footage of one of the world's greatest cities with trite cheap attempts at comedic comments? They are irrelevant, especially when decimal currency was not around at the time. You are am ignominious jerk. However, thanks for preserving this priceless footage.
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
I always feel a tinge of sadness when I watch old footage like this. When I look at some of the people caught on camera, people that are obviously long gone, I can't help but wonder who they were and what their lives were like. They lived, they loved and they were loved by others. The fact that we'll never know them, that those frozen faces will forever remain anonymous, is kind of sad.
Grace... I always feel somewhat the same way, except I wouldn't exactly call it a "sadness". Instead, I feel it is more like a melancholy experience. Either way, they never fail to bring moisture to my eyes, which makes looking at them in focus that much more difficult. Either way, I'm personally pleased you enjoy viewing them as much as I do.
I don't know where you're from but I feel the same way every time I drive thru a small town in the U.S that's nestled deep in the country and see some of its residents at play or at work. Knowing that I will never see these people again.
Well said Grace K. For me personally, watching footage like this takes me back to the world my parents knew. My Mother and Father were teenagers when this footage was filmed. The images seen here of 1940 Australia is the world of their youth. They did their bit for the war effort, they loved, they married in 1947, worked hard, built a home and raised a family. Mum died in 2012, Dad died in 2016. They were good people and good Australians.
A beautiful and poignant kind of sad :)
Hi Grace...what you are feeling, is called empathy.
My mother was 20 in 1940, she lived with my grandparents in Clovelly, and on weekdays caught a tram to work in the City at the old AMP building in Pitt St. All these scenes are ones she knew well. I can just imagine her walking through them (in her hat and gloves) along with her family sister and friends. Thanks so much Kailua Kid for uploading them, you've brought a page of my family history back to life.
To Tim Peddy and The California Pioneers of Santa Clara County, I thank you for preserving this record of a time way before I was born. I love my home and I absolutely love the history of Sydney.
Thank goodness you saw the value in these old films. A lot of people would have thrown them out. Great to see Sydney as it was in the 1940s.
Aren't they wonderful? A time when it was a sunlit city, comfortable to live in even as there was a war on and things were getting dangerous. So better than the cold, impersonal pile of rubble it is in 2018, scheduled to be far worse with the oncoming years.
Pubs closed at 6pm. You threw down all you could hold before then and stagged home completely shickered. We all know that.
But, I'm talking about the city which had buildings low enough to allow the sunlight to come in. You could find your way around and not get lost. You could actually LIVE in the thing. Have you looked at it lately?
There were lots of things it didn't have then, but you don't miss what you never had.
@Frank. T 😄😄😄😄😄😄
Tim Peddy and The California Pioneers of Santa Clara County; 23 million thanks for preserving this footage.
*KailuaKid* I was born May, 1943, went to primary school at "Our Lady Of Peace" in Gladesville, then on to secondary school at Marist Brothers "Villa Maria" at Hunters Hill. My first job was at Dymock's Book Arcade in George Street Sydney. Travelled to work on a double decker bus which came out of Ryde Depot to begin it's working day. I remember well bus number 2264, as it was the fastest. Other numbers spring to mind like 2149, 2083, and 2143. My favorite seat was the very front LHS on the top deck. I recall leaning to my right as the driver wheeled sharply into bus stops along Victoria road Drummoyne, as the top deck was above the footpath awnings and it appeared as if a collision was imminent . I rather think the reason 2264 was so fast, was because the driver was the proverbial lead foot, lol. Whist at Marist Brothers, my best friend and I picked up an NRMA map of the Sydney Metropolitan Area, and each Saturday we'd set out on our push bikes, our goal to cross off each suburb we'd pass through. We did this practically every weekend, when after many months most all the suburbs from Palm Beach to Sutherland, and from Hornsby to Sydney, Parramatta, and Liverpool were crossed off the map. Over 4000 miles clocked on a tiny odometer mounted to the front axel. Thank you sincerely KailuaKid, you've brought back some wonderful memories of my early childhood and working life, and this is one You Tube video that'll be saved permanently. Cheers...
What a stroke of luck to have found and been able to preserve this! It is pure GOLD! Thank you for your efforts! Bloody Magic!!
Thanks for posting these old films of Australian scenes KailuaKid, it is not often we get to see these times in colour and they are certainly evocative of the period. It is great that Tim had the foresight to save these images where others would have simply thrown them away and also wonderful that The Californian Pioneers took the interest to convert them to digital images. Cheers to everyone involved.
I was seven years old and living in Willoughby. My father never owned a car, so we always travelled by tram to the City, across the Harbour Bridge and into a tunnel to Wynyard
+John Lee me too John, from Willoughby, walking down to Artarmon station or catching the tram to Chatswood to get the train into town.
Long ago and far away eh?
Sure was a long time ago Carolyn, I lived in Tulloh Street, off Frenchs Road, Willoughby and we moved to Auburn when I was 17
+John Lee Not far from me John in Zara Road, across Willoughby Rd, up to Penkiville on the left. We were there from about 1953, I married and moved out in 1959 on to Mosman. Heck, it feels like centuries ago. :)
Damn.. This was a bitter sweet read. Hope you're both happy and healthy, John and Carolyn.
Thank you so much for this wonderful video . I thoroughly enjoyed this trip down memory lane and in spite of the fact that it left me feeling somewhat melancholy . It was a nice feeling . This is very much appreciated . Made my day , especially as an immigrant from Greece (came here as a baby in 1949) who grew up here in beautiful Australia . The only place on earth I call home Thank you once again , God bless
Those shots of 'Coogee' were actually Bondi, Bronte, Clovelly and then the shark net was at Coogee, followed by a view down Coogee Bay Road.
Excellent footage lovely to see Sydney as it was in the 1940s. Sydney was a beautiful place then
Well in Present days Shops are still open late.
It still is. 😊
As a Kiwi I very much enjoyed watching the New Zealand films - but I also spent many years in Sydney and this footage is very precious. Thank you so very much for preserving this unique recording of our two country's during those early years of WW2. What a gift you have given us.
This footage is pure magic! So is the accompanying music, thanks to everyone involved in preserving it. If it all was filmed during 1940 World War 2, no wonder the beach scenes don't show many people or lifesavers, most young (& not so young) were in the armed forces. The Harbour scenes are particularly wonderful as are the Manly scenes where my family worked and lived. And I'm still v. happily here. Cheers!
Would have been filmed much later than that - the war was over and life was back to normal. You can age it by the Holden you see in one shot. Brings back many memories and I think Sydney was a much nicer place then. Pleased I don't live there any more...
@@stumpor I tend to agree. The shots of Rosehill races (about 8.50) have far too many fighting-age men in civilian clothes to be wartime.
My grandparents were living in Sydney in the 1930's. I told them after I went to Sydney in 1990 that "they definitely saw the best that Sydney will ever be and ever has been". They said "that's correct!".
Oh man they've sure done a number on the joint since then. :(
Thanks for sharing. So many familiar places in spite of the passage of time, although Circular Quay looks utterly different: no Opera House, no Cahill Expressway, no rail station, no skyscrapers. Have been writing a novel based on my mother's diary from this period. Excellent for getting the 'look' of people and places right in the text.
no bloody toaster...
What a great old piece of Footage, it brought back some long forgotten memories. Thanks for sharing :)
Thats fantastic footage.wonderful that it was found in usa and someone has gone to the trouble of putting it on here.thankyou.i must dig out my 60s stuff and do the same.
Affordable (Kodak) colour film only became available one or two years earlier, however WWII made it a complete luxury almost immediately. Colour footage of Sydney as early as 1940 is EXTREMELY rare.
0:22 Potts Point/Elizabeth Bay, probably taken from Point Piper area.
0:26 North Sydney/Kirribilli in the distance.
0:31 Looking over North Bondi towards Bronte in the distance.
0:42 George Street at Martin Place
0:53 Martin Place looking east
1:10 Pitt Street, now the Pitt Street Mall
2:34 Watsons Bay
2:40 Watsons Bay ferry wharf
2:54 An eight year old Sydney Harbour Bridge
3:25 Spit Bridge
3:44 Manly ferry, either "Burra-Bra", "Barrenjoey" of "Balgowlah"
3:50 Manly ferry "Curl Curl"
4:32 Contrary to titling, this is Bondi Beach
5:01 Ditto
5:09 Bronte Beach
5:16 Clovelly Beach
6:52 Harbour ferry "Lady Scott"
7:04 Manly ferry "Baragoola" at Manly wharf
7:53 Manly harbour pool with Manly ferry wharf in the distance.
8:30 Horse racing, where the unfortunate poor have their money extorted by rigged races
Regards
00:26 looks to me as if it's taken from somewhere round about Fairfax Road in Bellevue Hill, with the curve of New South Head Road in the foreground and trees of what is now Blackburn Gardens beyond, with the western side of Point Piper just getting in on the right. That would mean the background is round about Bradleys Head.
its like watching a different place. Sydney today is like a completely different place. different people. different culture. different everything. sad.
A Wonderful Old Video, Thanks for Sharing, so many Memories, My Old Home Town.
Hey look, It's pre-McDonalds Sydney!
Not so. Sydney had an extensive Chinatown from 1850s gold rushes. Chinese also farmed market gardens, ran many laundries and every suburb and country town had at least one Chinese restaurant. Their economic contribution to Australia is very significant.
G WS
Actually the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 which goes by the neologism and misnomer ‘ White Australia Policy’ was in direct relation to the negative influence of the Chinese.
The Chinese were importing cheap labour undercutting local trade unions and sending gold out tax free.
This Act was later repelled in 1958
@G WS The Commonwealth census of 1948 indicated that 98% of Australians were of Anglo-Celtic origin. Of course most of them weren't immigrants but the progeny of the early pioneers.
@Al L Uuuh? And a lot of Irish. Where else did all the Catholics come from? (Not to mention Church of Ireland like my great-grandparents) British means something very specific; pertaining to the Island of Great Britain - England Wales and Scotland, not including the island of Ireland.
Wow what a find! Beautiful insight into what Sydney was like then, my late grand parents time.
8 People dislike this... Must be from New Zealand
No, just 8 Queenslanders and Victorians who still cannot accept that Sydney is the jewel in Australia's crown
Trump supporters, no sense of logic
Rubbish! We love our ANZAC cuzzy bro's. Except during rugby and cricket tests lol.
@@coolhand1964 Corona virus capital of Australia and deservedly so
Ah :) The city I grew up in, it's changed so much since then.
Still love this & so appreciated. Thankyou.
Excellent footage.Thanks for saving it.
Beautiful video, cheers for uploading :)
I have many precious memories of Sydney. Beautiful footage.
Wow the Sphinx near Bobbin Head is just behind the High School I went to, its amazing to see it from 1940!
Interesting that the first few seconds we see W2 class trams in Melbourne.
Fantastic, but just a point to clarify the first beach shown is not Bronte, it is definitely Bondi.
+GregBuist agree, definitely Bondi. 100% Bondi!
At 5:01 the first shot after the Coogee title is Bondi from the south looking to north headland, then the next shot is Bronte viewing from nth to sth, note the tram cutting up in the hillside
This is FABULOUS!
Amazing 👍🏻. Beautiful ❤. Thank you
Awesome, Rosehill racecourse. 8:22. And the refinery over the back of the course is still there.
People were so elegant in those times;)
Fascinating. Thanks for posting.
The street scene at 00:40 mark showing a constable on point duty directing traffic is actually a scene from Melbourne. The Tram is a "W" Class car of MMTB. Further comment points out the mis-identification of Eastern Suburbs beaches so troll down for more info. I now live in Qld, former RSL taxi owner in Sydney & policeman. These scenes pictured taken two years before I was born.
Sydney and Australia has change and not for the better, unfortunately.🌴
Wouldn't it be great to travel on the Harbour Bridge with no traffic like in the film...
Couldn't help noticing the people crossing the roads and Jay walking in front of busy traffic.
Great footage but the music just doesn't fit. Sorry.
@ Vintage Mixer: Agree, the first piece is a piece of Multicultural triumphalism in a nation which was 98% Anglo-Celt, seeking to appropriate that reality for its own ends; the last piece is pure English fantasy with, in its favor, no pretensions to be otherwise. The middle piece (today made laughable by the privatised/degenerated QANTAS which used it for commercial purposes) wasn't about 80% of Australians, but those who blew back every now and then from their cosmopolitan jaunts.
it's 2018. 49% of australians were born or had a parent born overseas. it's time to stop living in the past.
@@prismaticmarcus Thanks for sharing your latter day triumphalism sport.
@Pete Coolio bad guess
@A Munro cos it's not scottish? sad
Fantastic
Ahhh look at those cars!
That was fascinating!Thank you for posting this awesome historic footage!I wish Sydney still had its trams. Considering the date the film was made and the fact it was found in California I assume it was filmed by a visitor from the US. Is the 1940 date certain because technically Australia would've been at war by then and my parents (who would've been in their early teens in 1940) always led me to believe that thing were fairly grim during the war with shortages and rations and blackouts, and one of my history teachers at school was aboard the Sydney ferry that was sunk in the harbour by a Japanese midget submarine (think there was only one ferry lost that way).
The introduction to each location looks professional and the film has a high production value overall so I wonder if it was filmed for promotional purposes of some kind.
Love the description that says Australia's beaches are "infested with man-eating sharks"!
Sydney was of course where General MacArthur's HQ was - his bunker is in tunnels under Hyde Park and although it's all sealed off now you used to be able to get there from St James Station - and MacArthur was Allied Supreme Commander in the Pacific so during the war the city was full of American military personnel and it was also a destination for R & R, but in 1940 all that was yet to happen since the US was neutral until Pearl Harbour.
The last title screen said "Adios Sydney, looks like a rough trip ahead", which made me wonder if that remark was a reference to the war or to the film maker's own trip home across the Pacific?
Thank you again for posting this superb footage!
Definitely well post War. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, the Holden in one scene dates it as very late 40s at the earliest. It was a different world then. I used to catch the bus to the ferry terminal at Woolwich, the ferry to the Quay and the tram to school at Moore Park. In the late 50s I would do that trip at least once a week carrying my .303 rifle for shooting competition and no one batted an eyelid. Try doing that now!!
@@stumpor Yes stumpor, things have changed a lot. People tended not to get hysterical about everything in those days. In the 50's my Dad and his mates (in their early teens) would walk through the streets with a 22 rifle, they would shoot rabbits on the edge of town or down the river bank. Just typical behaviour for kids in regional Australia back then...they'd call in the Tactical Response Group today!
Watson's Bay kiosk @ 1:42....Waterhouse's Imperial Hotel Milson's Point @ 3:02
08:27 Rosehill platform hasn't changed but I haven't seen an electric train like that since I was a kid in the 1960's. This is an original wooden electric train from 1924, converted from steam hauled around 1927 when the lines were electrified. They were the first of the red rattlers to be withdrawn in the 60's.
I remember all this so well been all these placers at that5 time how lucky I was
martin place with cars ? mind blown
My Grandfathers youth
Amazing video
Beautiful footage when Sydney was exciting and the folk very pleasant and everyone used to ask if you need a hand,strip shopping was exciting and you knew your local shop keepers always with service with a smile and a yarn,the cars the architecture, loved the milkbars miss those days love the footage can watch for hours
She was a fine country back then. The second gemstone of the Empire. Now look at it my family’s been in Queensland for 140 Years. It’s gone to shit. On the verge of not only giving our military but even our form of Government’s to the Yanks with AUKUS and the Republican Movement it really is a shame. 300,000 Homeless in Queensland alone bloody awful
Then at 5:22 is Clovelly gulch and after that not sure whether the net fence is Coogee but probably is as next shots before 'The Gap title are Coogee streets.
Chilling to see so many young boys on the beaches so carefree and happy unaware that within only a few years most would be killed in war.
Wonderful 1940 views of Sydney City
the song that plays at 8:29, does anybody by any chance know where a version of it is online? Ive tried searching lyrics and all but cant find anything - no mention of it existing which is a shame because its a beautiful song
ruclips.net/video/903gZmAsqB8/видео.html
If people don't like it , don't watch. Why waste your time . When people like to pick on , people , places & things . One has to assume that as I said ,they have time to waste. Or maybe they are Jealous...
Today, 20/7/2024, Sydney is an extremely dark city at night.
Street lighting is so poor in the suburbs some times while driving, its hard to see people in dark clothes crossing midd street.
Then hospitality with non professional waiters on working visas, coffee shops closing at 3 pm and kirchens at 9 pm, and pubs at 12 am, make Sydney a very BORING place....too late to move to Melbourne....🤣🧉
Love it thanks
Good footage. It’s a pity the music is so syrupy and cringeworthy.
My home town,and yes the best harbor in the world,bar none.
Are there credits for the music? "Maid of Australia" sounds like it might be a very young Martyn Wyndham-Read...
LoL, I thought an "older" Martin Carthy!! RjB
At 4:24 the title is for Bronte beach but the footage is Bondi beach
The jingoistic soundtrack detracts from the visuals. I suggest viewers turn off the sound and concentrate on the film.
Much better without the dreadful music! It was driving me nuts!
The ferries back then look in better condition then the 1's we run today lol
Try to buy a house there now,money crazy most there now
Why did people dress more elegant than these days..
What a great video,I call Australia home🇦🇺
Buenas tardes alguien que que confirme si es posible utilizar fragmentos de esta película.
¿Cuál es el propósito de la película? Los segmentos cortos que suman menos de un minuto en total se pueden utilizar para fines de cine educativo. Dar crédito a:
'Rick Helin y los Pioneros de California del Condado de Santa Clara "
this was during WW2 when Europe was in turmoil
Beautiful! Not sure about our beaches being infested with man eating sharks though.
There are some Melbourne trams in the opening scenes.
I noticed that too!
Sydney had 3 times the number of trams back then that Melbourne has today
No, Sydney trams, in fact the newer ones. They still had the old toast rack trams well into the 50s!
Sydney looked great in 1940, even though I was born five years later.
Odd. At 36 seconds, there's film of a Melbourne W2 tram. Definitely not a Sydney tram.
That's because the film was taken by, and edited by (including title cards) an unknown American film maker for an American audience.
KailuaKid And hence the American spelling. Fascinating footage, thank you.
Agreed. Anyone recognise the location in Melbourne?
Only 15554.11 km. away. Another world
Wonderful but the only thing which grates is the terrible background music. Surely something less embarrassing could have been found.
Shit jingoistic soundtrack. Would be much better silent.
It is. I turned the sound off and it was much better. These ghastly chewns need to be given a good burial.
Walt Disney's Pinocchio in theatres back then!
Australia I always call home ! its my home
Love ❤️ it
an aussie thanks you for posting this
Why are they racing back to front ? That just weird.
No Holden cars. First Holden 1948.
But what did the bogans drive back then?
Fem Chick Haha nothing like arrogance and snobbery to get the blood boiling hey!
+boogiefever1985 Pontiacs, lol.
Wounder how much fuel was back then though
Wonderful old footage of the city of my birth. However, Bronte looked suspiciously like Bondi to me. As for the musical accompaniment - truly awful. A little more imagination required to do the glorious imagery justice.
Some of you people are absolutely clueless!
Its a pity..so few people speak english now
Where? Certainly not the case in Australia!
Few people 😂😂. Can you imagine what the indigenous people thought, the convicts invaded this country and claimed it ad their own.
from 5:50 to 5:50 it's McKeon St Maroubra right??????????
ivor biggon
er.... I mean 5:50 to 5:55.............................
@@ivorbiggon9494 Looks more like the lower end of Coogee Bay Road. The film-maker has moved south showing Bondi, Bronte, Coogee Baths, Coogee Bay and Coogee Beach. It does not look like he has gone any further than that, Malabar Point and the rifle range are way off in the distance in the shots of Coogee. The wooden tram stop ( now a bus stop ) would be visible if it was Maroubra.
Looking at it, you wouldn't know that it was a nation at war... were it not for the Imperial Japanese, it would have literally been a world away.
Not "literally," as you put it and the Japanese did not come into the war until the following year.
Good old days in Sydney 1940s
Mudflooded building's every where
1947 ?
YesYesYoureRight Early 1940
AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA PRIOR TO 2001 WAS THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET "EARTH" NOW DAYS THAT COMPLEMENT IS ONLY A MEMORY WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS MAYBE IT CAN BE THE GREATEST NATION ON THE PLANET ONCE MORE WHO KNOWS MAYBE I AM DREAMING AND MAYBE I AM NOT WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE LET US KEEP HOPE AS ALIVE AT LEAST AND DO A LITTLE DREAMING NEVER GIVE UP NEVER GIVE IN KEEP HOPE ALIVE FOR WHILE THERE IS {LIFE} THERE IS HOPE 💖☝👍
Have to laugh. The first images of beaches are all Bondi, not Bronte or Coogee as the txt states!
I still call australia home!!!
Interesting footage, but the soundtrack reeks.
Handsome and Gay meant something else back then
How quaint the original trams were. Now the main street of Sydney is a railway with eight car trains running up and down it every couple of minutes. Thank you Clover for all your stupidity. Hopefully they will be ripped out as the old ones where. Billions wasted.
C Quay looks bad without the Cahill Expressway.....
+Ariel Cohen i'm sure you made a typo , surely you mean " it looks MUCH BETTER without the Cahill E''sway " which it does .
the worlds best harbour blighted by an ugly eyesore !
richard jagger : it's a marvellous combination of natural & man made values...modern urban art..not everything is a fucking postcard.....
+Ariel Cohen the C E'way isn't fucking marvellous " modern urban art " , it's an ugly man made eyesore !
tell em yo...................................
sfc
san fran to me LAX
Why did you have to stuff up brilliant footage of one of the world's greatest cities with trite cheap attempts at comedic comments? They are irrelevant, especially when decimal currency was not around at the time. You are am ignominious jerk.
However, thanks for preserving this priceless footage.
Use this now: maps.six.nsw.gov.au/