I had fun in Green Valley growing up. However, I had my eyes on Hollywood back in 1973 . 6 years later I left and now work in Hollywood films as a storyboard artist and an Adventure cartoonist. Being there made me come to Los Angeles. It's good to have dreams.
Congratulations on the teacher and the cartoon artist that went to Hollywood from Green Valley well done obviously they need heavy representation in the Liverpool Council to get things done they're all paying rates through their rental their council you whether they own or rent so they need better representation at Liverpool council
I was born in Heckenberg and left as a teenager with my family to Fairfield west. It was a bit rough but it gave me the gumption of who I am today. We weren’t bored as kids because all my friends had horses and that’s what we did. If you didn’t have a horse you got on behind your friend. I had a push bike and a state board. We had a pool which made my back yard popular in the summer. Never was I bored. I’m proud to say I was a valley girl. This film was such a blast. And I saw my childhood Doctor Taylor speaking his British accent holing his much treasured pipe towards the end. Glad to have seen this today ,made me smile. Now those properties are worth well over the million dollar mark.
This not only gave me a giggle, but also made me think. I grew up in housing and am back in it. I look around and think, it is not the suburb, it is not the housing authority. It is the people who make or break a suburb. Gardens are easy to make and grow, saplings can be planted in yards to bring the greenery in. You look further afield for work if need be, and be willing to travel. The people are no different from any other. Parents today even still need educating when their children are struggling, to help solve why their children are misbehaving, failing to learn, lack manners and respect etc Some people just don't know how to parent as their parents were no well versed in parenting. This is where the focus should be, educate the parents so the parents can educate their children and break the cycle
OMG, What a great film. I lived next door to Stephen Jurd in the flats there on Sutton Road. You did us proud Steve smile emoticon , and like Linda it was wonderful to see old familiar faces of long lost friends and neighbours. Doreen and Kevin and Michael, Gordon Tolman and others. Just wonderful. Thank you for sharing. Cheers Karen Alsop (nee Denham)
The film is an exaggeration of life in Green Valley. My mother is 86, has lived there all her life, and still lives there. The longest resident in Orchard Road. The council decided to use my grandfather's land for the purpose of this Green Valley Housing experiment. As a child from hard working Italian immigrants, myself and my family were often taunted, bullied and our house sprayed with eggs and other nasty things by the new comers from this housing experiment. We were there first. we worked hard on the land, to make ends meet, but when people from the housing experiment needed a vegetable, or fruit, they knew where to come and they were never knocked back. Some memories are great, others are Not!
Sorry to hear that your memories from those days weren't always positive.I do recall our behaviour toward immigrants wasn't always respectful. I did grow up nearby and did have some Italian classmates:Frank Mammoleti,(excuse spelling) I still recall his Mum complimenting on my goalkeeping when she gave us a lift home from a match.Edo Gollotta,Luigi Costa and my Ashcroft soccer coach Albert Lazzarini and his lovely family.
Oh that's so cool .. I stopped at 4:14 to see ..what beautiful clip to have of her ..many wish they had the same 😌happy for you and your family to have such footage..regardless the duration what a gift 👌🏼
An uncle and aunt of mine and 4 cousins lived in Green Valley. Over the years of my teens and early twenties when I visited them Green Valley wasn't particularly different than other suburbs. It was clean, quiet and no particular problems that I saw. My relatives were happy there. My uncle worked full time and my aunt was a stay at home mum.
Moved into Heckenberg in 1965 when I was 18 months old. Mum and Dad were able to buy from the Housing Commission but some neighbours rented. Family long passed on and now I'm in Liverpool. So haven't really moved too far!
Wow this brings back fond memories of growing up in Bankstown. I grew up in a Housing Commission house in Panania. Same houses, Streets and people. Memories!
Awesome. Brought back heaps of memories, good and bad. I lived there from age 5 to about 20. 1964 - 1980. When I started working I worked at Ashfield and people turned their noses up when you said you came from the Valley (or Dodge City).
How cool, loved watching this, I call myself a shire girl but some of my heart is from "the valley" There was 5 in our family and we lived in a 1 bedroom house in Kurnell before moving to Miller in 1964, it wasn't that everyone was poor but also a bad housing shortage in Sydney. My parents wanted to leave the valley straight away but we stayed 11 years and loved every bit of it, never found it boring and had quite a bit of freedom to go into Liverpool, shopping, the pool and movies, we were able to travel into town from about 10 years old, big treat going to the Easter show by ourselves. We had bikes, motor bikes and speedway close by. We went to girl guides and played sport. I remember the big blue sunday school bus that picked us up at home, our parents would send us off with 4 cents for the tray and glad to see the back of us for so they had time alone. Captain Harris played the organ at the church and between songs he would clean the wax from his ears. I remember singing a Sunday school song about God loving us no matter what colour we were, we didn't go to sunday school for to many years but that one song instilled in me a life long value. We had fresh bread and milk delivered to the door, the toffee apple man and the ice cream van. At one stage there were a lot of dogs and stray cats, my dad and the guy next door gathered them altogether and the neighbours gave them money to take them to the pound, but they took them to Tempe and let them go, then went to the pub and spent the money, a few weeks later one of the cats made its way back to Miller. We moved back to the shire as a family of 6 when I was 13 and the thing I noticed when at a new school was a lot of kids parents were divorced (no much of that in the valley back then) and a lot of double barrelled surnames. I always feel I was privileged growing up in the valley with a street full of kids many who I still call friends.
you are a legend. Yes, regrettably upon reflection the entire caste of the brady bunch and happy days are all stealth trans. same as our politicians such as the whitlams and frasers and howards and hawkes and keatings, beastlys and rudds and all of them menzies, curtain. All have dodgy stealth trans names.
A railway corridor was reserved for several decades stretching from Merrylands through Smithfield/Fairfield west, Prairiewood, Bonnyrigg and then Green Valley. It never saw the light of day and unfortunately this had a negativite impact on Green Valley. Most of the reserved railway corridor is now a designated Bus transit link from Liverpool to Parramatta
I think this is a fair representation of what growing up in post-war social housing estates was like in the 60's & 70's in Western Sydney. Mt Druitt suffered a similar stigmatism to Green Valley and it typically reflects life and the problems associated with living in NSW Government Housing Commision estates that incorporated the Radburn Design principle. Many Housing Commission estates in Western Sydney were synonymous with many of the issues raised by the residents of Green Valley and for many of these estates the stigma lasts to this day. Lack of community facilities, especially for the youth was typical of many of these Government built estates for the time. One issue that many young kids who grew up in these estates faced years later after leaving school and applying for jobs in the workforce was employment discrimination by postcode, due to the negative press about these Radburn designed Housing Commission estates and the portrayal by the media of the type of people that lived there, who were often really only honest, hard working battlers who were pushed to the fringes of Sydney due to an accomodation shortage and lack of space for new development in the inner city areas during the post-war baby boom.
Totally agree! Green Valley was one generation before Mt Druitt, and Claymore was a generation after Mt Druitt. Unfortunately, history just keeps on repeating itself.
Thornleigh near Hornsby has housing commission i grew up in government housing when people asked we're i lived they would treat be like i had the plaque and friends i had from westligh once their parents found out i was from housing commission estate i never saw them again they had the impression that the estate was bad and people who lived there we're bad but it wasn't true
I grew up in Lurnea, not the Valley but not far away, I did spend most of my time around the valley as I had a lot of friends there in 1973 when this film was made I was in year 3 Lurnea High school I moved to the area in 1968 and left the area about1980 my mum and dad lived there until 2015 I loved living in the whole area, I still have some friends there that I visit from time to time its changed a lot now but I still like to go back from time to time to remember what it was like and the freinds I know back then. miss them all
Instead of sending families from studio apartments in Balmain to houses out in Green valley. The government should have built more 2 and 3 bedroom apartments in Balmain. But even to this day, that does not occur.
You never forget these neighbourhoods, there was Green valley and Dundas valley and they were considered rough suburbs and no go zones in the 70’s. I grew up in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney and closest we had was Maroubra which was considered rough for us but nothing like the reputation of the other two. Still it was a great time - 60s, 70s and 80s were brilliant, wouldn’t swap it for the world👍👌😀🤙
I could listen to that old Aussie accent all day. Mrs Twomey is a doll. Everybody's mum had those plastic rollers and a nylon head scarf. Or they permed each other's hair at home. Everybody's mum was Mrs so and so, or if your mum grew up with your friends mums, it would be aunty so and so. You'd be sent to the shops or servo for bread and milk, packet of Kool or Alpine for mum, or have to drag home a tin of kero for the heater or 2 stroke for the mower. People had histories together. Growing up in the outter south western suburbs definitely had stigma attached. Didn't know it until I went to university in the city. I had no problem with being a 'westie'. Other people not from there (or similar areas) did. I was 70's kid, 80's teen. Livo had an outdoor polished concrete roller rink near the old swimming pools. Endless fun. And there was an ice rink on Camden Valley Way near old Green's Mototcade which closed in the early 90's. I was born in Liverpool Hospital in '72. I still have extended family in Green Valley. I can't believe how Liverpool and areas are so changed now. I remember when Phoenix Plaza in Livo opened. It was my very first ride on an escalator. Old Coles in Liverpool had the best cafeteria and the chips and gravy were a cheap treat with my boyfriend. The speedway was always exciting. One thing that has erroded is the deep sense of community where everybody knew each other, or at least family names in the district. Just about everybody's mum was at home. Someone's mum would discipline you or break up squabbles amongst us kids. They'd also always find a frozen iceblock or vegemite sandwich or boiled frankfurt and sauce for every kid at whoever's house no matter how poor any of us were. One thing I remember is the heat in Summer. Playing in Apex and Bigge St Park. We used to go to Waltons in Liverpool. That was a fancy day out. You went in to Gard's if you bought appliances. Cars came from Peter Warren motors. Rough nut blokes all got tattooed at Duchy's. Yeah, I suppose you could say you can't take the west outta this girl. To think that in my grandparents time, Green Valley was pastoral dairy and farm land.
@@NFSAFilms Love listening to your stories. Myn similar. And lol my first tatto at 17 was done by Dutchy. I’m a Queenslander now but yes I am proud to have been a valley girl. At 58 I think it gave me gumption for my life’s journey that I might not have got growing up in lane cove!
My mum and dad grew up in Green Valley and Miller my aunty is still in the flat that I saw at the start of the video I realised at one point they were filming right out the back of my Pa's flat in the bush area walk through up to the houses up there. Anyway your story gave me goosebumps. Unfortunately my parents were heroin addicts in their mid teens so I lived with my foster nan on Webster Rd in Lurnea went to the pre school primary and a bit of High school there, some of the best & worst years of my life but in all honesty it was the safest I'd ever been so I'll always have a spot in my heart for good ol Livo. Thanks for sharing your memories it made me remember some of my own 😊
my family moved to Cartwright in 1966. I was fascinated by the people and places in the video. I still remember going to Ashcroft High School for musicals like Pajama Game and for presentation days.( I went to Miller High School) thanks for the memories
Just saw this for the first time. Ironically I moved to Cartwright in 66 and also and went to Miller High....even more ironic, I was in the cast of the Pyjama Game, but I think we performed that one at the GV community centre. had ball growing up!
I lived in Bonnyrigg and attend Green Valley PS for a short time in the mid 70s, I think I recall that there wasn't alot of buildings on the street. Loved the film, it is proof that some of the issues mentioned are still issues of today eg. party gate crashers (large numbers) etc.
This culture is very alive and true in western Sydney still. I have lives in mt Druitt for 29 years and the community spirit is strong. Particularly in Willmot. Great suburb.
I miss a lot about those times too, I was there. But let's not kid ourselves that there were universally great values or respect for everyone. That's a rose tinted view I suspect.
This is exactly what is happening now in the Greater Flagstone high density development area in Queensland! With State and Local Governments being run for profit these days, it is even worse - No services, no community facilities, no public transport. Who said history never repeats?
I hear you. It's weird that we've never had a proper public transport system. The authorities don't seem to care that every single amenity in southern Logan must be accessed by car. Nearest actual bus depot is Park Ridge. Don't get me started on how they've sold out that suburb either.
Went to Busby West public high school in the late 1990's before moving Southwest to Campbelltown. Played for Green Valley Cricket club at Edwin Wheeler Reserve from the under 11's and 12's. We were the best team along with Mt Pritchard and won the grand final in 2000 after losing it in 1999.
An interesting insight into ordinary Aussie working families. The NFSA is an organization that I greatly venerate. I do hope the government gives more finance to them for their immeasurably important work. I would like to suggest that the NFSA requests donations via PayPal or Patreon.
Great job you've done Mrs Dot Toomey!! I mean it, a drunk for a husband keeping the home going. What a Genealogical find this movie would be to the "Frank SCAMBRAY" and "Norma May MCKENZIE" Family
Albert Batfinder I married her son Ken, we show this to our grandchildren and they laugh when he is called “Kenny” of course he is just Ken these days lol.
My mum moved us from Minto to Bonnyrigg about 1981 .. went to St Johns Park and played footy with Canley Vale dragons . Interesting to see what it was like before my day ❤
I lived in Kyguna Street in Busby for a couple of months. I was 1yr old when i left. in 1966. My mums friends were Inga and Goonta Shnack. They were from Germany. They had 2 Sons Peter and Andrew. Our Neighbours were The Evans Family. I dont remember anymore. as i was only a Toddler. We moved to my Pops place in Oyster Bay.
I was a paperboy in the Heckenberg area for 3 years back in the late 60's and cannot recollect having any "deserted wives"' on my round. The only single people I knew were the pensioners living in the units near Heckenberg shops. The mix of people then was mainly Australian with a few English, and Irish immigrants. The Italians were mainly living in Bonnyrig and Edensor Park tending to their market gardens. Mt Prichard church had an Italian mass on Sundays where as Miller Catholic church didn't,
@Outlaw FTW yeah man, but the heroin wasn't really in Miller when I was there.. you could get a stick at the back of the shops eash enough tho😅 Cabramatta tho, that's a different story.
lived in Queensland since living Green Valley Some of this film is wrong It was a good place to live . There were no drunken people .Alcoholics there .If there was l didn't see any Deserted wifes .All my friends had fathers Green Valley was a good place to live in 1962 to 1974 when we lived there.
All battlers but we all helped one another,great neighbours,Ashcroft School I still say today was the best.I was unhappy but grateful for having a roof over us in 70s
Saxon Greene Unfortunately his two kids had died very young and also did one of the boys playing with them. I was the girl next door coming by to walk to school with them. I forgot all about that film.
Born & raised in Busby, bought a house in Sadleir just last year, definitely a changing area but its improving especially with all the old houses getting either replaced or renovated & with the 2nd airport only a stone's throw away I'm sure the area with improve even further.
I grew up there, I actually knew the Whittles as I was mates with a kid who lived 3 doors away and a couple of others who lived in the houses at the top of the street. Brings back lots of memories, some great, some not so great. Thanks for putting this one on RUclips.
+well1958 ok, small world for sure isnt it? Glenn now lives in far north Qld and so does our younger brother John. Our parents moved out of that house about 25 years ago. We are still friends with the Appleby's from #9. Glenn is the only one who really keeps in touch from school day friends from the area and attends Hoxton Park High School Reunions. what is your name and I will remind Glenn to see if he remembers you?
This is very typical of the Aussie attitude back then and now ..... Some people realise that being on the sidelines making comments is not the way to bring about change . Change comes from within any group ! Some Aussies back then realised it . They are the trailblazers for our future leaders ! I know cause I was a community trailblazer and I raised a baby girl to become today's labor candidate for the seat of Lindsay !
Green Valley Pub, little bit different now. All that bush along Hoxton Park Rd....now Industrial :'( Who remembers Vic (Animal) Whitehouse? Or the Liverpool Sharpies....fun days :)
Why don't the Valley Council get The developers to make it into a beautiful looking suburb with landscaping or possibly the garden show could do up the gardens and have the garden show in Green Valley this year
+ylilycam . No that be a pocket transistor radio (as they were called). It's volume wasn't very loud, and headphones were too big and expensive, so you had to jam the thing against one ear to hear it.
I lived and worked in Liverpool in the 60s and I've been a filmmaker since then but now live and work in Brisbane. Spent a lot of time in Green Valley with work. I wonder if someone can answer the question? Whatever happened to Green Valley. Great doco.
Redgumtv the area was broken up into different suburbs, Ashcroft, Busby, Heckenberg, Miller, Sadleir....Years later Green Valley was added again and Hinchinbrook Some suburbs are low economic areas with others up and coming areas, its like most suburbs now. Liverpool is the closest city to the area we have good infrastructure and a person in the local council who looks after this area alone @ Debi Taylor it is Ashcroft High school. They played this video for 30 year anniversary earlier this year with some of the people who where in this video
its got trees now some old houses that were new at the time have been demolished to make way for privately owned town houses other then that not alot has changed still not much for kids to do .. they did attempt to have a pcyc club there but i dont think it has done to well as far as getting the kids in the area involved in general the area still struggles many of the old housdes have been sold off by the dept housing and the area has it mash up of people .. i guess the stigma of doge city will never change its still got its share of good and bad ..i was glad to move away from ashcroft flats when i was there and swore never to return to that part of the country again i still live within the liverpool municipality though
At 11:25 there is a park with swings with a double storey building in the background. Now go to Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan's "Especially for you " at 1:40. That looks like the same park with the double storey building in the background.
Mate, Gold Medal in location spotting. It’s an obsession of mine, too. Sometimes to the annoyance of others I’ll be watching an ad and say “that tree is in Balmain” or some such thing. Do you have any insight as to how you linked these two? I am guessing you lived near that park for many years and it leapt out at you when you first saw it in the Kylie video. Either that or you’ve been a location scout since Peter Weir was an apprentice.
+Jason Carpp Nothing staged. If they wanted to show bad they could of. They just showed it as it was as a community. Mission accomplished. as comment below.
I think Jason was referring to the skit they did at the beginning that was taking the piss out of mainstream media. So yeah, some of it of course was staged.
Lol i was born at this time but in Adelaide south Australia while theses people where do what thay were doing in Sydney NSW life goes on in every state in Australia but vety differently wow interesting but watching this thay all seemed fine doing what thay did in the day in Sydney love Sydney!!😁
GREEN VALLEY IS LIKE LOT OF HOUSING COMMISSION AS GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRALIA DO NOT THINK ABOUT FURTHER GROWING IN AREA ABOUT FAMILY LIFE PUT INTO AREA OR PLACE FROM START ALL BUILD HOUSE AND FLAT GIVE ALL BACK TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
interesting to see the same social issues back then as what exist today in community housing so all those years and australia didnt learn a god damned thing on how to improve suburbs and safety in community housing, also funny to see ye police all these years later still have no control over bikies their still actively a community threat so my question is what has actually changed
Is this a satirical film?! The portrayal of each minority group, esp the wives lined up in a line with shopping trolleys ... amongst a host of other stuff are all staged. 8 mins in and im not really ‘getting’ this film. My husband’s Italian family has been there for generations. His grandma owned a farm which got subdivided into the new parts of GV. They bought that farm land for next to nothing in the old days. Her brother at that time could’ve bought the same thing but instead opt to buy some fancy Ford/Holden. GV did not die. Infact we recently sold in the area so to hear it being mentioned as Vally of despair, Black Valley etc with all the sound effects really make me think this Weir guy is mocking the whole community?
Hi Eva The introduction segment of the film is intended as a send up of the prevailing media portrayals of Green Valley. The rest of the film is then made up of films actually made by locals themselves and who all come together for a screening and discussion afterwards. The turning over of the means of film production to the "subjects" was quite revolutionary for the time. And is meant as an attempt to get at the truth of Green Valley as the residents see it.
Wasn't Peter Weir a world-class tool then? I mean...revolutionary film maker. Handed out cameras to real people to make films about their lives. And then the finished product seems to involve half an hour of him on screen talking.
So, what's your point +88warms ? (apart from you wildly exaggerating saying that Peter Weir was on screen talking for 30 minutes, when it was more like just under 2 minutes!) To give it context, it was one of Peter Weir's first attempts at filmmaking (before the critically acclaimed Picnic at HangingRock), and look how far he's come. What have *you* done with your life? Besides, getting those represented involved in telling their own story makes it all the more authentic.
All around the world the ''Dregburbs'' have over time morphed into ''Inner'' city hot spots. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think a 3x1 90 sqM weatherboard dump become worth $1M plus.
An interesting film that not only showcases the attitudes of Green Valley at the time, but the overall social attitudes, for example the term "deserted wife". As a young bloke in the 80s I remember coming into the Valley for the Liverpool Speedway (now Valley Plaza). We moved into Bonnyrigg Heights in 1989 and we constantly in the Valley, I even attended then then Busby High. At that time it was still know as "Dodge City", and my HSC year in 1990 was the most HSC students that Busby High had seen in years. Our class made both the Liverpool Leader and SMH. I stayed in the area till 2006, living in Heckenberg, Ashcroft and Hinchinbrook. My brother still lives in Green Valley and as such I'm still a regular visitor. In all this time I've seen so much of Green Valley change through gentrification, and yet other parts where little has changed with the same fibro homes (many now with air conditioning), and old Holden or Ford in the front, and kids riding their bikes around the streets. However I've also seen how many of the kids in this film are adults, and have been able to gain a good education and good jobs, and have more hope for the future than seemed to exist at the time of this film.
+arokh72 Hi, thanks for letting us know about your experiences in the area and how they relate to those portrayed in this film. We appreciate the feedback.
im loving the reference to deserted wives haha the few they showed kicked the men out as drunkards thats hardly deserted they chose to leave the useless man, because they knew they could provide better even alone.....
I was born in 1973 and we moved to Green Valley when I was 7. Our mother kicked our drunk father out after he was blacked out drunk on the lounge while she was at work as a nurse and my siblings and I went for a walk (ages 5,7 and 9). She turned up at home and we were gone and he didn't know where we were. She and the police turned up to the nursery (used to be Flower Power when we were little and it's still a nursery now). We were having fun on the swing set after wandering around for hours. It scares me now thinking about what could have happened to us if a weirdo was around. Our mother wasn't 'deserted' either, he was a low life user who turned up when I had my own baby and expected a kidney transplant from one of us. He didn't get it and he didn't get it (a kidney).
Forget about Peter Weir....The other famous name I just read in the credits is cinematographer Don McAlpine who went on to shoot My Brilliant Career and Moulin Rouge and many other huge films!
1973, seven years after, on October 1980,my pregnant wife and i arrived as migrants from Argentina and stayed for a fewr days at Villawood Hostell before moving to a flat on Mac Bourney Rd, Cabramatta Australia and Cabramatta still looked and felt like this film. We looked and were looked at with whide open eyes, strangers amongs strangers, both, Aussies and us, ignoring all about each other. Somehow innocent in our youth.years. This film gives me nostalgia of all that. How much has been lost of thst Australia in thongs, so to say. Fifty years is half a century, and it shows. Forty three years is a long time and we are other.
Lived in Busby 1981-85, next door we had a family from Chile, The Amamda's (i might have the spelling wrong?)I use to help the son fix cars now and then, the daughter would come over to see my sisters, Her and her mother were named Maria, beautiful girl, i sort of knew the guy she married, hope he turned out better then he was then...
I sat next to Steven Jurd in class and I remember when he brought the camera into school. I didn't get to see this film until recently. We moved to QLD at the start of the 1974. The film showed what the Valley was really like rather than showing nothing but people living on the fringes. Shows like Struggle St are an example of what I'm talking about. I temporarily returned to the area as a teacher back in 2007 and saw a lot of changes in demographics and saw that many homes had been extensively renovated. While viewing the film, it was good to see the faces of people who made a difference to the area such as Captain Harris and Phillip Langley (scout master). My father passed away three years ago so it's worth mentioning that in partnership with the Catholic church, he and Mr Spud Murphy (not sure of his real first name) started a youth group for kids in late primary school. Some may remember the psychedelic double decker bus that would go around the neighbourhood on Friday nights to pick the kids up for a night of fun. Then there were the occasional outings to beaches etc on weekends. Thanks Peter Weir for the making of the film and thanks to Steven plus the other film makers. As for the many unsung heroes who made a difference to the young people of Green Valley, I salute you. Many of those young people have reached great heights. Graham Walters Former Green Valleyite
I grew up in Miller and went to Sadleir Primary school and Ashcroft High school which was the High school chosen for this film. I am 51 years of age. I loved it. Miller was still known as Dodge City back then. Liverpool was an exciting place to be when I was a kid. There is a very quick glimpse of my Nan and Grandad's old house on North Liverpool Rd just at the start. This documentary has brought back some very fond memories. Well done.
Hi, Moving to Green Valley in 1964 I grew up in Heckenberg going to Heckenberg Primary and then on to Busby High. I found growing up in Green Valley was absolutely fine. Yes our house was relatively small with four kids however we had a large back yard. As did our neighbours which gave us the opportunity to play for hours outdoors unlike a huge percentage of kids today in many sort after suburbs. We had parks (top of Heckenberg Avenue) where we would ride our home made billy carts down the hill only to rag them back up to the top and do it all over again (made from timber fruit boxes a bit of scrap timber and some lawn mower wheels), Miller pool, bus service to liverpool and there was always Liverpool Speedway on a Friday or Saturday night. I don't think I ever thought I was going without anything. We did not have very much money but we had family, friends and great neighbours who all looked out for each other. I left Busby High in year 10 and have not looked back. My husband who was raised in Mt Druitt feels the same about where he was raised and we have never been embarrassed to say where we were from no matter the company we were in. We now have three beautiful homes one of which is on the water and two Bentley cars parked in the garage. I guess growing up in "The Valley" and "The Druitt" did us no harm what so ever. In saying this I recently drove through my old neighbourhood and was saddened to see how shabby some streets have become. I think there was more pride displayed back in the day when the knockers were rife. Kim & Robert James Formerly Kim McKechnie.
Moved to Busby in 1981, went to Busby HS, rough school then, but i loved it all, wish we lived in a normal house instead of two story town house, on orchard rd, it's still there, barely changed.
Yep same too for me. I guess it could be looked at as a rough place but it gave me the gumption I needed for the rest of my life. What I can remember was all the mums stayed home and we always called them auntie Faye ect, it was a sense of community. I lived one door from Heckenberg school back gate. I rode horses and push bike and scateboards and was never bored.
You really need three homes ,and two Bentleys nowdays , I wish you good luck ,and hope your homes were inspected by proper civil servants , not a privatised cowboy, whom stamps anything ,Final Pass,to ensure next job for developers/Builders. I feel for the poor people (not $ wise poor, although now probably are now having to pay two mortgages or rent with one unlivable mortgaged ) whom were ripped off like in Mascot & the Cooks river , as developers used private building inspectors , whom strangely have No responsibility to basic work fitting the Codes, & fly by night developers, whom just change names ,the thousands of flats/units , with no parking proposed in Sydenham, Tempe , Marrickville ,Darlinghurst knocking down of or gutting first Holden car factory ,in Sydney ,the old Reschs brewery, yes redevelopment is needed ,yet when developers buy houses either side let them fall to pieces so badly that even squatters won't go there , its difficult without bans in the 80's Victoria St & Darlinghurst Rd , would all be 50 yr old tower blocks ready to be imploded again , Paddington etc would not have its beautiful original Terraces , there will be congestion tax to go into the city, this years Vivid was dangerous public transport reminded me of ,Tokyo or New York underground , theres a proposal to build on Rushcutters Bay oval ,& when modern units are empty year round for pure speculation , its wrong ,rent or give to Salvos , Vinnies, Wesley Mission etc, to rent , they wont lose tax write off , an get it back refurbished, city homeless was worst i've seen this year '24, Sydney rent is same price as New York , Crazy returns for places that would be condemned if unoccupied ,and public transport infrastructure is going to be needed if ,no parking places are allowed ,
There is a common sense and awareness of the working class people as shown in this film which still gives me hope.I would trust the instinctive caring nature of any one of them. Notice they were all concerned for the future of their children & despite their difficulties were trying to make a go of it. This is valuable & instructive archival footage & I'm glad I stumbled onto it.
ThiS is a great Film...saw a lot of Old Faces....I am proud to say I am one of 6 children ...we. Moved into the Valley in 1962...n my parents left in 1985.......I had a Wonderful childhood n Still have Many Schoolfriends on Facebook who meet regularly ....All different ages male n Female.....We are will always be Mates cos we Shared Cared Lived Breathed Loved The Valley.......N We All turned out Well Bred citizens of Australia....Rally Valley ...United Forever xxxx
Green Valley is now Known as. 1.Ashcroft. 2. Sadlier. 3. Miller. 4. Mt. Pritchard. 5. Cartwright. 6. Green Valley. 7.Busby 8. Heckenberg Lived in Miller, Cartwright, Sadlier and Heckenberg from Mid November 1999 until beginning of July 2013. ( Housing Commission Flats and Town houses) My Son attended Heckenberg Primary School from 2006 until 2012 Son attended James Busby High in 2013. Full of Substance Abuse and Crime. Moved into the area due to getting married at 23, Left the area at 37 a widow ( husband over dosed due to Substance Abuse) Had to move out - husband was housing commission Tenant) Worst 14 years of my life. Met a new partner, had another Child Now living far far away from Sydney. . Best thing I did was leaving the Green Valley, that was never really Green.
Strange lived in Busby in 1981-85, i really liked the place, going to busby HS was rough, beaten up several times a day for 3 and a half years (Being a ''Christian'' i had to turn the other cheek, then i was told i could defend myself, i lost my sh!t, after a week no-one would look at me, most of the girls wanted to get friendly). I've lived in many places (went to 31 schools before Busby HS ) many places in Sydney, Dee why, Manly, curl curl, Redfern, petersham, Lewisham etc i used to basically lived at the beach; i've lived in Wollongong, Newcastle; lived in a few places in Vic; 4 in Taz (Miss Taz alot) and several in QLD (Darling downs area now; Liverpool, i thought was really nice in many ways, i thought it was quiet green, still have strong memories of golden sunsets and green trees, perfect blue sky, puffy white clouds spread across the blue, rain for several days at a time (Which i love too)...shrugs. Mom was a window, dad died in the vietnam war (3 months before his tour was up), it took ten years before she got the pension; All she wanted was a Husband, kids and a small house and enough money to not struggle from week to week, well she had a Husband for a few years and and 4 kids... I don't really understand Substance Abuse and Crime, i know some people use Substance Abuse to cope with really bad experiences; Some times some of us need to get drunk (mostly if i have it's been by myself, and just go to bed, i don't drink i've ever started anything while being off my tits, but i will finished or try). Sorry for your loss (?) and hard (horrible) times; i wish you and your family ALL the best.
This has made me so homesick, seeing Ashcroft High, Capt.Harris and Mr.Harris there by his side, oh I miss you both so very much, everything you had done for the community, and for so very long before I had ever met you. Ashcroft High was hard to get on at first as I wasn't born there and didn't have very good English, but I did make friends, and friends that I still talk to now. The teachers were amazing and to see the way the kids talked about Ashcroft High, I can only say I totally agree with them, the teacher's went all out to help the kids, even the one's that didn't wanna be helped. Liverpool as a city was much bigger when I was there so there was lots to do but the 'Green Valley Young Peoples Choir' was it for me, and my parents supported me and my sister in everything we did, so that was like a bonus for them to find such a friendly welcoming atmosphere at the choir. We would sing at the most prestigious events and go on tours singing all around Australia, all this through the efforts of the local community. In summary I really enjoyed growing up in Ashcroft and this video showed me just why.
I had fun in Green Valley growing up. However, I had my eyes on Hollywood back in 1973 . 6 years later I left and now work in Hollywood films as a storyboard artist and an Adventure cartoonist. Being there made me come to Los Angeles. It's good to have dreams.
Great story, thanks for sharing. Maybe you bump into the director of this film over there occasionally?
@@NFSAFilms Yes. I've met Peter Weir a few times. We never spoke about the Green Valley film.
@@artdingo Interesting. Peter made a few films for the government film units in his early days.
wow that is amazing rags to riches so to speak. I grew up in Heckenberg
Congratulations on the teacher and the cartoon artist that went to Hollywood from Green Valley well done obviously they need heavy representation in the Liverpool Council to get things done they're all paying rates through their rental their council you whether they own or rent so they need better representation at Liverpool council
I was born in Heckenberg and left as a teenager with my family to Fairfield west. It was a bit rough but it gave me the gumption of who I am today. We weren’t bored as kids because all my friends had horses and that’s what we did. If you didn’t have a horse you got on behind your friend. I had a push bike and a state board. We had a pool which made my back yard popular in the summer. Never was I bored. I’m proud to say I was a valley girl. This film was such a blast. And I saw my childhood Doctor Taylor speaking his British accent holing his much treasured pipe towards the end. Glad to have seen this today ,made me smile.
Now those properties are worth well over the million dollar mark.
🙂
This not only gave me a giggle, but also made me think. I grew up in housing and am back in it. I look around and think, it is not the suburb, it is not the housing authority. It is the people who make or break a suburb. Gardens are easy to make and grow, saplings can be planted in yards to bring the greenery in. You look further afield for work if need be, and be willing to travel. The people are no different from any other. Parents today even still need educating when their children are struggling, to help solve why their children are misbehaving, failing to learn, lack manners and respect etc
Some people just don't know how to parent as their parents were no well versed in parenting. This is where the focus should be, educate the parents so the parents can educate their children and break the cycle
OMG, What a great film. I lived next door to Stephen Jurd in the flats there on Sutton Road. You did us proud Steve smile emoticon , and like Linda it was wonderful to see old familiar faces of long lost friends and neighbours. Doreen and Kevin and Michael, Gordon Tolman and others. Just wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
Cheers Karen Alsop (nee Denham)
Karen Alsop Hi Karen
Thanks for letting us know. Glad it brought back some memories for you.
Sad..
The film is an exaggeration of life in Green Valley. My mother is 86, has lived there all her life, and still lives there. The longest resident in Orchard Road. The council decided to use my grandfather's land for the purpose of this Green Valley Housing experiment. As a child from hard working Italian immigrants, myself and my family were often taunted, bullied and our house sprayed with eggs and other nasty things by the new comers from this housing experiment. We were there first. we worked hard on the land, to make ends meet, but when people from the housing experiment needed a vegetable, or fruit, they knew where to come and they were never knocked back. Some memories are great, others are Not!
My mothers family suffered the same prejudice in the 70s when they moved to Revesby from Sicily.
Sorry to hear that your memories from those days weren't always positive.I do recall our behaviour toward immigrants wasn't always respectful.
I did grow up nearby and did have some Italian classmates:Frank Mammoleti,(excuse spelling) I still recall his Mum complimenting on my goalkeeping when she gave us a lift home from a match.Edo Gollotta,Luigi Costa and my Ashcroft soccer coach Albert Lazzarini and his lovely family.
I had just seen my beautiful grandma in at 4:14 with a dress and cardigan on 🥺🥰
Oh that's so cool .. I stopped at 4:14 to see ..what beautiful clip to have of her ..many wish they had the same 😌happy for you and your family to have such footage..regardless the duration what a gift 👌🏼
An uncle and aunt of mine and 4 cousins lived in Green Valley. Over the years of my teens and early twenties when I visited them Green Valley wasn't particularly different than other suburbs. It was clean, quiet and no particular problems that I saw. My relatives were happy there. My uncle worked full time and my aunt was a stay at home mum.
Moved into Heckenberg in 1965 when I was 18 months old. Mum and Dad were able to buy from the Housing Commission but some neighbours rented. Family long passed on and now I'm in Liverpool. So haven't really moved too far!
Hi Peter,did you have a brother called Craig?If so I have a photo of the school soccer team Heckenberg with Craig in it.
@@Skip-sy2th yes. Sorry for late response.
What a fantastic film. Brought back so many memories. Very nostalgic. I grew up in Mt Druitt between 72-78 and it was very much the same.
Wow this brings back fond memories of growing up in Bankstown. I grew up in a Housing Commission house in Panania. Same houses, Streets and people. Memories!
Lol. I grew up in Revesby. Such a mix of housing. We had a red brick house and next door was a brown brick public housing.
amazing reflection of the period and the place.
Awesome. Brought back heaps of memories, good and bad. I lived there from age 5 to about 20. 1964 - 1980. When I started working I worked at Ashfield and people turned their noses up when you said you came from the Valley (or Dodge City).
How cool, loved watching this, I call myself a shire girl but some of my heart is from "the valley" There was 5 in our family and we lived in a 1 bedroom house in Kurnell before moving to Miller in 1964, it wasn't that everyone was poor but also a bad housing shortage in Sydney. My parents wanted to leave the valley straight away but we stayed 11 years and loved every bit of it, never found it boring and had quite a bit of freedom to go into Liverpool, shopping, the pool and movies, we were able to travel into town from about 10 years old, big treat going to the Easter show by ourselves. We had bikes, motor bikes and speedway close by. We went to girl guides and played sport. I remember the big blue sunday school bus that picked us up at home, our parents would send us off with 4 cents for the tray and glad to see the back of us for so they had time alone. Captain Harris played the organ at the church and between songs he would clean the wax from his ears. I remember singing a Sunday school song about God loving us no matter what colour we were, we didn't go to sunday school for to many years but that one song instilled in me a life long value. We had fresh bread and milk delivered to the door, the toffee apple man and the ice cream van. At one stage there were a lot of dogs and stray cats, my dad and the guy next door gathered them altogether and the neighbours gave them money to take them to the pound, but they took them to Tempe and let them go, then went to the pub and spent the money, a few weeks later one of the cats made its way back to Miller. We moved back to the shire as a family of 6 when I was 13 and the thing I noticed when at a new school was a lot of kids parents were divorced (no much of that in the valley back then) and a lot of double barrelled surnames. I always feel I was privileged growing up in the valley with a street full of kids many who I still call friends.
Great, thanks for sharing your memories with us. Glad the film helped bring some of those back.
you are a legend. Yes, regrettably upon reflection the entire caste of the brady bunch and happy days are all stealth trans. same as our politicians such as the whitlams and frasers and howards and hawkes and keatings, beastlys and rudds and all of them menzies, curtain. All have dodgy stealth trans names.
A railway corridor was reserved for several decades stretching from Merrylands through Smithfield/Fairfield west, Prairiewood, Bonnyrigg and then Green Valley. It never saw the light of day and unfortunately this had a negativite impact on Green Valley. Most of the reserved railway corridor is now a designated Bus transit link from Liverpool to Parramatta
I think this is a fair representation of what growing up in post-war social housing estates was like in the 60's & 70's in Western Sydney.
Mt Druitt suffered a similar stigmatism to Green Valley and it typically reflects life and the problems associated with living in NSW Government Housing Commision estates that incorporated the Radburn Design principle.
Many Housing Commission estates in Western Sydney were synonymous with many of the issues raised by the residents of Green Valley and for many of these estates the stigma lasts to this day.
Lack of community facilities, especially for the youth was typical of many of these Government built estates for the time.
One issue that many young kids who grew up in these estates faced years later after leaving school and applying for jobs in the workforce was employment discrimination by postcode, due to the negative press about these Radburn designed Housing Commission estates and the portrayal by the media of the type of people that lived there, who were often really only honest, hard working battlers who were pushed to the fringes of Sydney due to an accomodation shortage and lack of space for new development in the inner city areas during the post-war baby boom.
Totally agree! Green Valley was one generation before Mt Druitt, and Claymore was a generation after Mt Druitt. Unfortunately, history just keeps on repeating itself.
Thornleigh near Hornsby has housing commission
i grew up in government housing when people asked we're i lived
they would treat be like i had the plaque and friends i had from westligh
once their parents found out i was from housing commission estate i never saw them again
they had the impression that the estate was bad and people who lived there we're bad but it wasn't true
I grew up in Lurnea, not the Valley but not far away, I did spend most of my time around the valley as I had a lot of friends there in 1973 when this film was made I was in year 3 Lurnea High school I moved to the area in 1968 and left the area about1980 my mum and dad lived there until 2015 I loved living in the whole area, I still have some friends there that I visit from time to time its changed a lot now but I still like to go back from time to time to remember what it was like and the freinds I know back then. miss them all
Thanks for sharing your memories.
SkipFilm
SkipFilmProductio
Instead of sending families from studio apartments in Balmain to houses out in Green valley. The government should have built more 2 and 3 bedroom apartments in Balmain. But even to this day, that does not occur.
You never forget these neighbourhoods, there was Green valley and Dundas valley and they were considered rough suburbs and no go zones in the 70’s. I grew up in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney and closest we had was Maroubra which was considered rough for us but nothing like the reputation of the other two. Still it was a great time - 60s, 70s and 80s were brilliant, wouldn’t swap it for the world👍👌😀🤙
I could listen to that old Aussie accent all day. Mrs Twomey is a doll. Everybody's mum had those plastic rollers and a nylon head scarf. Or they permed each other's hair at home. Everybody's mum was Mrs so and so, or if your mum grew up with your friends mums, it would be aunty so and so. You'd be sent to the shops or servo for bread and milk, packet of Kool or Alpine for mum, or have to drag home a tin of kero for the heater or 2 stroke for the mower. People had histories together. Growing up in the outter south western suburbs definitely had stigma attached. Didn't know it until I went to university in the city. I had no problem with being a 'westie'. Other people not from there (or similar areas) did.
I was 70's kid, 80's teen. Livo had an outdoor polished concrete roller rink near the old swimming pools. Endless fun. And there was an ice rink on Camden Valley Way near old Green's Mototcade which closed in the early 90's. I was born in Liverpool Hospital in '72. I still have extended family in Green Valley. I can't believe how Liverpool and areas are so changed now. I remember when Phoenix Plaza in Livo opened. It was my very first ride on an escalator. Old Coles in Liverpool had the best cafeteria and the chips and gravy were a cheap treat with my boyfriend. The speedway was always exciting.
One thing that has erroded is the deep sense of community where everybody knew each other, or at least family names in the district. Just about everybody's mum was at home. Someone's mum would discipline you or break up squabbles amongst us kids. They'd also always find a frozen iceblock or vegemite sandwich or boiled frankfurt and sauce for every kid at whoever's house no matter how poor any of us were. One thing I remember is the heat in Summer. Playing in Apex and Bigge St Park. We used to go to Waltons in Liverpool. That was a fancy day out. You went in to Gard's if you bought appliances. Cars came from Peter Warren motors. Rough nut blokes all got tattooed at Duchy's. Yeah, I suppose you could say you can't take the west outta this girl. To think that in my grandparents time, Green Valley was pastoral dairy and farm land.
Great memories. Thanks for sharing.
That was an interesting read of times gone by. Thanks
@@NFSAFilms Love listening to your stories. Myn similar. And lol my first tatto at 17 was done by Dutchy. I’m a Queenslander now but yes I am proud to have been a valley girl. At 58 I think it gave me gumption for my life’s journey that I might not have got growing up in lane cove!
My mum and dad grew up in Green Valley and Miller my aunty is still in the flat that I saw at the start of the video I realised at one point they were filming right out the back of my Pa's flat in the bush area walk through up to the houses up there. Anyway your story gave me goosebumps. Unfortunately my parents were heroin addicts in their mid teens so I lived with my foster nan on Webster Rd in Lurnea went to the pre school primary and a bit of High school there, some of the best & worst years of my life but in all honesty it was the safest I'd ever been so I'll always have a spot in my heart for good ol Livo. Thanks for sharing your memories it made me remember some of my own 😊
Waltons and Duchy's omg now you really sending back 😊
my family moved to Cartwright in 1966. I was fascinated by the people and places in the video. I still remember going to Ashcroft High School for musicals like Pajama Game and for presentation days.( I went to Miller High School) thanks for the memories
Glad the film brought back a few things for you. Thanks for letting us know.
Just saw this for the first time. Ironically I moved to Cartwright in 66 and also and went to Miller High....even more ironic, I was in the cast of the Pyjama Game, but I think we performed that one at the GV community centre. had ball growing up!
Was there much later, 81, went to Busby HS...
I lived in Bonnyrigg and attend Green Valley PS for a short time in the mid 70s, I think I recall that there wasn't alot of buildings on the street. Loved the film, it is proof that some of the issues mentioned are still issues of today eg. party gate crashers (large numbers) etc.
Pity Aussie changed .great values and respect for your neighbour .good ol days
This culture is very alive and true in western Sydney still. I have lives in mt Druitt for 29 years and the community spirit is strong. Particularly in Willmot. Great suburb.
yeah things have changed
I miss a lot about those times too, I was there. But let's not kid ourselves that there were universally great values or respect for everyone. That's a rose tinted view I suspect.
This is exactly what is happening now in the Greater Flagstone high density development area in Queensland! With State and Local Governments being run for profit these days, it is even worse - No services, no community facilities, no public transport. Who said history never repeats?
I hear you. It's weird that we've never had a proper public transport system. The authorities don't seem to care that every single amenity in southern Logan must be accessed by car. Nearest actual bus depot is Park Ridge. Don't get me started on how they've sold out that suburb either.
Funny, i lived in Liverpool (Busby), 1986 i was in QLD, l lived in woodridge for a few years, was concreting, i'm now in the darling downs...
born and bred in the valley, miller high senior rn
68 on toppp
Went to Busby West public high school in the late 1990's before moving Southwest to Campbelltown. Played for Green Valley Cricket club at Edwin Wheeler Reserve from the under 11's and 12's. We were the best team along with Mt Pritchard and won the grand final in 2000 after losing it in 1999.
Went to (James) Busby HS, 1981-85, lived on Orchard Rd...
Grew up in Mount Pritchard in the 80s. I live in Liverpool. Went to Bonnyrigg and Ashcroft High in the 90s. This is a awesome documentary.
An interesting insight into ordinary Aussie working families. The NFSA is an organization that I greatly venerate. I do hope the government gives more finance to them for their immeasurably important work.
I would like to suggest that the NFSA requests donations via PayPal or Patreon.
Thanks for the kind comments Ian. There is a donation facility on our web page www.everydayhero.com.au/event/NFSA-Support-us
Great job you've done Mrs Dot Toomey!! I mean it, a drunk for a husband keeping the home going.
What a Genealogical find this movie would be to the "Frank SCAMBRAY" and "Norma May MCKENZIE" Family
Dot Twomey, what a gem. Hope your kids did you proud.
Albert Batfinder I married her son Ken, we show this to our grandchildren and they laugh when he is called “Kenny” of course he is just Ken these days lol.
Hope they call him Grandpa Kenny, just to annoy him! Cheers, Karen.
Albert Batfinder lol, the eldest grandson was laughing so hard and calling him Kenny for a few days.
My mum moved us from Minto to Bonnyrigg about 1981 .. went to St Johns Park and played footy with Canley Vale dragons . Interesting to see what it was like before my day ❤
I lived in Kyguna Street in Busby for a couple of months. I was 1yr old when i left. in 1966. My mums friends were Inga and Goonta Shnack. They were from Germany. They had 2 Sons Peter and Andrew. Our Neighbours were The Evans Family. I dont remember anymore. as i was only a Toddler. We moved to my Pops place in Oyster Bay.
I was a paperboy in the Heckenberg area for 3 years back in the late 60's and cannot recollect having any "deserted wives"' on my round. The only single people I knew were the pensioners living in the units near Heckenberg shops. The mix of people then was mainly Australian with a few English, and Irish immigrants. The Italians were mainly living in Bonnyrig and Edensor Park tending to their market gardens. Mt Prichard church had an Italian mass on Sundays where as Miller Catholic church didn't,
Thanks for sharing your memories.
Lived in Busby in18-85, i thought it started in 75-85, single moms (to give then kids a better life, moving them from high density city areas)?
I grew up in miller late 80s and 90s.. Cabramatta Ave. Good memories
@Outlaw FTW yeah man, but the heroin wasn't really in Miller when I was there.. you could get a stick at the back of the shops eash enough tho😅 Cabramatta tho, that's a different story.
Same lived opposite the pools then left it was too far.lol
Was in Busby 1981-85.
Omg I lived across from Ashcroft high , went to Ashcroft public school . Live in Adelaide now and the birds sound the same during the day at times lol
Sandra Borg j
@@jpenn58 what's j
Never knew Peter Weir was so funny!!!! (referring to the first B/W short film) I'd say Green Valley in 2019 is more like this doco today!
I grew up in Villawood Government Housing in the 60s and made friends from Green Valley aka Dodge City.
Likewise..
During 80's then Cabra..
lived in Queensland since living Green Valley
Some of this film is wrong
It was a good place to live .
There were no drunken people .Alcoholics there .If there was l didn't see any
Deserted wifes .All my friends had fathers
Green Valley was a good place to live
in 1962 to 1974 when we lived there.
thats right just like anywhere
All battlers but we all helped one another,great neighbours,Ashcroft School I still say today was the best.I was unhappy but grateful for having a roof over us in 70s
Ron's kids riding their Deckson Minibike - Aussie!
Saxon Greene Unfortunately his two kids had died very young and also did one of the boys playing with them. I was the girl next door coming by to walk to school with them. I forgot all about that film.
+My Portable Business I remember Michael passing, it was awful.
My Portable Business That's terrible news...I'm very sorry to hear that.
It seemed ok back then that mother with her husband as a drunken guy did a great job holding her little family together good on her !!
13:10 wow liverpool station
Born & raised in Busby, bought a house in Sadleir just last year, definitely a changing area but its improving especially with all the old houses getting either replaced or renovated & with the 2nd airport only a stone's throw away I'm sure the area with improve even further.
MAKE NEW FLIM SHOWING GREEN VALLEY IN 2019 AND LAST 46 YEARS OF SAME PLACE
Typical house price in green valley now is 712K.
In the actual suburb of Green Valley it's more than that...
Where i was rent was about $60/wk...
I grew up there, I actually knew the Whittles as I was mates with a kid who lived 3 doors away and a couple of others who lived in the houses at the top of the street. Brings back lots of memories, some great, some not so great. Thanks for putting this one on RUclips.
well1958 Thanks for letting us know your memories. Glad you enjoyed the film.
You're welcome. Thanks again, that movie brings a tear to my eye.
well1958 really?? I was one of the Kohler's in #8 next to the whittles
Ahh, I knew Glenn pretty well, had a fight with him once, he kicked my arse. lol I was good mates with Wesley White and the McGovern boys at the time.
+well1958 ok, small world for sure isnt it? Glenn now lives in far north Qld and so does our younger brother John. Our parents moved out of that house about 25 years ago. We are still friends with the Appleby's from #9. Glenn is the only one who really keeps in touch from school day friends from the area and attends Hoxton Park High School Reunions. what is your name and I will remind Glenn to see if he remembers you?
This is very typical of the Aussie attitude back then and now ..... Some people realise that being on the sidelines making comments is not the way to bring about change . Change comes from within any group ! Some Aussies back then realised it . They are the trailblazers for our future leaders ! I know cause I was a community trailblazer and I raised a baby girl to become today's labor candidate for the seat of Lindsay !
OMG! you mean.... action? stuff that.
Green Valley Pub, little bit different now. All that bush along Hoxton Park Rd....now Industrial :'(
Who remembers Vic (Animal) Whitehouse? Or the Liverpool Sharpies....fun days :)
Why don't the Valley Council get The developers to make it into a beautiful looking suburb with landscaping or possibly the garden show could do up the gardens and have the garden show in Green Valley this year
Who else remembers Captain Harris, and his Green Valley Young Peoples Chior. My sisters and I joined late 70s early 80s
I was a wog growing up in miller we would wake u opp to wog written on tthe house but other than that i loved some memories ...❤❤❤
It's the year 2020 now and we got Crzycam representing our area Green Valley 2168 braaaa
this is the comment i came looking for
4:12....I didn't know there were mobile phones in 73!
+ylilycam .... maybe a small transistor radio.
+Jamie Locke ..Your probaly right mate but bloody hell it looks for all money like a mobile doesn't it? lol
+ylilycam . No that be a pocket transistor radio (as they were called). It's volume wasn't very loud, and headphones were too big and expensive, so you had to jam the thing against one ear to hear it.
I lived and worked in Liverpool in the 60s and I've been a filmmaker since then but now live and work in Brisbane. Spent a lot of time in Green Valley with work. I wonder if someone can answer the question? Whatever happened to Green Valley. Great doco.
Redgumtv the area was broken up into different suburbs, Ashcroft, Busby, Heckenberg, Miller, Sadleir....Years later Green Valley was added again and Hinchinbrook
Some suburbs are low economic areas with others up and coming areas, its like most suburbs now.
Liverpool is the closest city to the area we have good infrastructure and a person in the local council who looks after this area alone
@ Debi Taylor it is Ashcroft High school.
They played this video for 30 year anniversary earlier this year with some of the people who where in this video
Trish dewizzle Thanks Trish. They were great days, real people. That's where my film career started more than 3000 doco's ago. Retired now.
Trish dewizzle maybe 40 year anniversary
i2s2bme Opps probably
its got trees now some old houses that were new at the time have been demolished to make way for privately owned town houses other then that not alot has changed still not much for kids to do .. they did attempt to have a pcyc club there but i dont think it has done to well as far as getting the kids in the area involved in general the area still struggles many of the old housdes have been sold off by the dept housing and the area has it mash up of people .. i guess the stigma of doge city will never change its still got its share of good and bad ..i was glad to move away from ashcroft flats when i was there and swore never to return to that part of the country again i still live within the liverpool municipality though
Great film.Lots of old faces.
never herd of this film but we did go there to buy drugs in the seventys heeps of bikeys i associated with lived there was a real craphole
Lovely film about community
At 11:25 there is a park with swings with a double storey building in the background. Now go to Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan's "Especially for you " at 1:40. That looks like the same park with the double storey building in the background.
The Stone wall around the park looks the same.
Well spotted!
Wow! How did you put the two together?
Has to be the same park decades apart.
Mate, Gold Medal in location spotting. It’s an obsession of mine, too. Sometimes to the annoyance of others I’ll be watching an ad and say “that tree is in Balmain” or some such thing. Do you have any insight as to how you linked these two? I am guessing you lived near that park for many years and it leapt out at you when you first saw it in the Kylie video. Either that or you’ve been a location scout since Peter Weir was an apprentice.
Actually Rozelle. Corner of Burt and Denison St. Same building, just more trees today!
Awesome
I wish I lived there in the 60s. 90s wasn't a good time to live there.
Green valley is now a snob suburb on top of the hill. the old Valley in now called Miller but to us old timers is will all ways be dodge city
hardly
not snob city but I am sure they are thriving to make the mt pritchard end more of a yuppy town
Miller is full of Substance abuse and crime.
How good is this 🤣🤣
It's good...very good!
I've been around since 59 never heard of that area called green valley no wonder my mum did what she did to be poor with kids was not on !!!
any films on moorebank?
So true ,
Stanhome was the beginnings of Amway.
I'd loveto see you do one on St Marys. My lrigonal hpme towninwesfernsgdney
Ruby Langford. Don't take your love to town.
GOLD
I had fun here also
Was the town really as bad as the people in this film said it was, or was it merely staged to look that bad?
+Jason Carpp
It wasn't so bad, just had room for improvements, so the people pulled together to try and make it happen.
Cheers
Graham
+Jason Carpp Nothing staged. If they wanted to show bad they could of. They just showed it as it was as a community. Mission accomplished. as comment below.
I think Jason was referring to the skit they did at the beginning that was taking the piss out of mainstream media. So yeah, some of it of course was staged.
Eshay Lad 2168 brahh
4:12 mobile phone use in 1973.
It's a 'trannie' as we used to call it back in the day. Better known as a small transistor radio.
Lol i was born at this time but in Adelaide south Australia while theses people where do what thay were doing in Sydney NSW life goes on in every state in Australia but vety differently wow interesting but watching this thay all seemed fine doing what thay did in the day in Sydney love Sydney!!😁
Directed by Peter Weir.
develop or slip of developers , @44.13 , Gough gave you sewers ,
Is Green Valley Woden Valley?
PMSL
GREEN VALLEY IS LIKE LOT OF HOUSING COMMISSION AS GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRALIA
DO NOT THINK ABOUT FURTHER GROWING IN AREA
ABOUT FAMILY LIFE PUT INTO AREA
OR PLACE FROM START ALL BUILD HOUSE AND FLAT GIVE ALL BACK TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
and to think this was the same guy that directed that beautiful 1985 movie showing off the east coast of the USA.
Stay in the street of those double units 6:09 19 yrs strong 68 on top 😂
Now i get the push for 'facts dont matter generation'. Good decision, im on board now.......
Leave the valley alone lol😢😮
I live in green valley now ahahaha
interesting to see the same social issues back then as what exist today in community housing so all those years and australia didnt learn a god damned thing on how to improve suburbs and safety in community housing, also funny to see ye police all these years later still have no control over bikies their still actively a community threat so my question is what has actually changed
Is this a satirical film?! The portrayal of each minority group, esp the wives lined up in a line with shopping trolleys ... amongst a host of other stuff are all staged. 8 mins in and im not really ‘getting’ this film.
My husband’s Italian family has been there for generations. His grandma owned a farm which got subdivided into the new parts of GV. They bought that farm land for next to nothing in the old days. Her brother at that time could’ve bought the same thing but instead opt to buy some fancy Ford/Holden.
GV did not die. Infact we recently sold in the area so to hear it being mentioned as Vally of despair, Black Valley etc with all the sound effects really make me think this Weir guy is mocking the whole community?
Hi Eva The introduction segment of the film is intended as a send up of the prevailing media portrayals of Green Valley. The rest of the film is then made up of films actually made by locals themselves and who all come together for a screening and discussion afterwards. The turning over of the means of film production to the "subjects" was quite revolutionary for the time. And is meant as an attempt to get at the truth of Green Valley as the residents see it.
As I understood it, the first black and white part was to show how patronising media outlets portrayed local communities.
Yes, IT IS a satire! He even uses that exact word! Perhaps you missed Peter Weir explaining it in the beginning 3:00
Peter Weir eh?
Wasn't Peter Weir a world-class tool then? I mean...revolutionary film maker. Handed out cameras to real people to make films about their lives. And then the finished product seems to involve half an hour of him on screen talking.
So, what's your point +88warms ? (apart from you wildly exaggerating saying that Peter Weir was on screen talking for 30 minutes, when it was more like just under 2 minutes!)
To give it context, it was one of Peter Weir's first attempts at filmmaking (before the critically acclaimed Picnic at HangingRock), and look how far he's come. What have *you* done with your life? Besides, getting those represented involved in telling their own story makes it all the more authentic.
The Tool has spoken . The tool minus a handyman .
All around the world the ''Dregburbs'' have over time morphed into ''Inner'' city hot spots. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think a 3x1 90 sqM weatherboard dump become worth $1M plus.
An interesting film that not only showcases the attitudes of Green Valley at the time, but the overall social attitudes, for example the term "deserted wife". As a young bloke in the 80s I remember coming into the Valley for the Liverpool Speedway (now Valley Plaza). We moved into Bonnyrigg Heights in 1989 and we constantly in the Valley, I even attended then then Busby High. At that time it was still know as "Dodge City", and my HSC year in 1990 was the most HSC students that Busby High had seen in years. Our class made both the Liverpool Leader and SMH. I stayed in the area till 2006, living in Heckenberg, Ashcroft and Hinchinbrook. My brother still lives in Green Valley and as such I'm still a regular visitor. In all this time I've seen so much of Green Valley change through gentrification, and yet other parts where little has changed with the same fibro homes (many now with air conditioning), and old Holden or Ford in the front, and kids riding their bikes around the streets. However I've also seen how many of the kids in this film are adults, and have been able to gain a good education and good jobs, and have more hope for the future than seemed to exist at the time of this film.
+arokh72 Hi, thanks for letting us know about your experiences in the area and how they relate to those portrayed in this film. We appreciate the feedback.
Thanks I wondered how things went on after the film.
Went to BSH in 1981-84...
im loving the reference to deserted wives haha the few they showed kicked the men out as drunkards thats hardly deserted they chose to leave the useless man, because they knew they could provide better even alone.....
I was born in 1973 and we moved to Green Valley when I was 7. Our mother kicked our drunk father out after he was blacked out drunk on the lounge while she was at work as a nurse and my siblings and I went for a walk (ages 5,7 and 9). She turned up at home and we were gone and he didn't know where we were. She and the police turned up to the nursery (used to be Flower Power when we were little and it's still a nursery now). We were having fun on the swing set after wandering around for hours. It scares me now thinking about what could have happened to us if a weirdo was around. Our mother wasn't 'deserted' either, he was a low life user who turned up when I had my own baby and expected a kidney transplant from one of us. He didn't get it and he didn't get it (a kidney).
Forget about Peter Weir....The other famous name I just read in the credits is cinematographer Don McAlpine who went on to shoot My Brilliant Career and Moulin Rouge and many other huge films!
1973, seven years after, on October 1980,my pregnant wife and i arrived as migrants from Argentina and stayed for a fewr days at Villawood Hostell before moving to a flat on Mac Bourney Rd, Cabramatta
Australia and Cabramatta still looked and felt like this film.
We looked and were looked at with whide open eyes, strangers amongs strangers, both, Aussies and us, ignoring all about each other.
Somehow innocent in our youth.years.
This film gives me nostalgia of all that.
How much has been lost of thst Australia in thongs, so to say.
Fifty years is half a century, and it shows.
Forty three years is a long time and we are other.
Great story, thanks for sharing and glad the film was able to bring those memories back.
Lived in Busby 1981-85, next door we had a family from Chile, The Amamda's (i might have the spelling wrong?)I use to help the son fix cars now and then, the daughter would come over to see my sisters, Her and her mother were named Maria, beautiful girl, i sort of knew the guy she married, hope he turned out better then he was then...
I sat next to Steven Jurd in class and I remember when he brought the camera into school. I didn't get to see this film until recently. We moved to QLD at the start of the 1974.
The film showed what the Valley was really like rather than showing nothing but people living on the fringes. Shows like Struggle St are an example of what I'm talking about. I temporarily returned to the area as a teacher back in 2007 and saw a lot of changes in demographics and saw that many homes had been extensively renovated. While viewing the film, it was good to see the faces of people who made a difference to the area such as Captain Harris and Phillip Langley (scout master).
My father passed away three years ago so it's worth mentioning that in partnership with the Catholic church, he and Mr Spud Murphy (not sure of his real first name) started a youth group for kids in late primary school. Some may remember the psychedelic double decker bus that would go around the neighbourhood on Friday nights to pick the kids up for a night of fun. Then there were the occasional outings to beaches etc on weekends.
Thanks Peter Weir for the making of the film and thanks to Steven plus the other film makers.
As for the many unsung heroes who made a difference to the young people of Green Valley, I salute you. Many of those young people have reached great heights.
Graham Walters
Former Green Valleyite
I grew up in Miller and went to Sadleir Primary school and Ashcroft High school which was the High school chosen for this film. I am 51 years of age. I loved it. Miller was still known as Dodge City back then. Liverpool was an exciting place to be when I was a kid. There is a very quick glimpse of my Nan and Grandad's old house on North Liverpool Rd just at the start. This documentary has brought back some very fond memories. Well done.
Lived in Busby, we went shopping in miller all the time, school was rough, but i loved the area, loved walking to Liverpool.
I went to Bonnyrigg High and a few girlfriends from Green Valley ,AND bUSBY AND hECKENBERG ,PLAYED FOOTY FOR hECKENBERG AND MT Pritchard
My Girlfriend was the school captain at Busby High School in the late 70s
So did they rock up the next week?...I guess Peter Weir went off to Sofala after this to do "The Cars that ate Paris".
Hi,
Moving to Green Valley in 1964 I grew up in Heckenberg going to Heckenberg Primary and then on to Busby High. I found growing up in Green Valley was absolutely fine. Yes our house was relatively small with four kids however we had a large back yard. As did our neighbours which gave us the opportunity to play for hours outdoors unlike a huge percentage of kids today in many sort after suburbs. We had parks (top of Heckenberg Avenue) where we would ride our home made billy carts down the hill only to rag them back up to the top and do it all over again (made from timber fruit boxes a bit of scrap timber and some lawn mower wheels), Miller pool, bus service to liverpool and there was always Liverpool Speedway on a Friday or Saturday night. I don't think I ever thought I was going without anything. We did not have very much money but we had family, friends and great neighbours who all looked out for each other.
I left Busby High in year 10 and have not looked back. My husband who was raised in Mt Druitt feels the same about where he was raised and we have never been embarrassed to say where we were from no matter the company we were in.
We now have three beautiful homes one of which is on the water and two Bentley cars parked in the garage. I guess growing up in "The Valley" and "The Druitt" did us no harm what so ever.
In saying this I recently drove through my old neighbourhood and was saddened to see how shabby some streets have become.
I think there was more pride displayed back in the day when the knockers were rife.
Kim & Robert James
Formerly Kim McKechnie.
yep the same Heckenberg primary and busby high best years of my life
Moved to Busby in 1981, went to Busby HS, rough school then, but i loved it all, wish we lived in a normal house instead of two story town house, on orchard rd, it's still there, barely changed.
Yep same too for me. I guess it could be looked at as a rough place but it gave me the gumption I needed for the rest of my life. What I can remember was all the mums stayed home and we always called them auntie Faye ect, it was a sense of community. I lived one door from Heckenberg school back gate. I rode horses and push bike and scateboards and was never bored.
You really need three homes ,and two Bentleys nowdays , I wish you good luck ,and hope your homes were inspected by proper civil servants , not a privatised cowboy, whom stamps anything ,Final Pass,to ensure next job for developers/Builders. I feel for the poor people (not $ wise poor, although now probably are now having to pay two mortgages or rent with one unlivable mortgaged ) whom were ripped off like in Mascot & the Cooks river , as developers used private building inspectors , whom strangely have No responsibility to basic work fitting the Codes, & fly by night developers, whom just change names ,the thousands of flats/units , with no parking proposed in Sydenham, Tempe , Marrickville ,Darlinghurst knocking down of or gutting first Holden car factory ,in Sydney ,the old Reschs brewery, yes redevelopment is needed ,yet when developers buy houses either side let them fall to pieces so badly that even squatters won't go there , its difficult without bans in the 80's Victoria St & Darlinghurst Rd , would all be 50 yr old tower blocks ready to be imploded again , Paddington etc would not have its beautiful original Terraces , there will be congestion tax to go into the city, this years Vivid was dangerous public transport reminded me of ,Tokyo or New York underground , theres a proposal to build on Rushcutters Bay oval ,& when modern units are empty year round for pure speculation , its wrong ,rent or give to Salvos , Vinnies, Wesley Mission etc, to rent , they wont lose tax write off , an get it back refurbished, city homeless was worst i've seen this year '24, Sydney rent is same price as New York , Crazy returns for places that would be condemned if unoccupied ,and public transport infrastructure is going to be needed if ,no parking places are allowed ,
There is a common sense and awareness of the working class people as shown in this film which still gives me hope.I would trust the instinctive caring nature of any one of them. Notice they were all concerned for the future of their children & despite their difficulties were trying to make a go of it. This is valuable & instructive archival footage & I'm glad I stumbled onto it.
ThiS is a great Film...saw a lot of Old Faces....I am proud to say I am one of 6 children ...we. Moved into the Valley in 1962...n my parents left in 1985.......I had a Wonderful childhood n Still have Many Schoolfriends on Facebook who meet regularly ....All different ages male n Female.....We are will always be Mates cos we Shared Cared Lived Breathed Loved The Valley.......N We All turned out Well Bred citizens of Australia....Rally Valley ...United Forever xxxx
Same here hun i miss the old days...and the milk bars buying glugs and suny boys. .🤔🤔🤔
Such a cool time capsule
Green Valley is now Known as. 1.Ashcroft. 2. Sadlier. 3. Miller. 4. Mt. Pritchard. 5. Cartwright. 6. Green Valley. 7.Busby 8. Heckenberg
Lived in Miller, Cartwright, Sadlier and Heckenberg from Mid November 1999 until beginning of July 2013. ( Housing Commission Flats and Town houses)
My Son attended Heckenberg Primary School from 2006 until 2012 Son attended James Busby High in 2013.
Full of Substance Abuse and Crime. Moved into the area due to getting married at 23, Left the area at 37 a widow ( husband over dosed due to Substance Abuse) Had to move out - husband was housing commission Tenant)
Worst 14 years of my life.
Met a new partner, had another Child Now living far far away from Sydney.
. Best thing I did was leaving the Green Valley, that was never really Green.
Hi Vanessa thanks for sharing your story and memories of Green Valley. Glad things are looking up for you.
Strange lived in Busby in 1981-85, i really liked the place, going to busby HS was rough, beaten up several times a day for 3 and a half years (Being a ''Christian'' i had to turn the other cheek, then i was told i could defend myself, i lost my sh!t, after a week no-one would look at me, most of the girls wanted to get friendly).
I've lived in many places (went to 31 schools before Busby HS ) many places in Sydney, Dee why, Manly, curl curl, Redfern, petersham, Lewisham etc i used to basically lived at the beach; i've lived in Wollongong, Newcastle; lived in a few places in Vic; 4 in Taz (Miss Taz alot) and several in QLD (Darling downs area now; Liverpool, i thought was really nice in many ways, i thought it was quiet green, still have strong memories of golden sunsets and green trees, perfect blue sky, puffy white clouds spread across the blue, rain for several days at a time (Which i love too)...shrugs.
Mom was a window, dad died in the vietnam war (3 months before his tour was up), it took ten years before she got the pension; All she wanted was a Husband, kids and a small house and enough money to not struggle from week to week, well she had a Husband for a few years and and 4 kids...
I don't really understand Substance Abuse and Crime, i know some people use Substance Abuse to cope with really bad experiences; Some times some of us need to get drunk (mostly if i have it's been by myself, and just go to bed, i don't drink i've ever started anything while being off my tits, but i will finished or try).
Sorry for your loss (?) and hard (horrible) times; i wish you and your family ALL the best.
This has made me so homesick, seeing Ashcroft High, Capt.Harris and Mr.Harris there by his side, oh I miss you both so very much, everything you had done for the community, and for so very long before I had ever met you. Ashcroft High was hard to get on at first as I wasn't born there and didn't have very good English, but I did make friends, and friends that I still talk to now. The teachers were amazing and to see the way the kids talked about Ashcroft High, I can only say I totally agree with them, the teacher's went all out to help the kids, even the one's that didn't wanna be helped. Liverpool as a city was much bigger when I was there so there was lots to do but the 'Green Valley Young Peoples Choir' was it for me, and my parents supported me and my sister in everything we did, so that was like a bonus for them to find such a friendly welcoming atmosphere at the choir. We would sing at the most prestigious events and go on tours singing all around Australia, all this through the efforts of the local community. In summary I really enjoyed growing up in Ashcroft and this video showed me just why.
Ozzy Lino Hi thanks for letting us know about your Green Valley experience. Glad the film brought back some memories.