Memories of the Past
The author and her aunt reflect on the nature of change as they visit places with meaning to them in Parramatta.
I collect Auntie from her home in Merrylands to drive into Parramatta. We plan to walk around the city together before reaching St John’s Cathedral ― where she and my uncle were married 50 years ago. Our family roots are strongly connected to the cathedral that now stares down the shadows of skyscrapers amid Church Street.
It's been over 30 years since I moved away from the area, yet every time I come to Parramatta it feels like coming home; it’s where the adults I love made their own vows of love publicly and where we all returned over and over to celebrate our family.
As we leave her house and thread our way down Pitt Street, Auntie regales me with tales of her as a teenager in the mid-1960s, when she would walk into Parramatta from Guildford on a Saturday to hang out with friends at what was then Grace Brothers.
It's been over 30 years since I moved away from the area, yet every time I come to Parramatta it feels like coming home.
‘There wasn’t a Westfield then, and Grace Brothers was a stand-alone store,’ she says. ‘I would walk with my girlfriends to save the bus fare. We’d browse in the stores but rarely buy anything.’ Going into Parramatta was mostly about hanging out with friends, rather than spending money buying food or clothes. This is the thing about my Auntie: she splices historical detail into innocuous conversation. The history of Parramatta is something she knows and loves sharing wholeheartedly.
The restoration of the Female Factory grounds has drawn focus to the long-neglected history of this place, where thousands of women and children experienced the worst days of their lives. Originally designed as a female gaol over 200 years ago, it then became an asylum and invalid hospital.
