Dear Messenger
I thought you may be interested in life around Petre Street just over 50 years ago. Particularly in the winter when the snow's arrived. As a young boy it was an event patiently waited for, and especially if it snowed on Friday night as that gave us the whole weekend for sledding.
To get a sledding course to work took some effort and the assistance of lots of kids with sledges, but once the sledge irons had got a shine on them the thrills of speeding down the hills was ecstatic. Smith's Field (the wood) was probably the most popular during the day, but of course at night time it was pitch black apart from the odd moonlit night. So at night we reverted to the streets. Some of the most popular were Lyons Street from Petre Street to Earsham Street, Kingston Street, Jamaica Street (now gone), Canada Street, Carwood Road and Carwood Lane. In those days Kingston, Jamaica and Canada Streets went through to Sedan Street so on any given night from 6pm to 9pm there would be around 20 kids sledding on any one of those streets.
The slippiest was usually the most popular one used. If the snow came midweek we had the problem of the dreaded grit and salt spreader, but with a little shovel work we would manage to cover it again ready for the next night's sledding. Sledding down Smith's Field was very fast and furious. At the bottom was a hump which usually threw the rider off and very often smashed the sled as well.
In the winter of 1952 the snow had been around for quite some time and the track on the field was really fast. During the course of a Saturday afternoon 22 sleds had broken up and my friend and I thought we were invincible, unfortunately I found out the hard way and sailed over the hump and crashed on the side, smashing my sled and becoming number 23 – after that even with lots of repair work it never really ran as well. I now live in Australia and haven't even seen snow for 32 years, but still wonder if the field is still used for sledding.
Gordon Lawton, Renmark, South Australia