General History

DOUBLE WEDDING AT ARMIDALE St. Peter’s Cathedral, Armidale, was crowded with guests and onlookers, when two sisters were married according to rites of the Greek Orthodox Church at a spectacular double wedding on Wednesda...

The Australia Café and Jim Boutieris A Touch of Greece in Otho Street The attrition of time has also taken its toll and little remains to mark many café sites of the past in Inverell. Jindabyne House (Williams & Son 1902...

The story of my grandparents, my mothers parents (mother, Helen Fardouly) has been recounted by Inverell local historian, Elizabeth Wiedemann, in the book Holding its own: The Inverell district since 1919 (1998) Publishe...

The Feros Fruit Shop (54 Magellan) Peter George Feros (Pikouli) had been doing a good trade here, mainly fruit but with a milk bar sideline, since 1946 when he came up from Ballina to go into partnership with his cousin,...

The year is 1955 and 18yr old Harry Eric Crethar is doing his usual run around ‘The Block’, the local name for the major retail portion of Lismore’s CBD, sussing out the café competition in preparation for the launch of...

In the early 1920s the economic base of the Richmond-Tweed region started to look pretty shaky. Post WW1 soldier settlement blocks had been created everywhere, substantially increasing the number of dairy farmers and fru...

North Western NSW – Walgett Plains and Backa Beyond Bourke By common consent Bourke is where the line in the sand defines the start of the outback and where the locals boast that NSW’s highest official temperature of 51....

North Western NSW – Moree Plains Ashley Too Hard. Boggabilla Too Hard. Boomi Anthony Emmanuel Travassaros tried his first café venture here, and gave the locals their first and only Greek experience, around the mid 1930...

North Western NSW – Namoi Valley Bellata Andy and Nick Samios appear to be the first Kytherians to have discovered the place when they followed the swaggies’ trail from Narrabri in 1926. Nineteen year old Andy, his two...

Lower New England Barraba The Barrabarians were civilized in late 1905 by a subtle new twist to the euphoric fragrance of frying onions, that great cooking smell, wafting out of a shop in Queen Street. Standing at the st...

The Clarence District Bellingen Athanasios Anastasios Samios came down from Murwillumbah in early 1908, by then an old experienced hand aged 20, and was possibly a waiter for someone or other until establishing/acquiring...

The Richmond District Alstonville Emmanuel Harry Mavris (Mavromikhail) acquired a cafe here in mid 1922, but who came before or after is still on the investigation list. He was 10yrs old when he left home in Piraeus, spe...