ABC cafe, Gilgandra, memories....

My first memories of the shop were growing up with lots of people around all the time – the watchdogs we had ( which would jump the back fence every time there was a storm) and of course sitting on top of the woodheap to watch the movies (for free) as we got older. The other thing was that we shared a common lane with the Western Stores and there were stables at the back on the riverbank where the country folk used to bring their horse and sulkies into town and leave them out the back in the days before everyone had a car or ute – I don’t remember ever seeing any horses there but the stables stood until I was in my teens.

The fish pond at the back of the shop was always full of fish and Mum had a beautiful garden when they first married in 1939 but when we were growing up my Dad developed a love of birds and the flower garden became an aviary in which Dad bred and kept beautiful canaries. The main thing I remember was that he had a gift for breeding great whistlers and I used to watch and listen to them for hours as a child. – It is interesting that my eldest daughter Kristi has the same love of bird but she breeds Budgies !!

Stella Aird. Daughter of Paul and Chris Kelly. Paul Kelly, (Yiannakellis), was originally from Mytilene (Lesbos).