(Tzortzo)Poulos Fruit Shop. Interior. 2004.
In another entry about the Monterey Cafe in Gilgandra, I revealed that "...I was born in Gilgandra, in 1952, and left after completing my schooling in 1969.
From about the end of WWII, until mid-1975 - Gilgandra, population, 2,900 - was a very Kytherian town.
5 families - the Pentes, Sklavos, Kelly ((Yiannakellis), Psaltis (Protopsaltis), and Poulos (Tzortzopoulos) - lived in close proximity to each other - culturally, residentially, and commercially.
In the main, Kytherians embraced Kytherians - Gilgandra embraced Kytherians - and Kytherians embraced Gilgandra".
During the middle of the year 2004, I took my father, now 88 years old, on a nostalgia tour, back to Gilgandra, and through other towns in the Central and North West of New South Wales.
Not a single person of Kytherian origin now lives in Gilgandra. And only one family of Greek origin lives there.
I found of course, all the buildings, where the Kytherians had conducted their businesses; but all of these - with the exception of the Gilgandra Fruit Shop (my father's old shop), had substantially changed their usage.
My father, Con George (Tzortzo)Poulos began business in this premises, at 42 Miller Street, Gilgandra, in 1959. For the previous 10 years he had operated a fruit shop business in a premises across the road, at 41 Miller Street, Gilgandra.
When we visited we found the premises - and in some cases even the cool rooms and the fittings, little changed. When the Poulos's left Gilgandra the business was sold by Con to his brother-in-law Harry Logus (Logithetis), married to Voula Belos Coroneos, my mothers younger sister. They in turn sold it before they too left the town in the 1980's.
It pleased my father immeasurably to see "his" business still in operation, at much the same level as he left it.
How the Gilgandra Fruit Shop looked in c. 1963
One of my motivations in submitting these entries about the Gilgandra shops today, is to try and encourage original Gilgandra Kytherians - including members of my own family - to submit photographs of their shops in their heyday - photographs from yesteryear.
