I lived in Cowles Road and would often visit Whittles Hardware in the ‘40s and ‘50s. It was on the corner of Harbour St. and Military Rd. Whittles offered a multitude of hardware items and the front window quite often featured a range of kitchen/gift items. As a young boy I saved my pocket money up for some time and purchased a decorated dish complete with lid, on a warming stand, as a gift for my Mother on Mothers Day.The flat above the store was occupied by The O’Loughlin Family. Mr. O’Loughlin worked at the Oaks Hotel, Neutral Bay. I believe the store changed hands in the 1960’s.

— posted by Bruce Manuel, Friday November 30, 2007, 02:30:04 AM   #

CORRECTION!... My comments re Whittles location was incorrect, I confused this shop with another hardware store in Military Road.

Whittles Store was across from the Kings Theatre on Spit Road, just south of the old Bank of New South Wales, and between the bank and the Masonic Lodge. I remember Mr. Whittle as a very knowledgeable shop keeper who was patient with us young kids who would often ask a load of naiive questions about how to build a billy-cart etc.

— posted by Brucey M, Wednesday May 7, 2008, 02:15:54 AM   #

My great Uncle was Claude Whittle, but he lived in Flemington, Victoria. He was a lovely old gentleman too. He died in his nineties. He was my grandfather’s youngest brother. My single name was Whittle and I am searching the family history. Originally our Whittles came from Lancashire, UK

— posted by Edna Coleman, Monday May 12, 2008, 07:58:13 AM   #

As a boy I remember the charming and voluble Claude Whittle, A long face with jowels and kindly eyes. He always wore a bow tie and swore that he had the cheapest mouse traps in Sydney.

— posted by Paul Delprat, Sunday June 29, 2008, 10:55:32 AM   #

Does anyone remember MT Curran Chemist Shop opposite Belmont Road entrance to Military Road, just past the post office next to King Weddel Radio and TV Shop? My parents owned the shop, Marie and Syd Curran from 1952 to about 1971.

I have many memories of growing up in Mosman as a child and a teenager. Does anybody remember the old house on the corner of Belmont Road, which was part of the school grounds? We used to, as kids, sneak over there and go exploring into the building. It was a wonderful old turn of the century double-storey structure with a pointed turrett tower.

I also remember Claude Whittle very well, having done many errands up to Spit Junction to go to the Whittle hardware shop. There was a flying fox on a cable in the shop into the basket of which you could put goods and they were then delivered to the front counter. Claude Whittle was a really funny and spontaneous guy and yes, I remember his bow tie clearly! The shop fascinated me as it had so much stuff inside and you could walk on the old floorboards right up to the back of the shop and be totally fascinated by all the kinds of stuff he had in there. They also provided good old fashioned service with a smile and sometimes a joke and nothing was too much trouble for them. These were the days when service meant something in a shop, long before the Bunnings afflication occurred.

Does anyone remember the Montana Milk Bar next to the Hoyts Kinema, run by the lovely Italian family? Us kids all lined up there on Saturday afternoons to go to the ‘flicks’. Particularly clear in my memory in the 1950s was the fantastic layout the Hoyts management did for the movie ‘Jedda’, setting up amazing re-creations of scenes from the movie with 3D images of koories in the Australian landscape. It was a memorable and magic moment to walk into the picture theatre that day. And just added to the poignancy and the impact that this movie had on everyone who saw it.

— posted by Ron Curran, Saturday October 25, 2008, 08:23:52 AM   #

Well..g’day Paul Delpratt, who lived (maybe still does) just above Nth. end of Edwards beach just to the right of the stairs, house set back about 3 metres from the street as I recall. Balmoral was a famed spot for artists and Paul was/is an artist and with a very pretty sister who spent a bit of time down the ski fields..I wonder how she is these days.

There were a few interesting people down there including Darryl Finlayson from who I bought my first Motor Cycle, a 1925 or 27 1200 cc Harley. Darryl rode a Matchless I think. He had a mad mate who had come off his bike onto his face and his face looked like one big scab…he was undaunted however… Later I had a nice cycle or two myself, a nice 650 and also a T120S Bonneville..another long story.

A short one though…On the Matchless I went for my licence down at Mosman police station. The policeman was interested in the cycle, the police had used them in fact I can recall the police sidecar cycles…Sgt. Menzies from manly…not a very empathetic cop at all…also was seen riding through Mosman occasional with his sidecar outfit.

At the licensing I was a little nervous at first but the copper was ok. We chatted then he pointed and said “go down the road to where the break in the fence is…see down there” ..yes!...now at that point do a U-turn and come back here…”...nup..”eh”?...I said no I can’t do that…”why”...there’s a “no u-turn” sign down there..He laughed…”ok…go down there do a three pointer and come back. I kicked her oer as I sat down, gave a handsignal and took off. I glanced into the vibrating rear vision mirror 20 metres later…saw he was walking back into the little grassed area alongside the police station! I did the right thing any way….Licence?..no problems….

I wonder what happened to Darryl,he was a big handsome chap who lived one street up from Balmoral. I lost track of him not long after he went into the army. I’m sure he also played in a band…lived with his mum.

A couple of really good sorts used to accompany him here and there, sisters,...the names just won’t come, it was a jewish name and they were from cremorne girls I think rather than Queenwood.. ..anyway it’ll emerge soon.

I think one was killed somehow (not like Janie Bower though whom I remember well) perhaps in an accident.

The really turn-you-on girls came from Cremorne girl’s high but the ones who passed our house each morning from Queenwood with their skirts hiked up (to get their legs browned on the walk down to school from Spit Junction were worth the effort of hanging for a look around too. I’m pretty sure they had Saturday morning school too then…which is when I had the time to be working on my car or cycle from 7 to 10 am!!.in Clifford Street..Interesting days!.

Balmoral changed from a place where you’d timidly ask a girl the time in a fumbling effort to get aquainted to a place where men would come and do it to you…I fished down there several times a week and later went spearfishing quite a lot. John Willis was attacked in that area I frequented and a lady sewing in one of the houses up high above, not too far away from Delpratts there saw the whole thing through her window I recall. I once came across a large shark there only maybe three yards in front of me and I became “jet propelled” getting the hell out of there cutting myself on the shells on a ledge just around the point… The last couple of metres I was truly “packing it” . Without going into a hundred tales I have about Balmoral I also came across a large sunfish at Balmoral baths and on another occasion suggested a hammerhead brought in alive by fishermen on a boat be sent to Taronga, and it was. They came down with gear and took it away in sea water. You could catch a fish then, it wasn’t the highly polluted place fished out by professional with nets it now is.

The Hoyts Kinema, I remember it well, I had a substantial collection of Intermission passes to get into the second half free. I remember trying most stunts like walking in backwards as others exited…worked ok…or at the Kings going in before the movie when there was no supervision and leaving the latch off the rear door into Clifford Street. The Kings had coca-cola club on saturdays with the bouncing ball sing along and all that and also “serials” those ‘cut up’ westerns and superman and other films …but the serials were much better at the “Southern Cross” at Neutral Bay. I did a lot of walking then!

There was a Milkbar, yes, next to the Hoyts at Mosman Junction, that’s true, but unfortunately all that went when the RSL moved from its bankrupt as I recall position at the corner where the Antique centre took over, just east of Mandalong road and moved to where it is now under new management..

Now, to Claude… Claude Whittle’s Bill Smith had a wife and a pretty daughter….lived down near Joe Antcliffe’s home and across the Road from Paddy Kennedy…Antcliffes and I fished down at Inkerman’s boatshed area. Pat was a good mate at school, we got into strife occasionally.

I think Rita was Bill’s daughter. Wonder what happened to her?...up the road from there were the Rick Collins’..live theatre people and Tony Bott. Tony had an ‘interesting’ history…wonder where he got to after going overseas.?

Back to Whittles as I am tearing through this…Whittles was really interesting when Claude was alive..he knew where everything was under the piles of stuff. Bill would prattle on making jokes and giving advice, another chap worked there also sometimes, and John of course who was tall and solid and not the humorist as was Claude. John took it more seriously. When Claude died and the shop was tidied up the charisma died somewhat but at the same time the Mosman Council in its typical self preening pompous ignorence let the Junction die…carparking even across the road at the old tram terminus went to the great edifice of the old people’s home…after some monkey business to turn Spit Junction into a shopping mall was defeated. In the meantime dad’s business war ruined by these “developers”, sending him broke through court costs and when the court refused to toss him from his last shop at no 4* he was burned-out. He told me later 7 other attempts had been made. One of the developers he later found was one of his “mates”..

His wonderful shops which had every year the windows stripped of all Commerce for two seeks before and after Christmass and a large nativity installed were gone and a very awful cement floored shop went in as number 48 and became a liquor store.

Claude’s shop was right next to 48, though I think there was a photographic studio upstairs between them and therefore Whittles was still number 50. I remember the inside of it pretty clearly and the back yard and the windows. Upstairs from on the “50 plus” side there were the sailmakers upstairs, Whittaker’s ” ....who did the sails for America’s cup…then later Yeff’s glass shop which moved from alongside dad’s factory when the “developer” got cracking and tore it all down. “Vandals in the name of progress” they are fixated on money…..Mosman has had numerous of them and it all had to go through the cliquey Mosman Council Management.

The lodge location..You had to go north of 48 Spit Road to get to the Masonic Lodge, there was a lolly shop at 46..where Lammie, a pretty Arabic girl maybe Lebanese and her family lived (after an explosion the shop was burnt out) ...where are you now lammie?.... then next to it was a small, narrow menswear shop, then the brick front of the masonic temple (windowless as usual) ...long ago it was a church as can be still seen from the lane behind that area…later just north of the lodge came the hock shop which was owned by Mr Goldberg.

If I recall Friday night or maybe it was Saturday was lodge meeting and the stuffed shirts with their black cases and unsmiling faces were milling around in the foyer looking terribly important.

Yes I remember the Chemists, Mr Curran, quite clearly it was right next to the post office, the door was on its left and the counter on the post office side…It’s now a real estate agency…..I think that eventually, after your parents, the pharmacy went to Mrs. Charlesworth (yes?)..The young Charlesworth was studying I am pretty sure Pharmacy at uni but played in a band at Manly Skiff club on the Friday or Saturday night…their signature tne was “Gloria” and they really did it well.

The radio place you mention wasn’t as interesting as Huckles or the one at Spit Junction (Wedells actually….). The one you mentioned was I think, too modern!!... but I know the one you mean, almost opposite the Kinema corner. You might have the names mixed…but I bought the only Crystal set I bought from there..it wasn’t a patch on the ones I made…little Japanese one in a creamy coloured case about 6 inches by 3×3 with a red and cream dial….useless thing.I paid it off for ages to add to the ideological injury.

Jedda was mentioned…and Jedda I saw, thought it was a bit of a dud…. but I think it had a pretty aborignie girl in it….that’s all I really remembered at the time…LOL!!

I could go on for ages but have to stop soon as i am scooting from place to place…down the road on the way to the army barracks was a boy called Darcy Nelson, big feller then to me…wonder where you are Darcy?..then at the army barracks was Charlie Tobin’s ‘girlfriend” Sonia. She was very very pretty. Charlie is gone now, sadly. He lived not far from Antcliffe’s also, bit closer to Macpherson Street..I can still see his house in my head…I don’t forget these images of the houses or the people.I sometimes now have to think about a name though.

People had terrible tragedies sometimes, the Antcliffes, the Bowers, Dennis Tapp’s family for example , yet the Clancy children are all still living…amazing really.

Tony Switzer was well known as was Paul Antcliffe and they were popular with the girls.Now I recall somehow that maybe Tony was in the Ampol with some young blokes in an old open topped car…I am pretty sure it was actually an old Rolls…painted in reddish primer and held together in some places with fencing wire. I saw the car and some commotion. Later I heard someone had approached them at the service station and was told where to go and what to do with himself…....he pulled out his book and said “Ok..I’m a transport Inspector ”...whoops!!... wrong move!!..The car was defected off the road.

Tony Switzer in particular was a big boy. In those days quite a bit of street fighting went on. I was a bit timid but found I could do some real damage when people pushed me too far. I can remember some vicious fights I had at Mosman and at at the circus at Cammeray, where the golf course is.

Later, next generation, a new breed of tough-guy family emerged down at Mosman Junction, one family in particular. I recall one brother, Guy, punching a hole through the timber door of the Oak’s Hotel one night…

Few people know that these areas from Mosman to Crows Nest /St Leonards were plagued with party crashing and street brawls. The 21 Division was excessive in its violence and mistreatment too…the police seemed to like to provoke people into giving them the opportunity to do them harm.

Bumper Farrell was the local 21 Div heavy but he and I got on ok after a confrontation we had. Much happened around Mosman Cremorne which was later somewhat replicated in the newer drug frenzied times. A new viciousness to do with drug trading and cannabis growing around Mosman emerged but that’s another story.

I recall the Wipples pretty well and have had the enjoyment of writing to Cy not long ago.

Brucie Manuel yes there was another hardware store in Military road Mosman down near the police station..maybe that’s where you meant..? I seem to remember another too but somewhat smaller, narrow, closer to the post office….further back. Cheers all

— posted by Tony Clancy, Tuesday December 16, 2008, 11:22:53 PM   #

Frank (Bumper) Farrell was never in 21 Division. And if we had 21 Division around these days at least decent citizens would be safe walking the streets. In those days the crims and hoodlums were scared of the police. Not any more.

— posted by Dave Whiteman, Wednesday January 14, 2009, 10:56:48 PM   #

I respond to Tony Clancy. Article dated Dec 16th 2008. Tony I am alive and well living on the South Coast of NSW at Moruya. Would love to get in contact.

— posted by Darcy Nelson, Saturday February 14, 2009, 01:07:19 AM   #

Another hardware store was Wildman & Elliott, not on the corner of Harbour Street, but on the same side (and a few doors up) from the then Mosman Library.

The one on the corner of Harbour Street, I can’t remember the name, was, at one stage, owned by the Wakim family. Paul Wakim became a solicitor, practicing at Ashfield (I think that he is till there, although there is a Paul Wakim, solicitor, in Bowral).

Darcy, I was in your brother, Denis’ class at MBHS Mosman; you were in my brother, Denis’ class. I recall that the Nelsons were heavily involved in Lane Cove JRLFC

Cheers
David Healy

— posted by David Healy, Saturday August 8, 2009, 01:43:46 AM   #

I remember Whittle’s Hardware, and Claude Whittle, well. Always a charming and informative man.

And I remember the Montana Milk Bar, next to the Kinema. I remember Dom Lopez working there after Saturday arvo “flicks”; I think that he was going out with one of the daughters of the owners; he might well have married her.

Did you know that Dom’s father, Tony, was interned during WW2?

I note that the Lopez’ fruit shop has closed down or changed hands in recent years. One of the last existing Mosman businesses from my youth.

David Healy

— posted by David Healy, Saturday August 8, 2009, 02:02:55 AM   #

All Mosman and Balmoral boys remember Mr. Whittle. Paul Delprat and Pip Ashton were the best artists in 5th and 6th class at Mosman Primary and, no matter how hard others tried, their artistic skill never quite made it. Kanga Birtles and Paul Delprat were virtually neighbours – we all loved the stories from Dora on Frank Birtles exploits crossing Australia by car in the 1920’s (I think).

I really want to know the name of the theatre where we were all marched on Empire Day (24th May) and sometimes for other shows as well. It was located near the bend in Military Road that comes around from Mandolong Road – not too far up from the Mosman Bus Company Depot (Blue buses). can anyone recall the name of the theatre,

— posted by Chris Borough, Saturday January 2, 2010, 08:29:24 AM   #

Remember Whittles very well.
I lived at the bottom of Mandolong Rd.1940’s next to Boddam Wethams-(Good old Bin.)Mosman Juvenile Baseball Assn.. Martins-Cornish-Quillen-Holdsworth-Leckie-Murphy-Greenwood-Alldritt-Suter-Atkins ran shop at bottom.
Mosman Infants-Mosman IHS
Opp.Mavis Mills had a riding school-we swam horses at Chinaman’s.Peter was local dog.
Dinny Lutge-Maggie Council looked after beach-surrounds. Ron Rule family at Pavilion.
Balmoral swimming club.Also we swam at Cavill’s etc

— posted by Jack Cameron, Friday February 19, 2010, 08:06:29 AM   #

Discovering this website has brought back so many memories.

I lived in Spencer Road, Cremorne, now it’s in Mosman municapility.

I remember fondly Huckle’s Radio Shop, on the corner of Cabramatta Road and Military Road, Cremorne. I would make a detour just so I could press the button on the window and watch the train and scenic railway display.

Other fond memories are walking around the Cremorne Reserve from Mosman Bay and playing hide and seek along the way, with my dad; catching the ferry with my dog from Mosman Wharf, to Cremorne Wharf, across to Circular Quay and back again, without getting off and having to pay for the rides; crossing the fantastic suspension bridge over Reid Park, Mosman Bay; and climbing in a large water pipe in Reid Park and one day discovering someone’s belongs inside.

I have lots of memories of Balmoral Beach. Swimming at the southern end where the trees shaded the parked cars and the boats bobbed around in the water; going to the shop at the wooden boatshed to buy lollies; walking on the jetty to see what fish had been caught; swimming at the ‘net’;
playing and climbing over the ‘island’, looking for sea creatures in the rock pools and walking around the rocks at the northern end.

Someone mentioned the pet shop at Spit Junction. I loved the big yellow ornamental dog that sat at the front door. I think it was for collecting money for the blind.

I went to Middle Harbour Public School and Cremorne Girls High. There was a girl in my class named Sylvia Delprat. She had previously attended Queenwood. Haven’t thought of her for years, but the mention of a Paul Delprat brought back her memory.

— posted by Julie Knight, Friday February 19, 2010, 09:06:49 AM   #

I was looking for some information and came upon this site I remember all, so I shall try and give you some that are gone at the moment there is a huge developement cnr Raglan st and Military that used to be Moran and Cato, walking up from home to watch T.V. at night with my mum and dad at Wardells
musticks from Jimmys the movie theatre I think I have lived here too long

— posted by Chris Dale, Friday March 26, 2010, 09:33:03 AM   #

My daughter came across this site and it’s lovely to read all of your memories of Mosman and Whittles’ Hardware. Whittles opened it 1920 and continued until 1988, when it closed.

My father was John Whittle, and obviously Claude was my Grandfather. I have so many wonderful memories of the shop, ‘helping’ Dad & Pa. Bill Smith was like part of the family and was a great friend and valued employee of Whittles for all those years.

As some of you may know Whittles was all but destroyed by fire, but Mum & Dad rebuilt, but it was never quite the same. It had a huge impact on Dad and I think he never really got over it. Mosman has changed so much over the years, but the memories I have are of a wonderful community and people.

Sadly, John Whittle passed away on 6th October 2009, aged 89, after living a very happy and long life. He was one of life’s true gentlemen and was a wonderful father, friend, husband, grandfather & great-grandfather, brother, uncle & Alderman.

— posted by Louise Rodie, Friday April 23, 2010, 08:58:56 AM   #

Lovely to read about my old boss Claude and John, both lovely people, plus dear Bill Smith, lovely shop, i loved my job then. so sorry to hear John has passed away.

Regards terry Brown.

— posted by terry brown, Monday May 24, 2010, 05:20:50 PM   #

Love to hear anything about Cremorne, Mosman, Neutral Bay. I grew up in Parraween St & at the moment tripping down memory lane. I like it there.

— posted by Marion Barnard, Sunday July 11, 2010, 11:36:37 AM   #