Opening his front door to a furniture delivery, JOHN ROGERS, of Fisher, gets a lovely surprise… 

For several years after my partner and I moved into the house we bought in Weston Creek, mail sometimes arrived for two people we had never heard of.

More than 20 years since their departure, decades that have seen the house being a home to several different families, I recently opened the front door to two delivery men bringing some bedroom furniture we had bought.

One of them, a very able-bodied man of about 50, told me with a broad grin that he was particularly happy to be making the delivery. 

He had come here often in the 1970s as a “little tacker”. His grandparents, Grace and George, had in fact been the first residents of our house and his memories of them were happy ones.

Of course, I took him on a guided tour of some of the rooms. His recollections were clear: the tall pantry cupboard in the kitchen (removed as part of renovations several years ago) where the first dishwasher had been; one of the rooms that had been an office (and still having that function) and a small swimming pool in the backyard where he had swum and where there is now a rockery.

Grace and George moved some years ago to a retirement home in Tuggeranong. Their grandson’s obvious delight in being in the house again, briefly reliving some of his childhood years, confirmed the “good feelings” when we first moved into the house had not been misplaced.

“Thanks so much for the tour… it’s made my day”, he said.

It made my day, too, having the past life of the house and its occupants revived and our good feelings affirmed.