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Author Archive | Bob Byrne

The Grand Central Hotel, on the southeast corner of Rundle and Pulteney streets, was built in 1910 and was the only kind of high Victorian building in Adelaide.

……And They Put Up a Parking Lot

WHEN Mark Twain visited Adelaide early last century he chose to stay in the city’s finest lodgings, the Grand Central Hotel on the corner of Pulteney and Rundle streets. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes also stayed there and the Prince of Wales (later King Edward Vlll) hosted a royal dinner party in the […]

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Local and interstate personalities from Channel 10, including stars from Number 96 in front of the Channel 10 promotion bus, preparing for the Christmas Appeal weekend. How many stars can you name?

Remember Adelaide’s Annual Christmas TV Fundraiser?

IN 1973, SAS Channel 10 Adelaide created the Children’s Medical Research Foundation of South Australia and began the annual broadcasts of the Channel 10 Christmas Appeal. Every year, until 1989, on a designated weekend in December, the stars from around the national Ten network, as well as other major showbiz celebrities and personalities, would gather […]

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Off for a fun weekend. People about to board a bus to take them to a daytrip pokies tour to the Coomealla Memorial Club in Dareton, in 1983.

On The (Pokies) Buses and Trains

WHEN they first arrived in South Australia on July 25, 1994, poker machines immediately killed off a thriving little tourism industry known as “the pokies tours”. Those who were keen to revel in the heady thrill of legally pursuing a form of gambling that was illegal at home could take an organised poker machine tour […]

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The assistants behind the counter who had worked there for at least twenty years, could put their hand straight on whatever you wanted. Photo shared from Pinterest

The Humble Hardware Store

It was where your father and grandfather went when they needed hinges to fix a banging door, or to get a piece of cut glass to replace a broken window. You could buy half a dozen nails in a brown paper bag or a single bolt with a nut and washer and nothing was packed […]

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Franklin St in 1916, soon after the Sturt Statue was unveiled in December. Opposite is the Post Office building and in the centre is the Telephone Exchange. Picture: Francis Gabriel / State Library of SA B2158

Adelaide GPO and Telephone Exchange

IT has lain silent and deserted for years, and musty hallways and darkened rooms have gathered dust and cobwebs that covered the decaying infrastructure within. Still and soundless for so long, Adelaide’s original Central Telephone Exchange is about to bounce back to life and become part of a flashy new food and retail hub. Last week, […]

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Best of BB Boomer

The Best of Bob Byrne’s Boomer Columns

REMEMBER your first John Martin’s Christmas Pageant? Taking a ride in Samorn’s elephant cart? Leaving Rowley Park Speedway with lumps of clay in your hair? Or an afternoon tea with mum or grandma at Balfours Tearooms? Remember Amscol, Menz Yo-Yo Biscuits, Woodies lemonade, Burger King and the Lightburn Zeta car? What about Rundle Street before it […]

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