39 Juliet Street, Mackay

My earliest memories are of 39 Juliet Street, Mackay. The house was built in the 1920s, my parents bought it in 1949 and it was sold after my father’s death in 1998. I have positioned the house within the environment and architecture of North Queensland, and particularly the town of Mackay. Changes are illustrated and dated through the inclusion of some family photographs, which double as a pictorial history of a Queensland family between the 1950s and 1970s. We all think of ourselves as part of families, but when one house contains a family over decades, it too is part of the upbringing. The essay begins with a discussion of North Queensland houses – ‘Queenslanders’, as they were known – and the weather conditions that influenced their architecture. This is followed by a description of the house and its immediate neighbourhood, the uses made of the upstairs and the downstairs areas, and 1960s renovations. My parents are described, along with our means of transport, the Protestant–Catholic divide of the 1950s and 1960s, and my upbringing and that of my brother and sister. The article also discusses holidays, schooling and discovering the world beyond Mackay.