Pina Deli - a community of food lovers

Pina Deli has been serving the cosmopolitan community of Hamilton and beyond for 54 years. There have been eight different owners of the business in that time, including two sets of sisters. The first five owners were from the tightly knit Lettesi community, people who migrated in large numbers from the war-devastated village of Lettopalena.

When Hudson Street hummed

At the northern end of Hudson Street, Hamilton, amid residential houses, was a veritable hive of industry. But it was more than that – it was a community. Three large commercial enterprises were interlinked, bartering their goods and services in a friendly, mutually beneficial exchange.

The towering wheat silos of McIntyre’s flour mill were a Hamilton landmark for many decades. Between 1899 to 1989, the mill supplied flour to bakers in Newcastle and beyond, including overseas.

Jim's Dairy Delite Bar, Hamilton

The secret ingredient to Blue Heaven milkshakes is one that Mervyn Roberts has kept all his life.

‘And it will die with me’, he chuckles.

Blatchford's Bakery

It had begun in the kitchen and lounge room of Eric Blatchford’s parents’ home. Eric was just 20, and unable to afford his own place, had brought his young wife Doris to live there. In this tiny space, a mouth watering variety of cakes, shortbread, sponges, and tarts were produced.

Who’s been sleeping in my house?

The popularity of the television series of this name shows how keen many of us are discover the human dramas that might have played out in the house we now occupy. One of the quests of this blog is to find out much more about the history and the secrets of the land, the buildings and the people around my home in Hamilton.

Lost bakery found in Webster Street, Hamilton

Webster Street yielded up one of its secrets to me after I stumbled across some photographs of Pearce’s Bakery on the Facebook site Lost Newcastle .  From Susan Henderson and her mother, Joan Lean, and later from other descendants, Peter Pearce and William Pearce, I learned about the family that established this bakery in 1899.

Hamilton Turkish baths

I was captivated by this exquisite photograph of the Hamilton Turkish Baths. This brick and stucco building was designed in the Victorian Filigree style, with decorative cast iron friezes on the upper verandah and colonnade. What’s more, their address was somewhere in Denison Street, with which my street intersected.