100 Pedder Street

On Saturday afternoon we stumbled on a funky little cafe in Newtown, just north of Hobart. At 90 mum is still blessed with an excellent memory and navigation skills, and while sipping her cappuccino she reasoned that we must be pretty close to our first Tasmanian home. Mum and Dad had met and married in Horsham, Victoria in December 1945 and I was born there in 1947. We moved to Tasmania just before my 2nd birthday in June 1949.

100 Pedder Street - Home from 1949 to 1951

After our coffee, mum guided us just a few hundred meters to 100 Pedder Street, where we clambered out of the Honda for a photo op. Curious about the sudden arrival of tourists, the current owner of the home came out to ask us what we were doing. When we explained that this had been our first home in Tasmania 65 years ago, she immediately invited us inside. We were taken on a guided tour of the entire home, spotless inside and out. Mum noted that while the kitchen had been completely modernized, many of the main architectural features remained just as she remembered them. We snapped pictures while mum reminisced.


Part of our family folk lore has it that because we moved into our new home just two weeks before my second birthday, Mum had told me we couldn't have a birthday party because we were yet to make any friends. Apparently I toddled off down the street, rounded up a bunch of local kids and dragged them back to my new home, announcing to mum that now we could have a party because I had found some friends. The kids sheepishly told mum "It's OK Mrs Brand, you don't have to put on a party." But we did, and that rag tag little group formed our first social circle in Tasmania.