Skatey...The life of Les Skate

Skatey
The Life of Les Skate
Then I put my stumps on top of the sleepers. I jacked the walls up straight. Where they
were rotten, I had to replace the wall plates. I had to do that right through. There was a lot
of manual work … carting dirt out and carting timber in through a narrow passage. I did a
lot of this on my own, but I did have some help from Rol, because by this stage he was
working with me.
That house worked out very nicely. Julie being a
designer, knew what she wanted. We were able to
change a few little things to suit her and made it
Julie being a designer, knew
what she wanted.
more convenient and comfortable for her. She ended up with a nice little house there. She
stayed there for few years too. Those houses, after three or four years, had jumped up to
$75,000! Julie then bought an original house up at Mt Dandenong. More work! But not to
such an extent as the first houses.
Julie went on from there down to Fairfield. She bought another old villa which needed a bit
of work done on it, but basically it was alright. It was a very handy block. She stayed there
for a while. So, after doing that up a bit it was also a very nice little place. She designed a
few things herself, lovely lead-light doors and things like that. The market was on the upand-up
in those days which helped Julie a lot. She went from Fairfield to Bulleen, where I
also did a lot of work on the house. It was on a slope and a lot of water was coming from
the back, so I did a lot of landscaping and work on drainage. That worked out well too.
So after doing that up a bit it
was also a very nice little
place.
She designed a few things
herself … lovely lead-light
doors and things like that.
From Bulleen she went down to Chelsea. She bought
a nice little unit there and I did a few little things to
improve it. It was right on the beach. It’s become a
very valuable site and she still owns it. She’s been
away on various jobs, to Mackay and now in Canberra. She rented there for a while and
now she’s bought her own unit, so she’ll retire there, in Canberra and she’ll have the nice
place to come back to in Chelsea, when she comes down for a stay.
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