They sawed the furniture in half

When museum staff needed to remove a large chest of drawers from an upstairs bedroom at Susannah Place they found themselves faced with the same problem that the former tenants experienced – how to get furniture in and out via the upstairs window.

It took four staff, numerous ropes, ladders and timber supports to carefully manoeuvre the chest of drawers out the window and safely down to street level.  

For former tenants Raymond Naylor and his fiancée Joan Sutton the arrival of new furniture almost ended in tragedy. A few days before the couple were due to be married Ray and some of his mates were installing a new bedroom suite in the front bedroom of No 60. The wardrobe couldn’t fit up the stairs so the only option was to pull it up through the window using some ropes.   

The ‘result’ as Joan recalled 50 years later was Ray fell out the window landing on his head and

‘was taken to Sydney Hospital where he spent the next few weeks and I had to cancel the wedding arrangements’.  

Almost a month later Joan and Ray were finally married but they never had a proper honeymoon;

‘Ray was still an outpatient of Sydney Hospital so after the wedding we came straight home to [60] Gloucester Street where we began our life together.’

Letter from Joan Naylor (now Joan Killen) November 2002.

In 1944 Flo and Les Gallagher and their three year old daughter Gloria moved in with Les’s grandparents at 58 Gloucester Street.