Charlene Thomas

Charlene: My name is Charlene Thomas, I currently live in Ambervale. I’m 24 years old and a mother of two children

Fadia: And what’s your relationship with Minto?

Charlene: I lived in Minto for 13 years. I watched it change, especially Minto Mall. We watched it when it was just getting built, then renovated and now how there’s hardly any shops there. We lived in Housing Commission. The house I used to live in, in Calton Way, has now been knocked down. I love Minto, that’s all I can say.

Fadia: Tell me about the house you used to live in. Describe it.

Charlene: It was just like any other Housing Commission house I suppose. My mum looked after it though. It was a well kept home, always clean. The back yard had a gum tree in the back of it — I don’t know why they build houses around trees. It was a two storey house, me and my mum and my sister lived there. I moved out of there when I was about 13 and I started living with my grandparents.

Fadia: Tell me about your old street, your old neighbours and stuff like that.

Charlene: Alright, in Minto, Calton Way, that was the street I lived in, all my friends lived at the end of the street, like it was a long street and it had a cul-de-sac out the back and one of my best friends used to live right at the end — we used to ride our bikes up and down there, pick each other up from school and all that sort of stuff.

Charlene: And there used to be an alleyway to go through, like to go to my other friend’s house and we used to go and play in the reserve there. And, my neighbours, two of my neighbours were really quiet. The other neighbours were loud [laughter] and there were domestics all the time — I don’t want to go too far into my teenage-hood.

Fadia: Where did you use to hang out?

Charlene: Centennial Park, down at the netball courts, that was just near the train station — me and my mates used to go and hang out there. We got up to some mischief I have to say, but you know, you grow up and then you learn about the mistakes, or from the mistakes you make and you hope to god that your kids don’t make the same ones.