Cheryl Bennett
One day some characters thought they’d jump the back gate.

I arrived by car and truck. I just moved over here from Macquarie Fields and didn’t really know anyone. More or less I got to know everyone through the school, having four children.

We moved, me and my husband, we come from Busby and we went out to Canley Vale after that and from Canley Vale we moved back to Busby for a while and then we moved out to Macquarie Fields. Then we came out here and made a home out here and that’s where we’ve been for the last 13 years.

My background composes of Aboriginal which goes back to my great-grandmother and my grandfather was Irish Catholic. My father is Scottish. That’s my background. My husband’s not real sure about his background.

Going back some 20-odd years ago me and my husband just happened to meet because basically my brother was dating his sister at the time and he decided to come around one day and the boys were all sitting around at the table there and that’s how we went on from there.

I remember my first dog called Bob, he was given to me as a gift when I first moved in but when I seen the backyard and I’m going, because he was a Rottweiler, I’m going, “No,”because I’ve got such a small backyard but he was a character. One day some characters thought they’d jump the back gate. He grabbed hold of one bloke and bit him so we had a trail of blood out there. We don’t know what happened to that character, that was a bit of a mystery.

And we’ve had instances where, we’ve had a few people that have been on the run from the cops and they’ve jumped over the backyard and they’ve seen the dog in the backyard and they’ve gone, “Oh no!”

A lot of the people that originally lived in this street have gone so we’re about the only original ones that are left here. Josie’s moved in now and we get on like a house on fire and we’ve got Gwen up on the corner.