Estelle Clancy

Interviewed by Sandra Blamey on 21 March 2001
Subject: Shops & Shopping

Sandra Blamey. How did you meet John?

Estelle Clancy. We were both invited to the party of a man called Jim Ferguson. I wasn’t first on the list by a long shot, I think he went through all the other girls at the party before he ended up with me. He had a furniture shop at Spit Junction, and he had a factory across the road at Spit Junction, making furniture….. It was a big factory. How many people have gone through – the fact that there was a tram shed up there in Spit Rd?

Sandra Blamey. I don’t know, tell me about that. Where did it come from, the city?

Estelle Clancy. I don’t know that it was even used as that when we were there. It had been – because we lived in Clifford Street, and if you were to go through our side fence and through to the next place, and then into the second place up from us, you would end up in this large open space, which had apparently, been a tram shed. Later on a little Post Office was built there. There was a chemist shop built on it too, eventually. The big shed that was there for repairs or something, became the furniture factory for quite some time.

Sandra Blamey. Did he have many people working for him?

Estelle Clancy. Yes, a number, I can’t remember – maybe four or five people. But they made beautiful furniture. John designed a lot of it, and it went to the country and overseas. In the end I think the government took the land back, and then the shop we had across the road – we had two shops, and the Bank won the case about taking that one back, and then a few years after that the other shop was burnt down. So it went a bit sadly, really. But it was good in its heyday.