Only 1980s Sandgate Kids Will Understand
There’s just something about our end of town.
Something undefinable. A timeless quality. The breezes that speak of both the past, the present and the future. Both the constants and the changes interweave until we forget where the past ends and the present begins.
There’s something about having grown up in this area in the 1980s that has shaped many of us into the adults that we are today. The experiences we shared, both positive and negative, have permeated this area and created the wonderful place that we call home today.
Do you remember? Do you remember what it was like here before the renovations and gentrifications took place? Before progress marched in and the high rises went up?
We do. Because Robert Duhig Dental has been here the whole time.
True Sandgate 1980s Kids Remember
The Big Storm
We remember because we were there.
The great storm of December 16th, 1980 sent roofs flying and hailstones the size of golfballs, causing massive damage to homes and businesses. This was a time when this community banded together in a massive clean-up that saw brooms, hoses, rakes and good old-fashioned hard yakka combine to get the mess cleaned up. It’s that ‘let’s just get on with it’ attitude that we still see in the Sandgate area today. We know what needs to be done and so we put our heads down and just get to it. Simple, straight-forward and in solidarity with our fellow Sandgate-ians.
You can still see a lot of the impact of this storm around the Sandgate and Brighton area today. There are lots of homes with ‘quick fix’ roofs that still require replacement. Just some little reminders of the storm of the century that this Sandgate dentist battled through with the rest of us.
A Trip to the Cinema
Do you remember what it was like to go to the movies?
The Seabreeze RAAF theatre (now the administration building of St Pat’s) and the Drive-in at Boondall were perfect places for 1980s kids to watch (now) classic films like ET, The Princess Bride and all the John Hughes movies. Popcorn aplenty and some nervous teenage hand-holding gave these places a truly magical feel. While progress may have decided that it was time to move on, these special places will always hold a dear place in our hearts.
Freedom and good fortune
Sandgate kids from this era will remember:
Grabbing some hot chips from the chippy straight after school and eating down by the water, sipping on Cokes and bumming cheeky smokes from their friends.
Drinking at the Brighton Hotel or the Osbourne Hotel (now known as the Full Moon), under age and full of spirit. Or spirits! Something that our kids would never get away with now but was a rite of passage when we were young.
Fishing and jumping off the Hornibrook Bridge. Squeals of laughter and lazy swimming in the sunshine. Travelling to Redcliffe to wade across the rocks, warm sun on your back and the excited swell of being young and carefree in your belly.
Sandgate Remembers
There have been so many changes since the 1980’s that many parts of Sandgate (and surrounds) are almost unrecognisable. The upward thrust of gentrification has meant that the crumbling old homes and unit blocks that we grew up in are quickly being replaced.
Yes, things change. But there’s one Sandgate stalwart that can never be replaced.
Robert Duhig Dental has been operating in this area since the 1980’s. Sandgate’s gentle dentist has treated our parents, then us, and now our kids. The attention to detail, respectful treatment and family feel of the surgery are an integral part of Sandgate. Ask any 1980’s kid and they’ll agree. Rob is the dentist Sandgate has always relied upon – and the healthy grins of our youth, and those of our children, are thankful that Rob and his team have stuck around.