Nostalgic Adelaide: poems political, social & cultural is a collection of twenty-two poems that are reflections of Geoff Goodfellow’s most vivid memories of growing up in Adelaide – ‘I was born in Adelaide in the first half of the last century.’ Now in his seventies, Goodfellow writes of an Adelaide in decades past, including evocations of items once familiar to Adelaideans and all South Australians; many now disappeared: valve radios, Arnott’s Bush Biscuits, Balfours Frog Cakes, Simpson Pope appliances with wringers and levers, Actil sheets, Hills Hoists, Castalloy pressure cookers, Lightburn concrete mixers and the Green and Gold Cookbook. Goodfellow writes of a changing landscape: playing on words, he shows a darker side where ice that was once delivered to keep food cool is now a destructive drug and similarly, a crystal set was a form of radio. To-day, Port Adelaide has been filleted by modern development but the homeless are no better off. In autobiographical pieces, Goodfellow explores a life growing up in a War Service Group Scheme house in Broadview on the then suburban northern fringes of Adelaide. Goodfellow’s father was dealing with the trauma of war service and his family paid the price, as did many families. Peter Goers says: ‘If you’ve ever taught a cocky to swear (or wanted to), if you’ve ever refused to stand for ‘God Save The King/Queen’ (or wanted to), if you were raised on tough love, meat and three veg and apple and rhubarb pies, if you ever rode your Malvern Star bike to the corner shop to spend a trey-bit on a Choo Choo Bar (or wanted to) this is your book.’.
