Redfern Station

I have had a bit of a respite from the blog for various reasons, but have my mojo back and there is still so much to write about.

When I moved here I was surprised at how large Redfern Railway station was. I assumed it would be a couple of platforms, but to my surprise there is something like 18. So I got to thinking.

Well before oral contraception was readily available – the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and to some extent the 60’s, a popular expression in Sydney when young people had sex, was to “get off at Redfern”.

If you can imagine that the “goal” in sex was Central, then the popular way for many people to avoid pregnancy was  to "get out early" on their way to Central.

This, of course, was not a very secure contraceptive measure and there are many people in Sydney I would imagine, who could euphemistically be called Redfern Babies.

Maybe that is why there are so many platforms at Redfern Station to cope with the large numbers of people alighting early.