I do quite a bit of walking through the suburbs of Perth. There are very few streets that are the same as what I remember from when I was growing up. That's not to say that there are new buildings on every street -- although there are a hell of a lot of them. But even in long established suburbs, there always seems to be evidence of fairly recent refurbishment and extensions having been added, etc.

So I tend to have the sense that the "old Perth" has pretty much gone entirely. However, every now and then I see something that confounds this feeling and puts me in mind of a past era -- sometimes even one from before my own childhood.

Take this little block of old shops in the southern suburb of Hamilton Hill. At least two of them are still in use, and I suspect they haven't changed much in forty years or more. Actually, they could almost pass as a backdrop to a scene in The Sullivans.