Those were the days. He could work in a factory and she could work at the Coles deli counter and they could still buy a house and raise a family comfortably.

An era when Australia was the lucky country. When we had an auto industry as well as many others. Homes were affordable and parking your car in town was not an endless search for a parking spot. No 24 hour everything-endless shopping but a two day weekend with family time, we were not flooded with cheap poor quality imports and everything made of plastic. Folks were slimmer and better dressed/presented in general. Those were the days.

The young blonde woman in the video is actually Elspeth Ballantyne who played Meg Jackson in Prisoner.

Those were the best days in Melbourne. Beautiful old wooden trams, less people, milk in glass bottles delivered to your doorstep. I was a child who lived in the country and I visited Grandma every year. She lived opposite the beach and it all seemed so magical.

1966 = the year St Kilda won the flag. Watched the game on TV with my dad. Best day ever for him. He passed the following March... I still miss him.

I get so jealous of the life people had back then, so simple and so humble. What a time to be alive.

Magnificent Melbourne, so pure & innocent… Where policeman working at school crossing.. The streets of Melbourne ever so clean, the air crisp & pure… Oh you beautiful Melbourne, how lovely you looked ❤❤❤❤

Look how cool life was. Everyone was thin and healthy, no bloody graffiti everywhere. If I ever had the opportunity to go back in time I'd be sent straight back to Melbourne in the 70s.

I was born late 1950s. These years were the best! Nothing like todays world.

This is just gorgeous! Sublime soundtrack. So many memories. VFL with zero advertising on the jumpers or boundary fence. Housing commission flats which I grew up in. Coppers manning the Childrens crossings. Those yellow litter bins and green water fountains. W class trams galore. The Hellicab. The Rottis-o-mat at Myers. Fruit and veg in paper bags with no cling-wrap to be seen. Commer delivery vans. Paper tram tickets. It's almost criminal that they destroyed the Southern Cross hotel. Holden factory which I got to tour during a family open day as a kid. Bourke street before the mall. All the fantastic original architecture before the great destruction, I mean developement. Near-new Harris trains. Red telephone booths. Neon signs. And not a spot of graffiti anywhere! 🥰

Back when we still made things in Australia.

imagine being in love in this time period- going out to live music, how electric it must've felt to go & enjoy a band when entertainment was much less accessible and art was highly revered. ♡ beautiful video. I know a few older people/relatives who clearly still live in this time and haven't 'moved on', and while that can be frustrating; I really don't blame them.

watching this 30/7/21 in lockdown, How wonderful is this, making me cry

I lived in Melbourne most of my life,now I live in New South Wales, seeing these pictures I am home sick.

Everyone seems to be more respectful to each other back then.

Another brilliant film thanks for the share. I miss the Australia of my youth where we had a manufacturing industry, everybody worked hard and people didn’t dress like they were from the Hood or were covered in tattoos.

These were the best of days. We were so fortunate, but took it all for granted.

How times have changed now life was so much more relaxed and simple back then.

My mum and dad never even thought about gas or electric bills, Melbourne was perfect back then. Not long or far to get out in the country side, I think that Melbourne had about 2 million population. I had an amazing childhood and really loved Melbourne. It was the best place in the world.

Delightful to see a young Elspeth Ballantyne In this video, Who would later star in Prisoner. I absolutely enjoyed the years I lived in Melbourne 1987 to 1999

Takes me back to another time.

Australia must’ve been paradise back then. I don’t think anyone in 1966 Melbourne would’ve had to worry about nuclear annihilation, and everything looks so clean and bright.

I love the background music to these short films

WHAT a wonderful time to be alive in AUS.... before this MADNESS

Another great restoration of old film footage.

Looks like Melbourne around 1964 or 5. I was a young teenager in those days living in coastal NSW until 1966. We then moved to Melbourne. What a cultural shock that proved to be. Melbourne was a drab old city in those days. The film shows Melbourne’s best face on a warm Summer day, but the reality was much different. The old noisy non heated Red Rattles, the leaded gas fumes pouring out the exhaust pipes out of basic cars that listed the heater as an option, all added to the misery of a Melbourne winter. The air was thick with smelly smoke from the backyard incinerator every home to have, or the burning of mountains of fallen leaf litter in the Bluestone street gutters of every inner city suburb. There were no Freeways anywhere in Melbourne. Any main road out of town like the Hume and Princes Hwy were choked with slow underpowered trucks and equally slow and hesitant cars towing caravans on any long weekend. The main roads went straight through the middle of every town and village for the entire trip, along with local traffic and restrictions. Broken windscreens, breakdowns and flat Tyers and most Service stations closing at 5pm in every town just added to the pioneering spirit and planning required for any road trip. So was life better or worse in the 60’s than now? The simple answer is YES and NO! House prices and the cost of living was much less than today, but life’s conveniences such as mobile phones, computers, fast food! Big screen TV, multiple channels, cable TV etc was science fiction to the extreme.

I was about 3 y.o when this was made. (circa 1964) How wonderful it would be to see those halcyon days again.

Ahhhh a time when people were normal. What a great time to be alive.🇦🇺🇦🇺

To the people from older generations complaining in the comments section, please know that I mean this with respect when I ask you; who do you think it responsible for inventing all the plastic rubbish that you don’t like. You don’t like how busy the roads are and complain that people stopped using public transport, but didn’t you stop using public transport too? Who allowed globalisation and an influx of chain stores to come to Australia? Cause as someone in my early 20’s, it sure wasn’t me? You can’t look back and say it was better back then without taking a look at yourselves and how you might have contributed to the current state of Melbourne. Personally I like Melbourne. I feel it’s lost a lot of it’s soul since the lockdowns, which is a real shame, but I think there is a strong sense of community when you search for it and it’s gonna revive the place! I hope you understand what I’m saying, you can’t blame the younger generations for this, it’s your world that we are now navigating.

This is an absolutely beautiful snapshot of the era. I wasn't born at this time, but I love seeing the era when my late Grandfather would have still been at work. Thank you so much to the NFSA for preserving this wonderful vision of life in Melbourne in the 60s...

WOW I wish I was alive to see this Melbourne

I was born in Melbourne ,lived in south Melbourne we played in parks,went fishing with my grandfather ,at Port Melbourne docks,we had true friends back then so.much has changed🙁

As a child loved walking up Princess Bridge station then you were in ' town '😅. Still miss the motorcycle shops on Elizabeth St.

Wow, this is the happy 60s, truly, good old times.

Aaah to a life filled with hope, enthusiasts, colour, freedom, trust and happy people! Life as knew it was filled with anticipation, joy and natural fun loving kind people. I noticed a vast change in everyday life as l once experienced it in the 70’s and late eighties. And eventually along came the forbidden 🍎 technology which was meant to make life easier has done the opposite consuming many a brain cell, their space and time. Since 9/11 happened everything has drastically changed on a world wide scale. This vastly caused major changes as well. Last but far from least CV19 pretty much put the icing on the cake. I’m glad to be the age I am today the earth in Melbourne and in 3121 will sadly never ever be what this once was. The nostalgia of this video was a delight. 🙏🏼

The massage scene is of the most unexpected twists in cinema history

I lived in Melbourne from Sept 1982 until Jan the 3rd 2009 coming from NZ.Quite ironic because in February 83 the Ash Wednesday bush fires happened and when we left in Jan 2009 back to NZ the Black Saturday bushfires happened.Unbelievable

My Hometown :) I was 1 when this was filmed. Melbourne is still supposedly the world's most liveable city in 2023; it was then, even more so!

I was student in Melbourne from 1982 to 1989, coming from Malaysia it was a cultural shock for me. I also unwittingly became a Collingwood supporter for borrowing a Magpies scarf to keep myself warm during my first winter, sadly the 80s was a continual disappointment and heart break for Collingwood fans.

Those people would be horrified if they could see into the future . 😣

I was in Melbourne recently, and the abundance of coffee chugging hipsters and young people was through the roof

2:34 you can still see the ghost of the cat mascot on the side of that building on elizabeth st today

Oh I was 5 or 6 and remember all this so well!

I love this video. Thank you for sharing.

i had an EK Holden in 65 too, only a few kids crossings had wardens or cops, Melbourne was the shopping hub then Chadstone opened. I also did deliveries into Flinders lane fashion area & to milliners, knew my city very well.

There was a magic of sorts in those days that seems to have gone, when most folks had respect or at least treated people with respect. A far cry to what we can expect now days. Digital Tech did not rule our lives as we had time to think and take in air and smell the roses though there was some pollution at times particularly winter at times due to wood fires or briquette Coal or wood variety.

I really miss ‘milkies’ it was great as a young kid, going to the front door to collect fresh butter and creamy milk every other day ☺️

Those vinyl seats in them cars used to get scorching hot on a summers day.

Isn't it beautiful and peaceful.. . I wish we could live those great old days again. Those were the days it was actually living.

This is really interesting and beautifully filmed 😃

I was born in Melbourne in March 1970. Lived there until early January 1974 when I moved to South Australia where I still live as of 06/07/2022. But I've veen there on four short visits sibce July 2019.

Horse aided delivery of milk may have lasted until 1987. The National Museum of Australia has what might be the last used one in Australia. From their website description : This horse-drawn milk wagon was used by the Lincoln Park Dairy to deliver milk in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon from the 1940s until 1987. It has an unusually rich provenance and is remembered fondly by many members of the local community. This ties in with some of the near Essendon location in the comments below here.

I remember the old horse and cart delivering the milk. Poor horse collapsed one day and it was so traumatic seeing him lying on the road for days :(

Wonderful! I was 5 when this was made, and it reminds me of my first memories of the city. I had a lot of fun trying to identify what intersections we were standing in, and matching the architecture. I think I can name 90% of places here without too much trouble.

Born in Melbourne 60 years ago. Whilst I remember all this, Melbourne is now such a different place. In some ways much better and some ways terrible. In most ways it did feel like one big community back then.

So crazy to see how little traffic there was in the City and the inner city suburbs during the day....

I think that's Elspeth Ballantyne who played Meg Jackson in Prisoner.

What a wonderful score by George Dreyfus

Did you all see that, we actually had a manufacturing industry and built cars lol

Prim and proper dressing. Love it. No logos.

At about 12.56, the fountain in the courtyard of the Southern Cross Hotel. It was covered in mosaic tiles, and I worked on it with lots of other students as a summer holiday job. The curved brown paper shapes were laid out flat & we stuck the mosaic tiles on the paper. Was not present at the transferring of the whole onto the bare form of the fountain. I was an art student at Caulfield Tech at the time - must have been 1963.

All young people today in 2021 need to see this in order to know whats real living and FREEDOM 👍

I would like to live back then.

Everybody had a nice front garden back then.

Absolutely beautiful💕 Please bring back the NORMALITY 🙏

i'm Belgian i was born in Brussels and i love Melbourne

I was just telling my son how we had the milk delivered. Then a couple of days later this popped up.

This is surreal to me. It looks like about 1964. i was born '63, and I worked at the same engine plant factory - Fisherman's Bend in '90 - '92, when the industries such as these were still going, albeit with some doubts over the horizon.

Love all of those awesome car’s shame our government sold us out to overseas 😡

Before diversity became our strength

I want to live back in 1970s ❤❤❤

Born and bred in this fantastic city. Almost left during the world's longest lock down . Don't really want to live anywhere else. Great film

This was very enjoyable 😄❤️😄

Strange to see the streets of Melbourne with hardly anyone there at 2:19 as this is how it looks now in 2021 coz of Covid. Also Mazda poster with cats face at 2:33 I think is still there but alot faded after all these years. Great tho to see all this memorable footage from the past.

Looking back now at 2023 back to 1967 when my perants were migrating ronAustralia i see what tempted tgem to come here sux weeks on a ship from Greece on the patice

Nice memories, those were the days of the old Pay Pack.

I remember yabbying in the pond at the Exhibition Building, and sitting on the edge of the fountain at the Southern Cross Hotel

Yes it was a great time to live in Melbourne. Style, affordable, openness with no graffiti. Traffic was manageable. People eat good but plain food therefore no obesity. And the best was you could walk across the city streets without fear of being killed. Myer cafe and others, memories.

Good old days not now

I can see the appeal of this generation but it’s a generational thing, I personally love having internet and being able to organise trips/catch ups/ ordering food etc, besides the junkies and inflation I feel things are pretty good

Greatest city in the world I’ll say!

Ah the good old days when Melbourne actually produced things and people other than nitwits who are worried about everyone else's business but their own

1:37 milky running towards closed green gates with both feet on the footpath.The next scene is he is about to step up onto the footpath in front of open red gates with 1 less bottle of milk.

If only I had a time machine.

The milkman didn't even stop the horse when he jumped off the cart ! Wouldn't it have been funny if he couldn't catch up with it again ?

Good old simpler times...

I emigrated to UK from South Africa in the late 60's and after 10 years I had enough and emigrated in '81 with my family to OZ.........never looked back......I has a plumber in the other day to unblock a drain and mentioned the house was built in '81.....he said he wasn't even born then....LOL.

The hard working true blue Aussie 💙❤️🤍

9:00 - the Wool exchange. Now the Australian institute of music. I launched that college back in 2014. Never truly appreciated the history of that building at the time.

Before I was Born, but oh so many great memories from this footage. @4:18 wasn't She in The Aussie T.v Show Prisoner? This Is Priceless Footage. Oh how I wish we could go back in time. The Good, Safe old Day's in Victoria Australia xoxo kindest thoughts to you and your family from Victoria xx

A guy has a job opening a gate… I want it! 💖🤣

149 red motors and triple front houses, yes!

i love this town

Kylie Minogue is from Melbourne.

Its cool knowing my dad as a little kid is alive while this is being shot and living 45 min outside of the city

I wish I can time travel I want to experience every time peroid

That's it, shut the gate. I'm on my way to Melbourne, I was going to go to Sydney, but Melbourne looks more cosmopolitan.

I came through Melbourne as a migrant, 61 years ago. After 6.30p.m. all forms of life became extinct!

Bring back blue and gold trains - and innocent romance.

Things are way different now that the city's suffering its 4th lockdown since the pandemic began.