Were you a bodgie or a widgie? If you don’t know what they were, ask your grandparents, who may have some interesting photos to show you. And, in case the grandparents have forgotten: bodgies and widgies were exactly the sort of people your parents were terrified you’d become.
If you were a bodgie or a widgie and you lived in Nundah, Redcliffe, Deagon or elsewhere in the vicinity of Sandgate, you probably hung out at Roy’s milk bar on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Flinders Parade. This historic institution, now sadly gone, was the place to go to sport your Brylcreemed flat top and your leather jacket (bodgies), and your tight pedal- pushers, bobby sox and brightly coloured sunglasses (widgies).
Roy’s served Chiko Rolls (“like eating a tube of wood”, according to one patron) and excellent milkshakes and was the occasional venue for fights when inter-suburban bodgie and widgie posing degenerated into pugilism “I had a lot of fun at Roy’s and a lot of fights … the good old days”.
Explore Local History on a Walk Along Flinders Parade
Brylcreem, flat tops, bobby sox, pedal pushers: if these are a mystery to you, why not come along to the Sandgate museum’s next guided walk along Flinders Parade and learn about not only your grandparents’ arcane leisure activities but those of their grandparents?
Flinders Parade Guided Walk
- Saturday 23 August , 9:00 am – 11:30 pm
- Cost: $30.00 includes morning tea on the verandah of historic Meridian
- Old Baptist Church (cnr Flinders Parade & Cliff Street)
- Bring: Hat and water bottle
- Numbers: Limited (20)
- Get your tickets here.
Note: Tickets non-refundable but may be gifted or resold
Read more stories from the Sandgate Guide print magazine here:
- Bramble Buzz: Updates from the Community
- Organic Gardening in August
- Coffee culture in Australia
- Spes Bona, a Sandgate home
- Ride Into Ekka Fun With Family Savings
- The Hidden Cost of Not Deciding
- Community Concert Band Brings Big Sound To Sandgate
- Shorncliffe the Scene of the Crime in Local Author’s Debut
- Local Designer Heads to Cannes Fashion Showcase
- Yeeha! The Country Comes to the Bayside
- Raise a glass to these award winners
- Tracing the History of Fitzgibbon
- Wax Lyrical with Local Poets
- Fly Into Painting Fun These School Holidays
- Ready to Rock at Festival
- Spotlight Shines on Sandgate’s Talent
