Giving the past a new future

• Published date: 20 March 2024
• Author: Alyssa Smith
• Publication title: Stratford Press

For the past 10 years, Gay has been researching the history and heritage of Inglewood’s buildings and businesses

That information now has a permanent home at the Inglewood Heritage Resource and Research Room in the Fun Ho! Toys and Inglewood Information Centre building.

“I retired from my job as the Inglewood High School librarian in 2014. I wanted something to do so I started to research the town.”

Since she started the project, Gay has been given plenty of extra items to include in the collection. She says people have been giving her old photographs, toys and even old cameras from families who have lived in the town in the past.

Gay has created a catalogue of all the items, to make finding individual things easy for visitors.

“It’s fairly simple. Each different subject has a number and the front desk has a copy of the catalogue. That way when people come in, they can say what they’re looking for and it can easily be found. All of the items are things given to me by local families. We’ve had a lot of things donated because people want them preserved. There’s a lot of treasures in here.”

She says the room has as much history as the items in it.

“This part of the building used to be where the post boxes were. We’ve kept some of the equipment and utilised...