My great great grandfather Thomas Falconer sailed from Glasgow in Scotland on the ship ‘The Nelson’ on the 14th of July 1863 to Dunedin in New Zealand.

He then met Eleanor Legerton and they got married on the 21st of January 1873, she was 17 and he was 36. They had 7 children born in New Zealand and in 1887 they sailed to Melbourne where my great grandfather Stanley was born.

The family rented a house in Mentone and they bought some land in Ferntree Gully where they kept some cattle.

The trip from Mentone to Ferntree Gully was 17 miles and took from 9am to 4pm on horse and cart. My great great grandmother would pack a big lunch for the journey.

In 1898 they moved to Ringwood because they wanted somewhere closer to Melbourne.

In 1905 they bought a grocery store on the corner of Adelaide St and Maroondah Hwy, it was called Falconers Grocery Store.

Over the next few years my great grandfather Stanley and his older brothers opened stores in Bayswater, Boronia and Ferntree Gully.

In 1954 the shop in Ringwood was sold and demolished so that they could build a car park for Eastland Shopping Centre.

My family have two streets named after them, Falconer Road in Park Orchards and Falconer Road in Boronia. Over time the family sold all the stores and moved away through Victoria.

That is how my family became a part of the Australian story.