How Brisbane’s kerbside collection sent me back nearly four decades​on February 23, 2025 at 8:33 am

“Leisure in the Age of Technology” was Expo’s heady theme, all technology that seems a little quaint by today’s standards (I remember being quite enamoured with holograms at Expo – real cutting-edge stuff back then).

Expo ’88 has long been cited as the time this big ol’ country town truly became a city, but The Views of Brisbane official souvenir program shows how small it really was back then.

“Brisbane has a high standard of living, and the population has grown quickly to over one million,” the introductory passage boasts (it has since more than doubled).

“This progress is a tribute to the pioneering spirit of the early settlers, and the attitude of successive generations.”

There’s no mention of the Brisbane residents whose local roots went back tens of thousands of years. Not unusual, I guess, for a country so enthusiastically celebrating the bicentenary of colonisation. An inconvenient truth, one might say.

The Views of Brisbane essentially does what it says on the packet. It’s a picture brook of a thriving, modern city of 1988 that looks almost unrecognisable to the thriving, modern city of today.

The Queen Street Mall is unrecognisable, with terracotta paving rather than granite tiles and short domed pergolas rather than its towering shade structures. The Union Jack proudly flies outside the Cultural Centre. The Brisbane skyline includes buildings now out-of-sight, courtesy of newer, taller buildings.

Ms B was an Expo worker and had the accreditation from the Lorraine Martin Personnel Agency – “the official supplier of Expo attendants” – to prove it.

Within the World Expo 88 Orientation Handbook for employees like Ms B, there were some ground rules.

“No extreme changes in hairstyle or colour should occur after an employee has been hired. Extremes in cutting, dyeing, bleaching or tinting are not acceptable. Hair should be neatly combed and arranged in an attractive, easy-to-manage style,” the handbook warns.

“Make-up should enhance the natural features and create a fresh appearance. Moderation should be used when applying facial and eye makeup, lipstick and fingernail polish.”

For the blokes, it was almost come as you are. As long as you stayed that way.

“For purposes of identification moustaches and beards may not be grown or shaved off during employment at the Exposition,” the handbook warns.

“Moustaches and beards should be neatly trimmed and clean at all times.”

I owe a lot to Expo ’88. It was a visit from country NSW with my parents that resulted in our move to Redcliffe. That set off a chain of events that simply would never have happened otherwise.

What would have happened if Mum and Dad hadn’t fallen in love with south-east Queensland? I will never know – but I certainly wouldn’t be writing this.

And I owe a lot to Ms B. She (or her heirs) really made my day.

My one regret was I didn’t take the entire case. It was full of old VHS tapes (who knows what treasures may have laid within?), souvenirs from an adventure aboard the Orient Express, an Egyptian newspaper and myriad other memories – all evidence of a life well lived.

Loading

And all discarded on the side of the road.

So are the kerbside collection delays a “kick in the guts” for Brisbane residents?

Perhaps. But I certainly hope people take advantage of the inconvenience.

Who knows what gems from the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games will be out for collection in 2069?

With more than little a bit of luck, I may even be alive to find out.