Bridge dwellers had a great life in the Walter Taylor Bridge

IT SOUNDS like a boy's own adventure - fishing from their bedroom window, sliding down river banks on palm fronds - but that was part of life in the Walter Taylor Bridge

Brothers Ken and Ross Davidson lived in the bridge on the Corinda side with parents, Malcolm and Doreen, from 1947 to 1953.

Ken Davidson said there was a shortage of housing after the war so the space became home for their family until he was 12 years old.

"I must have had the only bedroom in Brisbane you could fish from," Dr Davidson said.

Temporary partitions were installed but he said it was actually a very large home, big enough for the boys to play shuttlecock.

"I got a job with the Indooroopilly Newsagency, selling papers to the toll queue; I'd sell 50 papers in an afternoon," he said.

A career as an engineer followed and Dr Davidson said what was most impressive about bridge designer Walter Taylor was he had taught himself engineering.

With the Indooroopilly side of the bridge set to be open to the public in September, locals can see what life was like inside the bridge.

Cr Julian Simmonds (Walter Taylor Ward) said a $150,000 spend, allocated in this year's budget, would make the interior ready for the public by improving safety on the Indooroopilly-side of the bridge.

He said the two-bedroom pylon on the northern side of the bridge was occupied until 2009.

"They were the original family of the toll collector so great-grandsons and the like; that's the reason this pylon's been able to stay in a reasonable condition for so long," he said.

He said the Chelmer side hadn't fared so well in the 1980s.

"There were some uni students in there, so it still bears the scars of some rowdy uni student parties."

One of the previous tenants was David Paull who remembers some huge parties in the 1980s.

He lived on the Chelmer side of the bridge, with plumber Guy Clixby, whose father Geoff originally leased the apartment while he worked as a bridge inspector.

"The Clixby family came from Jamaica and they leased the flat. There were some wild parties. I can remember we used to fill 4-5 wheelie bins plus a box trailer with empty bottles.

"And we had a full scale a band in the 'ballroom', which was under the bridge," Mr Paull said, who had 2-3 stints living in the bridge in the 1980s.

"During one party I remember standing on the top of the bridge making paper planes out of newspaper. We even set fire to a few of those planes and sent them off down the river.

"Another day a group of fun runners came racing up the stairs, as the bridge became part of their course. We locked the gate better after that."

In 2009 one of the last residents on the Indooroopilly side was lifted out on a crane by firefighters after ambulance officers couldn't get the 300kg man down the narrow stairs.

The 57-year-old suffered a severe asthma attack and it took more than four hours to organise the rescue.

Cr Simmonds said the council wanted expressions of interest from local community groups to run the tours and would mandate they conducted on a volunteer basis.

It could pave the way for a similar venture on the Chelmer side.

"If this is successful then yes, we'd definitely like to look at it, we basically did a costing of both the pylons and this is the one we could do for $150,000," Cr Simmonds said.

"The other one will take quite a bit more money and time."

Dr Robin Trotter from the Indooroopilly and District Historical Society said they were among groups interested in examining the proposal.

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