The Corner Store

The social picture of women in paid employment began to change in the early 60s, but it was still the case as I was growing up that most of my contemporaries’ mothers never worked outside the home after they married.  It’s a picture fairly different from our own children’s  experience, and as parents today they have no expectation of being home with their children beyond statutory maternity leaves.  Lots of pros and cons I won’t go into here – it’s just the way it was.  There was much multigenerational living due to social custom and housing shortages which followed WWII well into the late 50s.

Most food we ate was cooked at home, or a family friends’ home.  Each week after sunday school and church we had roast dinner at Gran’s house a, always with a weekly inquisition on  the childrens’ sermon that morning plus weekly test results, term reports and other school activities.  Looking back we were very fortunate to have this regular and influential contact with the grandmother we knew and loved.  When our parents arrived around 4pm for afternoon tea we had already helped Gran cook pikelets, fresh scones or cheese biscuits, sliced some fruit cake and set the afternoon tea things out. Conversations then switched to local and national economic and political issues of the day.  Radio and TV were always silent.  Gran had a radio, but it only went on for the ABC News, symphony concerts, “Sunday Hymns and Choruses”,  and “Guest of Honour”, a weekly interview with a foreigner of note.

As written elsewhere, many basic foods were delivered to the house.  If anything like tea or sugar ran out too soon before the next delivery, there was a corner store a few minutes’ walk away.  As well as basic staples like tea, sugar, butter, milk, butter and cream, eggs, and more, they stocked some tinned fruits and veggies, loose biscuits in huge tins, toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent and starch, newspapers, comics, magazines, and basic writing materials, and more.   Purchases were wrapped in waxed or greaseproof paper,  and further wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, in lightning fast movements that concluded with the shopkeeper winding the string around one finger and giving it a quick tug to break it.  Dry goods like sugar or loose biscuits went into a sturdy brown paper bag with the top folded over, then the shopkeeper took hold of both top corners and swung it over and over in a very quick motion that closed the bag shut.  I couldn’t find a YouTube – so get someone old to show you how!)   We took Mum’s basket or a string bag to put stuff in – these are making a comeback as  the movement against single use plastics gathers momentum.  Sending the kids to the shop for something with the promise of an icy pole was a good way to get us out of Mum’s hair for the half hour or so it nearly always took us to straggle down there and dawdle our way back, as there was always something interesting to look at in the street on the way.  This overall pattern of home fresh food deliveries and little corner shops all changed with the advent of supermarket shopping.  I’ll write more on that later.

I’ll also need to write about picnics; Mrs. Palmers’ Tripe; the Ophir Fish Shop at Beaky; lunch at school; and another article on BBQs including how a few of us came close to starting a major bushfire at the beach.  Have patience, Dear Reader 🙂