Rob
Am loving your old stories. When are you releasing the book?
Just been going thru some things in Dad's shed and came across this piece of
paper. Wonder what the comparison would be today! Unfortunately no date but
obviously before 66!
Carl
-----Original Message-----
From: dps-chat-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:dps-chat-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of Rob Nelson, Perth WA
Sent: Tuesday, 21 March 2017 12:40 PM
To: ALL <dps-chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [dps-chat] Growing up in even harder times (Part 6)
G'day ALL ...
Here's dad with the next installment of his current yarn:---->
During that period when I broke my arm, there was no way I could manage the
work bike with the big carrier, because I needed two arms. One to hang onto the
steering and the other to grab the papers. That put me out of action as a
delivery boy, but I still needed money. I was still paying off work bike and
wanted some spending money as well. I liked sweets. They rotted my teeth and
cost me a lot of money since, but I used to get cream buns from the school tuck
shop. So I needed some money.
I decided the only thing I could do with one arm was sell lollies at the
Waverley picture theatre - it had just been built over in Waverley Road, East
Malvern. My arm was in plaster, but I got a job there. They gave me a suit and
a cap and some pretty smart trousers. The coat was what I'd call a waist coat
now. That was my uniform and I'd go over just before the pictures started and
join several other boys and sell lollies. We'd walk up and down the aisles with
a tray, wearing our uniforms and caps.
They were a flat cap, a bit like a little drum, and sat on the head with a
strap around the chin. There were two types of trays - one had sweets in it and
the other had ice cream in it. One of the things we often laugh about these
days is that as lolly boys we would walk backwards down the aisle if we had the
ice cream tray and we would say, "Peters Arse, Peters Arse." I don't know if
the patrons thought it was so funny, but we thought it was a great joke.
Anyway, we sold ice creams and sweets that way. Then we would hang around until
interval when we'd go in and sell again. If we were lucky, we could get into
the theatre after the picture started and stand in the back and watch the show
and duck out just before interval to get our tray. The fellow who had the
contract for the sweets and ice cream at the Waverly theatre also had the
contract for the Crystal Palace up in Caulfield, just beyond the Caulfield
station.
If he was short of someone up at the Crystal Palace and if the intervals at
both theatres weren't at the same time, he'd ask for a volunteer to work both
on the one night. We only got commission on what we sold, so that was a good
chance to make some extra money. On those occasions, we'd do the Waverley
before the show and at interval, then we'd jump in his car and he'd take us up
to the Crystal Palace. We'd change into a new uniform and then do the interval
at the Crystal Palace.
It took about a year to get my arm right again, but as soon as it got better, I
went back to the paper round.
After leaving school, I started work as a messenger boy for P. Lewis and Co. in
the city - that's where my father worked before he died and where my brother
was just finishing his apprenticeship. I started as a messenger boy and the war
started shortly afterwards and brought about lots of changes.
The war started in late thirty nine. Len and I both worked at Lewis's during
the war and we worked long hours. There was generally overtime of a night. We
were glad to get the extra money - but it was a tiring business. We rode our
bikes into the city each morning and often rode home at nine o'clock at night.
Then we worked on Saturday mornings. That was before the forty hour week and it
was a pretty busy time.
Things changed quite a lot in those times. A lot of our friends went off to the
war. My cousin Wes was three years older than me and got permission from his
parents to join the Air Force. He became a pilot and served in England with the
RAF. He flew Liberators out over the Atlantic. His sister, Laurice, joined the
Land Army and worked on farms around Victoria.
My mother still had the borders, but the scene changed to some extent as some
of our borders left to join the services. I remember a New Zealand couple who
joined us at that time. They had children in the services back in New Zealand,
but were stranded in Melbourne and couldn't get back home. They must have been
on holiday and someone must have told them about my mother. They used the
smaller of the two sleepouts and were with us for quite a while. I don't know
how they got back to New Zealand, but it must have been by ship as aircraft
weren't flying at that time.
Food rationing came in during the war years and was a major problem for my
mother. To get enough food to cook, we had to pool our food rations.
In one instance, I remember, each of us had a little glass jar which held our
sugar ration, and that would be the sugar we would use - our own sugar. They
were kept on a shelf with our names on them and we'd get our jar down to put
sugar on our weeties, or we might have opted to save it up for our tea or cocoa
or something.
<----< to be continued >----
Cheers, ROB!
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Genealogy: Tracing yourself back to better people
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