David Malouf

It had a proper marble milk bar.

where you could make malted milks and things like that.

And it had marble-topped tables with bent wood chairs.

So it was a kind of cafe as well as a corner shop.

And then there was a place where there was all the fruit and vegetables in tilted boxes.

And then there was a counter where there were huge biscuit and lolly jars, those big round glass jars that were filled with lollies and biscuits.

So for kids, that too was a kind of magical place.

We went there quite often, but were forbidden to eat anything.

So we were not supposed to eat between meals, so we couldn't have biscuits or lollies or whatever.

And we were not allowed to drink alcohol.

soft drinks, except at the weekend.

And malted milks were made at home when we came from school.

So we went down there and there were all of these things, but they were sort of untouchable.

And I actually

grew up with a very strange notion of how economy worked because we had a girl called Cassie who essentially brought us up.

Sorry, you had a girl?

What does that mean?

A servant of a kind?

Well, in those days, a very, very large number of people had someone working in the house.

And Cassie was a farm girl who'd come to work for my mother when my sister was born.