Tony Birch

But at the same time, she was incredibly warm, incredibly loving and someone that I always felt incredibly safe around.

So talking about that idea of growing up in a fairly tough neighbourhood, you got a great sense of affection of being around Alma.

And it's the way she was with all her grandchildren.

All her grandchildren were very close to her.

Yeah, well, again, I think when we started going, well, when I started going to op shops and I'd always gone to them, it was in a sense out of necessity so that, you know, now I can go to op shops because I just love the treasure hunt.

But

When we were young kids, we literally didn't buy new clothes.

So we bought all our clothes from op shops.

But my grandmother and I used to go to an op shop in Abbotsford every Friday, which we called the Anchorage, which is part of the Salvation Army.

And the op shop or a form of that op shop is still on that site today.

When I was a kid, it comprised of several incredibly large corrugated iron sheds that were divided into, you know, furniture in one shed, books and comics in another shed, bric-a-brac in another shed, kids' clothings in another shed.

And we would walk from Fitzroy to the op shop, so about half an hour,

And we would spend the morning there.

And my grandmother was someone who loved ornamentation.

So she would buy doilies.

She would buy statuettes.

She would buy other trinkets.

And while she was doing that, and she would painstakingly go through, I reckon, hundreds of objects to pick the one or two that she wanted to take home.

And she would let me loosen the place with the rule that I could buy one comic or book

I could buy one toy and I could buy one piece of clothing.