Eddie Day
freddoMelbourne c1935
January 28th 2012 04:16
My first memories of Elsie Chance’s blue stone bungalow are quite vivid, and although I could have been no more than three years of age, I can recall sights and sounds that to this day, still thrill me with their simplicity and beauty.
I was enthralled by the sight of two magnificent Clydesdales dressed in shiny black harness and hitched to a brewery wagon laden with great oak kegs of beer.
The excitement I experienced when a rainbow materialised in the tiny droplets of water that spouted from the horse’s nostrils when they snorted after drinking their fill from the horse trough out front of the Homebush hotel.
The driver of the brewery wagon would unload the kegs from the tray of the wagon; somehow these kegs would miraculously disappear down a trapdoor built into the footpath.
Sometimes I would sneak past the pussy willow tree, out the gate and down to the corner of Arden Street, where I’d watch the cartage contractors stacking their carts with bags of John Bull rolled oats.
From an opening on the second story of the Melbourne Flour Mill, bags of oats would appear, from where they came and how they got there, was, at the time, a never-ending source of mystery.
But appear they did, one after the other.
Each heavy bag slid down two parallel planks to the cart and with deft positioning of the planks the cart was loaded without the need of the contractor to lift a single bag. It was magic, absolute magic, and I wasn’t able to figure out how it was all achieved.
I can also recall the pure joy of sitting on my father’s knee beside the wood stove, the sheer pleasure of the warmth from the fire and the rancid smell of his pipe are indelibly stamped in my memory.
The sharpness of my father’s whiskers as he brushed my cheek when he tried desperately to share with me some of his affection is a fond memory, sadly now dulled by remorse.
However, most memories of the first three years of my life were fond memories. It was three years in which I enjoyed all the happiness anyone could expect. However, nothing lasts forever, my happy world and childhood dreams were about to be turned completely upside down.
The Wrapper
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