#362-365 Windows

This may seem strange to most people for this theme. Any Australian over the age of 50 however will recognize this as the outside of a "PUB", which were ubiquitous, they have changed now, as has our "KULTURE", now I know that drink driving is a curse and a real menace, but my earliest memories of PUBS like this was at a cusp in our history - The Car had Taken over! - But just. The Ice Man (Mr Hill) still delivered Ice twice a week to those that needed it for refrigeration (Ice Chests), the Green Grocer still did his rounds every two days and even the Butcher, Baker and Mr Creasy the Coal Merchant delivered in horse drawn carts some big and impressive looking, others that were more like trotting gigs like that used by the Rabbito who used to sell rabbits to Mum on a Thursday evening so he would have drinking money for the weekend. Trust me all of those horses were quite capable of getting their drunken bosses home after the Pub shut following the "Six O'Clock swill" when the patrons used to scramble for last drinks .

To my mind, in those days some of the early cars seemed to have inherited the abilities of their Equine forebears, because I clearly remember, some members of my household (not me I was only about 3 or 4) having to drive home because they were in no fit state to walk, and there were rarely accidents - prangs. This was most likely due to the small number of cars actually on the road in those times, cause when I joined the Army 13/14 years after this, in a barrack area housing over 600 soldiers, there were only five cars in the carpark, about 15 in the sergeants mess carpark (for about 50 sergeants) and about the same number of cars in the officers mess carpark for the twenty or so officers residing there. Only rich people owned cars. I never had one until I turned 24/25, a different world.

Back to the windows, what makes these special for me is the memory of the times depicted above, when Women were not allowed into the Public Bar, and generally wouldn't want to go in there with that drunken rabble, so we would sit with Mum out in the "Beer Garden" and Dad would pass drinks through windows "EXACTLY LIKE THE ONES PICTURED". Mum would have a "Shandy" a mixture of Beer and Lemonade and us kids would get big glasses of "Blue Ribbon" lemonade, bottled in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, which you have to take my word was the BEST TASTING LEMONADE ever made. You have to take my word for it cause it appears to have gone out of production, I can't find it anywhere and believe me I have looked. Some times when Dad had a few Quid in his Cunning Kick, and enough under his belt to mellow him, he would shout a Counter Lunch, for the family so that The Missus wouldn't have to cook.

It is a time I look back on with really fond memories, and Pubs really were a big part of Life in Australia and they all had colourful names like the two locals were the "Sawdust" which was near a timber yard and the "Bayview" although the only water you could see was actually in their taps (Faucets). Dad worked as a Metropolitan truck driver, and he found his way everywhere by the Pubs. "You turn left at the Victoria, keep going until you reach the Royal Exchange, take the second right, head west turning left just before the Union, continue on past the White Horse, left at the Erskinville then right at the Courthouse, it's about a hundred yards further on - You can't miss it!". When I fiirst joined the Army Dad got me from Dundas to Kingsford Smith Airport in under 35 minutes and Taxi drivers always took at least an hour and a half, he was a whizz in Sydney Traffic. These days these type Pubs are only found in rural towns (we found this one in Armidale New South Wales) but they are dying out there too.
Thought you might enjoy a look at Australia's past.

If you enlarge this it gives a glimpse of the interior and shows how a glass of beer would sit comfortably on the outer ledge for surreptitious sippers.