Life at Solomon Brothers' Store

I really enjoy Fred Landman's stories on life on the Peninsula in the 1950s and have often meant to write in but not gotten around to it.

Having read Fred's latest tale where he refers to my Dad, I now really have to make the effort!

Fred refers to Mr Solomon selling fruit and veg from the back of a truck.

This was my father, Bruce Solomon of Solomon Brothers' store at Ettalong.

This mixed business later became Somersby Farm Greengrocers and more recently became a multi-level development site.

Dad and his brother Laurie ran the biggest mixed business in the area until the chain stores came to town.

Over the summer period, a large carnival would come to the vacant land behind the ambulance station at Ettalong.

This brought large numbers of holidaymakers out every night.

The ambulance people ran Housie (bingo) and Dogs (a mechanical dog race where you purchased tickets and the winning number won a cash prize).

The carnival had all the usual attractions along with a rather large (and I thought, sophisticated) merry-go-round.

How "cool" I thought I was on that as I "bucked" the horses!

My father's shop had a large milk bar and they would keep the shop open to catch the trade of the holiday-makers as they left the carnival.

So there we would be, 10.30, maybe 11.30 at night with customers four and five deep wanting milkshakes, ice-creams and sodas.

Everything was very labour-intensive back then and, of course, no self-serve so we raced around behind that counter at great speed.

My sister, brother and I all knew what hard work was long before we left school and joined the work force.

Once the shop was finally closed there was of course all the cleaning up and stocking up for the next day.

And then, there were the iceblocks to make.

Solomon Brothers' store was very well known for the fruit salad ice blocks.

A large amount of fruit was chopped up and put in the trays which were topped up with milk and then all frozen.

The next day the iceblocks would be placed in cellophane bags - there were no plastic bags back then.

Any orders of groceries and fruit and vegetables would be delivered free of charge and many times I recall my mum sending me down to Aub Robert's butchers shop to collect Mrs Smith's meat to be delivered along with her grocery order.

Because Ettalong was primarily a holiday area in those days, the winter season was a difficult time to earn a living so my father and uncle conducted a "wood, coal and coke" run in the cooler months, a very hard way to earn a dollar (or I should say "quid").

They were carefree times for genuine, hard working, honest people and us kids always seemed to have way too much to do to even dream of painting ugly drawings on someone else's property.

Thanks for the trips down memory lane Fred.

Gay Binder, Umina Beach