My corner store

As a collector of bibs and bobs, Dad and I often talk about local shops and fond memories we have of the local milk bars around the town.
I have many fond memories of the local milk bar as a child as I was sent there every day to buy bread and other house hold items it was actually a bakery so the bread was baked fresh everyday.
The kids often ask me to tell them stories of naughty things I used to do as a child and usually they want the same story over and over.
I think I was around 8 years old and was sent to the shop to buy bread on the way home I would sit on it and throw it around until it was quite squashed on arriving home and handing over the lovely loaf of fresh bread to my Mother I politely would tell her the shop keeper and given it to me like this.... what a horrid child.
Everybody in the street knew each other and the local shops knew us all by name.
They had little booths you could sit down in and they served milkshakes and spiders ,sundaes. They had so many different lollies and I would stand there looking into the glass case telling the lady I will have one of those, two of them, 1 of those, three of them until I had chosen a whole bag of lollies, oh they were so patient with me.
I wish there was a old fashioned milk bar in my town now, I think the kids would love it.
They sold veges and fruit in the window that someone had locally grown.
My Mother had  a real sweet tooth and Dad often spoilt us by bringing home a lolly when ever he was there.

 It is quite sad that so many of these lovely little mixed business milk bars who were owned by families have closed down to make way for large companies

 Small chocolate companies sell out to make way for large overseas chocolate companies as they cant compete in the market.
You cant beat the beautiful chocolates of Macrobertson

 Another thing of the past is milk and cream in glass bottles and the milk with the layer of cream on the top.

If you are from Ballarat the shops I remember as a small child are
Rosenhearts Cake shop and they sold the best cakes, just a hop skip and a jump away next door to that was a hamburger shop, then there was the local newsagent. These shops I went to everyday.
Further down the street there was Steves Fish and Chips, then there was another milk bar called Poonies he was the local chinaman and he sold everything and remembered everyone , 40 years later he is still there and remembers us and now remembers our kids he is just the nicest man.
There were a couple of very small locally owned supermarkets , one was in Pleasant street called R&H it is no longer there.
Another was Salters and that was on the corner of Sturt and Ascot and that has gone also.
We never went much further than that they were all in walking distance. We never went to any large supermarket.
The meat was from the butcher, everything else was from milk bar and small business or the garden or baked.
I would love to visit an old fashioned milk bar if anybody knows of one close by

The advent of supermarkets has seen the demise of corner shops. We have lost the personal contact with storekeepers. These were people that you knew  very well and regarded as your friends.
As a child I always wanted to live in a milk bar, although I always wanted to live on a farm as well lol.
I figure now I can do my kitchen up like an old fashioned milk bar, and I can have small farm in the backyard.
A dream come true