When I was a kid

I come from a time when service was common to everyone.  The baker called in every morning with lovely loaves of fresh warm bread and buns.  I used to come to morning tea from the school across the paddock and Mum would have a cup of tea ready for me with a slice of buttered German coffee cake. The green grocer drove into the backyard with his truck full of fresh vegetables where the lady of the house could select her purchases in her own time. The grocer drove in with his assortment of cheeses, flour, sugar and packets of leaf tea and chicory essence, in fact anything that was essential to the household.  I loved this truck.  It always smelled divine.  The ice-man came to deliver to those people who still had their old trusty ice-chest.  He carried large oblong blocks of ice inside with a huge black caliper and placed it in the top of the chest.  As it melted the water filled a tray at the bottom of the chest.  This usually took about two days.  It was also imperative that  the tray was regularly checked otherwise a watery catastrophe ensued.  As kids, we loved the ice-man.  When he ran inside the houses with his blocks of ice we tried to grab shavings and chips of ice from the back of his truck.  The truck I remember was lined with hessian.  The ice-men pretended to hate us kids and yelled at all of us.  However, I do not think he really hated up at all.  If he didn't really want us to pinch the ice he would have locked his truck up.  The milkie came in the early hours of morning and filled up our billie.  Mum put it outside the door with the milk money underneath and the milkie ran in with his light milk churn and filled up the billie with a dipper of beautiful fresh milk.  This was real milk, milk from a real cow, milk with no additives, no pasteurisation in fact it was the best milk I have ever tasted..  Later the milkies delivered bottles of milk and around the top of each bottle was a layer of really yummy cream.  The rabbitoe also delivered straight to the back door.  My memory may be a bit faulty but I seem to remember that he delivered that rabbits with their pelt on.  However, I don't remember my Mum skinning a rabbit so I am possibly wrong. Whether the chooks that I saw Mum pluck came from a truck or from the chook run I don't know.  I suppose there was a man who delivered fish but I have no memory of him.  My favourite was the Raleighs truck.  This man delivered all sorts of things.  Not only did he sell furniture polish and one polish in particular was one smelling of lavender that made the furniture smell wonderful and filled the house with the aroma of flowers.  The man also sold shoe polish and anything usable in the house but he also catered to women who needed a skin creams and other beauty products.  No wonder he was a favourite of the ladies in the Outback. So this was service; people  coming to your home and presenting their goods and waiting patiently while choices were made.  These men offered not only their goods but also had a bit of a chat with the women who quite often never had a visitor the whole day or even week or month. Goods and gossip certainly made a lonely woman's day.   This service was offered in a simpler time.  Perhaps my memories are rose coloured but I loved to watch Mum dealing with the salesmen.  I loved to hear their stories and to look at everything in the trucks.  With any luck they might have some little thing for Mum to buy for me and on some red-letter day give me a little toy to play with until their next visit.