Horse tales and where to get your knives sharpened nowadays

Memories of all sorts of deliveries keep coming in. Obviously Sydney is just not the same without men and their trucks or horses keeping things moving.

Judith Rostron of Killarney Heights remembers, “As a pre-school child in the late 1940s I remember the bread man delivering with his horse and cart. He had a side hustle of beautifully made toy wooden horses and carts, and I was lucky enough to get one for Christmas. My mother obligingly made tiny cut-up slices of bread for ‘loaves’ for me to play with. It lasted many years and through many children until the wheels finally fell off some time in the 1970s.”

Meanwhile, in Darlinghurst in the 1940s … Marjie Williamson of Blaxland says that the milkman and bottle-o came in horse-drawn carts but fresh bread was available down the lane from a little shop. “It was very tempting to try ‘just a little bit’ from the middle of the fresh loaf. One day, I scored a spanking by nibbling too much on the way home.”

Rosie Miller of Randwick remembers seeing a meat safe swinging in the breeze to keep perishables cool. “A basin was underneath the ice box to catch the defrosted water. Sometimes we forgot to empty the basin, and water would flow everywhere. If ice was in short supply, we had to share a block with our neighbour. We then upgraded to a kerosene fridge and had to watch that the flame didn’t go out. My parents finally bought an electric fridge, which required very little attention.”

Then, back at knife sharpening, Ken Welsh of Peakhurst reports that a sharpening service was busy outside Mortdale butcher’s shop on Saturday morning. “It was,” he says, “wonderful to watch an artisan at work.”

Stein Boddington of St Clair says, “Currently there is a sharpener at the Lawson, Blackheath and Springwood markets in the Blue Mountains. Mind you, I’m not sure they would want hoards of blunt-knife-wielding Sydneysiders pouring out of the trains onto their peaceful streets.”

Ash Broadbridge of Rockdale also grew up in Mosman (C8 yesterday) and he remembers the knife-sharpening man, and the man who delivered the eggs. “We, being polite children, addressed him as Mr Murray, but his cash bag said F. Murray. He swore to us that the F was for Ferdinand but I don’t know if it was true. He used to draw faces on the eggs for children in the families he delivered to.”

[email protected]
No attachments, please. Include
name, suburb and daytime phone