THE WISH LIST

When you were a kid, did you ever have a wish list? I did.

I wished we could move house.

I wished we could live in a two storey house.

And, I wished we could live in a shop.

Then, when I was about nine or ten Mum and Dad started to look at working for themselves in some sort of shop. One that I especially liked was a dairy in Wellington’s Newtown, it was almost next to the Zoo. I imagined myself listening to the nightly roar of lions and exotic animals while I was tucked up safe and warm in my bed.  We moved instead to a large cafe type shop, it was a big tearooms right next door to a picture theatre and immediately across the road from another. That was better than living next door to the Zoo any day.

We’d moved house, wish number one, lived upstairs, wish number two and best of all Lived in a shop, wish number three. I was in heaven.

Up the stairs to and turn right, into my bedroom and  my sister's Turn left at the top of the stairs, and there, past the bathroom, was the lounge, and through that was Mum and Dad’s bedroom. “You mustn’t make too much noise up there,  especially in the evening, or you’ll disturb the people watching the pictures.”  All our windows opened right out onto the red roofs of the other shops in the block.  My sister's big black cat was especially fond of coming in through the open bathroom window and everyday Mum would have to clean his red footprints out of the bath. That was until one night there was a splash and a howl from a very soggy moggy who fled back out the window, someone had forgotten to pull out the plug. Those red footprints never went through the bath again.

Before we moved, going to the ‘flicks’ was a night out, now it was something we could do almost whenever we wanted. Imagine going to the two o’clock kids matinee and the eight o’clock show all in one day.  I followed all the serials, booing at the villain and cheering when the hero won, well we always knew he would.

By day store was a tearooms. I thought it was enormous. There were lots of four seater tables with plenty of space between them, not squashed up together like today’s tearooms. You could buy sandwiches and cooked meals, cakes and pies. Mum made the pikelets and scones and Dad made early morning trips to the bakery for the cakes and pies. Dad had to get up very early every mornings to stoke up the huge coal fired oven that took up almost one wall in the big kitchen. I think it heated our hot water too. The oven stayed hot enough all night for  ‘firing’ the clay models that we made at school.

By night it served ice-creams and refreshments to the picture goers, who came in through the large double doors that opened directly into the foyer of the picture theatre. Along the wall opposite the double doors was a counter that ran the length of the shop, it housed the freezers and soda fountains, bottles of soft drink and the bags of sweets. At the very beginning of the counter near the door Dad built a low glass fronted display case. There, all arranged invitingly for small people to make their carefully considered selection were liquorice straps and jaffas, fizzy lollies and sherbet, snifters and aniseed balls. Across the end wall was another counter. This was the daytime business part of the shop. Here coffee wafted its inviting smell, and pretty cakes and sandwiches enticed from a glass fronted cabinet.  Shiny teapots and hot water jugs nestled side by side waiting to be filled with “Tea for two, please”

Weekends were clean up times, we helped to stack the chairs up on the tables so that Dad could wash and polish the floor.  Swinging the electric polisher from side to side looked easy, but I never had the strength to control it. No matter how many times I tried it would always lead me astray.  I was much better at filling the salt and pepper pots, even if it did make me sneeze.