Sunday columnist Peter Leith is 89. He’s seen a lot of the world, a lot of Australia and a lot of life. In addition to his observations, real short stories and impassioned pleas on behalf of older Australians, today he starts an occasional series broadly titled Vanishing Australia.
•••
As a 20-year-old junior storeman working in 1950s Adelaide I learnt that overtime was called ‘working back’. One night, after ‘working back’, Lyn, the other junior storeman, said: “Let’s ride our bikes down to Victoria Square for a floater.”
I had been in Australia long enough to have learnt not to ask dumb questions.
Victoria Square is set dead centre in the city of Adelaide and surrounds a statue of Queen Victoria about which the irreverent locals used to say: “The only virgin standing around in Victoria Square after dark.”
We rode our bikes down King William Street to the square, leaned them against the side of a long trailer kitchen and pulled up a couple of stools. It was a chilly night and the smell of hot food was mouth-watering.
Sitting next to me was a man busily wrapping himself around a big bowl of thick soup with something submerged in it. It looked and smelt delicious.
When the motherly looking middle-aged woman came to take our orders, I said: “Can I have one of those please?”
Lyn said: “Me too please.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“Pea soup with a pastie in it,” she replied. “Floaters.”
Do you have an idea for Peter’s Vanishing Australia series? Send it to sunday@yourlifechoices.com.au and put ‘Sunday’ in the subject line.
If you enjoy our content, don’t keep it to yourself. Share our free eNews with your friends and encourage them to sign up.
Related articles:
We are the aged. Hear us
A night at Rabbit Flat
A mother’s love
