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Delivering Bread (Queensland 1954)
Nostalgic memories of boyhood.
The Pig’s Arms Welcomes Esormirp.
The tantalizing aroma of freshly baked bread; the horsy smell of the leather harness; overridden occasionally by the pong of steamy horse dung, blended well the clip clop sound of the old horse’s hooves on the roadway as it ambled down the suburban streets of Carlisle (Perth WA) What pleasure I experienced as a small boy sitting on the driver’s seat of the baker’s cart, guiding the horse with the reins held loosely in my hands; I was in charge — or so I believed.
Being the baker’s off-sider and driving his cart was a much sought-after school holiday pleasure. I was proud when I was the one chosen from our excited group of seven to nine year olds to guide the cart while the baker jogged from house to house, making deliveries from his basket of loaves — occasionally returning to the cart to refill.
It was an opportunity to show I could be trusted; to do the job well and enhance my chances of being chosen again. Sometimes the baker would even let me drive the cart all the way back to Moylan’s Bakery in Victoria Park, as we returned to replenish his supply of loaves. What joy I felt. But he always took over the reins at the last minute as the cart entered the broad coble-stoned yard of the Bakery, to join in the hive of activity and noise as other delivery men with their horses and carts gathered there to do likewise.
And while the baker re-stacked his cart with loaves, he’d let me fetch a serving of oats from the stables to put in the feed bag he placed over old horse’s head, which the horse chomped on contentedly as it rested. It was another responsible task for a small boy; great care had to be taken not to spill the oats from the small bucket. And I’d give the horse a little pat and scratch his ears as he fed, thanking him quietly for behaving while I was in charge — I’m sure he understood as he always responded with a shake of his head.
Then with re- loading finished we’d be off again to complete deliveries. And at the end of the morning the baker would return me home, where I proudly presented my mum with the reward I’d received for a job well done; a selected loaf of bread — a scrumptious cottage loaf with a crusty plait across the top.
Ah! Those were the days.
Extracted from TALL TIMBER; Brown Paper and Porridge, published in 2010.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I just couldn’t resist putting this here… it somehow seemed appropriate:
Enjoy!
🙂
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Asty eh, top shelf. He doesn’r run up a lot of tick.
I’ll do you a pink drink with some mango slices on a nice plate if you like and you can have a whole mango. A carton of mangos were delivered to my door yesterday – an unheralded gift from North Qld- now that was a surprise . 43 degrees in Bordertown in South Australia at the time.
What’s more when I opened the carton, a delicious aroma rose like a cross between green mango and hot horse dung off a bank of a Nth Queensland creek mid-summer… 🙂
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typo alert…doesn’r (delete) …substitute ‘doesn’t’
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Sounds like just what I need, ‘Shoe… the thought of the mingled scent of fruit and horse’s doovers made me so nostalgic I just had to add a song about another famous horse’n’cart, the one belonging to Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West… from about the right period, too…
🙂
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The bread still used to get delivered in Balmain till about 1973, but not by horse and carriage. Still, that bread was warm and tasty. From memory the breadman came three times weekly and so did the milkman. I think the milkman petered out around the early eighties. A milkrun used to cost a fortune and were keenly sought after. I wonder how farmers made good money together with the milkman and all those other ‘in between’ merchants. The milk was creamy and tasty and the bread tasty and crusty.
Welcome to the pigs arms. Good story. I love to dwell in past history, after all, for some of us there might be more past than future.
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Thank you gerard – I truly believe it is so important to record our memories. I am 80 years young now, and I’m attempting to record what ever memories I can – while I can. As a bloke named Tommy Swan, once said, “When an old person dies, a library is lost.”; how true that is.
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Lovely story. We had two work horses on my childhood farm, we loved it when dad let us go with him, sometimes we sat on top of some hay or straw; he loved children, all children and told us some fascinating stories; I think he sometimes made them up…
Mum baked our bread, the best sourdough rye in the whole wide world, milk came from our own cows, heavenly for a child.
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Thank you Helvita – family story-telling was so much of my childhood too.
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Fond memeories of the Smeaton & Campbell Baker’s carts that delivered to Mum when I was a boy. Always very smartly turned out, their green and golden livery sparkling in the sun; the horse always happy for a bit of apple, and the baker in his white coat and flat cap, swinging the heavy wicker basket over his left arm, and then the showy reveal as he lifted the warm canvas flap, a small wisp of steam and flour dust disipating over vienna loaves, cobs, plain white sandwich, and my favourite sourdough.
They didn’t change to their flashy panelvans until about ’65 if memory serves. It wasn’t the same. You can’t pet a panelvan.
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Can’t get in to the comment box – again.
I had an uncle in Adelaide who looked after the stables for the horses. The bread carts were just that – a cart, not a van. Like for the trotting races. Growing up in North Balwyn in Melbourne – we had the ice man deliver but not a bread cart (the road was still gravel and mud until about 1954/5. Didn’t stop the dunny man, the garbos of course.
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I remember the dunny men too Viv. They had a very handsome pair of draught horses but they were replaced by a large flat bed truck some time around 1960.
They’d come running down the side of the house with a lid and that special tool they had, their tarred leather poncho and cap with that long flap at the side, just to ensure that if the lid wasn’t affixed properly, any spill would run down and fall onto the ground.
What a job, but somebody had to do it. As they say in Yorkshire, “Where’ there’s muck there’s brass!”
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Glad you liked my little story about the baker-man vivienne29 – my memoir Tall Timber: Brown Paper and porridge starts at about the age of 2 years and contains many similar stories – e.g. the milko; the iceman;; dunnyman; butcher; grocer and the corner store.
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Welcome to the Pigs’ Arms, Primrose! I had similar experience of horses and carts as a youngster; I’d occasionally accompany a fruit’n’veg merchant on his rounds on a similar conveyance… Seems the world was a simpler place then… and the roses were better!
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I mean, of course, ‘Welcome to the Pigs Arms, BOB!’… NOT ‘Primrose’… which I gather is either your surname or possibly a nickname; I got ‘Primrose’ from your inverted nickname, of course, before I saw your first name at the bottom of your article; my apologies…
Anyway, let me shout you a pint of Trotters!
Merv! Two ‘Underpants Special Brews’ please! Ahhhhh… on my slate, please Merv, bit shorta cash right now…
😉
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Welcome Esormirp, nice to see you.
I remember a the baker delivering our bread but not by horse. Our baker would often stop for lunch at one of the neighbours. Coming home from school we’d all wait at his bread van in the hope that he might have a roll or the like which he’d often give to us if he had them, gratis of course.
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I’d like to welcome Esormirp to the Pig’s Arms and thank him for the story. As it turns out, my Pop used to drive a bread cart at Port Macquarie in the depression years. My Nan was married with three small kids and times were hard – as they were for many. My grandfather, a WWI returned soldier struggled with the drink and Nan divorced him.
Pop used to give away bread to many people who had no money – including my Nan… and the rest, as they say, is history.
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