Occasionally my Mother would take me into Town. She would dress me in my best clothes and we would catch the bus from our suburban home to the Town’s centre, St Georges Terrace; a street lined with British
Colonial and Provincial American styled architecture. After my Mother paid bills, did her shopping and collected my brother’s and sister’s comic book order, we would have lunch at the Coles’ or Boans’ cafeteria. I remember the wrought iron staircases of the department stores, the elevators with their uniformed operators and the sucking sound of the Lamson pneumatic tubes shooting canisters of till receipts and cheques from floor to floor. Through a child’s eyes, our Town of the 1950s was a remarkable place. Although, as I grew older, I realised that what was most remarkable about our Town was that it was one of the most isolated cities in the world. To return home, we would wait for the Metro bus at the busy stop in front of the Treasury building with it’s dust and fumes and leave before the wolves arrived.