In 1939, Mum upgraded our lovable old Coolgardie safe to one of the new-fangled ice chests. Life was never the same.
The only gain was meeting ‘The Iceman’. Once and sometimes twice a week he would enter our kitchen with a large block of ice dangling from his fierce-looking iron ‘forceps’ with which he deftly manipulated into the top compartment of our ice chest.
Brother Jack and I admired the muscular ease with which he carried the ice with each arm and sometimes followed him out to his old Ford buckboard with its flat sawdust-covered tray of tarpaulin-covered ice blocks.
If he was in a good mood, he would sometimes use the fearsome-looking icepick tucked in his belt to chip off a sliver of ice for us to suck on.
The water from the melting ice block in the top of the ice chest collected in the drain tray below and provided fresh, cool water for our Scotch terrier Ness.
Did you ever have a weekly visit from the iceman? Do you remember the milkman? Bread deliveries?
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