DO YOU remember your first Cyclops pedal car and how very special it was? Bob Byrne does.
“I had a red one, which I drove around the backyard as a kid and I still remember how I’d pretend to be the bus driver dropping other kids off after school,” he writes in his new book Australia: Remember this too.
This fun book will have you remembering too…
When birthday parties were simple neighbourhood affairs with treats like raspberry cordial, little cakes in patty pans, chocolate crackles and fairy bread …
When you could buy broken biscuits at the local shop …
When a visit to the video store on a Friday or Saturday night was a great experience …
When the girls skipped rope – and the boys had a go too …
When ice cream came in handy bricks to fit into the small rectangular freezer inside the fridge …
When iodine or Mercurochrome came out for cuts and it was Bates Salve for splinters …
When you packed your travel alarm clock whenever you went away ...
When guests at dinner parties, complete with fondue and cheap wine, sang along to Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night.
Every page is a trip down memory lane as Byrne takes us back to bits of Australian history we’d forgotten – and reminds us that some of the best things about Australia haven’t changed.
There are selected items from Byrne’s Australia Remember When Facebook page, wonderful images and old advertisements.
Byrne had a long career in commercial radio and is author of Adelaide Remember When and Australia Remember When.
Australia: Remember this too, RRP $34.99, from Newsouth Publishing.
