Stories From Australia in The 1980's

Peter’s Icy Pole: In life, it is often the little things that can make such a difference.

Growing up in a big middle class family in Perth, Western Australia during the 1980's certainly had it’s drawbacks. Fights over the shower, which TV program to watch etc, were all part of the never ending battle for survival and dominance.

In such a large family, delicacies were rare. One such treat that our parents would occasionally afford us was an ice cream on the way home from the beach. Now in those days my mother in particular was very averse to allowing her children to eat sugary delights. So there were never any drinks like Coca Cola or Fanta at our house, nor sugary cereals, or even chocolate. Those pleasures were only permissible on birthdays, at Christmas, Easter or when a friend came to stay, which tended to lend itself to the implication that our house was a source of children’s temptations when in fact the exact opposite was true. I’m sure some of my friend’s parents adopted the practice of having sweet treats on hand whenever I was a guest in their house simply because they believed that’s what I was accustomed to.

But the one exception to the “Special Occasions Rule” was the drive home from the beach. There was a certain juncture on the way home in which we knew if Dad drove straight on we would be getting ice creams, if he…