John Suhan

Interviewed by Trish Levido on 27 July 1981
Subject: Shops & Shopping

Trish Levido. Mosman shopping?

John Suhan. Yes, I can remember when G.J. Coles put up a very big department store, which is now gone – it was about opposite the Kings Theatre roughly, at Spit Junction. In those days there was nothing over 2/6d. They’d sell you a pair of pyjamas by charging you 2/6d for each side, or top and bottom. It was quite amazing what you could buy for 2/6d – incredible.

In those days the delicatessen made their own rissoles and brawn and all sorts of marvelous things that of course, mass production in the supermarkets just destroyed. I think it was Friday night closing in those days, before the war. There were no supermarkets, but the grocers had this thing they used to put on the floor, I just can’t name it now, but it was made on a slide, and they’d race up and take the tin of peaches off the wall and they’d slide back to where you were.