Bruce Cormack

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 4 December 2000
Subject: Second World War, Work

Bruce Cormack. We used to do the most ridiculous hair-raising things in billy-carts on the steep hills of that part of Mosman. It was the hill that was the problem not the cars. In fact, in the early primary days, there was still a lot of horse traffic and we would occasionally rush out with wooden fruit boxes and shovel up horse manure, which we would endeavour to sell. The other thing we used to sell, of course, was newspapers. The butcher shop in Mosman during the war was desperate for newspaper – that was a good source of income. And the first paid job I ever had was delivering ice, and the ice was in a horse drawn ice cart that came from the Glacier Ice Company, which I think was up at Cremorne Junction at the time. I used to pick it up along the way towards Prince Albert Street, and deliver ice. I still remember how big and heavy those blocks of ice were, throwing them into ice chests. Everybody in Mosman lived 50 steps up from the road.

Eve Klein. Did you have an ice chest yourself?

Bruce Cormack. Oh yes. The big job was to be responsible for emptying the ice-chest, that was if you were not fortunate to have a hole drilled through the floor to let it leak away.