The 188yr old department store

which has just "gone bust" is not just the victim of "online" shopping. It is the victim of much more than that.

As children the Christmas school holidays (summer here in Downunder) meant, among other things, a trip to "town". In other words we went into the CBD and the street with the department stores.  It is where our school uniforms and school shoes were bought. It is where Mum looked at "pattern books" and bought a dress pattern and fabric for whatever she decided I would wear to church that year and another to make my brother's shirts. (Grandpa made his suits and school trousers.) Wool would be bought from a neighbouring area on the same floor to make another round of cardigans and pullovers. 

My grandmothers bought their "corsets" which were individually fitted in the underwear section on another floor.  All along the street the footpath was crowded, so crowded you could barely move. There were window displays with Christmas themes. One store had "the Magic Cave" where children could get a "lucky dip" package after enduring being photographed with Father Christmas for "Nana". (I was not going to school when I stopped believing in Father Christmas or "Santa". My brother was not much better.)

In the store owned by the company which has now ceased trading there was a man who played the piano on the ground floor. The lifts were operated by several ex-servicemen, one of whom had only one arm. 

Books and toys were sold in large quantities. There was a "food hall" in the basement and a cafeteria at the highest level. 

My brother and I would have preferred to be reading books at the library but we endured these trips largely without complaint. We did not expect anything extra. These trips were about necessities. We knew we were fortunate to be getting hard wearing and long lasting items we needed. 

The big suburban shopping centres changed that. The first time I saw one was in another state. We were on a camping trip and we children were taken to see the very latest in shopping areas. It would be considered small now but it had about a dozen specialist shops all under one roof. I remember Mum commenting, "Having everything in one place will save a lot of time I suppose."  

But things are not in one place, not really. They are in small stores, brand name stores. They are often expensive too. You can trudge from one place to the next looking for the "right" item. It will be expensive. It will be made in Asia with what amounts to slave labour.

I am as guilty as the next person. I have bought cheap t-shirts from on line places. My preferred jeans have come from a similar on line "shop". I know it is a warehouse somewhere but they call it another name. I know the jeans I see in the shop opposite the supermarket cost about $5 to make and sell for twenty times that price. The women who work in there tell me to "wait until the sale comes up" because they also think the prices are too high.  

Of course they are high. There is rent and power to be paid and then all the expense of employing staff but they have a little more space here than they would renting a space in a "department" store. All this has been sold to us "better" and "easier" and sometimes "more personal" but I doubt it. I only happen to know the women who work in one place because of something which once happened to an elderly customer I knew. Most customers will go in and out without ever knowing the names of the staff. For them it is much the same as shopping in the supermarket.

It is all soulless. I need to get some buttons for something I have just finished knitting. It would be so good to be able to go into an old-fashioned drapery store and buy them from someone who knows the stock and what might be good to use. Instead I will need to catch two trains and look at buttons on a wall in a store which sells manchester and "home wares" and art materials as well as cheap Asian sewing materials and acrylic yarn which comes from China. When I cannot reach to the top row someone else will have to help but it will be another customer because there are minimal staff - and the staff know almost nothing.