My Not–So–Portable Typewriter

 

Op-shops. I’m addicted. I have been op-shopping ever since I can remember. Back in my day we called them junk shops. I have my favourite shops but one that holds a special spot in my heart is the op-shop in Victoria Crescent, Abbotsford. It was literally just down the road from where I grew up, in Gipps Street, Collingwood. As a newly arrived immigrant, my mother would often shop there, taking my baby brother and me with her. My family along with the majority of the neighbourhood relied on the charitable organisation that ran the store for all our clothing and household goods.

I loved that store. I remember it as a huge warehouse lined with rows of wooden crates. It was nothing like the orderly op-shops of today. To enter that store was to embark on a veritable treasure hunt. We may have called them junk shops, but more often or not there were real bargains to be found. In those days, there was no pre-sorting of items. Mixed in with the rags, the broken kettles and the lumpy mattresses were items of real value. Mum would buy what she needed and it was not uncommon for her to return to our one – bedroom worker’s cottage with a valuable antique or two, tucked in her basket. Of course back then we didn’t have a clue about their real worth. They were bought for practical purposes. Many of the items were replaced over the years but many survived, like the shaving mug pictured here. 

Accompanying my mother on her frequent visits I couldn’t help but to develop a taste for antiques and in particular the thrill of hunting for them. As I grew older I made it a point to return to my old hunting ground. On one particular visit, back in 1976, I found an old typewriter. I fell in love with it. The price was $12, a small fortune for a student living away from home, but I couldn’t resist it. I carried it home in a cardboard box, taking a train and a bus, then walking one kilometre to the house I shared with other students. My housemates thought it was pretty cool but they thought I was mad for buying it: not so much for the amount of money I had spent but rather for the fact that I had carried it all the way home from Collingwood to Regent. And I don’t blame them. It was supposed to be the portable typewriter of its day, but I can tell you now there was nothing portable about it. Writing about it now I am curious about how much it actually weighs.

Okay, I have just finished weighing it…. Would you like to guess? I thought maybe 5 kilos but it is actually 15 kilos! And to think just today I was complaining about having to lug my laptop around!