Writing and working in a London book shop 

During the week I rediscovered this photograph of Strange’s Corner – the pie shop my grandparents owned in Sydney in the 1950s. My mother worked in that shop selling hot cross buns, ice cream and meat pies. I used the picture when I was writing, but I’d forgotten how lovely it was.

Important things took place in that shop. My mother was born there, she got her first vile kiss off the speckled boy who helped my grandfather bake. There was the postman who used to sing I can tell by your eyes, you’ve been eating Strange’s pies. This was the place that my mother became paranoid about God, believed that every time the sun split through the clouds he was accusing her of stealing sweets, which she was. It was the place she came back to after being saved twice in one night by Billy Graham, and it was the place she decided there was no God. I have a converted DVD of her 21st birthday party, which was above the shop where there was a roof garden. In the film my grandfather is on a pogo stick with his brother. They are no good at it, but are buggered if they’ll let the kids have a go before they’ve mastered it. It’s the place she made up her mind to leave Australia, and told my grandparents. I suppose it was there the letter was sent to my uncle telling him he’d been conscripted to fight in Vietnam.

I looked on Google maps with mum and we located the site where the shop had stood – just a car park now. Things change, as always.

But it’s funny how some patterns repeat over generations, I’ve always found that interesting.

Where I work, Review bookshop, 131 Bellenden Road, Peckham

Particularly when you have a visual comparison.