Under The Mallee Bough

  The search for soul. Once a month or so, we make the trek down to the big smoke to go to the Central Market there in the city. We go there to buy those certain foods or condiments one cannot get in The Barossa supermarkets, and it is also a bright venture of a day out for us “quiet country folk”, though the traffic can be rather chaotic at times, and don’t get me started on the “types” one sees there! But as I was saying, down the Adelaide Central Market, between Marino’s butchers and where Samtass fish market used to be, there is a walk-through breezeway to Gouger Street. Years ago there was an arcade type stall there selling second-hand books, it was run by a bloke in his fifties, if I recall, I used to browse there when I was going past. At the end nearest the street, there was a tray holding hundreds and hundreds of these ”penny dreadfuls” I suppose you’d call them, not even with a cardboard cover, but just some lurid pic on glossy paper with around 50 pages or so stapled