Beatrice Bush, White Bay c1980. Photographer Barry Flakelar.

12 Balmain locals were asked to choose a photograph from our collection and invited to tell us what the image said to them. This week, Hannah Parkes on Beatrice Bush, the White Bay paperseller.

I must have been quite young, around seven years old I imagine, but I still very clearly remember sitting in the back seat while my mum and dad would buy their daily paper from ‘the paper lady’ ( I now know her name was Beatrice) on Victoria Road.

Mum and dad were insistent the paper had to come from her, so gaining access to the daily news relied on traffic light changes, traffic conditions and whether she was available for a sale. It could be quite a stress, but much more interesting for a kid than heading to the shop.

My Dad Roger said ‘the paper lady’ stood for the ‘dying of an era in Balmain’.

“What she stood for was a working class suburb. She was a character doing what she could to make it,” he said.

“She always wore Dunlop’s, she never looked angry, everyone tried their hardest to get their paper from her, even if it caused much consternation with the traffic. That would never happen now,” he said.

Hannah Parkes