Drive in driven out

The only thing we had to entertain us when I was a kid growing up in the wheatbelt was the drive-in. I mean, we used to play and had great imaginations because there was nothing ready-made to divert our attention. We built cubbies in the bush, played chasie and hidie and generally wandered and explored.

But our one form of passive entertainment, apart from the radio which only picked up the local country radio station and rural ABC, and the old books of my grandparents, was the drive-in. When we were little kids Nana used to look after us while our parents went, and we only got to go to the family films. Once Nana and Grandad retired to Mandurah, and we were older, we would quite often frequent the drives. It was a forty mile drive to town to see a newsreel, two movies and a cartoon; pretty good value but a real trek to get home tired when it was all over.

I can't claim to be exactly nostalgic for those days as I'm perfectly content to hire five DVDs for as many dollars and watch them in the comfort of my own home (well OK I rent but you know what I mean). But it was there that I first got my real interest in film when I saw those early spaghetti westerns and they still hold up well all these years later.