Inspired by childhood memories, Melbourne photographer Eamon Donnelly has captured the last of our milk bars for a new book

A Melbourne photographer determined to preserve the nostalgia of old milk bars has snapped some of iconic corner stores of our childhood— did yours make the cut?

MEGAN MILLER

less than 2 min read

February 1, 2019 - 4:34PM

The Milk Bars book author and photographer Eamon Donnelly. Picture: Mark Lobo

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Eamon Donnelly’s labour of love is one of memories and musk sticks.

For the Melbourne photographer, designer and artist, milk bars aren’t just mere shopfronts for bread, milk, lollies and smokes, they’re Aussie icons.

Their heyday signalled a more innocent time, and gave many kids their first taste of independence venturing through the plastic door strips solo to buy a sweet treat with hard-earned pocket money.

Donnelly’s project celebrating these suburban stores was sparked in the late ’90s when he discovered his childhood milk bar, The Hawking Corner Store in East Geelong, had closed.

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Jerry’s in Elwood. Picture: Eamon Donnelly.

Nostalgic about the endless summers he’d spent riding his BMX there with pockets full of 1c and 2c coins for an ice cream or bag of mixed lollies, he began taking photos of other old milk bars, general stores, delis and mixed businesses as a way of archiving this slice of suburbia.

Over about 15 years, capturing the faded facades, sun-kissed signage, rusty awnings and busy shelves turned from hobby to near obsession for Donnelly, with the project expanding from Geelong to Melbourne to Victoria and Australia wide.

About 700 of his images are featured in his new coffee-table ode The Milk Bars Book, which was funded by a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign.

“This book is a love letter to an icon of Australian life,” Donnelly, 37, says.

“It became a hobby to capture those memories of milk bars before a new paint job, reno or knockdown occurred, to have a record and archive of an important part of my childhood and that of generations of Australians.”

The book also traces the origins of the milk bar, an Aussie invention adapted from American soda bars in the 1930s by Greek-born Sydney entrepreneur Joachim Tavlaridis (aka Mick Adams). Instead of soda, he sold milkshakes, hence the name milk bar, which at their peak were some of the country’s most successful small businesses and social hubs.