Upon his discharge from war service in New Guinea, Bert Cowell headed straight back to Avalon Beach. At his wife’s suggestion he thought he would ‘have a go’ at green-grocering. The truck he bought had no brakes but undaunted Bert crawled around in first gear “and then I jumped out and shoved a brick under the back wheel”. The only difficulty he encountered was dodging the stray cows from Jones’ dairy at North Avalon. Bert bought some local produce from Sam Meek in Therry Street and the rest was picked up by a friend from the Sydney Markets.