What is a milk bar?

"I'll just slip down to the milk bar..."

How often do you say that when you find that something you need is not in the pantry, or you run out of anything from milk or bread when unexpected visitors call?

But the milk bar, corner store, mixed business -- call it what you will -- is threatened by changes in shopping patterns.

Will it survive?

Gordon Woolf, author of "How to Buy, Run and Sell a Milk Bar", believes they will, although he also believes owners will have to become much more efficient.

He sees them as the last bastion of personal service -- much more than just a shop.

It is in the small corner store that the child learns to shop - sent in for a carton of milk, or whatever, while mum waits in the car. or maybe minds the pram with the,family's latest addition outside.

It is where the child will put a hand up to the counter with a ten dollar note for "a bag of lollies" and be sent back to mum when he isn't sure whether he wants ten cents' worth or ten dollars'.

It is where the elderly woman who is suffering from memory loss (but who is still managing to save the community a fortune by looking after herself at home) can be stopped from buying milk again because she only bought a carton this morning.

It is where the husband can call in and ask whether his wife has already bought a paper (or the bread, or the milk) on the way home, because he can't remember whether he had to buv it or not.

It is where the post office drops off the bag of mail because there was too much to deliver on this morning's round.

It is where the council asks to have the electoral roll on view in the week before the roll closes.

It is where mum can ring up with half a dozen things she forgot to tell her son or daughter to get so we can add them to the shopping list while they are still there.

It is where people stop to find out where a street is, or to ask where someone lives because they forgot to bring the address with them.

It is where people who live on their own find a rare opportunity to have a conversation, even though, as a shop gets busier, it is a very short one.

It is, in other words, an unpaid, unofficial office of almost every public authority - and often saves the community considerable time, expense and effort.

Certainly it is a more expensive place to buy items than the large chain supermarkets (although often not by as much as most people imagine), but those business do not provide many, if any, of the extra services.

There are the few who charge excessively, and are offhand, if not directly rude, to any customer who does not walk up the counter with a clear purchase in mind and the exact change ready - but such stores are not the majority.

"Perhaps it is time to campaign for what the small milk bar does provide, and that, above all else, it is the one remaining outpost of personal, individual service," Mr Woolf states.

How to Buy, Run and Sell a Milk Bar, by Gordon Woolf, price A$22 (US$14.95, UK£9.95), is published by The Worsley Press, PO Box 160, Mentone 3194 and is available direct or on order through bookshops.

The book was first published in 1992 but all the advice remains current, though one cent lollies are a thing of the past, and you will have to obtain some up-to-date guidance on GST in Australia.