Half way to Burwood there was a butcher’s shop, run by a Mrs Macnamara. She was a tall woman of great strength, working fiercely and living hard; a living testimonial to the forceful Colonial diet of beef and corn. She handled meataxe and saw as if they were toys. To see her chopping fore and hind quarters of beef fascinated me. I once heard her tell, without boastfulness, but in honest pride, that she was ‘doing six bodies a week’; which is a great tract and wilderness of meat.
— RANDOLPH BEDFORD