There’s no other store like David Jones. And that’s the trouble.

The possible demise of David Jones is more than the collapse of a department store. It’s the loss of a little piece of Australia, where simply going shopping could be a special occasion, an experience even.

Somewhere to wander, discover, meet people, enjoy a meal and occasionally fall in love.

The news that Australia’s oldest department store has collapsed into voluntary administration has made me unexpectedly sad.

Founded in Sydney in 1838, David Jones has survived almost two centuries of changing fashions, recessions, wars and generations of shoppers. Now its future is hanging in the balance.

I keep thinking about what department stores meant to us growing up.

In the 1960s and 1970s, my mum regularly travelled “to town” to visit the department stores, an expedition that could consume an entire day.

Before leaving home, she made sure she was immaculate, wearing a beautiful dress, hat, matching gloves and stockings.

She would dress me in smart clothes, perhaps even her favourite double-denim outfit, which my brother Justin had in a smaller version.

The toy department was magical, of course. Wind-up and battery-operated marvels walked, crawled and ran across the counters. One Christmas someone bought me a little wind-up car. Once released, nothing could stop it. It bounced off the walls at home. It was less a toy than a mechanical household pest.

Christmas was particularly special, especially the Christmas windows.

Families gathered outside the magnificent plate-glass displays to marvel at mechanical Santas, elves, polar bears and little mice performing their festive routines. It was Christmas theatre, free of charge.

And the service! There was always a smiling, impeccably dressed assistant ready to help. They made you feel important.

David Jones was a place where life happened. It was where young women bought their first bra, lipstick or a special perfume. For young men, it might have been their first proper suit, school-ball outfit or decent pair of underpants.

Then there was the food. The old department-store cafeterias were institutions. You could stop for lunch or just enjoy a cup of tea and scones before tackling another floor.

Perth had many magnificent retail institutions.

Boans, which opened in Wellington Street in 1895, was practically a city within a city. It had its own bakery, cafeteria, library, rooftop garden and even a fleet of 150 taxis to take exhausted shoppers home.

Its dining room served 20,000 meals every week. You could enjoy a three-course meal for one shilling and sixpence. Imagine lunch, afternoon tea and a chauffeur-driven ride home simply by going shopping.

Boans was also something of a dating agency. Its famous marble staircase was a Perth meeting place apparently.

One woman met her future husband in the book department in 1970. Another romance began at the butter counter, where a young man met the woman who would become his wife. Clearly, you didn’t need Tinder in those days. A shopping list would do.

Boans and Foy & Gibson competed to bring Father Christmas to Perth, sometimes welcoming him by boat across the Swan River before escorting him through the streets in elaborate processions. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs even appeared in one parade.

In November 1970, Boans celebrated its 75th anniversary. It obtained special permission to open late, switched on its Christmas lights a week early and held a parade along Murray Street. About 100,000 people attended.

Boans even had a remarkable pneumatic cash system. Money travelled in little canisters through tubes to the cash office, with receipts and change sent back. Children must have thought the place was run by magic.

Then there was Ahern’s, founded by Thomas Ahern in 1922. It was Perth’s last family-owned department store when David Jones bought it in 1999. Another piece of our retail identity disappeared.

Boans eventually became Myer, and Ahern’s became David Jones. The names changed, but the memories remained.

Of course, times change and consumer habits have transformed how we buy things.

But perhaps we should ask what we have actually lost.

We’ve lost a lot of our innocence, for one. Plus the theatre, the personal service, the excitement of dressing up and going somewhere special. The pleasure of window shopping, without necessarily intending to buy anything.

The famous advertising catchphrase, “There’s no other store like David Jones”, was right. It captured something genuinely different.

I hope somebody finds a way to save it. Because if David Jones goes, we won’t just be losing a department store.

We’ll be losing a little of ourselves.