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Sydenham-Cellars-liquor-store
Sydenham-Cellars-liquor-store

Flashback Sydenham Cellars

Flashback Sydenham Cellars

Flashback Sydenham Cellars

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars was the name of my liquor store from 1980 to 1985. Situated in Unwins Bridge Road adjacent to Sydenham station. The photo above was my opening night in March 1980, the gorgeous girl Debbie Don who lived near me in Drummoyne.

A closer look at Debbie.

Flashback Sydenham Cellars You must admit she is very easy on the eye. 🙂

The original shop

Flashback Sydenham CellarsAfter three years I decided to renovate & sell the business.

Let the facelift begin

Flashback Sydenham Cellars

Here I am with my best friend Madison.

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars

Flashback Sydenham Cellars Lucky for me my best friend & his brother Wolf Wotke & Hank were bricklayers.

What an improvement

Flashback Sydenham Cellars Far too classy for a downtrodden suburb like Sydenham. 🙂

Madison’s favourite spot

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars

Perched on top of a stack beer cartons in the middle of the shop, he scared the hell out of some of the customers. 🙂

Here he was at 6 weeks old

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars My ex girlfriend Carol Aboud decided I needed a watch dog. 🙂

This is how it looked around 2001

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars

A wholesale clothing shop.

I owned the business for 4 years & amassed losses of around $150,000 due to the council closing the road for 3 months each year for various roadworks.

This really destroyed any chance of me making a profit. Plus my clients were mainly purchasing cases of beer & cheap flagons of wine, both of which had very small profit margins. Looking back I should have done my homework on the demographics.

However it was not all bad news, I enjoyed a terrific lifestyle during these four years, I only worked 3 or 4 days a week & enjoyed myself the rest of the time on Sydney harbour in my 25′ Bertram. Check out my life in 1983.

Say no more, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars

Life was very good as you can clearly see. 🙂

I also spent 3 months in California in 1982 while my brother Warren & auntie Dorothy looked after the store. The real upside was the decision I made at the beginning to buy the actual property, the profit when I sold was about $160,000, tax free because it was before 1984.

One of my best years ever was 1982, check it out.

Then in 1984 I got engaged to a lovely lady & sold the business. See more on THIS LINK.

Many thanks for visiting my Flashback, Sydenham Cellars photo blog, who was it that said “nostalgia is a thing of the past”?

Check out these great photo blogs.

Counter only started August 12 2020.

Author: David Herd

My history, particularly over the last 30 years is dominated by overseas travel. I sold my home in Australia October 20th 2011 and have have been living in Thailand since then. I don’t know where the time has gone? It seems like you go to sleep one night, wake up the next morning, and 20 years have flashed by. Not sure how many years I have left, however I have enjoyed a wonderful charmed life, and if it all ended today I would leave this world with no regrets. I was born in Sydney halfway through the last century, started my travels in the 60s with the usual U.K. Europe adventure at the age of 20, back to Australia and worked in Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide in Sales & Marketing with multinational companies including Sanyo, Canon & Remington. Engaged to be married 3 times and never quite made it to the alter, finally realized by the mid 90s I was not cut out for "long term relationships" so I moved to the Gold Coast in Queensland in January 1987, worked for a couple of banks as a Financial Planner, I took a year off work in 1998 to travel and never went back to full time work again, after 25 fun filled years on the Coast I packed up and moved to Thailand. What is the purpose of this blog? Well I really want to use it to record my travel experiences & to display my photographs, give and receive travel tips, comment on places I visit, restaurants I eat in and use it to replace the autobiography I intended to write, apart from all that it helps me fill in my day. :) I moved to Thailand mainly because I wanted to keep travelling while my health allowed me to, there are huge advantages being closer to all the places I want to visit. Cost of living in Thailand is around 35% of the cost in Australia, plus flights are 50% cheaper because you are much closer to everywhere. ???? Consequently I am able to travel to many more places compared to living in Australia. Having said all that, it is & has always been my intention to return to Australia when my travelling is finished, I predict this will happen around 2021.

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